(Press-Register/Ben Raines) A speckled crab is almost completely encased in a thick layer of oil just offshore from the Bon Secour National Wildlife Refuge. Bits of trash, such as this American flag, are similarly encrusted with the thick, goopy oil found hugging the seafloor in several locations along the Gulf beach.
Any Minute is an inspirational novel written by Joyce Meyer and Deborah Bedford, published June 2009. It cannot be called a Christian novel. The premise is that the protagonist, Sarah Harper, is a barracuda on the Chicago Commodities Exchange floor and a whiz in forecasting futures for her financial firm. She drives a Lincoln, multi-tasks, pulls the long hours, and expects the little people to get out of her way.
Sarah’s husband, Joe, and her 8-year-old son Mitchell and baby Kate are increasingly making do without their mother at home, and when she is, she is cell phoning, computering, and texting, sometimes all at once. Sarah is important.
As the story unfolds, Joe is increasingly unhappy and actually, so is Sarah, but neither know what to do about the widening gulf between them, except retreat further into their respective positions after several clumsy attempts to find a middle ground. Mitchell is so unhappy that he sees an angel behind the scoreboard at Wrigley Field and spots him again as a homeless man on the street as his mother drags him along to the office for a day of “fun” and “bonding”. Cue the harps.
At the office, Sarah spies on her nanny through one of the gazillion placards pasted on every baby item they own, and Joe drops a wrench at his garage. He outfits Miatas for racing. Creepily, this nanny webcam is also open to any other person on the web and they may also not only spy on the child but post reports about what they see. Pedophiles are popping popcorn as I write.
After one particularly heated fight in which the “D” word was almost uttered and a sleepless night for all ensued, the next morning Sarah races off to work angry and driving like a maniac. Driving like maniac is what she always does, and as the story told us (not showed us, an amateur mistake in writer’s craft) she is called Mario Andretti at the office because of her penchant for ramming any vehicle that attempts to obtain her coveted parking space next to the elevator. You would think a senior analyst for a major brokerage firm would have an assigned space, but there you go. I am obviously numerically illiterate as well as corporately naive. But today Sarah is particularly maniacal, intent on proving her worth to all by analyzing numbers like no one ever has before, even if it means getting to the office first and jumping that river bridge that ominously has bells ringing on it and is on its way up. Thinking she can make it, Sarah drives past the lowering guard rails and accelerates, only noticing belatedly that she is driving uphill, which usually means in stories like these, that the bridge is being raised.
Aw, man, she almost made it!
But alas, gravity won the day and Sarah and her Lincoln plunged into the river and without so much as a glub glub, she and her status symbol sink like a stone.
The next scenes show Joe grief stricken and guilty that he hurled all those three or four angry words at her when he put up his hand and said “Excuse me. Your husband needs your attention.” Vicious man, he is. Now he will never have a chance to make it up. Meanwhile, Sarah’s last conscious thought as the cold and murky waters closed over her was “I’m in trouble.” Yes, you drove off a bridge. Trouble is the least of your troubles. Sarah awoke under a homemade quilt in her dead grandmother’s house in a place that glowed honey gold. Or maybe it was apple jelly gold. Or maybe it was sunshine gold. Anyway, it was gold. Also, it was peaceful. Sarah basked in the peacefulness where it felt like nothing was ever wrong. So immediately dispensing with eternal bliss, Sarah grabbed her cell phone so she could call her boss and tell him to tell the client that she would be late for the Eggs Benedict breakfast meeting. The cell phone said “Searching for signal.” I am not making this up. The angel of the Cubs Scorebard comes in and gently chides Sarah for thinking she could afford the roaming charges from this location. Just kidding. He came in and says “You really think that phone’s going to do you good in this place?”
Her grandmother and the Cubs Angel take Sarah on a tour of her life, her mother’s life, and her future life. As Sarah is shown her daughter Kate all grown up in college, studying hard and resisting the dastardly temptation to go bowling, Kate sighs and tells her roommate that she really wished she had a mom to talk to at times like this. Sarah, viewing the scene from above moans and wishes she hadn’t died. Here comes the emotional gut twister. Get ready. Here it is. It was a moment from the future with Sarah alive. Incredibly, Sarah would have continued to alienate her daughter and her relationship with her would have been in ruins even if she had not died. Man, I hadn’t seen that coming.
Back at the office, her co-workers flip a coin for her parking spot, and her boss gives her job to his son. Sarah, crestfallen, learns that life in the cutthroat commodities trading fast lane is, well, cutthroat. And that people don’t matter. Only money matters. The only person who says anything nice about her is her intern. He still wants a job at the firm.
She is given a chance to live again, and she undergoes a remarkable transformation after waking up in the hospital. She buys a cappuccino for the lady in front of her in line. She says hello to a homeless person. She only spies on her nanny three times in a day instead of 300. She says thank you to her intern. And, cue the music, Sarah decides to be real and genuine with everyone, especially her husband.
Review: you might have been able to tell that I am no fan of this book. I consider it subversive in doctrine and accommodating to feminism. As far as doctrine goes, the bible is clear, no person is allowed to talk to the dead. (Deut. 18:9-11) Having Sarah’s grandmother as a character that interacts with the living is an egregious doctrinal error and one that I found hard to get over.
As far as subtle doctrinal issues go, there was no mention of the sins of anger, greed, selfishness. There was no emphasis on the roles of each gender in the family, nor the importance of time spent with them instead of money being made for them. This is not surprising, Meyer’s last annual take was 95 million and she owns 5 homes and a $100,000 Mercedes-Benz. There was no mention of repentance. There was no mention of what kind of person Sarah had become and her new clarity that that was not God’s intent for women, mothers, or daughters. The most we got was a promise from Sarah to “be genuine” and a hurry up and get back to work-ethic.
Most important, one would expect that Sarah’s lifestyle of consumerism-accumulation on the back of betting on commodities prices was not the best as a mother. Rather than decide to raise her children herself, she simply decided to treat the nanny better. A request from her boss to stay at the office after 5pm was met with a threat to leave and start her own business, which anyone who has their own business knows, means more hours than she was even working at the outset of the book. Her boss looked at her with respect after making the threat, rather than pity her that she is missing yet another Cubs game with her son.
In one place in the book, Sarah’s grandmother tells her that “God wants you to be happy with yourself.” This notion is typical of the prosperity Gospel crowd where “it’s all about you.” God did not come to earth to make you feel better. He came to save you from your sins which any mention of was conspicuously absent from the book. Most people in the bible who were shown the unutterable glory of heaven fell on their face crying out to God their unworthiness, not reaching for their cell phone muttering they “probably didn’t belong here.” There was no sense of honoring God, no awe, no worship. No gratitude. Worse, the only appearance of God was this stomach-crunchingly embarrassing conversation God had with the assigned angel:
“Mitchell Harper needs you,” said the Creator of the Universe. “Are you willing to help the boy?”
Yes,” Wingtip said. “You know how I feel about that kid. I’ll do anything.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes, Lord.”
“Even if you have to leave your post at a crucial moment in the game?”
WHAT?! Yes, it would be a tragedy of incredible proportions of the Cubs’ Angel failed to be on hand for the score. Sigh. How demeaning of angels and of God.
At one point early on, Sarah mused that their chosen lifestyle was untenable and as a matter of fact, the more money they made it cost them more to keep it up. Car for status, and gas to propel it during the commute. Clothes befitting her station for meeting with clients. Nanny, babysitter. Large house, private school. I was expecting a transformation to include simplifying and streamlining these things with something that is seen all too little of these days: sacrifice. But there was not any sacrifice, not one iota. Except for her parking space.
Essentially, Sarah returned to her former life with a barely transformed personality. Certainly the event had not made a spiritual dent in herself or her relationship with Jesus. Compare that to the transformations of the woman at the well, Zaccheus, the Centurion, John the Baptist, Isaiah, John the Revelator or any other interaction in the bible between a sinner and either an angel or the Lord, and you see the sad circumstances Christian fiction has fallen to these days. The message of this book is ‘be genuine’. ‘Feel good about yourself’. And for heaven’s sake, let the Cubs win.
Maj. Gen. Paul Vallely among others have pointed to this summer as a tipping point in Middle East politics. He and others warn that the tensions are so great that it is likely, more than possible, and even probable that this summer will erupt into a hot war between Israel and other ME players. His statements came before the Gaza Flotilla occurred and enraged the world, isolating Israel and causing international meetings at highest levels, raising the tensions to the stratosphere. It was in this atmosphere that The Times of London reported with specificity that Saudi Arabia offered Israel air space to fly over if or when Israel chooses to strike Iran. Despite a hatred of Israel, Saudi Arabia fears a nuclear Iran even more. The June 12 story is here:
Saudi Arabia gives Israel clear skies to attack Iranian nuclear sites
Saudi Arabia has conducted tests to stand down its air defences to enable Israeli jets to make a bombing raid on Iran’s nuclear facilities, The Times can reveal. [D]efence sources in the Gulf say that Riyadh has agreed to allow Israel to use a narrow corridor of its airspace in the north of the country to shorten the distance for a bombing run on Iran. To ensure the Israeli bombers pass unmolested, Riyadh has carried out tests to make certain its own jets are not scrambled and missile defence systems not activated. Once the Israelis are through, the kingdom’s air defences will return to full alert.
However, today comes the story that Saudi Arabia made no such offer and in fact refuses to allow Israel to fly over.
Saudi Arabia: We will not give Israel air corridor for Iran strike
Prince Mohammed bin Nawaf refutes Times of London report saying Saudi Arabia practiced standing down its anti-aircraft systems to allow an Israeli bomb run. Saudi Arabia would not allow Israeli bombers to pass through its airspace en route to a possible strike of Iran’s nuclear facilities, a member of the Saudi royal family said Saturday, denying an earlier Times of London report.
In addition, the second article says that “Passing over Iraq would require at least tacit consent to the raid from the United States, whose troops are occupying the country. So far, the Obama Administration has refused this.”
The prophesies are that there will be wars in the end times (Mathew 24) and that Damascus will be destroyed into a heap of ruins (Isaiah 17:1), that Gog-Magog coalition will attack Israel. (Ezekiel 38-39). The wars will occur, at what time we do not know and in what order is not certain. However, they will occur. That Jerusalem is a cup of trembling around which all the world reels is happening just as Zechariah 12:2 predicted, and the drumbeats of diplomacy, crossing and double-crossing rumors and facts is rampant and only add to general confusion across the globe that the Tribulation will multiply.
There’s no such thing as an ex-Christian. Look at 1 John-
“They went out from us, but they did not really belong to us. For if they had belonged to us, they would have remained with us; but their going showed that none of them belonged to us.” (1 John 2:19)
John is saying here that people who ‘backslide’ and then fall away from the faith entirely, a symptom of the end times by the way, never really were saved to begin with. “They profess to know God, but by their deeds they deny Him,” (Titus 1:15).
For many professing “ex-Christians”, it starts with apostasy, something Paul said there would be plenty of in the last days.
Now the Spirit expressly says that in latter times some will depart from the faith, giving heed to deceiving spirits and doctrines of demons, speaking lies in hypocrisy, having their own conscience seared with a hot iron, forbidding to marry, and commanding to abstain from foods which God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth. (1 Tim 4:1-3)
And before the person started falling away, in came sneaky heresies they began listening to:
But there were also false prophets among the people, even as there will be false teachers among you, who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the Lord who bought them, and bring on themselves swift destruction. (2 Peter 2:1)
For certain men have crept in unnoticed, who long ago were marked out for this condemnation, ungodly men, who turn the grace of our God into lewdness and deny the only Lord God and our Lord Jesus Christ. (Jude 1:4)
So the progression is: profess Christ by mouth… but since there was no visible fruit to show the state of grace they were claiming on the inside, they were never really saved; fail to walk closely with Jesus by procrastinating in discipleship, bible study, prayer, and/or worship, furthering the distance between themselves and Jesus; listen to or promote destructive heresies that either they knowingly or unknowingly begin to believe, start doubting Christ’s sufficiency; doubt more, and then slide to full blown renunciation and end up in a state of atheism. Peter says “For if, after they have escaped the defilements of the world by the knowledge of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again entangled in them and are overcome, the last state has become worse for them than the first.” (2 Peter 2:20)
Notice the words that both Jude and Peter use to describe the heresies what will infiltrate the church in the last days; “secretly” and “crept in”. The heresies don’t come into the church by way of aggressive men bellowing a ‘new doctrine’ to the delight of followers who joyfully jump their pews and run out the door to his new church. They come sneakily, secretly, subtly. And no wonder, “Now the serpent was more subtil than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made…” (Genesis 3:1) so satan isn’t going to capture hearts with bellicose attitudes or flagrantly detectable bad doctrine. Many of the preachers and teachers will not even openly pronounce their heresies, they will be secret within their heart and only after a while, introduced slyly. Jude’s words “crept in” also indicate something that also isn’t readily detectable and is subtle at the start.
These teachers will have a big, white smile, open their lecture with a warm joke, and tell you that Jesus was a good, moral teacher and that you deserve the best life now. They will never tell you that your best life is later and that Jesus didn’t come to be a moral leader but to seek and save the lost- And that you are lost. Others will tell you that we are all one universal consciousness, we are our own gods, and then, they will give you a car. They will tell you that if you believe in Jesus, He will make your life better, while you are seeking Him from comfy ampitheatre watching a techno-sermon with a cappuccino in your hand. Seeker-sensitive churches are false on its premise because in Romans we learn that no one seeks God.
The end result of a Christian in name only – that is, one who claimed Jesus but never really believed – and is one who is at risk of being tempted by destructive heresies, and ultimately of apostasy. What comes next is atheism.
Atheism is a natural cul-de-sac in the road away from the cross. Gotquestions.org writes:
“At the same time, it takes just as much faith to believe in atheism. To make the absolute statement “God does not exist” is to make a claim of knowing absolutely everything there is to know about everything and of having been everywhere in the universe and having witnessed everything there is to be seen. [I]t cannot be proven that God does not exist. It takes just as much faith to be an atheist as it does to be a theist.”
Which, I suspect, could be one of the reasons Peter said it makes a person worse off from what they were before. Whereas a person before was a perhaps being drawn by the Spirit, after apostasy settles in and atheism rears its head, a person is well and truly now in the dangerous pits of despair, misplacing their burgeoning faith in Something for a faith in Nothing that will last forever.
An interesting article appeared in Maine Family Policy Council’s online publication, The Record:
“While there may be a diversity of opinion about the nature of God, no one in state government has stepped forward to doubt His existence. Atheism remains a strong taboo in political circles, in part because of the widely-held belief that faith in God is the mainstay of civil society. Eight state constitutions explicitly forbid atheists from holding public office. Tennessee’s state constitution gives the clearest statement in this regard:”
“No person who denies the being of God, or a future state of rewards and punishments, shall hold any office in the civil department of this state.”
“The controversial belief that atheists are untrustworthy has ancient roots. Plato wrote that disbelief arises from either sensuality, or from a conceited belief in one’s own wisdom. He warned that those who do evil deeds think one of three things: First, that god does not exist; second, that if god does exist, He does not care what people do; and third, that god can be otherwise appeased by good deeds.”
“The opinion of John Locke was also severe with regard to non-believers in public office. Locke wrote that atheism undermines the foundations of civil society. “They are not at all to be tolerated who deny the being of a God. Promises, covenants, and oaths, which are the bonds of human society, can have no hold upon an atheist. The taking away of God, though but even in thought, dissolves all.” “
“For centuries, Christian doctrine held that not only atheists, but irreligious people in general, could not be morally good. To quote one expert in Christian ethics: “Therefore, the irreligious man is not a morally good man since he neglects to perform his essential duties to God. Besides, a man who shuns his duties to God will be prone likewise to shun his duties to his fellow man.” “
It all starts with destructive heresies, ungodly men creeping in unnoticed. And why aren’t they noticed? Because Christians today all too often fail to be familiar with the real thing, foregoing bible study, quiet time, prayers, and worship, so that when the counterfeit shows up, being only subtly different from the Truth, it goes unnoticed. What today’s Christian needs is larger doses of the above, not smaller. As times get tougher and stress makes a person weary, as work loads increase and family strife abounds, people fall away from the paving stones of a faith that lead toward the cross. This process separates the Christians In Name Only from the true believers. Are you worried about your salvation? Are you unsure? Has there been no visible fruit in your life for a while? You are at risk. Repent. Take it to the cross, and make sure you are saved. Apostasy is a ‘subtil’ thing, as subtle as satan. Has he crept into your heart?
It is clear from my last post, that the scale of the disasters about to be unleashed upon us are outside the human capacity to comprehend them. As stated in the previous entry, “Current engineering technology cannot contain gas that is pressurized to 100,000 psi” just so the human heart and mind cannot contain the images of the coming destruction wrought from a Holy God.
Images of things that could happen:
“gas gusher will surge upwards through miles of ancient sedimentary rock—layer after layer—past the oil reservoir. It will explode upwards propelled by 50 tons psi, burst through the cracks and fissures of the compromised sea floor, and rupture miles of ocean bottom with one titanic explosion. The burgeoning toxic gas cloud will surface, killing everything it touches, and set off a supersonic tsunami with the wave traveling somewhere between 400 to 600 miles per hour.”
Images that WILL happen like this:
“In my zeal and fiery wrath I declare that at that time there shall be a great earthquake in the land of Israel. The fish of the sea, the birds of the air, the beasts of the field, every creature that moves along the ground, and all the people on the face of the earth will tremble at my presence. The mountains will be overturned, the cliffs will crumble and every wall will fall to the ground. I will summon a sword against Gog on all my mountains, declares the Sovereign LORD. Every man’s sword will be against his brother. I will execute judgment upon him with plague and bloodshed; I will pour down torrents of rain, hailstones and burning sulfur on him and on his troops and on the many nations with him. And so I will show my greatness and my holiness, and I will make myself known in the sight of many nations. Then they will know that I am the LORD.’ ” (Ezekiel 38:19-23)
and like this:
“Then the seventh angel poured out his bowl into the air, and a loud voice came out of the temple of heaven, from the throne, saying, ‘It is done’, And there were noises and thunderings and lightnings; and there was a great earthquake, such a mighty and great earthquake as had not occurred since men were on the earth. Now the great city was divided into three parts, and the cities of the nations fell. And great Babylon was remembered before God, to give her the cup of the wine of the fierceness of His wrath. Then every island fled away, and the mountains were not found. And great hail from heaven fell upon men, each hailstone about the weight of a talent. (75 pounds) Men blasphemed God because of the plague of the hail, since that plague was exceedingly great.” (Rev. 16:17-21)
But before you tune out, saying “I can’t handle this anymore,” I offer two thoughts. First, is that we are Sinners in the time of an Angry God. That God is making Himself visible and present on the world is becoming obvious to most. That the scale of current disasters are reaching beyond our ability to respond to them is also obvious. That the potential for imminent destructive problems that also stretch beyond our ability to solve them, or even react, is obvious. We are in the Time when He is beginning to “show the holiness of my great name, which has been profaned among the nations, the name you have profaned among them. Then the nations will know that I am the LORD, declares the Sovereign LORD, when I show myself holy through you before their eyes.” (Ezekiel 36 23)
He will show Himself holy before the people in the Gog Magog war and He is that process is now visible. Of course it is difficult to comprehend the times. In our flesh, even saved and sanctified, we can’t comprehend a Holy God. Isaiah 6:5 in the Throne room, “And the foundations of the thresholds trembled at the voice of him who called out, while the temple was filling with smoke.Then I said “Woe is me, for I am ruined Because I am a man of unclean lips And I live among a people of unclean lips. For my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts.” He immediately fell down in despair! The word ruined (or ‘undone’ in other translations) means utterly devastated, brought to silence, cut off. One glimpse and he was in the throes of woe! No wonder in our tiny glimpses of His Holiness as He makes Himself visible on earth, we are also undone!
John, when shown the throne room in Revelation 5:1-4, “When I saw in the right hand of him who sat on the throne a scroll with writing on both sides and sealed with seven seals. And I saw a mighty angel proclaiming in a loud voice, “Who is worthy to break the seals and open the scroll?” But no one in heaven or on earth or under the earth could open the scroll or even look inside it. I wept and wept because no one was found who was worthy to open the scroll or look inside.” When John says he wept “much” the Greek word is abundantly and long and earnestly and greatly.
We are watching the rumblings of the Holy God making Himself known and it is a great and humbling and awesome thing. “For [when] the great day of His wrath has come, and who is able to stand?” (Revelation 6:17 italics mine) Be awed. Do not be scared. If you are saved by the blood of Jesus, He sees you equal in His eyes, Co-heir to all creation. He will bring us out and we will be glorified and then we will be able to comprehend His Mightiness as He continues to hold the world’s sinners in His Angry Hands.
But what of the unsaved? Here is the second thought: if a crashing helicopter was about fall on your friend, wouldn’t you scream for him to move him? If a train was about to run into a car, wouldn’t you be honking your horn in a frenzy? The video of the unsuspecting tsunami guy shows the people taking the video screamed their lungs out to alert the man, who was, moments later, swept away by a wave he never saw coming. But they tried. They tried. Are you trying to alert people as to the wave that is coming?
Tell the Gospel for all you’re worth, Christian! Sinners falling into the hands of an angry God is an eternal, everlastingly painful thing. We see what’s coming, TELL OTHERS. And fear not. He is Holy and He is coming!
In news reports today, we are discovering how violent methane is and how VERY much of it there is in the Gulf. And BP knew it.
“It is an overlooked danger in oil spill crisis: The crude gushing from the well contains vast amounts of natural gas that could pose a serious threat to the Gulf of Mexico’s fragile ecosystem. The oil emanating from the seafloor contains about 40 percent methane, compared with about 5 percent found in typical oil deposits, said John Kessler, a Texas A&M University oceanographer who is studying the impact of methane from the spill.” “This is the most vigorous methane eruption in modern human history,” Kessler said.”
Above, Discoverer Enterprise methane flare. photo source/credit
However, while the AP article looks at the devastating environmental aspects of the spill, this scientifically based article reveals the greater danger.
How the Gulf Oil Disaster Could Kill Millions
“Disturbing evidence is mounting that something frightening is happening deep under the waters of the Gulf of Mexico—something far worse than the BP oil gusher. Warnings were raised as long as a year before the Deepwater Horizon disaster that the area of seabed chosen by the BP geologists might be unstable, or worse, inherently dangerous. What makes the location that Transocean chose potentially far riskier than other potential oil deposits located at other regions of the Gulf? It can be summed up with two words: methane gas. Location of Deepwater Horizon oil rig was criticized more than 12 months ago some geologists rang the warning bell that the Deepwater Horizon exploratory rig might have been erected directly over a huge underground reservoir of methane. Documents from several years ago indicate that the subterranean geologic formation may contain the presence of a huge methane deposit. None other than the engineer who helped lead the team to snuff the Gulf oil fires set by Saddam Hussein to slow the advance of American troops has stated that a huge underground lake of methane gas—compressed by a pressure of 100,000 pounds per square inch (psi)—could be released by BP’s drilling effort to obtain the oil deposit. Current engineering technology cannot contain gas that is pressurized to 100,000 psi.”
But wait…it gets worse. Much worse.
“The ultimate Gulf disaster, however, would make even those historical horrors pale by comparison. If the huge methane bubble breaches the seabed, it will erupt with an explosive fury similar to that experienced during the eruption of Mt. Saint Helens in the Pacific Northwest. A gas gusher will surge upwards through miles of ancient sedimentary rock—layer after layer—past the oil reservoir. It will explode upwards propelled by 50 tons psi, burst through the cracks and fissures of the compromised sea floor, and rupture miles of ocean bottom with one titanic explosion. The burgeoning toxic gas cloud will surface, killing everything it touches, and set off a supersonic tsunami with the wave traveling somewhere between 400 to 600 miles per hour.”
The result would be that
“While the entire Gulf coastline is vulnerable, the state most exposed to the fury of a supersonic wave towering 100 feet or more is Florida. The Sunshine State only averages about 6 inches above sea level. A supersonic tsunami would literally sweep away everything from Miami to the panhandle in a matter of minutes. Loss of human life would be virtually instantaneous and measured in the millions. Of course the states of Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and southern region of Georgia—a state with no Gulf coastline—would also experience tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of casualties…”
This is what could happen. Not to say that it will happen. However, the geologists who have studied this area warned that the methane deposit under where BP planned to drill was too unstable and contained larger than normal quantities of methane. That is a fact. So it is also a fact that the BP well exploded. It is a fact that the sea floor is cracked and ruptured. It is a fact according to the AP article that methane is leaking at a rate at which the BP containment ships cannot keep up with burning it and the gas is spilling into the gulf, leaving huge dead zones. Pray to God that the methane in the gulf, either in the water or under the unstable sea floor, doesn’t explode, My mind can’t conceive of the devastation ensuing from such a disaster. Is judgment about to be rendered unto this sinful nation?
I’ve been fascinated with the pattern I’ve been seeing all over the globe regarding earth changes under the ground, at the crust. There have been so many mine explosions, cracks in the earth, sinkholes, and pipe breaks that by now, I am fully convinced they are part of the end time scenario. Since April, especially since the BP explosion, there have been sudden cracks in the earth all over the world that are affecting people in myriad ways. There have been deaths from an unusual number of mine explosions, whole houses, schools, neighborhoods swallowed by sinkholes, there have been sudden outbreaks of many sinkholes at once. There have been unexpected pipe breaks that have either spewed oil or water, ruining neighborhoods, the Gulf, and in one of these, a boil-water order had to be issued for millions. In Mexico, an almost mile-long crack appeared in the earth that appeared after a sudden explosion, damaging 100 homes. By now, there are too many incidences to count, but I wrote about most of them in previous entries from May 31 onward, here, here, here, and here. In each entry I wrote about the end time aspects of these amazing events and used the scriptures to illustrate that the pattern is not far-fetched in having a prophetic aspect. Please take a moment to review the previous incidences to form the background of why I think these continuing events are so important.
Today I bring to you three more unusual or tragic earth-cracking events. Another mine exploded, in Columbia, this time. The death toll was high. “Dozens of were trapped and feared dead after a fiery blast tore through a tunnel in a Colombian coal mine during a shift change, killing at least 16 workers. A methane gas buildup is believed to have fed the explosion that occurred in a long access tunnel that drops to a depth of 500 feet.” Methane seems to be the culprit in many of these latest explosive events.
In China, an enormous sinkhole swallowed a playground, rendered a school unstable, and caused the evacuation of an entire neighborhood. Video at link. Photo below:
Also in China, and this is eerie, red mud suddenly started bubbling up from underneath the asphalt in front of a city bus station. More and more bubbled up, and the people started coming out of their homes and businesses to see what was happening. People called it “red dragons” which eerily mirrors language used in Revelation to depict the devil’s tribulation torment of Israel and the earth. Crews arrived to hose the mud away, but the more they hosed, the more came up from underneath. One spectator noticed that the road was heaving, prompting fears that the ground itself was unstable. No one knows why the mud is coming. Here are two photos and a google translated text from the original article:
June 17, 2010 at 3 pm, Chengdu, Chen Jia Street bus station near the road suddenly vision. Speculation surrounding the masses: maybe and related projects in the vicinity.
Scene:Scared people suddenly rush to avoid anomalies
Bump of about 5 meters, 2 meters wide, raised a maximum of 30 cm, was half-oval shape, the central 2 m in length with a small crack, red-brown mud with a bubble flow, slurry spreading on the road, forming a 10-meter-long red “mud dragons.” “The scene with the movie” 2012 “, a little scary!” Beam near the lottery shop staff Sister said, “around 3 pm, the road suddenly emerge in front of the bubble, egg-sized, red-brown and then continue to emerge The mud, less than a few minutes, a large mud on the stream, while also a little bit up the road bumps. “Liang big sister said,” people around quickly to hide away, afraid of even greater crack. ” Mr Hui said that the public, forced foot bump and feet can feel the road under the obvious shock.
“Under the road seems to be empty!” One resident said, “afraid that a sudden collapse of the raised floor down!”
Explanation: Appeared normal construction will not affect people’s life around 4 o’clock in the afternoon, cleaning companies have used water cannons to wash the mud on the road. But here has not been cleaned up, there they emerge new mud. 16:30 or so, gradually slow down the speed of mud emitting only a small amount of leakage from the cracks in. Subsequently, sections were raised warning line and the cone-shaped tube warning “siege.”
As we see the prophetic pieces coming together in the Middle East presaging the Psalm 83 war, and the Battle of Gog-Magog … as we see the upsurge in earthquakes in diverse places … as we take note of the moral conditions Paul said would be in place at the time of the end, and now as we collect evidence that the very earth itself is changing underneath the ground, in advance of the coming destruction of the earth by the God who made it, … it is time to look inside ourselves and take stock of our spiritual condition. There is a heaven and our Lord Jesus wants all to go there. Not all will, because many will reject Him as the only remedy for their sin state. Many people do not even believe they sin at all, that they “are good people” who “are going to heaven” where a “loving God will receive them.” This concept of entry into heaven for all is a lie. God is loving, but more than that, He is HOLY. He cannot receive you if you have sin in you and you will always have sin in you if you have not asked Jesus to forgive it. If you do, He wipes it away and He does not hesitate! I hope you do not hesitate in asking Him!
I had a conversation with someone who said, vehemently I might add, that “The bible is a lie! It is made-up by men from myths!” And then she stated that God is loving. How does she know God is loving if the bible is a lie? And if the “lying bible” teaches that God is loving, isn’t is also a lie that God is loving along with everything else in the book? Where do you learn about God if not from the bible? Answer: nowhere. It is the bible that says that God is loving, and shows His love to us through Jesus and His Mercy and Grace, but if you throw away the bible, how do you know God is love at all? And if you believe God is love and know that comes from the bible, you cannot pick and choose the rest of the verses that show His holiness and wrath in the face of His imminent judgment.
The time is coming very, very soon where Jesus will call His believers up to Him and we will be received by Him in the air, and then travel to heaven. This event is the rapture Paul spoke of in 1 Thessalonians 5:9 and 1st Corinthinans 15:50-54. Be part of this event. If you confess your sins to Jesus and ask Him to be part of your life, handing over your will in exchange for His, you will be saved. Do you really want to be on the earth when it cracks up? You don’t have to be. Jesus is waiting…
On Friday, June 4, I posted a piece titled “Israel poised for prophecy fulfillment“. It involved the prophecy of Gog-Magog in Ezekiel 38-39 where Israel is surprise-attacked by a coalition of nations that include Turkey, Iran, Russia, and others. In Ezekiel 38:13 it is prophesied that neighbor nations stand by and watch the attack coming, crying out,
“Sheba and Dedan and the merchants of Tarshish with all its villages will say to you, ‘Have you come to capture spoil? Have you assembled your company to seize plunder, to carry away silver and gold, to take away cattle and goods, to capture great spoil?'” Ezekiel 38:13
It has been suspected that the ‘great spoil,’ or plunder sought after by the coalition could be oil or natural gas.
Well, Israel has discovered both, and in the natural gas find off the coast of Haifa, a double blessing continues. In 2009 the biggest gas discovery in the world was made by a U.S.-Israel consortium at a site called Tamar. The site is estimated to contain 238 billion cubic meters. Then another field was discovered near the Tamar site. The site is called Leviathan, and it is estimated to be twice the size of Tamar! A news article out today states the obvious, even if one is not familiar with the prophetic implications of a jealous enemy: “Israeli gas boom could ignite trouble.” The article explains that Lebanon is claiming part of the field as within their own territorial waters. The article reveals that the Arabic-language Lebanon newspaper As-Safir ran an article stating: “Israel prepares to steal gas fields in Lebanon’s waters” and reported that if Israel tried to take the gas Lebanon would defend it. The conflict of words between Israel and Lebanon over this field is heating up tremendously even over the last day or so. Lebanon has asked Cyprus to help them determine maritime boundaries.
Here is a good editorial piece from Israel’s Haaretz newspaper that looks at the situation from a geopolitical point of view. It’s called “A geopolitical game-changer” and the piece sets the current situation into context as to the import to Israel and the Middle East as to this discovery, what Israel’s options are, and where could Israel go to create an energy corridor to export this natural resource.
Whether politically or prophetically we see the Gog-Magog battle coming into view. This battle is considered important because it is the gateway to the tribulation. As this battle ensues, Israel is about to lose. In order to protect His Land and His people, God supernaturally wins the battle for Israel and everyone sees it and knows it. This act brings Israel back onto covenant with God and likely it is this very battle that initiates the 7 year peace treaty that begins the Tribulation.
” ‘This is what the Sovereign LORD says: On that day thoughts will come into your mind and you will devise an evil scheme. You will say, “I will invade a land of unwalled villages; I will attack a peaceful and unsuspecting people—all of them living without walls and without gates and bars. (Ezekiel 38:10-11)
The LORD is speaking to Gog, Chief Prince of the nation Russia. The land of unwalled villages is Israel, spoken of in the previous verses, Ez 38: 8b-9:
a land that has recovered from war, whose people were gathered from many nations to the mountains of Israel, which had long been desolate. They had been brought out from the nations, and now all of them live in safety. You and all your troops and the many nations with you will go up, advancing like a storm; you will be like a cloud covering the land.
Of course, Israel is not now living in peace and safety, but the wars that precede the Battle of Gog/Magog are the Isaiah 17:1 propecy of Damascus (Syria) being destroyed into a heap of ruins and the Psalm 83 war in which Israel is completely victorious in defending an attack from her near neighbors. After these two victories, Israel stands down, thinking she has finally fought enough to win the right to relax…and that is when Gog steps in. The coalition takes the tiny nation completely by surprise and she is on the verge of losing when:
Gog attacks the land of Israel, my hot anger will be aroused, declares the Sovereign LORD. In my zeal and fiery wrath I declare that at that time there shall be a great earthquake in the land of Israel. The fish of the sea, the birds of the air, the beasts of the field, every creature that moves along the ground, and all the people on the face of the earth will tremble at my presence. The mountains will be overturned, the cliffs will crumble and every wall will fall to the ground. I will summon a sword against Gog on all my mountains, declares the Sovereign LORD. Every man’s sword will be against his brother. I will execute judgment upon him with plague and bloodshed; I will pour down torrents of rain, hailstones and burning sulfur on him and on his troops and on the many nations with him. And so I will show my greatness and my holiness, and I will make myself known in the sight of many nations. Then they will know that I am the LORD.’ (Ez 38:18-23)
Whoa! That is pretty devastating, But wait, there’s more!
“Son of man, prophesy against Gog and say: ‘This is what the Sovereign LORD says: I am against you, O Gog, chief prince of Meshech and Tubal. I will turn you around and drag you along. I will bring you from the far north and send you against the mountains of Israel. Then I will strike your bow from your left hand and make your arrows drop from your right hand. On the mountains of Israel you will fall, you and all your troops and the nations with you. I will give you as food to all kinds of carrion birds and to the wild animals. You will fall in the open field, for I have spoken, declares the Sovereign LORD. I will send fire on Magog and on those who live in safety in the coastlands, and they will know that I am the LORD. (Ez 39:1-6)
This natural gas find IS a game-changer. Except … unless you know the Lord, you do not know how MUCH this could be the end of days game changer of ALL game-changers. Tensions have increased. Enemies are jealous. Threats are made. Allies are enlisted. The pieces are moving inexorably together until, when they are finally fitted, the tribulation begins. I can almost hear the trumpet call.
On June 10 I posted Is the earth cracking up? On June 13 I did a follow up, with fresh news and additional scriptures. If we start with the end and work backward it goes like this: from Zechariah 14:4-6 and Isaiah 24 we know that during the Tribulation (the last 7 years of this age on earth) the earth’s physical features undergo a dramatic change. Mt. Olives splits in two and a river gushes from it. The earth reels like a drunkard. In Revelation 16:19-20 we know that Earthquakes happen that are so large the islands sink and the mountains crumble. The earth’s geologic features are remade into something unrecognizable.
We also know from the period just prior to the Tribulation, known as the end time, that there will be earthquakes and roaring seas as Jesus describes in Luke 21:25. In Matthew 24:6-7 it describes wars (plural) and we know that wars scar the earth.
Lately there have been an unusual number of unexpected underground failures. Breaks in underground pipes, oil leaks, sinkholes, more sinkholes wreaking havoc in China and Canada, mine shaft collapses, methane explosions at natural gas rigs, and of course the sea floor break under the BP oil well in the Gulf. Many. A lot. There have been so many sinkholes in China that the population is spooked and just a rumor of a sinkhole or an earthquake causes them to sleep outside for the night. The previous two entries have more source news items at the links above.
Here is another example of a sinkhole, again, in China. “June 15, 2010: A resident throws a stone into a sinkhole near Qingquan primary school in Dachegnqiao, China. The hole, 492 feet wide and 164 feet deep, has been growing since it first appeared in January and has destroyed 20 houses so far. No casualties have been reported, and the reason for the appearance of the hole remains unclear. Reuters” source
It is possible that the earth’s coming changes have begun. This is what I personally believe. The recent pattern of earth cracks is too noticeable not to wonder this and put the dots together… After all, the earth changes have to begin sometime. Here is another disaster to illustrate the point. In south-central Mexico last night an underground explosion ripped a crack in the earth that was a mile long and twenty feet deep! Note, the headline link is to the original Spanish article. Here’s a link to a google translation—
Underground explosion in Mexico damages 400 houses
This afternoon an explosion occurred inside the city dump, which caused damage to at least 400 homes located in 15 streets, Mayor Jesus Tolentino Roman Bojorquez. The mayor explained that the incident could be provided by a combination of methane gas produced by decomposing garbage, and a possible softening of the final disposal site is located in the neighborhood Tlatel Xochitenco. Garbage collectors have even made a crack arising from the explosion which has a length of up to one kilometer, a depth of six to seven meters and two meters wide…
It seems that events are cascading faster and faster and waxing worse and worse. This is also predicted. Jesus said that the end time events would be as birth pangs, and when a woman gives birth the contractions accelerate in potency and pain until the birth of the new life. The guys at Rapture Ready put it this way:
Birth pangs, in terms of Bible Prophecy, refers to certain convulsive geopolitical, geophysical, astrophysical and world-wide socio-economic events and issues scheduled to occur in the time leading up to Jesus Christ’s Second Advent (second coming). These are likened to the contractions experienced by a woman about to give birth, with those episodes increasing with frequency and intensity. Jesus’ foretelling of these birth pangs use the word “sorrows,” in His Olivet Discourse on end time things to come. (Matt. 24:3-8)
Now is the time to examine your sins and see them for what they are: rebellion against a Holy God which will result in permanent separation from Him until and unless you accept the remedy for it. Fortunately that remedy is free, because Jesus paid the price for our sins. Justice has been satisfied and you are given a pardon from the High Judge! Jesus is the Way and the Truth and the Life, no one comes to the Father but through Him. (John 14:6). If you are sincerely sorry for your sins and want to apologize to Jesus, and then turn away from your sins, then tell Him! (confess and repent) He will forgive you. He is THAT GOOD!
UPDATE: Just as I finished and uploaded this essay about God using lightning, this occurs:
“Oil collection on the gulf is halted due to fire aboard containment vessel. Lightning hit it.”
“A bolt of lightning struck the ship capturing oil from the blown-out BP well in the Gulf of Mexico on Tuesday, igniting a fire that halted containment efforts in another setback for the embattled company in its nearly two-month struggle to stop the spill, the company said. The fire was quickly extinguished and no one was injured. BP said it hopes to resume containing oil from the well sometime Tuesday afternoon.”
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In the previous two entries to this series, we examined scriptures that illustrated how and when God uses His signature events, hail and fire/brimstone to judge, to warn, or to speak to His people. Since God is the same yesterday, today, and forever, and since the bible prophesies future events with hail, brimstone, and lightning (among other events) it’s a good idea to get a biblical basis for how and when He may be using those phenomena now, and whether they are signs.
The Language of God: Hail
The Language of God: Fire and Brimstone
Today we are looking at lightning. A keyword search for the word lightning yields about 55 results. Here are a few:
Psalm 18:14 – He shot his arrows and scattered [the enemies], great bolts of lightning and routed them.
2 Samuel 22:13 – Out of the brightness of his presence bolts of lightning blazed forth.
Job 36:32 – He fills his hands with lightning and commands it to strike its mark.
Job 37:3 – He unleashes his lightning beneath the whole heaven and sends it to the ends of the earth.
Daniel 10:6 – His body was like chrysolite, his face like lightning, his eyes like flaming torches, his arms and legs like the gleam of burnished bronze, and his voice like the sound of a multitude.
Matthew 24:27 – For as lightning that comes from the east is visible even in the west, so will be the coming of the Son of Man.
Matthew 28:3 – His appearance was like lightning, and his clothes were white as snow
Revelation 8:5 – Then the angel took the censer, filled it with fire from the altar, and hurled it on the earth; and there came peals of thunder, rumblings, flashes of lightning and an earthquake.
It is clear that lightning is part of God’s vocabulary. He looks like lightning, He causes lightning, and He hurls lightning. He uses it to vanquish enemies, to inspire awe, and to announce His coming.
There’s a story this week of a tragedy atop a mountain in North Carolina. A man and woman in love were hiking. When they got to the top of the mountain, they stopped to admire the view. Though cloudy and a bit thundery, it was gorgeous nonetheless. Unbeknown to the woman, the man had a ring in his pocket and was going to propose. Very much in love, he watched her as she took in her surroundings. Turning to him, she said, “Isn’t it beautiful?”
Those were the last words she spoke.
Waking up a few minutes later on his back, the soles of his feet smoking, he saw his beloved laying on the ground a few feet away. She was dead. A lightning bolt had struck them both and though the man performed CPR for many minutes, she could not be revived. In despair, he put the ring on his beloved’s finger and said his goodbyes.
Did this incident have a direct Divine Cause? Did God hurl a lightning bolt to earth and cause this girl’s death? Let’s look to the bible for that answer.
In this day and “tolerant” age, bible students and Christians in general like to claim that God is all-loving and would never hurt a flea. This claim is usually preceded by the claim that there is no hell and a loving God would never send any of His children there. Aside from the fact that hell exists to hold all unforgiven sinners of all eternity and for all eternity, and that God IS loving, let’s take a look at the uncomfortable fact of some of His direct interventions.
“Then Judah took a wife for Er his firstborn, and her name was Tamar. But Er, Judah’s firstborn, was wicked in the sight of the LORD, and the LORD killed him. (Genesis 38:6).”
Yes, that’s my reaction, too. How about this, just a few verses later: “The next brother in law to marry Tamar also was wicked, and four verses later, we see again, “And the thing which he did displeased the LORD; therefore He killed him also.” In 2 Samuel 6:7, Uzzah touched the Holy ark of God, and “Then the anger of the LORD was aroused against Uzzah, and God struck him there for his error; and he died there by the ark of God.” The bible does not record exactly how these were killed, but in in 2 Samuel God routed whole armies using thunder, rain, and lightning.
It is clear that in God’s inestimable perfection, He sees fit to directly cause the death of one or more people at a time. It seems harsh, but it speaks more to man’s disobedience. The people were told how to carry the Ark, which was the visible throne of God and contains the presence of God between the angels’ wings (Lev. 16:2). It speaks to God’s holiness. The New Testament incident of Ananias and Sapphira is proof that it isn’t “just the Old testament God” who takes things so very seriously. The pair lied directly to the Holy Spirit and were killed because of it and for a lesson in how hypocrisy infiltrating the church from the inside can cause tremendous damage.
So do I think that the girl on the mountain was directly killed by God? I don’t purport to know the mind of God but I do know in His consistency that He tells us beforehand of His expectations. In the most severe abridgment of his expectations, precepts, laws, or commands, He directly intervenes.
In the unfortunate case of the girl who died, I think the truism that “lightning seeks the ground” is brought to bear here, rather than conclude whole-heartedly that it was any direct smiting or was a sign in particular. Whatever the case of it may be, we can learn from what happened to her.
Your death could come at any moment, and at that moment, it will be too late to decide for Jesus. Your lack of decision will have been the decision. As the end of the age draws near, now every time I hear of a death, I can’t help but wonder if that person was saved or not. As the girl on the mountain admired the beauty of creation, did she know her creator? More importantly, did she know her Savior? Do you?
Lightning is in the news today in the mid-section of the nation. The King of Kings statue located at Solid Rock Church in Monroe, Ohio was struck by lightning and burned to the ground. The statue is 62 feet high, presents only Jesus’s torso with arms upraised, causing the aptness of the nickname “Touchdown Jesus” to be all too ruefully honest. The statue is in a baptismal pool and at night, is lit from underneath from multi-colored lights. It is gaudy and not to my liking, and not to many of the locals’ either: 75% of those polled said it was in bad taste and reflected poorly on the city of Monroe.
“Monroe firefighters said the lightning strike set the statue on fire around 11:15 p.m. Monday. Firefighters said at their tallest, the flames reached 100 feet. The sculpture, which was 62 feet tall, showed Jesus from the torso up and was nicknamed Touchdown Jesus by some because of the way his arms were raised. Church members said the lightning strike and destructive fire stunned them, many thought it was a sign they need to pay attention to. Kevin Jones said, “I’m thinking it’s a sign from Jesus that we need to learn something, as Christians, as a whole, we’re not doing something right.” Ashley Morgan said, “It scares me, it really does, I think about what that symbolizes, to me that’s a sign and not a good one.” The steeple wasn’t touched. Nor was the cell phone tower next door.
The statue reminded me of the Buddy Jesus from the movie Dogma, a sarcastic and mocking look at the ‘loopholes’ in Catholicism, and the alleged farcical nature of religion in general. Avowed atheist George Carlin is the actor playing a Bishop who bemoans the depressing-ness of the crucifix image, and creates a new campaign, “Catholicism Wow!” with a ‘friendlier’ Jesus as a newly branded image of the Deity.
The two images, Buddy Jesus and Touchdown Jesus are similar in nature, though I am sure they were not intended to be, at least not on the part of Solid Rock Church. In any case, “Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, this he will also reap.” (Gal 6:7)
Some may say that the lightning struck because the Touchdown Jesus was an idol. But the definition of idol is “worship of any cult image, idea, or object, as opposed to the worship of a monotheistic God. It is considered a major sin in the Abrahamic religions. Which images, ideas, and objects, constitute idolatry, and which constitute reasonable worship, is a matter of contention…” Were they engaging in reasonable worship? It is matter of opinion. Solid Rock Church’s website states that they serve and worship a resurrected Jesus from a biblical standpoint, so the statue, gaudy as it is, may or may not be considered an idol (at least on the surface with the definition).
We look to the bible for descriptions of and uses of lightning in God’s work. That it is part of His vocabulary is fact. That individual incidences, at least in the past, of God smiting individuals has occurred is also a fact. However, we can never be sure of particular incidences and should remain cautious in ascribing Divine hands at work for any given circumstance. That the girl’s sudden death atop the mountain moves us to consider our own eternal destination in the face of the fleetingness of life is a good thing. That the woman in the article at Solid Rock Church wonders if this is a sign from God and if she or the church should change their ways is also a good thing. Taking stock of your standing with God is never a pointless exercise.
I advise doing a keyword search of an online bible to see how and where lightning is used for a sign to the people. I use biblecc, ad biblegateway. We know that in the very near future, Revelation 8:5 says that lighting will occur as a direct order from God: “Then the angel took the censer and filled it with the fire of the altar, and threw it to the earth; and there followed peals of thunder and sounds and flashes of lightning and an earthquake.” And also in Revelation 11:19 – “And the temple of God which is in heaven was opened; and the ark of His covenant appeared in His temple, and there were flashes of lightning and sounds and peals of thunder and an earthquake and a great hailstorm.” And again in Revelation 4:5 – “[The Throne and Worship of the Creator ] Out from the throne come flashes of lightning and sounds and peals of thunder. And there were seven lamps of fire burning before the throne, which are the seven Spirits of God;”
Lightning is part of God’s vocabulary and He will be speaking it very soon. Are you listening?
the-end-time.org 