There can be only One.
 |
| Source: Facebook, Genesis 12:3’s page |
“On that day there shall be a fountain opened for the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, to cleanse them from sin and uncleanness.”
Idolatry Cut Off
2“And on that day, declares the Lord of hosts, I will cut off the names of the idols from the land, so that they shall be remembered no more. And also I will remove from the land the prophets and the spirit of uncleanness.” (Zechariah 13:1-3)
Some news for you:
Without the Holy Spirit to help men keep covenant eyes, they resort to the silliest things. They will also fail.
Chastity’ lenses help devout Jewish men avoid impure thoughts
“If thine eye offend thee, pluck it out. That or wear glasses that make your vision so blurry that you can’t see three yards in front of you. That is the solution being tested out by a subset of ultra-orthodox Jews in Israel whose self-control is evidently not up to the test. The website RT.com reports that pious Jews who find themselves tempted by scantily clad girls strutting through their neighborhoods of Jerusalem have taken to wearing blurry spectacles that “literally put beautiful women out of sight, if not out of mind.”
Specs not sex: New glasses blur women for Orthodox Jews
“Stores in Jerusalem’s ultra-Orthodox neighborhood of Mea Sharim will soon start stocking glasses that leaves one’s immediate vision intact, but makes everything beyond 10 feet completely out of focus, Yedioth Ahronoth’s Hebrew website Mynet reports. For those cursed with 20/20 vision, the organization provides a pair of non-prescription spectacles at a price of $32.50, onto which two semi-transparent stickers can be slapped. And if their vision is already failing them, the stickers can be applied to the lenses of prescription glasses, leaving the wearer even more myopic than they were before.”
Sigh. I hope you can appreciate the ministry of the Holy Spirit, who helps us resist sin. And appreciate even more the gift that he is, a gift of mercy and helps from our Holy God.
Now on to Touchdown Jesus. He may have been struck by lightning and burned to a cinder, but now he is back. Two years ago, I’d posted about the Touchdown Jesus getting zapped.
I had written back then, “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.”
So it got hit by a bolt of lighting and burned up. Now this blogger says he is going to be resurrected.
““Touchdown Jesus” is about to rise again, though—although this time, his resurrected form has been titled “Lux Mundi,”, from the Latin for “Light of the World.” He’s a more traditional Jesus with arms outstretched; and already the blogosphere has given him the affectionate nickname “Hug Me Jesus.” The new statue has been engineered to fit the existing steel frame and concrete base, but will stand only 52 feet, as compared to the 62-foot original.”
The statue will be put up in September. So we have that to look forward to.
After a quiet first half of the year in the earthquake front, several major earthquakes have occurred this week. In order from today’s quake to a week ago-
6.3 Sulawesi, Indonesia
7.7 Sea of Okhotsk
6.3 Xinjiang-Xizang Border Region
6.4 NW Iran
6.3 NW Iran
On the volcano front, we continue to read reports of eruptions that are reported as “the first eruption since…” or “the first eruption ever…” Like this one from Geologist Erik Klemetti’s blog, Eruptions:
“It took a little bit to decipher, but it appears that the Grozny Group in the Kuril Islands may have had its first eruption since 1989.”
Or the identification of the mysterious 26,000 square km pumice raft that had no readily located source, except maybe,
“it appears that this is Havre seamount (near Havre Rock), a volcano that we don’t know very much about at all. In fact, Havre doesn’t even have an entry in the GVP database or really any information about it – heck, it doesn’t even show up on many maps of the active Kermadec volcanoes.”
As of Friday, Aug. 18, the website VolcanoDiscovery reports, “A small swarm of quakes has been going on at Katla volcano since yesterday. So far, 10 quakes have occurred today, including a M2.8 quake at 1.8 km depth 6.8 km E of Goðabunga.”
Any mention of evil and powerful Katla always sends tremors to everyone from geologists to conspiracy theorists.
Good news! A new velociraptor spider with vicious claws has been discovered in Oregon! And you thought the brown spider was bad enough! Just when man thought he had classified the world, God goes and shows us we know nothin’, nothin’ at all really, about His complex and immense creation.
Velociraptor spider discovered in Oregon cave (pictures)
“Scouring the caves of Southwest Oregon, scientists have made the incredible discovery of a fearsome apex predator with massive, sickle claws. No, it’s not the Velociraptor from Jurassic Park: it’s a large spider that is so unique scientists were forced to create a new taxonomic family for it. “This is something completely new,” lead author of a paper on the species, Charles Griswold with the California Academy of Sciences, told SFGate. “It’s a historic event.”
And just in case you thought that a new spider discovery was an anomaly, and that science really has figured out the earth and its animals,
Two new species of owls identified in Philippines
“Two new owl species have been identified in the Philippines, and researchers say the birds’ songs led them to the discovery. “More than 15 years ago, we realized that new subspecies of Ninox hawk-owls existed in the Philippines,” zoologist Pam Rasmussen of Michigan State University said in a statement. “But it wasn’t until last year that we obtained enough recordings that we could confirm that they were not just subspecies, but two new species of owls.”
Now put this into perspective. For 6000 years discoveries of our earth have unfolded constantly, and man still isn’t done finding out all there is to know about this planet upon which we live. Yet God created all the animals in one day. One day. He created the entire earth and all that is above it and all that is in it in 6 days. Don’t you just love His creativity and power? I do!!!
What does a local territorial fight between China, Japan, and Taiwan over some Asian Sea rocky outcroppings have to do with a future prophesied war in the Middle East? Read on.
East Asia’s Sea Disputes: Scar Tissue from War Wounds
“It’s not easy keeping track of all the territorial disputes over rocky outcrops, barren mini-islands and submerged chunks of coral in East Asian waters. Each piece of land seems to have competing and passionate claims by any number of countries in the region, and each island group is called different names by the opposing claimants. Fishing boats are rammed, ship captains are detained. Diplomats bluster and politicians rant. “Standoffs” are declared. “History” is invoked, with dusty maps, charts and treaties. It is, to many observers, an indecipherable mess.”
First of all, did you even know this was going on? I really wish our US mews media would focus on something other than Michelle Obama’s dress, Jay Leno’s salary, and Obama’s lies. Anyway, the article continues-
“The latest dispute began Wednesday, with Japan detaining 14 Chinese activists who clambered onto a bleak little islet claimed and controlled by Tokyo. The activists, who had set sail from Hong Kong, dodged Japanese coast guard vessels and planted Chinese and Taiwanese flags on one of the Senkaku islands, which are also claimed by China and Taiwan. The Chinese call them the Diaoyu islands.”
“The incident has the region in something of an uproar, especially in China. Global Times, a mainland newspaper with a nationalist bent that is affiliated with the Chinese Communist Party, ran a photo on its front page on Thursday of an activist standing on an outcrop and waving the Taiwanese flag. A state-run media outlet showing the flag of China’s “breakaway republic,” well, it’s almost unimaginable.’ “
The journalist is right, it IS unimaginable. So why is it happening?
“Why all these disputes over soggy and godforsaken patches of land, many of which disappear at high tide? The easy (and perhaps lazy) answer: oil and gas. The next great bonanza fields are expected to be in East Asian waters, and sovereignty over these micro-islands might conceivably be important as bases for exploration and drilling teams. Fish. That’s another commonly heard answer. Fishing boats, trawlers and factory ships from every Asian country now go thousands of miles in search of fish and seafood. It’s a hugely important industry in Asia. But the disputes — which are real and impassioned — are not about fish, oil, gas or real estate. They’re about World War II. They’re about national pride. And they’re about historical scar tissue that refuses to heal.”
Natural resources, land, and national pride. The big three. Now to Israel-
Here is Joel Rosenberg’s comment from his blog preceding an excerpt from an interesting article from NatGeo he has posted.
New Natural Gas Wealth Means Historic Change for Israel
“Israel discovers more and more natural gas, will this be a “game changer” in a positive way, or a new reason for Israel’s enemies to attack? Specifically, what will Russia’s reaction be when Israel becomes a natural gas exporter to Europe? Russia is currently one of the major suppliers of natural gas to Europe. Could such developments lead to the fulfillment of the Ezekiel 38-39 prophecies? These are trends worth watching closely.”
The NatGeo article states:
————————
“Israel’s northern port city of Haifa has been a crucial energy center for decades; refineries dating back to the British Mandate in this land have long processed the oil sent by pipeline or shipped here from abroad. Today, rigs are working off Haifa’s coast to tap the first major fossil-fuel reserve ever found in Israel’s territory, a store on which it hopes to build a far more independent energy future.”
“The Tamar natural gas field was discovered in 2009 some 50 miles (80 kilometers) off Haifa’s coast in the Mediterranean Sea. There are perhaps scores of known gas fields bigger than Tamar, with its estimated 250 billion cubic meters (9 trillion cubic feet) in reserves; Alaska’s North Slope, for instance, is believed to hold four times as much fuel. But Tamar is large enough to meet all of Israel’s natural gas requirements for 20 to 30 years, the experts say.”
“This unprecedented offshore bonanza expanded dramatically the following year when another field, Leviathan, almost double the size of Tamar, was discovered another 30 miles (48 kilometers) to the west. (A smaller field, Tanin, with an estimated 33.9 billion cubic meters (1.2 trillion cubic feet) in natural gas, was discovered nearby earlier this year.)With natural gas scheduled to begin flowing from Tamar next year, and from Leviathan about four years later, Israel is on the brink of a historic shift. Instead of being an energy-scarce nation amid Middle East oil giants, many of them hostile, Israel now faces a future as a fuel producer in its own right—likely as an exporter and supplier to some of its neighbors, a development that could dramatically alter the region’s geopolitics.”
“Israel’s foreign and domestic policy no longer will be intertwined with the question of securing adequate fuel supply. Now it will face a quite different challenge—managing the nation’s newfound energy abundance.”
“This is going to change the overall way of the economy of Israel,” says Shaul Zemach, director general of Israel’s Ministry of Energy and Water Resources. “It’s like a domino—it’s going to have a domino effect on all of the markets.” Quite simply, he said, it’s a “game changer.”
————————
If three nations dispute over rocks, what do you think they will do when the Holy Spirit is taken out of the way, and He no longer restrains, and the stakes are enormously higher in terms of land and wealth and religious pride? Will it take long for Russia to think to invade Israel to steal her wealth, settle old scores, and take land?
‘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. I will plunder and loot and turn my hand against the resettled ruins and the people gathered from the nations, rich in livestock and goods, living at the center of the land.” Sheba and Dedan and the merchants of Tarshish and all her villages will say to you, “Have you come to plunder? Have you gathered your hordes to loot, to carry off silver and gold, to take away livestock and goods and to seize much plunder? ”’ (Ezekiel 38:10-13)
Do you see now how easy it will be for whole nations to band together and run hordes over those whom they perceive as weak, or rich, or for revenge? Easy. It will happen, the prophecy of Ezekiel’s Gog-Magog battle will occur. Israel would lose because she was unsuspecting. Israel would succumb to the invasion, except for God’s supernatural protection, that is. The bible says,
“This is what will happen in that day: 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 in the sea, the birds in the sky, 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 on 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 38:18-23).
Man fights over rocky outcrops and plunder that moths and rust destroy. The LORD God has set in place a holy plan of redemption since before the foundation of the world. He is mighty and great. Man is not. Look to the LORD for salvation, protection, and security. You don’t have to wave a national flag on a pile of rocks that disappear at high tide, not when you can stand on THE Rock, (1 Cor 10:4) and wave the banner of truth, (Psalm 20:5) which endures forever.
The world is at the brink and staring at the abyss, and the world knows it. That’s why the world is clamoring for a strong leader with answers to take charge. That person is not the next President of the United States. That person is not the next United Kingdom Prime Minister. That person is not the next North Korean king. That person will be the antichrist.
The war talk from Middle East leaders is not just rhetoric any more. The usual chest thumping, threats, rhetorical subterfuge, ambassadorial slyness and outright propaganda has changed in tone and substance. Israel is talking about imminent war and speaking of actual fronts. Israel expert Joel Rosenberg said this a few days ago:
“Yes, it is possible that Israeli leaders could be bluffing. Yes, it is also possible that they are simply trying to pressure the U.S. and international community to take more decisive action to neutralize the Iranian nuclear threat. But reading the latest tea leaves, I believe evidence is rapidly mounting that this could really be it — Israel could be just days or weeks away from a massive preemptive strike against Iran. I believe there are significant changes in the way Israeli leaders are speaking about the possibility of war. One fact that has particularly caught my attention in the last 24 hours is that Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon is telling reporters that it is time for the world to admit that diplomacy has not worked, and that Iran only has “weeks” and not “months” to cease nuclear activity.”
Rosenberg’s last few posts have exclusively focused on the Middle East situation, specifically Israel-Iran. In the last few days he has consecutively posted,
Senior Israeli Official Warns Of “30 Day War” With Iran
New Natural Gas Wealth Means Historic Change For Israel: National Geographic
Why is the third news headline about the natural gas part of the clips on a possible upcoming war in the Middle East? I’ll explain in the next blog entry. First, these news headlines from the last few days that show how serious the talk of war really is getting. And I mean serious.
‘Tumour’ of Israel will soon be destroyed: Ahmadinejad
“Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad told an annual anti-Israel protest in Tehran on Friday that the Jewish state was a “cancerous tumour” that will soon be excised, drawing Western rebukes.”
Israel sees month-long war after Iran strike
“An Israeli attack on Iran’s nuclear program could trigger a bloody month-long war on multiple fronts, killing hundreds of Israelis or more, the Israeli Cabinet’s civil defense chief warned in an interview published Wednesday.”
 |
| Israeli school children learning to use gas masks. |
Iran: Israel’s existence ‘insult to all humanity’
“Israel’s existence is an “insult to all humanity,” Iran’s president said Friday in one of his sharpest attacks yet against the Jewish state, as Israel openly debates whether to attack Iran over its nuclear program. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said confronting Israel is an effort to “protect the dignity of all human beings.”
Iran commander ‘welcomes’ possible Israeli strike
Head of Revolutionary Guard’s air force says Israeli strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities would give Tehran a reason to retaliate and ‘get rid of’ Jewish state ‘forever’
“A senior Iranian commander says a possible Israeli airstrike against his country’s nuclear facilities is “welcome” because it would give Iran a reason to retaliate and “get rid of” the Jewish state “forever.”
Iran and Hezbollah issue warnings to Israel
“Hassan Nasrallah, the head of Lebanon-based Hezbollah group, and Mahmoud Ahmedinejad, the Iranian president, have issued stern warnings to Israel, saying that any aggression on that country’s part would be met with a swift armed response….If we are forced to use them to protect our people and our country, we will not hesitate to do so… and that will turn the lives of hundreds of thousands of Zionists into a living hell,” he said in a speech marking al-Quds [Jerusalem] Day.”
Saudi Cleric Questions Holocaust
“A prominent Saudi Arabian religious cleric declared that the Holocaust is an “exaggeration” and that Jewish people consume the blood of children during a wide-ranging interview with an Arabic television station. Saudi cleric Salman Al-Odeh, a well-known scholar revered by millions globally, went on a lengthy tirade against the Jews during an interview Monday in which he stated that “the role of the Jews is to wreak destruction, to wage war, and to practice deception and extortion,” according to a translation of his remarks by the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI). Al-Odeh ranted about the use of human blood in Jewish religious rituals, a notorious anti-Semitic smear commonly referred to as a “blood libel.”
The news article called it a tirade but it wasn’t. It was actually a calm and reasoned, quite believable argument against the Holocaust and against the sanctity of God and the right of the Jews, His people, to exist. That is why his lie is so devastating.
Muslim Brotherhood Supporters Scourge and Crucify Secular Protesters
“According to reports on Friday, Muslim Brotherhood supporters scourged and crucified secular protesters in Egypt’s capital city of Cairo. Using the same punishments described in Bible as having been inflicted on Jesus, Brotherhood backed mobs rampaged through the streets, seizing protesters against the Islamist government of Mohammad Morsi, and dragging secular journalists from their offices. Their victims were beaten, scourged with whips, and crucified naked on trees.”
As a watchman, I must bring you this news. I must show you the times in which we live. I must tell of the glory of Jesus, who is and was and IS TO COME- SOON. It is not doom and it is not gloom- it is hope.
Psalm 122:6-9 gives us instructions on what to pray regarding Jerusalem. As a matter of fact, being God, He not only commands to pray for Jerusalem, but promises blessings unto those who do! (Blessed are the peacemakers- Matthew 5:9). The Psalm says-
Pray for the peace of Jerusalem! “May they be secure who love you!
Peace be within your walls and security within your towers!”
For my brothers and companions’ sake I will say, “Peace be within you!”
For the sake of the house of the Lord our God, I will seek your good.
Peace in Jerusalem & Israel will only come when Jesus Himself returns to establish permanent peace. Between now and that blessed day, terrible wars and holocausts will occur on the people of Israel and then the world. However, God uses the devastating military attacks upon Israel, especially the Gog-Magog war of Ezekiel 38-39, to show Israel that no military might will ever be sufficient to protect them, and that He alone is their protector. It is during the Ezekiel 38 battle that Israel seeks the LORD and turns to Him. They cry out to the LORD and He saves them from Iran’s threat of obliteration. Blessed be the LORD!
Therefore we must understand that before that peace comes, praying for the peace of Jerusalem means that the worst wars of the world will happen. Just as prior to the new babe born of a mother, there is agonizing pain of the bloody labor. But would a mother trade that pain, forgoing giving birth to new life? No. The pain is instantly forgotten when the new babe, who is beloved and precious to the parents, is placed in their arms. So it is with God.
He will birth a new age, one with satan gone into the pit for 1000 years, one where Jesus is seen in His glory by His bride gathered around Him, with His people Israel thriving under His reign.
As of today, the fact remains, that praying for the peace of Jerusalem means that we are praying for His return! We must steel ourselves for the persecutions. How long will it take the angry mobs of ‘Muslim Brothers’ to turn from crucifying and scourging other Muslims and turn their satanic wrath to crucifying and scourging Christians and Jews? Not long. No, not long at all now. We must prepare our minds for the utter knowledge that wars and horror will come, and we are not gleeful nor excited about that. We lament in our prayers for the peace of Jerusalem, because we know what it entails. Even so, come, Lord Jesus.
JESUS gave of Himself so completely that while hanging on the cross, He, the Living Water, The Water of Life, said- “I thirst.”
 |
| Macha Chmakoff |
“After this, Jesus, knowing that all was now finished, said (to fulfill the Scripture), “I thirst.” A jar full of sour wine stood there, so they put a sponge full of the sour wine on a hyssop branch and held it to his mouth. When Jesus had received the sour wine, he said, “It is finished,” and he bowed his head and gave up his spirit.” (John 19:28-30).
And now risen by the grace and power of God, Jesus springs forth those waters upon His children forever. With a love like that, no week or day or even a moment is barren for us but is full of life and plentiful refreshment of love and grace. Jesus IS the Living Water, He brings refreshing rivers of life to those who repent!
 |
| Francesco Allegrini |
“Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.” The woman said to him, “Sir, you have nothing to draw water with, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water?” (John 4:10-11).
O, precious brethren, always remember the tremendous love of Jesus, who poured Himself out for you.
The conditions preceding the last global judgment- the Flood- had reached a point where the LORD was grieved He had even made man, because the thoughts of man’s heart were only evil, continually.
God said that at that time He “saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And the Lord regretted that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart. (Genesis 6:5-7)
Jesus said, those conditions will reappear prior to the second global judgment- the Tribulation.
“For as were the days of Noah, so will be the coming of the Son of Man.” (Matthew 24:37)
People seem good on the surface. They’re not. The bible is replete with verses telling us that man is evil from the get-go. We’re bad from birth-
“What is man, that he can be pure? Or he who is born of a woman, that he can be righteous?” (Job 15:14)
We’re bad as youths-
“And when the Lord smelled the pleasing aroma, the Lord said in his heart, “I will never again curse the ground because of man, for the intention of man’s heart is evil from his youth.” (Genesis 8:21a).
We’re bad as adults-
In this verse Jesus is speaking- “Or which one of you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a serpent? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!” (Matthew 7:9-11) [emphasis mine.]
Man is not good and earth is a hostile, dangerous place. It is satan’s place. When we read about a shooting in a movie theater we like to think that this kind of evil from man against man is an anomaly. “Aw, we’re all right,” we fool ourselves, “that was just one crazy man. Man is basically good.” But all men are crazy, or at least have the potential for that kind of evil. Witness these few examples from recent news which resulted in great pain to people. These are photos of the pain of the world. It is agony!
“Nicolas Kristof, Journalist and NY Times Columnist, recently wrote a column for NYTimes.com titled “On Top Of Famine, Unspeakable Violence.” He describes the horror of “mass rape” that many women fleeing Somalia, in pursuit of food and water, are currently facing. He challenges the reader to “Imagine that you’re a Somali suffering from the drought and famine in that country. One of your children has just starved to death, but there’s no time to mourn. Depleted and traumatized, you set off on foot across the desert with your family, and after 15 exhausting days finally reach what you believe is the safe haven of Kenya. But at the very moment when you think you’re secure, you encounter a nightmare broached only in whispers: an epidemic of violence and rape.”
And this is the time of gentility! This is the time of the Holy Spirit’s restraining ministry on earth! And yet we see man’s inhumanity to man on a constant basis. We have seen man’s evil ever since the Fall. Cain killed Abel. There is none good, no not one! (Romans 3:10). Only God is good. (Mark 10:18). We are evil.
If we are this inhumane to each other now, with the Spirit’s restraining ministry on earth, what will happen when He takes it away? God took Him away before the first judgment. “My Spirit will not remain with man forever,” says the LORD God.” (Genesis 6:3). God will take Him away prior to the second judgment,
“For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work. Only he who now restrains it will do so until he is out of the way.” (2 Thessalonians 2:7).
And yet, Jesus sacrificed Himself on the cross, dying in history’s most agonizingly brutal terroristic, heinous act for the very people who flew planes into buildings, bombed a residential area, murdered a 9-year-old, shot up a movie audience, knifed a sleeping Jewish family- including a months-old infant, stole food from the starving, and raped refugees. Jesus is THAT Good. He died for bad people, which means He died for all of us.
Don’t you want to follow a God who came down to us and taught us and then sacrificed Himself for those sins, your sins? Man is not good. But Jesus, who once lived as a man, is Good.
Repent. The end is nigh, and when it comes, and people’s inner evil will come bursting out. If you repent to Jesus, you won’t be here on earth to experience it. Jesus made a way to escape it. He IS the way, and He is the truth and the life. If life is agony now, just wait until satan is given full sway to allow unrestrained evil to take over the world.
Repent.
This is a really cool and interesting story. A vortex was created by drilling near a salt mine 30 years ago in Iberia Parish, Louisiana. The results in that story of drilling near a salt mine reminds me of reminds of the ongoing story today of the current problem with a salt mine in Louisiana’s Assumption parish, only 50 miles away from the events that occurred thirty years ago in Iberia. I post the story because local residents in Assumption are jittery about the proposed drilling of a relief well to try and discover why the sinkhole is occurring in the first place. I’ve posted about the Louisiana sinkhole first here, and then updated it here.
This story is about the unexpected power of earth when messed with… For example, below where it says nine barges popped back up like corks, days later? Think about how BIG a barge is. Then think nine popping up like corks.
Lake Peigneur, the biggest man-made vortex ever
In 1980, Lake Peigneur was an unremarkable body of water located near the Gulf of Mexico and New Iberia, Louisiana. The freshwater lake covered 1,300 acres of land and was only eleven feet deep. A small piece of land, Jefferson Island, was home to a beautiful botanical park. Deep beneath the lake there was a salt mine.
Today Lake Peigneur is still an unremarkable body of water. But it is now a 1,300 foot deep saltwater lake. We tell you the story of the biggest man-made whirlpool accident ever made. Early in the morning on November 21, 1980, workers decided to abandon their oil drilling rig on the suspicion that it was beginning to collapse. They had been probing for oil under the floor of Lake Peigneur when their drill suddenly seized up at about 1,230 feet below the muddy surface, and they were unable free it. In their attempts to work the drill loose, the men heard a series of loud pops, just before the rig tilted precariously towards the water. 
Lake Peigneur
Concluding that something had gone wrong, the men on the platform cut the attached barges loose, scrambled off the rig, and moved to the shore. Shortly after abandoning the $5 million drilling rig, the crew watched in amazement as the huge platform and derrick overturned, and disappeared into a lake that was supposed to be only eleven feet deep. Soon the water around that position began to turn. It was slow at first, but it steadily accelerated until it became a fast-moving whirlpool a quarter of a mile in diameter, with its center directly over the drill site.
As the whirlpool was forming on the surface, an electrician working in the salt mines below heard a loud, strange noise coming towards him. Soon he discovered the sound’s source: fuel drums banging together as they were carried along the shaft by a knee-deep stream of muddy water. He quickly called in the evacuation alarm. Many of the 50 miners working that morning, most as deep as 1,500 feet below the surface, saw the evacuation signal and began to run for the 1,300 foot level, where they could catch an elevator to the surface. Although it seemed to take forever to get out using the slow 8-person elevator, all 50 miners managed to escape with their lives as the mine below them filled with water.
Clearly, the salt dome which contained the mine had been penetrated by the drill crew on the lake. Texaco, who had ordered the oil probe, was aware of the salt mine’s presence and had planned accordingly; but somewhere a miscalculation had been made, which placed the drill site directly above one of the salt mine’s upper shafts. As the water poured in through the original 14-inch-wide hole, it quickly dissolved the salt away, making the hole grow bigger by the second. The water pouring into the mine also dissolved the huge salt pillars which supported the ceilings, and the shafts began to collapse.
Meanwhile, up on the surface, the tremendous sucking power of the whirlpool was causing violent destruction. It swallowed another nearby drilling platform whole, as well as a barge loading dock, 70 acres of soil from Jefferson Island, trucks, trees, structures, and a parking lot. The sucking force was so strong that it reversed the flow of the 12-mile-long canal which led out from the lake to the Gulf of Mexico, and dragged 11 barges from that canal into the swirling vortex, where they disappeared into the flooded mines below. It also overtook a manned tug on the canal, which struggled against the current for as long as possible before the crew had to leap off onto the canal bank and watch as the lake consumed their boat. 
The ruins of a building stand in the water of Lake Peigneur on Jefferson Island (Photo by Philip Gloud)
After only three hours, the lake was drained of its 3.5 billion gallons of water. The water from the canal, now flowing in from the Gulf of Mexico, formed a 150-foot waterfall into the crater where the lake had been, filling it with salty ocean water. As the canal refilled the crater over the next two days, nine of the sunken barges popped back to the surface like corks, though the drilling rigs and tug were left entombed in the ruined salt mine.
The backwards flow of the normally outflowing Delcambre Canal temporarily created the biggest waterfall in Louisiana
Despite the enormous destruction caused by the vortex, no human life was lost in this disaster, nor were there any serious injuries. Within two days, what had previously been an eleven-foot-deep freshwater body was replaced with a 1,300-foot-deep saltwater lake. The lake’s biology was changed drastically, and it became home to many species of plants and fish which had not been there previously. The owners of the Crystal Diamond salt mine received a combined $45 million in damages from Texaco and the oil drilling company, and got out of the salt mining business for good.
Food can become unavailable in many ways. It can be unavailable due to extended drought or heat. (Deuteronomy 28:22; Jeremiah 14:1-3; Haggai 1:11). It can be available but too expensive for most people to acquire. (Rev 6:6). Food can be eaten by locusts, worms, crickets. (Deuteronomy 28:38-29, 42). It can become unavailable due to difficulties of hostile armies surrounding the people and destroying the crops (Deut 28:48-51). Maybe the rivers dried up. “A drought on her waters! They will dry up. For it is a land of idols, idols that will go mad with terror.’ (Jer 50:38). There are lots of ways that food is kept from the people. But there is only one reason:
“All these curses will come upon you. They will pursue you and overtake you until you are destroyed, because you did not obey the Lord your God and observe the commands and decrees He gave you.” (Deuteronomy 28:45)
That was the curse the LORD gave to His people Israel, and there is no reason to think that the by now grafted-in peoples would not be held to the same account. He is, after all, the LORD our God. He also gave promises to to His people, that if they did follow Him and obey Him, they would be blessed.
Founded on a principle of freedom to worship our God, America has been blessed since the inception of the nation with bounty. However, of late we have failed to keep His commands and follow in His ways. Is it a coincidence that the blessings we have received over several hundred years of following Him have now dried up when we are not following Him? That our nation seems cursed? Personally, I do not think so. I do not think it is a coincidence that the richest nation on earth is slipping quickly down the economic ladder and closing in on Third World territory, that our lands are deformed by fire, drought, heat, insects, fungus, violence and infrastructure collapse, and that many of us are going hungry, is a coincidence that at the same time we have shaken our fist at God in so many ways. No, siree.
The Mississippi is drying up.
“The Mississippi river is drying up and some shipping companies are worried that the drought of 1988 may be repeated, a time when the river dried up so much that barge traffic came to a standstill. In 1988 the shipping industry lost $1 billion, a number that would be far higher in 2012 and could be reached in as little as three days. Almost all of the rivers 2,500 miles are experiencing some type of low water level. Just outside of Memphis the river is 13 feet below normal depth while the National Weather Service says Vicksburg, Mississippi is 20 feet below normal levels. Overall the Mississippi is 13 feet below normal averages for this time of year.”
Not only is most of the nation under drought conditions, but where there IS food growing, is seems that it becoming more and more impossible to deliver it to distribution centers via our seaways. I’ve lived on a boat for two years, traveling up and down the eastern seaboard’s Intracoastal Waterway. Our vessel crawled along the entire length of America from Yarmouth Maine to Key West Florida via river, canal, sea, ocean, lake, and river at a speed of three miles per hour. I’ve seen it. I’ve followed barges, passed barges, seen cargo ships dock and unload at Norfolk, Chsarleston, Savannah, Baltimore, New York … I know exactly how many goods are delivered via water and it is a tremendous artery. If the Mississippi is drying and causing goods to be slowed in their delivery or delivered not at all, this is a significant, significant development. The article above continues-
“The drying up river is forcing barge, tugboat and towboat operators to navigate narrower and more shallow spots in the river, slowing their speeds as they pass dangerously close to one another. In some parts of the Mississippi the river is so narrow that one-way traffic is being utilized.”
Where there is food, it can’t get to the people. Or they are too poor to buy it. People are getting frantic about this. Witness the scenes below-
St. Louis police respond after crowd swarms church for rumored food vouchers
Can we just call this for what it is? American’s first food riot since the Great Depression, when in Feb. 1931, this happened:
“Food riots begin to break out in parts of the U.S. In Minneapolis, several hundred men and women smash the windows of a grocery market and make off with fruit, canned goods, bacon, and ham. One of the store’s owners pulls out a gun to stop the looters, but is leapt upon and has his arm broken. The “riot” is brought under control by 100 policemen. Seven people are arrested.”
In St. Louis today, police were called as streets were overwhelmed with people hoping for even a chance at a food voucher. “Howard Walker, an administrator at St. Louis Powerhouse Church, and also a representative for Advanced Marketing Promotions, LLC, said the hundreds of people gathered for the event at the church, were tempted by the chance at the vouchers. Traffic was snarled in the area of the church, in the 4000 block of West Florissant Avenue for most of the morning, but appeared to be under control by about 11 a.m. “I’ve been working on the northside for five years, and I’ve never seen anything like this,” said Officer Michael Owens, who was pushing back the crowd along with other officers. Several attendees said they had been waiting in line for their chance at the voucher since last night and as early as 4 a.m. Once the church doors opened, the crowd rushed in.”
“They rushed the building so hard, that (organizers) had to shut it down,” she said. “Word of mouth got around and it got out of proportion.”
America is being choked from all sides and in all ways. Food is becoming the number one issue.
If people are lining up a day ahead at even a rumor of a chance of a food voucher, if people rushed a church so hard they had to call police….and the Holy Spirit is still working in His restraining ministry, what do you think people will do to get actual food when the Spirit releases humans to their base passions?
You don’t have to be around to wonder. You can be released from those base passions when Jesus calls for His bride, and resurrects the dead, gathers us together and offers us eternal joy and peace in heaven with Him. Never another hunger pang. Never another policeman. Never another siren. Never a need for an ambulance. Never a worry or fear that the store will be out of the weekly special, and not being able to afford what’s left. Never another embarrassing moment when, at the checkout, your card is declined.
Never.
How?
Repent.
“The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.” (Mark 1:15)
This morning John MacArthur published a devotional impressing on us the importance of the thought life. The essay recommends essentially the same things I’d presented below, but more concisely, lol. If you would like to read about guarding our thoughts and how sin begins in the thought-life, from a male elder’s point of view, I invite you to go to “Discipline Yourself‘” He opens the devotional this way:
“Do you realize that the difference between a sincere, Spirit‑controlled, devoted, godly, obedient Christian and a defeated, weak, struggling Christian is what takes place in the mind? They may be attending the same church, active in the same ministries, and externally doing the same things, but one is defeated and the other lives a spiritually fruitful life. The difference is the thought life.”
———end update————–
On Tuesday I wrote about the Sikh Temple shooting, and how the sins we see performed in the world are only the tip of the iceberg as far as what is in a man. If we see an enormous volume of sin in the world then that means the volume of sin in the world is exponentially greater, because being inside a man it is unseen but it is still there. Thoughts are sins, too. The seat of sin is in the thoughts and the heart. Verses from Mark 7:21-22, James 1:14-15, Matthew 5:27‑28, Genesis 6:5; and Jeremiah 17:9 confirm that our heart and our mind are deceitful and cannot be trusted. That is where sin begins.
It is why the world says “Follow your heart.” “Satisfy the desires of your heart.” Satan is the god of this world and he tells us constantly that the heart is the most important aspect of our engagement with ourselves and with the world. It isn’t.
This is why it is important to guard your thought life. The bible reminds us of the importance of our interior life:
“We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ,” (2 Corinthians 10:5).
“Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.” (Romans 12:2)
When a law student goes to Harvard or some such law university, they learn that the educational approach to teaching new information is completely different than what they had been exposed to before. The Socratic method of teaching and learning is used.
Wikipedia defines the Socratic Method–
“The Socratic method, named after the classical Greek philosopher Socrates, is a form of inquiry and debate between individuals with opposing viewpoints based on asking and answering questions to stimulate critical thinking and to illuminate ideas. It is a dialectical method, often involving an oppositional discussion in which the defense of one point of view is pitted against the defense of another; one participant may lead another to contradict himself in some way, thus strengthening the inquirer’s own point.”
Instead of the students asking questions of the teacher, the teacher asks questions of the student. In this way, the Socratic method is a negative method of hypothesis elimination. It is a unique way of training the mind to think differently.
When a student enrolls in Police Academy, the educational emphasis particular to that career will train the cadet to think differently and thus see the world in a new way. He is transformed from civilian to law enforcement officer. As the NYC Police Academy description explains, cadets will be “equipped with the necessary academic and tactical knowledge to protect the life, rights, property, and dignity of all the residents.” Their minds are trained to see and remember details of every scene they come across that escape most civilians. They are trained to be restrained in emotions and clear thinkers in situations where most people would erupt in anger or allow natural adrenaline to carry them away.
You can see those examples are ways that those with higher knowledge engage in a process in which the person seeking that same knowledge is transformed by the renewal of their mind.
The difference between career training of the mind and spiritual renewal of the mind is the Holy Spirit. Our minds without the Holy Spirit can be re-trained within its own box, because we can go from one man’s kind of thinking to another man’s kind of thinking. But the Spirit’s renewal is from fleshly and corruptible to spiritual and incorruptible, a totally different box. Man cannot and will not ever be able to think of God in the way He wants to reveal Himself to us as long as we do not have the Spirit. When we repent, we receive Him into our flesh (brain) and we can have no better teacher in this renewal process! (John 16:13).
John Piper explains our natural state: “When we speak of man’s depravity we mean man’s natural condition apart from any grace exerted by God to restrain or transform man.”
God says that whatever we do apart from Him is sin. “Whatever does not proceed from faith is sin.” (Romans 14:23b).
And so Piper says, “The terrible condition of man’s heart will never be recognized by people who assess it only in relation to other men.”
That is why those who are not saved can renew their mind into other ways men think, for example going from Transmissive method to Socratic as in the case of a Lawyer, or Emotional response versus Logical deduction in the case of a Detective. But renewing our mind from Sinful to Pure is impossible without the Spirit’s help. That is a box we in which we do not dwell until we repent. Everything we do in the flesh is a total offense to God and everything we do in the Spirit is a total pleasure to God. Once we’re saved, His ministry is to help us:
“to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.” (Ephesians 4:24).
This is called regeneration. He makes us into a new man, day by day, year by year, decade by decade. But remember, it’s not like when He dwells in us He takes over. We have to put in effort. We have to read the bible so we know what He is like, understand by prayer and His confirmation back to us what His expectations of us are, and how to apply what we’ve learned about Him into the world for His glory.
We want the mind of Christ. So…HOW do we get it?
1. First, after we’re saved we continually submit to Him:
“And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption.” The NLT says, “And do not bring sorrow to God’s Holy Spirit by the way you live. Remember, he has identified you as his own, guaranteeing that you will be saved on the day of redemption.” (Ephesians 4:30).
2. Read the bible. There are no shortcuts. We must replace our thoughts with God’s thoughts. His thoughts are recorded for us and on the pages of any good, standard bible. Our dreams, our intuitions, our desires, books about the bible are not God’s thoughts. His mind is on the pages of the bible. So, read it.
3. Pray. Ask the Spirit to help you develop discipline to read the word, to study it, to memorize it.
4. Be aware of what you think. If you’re saved, you are not a slave to your brain and the thoughts it produces. YOU have control over it. You just have to develop the discipline to be aware of what’s crawling around at the bottom of your brain that is sinfully distracting you.
Let’s say that you’re having lustful thoughts about your boss, or a person you’ve met and are attracted to. But those thoughts are unwanted because the bible says those thoughts are a sin. (Matthew 5:28). Or let’s say that you really want a new set of golf clubs, (or a dress), but your family budget prohibits you from purchasing them at this time. However, you keep thinking about that which you want. The bible calls this lust if it’s a person, greed if it’s in a store and covetousness if it’s owned by your neighbor. These thoughts are sins. (Exodus 20:7; or James 4:1-3, below)
“What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don’t they come from your desires that battle within you? You want something but don’t get it. You kill and covet, but you cannot have what you want. You quarrel and fight. You do not have, because you do not ask God. When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures.”
These sinful thoughts are like the news tickers that crawl along at the bottom of the TV screen.
Look at the amount of information on the screen, which we can say is your brain. From the flag at top, to the ‘Live’ notification, to the split screen photos that your brain decodes is the location of the picture, (Washington DC) to the channel identification, to the descriptor of RNC headquarters, to the stock exchange information, to the ticker. That is a LOT of information! The ticker is your sinful nature. All the information in your brain that you see, identify and absorb into interpretation are your daily thoughts. The ticker is the sin nature underneath it all. It runs constantly. The bigger it is on the screen, the more annoying, it is, right? It is really distracting to keep focusing on what the rest of the screen is showing us when the news ticker crawls fast or is too large.
But it is there, all the time, saying, “I want that dress/golf club…I wonder if I just swing by the store to see if it is still there…I could wear that dress to church, that’s a good thing, right?…I could use the clubs for clients, and get more business, right? That’s a good thing… gee, I wonder if they reduced the price…”
Be aware that it is there, and be aware of what it is saying. When you find your thoughts drifting toward the sinful ones you don’t want because they dishonor God, tell those thoughts to S-T-O-P.
Yes, just like that. STOP. You are not a slave to them. When you’re thinking about the things you ought not, stop it, and then pray to the Spirit for help. I yell ‘stop’ in my head. I ask Him to forgive those thoughts. I put those thoughts in a balloon and make them go away. Pervasive unwanted thoughts I lay at Jesus’s feet. You can use any mental imagery you want to help you stop them. Tell Him you don’t want those thoughts, and why. Yes, at first this is constant. You might pray a thousand times a day to stop unwanted thoughts. Jesus never said it was easy.
Remember, you want to replace sinful thoughts with Godly thoughts so that you can undergo the renewing of your mind. Stopping sinful thoughts isn’t enough. It has to be replaced with something. Where are the Godly thoughts? The bible. Ask Him to help you identify when you’re having them, and develop a habit to become aware of these thoughts, and say or pray ‘stop’. Then, ask for Him to help you resist them by substituting Godly thoughts. Say a memory verse instead. Ponder the main point of last Sunday’s sermon. Review your Sunday School lesson. Read your bible for five minutes. Sing a hymn.
Like this: “I wonder what that new gal will be wearing today. She looked really good in that green sweater the oth— STOP. Amazing grace, how sweet the sound…”
Or this: “I really do need those golf clubs. They’re titanium and — STOP. The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters….”
Jesus said, “When the unclean spirit has gone out of a person, it passes through waterless places seeking rest, but finds none. Then it says, ‘I will return to my house from which I came.’ And when it comes, it finds the house empty, swept, and put in order. Then it goes and brings with it seven other spirits more evil than itself, and they enter and dwell there, and the last state of that person is worse than the first. So also will it be with this evil generation.” (Matthew 12:43-45).
Sinful thoughts will always come back. If you have not allowed the Spirit to replace them with Himself, satan will come back in force worse than before and pretty soon all you can think about is your neighbor’s wife, that dress, those golf clubs…
5. Action. Take action if you have a problem with sinful thoughts.
–5a. Take negative action: If you lust, have lusty thoughts, put your computer in your living room. Move your furniture in your cubicle so you’re not in line of sight with that pretty girl or handsome man. Or ask for a transfer. If you have a problem with consumerism and greed, cut up your credit cards.
5b. Take positive action: Do the actions that the bible says, engage in action of ministry and helps and concern for others. Helping others and thinking about them instead of yourself is another way to replace the sinful ticker’s information and allow the Spirit to renew your mind.
We can never do away with our sinful thoughts ticker crawling along the bottom of our brain, not until we are glorified and have no sin-nature anymore. But you can slow it down, make it smaller and replace what is on it with Godly thoughts that occur in an increasing basis.
Now two warnings,
1. This process takes a long time to adopt efficiently. Don’t expect miracles overnight.
2. Once you’ve banished thoughts about your neighbor’s wife or that dress or those golf clubs, satan will try to make you adopt another whole set of sinful thoughts. So thoughts about covetousness don’t bother you much anymore, but now you criticize people in your mind. Doh! It is a battle, and we haven’t won the war until we are in heaven and we can thank Jesus for the victory. That is why Christianity is hard. It takes work.
But now hopefully I’ve given some strategies to help you understand the renewing of your mind and How the Spirit delights in transforming it into His likeness.
You control your brain. Though you cannot control your sin nature, that is what the Holy Spirit does! He vanquished sin that is why He and only He has the control over it. The more you submit, pray, read the bible and put practice into action, the more He will renew your mind and with His help, gain increasing mastery over how you think.
From the Times of Israel
“An exceptional 1,300-year-old olive oil factory was unearthed Tuesday during excavations in the Tel Aviv suburb of Hod Hasharon. The Israel Antiquities Authority’s find, dated to the late Byzantine or early Muslim period, narrowly escaped being paved over by a planned roadway.”
“Excavators found a pressing floor for olives, a piping system, trenches, and cisterns that drained and stored the fresh olive oil. Stone weights used for pressing sacks of olives were found beside the ruins. By the archaeologists’ estimations, the site was an industrial concern and not private.”
“Archaeologist Amit Ram with the Israel Antiquities Authority told Maariv that the olive press was carved out of older building stones that were sunk into the earth. The Hod Hasharon olive press is an exceptional find because most olive presses are typically hewn out of the living rock already in the place, he said. In this case, however, the soft, red earth demanded that a solid foundation be constructed, so mason-worked blocks were imported to build the press. City authorities were investigating the possibility of diverting the planned roadway to make room for a small archaeological park centered around the site.”
Really cool! The bible says-
“For the Lord your God is bringing you into a good land, a land of brooks of water, of fountains and springs, flowing out in the valleys and hills, 8a land of wheat and barley, of vines and fig trees and pomegranates, a land of olive trees and honey,” (Deuteronomy 8:7-8)
In other news from the Times of Israel,
Morsi reportedly mulls amending peace treaty with Israel
Egypt president may move to extend full sovereignty over Sinai in wake of attack on border police, his adviser says
“Eyptian President Mohammed Morsi is considering amending the Camp David Accords to expand Egypt’s control over the Sinai, Egyptian media reported Monday. Morsi legal adviser Mohamed Gadallah told newspaper al Masry al Youm that Morsi was looking into the possibility of changing the accord to give Egypt full sovereignty and control of the entire peninsula.”
Egypt is in Prophecy. It’s in Isaiah 19, “A prophecy against Egypt”. A very unpleasant near-future is prophesied for her but a glorious, GLORIOUS slightly further away future is prophesied.
And here is a short but very interesting interpretation of chapter 19 in Isaiah, explaining which verses were past, which may be occurring now, and which are to come. A theologian-expert on Old Testament named Dr. Walter C. Kaiser Jr. wrote it. His bio is at the bottom of the page, so be a Berean and compare what he is saying about the verses to actual scripture. Personally, I think it is interesting and credible.
If Egypt claims land in the Sinai that is Israel’s in God’s sight, He will not be happy!!!
