Later or tomorrow I am going to post a carefully considered, thoughtful theological essay on the decline of American cities as evidenced by what is happening in Camden NJ. Maybe not tonight because I have church and I don’t think I can get it done in time. When I post it, it may be well received and get a decent number of hits.
But nothing will get people’s attention like this story today from MyFox Orlando:
“(NewsCore) – An incredible picture of an albino baby one-eyed shark was going viral Tuesday amid reports that, despite looking like a sci-fi spoof, the creature had been verified as real by researchers. The white fetus was reportedly cut from the belly of a dusky shark by a commercial fisherman in the Gulf of California earlier this year and the picture posted on the blog of Pisces Fleet Sportfishing, based in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico. However, the website cited shark expert Felipe Galvan Magana, of Mexico’s Centro Interdisciplinario de Ciencias del Mar, who told Pisces Fleet, “This is extremely rare. As far as I know, less than 50 examples of an abnormality like this have been recorded.” Researchers said they had examined the shark and found that its eye was made of functional optical tissue. Magana and his colleagues are to publish a scientific paper about the find. Seth Romans, a spokesman for Pisces Fleet, told LiveScience that the fisherman who caught the shark was “amazed and fascinated” by the attention and was hanging on to its remains.”
The thing that gets me is the level of sin in the world is so corrupting that God’s creation doesn’t even look like itself any more. The other thing that gets me is that posts on cryptozoology (weird animals) and earthquakes/volcanoes/natural disasters always get the highest amount of hits. The Dust Storm of Lubbock the other day got a massive number of views. The Elenin post is still going strong even though the comet is dissolved by the sun and no longer in existence.
I guess we all want to know why weird things happen and huge natural disasters are always an attention-getter. Maybe because they feel so out of our control. As many dams as we put up, rivers still flood. As much as we learn about volcanoes, they still explode unpredictably. As many zoning codes and engineering strengths we place on buildings, they still fall down in a quake.
My hope and prayer is that people allow the Holy Spirit to draw them to the Father, and once converted, have the same thirst for information about Him as they do about the weird stuff. I personally believe that the Rapture will be not only the culmination of one of the Lord’s plans, but a sign unto itself to many who have heard the Good News and put off deciding whether to believe it. Of course, it is not good to wait that long. God’s mercy has room for all repentant sinners whether they repent before or after the tribulation. However, living through what Jesus Himself described as the worst time there shall ever be is something I don’t wish on my worst enemy.
Three of the Gospels tell the story of the Gadarene demoniac. Mark’s is the most specific but all three mention the man’s fierceness. (Mt. 8.28-34, Lk. 8.26-39)
Mark 5:1-5 “And they came over unto the other side of the sea, into the country of the Gad’arenes. And when he was come out of the ship, immediately there met him out of the tombs a man with an unclean spirit, who had his dwelling among the tombs; and no man could bind him, no, not with chains: because that he had been often bound with fetters and chains, and the chains had been plucked asunder by him, and the fetters broken in pieces: neither could any man tame him. And always, night and day, he was in the mountains, and in the tombs, crying, and cutting himself with stones.”
He lived in the tombs so he was homeless, and further, being among the dead made him unclean in a most extreme way to the Jews. He was so strong he could break chains, and no man could subdue him. And his screaming could be heard from mountain to valley, so much so that no one would go that way. In other words, they would walk miles out of their way to avoid this guy.
People think demon-possession is passe. That it only happened in bible times. It is true, Jesus spent a lot of His ministry exorcising demons because there seemed to be so many then and not so many now. But just because the bible times ended does not mean the demons went away. It is hard to think of similar things happening in this sanitized, scientific, hands-off kind of age. But they do.
Satan hates Jesus just as much now as he did then. He hates the Jews just as much now as he did then. He hates the Christians just as much now as he did then. He is still killing, stealing, and destroying. (John 10:10)
If we came up against a demon-possession in these days, what would it look like? I would say that it’d have similar characteristics to what the bible described: unnatural, untameable strength, total disregard for their welfare and the welfare of others, screaming and crying, anger and violence.
Well, the following footage has all that and more. The rest of this blog entry discusses specific demon possession and its effects. It is disturbing and contains video and descriptions of recent demon-possession. Stop reading now if you want to avoid the graphic matter contained in this piece.
Of the footage you are about to see, the synopsis from Youtube says, “In 2008, BBC cameras filmed two Swedish sisters throwing themselves into traffic on the M6. When it was shown on BBC One, nearly 7 million viewers were glued to their screens, and millions more watched it later on YouTube. The footage was shocking. One previewer wrote “On no account miss this documentary. It opens with what is perhaps the most extraordinary footage I’ve seen on TV”. But this amazing footage was only part of an even more incredible story, one which could not be told at the time for legal reasons. Now, two years later, this documentary reveals the full story of the hours just before the cameras captured that motorway footage, and the even more chilling story of what happened over next 72 hours, which left one of the sisters fleeing the scene of a crime, after she had stabbed a man through the chest. Those who were at the centre of this fascinating legal case, including the police and Crown prosecution service, reveal the complex issues involved in both bringing charges and taking this disturbing case to trial. A leading criminal psychiatrist, Dr. Nigel Eastman, explains the difficulties the judicial system has in achieving justice and deciding punishment when dealing with mental illness.”
The following is part 1 of four parts. I watched (through my fingers) part one and part of the second. I warn you, the footage is disturbing. It is graphic. You are warned.
What happened is that the woman, Sabina Eriksson, was frenetically pacing alongside the M6 highway and when approached by police, hurled herself in front of a car. She was run over, but survived and leaped up and ran off to the other lanes to repeat her action. Her twin sister also ran out in front of traffic, she was hit and run over by a the equivalent of an eighteen wheeler, and was thrown like a rag doll. However, both women survived. Police in the video describe the unlikelihood of this happening, ever. Ursula was incapacitated but after regaining consciousness, screamed at the medics attending her and had to be held down. Sabina meanwhile was grabbed on the other side of the roadway but could not be subdued. Several police officers attempted to get her under control, and it was only when several passers by also aided the police that she was subdued and cuffed. It took 6 men to handcuff one small woman.
A friend of the man that she later killed was interviewed in a newspaper article. He said, “When I saw the footage on the internet of her running out in the road it made me feel sick. She looked possessed in that film. I wanted answers from the court case, I wanted to know why she did what she did but I don’t think anyone will ever know.”
‘Heard voices’ — “Psychiatrists told Luton Crown Court that the mother-of-two was suffering from either induced delusional disorder or acute polymorphic disorder, which were both rare. Dr Carol McDaniel said: “Sabina said she heard voices but could not interpret what they were saying.”
The incident occurred in 2008, and after a two-year legal wrangle, in 2010 more information has started to come out. I note that the officials state she has turned to Christianity. This is a good thing. Demon possession would look very much like what happened on the motorway and in the days afterward, with Sabina killing Glenn Hollingshead and stabbing of the passerby who came to help.
In other strange news, another graphic incident happened this week. This one was in Italy, during a Catholic church service. A man worshiping during the service heard a voice and
graphic- stop reading- warning of graphic incident ahead–
pulled both his eyeballs out. According to Italian media, a mentally ill British man literally pulled both his eyes out during a church service. The man’s mother, who was with him when it happened, initially thought he had fallen and banged his head, because of the blood. When parishioners discovered what he had done, many of them fainted or fell ill themselves upon seeing the ghastly sight.
Ursula and Sabina throwing themselves in front of vehicles moving at high speed, a man suddenly plucking out his own eyes…this is what demon possession looks like. During the Tribulation, there will be a lot more if it. There will be things like this that people don’t understand, or are beyond the realm of comprehension.
One thing that is also beyond comprehension but is something to seek and not avoid is Jesus’ love. The Gadarene demoniac saw Jesus and recognized him, falling down to worship him. Jesus has power over the demons. Jesus’ power is unlimited, omniscient and powerful. With all that, He loves us gently and patiently. No sin is too big for Him to forgive. No deed is too bad for Him to wipe away. He seeks you. He sent the Holy Spirit to draw you to Him! He wants you. Please enfold yourself in the loving arms of Jesus today. Otherwise, you leave yourself open to the same demonic possession and harassment the people in this article had left themselves exposed to. And you really don’t want to be left open to be satan’s plaything, not when you can be Jesus’ bride!
The story was posted today, Monday September 26th so I think it’s unlikely that it was from the satellite… This is from Google translate, original link here in Spanish. The town where the fireball fell from heaven is south of Buenos Aires, Argentina
“The incident occurred minutes before 2 am, in a building located on the intersection of Luis Vernet and Los Andes, a town of Monte Grande, of Esteban Echeverría. The causes of the explosion are still unknown, but locals say they witnessed the fact that “a ball of fire fell from heaven.” “He began to feel much smell like gunpowder,” recalled one person who lives in the area told C5N. “There is no explanation for what happened,” said Cayetano, a local resident, told Radio 10, then adding, “a neighbor ran because he saw a fireball falling blue.” The commander of the local fire department, Guillermo Pérez, remarked that still do not know the cause of the incident, but acknowledged that the first version is aimed at an “object that fell from heaven.” “I heard that version, but I can not say at first. Must be bound to expertise to really see what happened, “he said in a statement to Radio 10. Perez confirmed that two trade houses and” were completely destroyed. “In fact, a woman who was trapped under the rubble lost life while six others were rescued and were taken for care at a local hospital, told C5N firefighters who work on site. The victim is one of the people who lived in the building where the explosion was generated. As the injured, three belong to that house and three adjoining the house, hit by the blast. All the injured were out of danger, said C5N. According to the story of neighbors, the outbreak was felt even in adjoining towns like Ezeiza and Temperley, south of Buenos Aires.”
I was talking with a Christian friend yesterday about a sermon I’d heard. I can’t remember who the pastor was, probably Steve Hadley of Harvest Family Fellowship. Jesus has been preparing a place for us. It will be in New Jerusalem. (Rev 21:2-3). When we go to our place in New Jerusalem after the rapture, we will be with the Lord. But it was explained that the place He has been preparing for us, (John 14:3) has been mistranslated. It is not that we are going to receive a mansion. We don’t get mansions. It is actually a room. The word in Greek means room, or quarters, general in space, but limited by occupancy. It will be an expansive room, but a room or rooms.
In the bible days in Israel, a son would marry a woman and then return to his father’s house to reside. The father would have helped the son build rooms adjoining his rooms, around a courtyard. If another son gets married, he also builds rooms or quarters adjacent to the father’s house, also around the courtyard. Everyone has private living space but congregates in the courtyard or the common areas. They dwelled with the father.
We also will dwell WITH God. “In my Father’s house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am.” (John 14:2-4). “After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever.” (1 Thessalonians 4:17)
In the sermon the metaphor illustrates that it’s not like we arrive at the pearly gates and Peter is there to greet us with a map to the subdivision. He doesn’t say things like, “well go down Faith Avenue and take a right, and your mansion is third from the left..” No, lol!
We dwell WITH the Lord. In the same space. We see Him. We talk with Him. We live with fellow Christians who also worship Him in truth and glory. It is an almost inconceivable notion but I believe it as fact. The Thessalonians and John verses, among others, tell us so.
Let’s imagine something. You have a room. Maybe that room has a closet. And in the closet is one garment. It is your white robe. It is your garment of righteousness. One lone hanger and one garment, waiting for you!
I delight greatly in the LORD; my soul rejoices in my God. For he has clothed me with garments of salvation and arrayed me in a robe of his righteousness, as a bridegroom adorns his head like a priest, and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels. (Isaiah 61:10)
“The armies of heaven were following him, riding on white horses and dressed in fine linen, white and clean.” (Rev 19:14)
“Let us rejoice and be glad and give him glory! For the wedding of the Lamb has come, and his bride has made herself ready. 8Fine linen, bright and clean, was given her to wear.” (Fine linen stands for the righteous acts of the saints.)” (Rev 19:7-8)
There is a garment waiting for you in the place He is preparing for you. For YOU. If you repent of your sins, meaning, to ask Jesus to forgive the bad things you have thought, said, or done, He will. He will send the Holy Spirit to you to dwell in you to help you learn His ways and to resist sin.
During the Tribulation, plenty of weird things will happen. Earthquakes that are greater than ever before, comets, strange things coming upon the earth, demon locusts, Two Witnesses killed in public but then resurrect and fly to heaven…but weird things are happening now, in the time just prior to the end of the Church Age and before the beginning of The Tribulation. Natural disasters are striking with monthly regularity, Europe is collapsing, UFO’s are appearing with boring regularity, and reversing tides tsunami, sinkholes, cracks, rumbles, growls, and generally weird earth noises are emitting from varied places. None of these the scientists can explain.
In the case of the noises, Windsor, Ontario has to be noise ground zero. I had written before and also here that Windsor Ontario has endured a rumbling kind of strange hum for months. Apparently it had subsided a bit lately, giving the residents some relief. However, it is now back, and with a vengeance.
Windsor rumble intensifies “WINDSOR, Ont. — It seemed as if the mysterious rumblings had subsided, according to Grete MaKenzie, but Sunday night through early Monday the low pitch humming came back with a vengeance.”
“It was the loudest it’s ever been,” she said about the inexplicable rumblings she and thousands of Windsorites have reported hearing in the past eight months. The 61-year-old said the noise woke her at home about 5:30 a.m. Monday in the 3000 block of Sandwich Street. “Last night it was really bad,” said MaKenzie. “We went outside and it was almost like it was vibrating your eardrums.” She said the noise comes and goes, but has been going on far too long. “We need to identify it,” she said. The Ministry of the Environment has ruled out industrial sources as the culprit, but Coun. Al Maghnieh wants to know why. “They’re not giving us answers,” he said. Maghnieh believes the study is not complete. He said he’s received thousands of calls — mostly concentrated in the Windsor West area by Brighton Beach. The ministry ruled out the Windsor Salt mine because the company only blasts once a day in the mid-afternoon. Most residents find the rumblings more prominent between 1-3 a.m. Zug Island, lake freighters and plane traffic from Detroit Metro Airport are also not suspected. The ministry could not be reached Monday for comment. Multiple Facebook groups have started to log times and locations of the mysterious humming, including The Windsor/Essex County Hum which has 523 members. The page was flooded with posts describing Monday’s occurrence as the loudest yet.”
More at link.
Weirder and weirder. Here is an equally weird thought. What if the noises are the overflow noises that we happen to catch are from a demonic struggle from the other side of the veil? That as the LORD’S hand lifts from this world in preparation for the final days of evil, that occasionally we are catching the otherworldly dimensional cacophony ready to bear down on us? I’ve often wondered, as Elisha prayed to God to lift the blinders from his servant’s eyes, if also that the servant heard the chariots whirring and the fire rushing. (2 Kings 6:17). When Jesus chose to emit His heavenly glory to the inner circle of disciples on the Mount of Transfiguration (Matthew 17:1-8), did they hear anything as well? We know that the shepherds heard the angels on the hillside on the night of Jess birth. Did they hear anything the moments before they appeared through the veil separating our dimensions? I wonder.
Prayer works. The Lord is mysterious, His wonders to perform–
This is from MSNBC’s photo blog, and I encourage you to click over there to view the spectacular photos.
Last Friday afternoon a large church youth group from Spanaway was visiting the beach off the Cranberry Beach approach in Long Beach, WA. Shannon Kissel and his daughter Nicole were boogie-boarding nearby when they saw two boys were in need of help. While they were able to retrieve one boy, they were not able to rescue Dale Ostrander, who was caught in a rip tide. It was about 10 minutes until the surf rescue team was on scene.
Twenty-plus kids from the youth group sobbed uncontrollably and prayed on the sand during the search, a truly heart-wrenching sound. It was then at least another 15 minutes or so before rescue swimmer Eduardo Mendez spotted Ostrander, and he and swimmer Will Green were able to grab him and pull him aboard a jet ski.
Seconds later at the shore, Doug Knutzen carried him up to where paramedics were waiting to treat him. They were on the beach for another 10 minutes trying to revive him. I think it’s safe to say that everyone was certain Ostrander was dead. But the crew continued to work on him, and apparently once they got to the hospital they were able to get a weak pulse and get him breathing again.
Ostrander was air-lifted to Portland for treatment. After he was put in an induced coma for a couple days, he woke up.
And today (Aug. 9) they removed his breathing tube. Not only did Ostrander breath on his own, but he spoke complete sentences. Amazing. This boy was dead for upward of 20 minutes, easily. From the blog prayersfordale.blogspot.com: At 4:11 pm today “The doctors just removed Dale’s breathing tube and he is now breathing on his own. Also, because of possible damage to the brain, they were unsure if he would be able to speak. Minutes after the tube was removed, the doctors told him to cough. Not only did Dale talk back to the doctors, he responded in a full sentence saying, “I don’t have to.”
Dale continues to get better by the minute, and the doctors are more and more amazed!”
Going to these kinds of breaking news situations is often tough, as you never know how they’re going to turn out. I was heartbroken for almost a day after this. And to be able to share this kind of news now is just so heart-warming. Please visit the site listed above and follow as Dale recovers miraculously. Because if ever there was a miracle, this would be it. -DKM
I’ve got two weeks left until I go back to work. The last week of July will be busy. So that essentially leaves a week. This weekend I’m going to a Beth Moore convention! Between now and then, I’d like to do a lot of reading. I’ve got stacked up on my table, John Piper’s “Think”, “The Complete Guide to Asperger’s Syndrome”, “The Centurion’s Wife, and a book about Captain Sir John Franklin’s lost expedition of HMS Erebus and HMS Terror to the Arctic in 1845 – 1848, called “The Terror.” That one is 700 pages.
I also want to revisit the BBC documentary “Atom,” narrated by physicist Jim Al-Khalili. I just got done watching part one again, “Clash of the Titans” and I am loving quantum physics more and more as I learn it.
That’s what I want to concentrate on. I won’t be staying by the computer as much so maybe I will not be posting as much. I don’t know, but I am going to attempt to kick back for a week and do some other things, including the ladies retreat at Beth Moore convention with some real people! That will be a change from my regular life here at The Hermitage.
This made me laugh out loud. I’d posted a few days ago about police on a hair trigger. I’d used the sad examples of the dancers at the Jefferson Memorial being arrested, and of the Pima County police that stormed a vet’s home looking for drugs and shooting him 22 times in front of his family, and security guards at a soccer game using their nightstick on a subdued prankster. We’ve all read lately of the taser incidents. But this one takes the cake.
In landlocked Kansas city…it all started when some kids came home from playing in the neighborhood and told their dad that they saw an alligator…who called 911…who called the conservation officer…who called police…who dispatched three officers.
Independence Police Shoot Alligator Lawn Ornament “Police responding to an alligator sighting in a suburban Kansas City pond took quick action to dispatch the big reptile. It wasn’t until after the second rifle shot bounced off the beast Sunday that the three Independence officers realized it was a concrete lawn ornament.Independence police spokesman Tom Gentry said the department received a call from a man who said a gator had been spotted in the woods. Gentry said the alligator was in the weeds near a tree by a pond and it looked real. An officer shot the gator twice in the head — per instructions from a conservation officer — before realizing it wasn’t moving.Gentry said the landowner told officers he put the fake gator there to keep children off his property.”
Police told the landowner that a ‘no trespassing’ sign would have been wiser. I’m not so sure.
I watched an intense storm pop up in central Massachusetts this afternoon. All of the eastern seaboard is under a tornado watch, from DC to Maine. Half an hour ago, a tornado touched down in Springfield Mass and ripped through the city at rush hour. Tornadoes in New England are rare. They do happen, but they are rare. Municipalities don’t have tornado warnings and the people don’t expect them. If one hits, people must rely on eyesight to visually spot it or be tuned in to emergency weather messages. They may not be tuned in, and even if they are, they don’t know what to do. I didn’t.
When I moved here to Georgia I had to learn what to do when a tornado warning is issued. You go to the cellar or to the lowest floor of your building. You put as many walls between you and the outside as possible, going into a closet or the bathroom if need be. I didn’t know any of that nor was familiar with the power of these storms as I am now.
The tornado that hit Springfield apparently did much damage. Trees and power lines down, buildings damaged. Another one is headed for Worcester MA, and one just hit Sturbridge. I’m listening to live scanners, and also looking at video and photos. Amazing. This is surreal. I don’t know what is in store for Boston or NY later today but the weather channel guys are making comparisons to weather conditions similar to Tuscaloosa and Birmingham Alabama in terms of signature and situation.
The guy stayed looking at it until the hail conked his head, then he made a beeline for the car.
Jesus said that as we approach the end of days that the birth pangs will become more frequent and painful. We are not under judgment yet but we can definitely see that the times are getting crazier. I’m more amazed every day at seeing the results of what the bible tells us to expect.
the-end-time.org 