Posted in theology

Test the spirits

By Elizabeth Prata

Let’s review what a sign was exactly. Looking at the Greek behind the use of the word sign in verses such as Mt 12:38 or 39, it means sign or miracle. Not every unusual event is a sign but if something was a sign it had certain characteristics. First, it was a miraculous thing, either supernatural or natural. It was something that pointed to Christ or the Bible. It w as something that was either convincing or confirming of the Word. It was consistent with the Word.

The days of signs from Apostles or from God is over. We have the more sure word now. The word of God IS the sign.

Not everything supernatural was or from God! If you think you see a sign that is supernatural, just remember Paul warned in 2 Cor 11:14 that satan appears as an angel of Light. Signs and wonders have been performed by satan’s agents all throughout the Bible, notably in Exodus 7:11-12, and 22. And we are warned in 2 Thess 2:9-10 that in the future there will be signs and wonders performed by satan to deceive. Remember and take to heart that if your own eyes behold a sign or a wonder, not to ascribe it to God, but remember satan’s tricks. Even Pharaoh’s wizards kept up with Moses’ actual signs, for a while.

We are told to test the spirits when we receive a message from a teacher or pastor. How do you test the spirits? First, ask for guidance and wisdom from the Holy Spirit and it will be given to you generously and without reproof. Secondly, you know that “This is how you can recognize the Spirit of God: Every spirit that acknowledges that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, but every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you have heard is coming and even now is already in the world.” (1 John 4:2-3).

False teachers rarely ever outright deny Jesus. The actually refer to Jesus often. If they denied him, then you would know they were false! So they do something else to deny Him, they teach a different Jesus. They teach a message that subtly makes YOU the central motivator/catalyst/agent in your salvation. They make Him non-essential.

Does the teaching bear good fruit? By their fruits you will recognize them! (Matt 7:16-20) Pray for discernment and watch to see if the fruit the sign yields is good or bad. This takes patience, because it takes time for fruit to grow.

The end time and especially the Tribulation will be full of false signs and wonders, so remember this important thing: Not everything supernatural is from God!

Posted in end time, end time. prophecy, gray whale Israel coast, jonah, signs

Gray Whale found swimming off Israel

Jesus said that there would be signs to indicate His coming at the end of the age. In the Olivet Discourse with His disciples, Jesus lengthily answered the Disciples’ questions as to these warning signs. (Mark 13, Matthew 24, Luke 17:20-3) He wanted us to look to those signs as proof of His word. (Matthew 24:25 & Matthew 24:42).

To the Pharisees, however, the hypocritical and unbelieving Pharisees who kept pestering Jesus for a sign that would prove He is the Messiah rather than relying on faith and belief, He gave a completely different answer. In Matthew 12:38-42 He rebuked them sharply, “But He answered and said to them, “An evil and adulterous generation craves for a sign; and yet no sign will be given to it but the sign of Jonah the prophet; for just as JONAH WAS THREE DAYS AND THREE NIGHTS IN THE BELLY OF THE SEA MONSTER, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.”

You know the story. God wanted Jonah to preach to the fallen in the city of Nineveh (which is today’s Mosul, Iraq). Jonah hated Nineveh and ran away. He boarded a boat and a storm came. Soon the men noticed that Jonah was the cause of the storm so Jonah abashedly allowed them to toss him overboard. Jonah was swallowed by a whale (actually a great fish), and was inside its belly for three days and nights. (Jonah 1)

A careful reading of Jonah 2 will elicit the interpretation that as Jonah was sinking to the bottom of the sea and falling unconscious, he prayed for forgiveness, then died. My stance is biblically supported through the verses of Jonah 1:2; 5-7; and through Mt 12:38-40, but more on that in a moment). God sent the fish to scoop up Jonah, who was kept for three days inside the great fish’s belly and then spit up on land, alive.

The Greek renders the word “fish” in this verse dagah. Nineveh at that time was a Dagon-worshiping bunch. Dagon was a Philistine fish-god, referred to in Judges 26:23; I Sam. 5:1-7. Dagon the fish-god is still worshiped today. Imagine the impact of an unbelieving population to have seen a man spit up by a great fish and begin talking about the One True God who trumps this Dagon.

The unbelieving generation to whom Jesus was talking in Matthew 12:38-42 were the Pharisees, who had the advantage of reading the scriptures to verify what they were seeing in front of them, and yet they still refused the Truth. So for the short answer, Jesus compared Jonah’s sign with His upcoming sign. We know that Jesus died and lay in the belly of the earth for three days, and therefore in comparing Him sign with Jonah’s we also conclude Jonah died. Jesus’ warning to look to Jonah should not be dispensed with because He has risen.

So in the news there are things happening that could be called signs. They are certainly perplexing. The planet Jupiter lost a belt. Yes, indeed. One year it was there and next day it wasn’t.

And, off Israel, a gray whale was spotted. So what, you ask? Well, gray whales have been extinct in that part of the world for three hundred years. “The whale population which lives in the northeastern Pacific normally migrates southwards in around October, heading for warmer waters around the Gulf of California in a huge round trip of at least 5,000 miles (8,000 kilometers), AFP reported.” It is called the ‘most amazing sighting in history of whales’. It swam for several hours off Herzliya Marina, close to Tel Aviv. They are saying it is a “miracle” and “back from the dead.” Scientists say the North Pacific whale either took an arctic route between ice floes, or Arctic route, swam through the Panama Canal, or continued another 8,000 miles to the south and round Cape Horn at the bottom of South America. Take a look at the map and start tracking a route from Baja CA to Israel either going north to the Bering Sea, south to Cape Horn, or through the Panama Canal across the Atlantic. That is one determined whale.

I have found a useful approach to bible understanding and prophecy interpretation is, after prayer, to just think. Don’t take anything at surface level without asking, “What could it mean?” and asking the Spirit to bring you into deeper understanding. Sure, a gray whale off Israel is an amazing incident. Don’t let it end there, though. Think…Israel…why Israel? The whale could have stopped far, far earlier. There were twenty other countries along a 10,000 mile route he could have stopped at instead of the mere 168 miles along Israel’s land-sea border. Instead, he went through the Straits of Gibraltar or the Suez Canal to specifically get to Israel.

Additionally, when you think of Israel and a whale, what immediately comes to mind? Jonah. And with Jonah, the sign that Jesus Himself gave to a wicked and [spiritually] adulterous generation of their need to repent and believe.

I can’t make a case that the gray whale’s resurrection off the coast of Israel has biblical meaning but even the scientists say it “is bizarre in the extreme“. With bizarre events comes thoughts of Jesus’ promise that the end time will have “fearful events and great signs from heaven.” (Luke 21:11). A sign in the Bible is some event or activity which may or may be supernatural, that would convince OR confirm the Person and claims of Jesus. A sign is usually a miracle with a clear intent; it was a miracle designed to reveal something specific. The Greek word ‘signs’ in that verse means ‘miracle’. “Is the sea off the coast of the Holy Land harboring a miracle? That was the question for biologists after a gray whale appeared off the shores of Israel, Sky News reported on Thursday.”

In my own mind it is not even a question. It is a sign, and with that particular sign we are reminded of the consequences of running from God’s will, His power, and also His redemptive mercy. Will you heed it today?

Posted in quake rainbow

Quake rainbow spotted over Los Angeles

From Weatherspace.com:

“San Diego residents are reporting shaking continuing in the area. The shaking, according to the USGS, is likely due to the Easter quake this year which rocked the region. Twitter is rolling with reports of rainbow cloud over Los Angeles today. Reports are coming in that this looks similar to before both the China and Chile quakes where residents reported and took photos of such events in the sky. While no one can be sure what it means, people should always be prepared for a major Earthquake in Southern California as it is seismically active.”
China:
Chile:
Weatherspace also reports “Freedom of speech can go a very long way, however with false reporting in Earthquake prediction can one be held accountable? Luke Thomas, a resident from Jupiter, Florida, has a site called QuakePrediction.com. His site attempts to predict Earthquakes based on fault friction due to heating of the surface. Thomas was debunked by ABC7 in Los Angeles as he made a prediction that failed no more than a month ago. Now he predicts a major earthquake around 7.7 magnitude to strike 100 miles around San Bernardino, California before the weekend is over. Thomas runs ads on his Web site. The driving reason he does this is so his ads can make money. TheWeatherSpace.com would not like to contribute to this scheme, however there is no choice but to put this prediction in many eyes to see what happens. Rainbow clouds similar to what was seen over China and Chile before their major quakes were seen over the Los Angeles areas today. These clouds may or may not signal a quake as there is no evidence to support the theory, however people are keeping an eye on supplies. Thomas’ prediction came on May 9th, 2010. He says the most potent days for a quake of 7.7 magnitude would be May 14th through the 15th. Do you think he is right, or is “Luke a fluke?”  
So, are “quake rainbows” atmospherically absolute, or are they a logical fallacy? You decide. If any place needs to repent, it is Los Angeles. However, time will tell, if no quake comes to LA over the weekend(which I hope NOT but I DO hope the city- and this nation- repents). Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be earthquakes in various places, and famines. These are the beginning of birth pains. Mark 13:8
Posted in end time, little girls, prophecy, single ladies

Sexualizing the young: the ‘Single Ladies’ little girls dancing controversy

These girls are seven years old. They are wearing small bikinis, socks made to look like dominatrix boots, netted elbow-length gloves, and are shaking their bodies in mimicry of sex moves. They are seven years old. This is insane.

It was for the World of Dance Competition in Pomona, California and there’s no doubt they are good dancers. There’s also no doubt that getting dressed up and made up and danced up like hookers is atrocious. It is child pornography. When the video hit the news stream 12 hours ago prior to going to work, I flagged it immediately and took a screen shot, getting the piece ready for when I came home tonight to publish. Since then, the YouTube video has gotten 2 million hits. That is creepily disturbing.

This is worse than bad. The first issue with this is the fact that we are sexualizing the young, and that is something to which Jesus takes huge issue. He thought highly of children–

“And they were bringing children to Him so that He might touch them; but the disciples rebuked them. But when Jesus saw this, He was indignant and said to them, “Permit the children to come to Me; do not hinder them; for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these.” (Mark 10:13-14) He thought so highly of children that “He said to His disciples, “It is inevitable that stumbling blocks come, but woe to him through whom they come! “It would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck and he were thrown into the sea, than that he would cause one of these little ones to stumble.” (Luke 17:1-2)

The second issue is that He thinks highly of sex, but within adult, two-gender marriages only. He discusses the importance of marriage and having godly offspring in Malachi 2:13-14. To desecrate a little one by perverting them through sex for a dancing award is definitely not Godly.

The main issue is the morality slide. Every time a benchmark line is crossed, non-believers say that there can be no absolute morality, but that the downward slide will certainly stop before it gets too bad. Right?

Wrong. Man’s craven and fallen state means that he is led by satan and satan lives to destroy. His perverted depth knows no bottom. We will slide further and further down until … Well, take the bikini for an example.

When the bikini was invented in 1946 it was named after Bikini Atoll, a Pacific Island which was the site of nuclear tests by the US. The bikini was said to be as explosive as a nuclear device. Even over a decade later, by 1960, the bikini was still considered too risque for mainstream wear, as described in the hit song “Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polka Dot Bikini.” It told the story of a shy girl wearing a revealing polka dot bikini bathing suit at the beach, who in the first verse is too afraid to leave the locker where she has changed into the aforementioned swimwear; in the second, she has made it to the beach but sits on the sand wrapped in a blanket; and in the closing verse, she has finally gone into the ocean, but is too afraid to come out, and stays immersed in the water – despite the fact that she’s “turning blue”, to quote the song’s lyrics – to hide herself from view.”

It was only thirty years after the shy gal wearing the bikini wouldn’t come out of the water that a young woman flashed her thong to a President. A thong is a garment worn as either underwear or a bathing suit where the back consists only of an elastic string. So over time we’ve gone from this:

to this:

to this:

tho this:

It doesn’t look like anything is halting the slide yet, do you? Aw, but that is adults, you say, I thought you were talking about children. Well, I don’t see anything stopping the morality slide in using and abusing and sexualizing children, do you? We are promoting them in ever sexual ways. Immorality in adults means we are teaching immorality to children.

I wrote about it in 2009 here, regarding “Toddlers and Tiaras” television show, a behind-the-scenes look at child beauty pageants. Can you imagine, that in this day and age, we have NAMBLA, the North American Man-Boy love Association. Wikipedia explains it here but it’s in actuality an organized front for criminal and sexual exploitation of children. We have Sex tourism as a very lucrative industry that spans the globe. In 1998, the International Labour Organization reported its calculations that 2-14% of the gross domestic product of Indonesia, Malaysia, the Phillippines, and Thailand derives from sex tourism. And those statistics are ten years old. Lest you think that sex trafficking is a Third World problem only, in the United States, new research indicates that the sex-trafficking problem is more widespread and more severe than previously thought. It is estimated that 100,000 and 300,000 American children are trafficked within the U.S. each year.

The last thing this country needs are seven year old children dressed as dominatrices, prancing on stage to sex moves against lyrics that spew —

Cuz if you liked it then you should have put a ring on it
If you liked it then you shoulda put a ring on it
Don’t be mad once you see that he want it
If you liked it then you shoulda put a ring on it
I got gloss on my lips, a man on my hips
hold me tighter than my Dereon jeans
acting up, drink in my cup
I couldn’t care less what you think
I need no permission, did I mention
Don’t pay him any attention
Cuz you had your turn

Sex trafficking comes in all shades, and the world should be ashamed at exploiting children. They are a gift from God! Children glorify God! For such as these is the kingdom of heaven made!!!!!!!!!

Unless the world clings to the absolute morality of the bible, the downward slide will result in dancing child porn and 2 million hits. It will not stop there. Where it will fall from here I shudder to think. O, Jesus come soon, save the children!

Posted in bp, end time, end time. prophecy, oil, paul noel

Watching our own demise, live on the internet

By now everyone knows the oil rig explosion on April 22, 2010 off Louisiana was a horrendous event. Lives were lost, and oil immediately started spilling into the Gulf of Mexico. Initially the Powers That Be (heretofore known as TPTB) told us at first, here and here, no oil was leaking at all. Then they said that the oil leak was stopped, then, the magnitude of the spill was downplayed. However, thanks to the internet, by April 30th the leaking oil quantities first put forth were quickly debunked as headlines like this one were published: Gulf oil leak reaches crisis proportions and lead sentences blared, “The massive oil well leak in the Gulf of Mexico abruptly turned into a national crisis yesterday, when scientists realized oil is probably gushing from the seafloor at five times the rate they first thought.” Or this one, which said flatly “Size of Oil Spill Underestimated, Scientists Say“

Anyone with eyes could see that more oil than TPTB said was leaking into the Gulf. Photographs showing the animals struggling in their dirtied environment soon made the rounds, and after that, hundreds of dead and dying animals soon washed ashore.

A pod of Bottlenose dolphins swim under the oily water Chandeleur Sound, Louisiana, Thursday, May 6, 2010 in the Gulf of Mexico. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

An oil soaked bird struggles against the oil slicked side of the HOS Iron Horse supply vessel at the site of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico off the coast of Louisiana Sunday, May 9, 2010. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)

Current estimates of the leak are 200,000 barrels per day. Yes, that’s barrels, not gallons. There are 42 gallons per barrel. 8,400,000 gallons a day.

Paul Noel, works as Software Engineer (as Contractor) for the US Army at Redstone Arsenal, Alabama. He has a vast experience base including education across a wide area of technical skills and sciences. He supplies technical expertise in all areas required for new products development associated with the US Army office he works in. He supplies extensive expertise in understanding the Oil and Gas industry as well. He writes for Pure Energy Systems today:

I…think that the situation is getting further and further out of hand. The nature of the crude had changed, indicating that the spill was collapsing the rock structures. If it is collapsing the rock structures, the least that can be said is that the rock is fragmenting and blowing up the tube with the oil. With that going on you have a high pressure abrasive sand blaster working on the kinks in the pipe eroding it causing the very real risk of increasing the leaks.

More than that is the very real risk of causing the casing to become unstable and literally blowing it up the well bringing the hole to totally open condition. Another risk arises because according to reports the crew was cementing the exterior of the casing when this happens. As a result, the well, if this was not properly completed, could begin to blow outside the casing. Another possible scenario is a sea floor collapse. If that happens Katie bar the door.

The deposit is one I have known about since 1988. The deposit is very big. The central pressure in the deposit is 165 to 170 thousand PSI [pounds per square inch]. It contains so much hydrocarbon that you simply cannot imagine it.

The oil industry has knowledge of the deposit more than they admit. The deposit is 100 miles off shore. They are drilling into the edge of the deposit to leak it down gently to be able to produce from the deposit. The deposit is so large that while I have never heard exact numbers it was described to me to be either the largest or the second largest oil deposit ever found. It is mostly a natural gas deposit. The natural gas that could be released is really way beyond the oil in quantity. It is like 10,000 times the oil in the deposit.

It is this deposit that has me reminding people of what the Shell geologist told me about the deposit. This was the quote, “Energy shortage…, Hell! We are afraid of running out of air to burn.” The deposit is very large. It covers an area off shore something like 25,000 square miles. Natural Gas and Oil is leaking out of the deposit as far inland as Central Alabama and way over into Florida and even over to Louisiana almost as far as Texas. This is a really massive deposit. Punching holes in the deposit is a really scary event as we are now seeing.

If there are two things to remember from Noel’s comments they are: that the rock wall surrounding the deposit may be crumbling, and that the size of the original deposit covers 25,000 square miles. Think on this! The finances of a multi-million dollar company that brings us oil (which is in most products we use today), the economy of an entire region of the US, and the environment of millions of innocent sea animals are devastated. They may be devastated forever. This certainly isn’t something from which a nation recovers from quickly. It’s death and destruction and devastation on an enormous scale. Personally I believe that the impacts have not yet even begun to be felt and that it will be a lot worse than most realize.

One of the judgments is when “The second angel sounded his trumpet, and something like a huge mountain, all ablaze, was thrown into the sea. A third of the sea turned into blood,” (Rev 8:8; 2nd Trumpet judgment which occur after the 7 Seal judgments). By the time Rev. 16 bowl judgments roll around, all the seas will be as blood and all the creatures will die. Now, think on this for a moment: the Revelation judgments haven’t even BEGUN. The above photos are of the end time warnings, they are not judgments (because we are not appointed to wrath), and it’s still pretty awful to bear!

If you think the above looks bad now, later during the Tribulation you know how much worse it will get. I encourage all non-believers to ponder the gravity of the present situation, and decide if you really want to stick around or not. Because you do not have to be here to watch the planet’s demise, live and unfolding on the internet.

You can choose to repent of your sins, which means that you are really sorry for the bad things you have thought, said, and done. Badness is rebellion against God, and He hates it. But He loves you and He made a way for you to be reconciled to Him. You ask, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” and all you need do is “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household.” (Acts 16:31). Believe that He died for your sins, believe that He has the power and ability to forgive them, believe that He lives now after being resurrected on the third day. Believe. And be saved. Or stick around and watch the planet’s death throes. God leaves it up to every individual to make that decision. And know this: not deciding is deciding.

Posted in bp, end time, oil slick, oil volcano, prophecy

"The sea is bleeding" (UPDATED)

The video below is from Alabama resident John Wathen, a long-time Hurricane Creekkeeper knowledgeable with the local waters, as a volunteer pilot flew him over the area where the BP Deepwater Horizon oil rig sank. Officials have stopped guessing at the amount of oil leaking although some speculate it may be closer to 1 million gallons per day.”It’s not a leak, it’s a volcano spewing oil”. The photo below is one still from the video’s heartbreaking truth.

I’ll be back later today to edit the post to offer some scriptural ties and prophetic truths to this scene. For now, watch, ponder, and pray … please …

Later…
New scale of disaster looms in the Gulf
“Concern grew Sunday that the US Gulf coast is facing a whole new level of environmental disaster after the best short-term fix for a massive oil spill ran into serious trouble. BP’s giant containment box lay idle on the seabed as engineers furiously tried to figure out how to stop it clogging with ice crystals. The British energy giant, which owns the lion’s share of the leaking oil and has accepted responsibility for the clean-up, has tried to banish the notion that the dome is a “silver bullet” to end the crisis. But should efforts fail to make the giant funnel system effective, there is no solid plan B to prevent potentially tens of millions of gallons of crude from causing one of the worst ever environmental catastrophes. Untold damage is already being done by the 3.5 million gallons estimated to be in the sea so far, but the extent of that harm will rise exponentially if the only solution is a relief well that takes months to drill.”

We discover, as there always is with Big Money, that there is more to the story, and more even beyond this that we will likely never learn. U.S. exempted BP’s Gulf of Mexico drilling from environmental impact study ;  Since spill, feds have given 27 waivers to oil companies in gulf.

Not only were BP (and other oil companies) exempted from the rules, rules designed to protect livelihoods, and wildlife, but the crewmen involved in the explosion were not allowed to go ashore but were held on floating boats and told to sign releases and statements that could be used in court. They were told they could not go home until they did so. Coercing them to sign without benefit of legal counsel, and in their state of shock and injury is just inhumane. Read for yourself:

“Choy, a young roustabout on the rig, was handed a form to fill out, asking what he’d seen. “They came on there, and they gathered everybody in the galley on the boat and handed out … papers and stuff saying, ‘[These are] statements. You need to sign these. Nobody’s getting off here until we get one from everybody.’ “But when Choy read the Coast Guard form, he didn’t like what he saw. “At the bottom, it said something about, like, you know, this can be used as evidence in court and all that. I told them, I’m not signing it,” Choy says.”

[Choy’s wife] “Monica first learned about the explosion from a phone call from an eyewitness — Choy’s stepfather. He worked on another rig 30 miles away from the Deepwater Horizon. “And the first thing he asked is, ‘Please don’t tell me that’s the Horizon,’ and he said, ‘Because that’s my son. My son’s on that Horizon.’ And you know, they told him that it was. And he just came in a panic.” He called Monica with the news.

“Monica would spend the next 12 hours waiting to hear if her husband was dead or alive. She repeatedly called a number for Transocean, Choy’s employer, and the owner of the rig. When someone finally called her back, they could only say that her husband was on a list of the survivors.” Choy didn’t get onto land until about 28 hours after the explosion on the oil rig.

Oh, my. James 5:1-5 comes to mind here

Warning to the Rich
“Look here, you rich people: Weep and groan with anguish because of all the terrible troubles ahead of you. Your wealth is rotting away, and your fine clothes are moth-eaten rags. Your gold and silver have become worthless. The very wealth you were counting on will eat away your flesh like fire. This treasure you have accumulated will stand as evidence against you on the day of judgment. For listen! Hear the cries of the field workers whom you have cheated of their pay. The wages you held back cry out against you. The cries of those who harvest your fields have reached the ears of the Lord of Heaven’s Armies. You have spent your years on earth in luxury, satisfying your every desire. You have fattened yourselves for the day of slaughter.”

It is my hope that the BP Oil Company did not fatten themselves at the risk of human life, wildlife, and the entire Gulf basin’s economy. However, we do know that James tells us that the latter days will be filled with employers who use and abuse workers so that they will be enriched. Corporate greed was an issue in Amos’s day. He said “Hear this, you who swallow up the needy, and make the poor of the land fail, saying, “When will the New Moon be past, that we may sell grain? . . . Making the ephah small and the shekel large, falsifying the balances by deceit, that we may buy the poor for silver, and the needy for a pair of sandals—even sell the bad wheat?” (Amos 8:4-6) Greed was judged then also. And perhaps it is being judged now, again.

Posted in Colosseum, cross, faith, italy, martyr

Take heart, O grieving family members!

I went to Italy in the 90s several times. I always enjoyed the Colosseum. A marvel of Roman ingenuity, architecture, and history, I visited it while admiring all the qualities that make it a famous attraction. I took many photos. My favorite is this one. I had it enlarged and have had it hanging on my wall ever since:

The underground chambers were called Hypogeum and refer to the vast network of rooms, cells, tunnels and passages under the Roman Colosseum. The floor of the Colosseum was over 6 acres, so the hypogeum was easily able to accommodate a huge number of underground tunnels, passages and chambers used to house animals, stage props and slaves who worked there. It was these facts and the thrilling sight of the actual subterranean chambers that entranced me at the time.

Tonight, I was sifting through mounds of photos for a photo project I am doing that is unrelated to Italy, and I came across the photo below. I have visited the Colosseum and I have viewed this photo many times, but never until tonight, the first time I looked at the picture since I’ve been saved, I noticed immediately the cross in the foreground. Immediately.

Until now, I had never even seen it. I had never seen it before this moment. Despite having visited the place and lingered there for hours, despite having taken photos from many angles, the cross was simply not in my field of spiritual vision. Why? 2 Cor 4:4 “The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.” My god at that time was the god of this age, and boy, was I ever blind.

I teared up looking at that simple cross amid the history of the debauchery of the late Roman age. I remembered my history: the Christians that were killed there by lions, their last moments ones of terror, feeling the crunch of the sand under their feet as they perhaps ran from sure death, seeing the lions’ claws reaching for their necks, hearing the roar of the crowd jeering as they drew their last breaths. Their sacrifice kept a nascent religion alive, so that I, wretched I, could visit the place and never even notice the emblem of Christ’s shame and glory.

It was ten years later at age 44 that I came to the cross as a repentant sinner. It was unexpected given my family history, a miracle, truly. It is a testament to the power of the Holy Spirit Who draws those to the cross those whose hearts are not hardened. I was blind, my ears were dulled, but my heart stayed open just a bit, and the truth broke through. I know that others were praying for me, they told me so later. Take hope, praying Christians, for family members and friends who are not saved. The blind DO eventually see, the deaf DO eventually hear. Prayer works. Keep praying for the lost.

Posted in end time, euclid, hypercube, prophecy

Non-Euclidean geometry in the bible. Really

Humans live in a three-dimensional world. The three dimensions are commonly called length, width, and height. A cube is a typical three dimensional object:

If you unfold a cube you get this:

In Euclid’s famous “Elements” treatise two thousand years ago, Euclid, the father of Geometry, said that “a point has no dimension at all. A line has only one dimension: length. A plane has two dimensions: length and breadth. A solid has three dimensions: length, breadth, and height. And there it stops. Nothing has four dimensions.”

Euclid’s axioms spawned Euclidean Geometry, and for two thousand years that was it, there was only Euclidean Geometry (and three dimensions). Then “In 1854, George Bernhard Riemann broke the cult position that the Euclidean geometry had for two thousand years with the introduction of the theory of higher dimensions. In the paper  “On the hypotheses which lie at the foundation of geometry“, Riemann exposed the novel properties of higher dimensional space and demonstrated that Euclid’s geometry is based only in the perception.” In other words, there ARE more than three dimensions!

If it was only in 1854 that mathematicians began experimenting with geometric representations in space and in math of objects in the fourth dimension… If Euclid said that there’s ‘length, breadth, and height and there it stops’, how then could the bible speak of four dimensions two thousand years ago as here in Ephesians-

“so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; and that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge …” (Ephesians 3:17-19a)

Do you want depth of vision? A four dimensional world has length, breadth, height, and depth!

Stay with me here: “Three-dimensional objects are bounded by two-dimensional surfaces: a cube is bounded by 6 squares. A four-dimensional cube, known as a tesseract, is bounded by 8 cubes.” A tesseract is a hypercube, a square figure with four dimensions to it, like a cube has three, and a square has two. Since we are three-dimensional humans, we can’t really accurately depict a four-dimensional object, but the closest we can come is this: a sort of cube within a cube with other cubes adjacent along each plane-

The 4D cube (tesseract) can be unfolded into eight cubes, just as the cube can be unfolded into six squares. There are three cubes meeting at every vertex … You see it gets complicated fast. If you unfold a 4D (tesseract, also known as a hypercube) it will look like this:

And once more for effect, an unfolded 3D cube and an unfolded 4D hypercube next to each other:

Albert Gleizes said, “Beyond the three dimensions of Euclid we have added another, the fourth dimension, which is to say, the figuration of space, the measure of the infinite,” The fourth dimension is the measure of the infinite. As soon as we go from the 3D solid to the 4D we go from known and understandable solid to the infinite. In the Ephesians passage, the breadth and length and height and depth of His love, is so far from our limited understanding,”it surpasses knowledge”.

Salvador Dali captured the infinite love of God in his work, “Crucifixion.” In that famous work, Dali showed Christ on an unfolded hypercube, ascending. If unfolded again, the shadow of the 3D hypercube hovering over the tiles below becomes a 2D representation of the tiles on the ground. Dali knew the mathematical principles behind his work and was purposeful in showing Christ as Master over four dimensions, and three, and two. Just as Ephesians says. The ‘son of God’ Himself is, by the way, a 3D representation of the 4D God.

The point in all this is not only that the bible once again wrote about maths and science that humans didn’t “know” until centuries later (a spherical earth, gravity, nuclear weapons, four dimensions) but of the infinite depths of His love, love that exists in dimensions “which surpasses knowledge.” 

And he loves you. He knows you: your name, the number of hairs on your head. He knew you before you were born. He wants to be with you, He delights in you. Won’t you accept His gift of love and repent of your sins so that you can be with Him? His love may surpass our knowledge but it certainly doesn’t surpass our ability to receive it.

Posted in deception, end time, prophecy

End time deception: trust no source except the bible

The End Time is rife with deception. (Matthew 24:3-4) The truth will be harder and harder to find- even for the elect (Matthew 2424b). This is because the demons are given increasing control of the world. (Mt 24:37; Gen 6:4-5😉 The ONLY absolute barometer of truth is the bible. (2 Tim 3:16). Even previously unimpeachable Christian sources cannot be trusted at face value. Really? Yes, really.

I’ll give two examples from just this week of good, Christian sources reporting something as fact that wasn’t. First, a quote Obama uttered to the Turkish Parliament on April 6th:

In his April 6 address to the Turkish Parliament, President Obama referenced how many “Americans have Muslims in their families or have lived in a Muslim majority country. I know, because I am one of them.”

Now, many Christians took that and ran with it, including a major, international missionary magazine, saying in effect, ‘Obama slipped, he said he is a Muslim!’ Well, no he didn’t. And do you really think this man ‘slips’? This man, who forms every public utterance with such forethought that he brings a teleprompter to a sixth grade classroom? In actuality, he uses in a verbal tactic a person I had to deal with in my work happily used all the time, “plausible deniability”, or, saying something in such a way that you can plausibly deny it later. Many politicians use this tactic, but Obama has perfected it.

My opinion is that Obama is a demon from the pit of hell (or completely influenced by demons from the pit of hell), so we take the biblical position that since satan is a liar and the father of lies then Obama is a liar and the son of the father of lies.

His statement could be interpreted as ‘I am one of the Muslims’, or ‘I am one of the people who have had Muslims in my family’, or ‘I am a person who lived in a Muslim majority country’. Obama in my opinion did not say he was Muslim because he would never say anything unequivocal. (equivocal; “subject to two or more interpretations and usually used to mislead or confuse”.) If anything, Obama delighted in equivocating in this sentence so that it COULD be interpreted many different ways, for the dastardly purpose of un-discerning Christian fundamentalists running with it and having egg on their faces later. Which is exactly what happened.

Second, this week as I was driving to work I heard our major local Christian radio station report that Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia issued a release that was picked up by the AP, that the Court would now hear arguments from a New Jersey Lawyer on Obama’s eligibility. That Obama’s Occidental College records had been subpoenaed and showed Obama traveled on a foreign passport and received foreign aid from Indonesia. This was an April Fool’s Day Hoax issued LAST YEAR in 2009, and the radio station, caught in an undiscerning moment, reported it as fact in 2010.

The point of all this is: even solid Christian sources stumble, because this is the time of high deception, we must now, more than ever, “TEST ALL THINGS…hold fast to that which is good.” Just take the stance that there are NO unimpeachable sources anymore, except the bible. (As a side note, it also might help to adopt the position that Obama will never utter a truth in his life and that he will never utter a statement he can’t deny later. Just a helpful tip.)

It is a time of high deception, purposeful and deep deception. Do not take anything at face value, but think it through, test it against the bible, and pray. Stay discerning, Christian, even if you’re hearing something from a Christian source!

Posted in asymmetric war, end time, prophecy

Wars and rumors of wars: but what KIND of war?

There were no buyers or sellers on the US stock market for period of time yesterday. Stocks plunged then bounced wildly. CNBC said there were literally no bids, no buyers.  That means liquidity totally dried up in the market … Stocks were completely worthless for a period of time yesterday … Think for a moment about what that means … and what caused it. A thousand point stock market plunge took the US financial world by storm and made the rest of the already skittish world more skittish.

The People In The Know immediately identified the issue as a computer glitch but were baffled by it.  As soon as I read that I thought the same question I thought on Wednesday after three oil wells/refineries experienced ‘incidents’: “Are we under attack?” LOL, I wish I’d had the time to flesh out the thought yesterday, before it was widely reported today that “Plunge in US equities remains a mystery” but that the “White House doesn’t rule out sabotage in Thursday’s wild market fluctuation“.

We know that in Matthew 24:6 Jesus told the disciples that those in the end time should expect “Wars and rumors of wars… When we think “war” we think in terms of conventional war, like in WWII, armies of roughly similar size and strength, fighting for territory. But lately asymmetrical war has been the norm, as smaller terrorist organizations and smaller states rise to infamy. In Andrew J. Mack’s 1975 article “Why Big Nations Lose Small Wars” “asymmetric” referred simply to a significant disparity in power between opposing actors in a conflict. The article garnered little attention at the time.

Nowadays the notion is gaining much attention. Military authors of today tend to use the term “asymmetric” to refer to the indirect nature of the strategies many weak actors adopt, such as guerrilla warfare, insurgency, terrorism, counterinsurgency, and counterterrorism. (source). So I ask you, if an enemy weaker in numbers or bombs wants to attack or cripple us, what would it take? Perhaps attacking our infrastructure, perhaps putting a bomb in a car and parking it in Times Square? Or perhaps hacking with the stock market computers, wiping out a trillion dollars? Perhaps all three at once, because the main element in any war is the unexpected. What would Hezbollah do, attack us outright, or engage in behind-the-scenes hacking and monkeying? What would North Korea do, Syria, Iran? Any nation with fewer men and materiel who have stated they want us dead or crippled would not come at us frontwise but asymmetrically. Are we in a war but don’t know it?

“Wars and rumors of wars”, just wondering if these myriad incidents, failures, and glitches are an example of an ongoing asymmetric warfare, and if we are under attack. Wars and rumors of wars … this ain’t your father’s war anymore.