Original sign courtesy of Wikipedia commons
Sign of the Times (my personal amended version)
Month: May 2013
Sunday Martyr Moment: Mark and Peter
Foxe’s Book of Martyrs. According to this summary from Christian Book Summaries,
Writing in the mid-1500s, John Foxe was living in the midst of intense religious persecution at the hands of the dominant Roman Catholic Church. In graphic detail, he offers accounts of Christians being martyred for their belief in Jesus Christ, describing how God gave them extraordinary courage and stamina to endure unthinkable torture.
From the same link, the book’s purpose was fourfold:
- Showcase the courage of true believers who have willingly taken a stand for Jesus Christ throughout the ages, even if it meant death,
- Demonstrate the grace of God in the lives of those martyred for their faith,
- Expose the ruthlessness of religious and political leaders as they sought to suppress those with differing beliefs,
- Celebrate the courage of those who risked their lives to translate the Bible into the common language of the people.
Mark
Little is known about Mark except what is written in the New Testament about him. After Paul’s mention of him in 2 Timothy 4:11, he disappears from view. Tradition says he was dragged to pieces when he spoke out against a solemn ceremony for their idol Serapis.
The martyrdom of Saint Mark.
(Musée Condé, Chantilly).
Peter
The only account we have of the martyrdom of Apostle Peter is from the early Christian writer Hegesippus. His account includes a miraculous appearance by Christ. When Peter was old (John 21:18), Nero planned to put him to death. When the disciples heard of this, they begged Peter to flee the city [said to be Rome], which he did. But when he got to the city gate, he saw Christ walking towards him. Peter fell to his knees and said “Lord, where are you going?” Christ answered, “I’ve come to be crucified again.” By this, Peer understood it was his time to suffer the death of Jesus which would glorify God. (John 21:19). So he went back to the city. After being captured and taken to his place of martyrdom, he requested that he be crucified in an upside-down position because he did not consider himself worthy to be crucified in the same position as his Lord.
Caravaggio: painting of the
crucifixion of Apostle Peter
Michaelangelo: fresco of the
crucifixion of Apostle Peter
Jerusalem! part 2, The Nation. "Israel to define itself as ‘national state of Jewish people’ "
Jerusalem! Part 3, Its Glorious Spiritual Future
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Jerusalem! It is the eternal city, (Psalm 46:4, Revelation 3:12) God’s city where He has set His name, (1 Kings 11:36, 2 Chronicles 12:13) and is the city in which Immanuel (Matthew 1:23) will dwell in all His glory, (Zechariah 8:3) calling it Jehovah Shammah, The Lord is There.(Ezekiel 48:35). It is the nickname He uses when he calls His people. (Zechariah 3:2). It is a place that it figures solely as the most important land, city, and people in the history of the earth. All of history is dwindling down to one focal point: Jerusalem. So let’s take a look at this incredible place.
God chose a people and a land to bring unto Himself. These are the Israelites and His land is Israel. Its city is Jerusalem. He made this promise to Abram in Genesis 12. God was actually delivering three distinct promises to Abram, later re-named Abraham. God made a land promise, a national promise, and a spiritual promise. In part 1 we looked at the land promise. Here is the verse–
“Now the Lord said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.” (Genesis 12:1-3).
Is Israel a great nation? Well, yes. It has developed some of the world’s most wonderful technology. It has changed an arid place into a garden, and now most of the world’s fruit is exported from there. It is a military nation, strong and mighty. It is a tiny nation, having given away land during successive political parliaments. It is only the size of Massachusetts, but it is incredible in that it simply did not exist for 1900 years and then one day it did!
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| NatGeo |
However as much as Christians bless the nation, and pray for its deliverance, we have to be realistic. This is from a sermon titled “The Cleansing of Israel,” delivered by John MacArthur in 1977. Not much has changed since then-
“Israel is not a religious nation. I would have to say that I doubt whether been in a more irreligious nation in my life than Israel. It’s an irreligious nation. Their god is the god of armies, the god of strength, the god of surprise, the god of might, the god of racial identity, which is the big thing, but not the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and not the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God.”
Jerusalem is referred to as Salem in Genesis 14:18, when Abram honored Melchizedek, King of Salem and priest of the God Most High (unusual that this one is King AND Priest, something banned later in Israel’s history. Priests always came from the tribe of Levi and Kings from the tribe of Judah).
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| The meeting of Abraham with Melchizedek |
Ezekiel 21:25-27 prophesied the end of the kings and there has been no king rightfully officiating over Israel since King Jehoiachin in about 600BC, shortly after Ezekiel’s pronouncement. There has been no priest in Israel since the last High Priest serving when the Roman army came and overthrew the Temple in 70AD since Phannias ben Samuel and he wasn’t even from a priestly family, he was just a revolutionary. he died during the Roman overthrow.
There is still no king or priest over Israel today. And of course, no prophet since John The Baptist and then Jesus prophesied there. There was not even any nation Israel between 70Ad and 1948. By this standard, the Israel of today is merely a political entity, led by a Prime Minister, a President, and a Parliament (Knesset).
Even during the period between May 1948 and June 1967, Jerusalem was not in Israel’s hands. They won East Jerusalem back during the Six Day War of June 1967, wresting it from the Jordanians who were occupying it. Later that month the Israeli Knesset declared Jerusalem unified. On July 30, 1980, the Knesset passed a law declaring the City of Jerusalem to be ‘eternal and indivisible.’” The United Nations promptly condemned the action.
There is still contention today. For example, what are the city’s borders? You can search for that answer online and you’ll come up with millions of maps with dotted lines, position papers, and news articles, but no borders.
Why won’t the world declare Jerusalem the capital of Israel? No country in the world has recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. Many do not recognize it as a city that is even belonging to Israel! When others proclaim that Jerusalem shall be their capital, not a murmur is heard from the world.
Why won’t America declare Jerusalem the capital of Israel? We won’t even place an embassy there. The Jerusalem Embassy Act of 1995 is a public law of the United States passed by the 104th Congress on October 23, 1995. It was passed for the purposes of initiating and funding the relocation of the Embassy of the United States in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, no later than May 31, 1999. This law was never enacted, due to opposition from Presidents Clinton, Bush, and Obama. (source). The US position is aligned with the United Nations- to ‘internationalize” Jerusalem, make it be an international city.
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| Source Times of Israel |
Why are there maps emerging one after one that not only fail to draw correct boundaries to Israel, but fail to list it in any way as even existing? This has happened over and over, including just a few days ago. Times of Israel reports, “Official UN workers in Lebanon posed with a map in which Israel did not exist, and the entire area from the Jordan to the sea was titled ”Arab Palestine.” At the launch of German-funded projects in Lebanon earlier in May, Ann Dismorr, director of UNRWA (United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East) affairs in Lebanon, held the map, which mentioned Jordan, Syria and the other neighboring countries by name — but neglected to name Israel.”
Why does the world insist on calling Israel a state, and not a nation? Or a nation and not a state? Or a nation-state? The roots of the political conflict with Jerusalem and Israel lay in the fact that the Arab world refuses to declare it a national state for the Jewish people. Israel is set to define itself, “Israel’s new government plans to pass a controversial new law defining the country as a “national state of the Jewish people” despite the presence of 1.5 million Arabs within its borders. It will be enshrined in Israel’s Basic Law – the country’s equivalent of a constitution – and lay down that The State of Israel is the National State of the Jewish People,” as the UK Telegraph reports.
Think about it. Since 1990 there have been 34 new countries to enter the world stage. A bunch of them came about as the Soviet Union dissolved. One of them was Armenia. The rest are listed below. The most recent is Sudan splitting into (Islamic) north Sudan and (Christian) South Sudan. (source)
March 21, 1990 – Namibia became independent of South Africa.
May 22, 1990 – North and South Yemen merged to form a unified Yemen.
October 3, 1990 – East Germany and West Germany merged to form a unified Germany after the fall of the Iron Curtain.
September 17, 1991 – The Marshall Islands was part of the Trust Territory of Pacific Islands (administered by the United States) and gained independence as a former colony.
September 17, 1991 – Micronesia, previously known as the Caroline Islands, became independent from the United States.
January 1, 1993 – The Czech Republic and Slovakia became independent nations when Czechoslovakia dissolved.
May 25, 1993 – Eritrea was a part of Ethiopia but seceded and gained independence.
October 1, 1994 – Palau was part of the Trust Territory of Pacific Islands (administered by the United States) and gained independence as a former colony.
May 20, 2002 – East Timor (Timor-Leste) declared independence from Portugal in 1975 but did not became independent from Indonesia until 2002.
June 3, 2006 – Montenegro was part of Serbia and Montenegro (also known as Yugoslavia) but gained independence after a referendum.
June 5, 2006 – Serbia became its own entity after Montenegro split.
February 17, 2008 – Kosovo unilaterally declared independence from Serbia.
July 9, 2011 – South Sudan peacefully seceded from Sudan following a January 2011 referendum. Sudan itself was the first to recognize South Sudan and did so one day early, on July 8, 2011.
Have there been successive UN Resolutions condemning their actions? Declaring where they may or may not build apartments? Fighting over which city is allowed to be their capital? Talks and endless talks over unifying territory, or splitting territory? Other nations managing as guardian large swathes of certain other nation’s’ lands? Wars? Of course not.
Only Israel sparks such attention, focus, and hatred.
Though there was a push several years ago for the vaunted ‘two-state solution’ to end the armed conflict over Israel, it subsided in 2008. I watched for years but we heard crickets on the Palestinian-Israeli peace plan. Until now. All of a sudden it revived big time. Secretary of State has rushed to Israel and environs to re-start the talks.
Yesterday the Guardian UK reported, “The British foreign secretary, William Hague, has warned of the risks of failure of the US-sponsored mission to revive the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, suggesting that it was the last attempt possible at reaching a two-state solution to the conflict and there was no realistic “plan B”. Hague spoke in Jerusalem shortly before US secretary of state John Kerry departed at the end of his fourth visit to the area, saying the time was approaching when “hard decisions” needed to be made.”
This current iteration of the two state solution talks is like a cat. A cat will doze for hours, slumbering quietly in the sun. Little snuffles emit from its nose, convincing you it is asleep. Then all of a sudden for no reason it will jump up and RUN LIKE A MANIAC INTO THE NEXT ROOM! It’s like it all of a sudden says “I need to be in there, right now.” That is what the US Secretary of State is like. For at least five years, not a word was said about the Israeli peace talks. Now it is hectic activity as if we’re approaching a cliff. And maybe we are.
The upshot is that Israel, and Jerusalem, is a political entity. It surely is a great nation, but it is without paying homage to her God. God is still with her, and will protect her to the end. She will be ravaged, for it has been the times of the Gentiles since the failure of the last king. Only gentile Kings ruled Israel, such as Cyrus, Nebuchadnezzar, etc. Even now she is without a king, only a Prime Minister.
These are the questions. This is today’s Jerusalem, today’s Israel, a politically buffeted nation without a king or a priest or world regard. The world is against it.
Anti-Semitism widespread among European Muslims
“Anti-Semitism in the Muslim World has always been problematic. After all, a 2008 Pew Research Center study shows that almost 100 percent of people in the Arab countries surrounding Israel hold anti-Semitic views. But what is even more problematic is how this anti-Semitism among Muslims has spread to the Western World, especially to children and teenagers. Anti-Semitism is rapidly spreading and becoming mainstream among young Muslims in Europe …”
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| Source |
Last week a Italian journalist Giulio Meotti asked in an Op-Ed,
How Did 150,000,000 Europeans Come to Hate Israel?
The Jewish religion is under attack in Europe”, declared the Conference of European Rabbis president Pinchas Goldschmidt. Many polls (such as the study on behalf of the German Social Democratic Friedrich Ebert Foundation) bring an iconic number measuring the disaster: 150,000,000 Europeans have a delegitimizing and demonizing view of the State of Israel and its citizens. For a large sector of Europe, the cities, skyscrapers, hospitals, cinemas, and schools on that tiny sliver of land named “Israel” are merely real estate that will be restored to Islam once this malefic Jewish form is swept away. This is a popular mobilization against Israel in the “Raus mit Uns” spirit. 150,000,000 Western citizens believe that Zionism is a misconceived project to be brought to an end as soon as possible.”
He ended his piece this way, “Europe’s public opinion has been persuaded to believe that Israel is a state that ought to be dismantled forthwith. Europe’s population count today is 730,000, 000 citizens. What would happen if the anti-Semitic worm infected the mind of all of them? Can Israel really remain immune from that eruption of psychotic anti-Jewish illness?”
Yes. and No. Political Israel’s days are numbered. The world is coming against it as Zechariah showed in the prophecy. The psychotic illness that is Israel hate is satan’s contribution to his plan to thwart God’ The world will gather against Israel and surround Jerusalem. In this regard, the Italian journalist’s questions is consistent with prophecy.
““Behold, I am about to make Jerusalem a cup of staggering to all the surrounding peoples. The siege of Jerusalem will also be against Judah. On that day I will make Jerusalem a heavy stone for all the peoples. All who lift it will surely hurt themselves. And all the nations of the earth will gather against it.” (Zechariah 12:2-3)
“And when the dragon saw that he had been thrown down to the earth, he pursued the woman who had given birth to the male child.” (Revelation 12:13)
“For I will gather all the nations against Jerusalem to battle, and the city shall be taken and the houses plundered and the women raped. Half of the city shall go out into exile, but the rest of the people shall not be cut off from the city. ” (Zechariah 14:2).
“But when you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, then know that its desolation has come near.” (Luke 21:20).
Things do not look good for the nation Israel and the city Jerusalem. And they aren’t. But the Lord will come and save His nation, His people, and His city. The third part of the series on Jerusalem will look at its glorious future! And it IS glorious! They will go through a dark time, but then things become very bright, as bright as the glory of the LORD himself!
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| source |
Jerusalem! part 1: The Land. Israel’s biodiversity, geography, & wildlife
Jerusalem! Part 3, Its glorious spiritual future
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It all begins and ends with Jerusalem.
Actually let’s back up a bit. It all begins and ends with God.
Before the foundation of the world, God determined in His mind and His heart to select a people for Himself to have fellowship with. (Ephesians 1:4). And so began the creation of worlds, and His creation of people. (Genesis 1). Thereafter, several different dispensations occurred, being the various methods and means God used to enact this fellowship. A dispensation is a period of time in which man is tested in respect to obedience to some specific revelation of the will of God. These dispensations in my opinion are used to show man that he cannot attain God’s standard of holiness on his own. I personally believe that in the Millennium when all people enter as either righteous or glorified righteous, Jesus is physically present on earth, and the demons and satan are bound in the abyss (so no temptation), that it will again be revealed that man cannot adhere to God’s holy standards. This is proven by the final battle occurs. (Revelation 20:7-10)
In the Garden of Eden, after man sinned, he was no longer innocent, therefore God’s next method to persuade man to willingly love and serve Him was to appeal to his conscience. This Dispensation of Conscience, which began with man being expelled from the Garden of Eden and ended with the flood, lasted for approximately 1,656 years. “This dispensation is referred to as “The Age of Conscience” because of the fact that man was tested on the basis of obedience to his own conscience – that is, to his knowledge of what was right or wrong. Since there were no “laws” until after the flood, man was free to obey, or disobey, the dictates of his own conscience. Because man’s conscience was awakened in him as a result of his eating of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, man became conscious of sin and, as a result of this consciousness, became responsible to God for his conduct on the basis of his conscience. God’s purpose during this “Age of Conscience” was to prove to man that, when left to his own choice between right and wrong, nothing but failure can result.” (source)
The Noahic Covenant began the next dispensation, the Age of Government. After that, when the flood
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| Noah’s Sacrifice by Daniel Maclise, 1806-1870 |
waters subsided from the earth, we began the Age of Promise. “Man under promise Out of the dispersed descendants of the builders of Babel, God called one man, Abram, with whom He enters into covenant. Some of the promises to Abram and his descendants were purely gracious and unconditional. These either have been or will yet be literally fulfilled. Other promises were conditional upon the faithfulness and obedience of the Israelites. Every one of these conditions was violated, and the dispensation of promise resulted in the failure of Israel and closed in the judgment of bondage in Egypt.”
During this dispensation, the LORD made a promise to Abram, found in Genesis 12.
The LORD chose Israel to be His nation and the Israelites to be His people. Now the Lord had said to Abram: Get out of your country, from your family and from your father’s house, to a land that I will show you. I will make you a great nation; I will bless you and make your name great; and you shall be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and I will curse him who curses you; and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.” (Gen. 12:1-3).
God was actually delivering three distinct promises to Abram, later re-named Abraham.
He made a land promise, a national promise and a spiritual promise.
1. The Land Promise: “A land that I will show you.”
“He also said to him, “I am the LORD, who brought you out of Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land to take possession of it.” (Genesis 15:7). Genesis 15:18-21 describes the boundary of the promised land in terms of the territory of various ancient peoples: “On that day the LORD made a covenant with Abram and said, “To your descendants I give this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the Euphrates – the land of the Kenites, Kenizzites, Kadmonites, Hittites, Perizzites, Rephaites, Amorites, Canaanites, Girgashites and Jebusites.” This is the “borders of the Land” (Gevulot Ha-aretz).
This land promise has never been fulfilled. The land that God promised His people the Israelites is very extensive. It would encompass all of today’s Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, Gaza, part of Iraq to the Euphrates & Tigris, the Nile Delta of Egypt, and part of Saudi Arabia.
To compare, today the Arab League includes 21 separate Arab states spanning an area of more than 5,000,000 square miles (12.9 million sq. km.) However, there is only one Jewish state consisting of 8,000 square miles (20,715 sq. km.). It is called Israel. It is only slightly larger than Massachusetts.
Ancient maps placed Jerusalem in the center of the page. They knew that Jerusalem is God’s city and is the fulcrum of history, the axle of the wheel, and the center of the world stage. In the Jewish tradition, the Ark in the Temple in Jerusalem, through which God revealed himself to His people, rested on the Foundation stone marking the “navel of world” wiki omphalos. Ezekiel 5:5, “This is Jerusalem; I have set her at the center of the nations.” We read a similar reference in Ezekiel 38:2, “to seize spoil and carry off plunder, to turn your hand against the waste places that are now inhabited, and the people who were gathered from the nations, who have acquired livestock and goods, who dwell at the center of the earth.”
And what of this land? What is it like? It is wonderful! From deserts of the southern Negev to the snow-capped mountains to the north, to the 270 miles of coastline along the Mediterranean and to the frontier at the east, it is a diverse land.
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| Mountains of Judea, source Wikipedia commons |
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| Northern coast. Source Wikipedia commons |
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| Jordan’s Rift Valley, Source Wikipedia commons |
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| Acacia tree in Negev Desert, Makhtesh Gadol, Wiki photo |
The wildlife of Israel includes the flora and fauna of Israel, which is extremely diverse due to the country’s location between the temperate and the tropical zones, bordering the Mediterranean Sea in the west and the desert in the east. (Wiki: Wildlife of Israel)
God called it a land flowing with milk and honey. (Exodus 3:8). A land with abundant milk means that it had abundant cattle (or goats), and that means abundant grasslands and pastures. I have read in several Jewish commentaries that the honey is not bee nectar but the syrup one extracts from dates or figs. Either way, it evokes the same sense of abundance, this time from vegetation.
According to Israel Birding website, “Israel is situated at an intercontinental junction- a bottleneck for
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| A Hoopoe, Israel’s national bird |
migration routes. An estimated 500 million (!!) birds pass through every spring and autumn, with 530 species in record. This website features Israel’s latest birding news.”
Israel’s climate varies from semi-arid to temperate to subtropical. The region is home to a variety of plants and animals; at least 47,000 living species have been identified, with another 4,000 assumed to exist. 116 species of mammals are native to Israel, as well as 511 bird species, 97 reptile species, and seven amphibian species. There are also an estimated 2,780 plant species. There are insects belonging to roughly 27 orders in Israel, out of about 29 worldwide. (biodiversity in Israel)
From Nature Israel, “From ancient times Israel’s native mammals have had an important role in Jewish culture, featuring in colourful biblical metaphors and prophecies, as symbols of the tribes of Israel or discussed at length in the dietary codes so central to the Jewish culinary tradition. The young David battles a bear and a lion, and Samson struggles with a juvenile lion. Torah scrolls are written on parchment from deer or antelope skins, the Jewish New Year is commemorated by blowing on the ram’s horn and the very Land of Israel itself is described as the “Land of the Gazelle”. Song of Solomon 8:14 mentions the gazelle in terms of its speed. One of the sons of Zeruiah was compared to the speed of a gazelle in 2 Samuel 2:18.
Sadly the local lions and bears are now extinct, but most of Israel’s native mammals familiar from the bible and folklore remain – the jackal and the gazelle, the rock hyrax and the ibex, the wolf and the leopard, the wild boar and the hare.”
Psalm 104 mentions many different kinds of vegetation, birds, and mammals of Israel.
mountains are for the wild goats; the rocks are a refuge for the rock badgers.” (Psalm 104:18). Proverbs 30:24 says the following animals are ‘exceedingly wise’ and the hyrax, or rock badger, is one of those, “the rock badgers are a people not mighty, yet they make their homes in the cliffs;” (Prov 30:26). (Left, rock badger)
Lions and cheetahs are now extinct in Israel, but imagine young David, armed only with a slingshot, guarding his flock against wolves, lions, bears, leopards, and cheetahs. Not to mention hyenas and jackals. Leopards still exist in Israel today, as do other wild felines including caracals (a kind of lynx), bog cats and wild cats.
Bears are mentioned in 2 Kings 2:24 as animals that came out of the woods and tore up 42 youths who were mocking Elisha. Of course the lion is prominent in fact and in metaphor in the Land. Proverbs 30:30 says of the lion, “the lion, which is mightiest among beasts and does not turn back before any;”. Proverbs 28:1b “but the righteous are as bold as a lion.” The LORD used lions as a judgment when Assyrians settled in the Land and did not worship the LORD. (2 Kings 17:25).
The Lord has blessed His land with biodiversity, geographical diversity, a wondrous climate, and beautiful flora and fauna of all kinds. After the restoration when the curse is reversed, it will finally be all that He intends it to be, His city, His dwelling, named “The Lord is there” (Ezekiel 48:35. (Jehovah Shammah!)
Powerful 8.3 earthquake felt 4,400 miles away
There have been some powerful earthquakes in the last day or so.
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| USGS |
Near the south Pacific Island of Tonga, there was a 7.4 earthquake, followed by a 6. aftershock. There were no tsunami warnings. The newspaper the Indian Express reports.
“A 7.4-magnitude earthquake struck 255 kilometres (158 miles) southwest of Tonga today, according to the US Geological Survey, but there were no reports of damage. The quake hit at 5.19 am local time (2249 IST yesterday), and was centred 282 kilometres southwest of Tonga’s capital Nuku’alofa and 171 kilometres deep. It was followed four hours later by a second powerful 6.6 tremor 84 kilometres northwest of the town and 103 kilometres deep. “A destructive tsunami was not generated based on earthquake and historical tsunami data,” the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center said of each quake. The Matangi Tonga website said the quakes “shook homes and rattled windows” in Nuku’alofa but reported no damage. The powerful tremors also caused false alarms in New Zealand where the official GNS Science monitoring system reported tremors of 6.1 and 5.9 magnitude off the east coast of the North Island.”
A powerful 8.3 quake struck in Russia’s Sea of Okhostk early this morning. It was felt in Moscow, 4,400 miles away!
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| Source |
Russia Earthquake: Powerful temblor hits
“A powerful earthquake on Friday hit Russia’s Far East with tremors felt as far away as Moscow, about 7,000 kilometers (4,400 miles) west of the epicenter. Marina Kolomiyets, spokeswoman for Obninsk’s seismic station of the Russian Academy of Sciences, told The Associated Press the epicenter was in the Sea of Okhotsk, east of the Russian coast and north of Japan. She said the quake registered 8.0 on the Richter scale. The U.S. Geological Survey reported a magnitude of 8.3. The epicenter was in the Kuril-Kamchatka arc, one of the most seismically active regions in the world. Emergency agencies in the Far East issued a tsunami warning for Sakhalin and the Kuril islands, but lifted it soon afterwards.”
According to USGS, the average number of quakes in the 7.0-7.9 range per year is 15. So far this year we have had 8.
According to USGS, the average number of quakes in the 8.0-8.9 range per year is 1. So far we have had two, one on February 6, 2013 and the other one today, May 24, 2013.
There was a strong quake in northern California today. There have been about 20 aftershocks in the location.
“An earthquake in far northeastern California was felt by thousands of people as far away as San Francisco and in two other states, but there have been no reports of injury or serious damage. The magnitude-5.7 quake broke dishes and shook mirrors when it struck at 8:47 p.m. Thursday, officials said. It was centered near Greenville, about 25 miles southwest of Susanville in far northeastern California, said Rafael Abreu, a geophysicist with the U.S. Geological Survey’s National Earthquake Center in Golden, Colo. There have been several aftershocks, including a magnitude 4.9 that struck early Friday morning. Slight damage has been reported including objects falling from shelves and dishes rattled or broken, according to a report from the National Weather Service.”
“The Lord has established his throne in the heavens, and his kingdom rules over all.” (Psalm 103:19)
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Further reading
Greatest earthquakes of the bible, Institute for Creation research
Jerusalem Post guest column, God, Man, and the Bible “According to Talmudic teaching, there clearly is a direct connection between human behavior and natural disasters.”
Bible topic: earthquakes, verses about the topic of earthquakes, arranged by subject
Do not be fooled by the inclusion of a Pastor on this season’s Masterchef
There is no realm that the gay lobby won’t enter to normalize homosexuality.
I enjoy a tv cooking competition show called “Masterchef.” Chefs/restaurateurs Joe Bastianich, Gordon Ramsay, and Graham Elliott audition home cooks and choose 18 to perform a series of contests to see which one over time will emerge as the most professional chef with the best cooking skills.
It is different from Ramsay’s other cooking show, H-ll’s Kitchen, because it features non-professional chefs, just home cooks. Because of this, the judges are nicer to the cheftestants, and the show is overall more wholesome and charming. Wednesday evening was the Masterchef’s fourth season premiere.
Here is a quick rabbit trail. I noted that with the onset of Hulu and Netflix, the tv watcher’s viewing habits have changed, including mine. I tend to watch an entire show’s run all at once. I watch one show after another each evening, so rather than having to wait a week and during hiatus to see each episode, you get a feel for the show very quickly because little time has elapsed. TheWrap.com explains, “The move is a nod to the binge habits of its members, Netflix says, who prefer to see an entire season in a few sittings as opposed to tuning in for the latest episode at a particular time every week.”
In viewing shows this way, the dark truth emerged. I noticed a pattern. In all the shows I binge-watched, season 3 consistently seems to be a turning point. Darkness enters in. Satan gets his clutches into the writers and the storylines become more immoral, more violent and worse overall by season 3. Oftentimes, gay characters are introduced, or gay themes.
This pattern was kept with Masterchef. Last night in watching the premiere, I was saddened to see much more sexual innuendo than in previous shows. I was briefly joyful that a pastor was chosen as a final contestant for the final audition but became concerned when I researched who this pastor is. He is a practicing homosexual living with a partner, had adopted three boys, and is promoting gay marriage.
A website chronicling Chicago Gay History lists this 52 year old “pastor” named Kevin Tindell’s bio thus:
“Rev. Kevin E. Tindell is a change management consultant and minister. He and his partner are raising two sons. Tindell is active in Black gay and spiritual groups. He co-founded ONYX, a Black leathermen’s group; Praise Center Chicago; and the Sanctuary Ministry. His involvement has included Chicago Black Lesbians and Gays, Adodi, Minority Outreach Intervention Project, Equality Illinois, Youth Pride Center, AIDS Legal Council, Jelani Unified Men’s Project, Black Alumni of Notre Dame, and much more.”
Tindell says he is a neo-Pentecostal starting up a new church with about 20 members. His staff is studying under controversial Obama pastor Rev. Jeremiah Wright, as this website article explains. “The church claims about 20 members and refers to itself as a neo-Pentecostal denomination. Several members on the ministerial staff are currently receiving training at Trinity United Church of Christ under the direction of that church’s pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright. And one of the most important aspects of the church, besides its openness to the ‘gifts of the spirit [including speaking in tongues]’ is special outreach to the Black LGBT community.”
In this video interview from a few weeks ago, “Pastor” Tindell says bible passages frequently quoted that seem to oppose actually mean something else. He explained, “There is no marriage ceremony in the bible. Marriage was around for property ownership. So when the bible says men should not lay with men like they lay with women, they’re talking about…because you couldn’t own men.”
Tindell says “I am the face of marriage Equality” explaining, “But I promised God that if I met the man who was right for me, I would step up and ask him out… So, I did!” he continues. … He adds, “Our faith in a God that created all, loves all, and accepts us just as we are sustains both our relationship and our family.””
I always find it interesting how a reprobate mind twists the clear meaning of the word. In one example from another situation, I watched Todd Friel of Wretched Radio gently and lovingly engage a practicing lesbian in detailed manner through Romans 1:18-32. In Romans 1:18 it says “For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth.”
The verses go on to describe how God gives them over to improper lusts if they deny God and suppress the truth. This one lesbian Friel was interviewing said, “I she don’t deny God, so the verse does not apply to me.”
Anyway, back to Masterchef and the gay pastor who will be featured for however long he lasts in the competition on this influential and highly rated show. I’m saddened that once again, even the most innocuous media presentation, this time a cooking show, chooses to feature homosexuality as normal. People from all over the world will see him and think that THIS is what Christianity is, or should be. They will cling to his version of who he says Jesus is, rather than the truth.
None of this is surprising. Satan is relentless in claiming any small crack for his own, and then ruthlessly exploiting that crack for his own dark purposes. However, if you are a fan of the show, I wanted to give you the background on this pastor. He is not all he seems, and he definitely needs prayers. So does his “partner” and the sons they are raising.
As far as his twisted interpretation of the fact that you couldn’t own a male slave, that was unbliblical. Exodus 21:20 talks about male slave ownership. So does Leviticus 25:44. Philemon owned male slave Onesimus. Ephesians 6 and Colossians 3 both mention slavery.
Please continue to pray. This particular situation I’ve mentioned on the TV show may not last more than one more week, if Mr Tindell is eliminated from the competition. Or he may persevere for many weeks and bring his message of “Christian homosexuality” to millions. That doesn’t matter. The point here is three-fold-
1. Satan persistently encroaches into every realm he can, but are we as persistent with the message of the GOOD NEWS?,
2. That just becuase a pastor is presented as a pastor doesn’t mean he is a Christian or holds to biblical doctrine,
3. and we need to be discerning about what media we absorb.
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Further reading:
Verses which state homosexuality is a sin-
Genesis 19:1-13; Leviticus 18:22; 20:13; Romans 1:26-27; 1 Corinthians 6:9.
Essays about homosexuality and the bible-
Is it possible to be a Gay Christian?
Christianity and Homosexuality
Pope Francis denies Jesus
I’ve stated several times on this blog that any person who adheres to the Catholic faith, its creeds, or submits to the Pope as spiritual authority, isn’t saved. The Catholic religion is a false religion. Espousing, believing, or failure to renounce Catholic dogma means you will go to hell when you die. Mother Teresa is in hell. Every pope that ever lived in in hell. Catholicism denies the saving work of Jesus as the SOLE means of redemption. The Pope is a heretic. I hope I have been clear.
Today Pope Francis followed in his papist forbears’ footsteps by explicitly denying Jesus. I am going to post what he is quoted as saying, and then lead you through how it denies Jesus. Pope Francis exhibits the exact nature of the characteristic 2 Timothy 3:5 states we will see in the last days, an appearance of Godliness, but denying its power. Watch and read:
Pope says everyone can do good, regardless of belief
Every human person despite his or her beliefs can do good, and a sharing in good works is the prime place for encounter among those who disagree, Pope Francis said at his Mass today. “The Lord created us in his image and likeness, and we are the image of the Lord, and he does good and all of us have this commandment at heart: do good and avoid evil. All of us,” the Pope taught in his homily May 22 at St. Martha’s residence in the Vatican.
He went on to explain that all human persons are created in the image of God, who is goodness himself and the source of goodness. He emphasized the universality of Christ’s saving act on the cross as a compliment [sic] to the universal call to holiness, regardless of religious belief.
“The Lord has redeemed all of us, all of us, with the Blood of Christ: all of us, not just Catholics. Everyone.” “Even the atheists. Everyone,” Pope Francis stressed. He said that the saving blood of Christ “makes us children of God of the first class. We are created children in the likeness of God and the blood of Christ has redeemed us all. And we all have a duty to do good.”
In reading this, it becomes obvious that the Pope denied Jesus in three ways.
1. Doing good. Psalm 14:1 says there is none who does good. The Pope is talking about a human moral standard of doing good, relativistic and with no absolute benchmark. To men, doing good may mean giving back a lost wallet, or helping an old lady across the street. In God’s view, there is not one person who does good. We cannot achieve any standard of holiness on our own. Yet as the Pope is speaking in his religious capacity at Mass, he is saying we possess within us the standard of goodness that God accepts simply for having been born, because our “likeness” is like God’s.
The bible says none do good. Romans 3:10-12, “as it is written: “None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God. All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one.”
2. Universal salvation. The Pope said that even atheists are saved because Jesus died on the cross and shed His blood. ““The Lord has redeemed all of us, all of us, with the Blood of Christ: all of us, not just Catholics. Everyone. “Even the atheists. Everyone,” Pope Francis stressed.”” However, only those who repent and believe are saved. Romans 10:9 says “because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.” Also see Acts 126:31, 1 John 4:15, Mark 1:15).
What the Pope is really promoting is universal salvation. Rev. Matt Slick explains what universal salvation is. “Universalism is the teaching that all people will be saved. Some say that it is through the atonement of Jesus that all will ultimately be reconciled to God. Others just say that all will go to heaven sooner or later, whether or not they have trusted in or rejected Jesus as savior during their lifetime.” The Pope’s statement is shocking to Catholics because previously, Catholic dogma stated that only Catholics are saved. They believe that the blood of Jesus atoned for only those who are in the Catholic denomination, excluding Baptists, Lutherans, etc. So the Pope claiming that the blood of Jesus saves all, and that all are saved, is astounding to Catholics. Catholics have pronounced anathema (curse) on all non-Catholics since 1545, but true believers know that the Pope’s words about salvation and redemption are false.
3. Jesus plus works. (Quote from the article: “He emphasized the universality of Christ’s saving act on the cross as a complement to the universal call to holiness, regardless of religious belief.”) According to the Pope, Jesus’s blood PLUS good works, AKA holiness, is the combination one needs for salvation. Worse, believing that the work of Jesus is a complement to anything else is heresy. This is in effect saying that our works is primary and Jesus’s work is a complement as complement is defined here: “Add to (something) in a way that enhances or improves it; make perfect.” His work on the cross is not a complement to anything. He IS the perfect! It is Jesus plus nothing which saves.
The bible says, “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.” Ephesians 2:8-9.
I hope this explanation has helped you see how influential and pervasive the false doctrines of the Catholic faith are and how much more dangerous they have become with this Mass today by the Pope. I had a terrible feeling when Pope Francis was elected, being a Jesuit. The march toward a prophesied universal faith, AKA one world religion seen in Revelation 13:15-17, just got a lot more real.
Jerusalem! A Three-part Series
Jerusalem! Part 3, Its glorious spiritual future
I’m listening to John MacArthur preach through Zechariah. Pound for pound, there is more prophecy in Zechariah than any other book in the bible, including Revelation. The book is at turns comforting, inspiring, and difficult to interpret. Overall, I’m fascinated!
When MacArthur got to Zechariah 2, the sermon titled “The Future Glory of Jerusalem”, I became fascinated even further. Jerusalem, and by definition, Israel, is a hugely important topic for every Christian to seek understanding of and wisdom about. Israel is the fulcrum of history, God’s nation, the apple of His eye, and future home of Jesus the King. Christians will be living in New Jerusalem. Thus it is our focus as Christians to understand His plans for this city, as well.
When the LORD dwells in Jerusalem the name of the city shall be Jehovah-Shammah, meaning, “The Lord is there.” (Ezekiel48:35). It never fails to move me to even think of the Lord being there, physically and eternally. Jeremiah 30 is a chapter describing the future restoration of Israel. See here verses 18-22,
“Thus says the Lord: Behold, I will restore the fortunes of the tents of Jacob and have compassion on his dwellings; the city shall be rebuilt on its ruins and the palace shall stand where it used to be. 19 Out of them shall come songs of thanksgiving, and the voices of those who celebrate. I will multiply them, and they shall not be few; I will make them honored, and they shall not be small. 20 Their children shall be as they were of old, and their congregation shall be established before me, and I will punish all who oppress them. 21 Their prince shall be one of themselves; their ruler shall come out from their midst; I will make him draw near, and he shall approach me, for who would dare of himself to approach me? declares the Lord. 22 And you shall be my people, and I will be your God.”,
The Lord is there, Jehovah Shammah!
I decided to write a three part series on Jerusalem and Israel. The first part will be about Jerusalem geographically and its natural history. It is not a dry desert with swirling sands as most people superficially believe and as I once believed. Jerusalem and environs is a fascinating place, with lush animal and bird life, an interesting climate, and is the crux of three continents. It is the belly button of the world.
The second part will look at Jerusalem politically. I’ll look at what prophecy says about it during this time of the last days, what the Times of the Gentiles means, and what is happening now with Secretary of State Kerry and the revived push for “peace and safety.”
Last, will be the best part in the series of all. What of Jerusalem spiritually? What of the future glory of Israel? What does the bible say Jerusalem will look like and what are God’s plans for it?
Stay tuned! This will be exciting look at our spiritual home, Jerusalem, the City of David, the Holy City, Jehovah Shammah!
Mysterious illness in Alabama stumps CDC
The church will not be on earth during the Tribulation period, formally known as the Time of Jacob’s Trouble. (Jeremiah 30:7, more here on what that means). I am comfortable and certain of this interpretation and therefore can concentrate all my energies on this present time before the imminent rapture without having to worry about how to survive the Day of the LORD. (The rapture has always been imminent). Left, Bride of Christ, Johann Thorn Prikker
The Tribulation is a short period. It will be 7 years long, with the Great Tribulation being half of that. So much occurs during this very brief time. The antichrist forces a mark on all humans, he hunts down almost all the Christians who refuse the mark, 144,000 people evangelize the world, most of the world dies in various plagues and wars, the geography changes utterly, and politically & economically the entire global structure shifts to one world government and one world economy. Phew.
That is why I believe that the set-up to these things, though long in coming, is being laid prior to the actual beginning of the Tribulation. A bonfire is prepared before the match is struck. You clear a ring, gather stones, pile firewood, and ready the kindling. Once the match is struck the fire begins. It will take only the LORD’S command to begin that conflagration. It will get going with force as soon as the first seal is broken and the antichrist rides. (Revelation 6:1-2).
One of the spookiest things to me is the prediction of plague during the Tribulation. There is a lot to be concerned about for the people left behind to endure this period. There will be Hades on earth as demons are unleashed from the abyss (Revelation 9:1-3). 100 lb hailstones will fall from heaven, squashing people (Revelation 16:21). Beasts will attack and kill many. (Revelation 6:8). Worst of all, spiritually, God will be harder to find, worship will become almost non-existent. The light of God’s revelation will be almost entirely snuffed out. (Amos 8:11; Luke 18:8).
Of course even thinking about how God will cause a famine for the Word once again to come onto the land like He did in Amos’s day makes me tear up. But in the physical realm, the notion of runaway plague strikes fear in my heart. I am even afraid of it now. Stephen King’s The Stand, an apocalyptic novel where King imagined 99.8% of the world’s population killed by a shifting antigen superflu, struck a chord with me even thirty-five years ago when the book was was published.
The bubonic plague in the middle ages was horrific, particularly the outbreak in the 1300s. Wikipedia states that “The Black Death was one of the most devastating pandemics in human history, peaking in Europe between 1348 and 1350, and killing between 75 million and 200 million people.” The plague at that time killed 30 to 60 percent of Europe’s population.
In 1918, the Spanish flu epidemic was considered worse than that. Wikipedia again, “was an unusually deadly influenza pandemic, the first of the two pandemics involving H1N1 influenza virus (the second being 2009 flu pandemic). It infected 500 million people across the world, including remote Pacific islands and the Arctic, and killed 50 to 100 million of them—3 to 5 percent of the world’s population at the time—making it one of the deadliest natural disasters in human history.”
With all the human manipulation of genetic strains of diseases, it is only a matter of time until one of them escapes its petri dish and slays the world. We have sought to weaponize bacteria, we’ve genetically manipulated God’s creation by cloning animals, altering their DNA, and doing other unholy scientific things. All this genetic manipulation will at some point escape man and unleash a deadly plague.
We know that there already is an increasing resistance to antibiotics. “Antibiotic resistance is a serious and growing phenomenon in contemporary medicine and has emerged as one of the pre-eminent public health concerns of the 21st century, particularly as it … is relevant to organisms which cause disease in humans.” (source). We know that there are diseases rising up again that we thought we had put away for good. This is a fact, there will be plague. We know that plague will kill a fourth of the world and be a major factor throughout the Tribulation. (Revelation 6:8, Luke 21:11). Is the bonfire for it being laid now? I believe so.
The combination of the prediction of last days rampant pestilence, the past history of epidemic’s deadly force, the ease of travel these days and spreading infection globally in a heartbeat, and the present indicators of diseases on the verge of being out of control, do give me pause.
For example, here is an article out of Dothan, Alabama. Dothan is at the SE corner of Alabama near where it meets with GA and FL. An unknown respiratory illness has hospitalized 7 people from that area, and two of those patients have died.
“Seven people have been admitted to area hospitals, and two of them have died, in what health officials described Tuesday as a “cluster” of respiratory illnesses with flulike symptoms. … Peggy Williams, a state Department of Health investigator, said of the five people who remained hospitalized Tuesday, one was in an intensive care unit at a local hospital. Lesa C. Smith, a registered nurse with the state Department of Public Health, said the three symptoms to watch for include fever, coughing and shortness of breath.
Smith also said they don’t have a general common denominator among the seven people admitted to the hospital. She said they’ve had several young people and an elderly person among the cases, so it’s been difficult to determine who might specifically be at risk.” (source)
This illness has emerged within the last month, since April 19, 2013. The current mortality rate in this cluster is 28%. The Alabama Department of Public Health has released a news brief on it and held a news conference. (source)
Getting a grasp on the illness is currently eluding the Center for Disease Control. They’re stumped.
A similar disease is stumping officials in Texas. “Mystery illness claims the life of 2 area teens, a third is critical“
“Like fever, cough, like respiratory failure, pneumonia, seizures,” said Dr. Syed Ibrahim, MD, MPH. “In the child who’s admitted at Texas Children’s Hospital now, he’s having liver enlargment and spleen enlargment.” The hospital confirmed that the teen is in critical condition. Two teenagers, one from Montgomery County and one from Liberty County, have died from an illness health experts have not been able to diagnose.”
Coronavirus is a threat in Saudi Arabia. Here is news for that new (“novel”) disease that is related to respiratory disease.
“Worldwide, there have now been 41 laboratory-confirmed infections, including 20 deaths, since the new coronavirus was identified by scientists in September 2012. The novel coronavirus, which had been known as by the acronym nCoV but which some scientific journals now refer to as Middle East Respiratory Syndrome coronavirus, or MERS, belongs to the same family as viruses that cause common colds and the one that caused a deadly outbreak of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) in 2003. MERS cases have so far been reported in Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Qatar, Britain, Germany and France, but Saudi Arabia has had the vast majority of cases. (source)
Now that‘s a 50% mortality rate. Though mostly contained to Saudi Arabia, there is some consternation today because a Tunisian man has died from it.
“A 66-year-old Tunisian man has died from the new coronavirus following a visit to Saudi Arabia and two of his adult children were infected with it, the Tunisian Health Ministry reported. … The cases are the first for Tunisia and indicate that the virus is slowly trickling out of Saudi Arabia, where more than 30 coronavirus cases have been reported. There have been at least 20 deaths worldwide out of 40 cases.”
I wonder if anyone else out there is as spooked by the knowledge of how easy it would be for a disease exactly like the Dothan AL illness to widen its grip, and become runaway like the Spanish Flu did in 1918. Or coronoavirus. Or avian flu. Or SARS. Or…
At some point, the final pestilences will emerge exactly like horror writer Stephen King laid out. The difference is that this time when it does, it won’t be a fiction book. It will be real.
You can escape all these things by believing on the name of Jesus as your Lord and Savior now. Do you recognize that you are a sinner? That each wrong thing you’ve ever done or even thought causes you to fail the standard of perfect holiness that God requires for a person to enter heaven? Impossible, you say? It is! The GOOD NEWS is that God sent His perfect Son to live a perfectly holy life, be the sacrifice for all our sins, and die on the cross, taking all of God’s wrath for sin upon Himself. God was satisfied with His son and raised Him to life on the third day.
Now, if you believe this, you will not have to live a perfectly holy life, an impossibility anyway. You won’t have to take eternal punishment for your sins, enduring God’s wrath in the lake of fire. Jesus took it for you already. If you believe, Jesus’s righteousness will be imputed to your account, and you will be adopted in the family of God. Repent soon. Now is the day of salvation.
If God is good, why didn’t He stop the tornado?
It is admittedly hard to read of news where children are killed or harmed. The shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary school in Newton CT this past December 2012 was surely horrific. Reading about the 20 children who died in the Plaza Tower Elementary school yesterday in Moore OK via a EF-5 tornado is also heart-rending.
At times like these, people often ask, “Where is God?” “How could He allow this to happen?” “Is God good?”
I can put it this way. When a serial killer is placed on death row and eventually executed, we say that justice was done. If a person breaking and entering a home is shot by the homeowner, we often say ‘good! He got what he deserved.’
When Korah rebelled against Moses and Aaron, he was rebelling against God. (Numbers 16:3). The LORD told Moses to tell the congregation to separate from Korah, and Korah, Dathan and Abiram and their household and the goods in the household were swallowed up as the earth opened up and took them alive to Sheol. When this happened, we say “God is just and right to do this thing. Korah was performing a moral evil in rebelling against God trough Moses and Aaron.”
When the tornado came and the earth swallowed the children in the bottom of the Plaza Towers Elementary School,” do we say, “God is unjust and bad to do this thing?” No! God is the same yesterday, today, and forever. (Hebrews 13:8).
What we cannot fathom, we must trust that the Lord is good and His purposes are good. On the one hand, He directly put down a rebellion by performing a supernatural disaster as He did in the Old Testament.
On the other hand, what of the children in the elementary schools which were razed by the tornado? If they are declared innocent by a righteous God, as Deuteronomy 1:39 and Isaiah 7:16 and also explained here, then why did they have to die? Why did God allow a natural disaster to take them?
And that is where I stopped my essay, many hours ago. I was stuck on the answer myself because I was unsatisfied with saying that sin is a blanket cause for all evil, including natural disasters. Though the sin done n the Garden of Eden was indirectly the cause of the weather patterns turning deadly, how and what are we to think of a deadly tornado such as the one yesterday, more specifically? My theology brought me to an understanding of sin as a reason for the general evil in the world, including disasters such as the Oklahoma tornado. But it wasn’t a deep enough answer.
But later today, Dr. Al Mohler wrote today of this exact subject. He said, “But Jesus rejected this as a blanket explanation for suffering, instructing His disciples in John 9 and Luke 13 that they could not always trace suffering back to sin.”
What are we to think, then? As I read the rest of Dr. Mohler’s essay, that more thorough explanation became clear through his precise and mature understanding of theology. He wrote,
However as Dr. Mohler explains that passages in Luke 13 and John 9 show us that “the problem of evil and suffering, the theological issue of theodicy, is customarily divided into evil of two kinds, moral and natural.” [emphasis mine]
The moral problem of evil was exemplified in Korah. Korah’s pride and ambition was his undoing. He committed a moral sin and ended up rebelling against God. Suffering ensued for him and his family.
He says that a discussion of both kinds of evil are included in the Luke 13 passage.
“In Luke 13, the murder of the Galileans is clearly moral evil, a premeditated crime–just like the terrorist acts in New York and Washington. In John 9, a man is blind from birth, and Jesus tells the Twelve that this blindness cannot be traced back to this man’s sin, or that of his parents. Natural evil comes without a moral agent. A tower falls, an earthquake shakes, a tornado destroys, a hurricane ravages, a spider bites, a disease debilitates and kills. The world is filled with wonders mixed with dangers. Gravity can save you or gravity can kill you. When a tower falls, it kills.”
Further, Mohler wrote,
A venerable confession of faith states it rightly: “God from eternity, decrees or permits all things that come to pass, and perpetually upholds, directs, and governs all creatures and all events; yet so as not in any way to be the author or approver of sin nor to destroy the free will and responsibility of intelligent creatures.”
But if God is sovereign, doesn’t He allow the tornado to occur? How do we reconcile God’s sovereignty and our responsibility? We can’t really. Not with our finite minds. Mohler answers,
God is God, and God is good. As Paul affirms for the church, God’s sovereignty is the ground of our hope, the assurance of God’s justice as the last word, and God’s loving rule in the very events of our lives: “And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, who are the called according to His purpose.” [Romans 8:28]
We dare not speak on God’s behalf to explain why He allowed these particular acts of evil to happen at this time to these persons and in this manner. Yet, at the same time, we dare not be silent when we should testify to the God of righteousness and love and justice who rules over all in omnipotence. Humility requires that we affirm all that the Bible teaches, and go no further. There is much we do not understand. As Charles Spurgeon explained, when we cannot trace God’s hand, we must simply trust His heart.
What we do understand is that God is good in having sent His son to die for us. Jesus took upon Himself all sin and exhausted God’s wrath for it, and then died, to be accepted by God as the eternal sacrifice for that sin and raised on the third day. He now imputes His righteousness to His saints who believe this Gospel by faith, and it is by that vehicle we declare His righteousness to those who are afflicted and suffering.
He allows us to be His witnesses, the indwelling Holy Spirit glowing and bringing God glory. If we were to see a visible manifestation of His Goodness, would it be in Christians’ Spirit lovingly racing TO the place of terror, danger, and devastation, to help their neighbor? Like this photo from the Baltimore Sun, with the lens flares I inserted?
As my friend Pastor Phil wrote yesterday, “May our suffering Oklahoma neighbors and friends see the manifest presence of God in the midst of their suffering, especially through the ministries of Christians.”
This is where God is good, and all that Goodness stems back to the only One who is Good, God, who sent His Son. (Mark 10:18).
If we could part the curtain and see His goodness visibly, would it be that we’d see the myriads of ministering angels? Especially at the flattened school? As I try to show with this photo from the Chicago Tribune containing lens flares I put in? (Those aren’t floodlights)
Dr. Mohler said,
“The second great error is to ascribe evil to God. But the Bible does not allow this argument. God is absolute righteousness, love, goodness, and justice. Most errors related to this issue occur because of our human tendency to impose an external standard–a human construction of goodness–upon God. But good does not so much define God as God defines good.”
Yes, we mourn and we cry when we see the terrible calamity of children killed, neighbors dead, homes lost, and businesses smashed. The heart of the matter is not whether God is good or God is bad, the heart of the matter is repentance. A calamity could happen any day. Like in Luke 13, the tower of Siloam fell on 18 workers constructing it and they died. Jesus said, “Or those eighteen on whom the tower in Siloam fell and killed them: do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others who lived in Jerusalem? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish.”” (Luke 13:4-5). Your eternal destiny awaits, are you ready? A tornado could take your life, it is a natural evil that is blind and thoughtless, taking with it into its deadly vortex a child or a sinner or a repented one. Any day, any time. If you do not repent, you shall likewise perish, not just body, but soul
God’s goodness is that He made a way for you to escape eternal destruction, no matter the manner of death. That way is Jesus. (John 14:6). Talk about good! It doesn’t get any better than the Savior.
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Further reading or listening
God’s Sovereignty and Personal Compassion in Public Tragedy, John Piper
Supernatural Lessons from a Natural Disaster, John MacArthur
Does God control everything? free ebook or free kindle, RC Sproul
Why does God allow bad things to happen? SJ Tuohy
Why does God allow bad things to happen to good people? GotQuestions
Why does God allow good things to happen to bad people? GotQuestions
the-end-time.org 