Primordial disorder is the image presented at the opening of the creation account in Genesis. The earth, formless and empty (tohu wabohu), was completely covered by a deep (tehom) sea.
When God began to create the heavens and the earth, the earth was complete chaos, and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters. – Genesis 1: 1-2
Earth’s oceanic outer layer undergoes a sea change when the Spirit of God’s hovers.
Psalm 104: 5-9 describes, in poetic form, the ordering of the watery chaos:
He set the earth on its foundations; it can never be moved. You covered it with the watery depths as with a garment; the waters stood above the mountains. But at your rebuke the waters fled, at the sound of your thunder they took to flight; they flowed over the mountains, they went down into the valleys, to the place you assigned for them. You set a boundary they cannot cross; never again will they cover the earth.
Reading on in Psalm 104 (v. 10-13) we find function. Channeled water provides the basic necessity for life on earth. Food growth follows.
Chaos Creatures Serve a Function
Once the chaotic waters of the primordial sea had been assigned functions, God, on the fifth day, created sea monsters, figures of menacing chaos (Gen. 1:21). Why bring order and then allow chaos creatures to exist? By God’s wisdom, we live in a world that has order, non-order, and disorder (See video below).
Mythical creatures from pagan myths, function in scripture as symbols of primordial chaos and opposition to God: sea-monsters, serpents, beasts, and dragons. Revelation presents them as fighting against God’s faithful witnesses who are working to restore order and bring God’s kingdom on earth.[i]
Sea Change Number Two
God created (gave functions to) the material cosmos over six days. Genesis 1 is a day-by-day account of establishing order from primordial disorder, establishing anthropic conditions and temple building. God pronounced each step in functional readiness “Good.” On the seventh day, he ‘rested’ in his temple to survey what had been done. The temple garden is a metaphor for the world.
Genesis 2. Mankind is placed in the temple garden and given instructions to maintain the good by God. But mankind goes off in a disordering direction. Evil and chaos ensues. God then acts to undo creation with the flood waters of chaos[ii] and to restore his “good” creation. Noah is the new caretaker.
Now the earth was corrupt in God’s sight and was full of violence. God saw how corrupt the earth had become, for all the people on earth had corrupted their ways. So, God said to Noah, “I am going to put an end to all people, for the earth is filled with violence because of them. . .
I am going to bring floodwaters on the earth to destroy all life under the heavens, every creature that has the breath of life in it. Everything on earth will perish. Genesis 6: 11-13, 17
Sea Change Recalled
One day, Jesus’ disciples wanted Jesus to notice the temple buildings. Jesus then foretold the destruction of the temple. The perplexed and anxious disciples asked “Tell us, when will this be, and what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?”
Jesus goes on to speak of the signs of the end of the age. He then speaks about the necessity of watchfulness for, he tells them, no one knows the day or hour when end things will come to pass. To underscore this, he references a familiar story that involved a cataclysmic event that caught many unprepared.
For as the days of Noah were, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. For as in the days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day Noah entered the ark, and they knew nothing until the flood came and swept them all away, so, too, will be the coming of the Son of Man. – Matthew 24:36-39
History Lesson About the Moral Universe
The apostle Peter, in his second letter, tells his readers that there are scoffers who are saying that things on this earth have always continued the way they are now. He reminds them that this is not true. The earth was different when it was created and it was different again after the flood. He warns them that no one should scoff that God will make it different once again, judging the godless not with water but with fire. (2 Peter 3)
Jesus’ second coming will be a sea change for all of creation. Chaos will be removed.
It is Time for a Sea Change
Peter warned his readers, with reference to the Great Flood, about what can be expected if they continue as they are. John the Seer, alluding to the Great Flood in Revelation, writes that it is time (in his prophetic timeline) “for destroying those who destroy the earth.” – Revelation 11:18
“The ‘destroyers of the earth’ are the powers of evil: the dragon, the beast, and the harlot of Babylon (who in [Rev.] 19:2 is said to have ‘corrupted – or destroyed – the earth with her fornication’). With their violence, oppression, and idolatrous religion they are ruining God’s creation. His faithfulness to his creation requires that he destroy them in order to preserve and deliver it from evil. . . This he did in the flood, which was a divine judgement aimed at delivering God’s creation from the ruinous violence of its inhabitants.”[iii]
John the Seer wrote Revelation in the context of the tyranny of the Roman Empire, the imperial cult, and a permissive and polytheistic culture. The apostle Paul, in the same setting, writes to a church with a more detailed description of the ruinous inhabitants of the earth and their similar fate:
Do you not know that wrongdoers will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived! The sexually immoral, idolaters, adulterers, male prostitutes, men who engage in illicit sex, thieves, the greedy, drunkards, revilers, swindlers—none of these will inherit the kingdom of God. -1 Corinthians 6:9-10
I imagine that the proud, the perverse, the purposefully vague, the self-serving, and those who want to create a new humanity with demonic forces[iv] – any who plunder the created order for power, wealth and self-righteous ends will be met with divine judgement. Some will receive punishment that matches their sin (Rev. 16:8; 18:6; Rev. 22:18-19).
John the Seer prophesied about an end time involving a series of warning judgements to bring about repentance and the ultimate restoring of creation’s order from mankind’s reversion of it to chaos.
Final Sea Change
Scripture begins by telling an old story and ends by retelling the old story with a new and final outcome. Both narratives involve chaos and creation. The lynchpin of the two theological narratives – Genesis 1-11 and Revelation – and of history itself is the earthly, risen, and returning Jesus.
A final sea change occurs to restore creation. John the Seer writes:
Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. –Rev. 21:1
Creation is not destroyed, just as it wasn’t with the Great Flood. Rather, creation’s corrupting influence is removed. Think in terms of no longer being overcome by evil but the overcoming of evil with good. Think in terms of “if anyone is in the Messiah, there is new creation! Old things have gone, and look – everything has become new!” (2 Cor. 5:17)
“The waters of the primeval abyss, that represent the source of destructive evil, the possibility of the reversion of creation to chaos, are finally no more.”[v]
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Lent is a time for a sea change. It’s a time to remove chaos from your life.
This Lent appears to be the first time that corruption, misuse of funds, money laundering, excess, and disorder in the government are being shown the detox door. Hence, the weeping and gnashing of teeth in the MSM. Hence, destroyers of the earth want the chaos to continue as before.
A leviathan in Washington recently surfaced. What emerged was corrupt and destabilizing influence involving actors in the State Department, the Department of Defense, the “deep state”, the unaccountable administrative state, the unchecked CIA meddling in foreign affairs and a politically motivated FBI meddling in internal affairs, activist DOJ and federal judges, shady non-profits, and the propaganda of the MSM to maintain cover for the chaos.
Maelstroms are sucking us in: a proxy war with Russia, Middle East conflicts, a huge federal deficit, out of control spending by Congress, the Green New Deal wealth redistribution scam, and what to do with the over 12 million illegal economic migrants bringing with them neediness, disease and crime.
In the first 50 days of the Trump administration, ICE reported arresting over 14,000 convicted criminals, 9,800 migrants with pending criminal charges, 1,155 suspected gang members, and 44 foreign fugitives.
An additional 8,718 arrests were categorized as “immigration violators.”
AI is being touted as a new pathway to greater productivity (Why do we need that? For greater profits? To be unburdened by what has been?). It is said that disruptive AI will transform the workplace, replace jobs, shake up economies and reshape global alliances. Our world, with Promethean AI, will look different by 2030. AI will look at us differently, too.
[i] The creation of the “sporty” Leviathan (Ps. 104:26), a creature that cannot be tamed, shows us God’s mastery over powerful creatures. Leviathan was used metaphorically to instruct Job (Job 41). Job (a behemoth-like creature) cannot tame God to his ideas of how the world works.
[ii] Consider that several ancient Near East accounts of a devastating flood were understood as a god using force to restore order in the world. See Genesis 6-9 for the theological interpretation of the mythic flood.
The writer of the Genesis Flood account, using hyperbole, wanted to impress upon the reader the theological implications of a universal “cataclysmic event” that occurred to restore creation. There was no global deluge, as science has determined and Ps 104: 9 indirectly states. No matter. The author wanted the reader to understand the theological significance of God’s act.
Protect our food supply from the Cure worse Than the Problem
Action Over Talk: Join the Nationwide Protest Against Food Supply mRNA!
This Friday, Americans across the country are coming together to take a stand. Concern is growing as Secretary Rollins moves closer to approving mRNA vaccines for the beef, dairy, and poultry industry to combat diseases like Avian Flu. Many are voicing their opposition, demanding that these vaccines not be used in our food supply.
Make Your Voice Heard! Flood Secretary Rollins’ email with your concerns:
Here is a structured email template for Secretary @BrookeLRollins:
Subject: Immediate Halt to Meat Supply Vaccination
Dear Secretary Rollins,
As Americans who supported the election of Donald J. Trump, we are deeply concerned about your plan to introduce vaccines into our nation’s meat supply, including pork, cattle, poultry, and even seafood.
We do not merely request a pause—we demand a complete and permanent stop to this effort. The American people will not accept government-mandated intervention in our food supply, especially without full transparency and consent.
If the USDA continues to push forward with testing and implementation of the H5N1 vaccine, we are prepared to take action. Our voices will not be ignored, and we will make it clear to President Trump that millions of Americans oppose this overreach.
We stand firm in our right to protect our food, our health, and our families. This is non-negotiable.
Sincerely, [Your Name] [Your State]
With the news that mRNA vaccinated beef, dairy, eggs, and poultry are already in the food supply, some are demanding to know where our Secretary of Health is. You’ll be pleased to know he’s practicing self-care with long walks in the mountains, while currently reposting advice from the CDC.
“There is no God and we are his prophets.” ― spoken by Ely, an old man the father and son meet on the road in Cormac McCarthy’s The Road
In the process of removing God from this world will we abuse our ecosystem to the point of environmental catastrophe? It would appear so in Cormac McCarthy’s post-apocalyptic novel The Road.
The Road Protagonists: A father and his son. They walk alone through a scorched America. These two and a few other hungry souls are the only things moving in the ravaged landscape save for the ash in the wind. Stones crack in the cold created by sunlight-blocking ash. Snow is gray.
The Road Antagonist: The world and everyone living in it.
“It is implied throughout The Road that the apocalypse that has shrouded the bleakest of all landscapes was brought about by us, by humanity. That we authored this environmental catastrophe through thoughtless pillaging of resources laid before us. We upset the balance of our ecosystem. And that by extension, we have removed God from this world.”
Christopher C. King. “God’s Silence, Humanity’s Deafness: On Cormac McCarthy’s Two New Novels.” Oxford American, Spring 2023, p.102
Do we prophecy of our own destruction and the extinction of the planet when we say there is no God?
Does playing God with science mean the world will be saved? Would creating a ‘perfect race’ through AI and genetic manipulation save the world? That doesn’t appear to be the case in the deep-space terror movie Alien Covenant unless you think a perfect creation is a face-hugging parasitoid.
Peter Weyland, founder and owner of Weyland Corporation, creates an android. The android chooses the name “David” for himself after observing Michelangelo’s statue.
To find the fountain of youth, Weyland finances a voyage into deep space (Prometheus to LV-223) to search for mankind’s creator. In the process we learn that androids, like the humans that programmed them, can become narcissistic, unhinged and murderous (the most efficient means to a selfish end).
“[Michael] Fassbender plays both the kindly android Walter and his twisted, civilization-ending “brother” David. David can create (and uses that talent to engineer alien life), while Walter cannot — an intentional limitation in his programming. But in a moving and seductive scene that’s been described as possibly homoerotic, David teaches Walter the flute, declaring “you have symphonies in you, brother!” Later, the pair share a kiss, with David telling Walter no one will ever love like he does — before attempting to kill him.”
Couch, Aaron. “’Alien: Covenant’ Screenwriter on the Michael Fassbender Scene That ‘Easily Could Have Gone Wrong.’” The Hollywood Reporter, The Hollywood Reporter, 17 Apr. 2023
Long story cut way short: android David does away with the kindly Walter android and becomes pseudo-Walter. He boards the colonization ship Covenant as Walter. He does this to continue his face-hugging parasitoid creation project, begun on LV-223, on Origae-6. David freezes his regurgitated face-hugger embryos, tucks in the last of the crew’s survivors and heads to the helm. On his way, David requests Richard Wagner, Das Rheingold, Act Two, The Entry of the Gods into Valhalla. David, with an inflated sense of self from having dealt with everything that would stop him, views himself as a God-level creator.
There are those around us with a similar God-complex. They are easy to spot in history and they are easy to spot in everyday life. They walk around with an attitude of extreme entitlement and arrogance. They act with grandiosity, bullying, exploitation, gaslighting, and to isolate and destroy their opponents. They build relationships that serve them and refuse to take responsibility for their actions.
Speaking of God complexes and creating face-hugging monsters, the extremely arrogant Anthony Fauci, the former NIH director – the deceptive Francis Collins, and the CCP played God with bio-weapons. And that led to the release of COVID and that led to the wearing of masks.
What do we know this Earth Day? Do we know what mankind is capable of?
If you have lived just 20 years, all you may know are the COVID and “anthropogenic climate crisis!” narratives. Live to seventy and you see mankind longing for and creating weapons of mass destruction and instigating one war after another in a desire to control territories, resources and humans. Live to seventy and you see mankind creating one crisis after another to transfer money and power to the State.
Is mankind creating an environmental catastrophe or is it that the gods of this world are plundering the resources of the earth and humanity with Green Energy policies that in effect transfer money and power to a few whilst doing nothing to affect the climate and drastically affecting to the negative human flourishing?
Is it OK for the gods of this world to create bio-weapon viruses in their conquest of the earth? Is it OK that the gods of this world produce Frankenstein-like creations with gene mutations in their quest to be god-like creators and AI implants to obtain eternal life for the brain? (cf. Alcasan in C.S. Lewis’ The Hideous Strength. His guillotined head becomes the host for, it seems, Satan.)
Would you agree? If man is a godless soulless creature, a mere chemical phenomenon with no moral center, then all kinds of evil and suffering are possible. The scenarios presented in The Road and Alien Covenant indicate that man knows well the outcome of man without God and man as his own god.
If man is made in the image of God, what does that mean?
It means that we look after God’s temple-cosmos creation not as self-appointed gods but as co-workers with God. As such, we do not exploit and ravage the earth or each other but operate with wisdom and love. These last are not church words that are meaningless in the ‘real’ world.
For us to “Subdue the earth, in the context of the Genesis creation account, means to continue adding form and function to what God has started. For instance, we read in the Genesis account and later in the “Creation Psalm” (104) that God directed “the waters” for the benefit of His creation. Irrigation and water management are examples of humans likewise bringing form and function to creation for the benefit of many.
Psalm 104: 9-13 (Emphasis mine.):
9 You set a boundary that they [the waters] may not pass, so that they might not again cover the earth.
10 You make springs gush forth in the valleys; they flow between the hills, 11 giving drink to every wild animal; the wild asses quench their thirst. 12 By the streams the birds of the air have their habitation; they sing among the branches. 13 From your lofty abode you water the mountains; the earth is satisfied with the fruit of your work.
Wisdom and love perspective: We are part of God’s creation and yet we are to rule over creation as God rules over creation – with love and care. You may feel that God is an absent landlord, but consider that that our image of God designation confirms that God has assigned us the task to care for the works of His hands with the work of our hands. That we receive the Holy Spirit when we believe and are baptized means that we have communication with God. Wisdom and love are imparted to us so that we may act with wisdom and love in the ‘real’ world. Our eyes are opened to God’s view of the cosmos.
God sees us as one creature among many.
“While I know myself as a creation of God, I am also obligated to realize and remember that everyone else and everything else are also God’s creation.” – Maya Angelou
Science and technology before the late twentieth century had splendidly humanitarian aims, but they also had a dangerously anthropocentric tendency that got us into the way of thinking about nature that has proved so disastrous. By viewing the other creatures as valuable only for our sake, only as resources, we have got to the self-defeating point of wasting, spoiling and exhausting the resources. It just isn’t good enough to see environmental issues as about preserving nature for us to use or enjoy. We need to recover the sense that other creatures have intrinsic value. It’s just good that they exist.
The Community of Creation – a sermon preached at St Edward’s church, Cambridge, 28 April 2012 by Richard Bauckham
Therefore, the land shall mourn. —Hosea 4:3
Creation has been groaning and lamenting the effects of mankind’s evil right up to the present time. In McCarthy’s The Road creation’s redemption never comes. Blame for the devastation, by at least one person, has been passed on to a perception of God’s absence: “There is no God and we are his prophets.”
What does redemption look like? It begins by acknowledging that we live in an interconnected and interdependent world. When one part of creation suffers, we suffer.
When we acknowledge that there is a problem that needs to be addressed, we look for ways to address the problem without doing harm to others and the planet. We study the problem without media intervention. We find reliable sources. We don’t make demands. We make positive recommendations and, when possible, take steps to enable ourselves and others to produce a solution.
All of creation – God-imaged men and women and flora and fauna and sea monsters and behemoths and galaxies and planets and weather and insects (not Alien xenomorphs) –is to reflect the “good” form and function given it by the Creator and the loving care God and his co-workers provide.
Like it or not, all things since the Big Bang have worked together for the glory of God, not the glory of men. We can be in sync with that or with The Road.
Psalm 148
Praise for God’s Universal Glory
1 Praise the Lord! Praise the Lord from the heavens; praise him in the heights! 2 Praise him, all his angels; praise him, all his host!
3 Praise him, sun and moon; praise him, all you shining stars! 4 Praise him, you highest heavens and you waters above the heavens!
5 Let them praise the name of the Lord, for he commanded and they were created. 6 He established them forever and ever; he fixed their bounds, which cannot be passed.
7 Praise the Lord from the earth, you sea monsters and all deeps, 8 fire and hail, snow and frost, stormy wind fulfilling his command!
9 Mountains and all hills, fruit trees and all cedars! 10 Wild animals and all cattle, creeping things and flying birds!
11 Kings of the earth and all peoples, princes and all rulers of the earth! 12 Young men and women alike, old and young together!
13 Let them praise the name of the Lord, for his name alone is exalted; his glory is above earth and heaven. 14 He has raised up a horn for his people, praise for all his faithful, for the people of Israel who are close to him. Praise the Lord!
“In July, the Fed will officially launch its FedNow Service. According to the press release, this service will “facilitate nationwide reach of instant payment services by financial institutions — regardless of size or geographic location — around the clock, everyday of the year.”
“At its best our age is an age of searchers and discoverers, and at its worst, an age that has domesticated despair and learned to live with it happily.” –Flannery O’Connor
*****
Indiana:
INDIANAPOLIS — A loud boom and bright flash rocked central Indiana on Friday night, and experts believe it was caused by a meteor.
Dr. Brian Murphy, the director of the Holcomb Observatory and Planetarium in Indianapolis, discussed the reports with 13News and said a meteor was the likely source.
“This sounds like it was a fireball, which is a relatively large object,” he said, like a large rock entering the atmosphere.
You must understand, the leading Bolsheviks who took over Russia were not Russians. They hated Russians. They hated Christians. Driven by ethnic hatred they tortured and slaughtered millions of Russians without a shred of human remorse. It cannot be overstated. Bolshevism committed the greatest human slaughter of all time. The fact that most of the world is ignorant and uncaring about this enormous crime is proof that the global media is in the hands of the perpetrators.
The natural and the supernatural, separated into categories of science and faith since the times of Enlightenment, were not split apart in the ancient Near East worldview. Ancients believed that the gods were always active in the world in countless and often undetectable ways. The apostle Paul brought this into his dialogue with stoic and Epicurean philosophers at the Areopagus (Acts 17:22-31):
“In him we live and move and have our being,” (from Cretica, Epimenides, Creton poet, ca .600 BC)
“[It is with Zeus that every way has to do,] for we are also his offspring.” (from Phainomena, Aratus, Cilcian poet, 315-240 BC)
Psalm 104, a Hebrew Hymn of Creation with Parallels in Pharaoh Akhenaten’s Hymn, depicts ancient Israel’s cosmology. It may have been written during the times of David and Solomon. Its author is unknown, so let’s call him Naturalist Observer.
Naturalist Observer looked around at the known world at that time and ascribed its ordered functioning to God. He did so, apparently, with background knowledge of Genesis.
Linocut Print by Mark Hearld
The psalm celebrates God’s creative function giving and care taking of the natural world. God is praised for creating a habitable world that continues day after day. Nature has a home to come home to, as God had promised.
As long as the earth endures, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night shall not cease. Gen. 8:22
Naturalist Observer has taken note of “the waters”, “the deep”, “springs”, “streams”, “the sea”. Water is contained and directed by God to function in support of life.
Water pours from the sky (vs.13) producing sustenance (vs. 14-16) within habitats of forest, valley and mountains (vs. 16-18)
Note: water is mentioned some 700 times in the Bible – from Genesis 1:2 (the earth was complete chaos, and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters) to The Revelation of John 21:1 (no longer any sea, i.e., no more chaos, no more scary deep, no more fear of the unknown)
Verses 19-23 are about time. (For Jews, each 28-day lunar month started with a new moon. Each new day started at 6 o’clock each evening when the sun goes down.)
Naturalist Observer reflects with awe at the breadth of God’s works (vs, 24-26).
Naturalist Observerrecords (vs. 27-30) God’s involvement in the cycle of life. The breath of every living thing depends on God (vs. 29-30). (Note: death before the Fall.)
Naturalist Observer ends his mediation (vs. 31-35) by recounting some of the means God has used to have humankind focus on the purpose of His creation – a sacred place where God dwells with man.
Earthquakes and volcanoes (vs. 32), speak of God’s awesome power to disrupt things and thereby get people’s attention (Ps. 97:4). And once God has their attention, He gives them his terrifying-but-mediated presence and the means to live in his presence (Ex.19:18). God, who touches the mountains and they smoke, is petitioned (Ps. 144:5-6) to come down, show His power, and put fear into the enemies of his people.
The wicked, as they ignore God and live according to their own ways – exchanging the natural for the unnatural (Rom. 1;18-32), bring disorder to what God called good or functioning as purposed. Naturalist Observer, having taken account of God’s ordered creation and knowing from history the disruption man’s wickedness brings to it, intreats God (vs. 35):
Let sinners be consumed from the earth, and let the wicked be no more
Here, Naturalist Observerappears to be thinking of Elijah, the prophets of Baal, and fire from heaven (1 Kings 18).
We would do well, as Naturalist Observer has done, to spend time observing our sacred bio-space and meditating on the work of God’s hands. I do this while walking.
Above all, do not lose your desire to walk. Every day, I walk myself into a state of well-being & walk away from every illness. I have walked myself into my best thoughts. – Søren Kierkegaard
We would do well not to polarize science and faith and make them adversarial, as both function in God’s ordered realm. At certain points, one may view science and faith in conflict. But that’s why study, reflection, and meditation are required – you don’t have all the information. Denying one and accepting the other says that you don’t think God has set up an ordered and functioning cosmos.
There are two ways to be fooled. One is to believe what isn’t true; the other is to refuse to believe what is true. – Soren Kierkegaard
“I have loved the stars too fondly to be fearful of the night.” ― Sarah Williams,Twilight Hours: A Legacy Of Verse
*****
Psalm 104
1 Bless the Lord, O my soul. O Lord my God, you are very great. You are clothed with honor and majesty, 2 wrapped in light as with a garment. You stretch out the heavens like a tent; 3 you set the beams of your chambers on the waters; you make the clouds your chariot; you ride on the wings of the wind; 4 you make the winds your messengers, fire and flame your ministers.
5 You set the earth on its foundations, so that it shall never be shaken. 6 You cover it with the deep as with a garment; the waters stood above the mountains. 7 At your rebuke they flee; at the sound of your thunder they take to flight. 8 They rose up to the mountains, ran down to the valleys, to the place that you appointed for them. 9 You set a boundary that they may not pass, so that they might not again cover the earth.
10 You make springs gush forth in the valleys; they flow between the hills, 11 giving drink to every wild animal; the wild asses quench their thirst. 12 By the streams the birds of the air have their habitation; they sing among the branches. 13 From your lofty abode you water the mountains; the earth is satisfied with the fruit of your work.
14 You cause the grass to grow for the cattle and plants for people to cultivate, to bring forth food from the earth 15 and wine to gladden the human heart, oil to make the face shine and bread to strengthen the human heart. 16 The trees of the field are watered abundantly, the cedars of Lebanon that he planted. 17 In them the birds build their nests; the stork has its home in the fir trees. 18 The high mountains are for the wild goats; the rocks are a refuge for the coneys. 19 You have made the moon to mark the seasons; the sun knows its time for setting. 20 You make darkness, and it is night, when all the animals of the forest come creeping out. 21 The young lions roar for their prey, seeking their food from God. 22 When the sun rises, they withdraw and lie down in their dens. 23 People go out to their work and to their labor until the evening.
24 O Lord, how manifold are your works! In wisdom you have made them all; the earth is full of your creatures. 25 There is the sea, great and wide; creeping things innumerable are there, living things both small and great. 26 There go the ships and Leviathan that you formed to sport in it.
27 These all look to you to give them their food in due season; 28 when you give to them, they gather it up; when you open your hand, they are filled with good things. 29 When you hide your face, they are dismayed; when you take away their breath, they die and return to their dust. 30 When you send forth your spirit, they are created, and you renew the face of the ground.
31 May the glory of the Lord endure forever; may the Lord rejoice in his works— 32 who looks on the earth and it trembles, who touches the mountains and they smoke. 33 I will sing to the Lord as long as I live; I will sing praise to my God while I have being. 34 May my meditation be pleasing to him, for I rejoice in the Lord. 35 Let sinners be consumed from the earth, and let the wicked be no more. Bless the Lord, O my soul. Praise the Lord!
*****
Brothers, above the starry canopy There must dwell a loving father. Do you fall in worship, you millions? World, do you know your creator? Seek Him in the heavens; Above the stars must he dwell.
“As rare metals have become ubiquitous in green and digital technologies, the exceedingly toxic sludge they produce has been contaminating water, soil, the atmosphere, and the flames of blast furnaces.”
“Mining requires the extraction of solid ores, often after removing vast amounts of overlying rock. Then the ore must be processed, creating an enormous quantity of waste – about 100 billion tonnes a year, more than any other human-made waste stream.
Purifying a single tonne of rare earths requires using at least 200 cubic meters of water, which then becomes polluted with acids and heavy metals. On top of that, imagine the destruction and energy required to obtain these essential metals:
18,740 pounds of purified rock to produce 2.2 pounds of vanadium
35,275 pounds of ore for 2.2 pounds of cerium
110,230 pounds of rock for 2.2 pounds of gallium
2,645,550 pounds of ore to get 2.2 pounds of lutecium
Also staggering amounts of ore are needed for other metals.”
This is what digital technology is leading to – for your “safety” (a la COVID digital tracking):
World Economic Forum… “Battle for your Brain”… Under the guise of *safety* every single thought you have will monitored by you boss, police and government. pic.twitter.com/VOURZc1vBQ
“. . . the war I’m talking about is an even broader war. A war that is taking place everywhere on the globe, even as I write, and that involves virtually everyone on the planet, young and old, male and female, military and civilian. It is the war of every government against its own population and every international institution against free humanity. . ..
We have a choice. Either we continue going into this technological, corporate matrix—which involves even things like buying the next generation of iPhone, which they’re already saying is going to have its own fingerprint scanning technology, and all of these corporate, military, Big Brother elements to it that we’re willingly signing up to every day of our lives, and actually paying money for—or we start to create alternative structures which don’t rely on that system. It’s a choice that we have to make in our lives, I would say more quickly than has been apparent at any other time in human history. . ..”
what I am proposing here: the creation of a parallel society.
In sum, we are living in anarchy, as institutions themselves have become nihilistic and weapons of the revolution. The Left, in viral fashion, took over the DNA of America’s institutions, and used them to help destroy their creators.
If we are bewildered why Harvard law-graduate prosecutors let out violent criminals just hours after their arrests; or why hyper-rich, pampered athletes who live in near-apartheid enclaves insult the flag, ignore the National Anthem, and sloganeer woke platitudes, it is because they were taught to undermine the status quo by fundamentally becoming it.
The reason Left Behind: Separating Fact from Fiction is being reprinted is because the Left Behind film franchise was renewed in 2023. Kevin Sorbo stars in “Left Behind: Rise of The Antichrist” with the tagline, “What Happens After the Rapture?” “I think it’s perfect for the time we are living in right now. You see the craziness of what governments are doing around the world right now. The fear, the pandemic, the anger, the hate, the cancel-culture and wokeness,” Sorbo stated in an interview. “If the rapture hasn’t already happened, it feels like it’s on the way.” How many times have we heard that the “rapture” is “on the way”? It was the tagline for most of the 20th century. It’s been more than 50 years since Hal Lindsey’s prophecy blockbuster The Late Great Planet Earth was published and intimated that the “rapture” would take place before 1988. A lot has happened since that false prediction has long been forgotten. I suspect that most people who will watch the new Left Behind film have no idea how inaccurate the prophetic speculators of a previous generation were. . . .
The promised false hope is that Christians will miraculously escape this soon coming “Great Tribulation” that the latest reiteration of the Left Behind film franchise depicts. Watch it, the tagline tells us, so you won’t have to experience the horrors of the Great Tribulation and possibly go to hell! But what if the entire Left Behind approach to Bible prophecy is more fiction than fact? That’s what this book is about.
Looking back, how many of you, during the COVID planned-demic, wore a mask, or worse, received the experimental DNA-altering jab because you feared losing access to someplace or someone, or losing your job? Authoritarians, and their media handmaids, made a point of telling you to fall in line and fear repercussions. Authoritarians control people with narratives that are to be taken as gospel.
If you and I did not practice the gospel of safetyism – a means to scare everyone into conformity under authoritarian rule – then you and I were portrayed as heartless and extremists.
Let us not forget. The abusive, manipulative and corrosive nature of authoritarianism has been evidenced the past two years. Our lives, families, and communities have incurred massive blows from the hammer of unconstrained authority. Liberty – freedom of thought, word and association – be damned!
It has been and continues to be the authoritarians who see themselves as the most intellectually and morally advanced people. They have no issue telling others what to do and making them do so with jackboot mandates. They speak in terms of power to truth.
One ubiquitous televised authority told you that he was “science” – period! Based on this pronouncement, you and I were to immediately end critical thinking and questioning about COVID “science”. We were to submit to the apotheosis of “the science”.
Several authorities used manipulative ways to bring about conformity to their will: This is a pandemic of the unvaccinated!
Now, one authority figure is saying “I think we all agree the most important thing going on in the world right now is the war in Ukraine”. Really?! Ukraine’s border is more important than the massive invasion happening at our own southern border? What this authority figure is really saying is that the military-industrial complex must be served first before the concerns of Americans.
The last two years have also shown us that authoritarians demand that the bio-industrial complex be served at the expense of freedom and human life.
You see, for the military-industrial complex to financially survive it must produce and sell weaponry . . . and war. For the bio-medical complex to financially survive it must mass produce new serums and pandemics to sell.
Repurposed drugs like Hydroxychloroquine and Ivermectin are not money makers. Of course, the politicians and media who support the military complex and/or the bio-medical complex and not the repurposed drugs are rewarded.
There is no question in my mind that very significant powerbrokers around the world have either planned to take advantage of the next pandemic or created the pandemic. – Dr. Michael Yeadon, ex-Pfizer VP
Global authoritarians are now telling us to believe in climate change and to be prepared to pay a price to fix it. Yet, scientists say there is no climate emergency.
Those who have read my blog since 2020 know that I haven’t accept COVID authority. I did not get the jab and I will not wear a mask. I have questioned everything that comes from the CDC and on TV. I have witnessed true science being denied so that authoritarians can have their way.
I have linked to hundreds of commentaries that question the validity of COVID “science” via each post’s “Informed Dissent”. I question what is posited as “the science” and gospel truth. I question authority and take on challenges.
What follows is a common authority challenge presented to Christians from the pulpit and elsewhere, as you will see:
The conversation that follows started with a recent social media post that included a video.
The post: What’s your authority – God’s Word or man’s word? The age of the earth issue is not a science VS faith or an interpretation issue, it’s actually an authority issue. And that issue affects the Gospel. Find out how in this episode of Creation Basics.
Does the Bible support evolution or billions of years? Whatever your final authority is will determine how you answer this question.
The video’s premise: “adding billions of years into the Bible destroys the concept of Biblical authority”.
Underlying premises: science is secular thinking; empirical science doesn’t apply to creation origin; “If the Bible isn’t true to the facts of the real world, about the age of the earth, then there is really no reason to trust it . . . “; (and Bible skeptics and atheists might get the upper hand).
Per the video’s premise, I’m a Biblical authority denier for “believing the secular geologic time scale”. To this and to the brazen and distorted underlying premises of Biblical authority and the gospel as compromised by science, I had to write a reply.
My comment to the post:
Wow! This video is messed up. This way of thinking is messed. up. Authority issue? Pitting manmade “Biblical authority” against manmade science authority? What foolishness. The physical world existed long before God gave the cosmos function and order. Genesis tells us that God set up the existing cosmos to be his temple within 7 literal days. Genesis 1 -11 should be understood as being written to ancient Near East people. The Genesis account made sense, in temple terms, to these readers. They understood Genesis as describing functional origins rather than accounts of material origins. Genesis begins with the functional origins of an existing universe that science confirms came into existence billions of years before. Genesis is theological history and science the physical history. I see no conflict.
*****
Marq, a proponent of Answers In Genesis message, replied to my comments:
If the Bible is fantasy than how did it know that there were springs in the oceans, Genesis 7&8?
BTW, God created the earth the seas and all that is in them in six twenty-four-hour days. Although it could be six twenty-hour days.
BTW, if you’d like to refute the Bible try proving abiogenesis. Omne vivum ex vivo. If you can give us the formula to prove abiogenesis, maybe we could then entertain the idea of evolution being plausible.
You see no conflict? Jesus said it was real history. There is your conflict. I can’t trust in someone who is either a liar or is delusional. Maybe you don’t have that problem, but I do.
*****
My reply to Marq:
I didn’t say the Bible is fantasy. The OT was written for us but it wasn’t written to us. It was written to ancient Israel who understood Genesis in temple creation terms- functional terms – and not in physical material creation terms. You are forcing Scripture – taking it out of context – to have it say what you want it to say. I grew up with the same reductionist thinking. I went to Moody Bible Institute. I was taught that Genesis was literal – but Gen. 1-11 is not literal. God used true mythology to give ancient Israel an explanation of origins and operations. BTW: God gave us two Scriptures – the Bible and science. We can learn from both scripture and science while not forcing the other to have it mean something that is not true. The study of scripture and science must include history, ancient history. We must look at all of the evidence God laid out. The people in the ancient world understood things differently than we do. Genesis was written to them so we must read Genesis in their context of language, culture and meaning. which included mythology to explain things. Study the ancient history, the language and culture. God didn’t give us a Sunday School color-in-the-lines paper to take home. He gave us a world to explore.
*****
Marq replied:
I know what you meant, as I have debated theistic evolutionists. I’m saying we have proof of the literal interpretation.
We know from science that springs actually exist and it was written in Genesis 7&8, you know that part you said is mythology. It wasn’t until 1971 that science proved it and it was only postulated by science in the 1960’s.
So, your mythology takes [sic] crumbles into reality. Also, the migration of people in Genesis eleven is also proven by archeology and now it is shown by the Y-chromosome DNA again sowing [sic] it’s not mythology.
It has been proven repeatedly that life only begets life, omne vivum ex vivo, just as Genesis said. Remember paganism has always believed the universe created itself.
Finally, as I said Jesus would be a liar because he taught that Genesis was true history as did the apostle Paul to Areopagus and not an allegory.
As Jesus said, “John 3:12 If when I tell you earthly things, ye believe not, how should ye believe, If I shall tell you of heavenly things?”
Do you believe Jesus raised Himself from the dead? Do you believe He walked on water? Do you believe He raised Lazarus from the dead? If you do, what scientific proof do you have of those events?
*****
My reply to Marq:
You have provided no proof of a literal interpretation. You provided inuendo, circular reasoning and crumbling logic.
You say that science backs up some things in Scripture and therefore proves Genesis 1-11 to be literal and not myth. Based on that you tell me that since science cannot prove other things in scripture therefore scripture trumps science and myth. Let’s talk mythology.
Modern man views mythology as being false. C.S. Lewis, for one, thought otherwise. God, the great storyteller, revealed Himself through different mythologies throughout history. The core ideas behind the myths were “literally” fulfilled in the first century via Jesus of Nazareth’s incarnation, death, and resurrection.
Myths as false?
Jesus spoke to the multitudes in myth-like parables. These tales were not literal historic events. These were allegorical, metaphorical, and symbolic stories that were spoken in contemporary terms. The parables conveyed truth to the listener.
God gave us science so we could explore and understand the physical world that he created. Science is not a discipline that explains things metaphysically just as theology is not a discipline that explains creation in physical terms. Science is NOT in conflict with scripture – except when secularists and fundamentalists make it so. God gave us both science AND scripture to reveal Himself to us. The material world is incredibly important to God – the word became flesh.
Genesis 1-11 is the true myth written to ancient Israel living within a pagan culture. It wasn’t written specifically to a Sunday school class in the ‘50s that had been taught to hate Darwin and evolutionary creation.
Ancient cultures understood all that is not in science-based terms but in metaphysical-based terms. The saw their world as controlled by gods. They had temples to these gods. The temples were thought of as the cosmos. In their way of thinking, the creation of a temple is the creation of the cosmos.
The apostle Paul addressed the god/temple way of thinking during his speech to the Athenians at the Areopagus. He tells them about the “Unknown God” who created the world. He goes on to say that this “Unknown God” does not live in a temple made by human hands. God created a temple out of the cosmos so that people could seek him out and know him.
Genesis 1 is an account of God inaugurating order (out of the existing chaos) and functionality for his cosmic temple. Genesis 1& 2 is not an account of material origins and material preparations for his temple. Genesis 1 & 2 should be understood as a temple-based explanation of creation.
Over 6–24-hour days God ordered the existing chaos (after the Big Bang) and gave it functions. Heaven and earth, sea and dry land, light and dark, night and day, seedtime and harvest, seasons . . . On the seventh day God “rested” in his cosmic temple and oversaw his creation.
The English word “created” used for Genesis 1:1 translation does not help our understanding. The Hebrew word (bara), in its ancient context, does not imply God creating the universe ex nihilo and it does not imply a function-giving interpretation. Within its context in scripture (about 50x) it does seem that ancient Israel viewed things in functional terms rather than material terms.
*****
Marq’s response:
Nice try! But the Y-chromosome and as I said the springs in the seas in ch. 7,8, and 11 shows it is not an allegory.
Just as omne vivum ex vivo destroys any concept of evolution. There is zero evidence of evolution or your logic. Evolution uses circular reasoning which creationists exposed, because evos use fossils to date the rocks and rocks to date the fossils based on their belief of the rock strata presupposition.
Even SCOTUS when evolutionists brought suit to keep creationism out of school could not confirm evolution so SCOTUS said creationism could not be taught because of separation of church and state.
When our own school board in Columbus, Ohio was allowing creationism to be taught alongside evolution in 1976 evolutionists showed up arguing against it saying separation of church and state. Again, they did not present facts because there are none. I was present at the meeting and as always creationists brought facts.
Evolutonists are scared of facts as there are none that a reasonable person would consider. As Richard Dawkins found out when he debated A. E. Wilder-Smith at Oxford University. Wilder-Smith and another creationist of whom I can’t recall his name was able to persuade quite a few people at this bastion of evolutionary dogma.
After it was over Dawkins refused to openly debate and warned other evolutionists not to debate openly.
Instead of engaging me on evidence you too resort to innuendos. As I said if God was just using parables than how did springs (fountains) end up being real? How did Genesis 11 and the migration of Shem, Ham, and Japheth turn out to be true? or omne vivum ex vivo?
You, and your evo friends, are the ones hiding behind mythology.
Let’s settle this argument. Give me the mathematical formula that proves evolution. One that can be demonstrated time and time again.
Stop hiding behind mythology and it takes millions of years to hide behind the fact that you have no answers. Evolution is only in fairy tale books fit for little children.
Genesis 7:11 In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, in the second month, the seventeenth day of the month, in the same day WERE ALL THE FOUNTAINS OF THE GREAT DEEP WERE BROKEN UP, and the windows of heaven were opened,
Job 38:16 “Have you entered into the springs of the sea, or walked in the recesses of the deep?
Matthew 24:37 For as were the days of Noah, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. 38 For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day when Noah entered the ark, 39 and they were unaware until the flood came and swept them all away, so will be the coming of the Son of Man.
May God open your eyes.
*****
My reply:
Your words: “the Y-chromosome and as I said the springs in the seas in ch. 7,8, and 11 shows it is not an allegory.” How?!? That literal things existed that science later discovered and therefore Genesis 1-11 could not be a myth explaining existence in temple-making terms to ancient people? So, according to you, everything in Genesis 1-11 must be considered literal because things existed? Your logic makes no sense.
Here’s another example of the same illogic:
“As I said if God was just using parables than how did springs (fountains) end up being real?”
By the same logic, learning some 2000 years after Jesus told the parable of the Good Samaritan that there were actual Samaritans and Levites in Jesus’ time would mean that what Jesus said in parable format should be discounted as false and not literal authoritative. NB: their literal existence didn’t refute the use of parable by Jesus to speak (the unseen) kingdom truths.
Does everything have to be literal to be proven true? If so, that is a sad commentary on modern man. If so, that supposition also shows that left brain literal thinking has taken over.
Back on track, we are talking about whether Genesis 1-11 is a myth explaining to Israel the setup of a cosmic temple or Genesis as a literal science explanation of creation using 6-7 24 hr. days. Right?
We are talking about whether the cosmos is billions of years old (a science calculated estimate) old or 6-8k years old (a young earth creationist calculated estimate). Right?
The video would have us believe that if we do not accept the authority of scripture – a 6-24 hr. day material creation postulated by Answers in Genesis – then we are misled and are denying scriptural authority. What utter nonsense and pretentiousness! What a con job!
I don’t believe in spontaneous generation. I don’t know any biologists who do. I don’t know anyone who does. Evolution is a scientific theory that doesn’t contradict the Bible. (Note: social Darwinism is not something, as a Christian, I adhere to.) Like with the study of ancient cultures, it is more than OK to look at historical evidence: rock strata, fossil records, and genetics. It is Ok to understand the biogeography of nature. It is OK to study the natural order. It testifies of God.
“The Heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands” (Psalm 19:1)
And so it is that understanding of the stars has led scientists to refine the ages of the stars in globular clusters, and now estimate them to be about 13 billion years old. This means that the stars in the globular clusters must have formed within the first several hundred million years of the universe’s existence!
No mythology: The approximate age of the universe can be derived using Hubble’s law: v = H0d where (d) is the distance between two galaxies, (v) their apparent separation velocity, (H0) the expanding universe (Hubble’s) constant. The velocity of the galaxy, aka, redshift, is directly proportional to its distance.
Q.E.D.
*****
Marq’s next response:
Flavius Josephus, Jesus, and all of the Apostles all believed Genesis 1-11 was true chronological history reserved for mankind and not mythological or allegorical account not to be taken as literal.
So, it’s the evolutionists job to prove what is obvious to any casual observer.
Romans 1:18 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. 19 For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. 20 For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. 21 For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22 Claiming to be wise, they became fools, 23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.
From Flavius Josephus Antiquities of the Jews Book 1, Chapter 3:9. Now when Noah had lived three hundred and fifty years after the Flood, and that all that time happily, he died, having lived the number of nine hundred and fifty years. But let no one, upon comparing the lives of the ancients with our lives, and with the few years which we now live, think that what we have said of them is false; or make the shortness of our lives at present an argument, that neither did they attain to so long a duration of life, for those ancients were beloved of God, and [lately] made by God himself; and because their food was then fitter for the prolongation of life, might well live so great a number of years: and besides, God afforded them a longer time of life on account of their virtue, and the good use they made of it in astronomical and geometrical discoveries, which would not have afforded the time of foretelling [the periods of the stars] unless they had lived six hundred years; for the great year is completed in that interval. Now I have for witnesses to what I have said, all those that have written Antiquities, both among the Greeks and barbarians; for even Manetho, who wrote the Egyptian History, and Berosus, who collected the Chaldean Monuments, and Mochus, and Hestieus, and, besides these, Hieronymus the Egyptian, and those who composed the Phoenician History, agree to what I here say: Hesiod also, and Hecatseus, Hellanicus, and Acusilaus; and, besides these, Ephorus and Nicolaus relate that the ancients lived a thousand years. But as to these matters, let every one look upon them as he thinks fit.
II Peter 3:1 This is now the second letter that I am writing to you, beloved. In both of them I am stirring up your sincere mind by way of reminder, 2 that you should remember the predictions of the holy prophets and the commandment of the Lord and Savior through your apostles, 3 knowing this first of all, that scoffers will come in the last days with scoffing, following their own sinful desires. 4 They will say, “Where is the promise of his coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all things are continuing as they were from the beginning of creation.” 5 For they deliberately overlook this FACT, that the heavens existed long ago, and the earth was formed out of water and through water by the word of God, 6 and that by means of these the world that then existed was deluged with water and perished. 7 But by the same word the heavens and earth that now exist are stored up for fire, being kept until the day of judgment and destruction of the ungodly.
******
My reply:
“What is obvious to any casual observer” is that you are dropping a lot of names and scripture bombs to conceal your lack of a coherent argument. None of your references support a literal 6-24 hr day creation. They just refer to creation as creation.
Of course, Jesus believed in creation. NT writers told us that he is the creator (Jn. 1, Col. 1). But nothing in the NT tells us that Jesus spoke of or believed in literal 6-24 hr. days of creation.
Colossians 1: 15 “He is the image of God, the invisible one, The firstborn of creation”.
How should we understand the “firstborn of creation” words from this early Christian hymn? In literal terms? By the authority of scripture, we can fully acknowledge the metaphor that Jesus is the “firstborn of creation.”
A metaphor helps us understand a truth we cannot fully grasp. This, it seems to me, is how Genesis 1-11 was written – in true myth to an ancient people.
Remember the words of Jesus: “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” Those around him took it literally. It wasn’t until the resurrection that the disciples understood what he meant.
Remember Jesus saying “If you’ve got ears, then listen!” after he told them parables. The multitudes loved the literal feedings, the literal healings, and the literal exorcisms. They came to him for the literal. But the things of the kingdom of God, expressed in parables, were not literal enough for most of them.
Jesus telling Nicodemus that he must be born again confused him.
There are many, many metaphors, allegories and true myths in scripture. Is Song of Solomon literal? Should I cut off my hand if it makes me sin? Genesis 1-11 as true myth should not upset anyone’s theology.
One last word on Genesis 1-2.
In the last two chapters of the Revelation of John we find that God’s cosmic temple-based explanation of creation, written as true myth to ancient Israel in Genesis 1-2, is fully realized.
“I heard a loud voice from the throne, and this is what it said: “Look! God has come to dwell with humans! He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them and will be their God.” Rev. 21: 3
The peace of the Lord be with you.
*****
Marq’s next response:
I forgot to mention that I went to a Messianic Synagogue to learn Hebrew. They believe in the literal interpretation of Genesis and Yeshua as God incarnate.
They were also taught as children the literal interpretation of Genesis as Jews. In fact, most orthodox Jews believe in the literal translation of Genesis. Again, this counters your argument that they did not believe in the literal interpretation of Genesis 1-11.
*****
My friend, I cannot vouch for what others think or for the generation of their beliefs.
As I understand it, you believe the verb bara’ translated as “create” infers a material creation of the universe that lasted 6 -24 hr days. The seventh day is tacked on as a non-workday, I guess.
We would both agree that Hebrew lexicons translate the verb bara’ as “create”. That is the closest English word. The definition given for bara’ is to create, shape and form.
Bara’ (Gen. 1:1) can be God choosing to give order and purpose to the material creation out of the existing chaos. Bara’ can describe a formative process and a function-giving process.
Examples of bara’ would be an artist who “creates” a painting or an architect who “creates” a temple. The materials are there and the scope/vision is there. Creation is the application of materials and vision to produce the desired outcome.
That creation understanding is my understanding of the literal 7 days of Genesis. God gave functions and roles to the existing creation to support mankind. Man was created to be the caretaker-priest of his temple creation. We find out later that Adam, an archetype of caretaker-priest mankind, needed someone to help with the caretaking of the temple. Hence Eve, derived from one-half of Adam and another such archetype.
Reading the 7 days of Genesis in functional terms and not in material creation terms, makes sense. God is inaugurating his cosmic temple over the 6 24 hr days. On the seventh God “rests’ or sits and rules in his cosmic temple. Ancient people would understand the temple building, temple inauguration, and priests serving temple gods.
Note: the temple theme begins in Genesis 1 and goes through scripture to the last chapters of John’s Revelation. Temple creation, tent-tabernacle, Solomon’s temple, the second temple, new creations as the temple of God, and finally God dwelling with man and . . .
“I saw no temple in the city, because the Lord God the Almighty is it temple, together with the Lamb.” Rev. 21: 22
Finally, my initial comment was directed to the video posted. I rejected its premise:
The age of the earth issue is not a science VS faith or an interpretation issue, it’s actually an authority issue. And that issue affects the Gospel
The Catholic church also had “authority” issues. Those issues led to the Inquisition to combat “heresy”. The Inquisition generated dread – people feared being rejected by the church and loss of salvation. There were horrific consequences if they did not profess whatever they were told to profess. They accepted, out of fear of losing their salvation, whatever they were told to accept. The video reminded me of the Inquisition and how church authorities felt threatened by those questioned what their authority dictated.
People of science should never be marginalized and ostracized by the Christian community.
I’m done here. Thank you for the back and forth.
The peace of the Lord be with you.
*****
Marq’s final words:
Ultimately, what you are saying is that the universe created God?
The first Law of Thermodynamics says the universe cannot create itself and the 2nd Law says it had to be created.
This is just common logic, otherwise, God is just as material and useless as the pagan gods and Jesus would just be a clown.
It’s funny because the Catholic Church has always believed in evolution and the scientific community which is why they adopted the pagan Aristotle and Ptolemy. It’s the evolutionists who are running the inquisition. They are saying that evolution is a fact that needs no proof.
Again, the only proof you’ve proffered for evolution is that Genesis was meant as an allegory.
Since the Laws of Thermodynamic are mathematical proofs and cannot be refuted, evolutionists try to say we don’t understand so their sycophants fall in line. You do not demand that evos put up or shut up.
You’d think after thousands of years they’ve spent trying to convince people they could put something together that was coherent.
May God open your eyes to the obvious truth.
And . .
Thank you too for conversing!
**********
Marq’s replies reveal that he totally missed what I was saying all along. Or, he just didn’t want to deal with what I was saying except in scripted terms. Marq’s final words are defensive and dismissive. He does not offer new information in support of a literal 6-day 24 hr. creation. Before that, he claimed that others believe that his position is true and therefore that proves it to be true.
And like the unconscionable video message, Marqe pits science against scripture, as if God’s own material creation would betray God’s own word to us.
Legal experts from Jerusalem set up a similar adversarial scenario – “it’s not the way we say it’s supposed to be” vs. the way it is. The Gospel according to Mark chapter 3, vs. 22-30 records Jesus being accused of being possessed by an unclean spirit because he cast out demons. His response: “How can the Accuser cast out the Accuser?”
And how could material creation betray the creator? Even the stones would be shouting out praise to the Living Word if all else is silent!
In my responses I never said or implied that the universe created itself or that God didn’t create the universe. I was stating that scripture, and Genesis in particular, is not scientific revelation. The opening chapters of Genesis are true myth written to an ancient people and their understanding.
Apparently, he thinks that since I am positing Genesis 1 & 2 as true myth – God’s way of explaining creation to an ancient people – that I am saying God didn’t create the world. God did create the universe and, as I tried to convey, perhaps not in the way that Marq insisted it happened. And, of course, the laws of thermodynamic operate in the physical world.
I don’t read Genesis, and scripture as a whole, as scientific revelation. Scripture is a revelation of identity, function and purpose. We find out from scripture who God is and who we are and what we are to be about.
To convey this in contemporary terms, God used the culture, language and understanding of an ancient writer (and every writer of scripture since) to convey what He wanted the people of that time to know. Genesis was written in their ancient terms.
I responded to Marq, not for a debate, but so that I could present another look at Genesis 1-11. Not once did he respond to my temple creation viewpoint. Instead, he tied me in, as if going by a young earth creationist playbook, with evolutionists and the godless cabal who deny the authority of “6-day 24 hr. material creation” and therefore the authority of the Bible. (Here I am being accused of being a scripture denier, not a “COID science denier”.)
The opening of the video presents a red herring argument: “scripture doesn’t mention billions of years” Well, scripture is not a scientific journal of events.
Scripture also doesn’t mention, among many other things, that the earth revolves around the sun. Science figured that out and church authoritarians rallied against such a finding because it didn’t align with their teaching. Huh.
Again, scripture is a revelation of identity and relationships. Genesis 1 & 2 names the functions of the cosmic temple, Adam and Eve are the named archetypes of mankind, genealogies follow, Jesus names the twelve, Saul is renamed Paul, new names are handed out as recorded in the John’s Revelation. Names and relationships.
What the video would have us believe: “If you don’t affirm what I saying about a literal Genesis account as being authoritative then the gospel you believe cannot be authoritative.” This setup is not just childish and unconscionable. It is a demonic point of view.
Because science and scripture present different ways of understanding reality, they will not look like they sync. And that is not a justification to reject either one. To suggest that science should be rejected in order to support “Biblical creation” is also a demonic point of view.
Scripture is authoritative. Interpretation is not. Every directive from an authority should be questioned, whether it be from pastor, priest, Pope, Jesuit, professor, the CDC or politician. Don’t roll over and play dead. Study and become convinced of what you believe. As a trailblazer who will not stand being shamed for referring to scripture and science maps, “carve out a straight path for the word of truth- the gospel” (2 Tim. 2:15).
Recall that Jesus had to constantly inform and upbraid legal experts and Pharisees. Many of these self-styled authoritarians presented themselves as “the most intellectually and morally advanced people” in the community and therefore qualified to communicate authoritatively. But they had settled on interpretations of God’s word that missed the mark. As synagogue authorities they passed on their interpretations to the communities in which they lived.
It is a serious matter to Jesus if the interpretation and teachings of God’s word causes anyone to stumble (see Matt. 18:1-7). And remember: the only one who possesses all truth is Jesus, and he served as a model of meekness.
“The lawsuit, filed in October, 2021 by Liberty Counsel, represents more than 500 current and former health care workers who were unlawfully discriminated against and denied religious exemptions from the COVID shot mandate.”
People are turning down Remdesivir at hospitals, so the hospitals are still giving Remdesivir to them, but under another name: Veklury Generic Name: Remdesivir Brand Name: Veklury Same deadly fauci drug.
“We know that the entire creation is groaning together, and going through labor pains together, up until the present time.” – the Apostle Paul
Have you heard the wind howling? Have you heard the endless pounding of the surf on the shore? Have you heard nature singing in a minor key? While creation is an utter joy for me to take in –the birds singing, the brooks babbling, the palette of fall colors, the smell of lilacs and rain – I also get from nature a sense of melancholy and unsettledness.
Over the past eighteen months, many lives have been devasted by the Wuhan virus and by the response of the experts and authorities to the virus. The cures are proving worse than the disease.
Evening Melancholy I 1896 – by Edvard Munch
To wit, the Biden regime is mandating that private sector employees be vaccinated with a vaccine that has not be fully tested and has produced a rapidly growing number of adverse effects AND DEATHS and does not stop the transmission of the virus or protection from the virus. Pointless. Senseless. Evil.
Biden told America that his patience is wearing thin with the “unvaccinated minority”.
Life is hard enough as it is without the accusations, the antagonism, the name-calling, the stifling, the censoring, the blacklisting, the plundering, and the destroying done by the so-called experts and authorities. And, especially when it’s done in the name of very questionable science. Life is hard enough as it is without adding more pointless futility to it.
Does Edvard Munch’s Evening Melancholy symbolize your present state of mind?
This summer, after memorizing several Psalms (1,4,103 and 104), I began to memorize the gospel according to Mark. By the end of chapter three, I was struck by the same evil and destructive behavior of the authorities in Jesus’ day.
When someone comes on the scene and says what Jesus said, one would expect questioning of his authority. But as Jesus validates his authority through his teaching, through healings, and the casting out of unclean spirits, we find that there is a system of power in place that seeks to quash all challengers to its authority.
Let’s briefly recall what took place.
Mark chapter one. Jesus is announced as the Messiah and son of God. John the Baptizer points to Jesus as the one who will plunge people in the Holy Spirit. After his baptism by John, Jesus is pushed into the desert where he is tested 40 days by the Satan.
Jesus then goes into Galilee announcing the good news: “God’s kingdom is arriving”. He calls Peter, Andrew, James and John to follow him. (These and others will be eyewitnesses to what Jesus says and does.)
So far so good. Many Jews at that time were looking for a Messiah.
In Capernaum, Jesus goes into the synagogue and teaches. Everyone there is astonished by his teaching. They said that he wasn’t like the legal experts. He said things on his own authority. (Uh-oh!)
While he is there teaching, an unclean spirit makes itself known. (At this point, I think that the hovering legal experts and the unclean spirits begin realizing that their domains were under assault.)
Jesus casts out the unclean spirit. Word about Jesus spreads at once across the surrounding districts of Galilee. The healing and the casting out of unclean spirits continues.
Jesus heals Simon’s mother-in-law of a fever.
The townspeople bring the sick and demon possessed to Jesus. He heals people suffering from all kinds of diseases and he casts out many demons. (This is a good thing, right?)
Jesus goes to other towns in Galilee to tell the good news and to cast out demons.
A man with a virulent skin disease is touched and healed by Jesus. The man spreads the news so effectively that Jesus has to stay out in the open country because of the large crowds.
Mark chapter two. Jesus returns to Capernaum. A crowd gathers at the door when people hear that Jesus is at home. They want to hear the good news. They want healing. They want unclean spirits cast out. They want the groaning to stop.
As Jesus is teaching, a paralytic is lowered through the roof (the only way to get the cripple close to Jesus even though not OSHA approved). Jesus took note of their faith. Jesus tells the man laying before him that his sins are forgiven. (Uh-oh!)
The jot and tittle police begin to grumble.
“Why does this guy talk like that? It’s blasphemy! Who can forgive sins except God!”
“Why do your hearts tell you to think like that?” Jesus asked them.
Jesus goes on to question the flaunted leverage of the legal experts: “Is it easier to say to this cripple ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Get up, pick up your stretcher and walk’?
“You want to know if the son of man has authority on earth to forgive sins?’
Jesus tells the cripple “Get up, take up your stretcher and go home”. The man gets up, picks up his stretcher in a flash, and goes out before all of them with forgiveness of sins and the ability to walk brought about by the faith of others.
Large numbers of people are following Jesus. The jot and tittle police are worried about losing their grip on the public. They go beyond grumbling and begin pointing their finger.
Jesus calls tax collector Levi to follow him. Plenty of tax associates and sinners join Levi as dinner guests of Jesus and his followers. The legal experts from the Pharisees (who were into social distancing) ask Jesus’ disciples “Why does he eat with tax-collectors and sinners?”
Jesus hears their question and replies to their obtuseness.
“It’s sick people who need the doctor, not the healthy ones. I came to call the bad people, not the good ones.”
People start questioning Jesus about religious practice. John’s disciples and the Pharisee disciples were fasting. Jesus’ disciples were not fasting. The reason Jesus gives: “The bridegroom is there with them. How can they fast?”
More conflicts with the see-the mandate-and-not-the people authorities.
One sabbath Jesus and his disciples are walking through a cornfield. Not only are the disciples not fasting, they are plucking corn as they go along with “the bridegroom”.
The Pharisees corner Jesus: “Why are they doing that which is illegal?”.
Jesus responds to their contention with a reminder of David doing something similar. He recounts that David, when he was distressed and he and his men were hungry, ate the ‘bread of the presence’.
Jesus tells them that the sabbath was made for humans and not the other way around.
Mark chapter 3. Things are heating up. Jesus goes to the synagogue once more. A man with a withered hand is there. People are watching to see whether Jesus heals the man on the sabbath. If he does, they will frame him with a sabbath-no-no charge.
(Were the people afraid of being expelled from their synagogue by the legal experts for going along with Jesus? Were they told to snitch on Jesus?)
Jesus asks the man to come forward. Jesus then questions the ready-to-jump-on-him group.
“Is it lawful to do good on the sabbath, or to do evil? To save life or to kill?”
The group (submitting to the authorities) remained silent.
Jesus is deeply upset with the hardheartedness of the lockstep group. He looks around a them angrily.
Jesus restores the man’s hand. The Pharisees see this as an act of insolence against their version of God’s law. They rush out and begin to plot with a political group – Hellenistic Jews called Herodians – against Jesus. They want to destroy Jesus (based on technicalities).
Healing a withered hand appears to be a non-issue for the legal experts and Pharisees. Power to say what the issues are is the most important matter to them. Power to make people dependent on them (like a vaccine that lasts six months and then requires booster after booster).
(I wonder. Do Jesus’ questions imply that doing good (and evil) and saving life (and killing) do not take a day off? Is he asking to what end keeping the sabbath serves? And, does it serve those who enforce it? Did the legal experts weaponize the sabbath to bring about conformity to their will? Would not doing what is good and saving life (as in the CDC not promoting Hydroxychloroquine and Ivermectin) be a crime against humanity?)
Following the underwhelming response of the synagogue zombies and seeing the reaction of the beard-stroking Pharisees, Jesus heads off toward the sea with his four disciples.
Great crowds of people are swarming him. There is a real danger that Jesus will be crushed by the crowd. Sick people are pushing in toward him to touch him (No masks or social distancing here!). The groaning of creation is growing louder. And so is the shrieking.
When the unclean spirits see Jesus, they fall down in front of him and yell “You are the son of God!”
Jesus goes up a mountain. He summons twelve men. He names them apostles. They are called to be with him, to be sent out as heralds, and to have authority to cast out demons. (Jesus shares his authority and power. It appears from the gospel accounts that the Pharisees and legal experts like to retain theirs.)
When the group descends and goes into a home for a meal, a crowd gathers again so they couldn’t even eat. When his family hears about this, they come to restrain him. “He’s out of his mind,” they say.
(Was calling Jesus a crazy man a way to distance themselves from Jesus? You bet it was. Was the family of Jesus afraid of the legal experts and authorities like those in the synagogue? Were they also afraid of being expelled from the synagogue? Was this name calling a betrayal of Jesus long before Peter’s betrayal of “I don’t know the man”?)
Head wagging legal experts came from Jerusalem. They had their own brand of groaning – the “tsk tsk” kind. They came, not because a man with a withered hand was healed. They came to take control of the situation. They want Jesus sidelined, canceled, boycotted.
When your credibility hinges on being self-important, you villainize others. The experts blacklisted Jesus by calling him possessed by Beelzebub. They discredited him by saying that Jesus did what he did by the prince of demons. This was their ‘science’.
Jesus pushes back, first by talking about the absurdity of their claim: “How can the Accuser cast out the Accuser?” He explains that a kingdom or a household split in two cannot last. Then, in no uncertain terms, he tells the people that if anyone blasphemes the holy spirit that sin will not be forgiven.
Jesus’ mother and brothers and sisters come to where he is and wait outside. They ask to see him (Did they come with a restraining order from the Pharisees?). Those sitting around Jesus see them outside and say “Look, you mother, brothers and sisters are looking for you!
“Who is my mother?” Jesus asks those with him. “Who is my brother?” He looks around at those sitting in circles around him. “Here is my mother. Here is my brother. Anyone who does God’s will is my brother, my sister and my mother.”
The showpieces of the self-righteous demand service to their drama. Right now, we have high drama as captured in the curse “May you live in interesting times”
We are told what to do. We must be vaxxed or be vilified. We must accept lies and lie to ourselves. We are told to submit to the Federal Pharisee guidelines. We must conform or be expelled from society or be crucified.
Right now, we are being told by the experts and authorities to mask up, take the jab, be gay, be effeminate, abort freely, hate our country, hate the color of our skin, hate our history and “follow the science”.
Right now, the entire creation is groaning and wanting relief. But drama from the experts and authorities is what we get.
Jesus dealt in simple terms. Do good. Save life. Put the world to rights. Relieve suffering and not add to it.
Follow the Savior. Can I get an “Amen”?
*****
Episode_1299 You are in danger of becoming a debt slave Dr. Betsy McCaughey, Dr. James Poulos, Dr. Peter Navarro, Joe AllenEpisode_12986 Debt Americans blocked from flights Kris Kobach, Ben Bergquam, Mark Geist, Kari Lake
“We find that following the implementation of Shelter-in-Place (SIP) policies, excess mortality increases,” the researchers wrote. The researchers used SIP as a blanket term to refer to lockdowns, stay-at-home orders, and other similar draconian mandates.
Praise Him, sun and moon; Praise Him, all stars of light!
Psalm 148:3
Did you wake up today wondering why the planets and moons are round? For some reason, I wondered this while working out on the elliptical machine at the health club this AM.
OK. So, you didn’t wake up and wonder why all the planets and moons in billions of galaxies are round.But I’m going to tell you anyway.
Better, I will let Tega Jessa explain. From Jessa’s web article, “Why Are Planets Round”:
You may have wondered why are planets round. I mean why aren’t the cubes or pyramids? The answers can be found in how gravity works and the formation of our solar system. Our solar system was formed like many other star systems from a nebula. A nebula is a concentrated area of gases and cosmic dust in what is the called the ISM or Interstellar Medium. These gases and dust are spread through space and when enough of it gathers it gains suitable gravity to establish a gravitational field. This clumping creates nebulas and started the process for star formation.
The next step in a star’s birth would be the rotation of the nebula. As matter is drawn in and organized by the nebulas increasing gravitational field it start to gain angular momentum and start to rotate. This is just like how an ice skater spins faster when they pull in their arms. As the matter is pulled into the nebula’s center of mass, it spins faster making it easier for more matter to be pulled in. This process will happen until under the increasing gravity until the gases go under nuclear fusion and a star is born.
After the birth of a star there are now two sources of gravity whose tides fight over the remaining gases and dust. The first gravitational field is that of the nebula and the other is the gravity of the new star. The tidal forces of these two fields bunch the remaining gases and dust together. Heavier element will clump together faster to make the beginnings of rocky planets. It is important to note that gas giants are planets that were close to becoming stars but did not reach critical mass for fusion. In the end, even as these planets are forming they still carry over the angular momentum and spin as well drawing more matter.
This process works like a carpenter’s lath. The new gravitational field pulls matter towards the center of the planet’s mass. The rotation helps to round out the rough edges. As time passes and the planet cools the planet settles into its final shape depending on its own rotation and the gravitic influence of its star. This is what makes a planet round.
OK. Now we both know why planets and moons are round. Next question:
The free form litany below was compiled based on the verbs and the sequence of action found in Genesis Chapters One and Two.
I agree with the theory of theistic evolution: the creation act once initiated by God set evolution into motion (without the need for fine tuning) over millions of years and right up to our present day.
Here’s something you’ll get a big bang out of: if you wonder whether there is a personal God, wonder no more. God had (in our time frame) envisioned every boson in every hair of every head. You are a unique accumulation of God Particles held together by the Quantum Force of Love. Smashing.
To become an American is to be given a gift of liberty. Use the gift wisely. There are many today who have been born American and don’t realize what they have. There are many today who do not have Truth to guide their lives. They have only feelings and sincerity as their moral guides.
As a citizen of the United States you deserve nothing more than life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Anything else becomes a demand that grows government and government in turn robs people of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. A large government places people under the tyranny of its control first by controlling those you want controlled (unions, environmentalists, animal rights groups, etc. want others to be controlled) and then by controlling you. Government in the “demand” process becomes a slave owner. The Democrat party platform is the best example of a group seeking large government to corral people for “their own good.”
Voting for a Democrat means that you support the party platform: abortion, casinos and gambling as revenue streams, higher taxes (you are the direct revenue stream for political favoritism ala Obama style politics), less return on your money, less control of your life, more government intrusion, government-run health care, European bailouts and bankrupt states (Greece, California, Illinois, etc.), political cronyism ala Chicago style politics, the Greek riots, government controlling others (while pretending that government will never control you), laziness, handouts, the perversion of marriage, more joblessness, more food stamps doled out, more crap at your expense. If you vote for a Democrat you deserve all the consequences. You still need to be spoon fed.
We avoid pain, suffering and difficulty at all costs even though to overcome these onerous things make us feel alive and gives us character. No amount of material possessions owned can do the same for us.
You can’t take it with you and even though class warfare proponents such as Hitler, Lenin, Stalin, Mao and yes, Barack Obama, say that you can have it all at another’s expense.
“A good name is more desirable than great riches. A good name should be esteemed more than silver and gold.” (The Book of Proverbs)
A generous man will himself be blessed. It is better to give than to receive. (Jesus)
“A sluggard does not plow in season; so at harvest time he looks but finds nothing.” (The Book of Proverbs) How many kids spend their time in pursuit of a useless degree and find out they cannot support either themselves or give to others who are needy. This is not government’s fault. It is their doing, is it not? (see Occupy Wall Street protestors). You reap what you sow and what you don’t sow.
You cannot give what you do not have. Making others give what they have does not fulfill the requirement of you giving to others even if you call it you call it a fancy name – wealth redistribution (“social gospel” for the lazy)
Truth will come to you during your life. Act on it while you can.
Self-pity is a drag on your soul. Unload it at the next trash bin.
Holding a grudge against someone will destroy the person holding the grudge. Destroy it before it destroys you – forgive.
We are forgiven as we forgive others (Jesus).
“There is a path which seems right to a man but the end thereof is the way of death.” (The Book of Proverbs)
“The fool says to himself “There is no God.”” (The book of Psalms)
“The fear of the Lord leads to life.” (The Book of Proverbs)
“He who finds a wife finds what is good and receives favor from the Lord.” (The Book of Proverbs)
“So God created man in His own image…male and female He created them…God saw all that He made and it was very good.” (Genesis chapter 1)
(Note that homosexuality came after the fall of man and is a perversion of the good that had been made. You should know that those who claim to be “Gay and Proud” will not enter the Kingdom of Heaven, they will not return to the garden.)
Life is short, especially for the aborted.
Women’s rights do not include destruction of a fetus – a child. Murderers, also, do not enter the Kingdom of Heaven. (If you have had an abortion, repent and turn to seek God’s mercy.)
Women’s rights already include free contraception: It is a woman’s right and freedom to keep her legs together and to say “No” to sex at any time and at any place. Do be fooled by the Democrats desire to supply you with so-called “free” contraception. And, the Democrats are more concerned with population control and controlling who is born (quality of life) and how many people are born (they don’t want the planet overrun with people who will use up its natural resources.)
In a God-breathed marriage women desire love, men desire respect.
We will all give an account of our lives before our Creator. There is a heaven and there is a hell. Heaven is to be within the dancing embrace of the Trinity throughout eternity. Hell is to be alone forever, constantly thirsty for the living water, constantly in agony as you remember your life.
Like it or not you have free will. Blaming God for your life only makes you a bad rendition of a human. Rejecting your personal responsibility shows your self-indulgent pride. Sadly, there are many who wash their hands absolving themselves of responsibility. They deflect accountability by asking “What is truth?”
“Before his downfall a man’s heart is proud, but humility comes before honor.” (The Book of Proverbs)
The Bible contains the words of God and the factual history of Jesus:
“But theseare written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.” (The Gospel of John)
The Big Bang or the time of the Great Annihilation, when Matter and Antimatter clashed and cosmic sparks went flying, the progeny of majorons provided the universe with an asymmetric mix of neutrinos and anti-neutrinos, more quarks than anti-quarks. And, that’s what Mattered the most.
It was in That Beginning that Time and his twin-brother Space were born. Since that day, they sprawl the universe with their feet up and their hands behind their head. Under a contractual agreement, though, they will have to return – from whence they came.
Time, the patient caregiver, the healer of all wounds, or, as has been seen, the brutal tormentor of the long-sufferer, always takes his time. He’s been known to say, “A day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day.”
Space, a distance runner, hopes to place in the next inter-galactic marathon.
Space and Time or Space-Time as they are often called spend most of their time-space wrestling in gelatin with friends and neighbors. They tell me that this adds dimension to their lives. They listen to string-theory music while wrestling.
Miss Universe, a stellar beauty, is curvy. The brothers also spend their time following her around.
Speed-of-Light, the brothers’ close friend, always beats them to the remote whenever something special is broadcast.
My family, the Atoms family, spends its time playing king-of-the-hill and marbles. We do like knock-knock jokes. Little Hydrogen gets pushed around a lot, though.
The Nebulae Family members, known for their starry eyes, are nomadic. They spend their time gazing at Space-Time from a point of departure somewhere in the galaxy.
The favorite saying of the Planet households is “What goes around comes around.” Their favorite hangout is the Milky Way. They own several tanning salons.
I guess that if Time were to be no more and if Space was pigeonholed and if Speed-of-light was somehow surpassed and if Family Nebulae no longer roamed and if the Planet households split up then, God knows, you and I are no longer relative.
“Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation?
Tell me, if you understand.
Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know!
Who stretched a measuring line across it?
On what were its footings set,
or who laid its cornerstone—
while the morning stars sang together
and all the angels shouted for joy? Job 38:4-7
*****
“We don’t allow faster-than-light neutrinos in here,” says the bartender.
Tremor was always, before ex Nihilo showed up out of nowhere.
Tremor was there when man finally noticed Big Bang and all of
the little Bangs including mathematics, quantum mechanics, knot theory, string theory, radio pulsars, genetics, music, phi, art and poetry.
Tremor was in the apple bite’s rude awakening.
Tremor showed red when murderous Cain fled.
Tremor, as Plumber, called Noah and told him to ship out. Later, when things were settled, Tremor threw a palette of watercolors at the sky indicating a watershed moment.
Tremor used a slingshot against incredible bull’s-eyes.
Tremor gave the startled stars something to blink about.
Tremor was magnified in the womb of Mary, there was room for Him there.
Tremor sat in the temple teaching Rabbis everything a Father has said before.
Tremor whipped up a tempest, the Sea of Galilee provided support.
Tremor caused a stir at the local water fountain by saying, “I am He who is to come.”
Tremor gave the blind a new outlook and the lame a leg to stand on.
Tremor received a farewell gift of pure nard and a woman’s tears.
Tremor stood at the death’s door and said “Lazarus, come out.”
Tremor did an exposé on white-washed tombs.
Tremor broke the loaves, divided the fishes, according to old math.
Tremor broke the bread, drank the cup of sorrows and poured itself out.
Tremor was nailed down, pierced, forsaken and crushed. Violent insurrectionists like me were set free.
Tremor tore a curtain from top to bottom under orders from the Weaver.
Tremor woke up those staying in catacombs.
Tremor angels shook the rug under a rocky patch of earth, happy to find nothing there.
Seismic joy and fear were recorded that day.
Tremor decided to walk through walls and then tell everyone not to be afraid.
Tremor walked out to sea and back again for a fresh fish lunch with his friends.
Tremor had to move on but did send Another Tremor for everyone who loved Tremor.
Tremor will one day separate the wheat from the chaff and the sheep from the goats. Tremor will make the lion and the lamb see eye to eye. Hold on, Tremor is beginning again.
“We have entered, as I see it, a spiritual limbo. Our educational institutions are no longer the bearers of high culture, and public life has been deliberately moronised. But here and there, sheltered from the noise and glare of the media, the old spiritual forces are at work” Roger Scruton
*****
“When a common culture declines, the ethical life can be sustained and renewed only by a work of the imagination.”-Roger Scruton
*****
“Jesus prayed, “This is eternal life, that they may know You . . .” (John 17:3). The real meaning of eternal life is a life that can face anything it has to face without wavering. If we will take this view, life will become one great romance— a glorious opportunity of seeing wonderful things all the time. God is disciplining us to get us into this central place of power.” Oswald Chambers
*****
“No power on earth or in hell can conquer the Spirit of God in a human spirit, it is an inner unconquerableness.” Oswald Chambers
*****
To those who have had no agony Jesus says, “I have nothing for you; stand on your own feet, square your own shoulders. I have come for the man who knows he has a bigger handful than he can cope with, who knows there are forces he cannot touch; I will do everything for him if he will let Me. Only let a man grant he needs it, and I will do it for him.” The Shadow of an Agony,Oswald Chambers
*****
“If we wish to erect new structures, we must have a definite knowledge of the old foundations.” John Calvin Coolidge
*****
Atheism is a post-Christian phenomenon.
*****
If social justice looks like your hand in someone else’s pocket then you are stealing.
*****
“In Sweden, giving to charity, absurdly, came to be considered a lack of solidarity, since it undermined the need for the welfare state.” – Roland Martinsson
*****
“…to love democracy well, it is necessary to love it moderately.” Alexis de Tocqueville
*****
Capitalism seeks to help others through a servce or product it provides. Free Market Capitalism is the most moral and fair economic system available to man. Capitalism augments personal growth, responsibility and ownership. Charity flourishes under capitalism. Charity dies under subjective “fair share” government confiscatory policies. Socialism redistributes ambivalence and greed.
*****
“We are to regard existence as a raid or great adventure; it is to be judged, therefore, not by what calamities it encounters, but by what flag it follows and what high town it assaults. The most dangerous thing in the world is to be alive; one is always in danger of one’s life. But anyone who shrinks from that is a traitor to the great scheme and experiment of being.” G.K. Chesterton
*****
Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent.
It takes a touch of genius – and a lot of courage – to move in the opposite direction. Albert Einstein
*****
“You shall know the truth and the truth shall make you odd.” Flannery O’Connor
*****
“There is but one good; that is God. Everything else is good when it looks to Him and bad when it turns from Him.” C.S. Lewis, The Great Divorce
*****
“Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him” (Job 13:15).
*****
God’s grace is not about the allowance for sin. God’s grace is about the conversation God allows regarding sin.
*****
From the book of Proverbs: We are not to favor the rich or the poor. We are to pursue justice.
*****
“Always keep in contact with those books and those people that enlarge your horizon and make it possible for you to stretch yourself mentally.” Oswald Chambers
*****
One goldfish says to another, “If there is no God who keeps changing the water?”
*****
“The truth is always there in the morning.”
From Cat On A Hot Tin Roof script – playwright Tennessee Williams
*****
God blesses those who hunger and thirst for justice, for they will be satisfied.
*****
“America’s greatness has been the greatness of a free people who shared certain moral commitments. Freedom without moral commitment is aimless and promptly self-destructive.” John W. Gardner
**
“Men of integrity, by their very existence, rekindle the belief that as a people we can live above the level of moral squalor. We need that belief; a cynical community is a corrupt community.” John W. Gardner
*****
“In the world it is called Tolerance, but in hell it is called Despair, the sin that believes in nothing, cares for nothing, seeks to know nothing, interferes with nothing, enjoys nothing, hates nothing, finds purpose in nothing, lives for nothing, and remains alive because there is nothing for which it will die.” Dorothy L. Sayers
*****
“Art, like morality, consists of drawing the line somewhere.”
G. K. Chesterton
*****
“The battle line between good and evil runs through the heart of every man.” Alexander Solzhenitsyn
*****
This is what the LORD says:
“Stand at the crossroads and look;
ask for the ancient paths,
ask where the good way is, and walk in it,
and you will find rest for your souls.
But you said, ‘We will not walk in it.’
-The prophet Jeremiah, 6:16
*****
“…our common task is not so much discovering a truth hiding among contrary viewpoints as it is coming to possess a selfhood that no longer evades and eludes the truth with which it is importunately confronted.” James McClendon, Ethics: Systematic Theology, Vol. 1
*****
Cindy Wity 
Sea Change
March 8, 2025 Leave a comment
Primordial disorder is the image presented at the opening of the creation account in Genesis. The earth, formless and empty (tohu wabohu), was completely covered by a deep (tehom) sea.
When God began to create the heavens and the earth, the earth was complete chaos, and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters. – Genesis 1: 1-2
Earth’s oceanic outer layer undergoes a sea change when the Spirit of God’s hovers.
Psalm 104: 5-9 describes, in poetic form, the ordering of the watery chaos:
He set the earth on its foundations;
it can never be moved.
You covered it with the watery depths as with a garment;
the waters stood above the mountains.
But at your rebuke the waters fled,
at the sound of your thunder they took to flight;
they flowed over the mountains,
they went down into the valleys,
to the place you assigned for them.
You set a boundary they cannot cross;
never again will they cover the earth.
Reading on in Psalm 104 (v. 10-13) we find function. Channeled water provides the basic necessity for life on earth. Food growth follows.
Chaos Creatures Serve a Function
Once the chaotic waters of the primordial sea had been assigned functions, God, on the fifth day, created sea monsters, figures of menacing chaos (Gen. 1:21). Why bring order and then allow chaos creatures to exist? By God’s wisdom, we live in a world that has order, non-order, and disorder (See video below).
Mythical creatures from pagan myths, function in scripture as symbols of primordial chaos and opposition to God: sea-monsters, serpents, beasts, and dragons. Revelation presents them as fighting against God’s faithful witnesses who are working to restore order and bring God’s kingdom on earth.[i]
Sea Change Number Two
God created (gave functions to) the material cosmos over six days. Genesis 1 is a day-by-day account of establishing order from primordial disorder, establishing anthropic conditions and temple building. God pronounced each step in functional readiness “Good.” On the seventh day, he ‘rested’ in his temple to survey what had been done. The temple garden is a metaphor for the world.
Genesis 2. Mankind is placed in the temple garden and given instructions to maintain the good by God. But mankind goes off in a disordering direction. Evil and chaos ensues. God then acts to undo creation with the flood waters of chaos[ii] and to restore his “good” creation. Noah is the new caretaker.
Now the earth was corrupt in God’s sight and was full of violence. God saw how corrupt the earth had become, for all the people on earth had corrupted their ways. So, God said to Noah, “I am going to put an end to all people, for the earth is filled with violence because of them. . .
I am going to bring floodwaters on the earth to destroy all life under the heavens, every creature that has the breath of life in it. Everything on earth will perish. Genesis 6: 11-13, 17
Sea Change Recalled
One day, Jesus’ disciples wanted Jesus to notice the temple buildings. Jesus then foretold the destruction of the temple. The perplexed and anxious disciples asked “Tell us, when will this be, and what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?”
Jesus goes on to speak of the signs of the end of the age. He then speaks about the necessity of watchfulness for, he tells them, no one knows the day or hour when end things will come to pass. To underscore this, he references a familiar story that involved a cataclysmic event that caught many unprepared.
For as the days of Noah were, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. For as in the days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day Noah entered the ark, and they knew nothing until the flood came and swept them all away, so, too, will be the coming of the Son of Man. – Matthew 24:36-39
History Lesson About the Moral Universe
The apostle Peter, in his second letter, tells his readers that there are scoffers who are saying that things on this earth have always continued the way they are now. He reminds them that this is not true. The earth was different when it was created and it was different again after the flood. He warns them that no one should scoff that God will make it different once again, judging the godless not with water but with fire. (2 Peter 3)
Jesus’ second coming will be a sea change for all of creation. Chaos will be removed.
It is Time for a Sea Change
Peter warned his readers, with reference to the Great Flood, about what can be expected if they continue as they are. John the Seer, alluding to the Great Flood in Revelation, writes that it is time (in his prophetic timeline) “for destroying those who destroy the earth.” – Revelation 11:18
“The ‘destroyers of the earth’ are the powers of evil: the dragon, the beast, and the harlot of Babylon (who in [Rev.] 19:2 is said to have ‘corrupted – or destroyed – the earth with her fornication’). With their violence, oppression, and idolatrous religion they are ruining God’s creation. His faithfulness to his creation requires that he destroy them in order to preserve and deliver it from evil. . . This he did in the flood, which was a divine judgement aimed at delivering God’s creation from the ruinous violence of its inhabitants.”[iii]
John the Seer wrote Revelation in the context of the tyranny of the Roman Empire, the imperial cult, and a permissive and polytheistic culture. The apostle Paul, in the same setting, writes to a church with a more detailed description of the ruinous inhabitants of the earth and their similar fate:
Do you not know that wrongdoers will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived! The sexually immoral, idolaters, adulterers, male prostitutes, men who engage in illicit sex, thieves, the greedy, drunkards, revilers, swindlers—none of these will inherit the kingdom of God. -1 Corinthians 6:9-10
I imagine that the proud, the perverse, the purposefully vague, the self-serving, and those who want to create a new humanity with demonic forces[iv] – any who plunder the created order for power, wealth and self-righteous ends will be met with divine judgement. Some will receive punishment that matches their sin (Rev. 16:8; 18:6; Rev. 22:18-19).
John the Seer prophesied about an end time involving a series of warning judgements to bring about repentance and the ultimate restoring of creation’s order from mankind’s reversion of it to chaos.
Final Sea Change
Scripture begins by telling an old story and ends by retelling the old story with a new and final outcome. Both narratives involve chaos and creation. The lynchpin of the two theological narratives – Genesis 1-11 and Revelation – and of history itself is the earthly, risen, and returning Jesus.
A final sea change occurs to restore creation. John the Seer writes:
Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. –Rev. 21:1
Creation is not destroyed, just as it wasn’t with the Great Flood. Rather, creation’s corrupting influence is removed. Think in terms of no longer being overcome by evil but the overcoming of evil with good. Think in terms of “if anyone is in the Messiah, there is new creation! Old things have gone, and look – everything has become new!” (2 Cor. 5:17)
“The waters of the primeval abyss, that represent the source of destructive evil, the possibility of the reversion of creation to chaos, are finally no more.”[v]
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Lent is a time for a sea change. It’s a time to remove chaos from your life.
This Lent appears to be the first time that corruption, misuse of funds, money laundering, excess, and disorder in the government are being shown the detox door. Hence, the weeping and gnashing of teeth in the MSM. Hence, destroyers of the earth want the chaos to continue as before.
A leviathan in Washington recently surfaced. What emerged was corrupt and destabilizing influence involving actors in the State Department, the Department of Defense, the “deep state”, the unaccountable administrative state, the unchecked CIA meddling in foreign affairs and a politically motivated FBI meddling in internal affairs, activist DOJ and federal judges, shady non-profits, and the propaganda of the MSM to maintain cover for the chaos.
Maelstroms are sucking us in: a proxy war with Russia, Middle East conflicts, a huge federal deficit, out of control spending by Congress, the Green New Deal wealth redistribution scam, and what to do with the over 12 million illegal economic migrants bringing with them neediness, disease and crime.
In the first 50 days of the Trump administration, ICE reported arresting over 14,000 convicted criminals, 9,800 migrants with pending criminal charges, 1,155 suspected gang members, and 44 foreign fugitives.
An additional 8,718 arrests were categorized as “immigration violators.”
ICE has arrested 32,000 violent criminals in Trump’s first 50 days.
And there’s a new beast on the horizon – AI.
AI is being touted as a new pathway to greater productivity (Why do we need that? For greater profits? To be unburdened by what has been?). It is said that disruptive AI will transform the workplace, replace jobs, shake up economies and reshape global alliances. Our world, with Promethean AI, will look different by 2030. AI will look at us differently, too.
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Dr. John Walton, Job, Lecture 25, The world in the Book of Job: Order, non-order and disorder
[i] The creation of the “sporty” Leviathan (Ps. 104:26), a creature that cannot be tamed, shows us God’s mastery over powerful creatures. Leviathan was used metaphorically to instruct Job (Job 41). Job (a behemoth-like creature) cannot tame God to his ideas of how the world works.
[ii] Consider that several ancient Near East accounts of a devastating flood were understood as a god using force to restore order in the world. See Genesis 6-9 for the theological interpretation of the mythic flood.
The writer of the Genesis Flood account, using hyperbole, wanted to impress upon the reader the theological implications of a universal “cataclysmic event” that occurred to restore creation. There was no global deluge, as science has determined and Ps 104: 9 indirectly states. No matter. The author wanted the reader to understand the theological significance of God’s act.
See also Genesis and the Flood: Understanding the Biblical Story – Article – BioLogos;
The Lost World of the Flood: Mythology, Theology, and the Deluge Debate
The Flood – Undeceptions
[iii] Bauckham, Richard. (1993/2018). The Theology of the Book of Revelation. Cambridge University Press, 1993. https://doi.org/10.1017/cbo9780511819858. PP 52
[iv] Yuval Harari, historian and futurist, gay Israeli and WEF advisor comes to mind and so does the N.I.C.E., The National Institute of Coordinated Experiments in That Hideous Strength by C.S. Lewis
[v] Ibid 53
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Protect our food supply from the Cure worse Than the Problem
Action Over Talk: Join the Nationwide Protest Against Food Supply mRNA!
This Friday, Americans across the country are coming together to take a stand. Concern is growing as Secretary Rollins moves closer to approving mRNA vaccines for the beef, dairy, and poultry industry to combat diseases like Avian Flu. Many are voicing their opposition, demanding that these vaccines not be used in our food supply.
Make Your Voice Heard! Flood Secretary Rollins’ email with your concerns:
AgSec@usda.gov
Contact Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins of whitehouse
Here is a structured email template for Secretary @BrookeLRollins:
Subject: Immediate Halt to Meat Supply Vaccination
Dear Secretary Rollins,
As Americans who supported the election of Donald J. Trump, we are deeply concerned about your plan to introduce vaccines into our nation’s meat supply, including pork, cattle, poultry, and even seafood.
We do not merely request a pause—we demand a complete and permanent stop to this effort. The American people will not accept government-mandated intervention in our food supply, especially without full transparency and consent.
If the USDA continues to push forward with testing and implementation of the H5N1 vaccine, we are prepared to take action. Our voices will not be ignored, and we will make it clear to President Trump that millions of Americans oppose this overreach.
We stand firm in our right to protect our food, our health, and our families. This is non-negotiable.
Sincerely,
[Your Name]
[Your State]
With the news that mRNA vaccinated beef, dairy, eggs, and poultry are already in the food supply, some are demanding to know where our Secretary of Health is. You’ll be pleased to know he’s practicing self-care with long walks in the mountains, while currently reposting advice from the CDC.
https://x.com/SecKennedy
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Filed under apocalypse, Christianity, creation, creation care, Culture, Political Commentary, Revelation, Revelation Tagged with apocalypse, atheism, Bible, chaos, Christianity, creation, culture, faith, God, Jesus, Kingdom of God, prophecy, Revelation, The Great Flood