Nah, not yet. We’re still here.  

It’s just the shuttle Endeavor (aka STS-130), taking off Tuesday before dawn, an event described as, “one of the most spectacular launches in the program’s 30-year history”. What are they doing up there — besides absorbing massive doses of radiation from the CMEs (Coronal Mass Ejections) the sun has “hurled” towards earth over the last few days (arriving today thru Thursday)?

…Endeavour will deliver the Tranquility node and its cupola, a dome-shaped extension from Tranquility made up of seven windows. They will be the last major U.S. modules to be added to the space station…

[It will] offer a window on the world.

Tranquility Base is where Apollo 11’s “Eagle” landed, July 20th, 1969 — the craft from which Neil Armstrong descended in “one small step for [a] man; one giant leap for mankind”.

(Exactly 40 Hebrew years after 7/20/69 = 12/22/2008, the first or second day (depending on how you count) of the first Hanukkah after BHO’s election.  In addition to being “the festival of lights” (windows being what lets light in) it commemorates the re-dedication of the Temple in Jerusalem after its desecration.)

The last “Windows on the World” came crashing down on 9-11:

Meanwhile…

The Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) is set to launch… [tomorrow] Feb. 10th at 10:30 am EST. Researchers expect SDO to rewrite the textbooks on solar physics… even peer beneath the sun’s stormy surface. This is such a big event, the staff of spaceweather.com has traveled 3000 miles to witness the launch.

Nothing happened at last night’s SuperBowl? Don’t be so sure.

In less than 48 hours, a monstrous sunspot group has materialized in the sun’s northern hemisphere… The arcs… are unstable and they have already erupted at least six times this weekend, producing a series of C- and M-class solar flares… There is a 10% chance of a much more powerful X-flare in the next 24 hours… so bigger things could be in the offing…

Behemoth sunspot 1045 is crackling with M-class solar flares–and that’s not all. “There have been many loud shortwave radio bursts over the past two days,” reports amateur radio astronomer Thomas Ashcraft of New Mexico. “Some of the bursts have completely saturated my receivers.” …Sunspot 1045 appears poised to explosively accelerate more electrons in the days ahead as the flare-show continues.

This is the most extreme stuff to come out of the sun in many years.

[UPDATE I: More on the sun in an update below. Also: Joseph Herrin weighs in with as-always insightful analysis of parables and urgent lessons in the game.

UPDATE II: On the same trip, yesterday afternoon, where I observed the Stella Artois "judgment" billboard, I ended up driving, for nearly a mile, behind a large black SUV with New York plates. On its tailgate, I noted a strange, mottled-purplish sticker (the color of a bruise, or perhaps a nebula, off in space), directly in my field of view, near eye-level. It was large, perhaps 2.5 feet across. It read: "Quiet Storm".

It was only early this morning (Monday) that I learned of the large quiet storm on the sun, perfectly in synch with Superbowl weekend. End updates.]

With that as backdrop…

Call me naive (or just Yankee Protestant) but when I think of “Fat Tuesday”, aka Mardi Gras, especially as it is celebrated in New Orleans, I see images of revelry which, though hardly laudable from a Biblical perspective, were (I thought) not all that different from what goes on there at any other time of year, just on a larger scale. E.g., a few hangovers, bruises and regrets, along with the kind of skin we’ve grown used to seeing in GoDaddy ads.

After doing more research, my view has changed radically. It’s much worse.

During the first quarter of last night’s SuperBowl (reactions to which I discussed in this comment thread) a dear fellow worker/watcher in the Lord sent around an e-mail alert that Kimberly Daniels had issued Friday, urging believers to gird up for spiritual battle around the game and beyond.

I was not familiar with Ms. Daniels, nor can I find the text of the note on her site, however she was represented as one of Satan’s worst living enemies in America. A quick perusal of her site confirms that impression. The gist was this:

The spiritual status of Drew Brees notwithstanding, a win for New Orleans (its first) would pour spiritual gasoline on Mardi Gras celebrations — an already dark-burning fire of what God despises.

Now that New Orleans has won, and in decisive fashion (she wrote her note Friday), there is reason to look much more closely at what is about to flare up as Superbowl celebrations merge into Mardi Gras, a week from tomorrow.

On the 2010 Mardi Gras parade schedule website, we learn that those scheduled to march in the streets on the day (February 16th) are not too far removed from what we saw on our screens last night (those who watched). Most seem roughly representative of modern American culture, perhaps even milder.

For example, we have the “Krewes” of Rex, Elks Orleans, Elks Jefferson, Crescent City, Jefferson, Lions, Covington, Grela, BES, Houmas, Kajuns, Bonne Terre, Skunks, Chahta-Ima and marching musical acts, the Jefferson City Buzzards, Lyons Carnival Club, Corner Carnival Club, Pete Fountain’s Half-Fast Walking Club, Mondo Kayo Social & Marching Club, Societé de Saint Anne, and radio station KOE.

I don’t know what half of those are. The most obviously controversial is the “Zulu Social Aid & Pleasure Club” that marches at 8:00AM on MG day and for those with a background in mythology, the ironic Greek watcher-god, Argus. The point is that most of it is relatively mild. There is almost no in-your-face occultism on the official docket for the actual day.

(Note the qualifying italics, and bear with me.)

One might take issue with what those day-of paraders represent, but your kids are not going to be exposed to much worse than they would on a visit to Times Square or on cable or network television. That’s not saying much. I’m certainly not excusing what we know goes on, but it’s saying something that on the day we see little obvious officially sanctioned eyeball-popping occultism.

WHAT I DID NOT KNOW was how much obvious, officially-sanctioned, eyeball-popping occultism and pagan worship was already slated to take place in the streets of N.O. in the days leading up to next Tuesday… before the Superbowl win.

This long string of highly public, idolatrous worship ceremonies — and it would be a mightily clever defense counsel, marketing copywriter or PR spin artist who could  spin them as anything else — are focused on this past weekend and coming week. I was also unaware, until now, that all of this started way back on January 6th. I.e., it goes on for a full six weeks, having begun the very day of Epiphany.

Again, feel free to call me a naive Yankee Protestant, but when I read, in scripture, about how Jesus prepared for his 40-day fast in the desert prior to his torture and crucifixion (Lent being two days shorter than this bacchanal) I do not picture this.

Low-lights include:

The Krewes of: Delusion, Bilge, Perseus, Oshun, and Eve, the “Mystic” Krewe of Shangri-LA, the Crewe of Caesar, the Mystic Knights of Adonis, the Krewe of Alla [no 'h'], the Knights of Nemesis, the Krewes of Olympia, Aquarius, Dionysus, the Druids, and Thor, the Knights of Babylon, the Krewe of Muses, the Knights of Chaos, the Divine Protectors of Endangered Pleasures or DIVA, the Knights of Hermes, Le Krewe d’Etat [a play on Coup d'Etat -- literally a blow to the head, e.g, of state], the Krewe of Morpheus, The Original Krewe of Orpheus [as well as an apparent copycat], the Krewes of Aphrodite, Iris [the goddess, not the flower], Endymion, Isis, Okeanos, Thoth, Bacchus, Proteus and Zeus.

I began Googling the less familiar names, thinking I’d run across a few with innocent, perhaps semi-redemptive explanations. If you aren’t familiar with any of them, it is an eye-opening exercise. Garden Girl has done some great research on several of them in past posts, all of it pointing to a darkness deep and pervasive, reaching, as Deep Throat quipped to Woodward and Bernstein in a parking garage after Watergate, all the way to the top.

Now, with last night’s New Orleans win, gasoline has been poured on that pagan fire. It has gone public. It is national. We know from Biblical history what that eventually means. May God have mercy on us for this evil. May at least a few who thought it OK now see it for what it is, find conviction, and turn to the Lord.

Time is getting short.

END NOTE:

I do my best to resist date-setting and, when I go “go there” I try to be clear that I don’t know exactly what is going to happen, or what will be apparent to us if it does. (Spiritual battles can rage and turn without the AP, NYT or CNN even noticing.)

That said, a well-confirmed, multi-year personal revelatory thread that I alluded to in another post has led me to be more alert than I otherwise would have been to the significance of next week’s holidays, specifically around the crescendo of pagan Mardi Gras parades over the three-day “Presidents’” weekend, coinciding with the start of the Olympics.

If Katrina was not due to pure blind-luck-chance, but instead represented (among other things) one of many highly visible Divine warning shots to U.S./Babylon — e.g., precluding the celebration, that year, of a God-denying annual festival roughly as noxious that I won’t even mention — then what will be in store if, due to the accelerant just poured on Mardi Gras via the Superbowl, we show we have not heard, abided or turned?

I shudder to think…

UPDATE III: Interesting that this should be launching now:

The Solar Dynamics Observatory, or SDO, is set to launch on Wednesday, Feb. 10, at 10:26 a.m. EST… SDO’s unprecedented mission will study the sun and its dynamic behavior. Onboard telescopes will scrutinize sunspots and solar flares using more pixels and colors than any other observatory in the history of solar physics. And SDO will reveal the sun’s hidden secrets in a prodigious rush of pictures.

Even more interesting: take a look at the sole scriptural reference to “hidden… secret” (Isaiah 45:8) and “hidden things” (several) as well as rush and rushing.

UPDATE IV: I began thinking this afternoon (Monday) about what we DIDN’T see happen at the Superbowl yesterday. Put off for a moment your cultural assumptions about what is possible, correct or likely in the world’s calculations, and consider:

We did not see national conviction or repentance. In fact, just the opposite. Why do we believe this to be such a hard thing?

The ONLY thing preventing it from taking place is in peoples’ minds — the things we have accepted as our shackles of bondage, reveling in our bondage and thinking it freedom, and rejecting the one, Jesus Christ, who is still offering those who wish to be free a way out of slavery to sin and death.

As part of my daily Bible reading program, I was working through the final two chapters of Ezra (9 & 10) over the weekend. Don’t allow yourself to get hung up on the theme of those chapters or the (to our ears) harsh solution. That would require a much longer, more nuanced explanation. Here’s what stuck out at me:

Ezra 9:1-7a — “After these things had been done, the officials approached me and said, “The people of Israel and the priests and the Levites have not separated themselves from the peoples of the lands with their abominations… And in this faithlessness the hand of the officials and chief men has been foremost.” As soon as I heard this, I tore my garment and my cloak and pulled hair from my head and beard and sat appalled. Then all who trembled at the words of the God of Israel, because of the faithlessness of the returned exiles, gathered around me while I sat appalled until the evening sacrifice. And at the evening sacrifice I rose from my fasting, with my garment and my cloak torn, and fell upon my knees and spread out my hands to the LORD my God, saying: “O my God, I am ashamed and blush to lift my face to you, my God, for our iniquities have risen higher than our heads, and our guilt has mounted up to the heavens. From the days of our fathers to this day we have been in great guilt.”

Ezra 10:1-2a — While Ezra prayed and made confession, weeping and casting himself down before the house of God, a very great assembly of men, women, and children, gathered to him out of Israel, for the people wept bitterly. 2 And Shecaniah the son of Jehiel, of the sons of Elam, addressed Ezra: “We have broken faith with our God…”

Can you see it happening here? Look with God’s eyes. With them, anything becomes possible.

Yellowstone National Park first came to my attention last August 8th, shortly after the president announced he would visit there. I wrote about it in “Yellowstone Supervolcano and the President” and felt a little silly doing so. It didn’t seem to have any relation to anything anyone else I knew was blogging or thinking about. Perhaps it was a subliminal echo — a result of my having skimmed Joseph Herrin’s February 5, 2009 post “Alas, Babylon!”. Maybe it was the Holy Spirit. Maybe both.

I didn’t touch the subject again until early last month when I began to make some loose connections to an experience I’d had at the Little Bighorn which, as the crow flies in the vast open West, is not all that far away. The subject really began to come to the fore however, when to my extreme surprise, I began to discover rich, deep, obvious allegory and many strong date connections between a man, Truman Everts, who got lost there in 1870, Harry Truman and…

…the State of Israel, both modern and ancient. Weird… but undeniable. The connections are there in abundance. The story just re-emerged in the last year after 138 years of dormancy — on public television, no less — and in print, just under a month ago. Others took the connections even further, so if you go down that rabbit hole, be sure to follow the links to later posts.

Then yesterday, Garden Girl (who had also already been writing about Yellowstone) picked up the thread in earnest, noting the connections to sulfur (aka, brimstone), chemical weapons, and hell (not to mention a massive eruption that could split the country — though for the moment that would appear to have receded.

At some point, I think I wrote about the possibility also of “yellow stone” signifying gold and thus having to do with disastrous inflation or some other economic calamity. That may still be true, as might the other explanations GardenGirl and others have offered.

In a flash, this morning though, reading my Bible at the kitchen counter, another key connection dawned on me that relates even more closely to what Yellowstone, via Truman Everts’ adventure, has been shown to represent, and where some of yesterday’s Superbowl ramblings pointed also: Israel.

Anyone remember the Goldstone Report issued by the UN “Human Rights” Council last fall, giving its supposedly balanced opinion of the Gaza War that took place December 27, 2008 to January 19, 2009 (ending just hours before BHO was inaugurated… for obvious reasons). Yeah, I know. Pretty obvious when you think about it, hunh? Except it didn’t dawn on me either, until just today.

Here’s Max Boot, in Commentary Magazine a month before it was approved:

After reading the Goldstone Report on human-rights abuses… all I can say is, it’s a good thing that the United Nations wasn’t around during World War II. I can just imagine its producing a supposedly evenhanded report that condemned the Nazis for “grave” abuses such as incinerating Jews, while also condemning the Allies for their equally “grave” abuses such as fire-bombing German and Japanese cities. The recommendation, no doubt, would have been that both sides be tried for war crimes, with Adolf Hitler in the dock alongside Franklin Roosevelt. Actually, that may be giving the UN more credit than it deserves. To judge by the evidence before us, the likelihood is that the UN in those days would have devoted far more space to Allied “abuses” than to those of the Axis and would have recommended that FDR stand alone before the world court.

And here’s John Bolton’s take, in the October 19th, 2009 WSJ:

The U.N.’s Human Rights Council (HRC) voted overwhelmingly on Friday to endorse the recommendations of the lopsidedly anti-Israel Goldstone Report. The report, named for former South African judge Richard Goldstone, who chaired the underlying investigation, concluded that Israel’s 2008-2009 military campaign against the terrorist group Hamas was actually aimed against Gaza’s residents as a whole. Thus it was an illegitimate exercise of “collective punishment,” an extraordinarily amorphous legal concept.

The report alleges numerous specific human rights violations by both Israel and Hamas. But by attempting to criminalize Israel’s strategy of crippling Hamas, the report in effect declared the entire antiterrorism campaign to be a war crime.

Never mind that Hamas deliberately used civilian neighborhoods to launch rocket attacks and cache arms and fighters, or that Israel has already paid tens of millions of dollars in reparations. Don’t take Bolton’s or Boot’s word for it. Even the left-leaning U.S. House of Representatives rejected recommending it by a 10:1 margin, 344 to 36 — a fact which Al Jazeera bemoans in this article.

Nonetheless, one of the official-looking Goldstone report websites (here) tout its supposed fairness, e.g., standing “for justice and truth”, even as another points out in greater detail than Bolton had time for, the near-endless (and continuing) cascade of anti-Israel bias that drove it into existence, the confusion and anti-Israel bias that pervades it and the fog of deceptive rhetoric that has continued to give this monster a life of its own. (It would hardly be the first or only beastly confab of lies to come out of the United Nations, or the only evidence of virulently anti-Israel sentiment frothing up towoards what seems a post-WWII high tide, if not high water mark.)

In short, there seems to be more than enough reason to consider one of the meanings of “Yellowstone” that folks have been receiving prophetically, as being in reference to this report.

Why? Look at what God cares about most throughout scripture — at the unbreakable promises he made to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, among others — and then from that, understand what he despises. It would be hard to show, from that foundation, how the Goldstone Report would not be near the top of that hate list.

But wait, there’s more.

One of the other things that God cares about (not so much separate as distinct) is life. Remember the sweepingly authoritarian, anti-life Georgia Guidestones that I wrote about last week and last December? To reach the goals spelled out on those horrific monuments would dwarf the Holocaust by three orders of magnitude. It would require the death of one thousand times as many souls as the number of Jews that were killed by Hitler and the Nazis.

The Georgia Guidestones were completed on March 22, 1980.

Precisely thirty Hebrew years later lands us on, October 16, 2009, the very day that the UN “Human Rights” Commission approved Goldstone.

Precisely seventy days later? Christmas.

Precisely forty-four days after that? The Superbowl.

Guidestones. Goldstone. Yellowstone. Or maybe the gold spoken of in Genesis 2:12 that the Arabs have accumulated. Or the golden head of the statue in Daniel that falls with the rest of the world’s kingdoms when struck by the stone not cut by human hands (Christ). Or perhaps the cornerstone of infinite value that the builders have rejected. Or perhaps just all idols in general, in which both gold and stone figure prominently. Draw your own conclusions.

If this were all describing a woman in labor though, I’d say that the birth pangs are strong and regular… and that they’re getting much closer together.

I just drove past the MM billboard for a third time. I hadn’t realized this before, but about 200 yards before it, in the direction of viewing (on the East side of Fenway Park) is another billboard for an alcoholic beverage: Stella Artois beer.

I had seen it but not read the fine print before. In light of what I saw in the Maker’s Mark board (Part I, Part II, Part III and Part 3.1, this is extraordinary).

It reads:

THE RITUAL
Part 7: Judgment ———- Perfection has its price.

Yes, it does have its price. Fortunately, the only perfectly sinless man, Jesus Christ, paid that price for all of us already the cross — for we cannot pay ourselves. (There’s no line in the original, the two phrases are separated by blank space, left to right.)

Apparently, the board is part of a nine-part series running in multiple cities. E.g., see this description of it with photos of the early boards from the New York City campaign. (For all you newcomers, nine is the scriptural number associated with judgment; seven is associated with completion.)

It would seem, in this case (unlike Maker’s Mark) that the marketers must have been conscious of the apocalyptic, Biblical allusions they are making. They could not have known, a) how the timing of this one dovetails with key world-prophetic events, or, b) the juxtaposition with the inadvertently prophetic Maker’s Mark board.

The fact that the two bracket the home stadium of what was a perennially second-string team (the Red Sox) that broke through almost miraculously to be World Series Champions after an eighty-six year dry spell makes it even more interesting.

The next step in the Stella series? Cleansing.

For more on the project, go here (must be 21), or here, or here.

Interestingly, the brand was first brewed as a Christmas beer. Stella means ‘star‘. Stella is owned by Anheuser-Busch InBev, one of the largest if not the largest brewer in the world (revenues: 16B Euros). They also bring Budweiser to virtually all non-U.S. markets. See Garden Girl’s post on Budweiser, the “beer summit” and the president. Much more than meets the eye…

Reading this pair of boards symbolically, as one drives West along the highway (Route 90, which itself provides some rich numeric symbolism, e.g., judgment x divinity, or trinity squared times divinity), one comes to something like this:

The star of Christmas that paid the perfect price is bringing judgment, then cleansing… time has expired on the Maker’s mark.

Hold onto yer hats folks. Even for habitual booze-hounds, there is no excuse for not sensing that things are about to change.

First, a joyous and hearty shout-out to Garden Girl, at Running From Babylon, whose well-researched and insightful (if quite disturbing) must-read post of last night inspired (in draft form) my post yesterday on Zechariah. I don’t think she would disagree with me when I say that the way amazing ways in which the Holy Spirit has coordinated some of our respective, back-and-forth insights, has helped to increase my faith that God is vigilant and active in this troubling hour for those who care to listen and respond in faith and fellowship.

I am moved, in this unusual Sunday morning post, to share one important thing that I may be unique in knowing about in this community, and that is: how exactly does one run with horses? I have done it in real life, over 100 miles.

I learned several important things through that experience that I suspect will be of both metaphorical and practical use in the days that lie ahead and, I should add, part of my cryptic reference to personal revelation yesterday was a separate confirmation that I need to share this experience now.

For those unfamiliar with the running with horses reference, Garden Girl’s post will shed light on it. I recommend you start there. What follows is an abbreviated version.

The prophetic chain traces back to one Andrew Eberly, a brother whom I have neither met or corresponded with. He sent a letter to Joseph Herrin over a year ago which the latter published here. Eberly wrote of the Lord telling him:

Prepare my people to run with the horses, because the hour of Jacob’s trouble is coming to the land and only those who can run with me shall escape all these things. It is not time for my people to shrink back, but to arise into their callings and destinies and to call those things that are not as if they are. I say again, ‘Arise my people and let the glory of the Lord shine upon you, in you, and through you. Arise and take your inheritance, which is Christ.’”

The “hour of Jacob’s trouble” is a reference to what most would call the Tribulation. For those of you new to this stuff, that simply means: VERY dark times. Joseph responded to Eberly: “I believe the reference to running with the horses in your prophetic word refers to the four horsemen of the Apocalypse,” adding a challenge to all of us at the end of his post: “The Lord has declared that the horsemen are coming. Are you prepared to run with the horses?”

Garden Girl adds, in her post:

Obviously, the admonition to “prepare my people to run with the horses,” is VERY UNUSUAL. There are no Scriptures that tell us to “run with horses.” But COLTS are HORSES and the COLTS are getting ready to RUN this Sunday.

Seven years ago this July, I awoke to my alarm, in the tent I had pitched in horse pasture in Vermont, scared out of my wits about what I was about to attempt. It was 2:30AM. I pulled on my shirt and stared down at the words I had transcribed there. I’d taken them from a letter my 95-year-old grandfather had sent me for encouragement, a few weeks before:

“…but those who hope in the LORD will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint.” (Isaiah 40:31)

Just before 3:30AM, the organizers of this event set off a fireworks display for the inspiration of those assembled. It also served as a signal, launching several dozen horses and their riders on a 100-mile journey. It would take even the strongest until after dusk to complete. Most would run through the next night and many past the second dawn.

Half an hour later, another gun was fired and about four hundred of us set off on foot to follow. We would pass and challenge many of the horses. It would be an epic dawn, day, night and second dawn — the hardest thing I have ever done.

The wilderness ultramarathon movement got its start (or at least its modern rejuvenation) in the early ’70s (1974 if memory serves) when a rider in the Western States 100-mile horse endurance race through the High Sierras and their foothills woke to find his horse lame. Gordy Ainsleigh (whom I’ve had the pleasure to meet) decided on impulse to do the race without his horse, setting out with almost no training and zero experience to test what most thought insane and impossible: to cover 100 miles on foot in a day. He did it, and has done it many times since in fine form. (We shared the course that day in Vermont).

Many people assume that because horses run much, much faster than people in the shorter, better-known races (e.g., the Kentucky Derby) that they can outrun humans over longer distances also. This is not so. Properly prepared — and even the most secular 100-mile runner will tell you, without a trace of shame or irony, that this includes spiritual conditioning — humans can run on par with horses and even beat them in many cases.

(That is, on any given day, the best runner will be close to the best horse at the end of 100 miles; the bell-curve of each species’ respective performances will roughly mirror one another on back from there to the slowest and lamest.)

I finished that 100-mile race in Vermont, a few hours after dawn the next day, overcoming a litany of large physical, mental and emotional obstacles, including some bizarre hallucinations, each of which seemed at the time, like it might be catastrophic to my overall goal. What follows is some of what I learned.

- Faith is essential. It is a fact that plenty of secular runners complete the course, however there is a soft humility in nearly everyone at these distances that I have not found among those who run shorter ones. (Please don’t hear elitism or arrogance in my observation that only a tiny handful of those who run marathons, and not many among those who run even fifty-mile ultramarathon races have been truly broken by the experience. The breaking in such an “impossible” event is part of its teaching and part of its allure. Most emerge with fresh insights and clear life lessons.

In reading and hearing stories about my friends’ experiences in 100’s, it seems a truism that this breaking is inevitable, even for the leaders. And it matures them. Whereas the elite among shorter distance runners can sometimes be cocky, this is seldom the case at this distance. Most of the very best are humble beyond measure.

As I ran, walked and occasionally wept in pain through my self-inflicted ordeal, I would look down at my jersey and read the words of Isaiah. That faith was essential to my completing the course, running with and beyond the horses.

- Fellowship is essential also. One of the features of 100-mile wilderness races is that around sixty or seventy miles into it (which for most people occurs around dusk) one picks up a “pacer” — a dedicated (and amply fit) friend whose volunteer job it is to usher you through what are, both literally and figuratively, the darkest hours. His or her job is to play coach, psychologist, priest and nursemaid, walking and jogging alongside for 8-12 hours to ensure you don’t just fall or lie down in the dirt alone in the wilderness and fall prey to mountain lions or whatnot.

Many call their pacers “angels” and while that is theologically incorrect, there are many aspects of the role that mimic what we are told some angels, and the Holy Spirit do for us.

It is a hard job which I have performed for others several times, requiring a mix of discernment (it is harder than you might think to figure out when someone is incoherent — asleep on their feet), urgency, forward-thinking, faith, patience and dying to self. The pacer’s sole job is to ensure that the competitor gets to the finish line intact no matter how much the pacer himself may be hurting. I have known pacers to do all kinds of crazy wildly self-sacrificial things to make sure that occurs. There is also the crew — a group of hearty individuals who drive around for 30+ hours providing sustenance and encouragement at various points, often literally washing the competitor’s feet.

- Finally, fortitude. I almost said “fitness”, but did not want to imply that the physical aspect of preparation is paramount. Many competitors at these distance look rather ordinary. Some are even a little on the chubby side. I have met ex-cons, former heroin addicts and former everything else you can imagine at these things. What they share is a dogged determination to put one foot in front of the other, not thinking (and certainly not worrying) too far ahead.

Some of the sayings that have become received wisdom in the ultra community may have resonance in the spiritual context we are discussing here. They include: “Relentless forward motion,” (i.e., keep going, even if it seems very slow) and “beware the chair,” meaning: If you pause to sit down, don’t get used to it, lest it absorb you into the tempting lassitude of comfort and cause you to drop out. In another 100-mile race, I did just that and failed to finish. I learned as much or more from that experience as from the one I am describing here.

In short, most of the preparation required occurs above the neck. To believe that it can be done — that one can endure beyond all human strength — is the beginning of doing it.

By that I do not mean believing wholly in self, as our culture would truncate that idea, though that is part of what is required. Some in the faith community take the self-deprecation thing too far, IMHO, failing, in the process, to trust God’s word that we are made in his image, that we are very dear to him and that he WILL give us strength when and how we need it, if we ask. While avoiding self-centeredness, we’d do well to avoid the kind of self-flagellation that denies God’s promises and that can lead to despair.

Rather, what I mean is that in the combination of trusting in God and his saving promises to us, we must also trust what he has put in us individually and what he has provided in the way of Godly brothers and sisters to help us on the journey.

Two closing anecdotes I hope people will find illuminating, perhaps amusing:

About forty miles into the event, in the heat of the day, I found myself slogging slowly up a long hill in the sun, trying to get (and keep) down an energy bar. As I did so, I matched the pace of a horse, also walking, who began nosing towards me with interest. His rider explained that he was hoping the bar was an apple or carrot and that both rider and horse were tired too. It was a simple moment of levity that helped me get up the hill and which pulled me out of the self-pity that kept trying to pull me down and backwards.

In the wee hours of the second night, my pacer and I were jogging slowly along a long, flat dirt road, the chilly mist of pre-dawn fog swirling through the beams of our headlamps. From behind, we heard the galloping sound of horses hooves. Turning, we could not see anything. Finally, as they were nearly upon us, we heard voices. I forgot what the riders said exactly, but it was to the effect of: do not fear. (I’ll admit to an initial dose of terror, imagining that, in overtaking us from behind at that speed on that open stretch in the dark, they might not see us in time to avoid us. I needn’t have worried. They knew we were there.)

Do not fear, my friends. We are able to run with the horses by the grace and strength of the One who gave his life for us on the cross, Jesus Christ. Look to Him. Hope in the Lord. Wait for Him. Allow him to renew your strength. Feel his power. Soar on wings like eagles. You WILL run and not grow weary. You WILL walk and not be faint. I should know. I’ve tested that promise and found it true.

Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me. In my Father’s house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am. You know the way to the place where I am going… I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you really knew me, you would know my Father as well. From now on, you do know him and have seen him.

Yesterday, in a rapid-fire series of stunning “Godincidences”, then last night, in a dream, a revelatory thread of four years (which itself was preceded by 18 months of prayer before the first big, clear signal emerged) came together with new precision and power. The details are not worth going into here, at least not at the moment. I’ve shared them with a discerning fellow worker in the Lord.

Aspects of it have already been confirmed by various events over the past several years of my life which is why, when this same thread crops up, I have learned to pay attention to it. This new dimension, that I’m only beginning to understand, seems to signal that what I thought was purely personal may have wider implications.

As I was digesting all that, over coffee this morning, looking over the comments of you night-owls, West-Coasters and a token Hawaiian or two, I sat bolt upright at one from Cindy by the Sea. She wrote (in part):

In February of 2009, I had another very vivid dream, in [which] I was told to read Zechariah chapter 1… I no idea what Zech chapter 1 was about… [it] has to do with red, brown and dappled horses ready to be sent through out the earth (very similar imagery to the four horses out of Revelation). I noticed in the footnotes in my Bible that this vision took place on Shevat 24, which is Feb 15, 519 BC. …the Feb 7 Superbowl game, calculated after sunset, falls on Shevat 24 – the exact same day as the vision given to Zechariah! The Buddy Holly plane crash on Feb 3, 1959 equates to Shevat 25…

The reason I was startled was because hers was the second confirmation I’d received from a fellow watcher in less than eight hours of part of what was shown to me privately yesterday — entirely separate from any reading I’ve been doing, and with neither of those individuals having any prior knowledge of my revelation.

NOTE: I am not claiming that what follows is prophetic or revelatory. Instead, the personal revelations I just alluded to caused me to invest Cindy’s dream, calculations and reference to Zechariah 1 with even more significance than they have on their face. In other words, they let me know that Zech 1 was worth plumbing today.

Digging into Zechariah 1, I found some potentially significant things:

First, the vision starts with a “Call to Return to the Lord”. If you haven’t done that — or wonder if you should — now would be a really, really good time. Zechariah then turns a spotlight on the restoration of Jerusalem. Verses 14-15 seem especially applicable to the modern era, especially in the context of the pressure being put on Israel since BHO took power:

“I am exceedingly jealous for Jerusalem and for Zion. And I am exceedingly angry with the nations that are at ease; for while I was angry but a little, they furthered the disaster.”

Verse 8 also seems to be pivotal, though it took me awhile to decipher it. The text below is from the KJV with Strong’s concordance links.

“I saw by night, and behold a man riding upon a red horse, and he stood among the myrtle trees that were in the bottom; and behind him were there red horses, speckled, and white.“

John Gill’s commentary notes that the vision “night” may refer to:

“the state of the church at this time, it being a night season with it, and in a low estate” and that “the Jews were… surrounded and… oppressed by their enemies, who hindered them in the rebuilding of their city and temple“.

Clearly this is also the case today, with BHO bent on “freezing” Israeli settlements (irony with the second huge DC blizzard, much?), their full occupation of Jerusalem still constrained by their longstanding enemies, and a world climate in which nearly everyone goes apoplectic every time the barest hint is made of rebuilding on the Temple Mount.

Gill goes on to show how the man in the vision may well have been the Archangel Michael (the field Commander of the Lord’s armies — a role perverted and inverted in the recent film featuring an angelic being by the same name). He is also described (e.g., in Daniel, Jude, Revelation) as the advocate for Israel and a contender with dark spirits in Persia (i.e., modern Iran).

Myrtle trees (sometimes called shrubs) are basically red. Myrtle is a symbol of Israel and its revival. (The word for myrtle, H1918, “hadac”, appears six times in scripture. First use comes in Nehemiah in relation to the Feast of Booths — the temporary structures that anticipate and commemorate the temple in Jerusalem. The Zechariah reference is the last.)

Myrtle shrubs and trees are all over the South, especially Florida. One variety is the Miami Myrtle. See also here. (Myrtle Beach, SC, where I spent some time not long ago, draws its name from the plant.)

To my imprecise eye, the clusters of seats in Sun Life stadium evoke a grove of myrtle in full bloom. Further, we have this small news item from last Tuesday, 2/2, reported by channel 13 in Miami in which,

“Four people were injured when a small stage collapsed outside Sun Life Stadium, where the Super Bowl is scheduled to be played…”

Is there any myrtle around Sun Life (aka “Land Shark“) stadium? Hard to say. There is certainly plenty in Miami. (The Sun Life / Land Shark bit is a thread of pagan symbolism that could be an entire post unto itself but I’ll note just this in passing: “land shark” amply describes what Israel’s neighbors have sought to do to it since the time of  Yeshua, that is, Joshua.)

Gill notes also, regarding Zechariah 1:8 that:

“A grove of myrtle trees in a plain, in which they delight, being dark and shady, is thought by some to be an emblem of this world, in which there is a mixture of good and bad men.”

Either way, myrtle seems to be a prominent symbol in the clash of Israel and the rest of God’s people with the world. For more on the man/angel among the myrtle trees, this seems to be a reasonably rich and deep reference.

The word for “bottom” (mets·ül·lä’, H4699) is a noun that means “ravine, basin, or hollow“. It is used only once in all of scripture, a fact that should draw our attention to its potentially special importance. The root from which it is derived (H6751, tsä·lal’) is a verb that means, “to grow or become dark, to shadow”.

Close your eyes for a moment and think about a shot from the blimp of an open-air football stadium, with the myrtle-colored seats filling up just as the sun sets and the shadows cover the field. Yeah. That’s just one of the reasons I’ve devoted my Saturday to blogging this when I had other plans.

Like the word for bottom, basin, or hollow, the Hebrew word translated as “speckled” (H8320, sä·rük’) is also used only once in all of scripture. It actually doesn’t really mean speckled at all, but rather, “sorrel, reddish, tawny or bay”, e.g, in reference to horses. One source describes it as “roughly the color of a new penny”. That’s not too far off from the brassy color of the New Orleans Saints logo. (Biblical color matching is a notoriously tricky business, so while such imprecision does not allow for a direct match, it does not preclude it either.)

But wait, it gets better…

The root word from which H8320, sä·rük’ is derived, (H8319, shä·rak’) is a verb that means “to hiss, whistle or pipe [for]“, i.e., as in “a signal”. It appears in scripture exactly 12 times, beginning with its use in 1st Kings 9:8. Verses 7-9 read:

Then will I cut off Israel out of the land which I have given them; and this house, which I have hallowed for my name, will I cast out of my sight; and Israel shall be a proverb and a byword among all people: And at this house, which is high, every one that passeth by it shall be astonished, and shall HISS; and they shall say, Why hath the LORD done thus unto this land, and to this house? And they shall answer, Because they forsook the LORD their God, who brought forth their fathers out of the land of Egypt, and have taken hold upon other gods, and have worshipped them, and served them: therefore hath the LORD brought upon them all this evil.

Gesenius’ Lexicon entry on H8319 begins by relating this to hissing or whistling for bees or flies, referencing Isaiah 5:26 and 7:18.

Here’s the Isaiah bit in context (5:21-30, KJV)

21 Woe unto them that are wise in their own eyes, and prudent in their own sight! 22 Woe unto them that are mighty to drink wine, and men of strength to mingle strong drink: 23 Which justify the wicked for reward, and take away the righteousness of the righteous from him! 24 Therefore as the fire devoureth the stubble, and the flame consumeth the chaff, so their root shall be as rottenness, and their blossom shall go up as dust: because they have cast away the law of the LORD of hosts, and despised the word of the Holy One of Israel. 25 Therefore is the anger of the LORD kindled against his people, and he hath stretched forth his hand against them, and hath smitten them: and the hills did tremble , and their carcases were torn in the midst of the streets. For all this his anger is not turned away , but his hand is stretched out still. 26 And he will lift up an ensign to the nations from far, and will HISS unto them from the end of the earth: and, behold, they shall come with speed swiftly: 27 None shall be weary nor stumble among them; none shall slumber nor sleep ; neither shall the girdle of their loins be loosed, nor the latchet of their shoes be broken: 28 Whose arrows are sharp , and all their bows bent , their horses’ hoofs shall be counted like flint, and their wheels like a whirlwind: 29 Their roaring shall be like a lion, they shall roar like young lions: yea, they shall roar, and lay hold of the prey, and shall carry it away safe , and none shall deliver it. 30 And in that day they shall roar against them like the roaring of the sea: and if one look unto the land, behold darkness and sorrow, and the light is darkened in the heavens thereof.

And here’s the Isaiah 7 passage in context (v17-20, ESV):

17 The LORD will bring upon you and upon your people and upon your father’s house such days as have not come since the day that Ephraim departed from Judah–the king of Assyria.” 18 In that day the LORD will WHISTLE for the fly that is at the end of the streams of Egypt, and for the bee that is in the land of Assyria. 19 And they will all come and settle in the steep ravines, and in the clefts of the rocks, and on all the thornbushes, and on all the pastures. 20 In that day the Lord will shave with a razor that is hired beyond the River–with the king of Assyria–the head and the hair of the feet, and it will sweep away the beard also.

Recall my post on BHO’s birthplace, flies, bees and the Assyrian from Isaiah 7:18. It’s interesting that this should come up again now, right on the heels of the National Prayer Breakfast during which BHO insisted that discussion of his place of birth is a matter of “civility” and “motives” rather than one of fact. (Whether or not he is legally eligible to serve does not dilute prophetic interest in where he physically emerged into this world.)

Now, if you weren’t doing so already, please sit down and take a deep breath…

The quarterback for the New Orleans Saints is… Drew Bees.
[OK, so I learn, it's actually Brees... breeze, spirit... hmm... maybe time to get a prescription for reading glasses after all...]

There will no doubt be many WHISTLES for BEES during the game tomorrow night, including a few for his teammates for drawing the Colts over the line. (A thought that has further symbolic significance when one considers what Iran is doing to Israel — attempting to draw them into an attack.)

BRees was named MVP in NFL week 11 (a number that keeps cropping up in so many ways that I’ve stopped even keeping track of them — eleven being a number that “falls short of” and which “subverts” the divine order and which signals “disorder, disorganization, imperfection, and disintegration“, according to Bullinger; italics in original.)

BRees’ MVP award came in an unexpected rout of the Patriots… by 21 points. The game occurred Nov. 30, 2009, precisely 70 days before the Superbowl, which itself occurs precisely 44 days after Christmas — an observation I credit to Steve Coerper who, like me, appears to spend ever waking hour reading whatever he can on this kind of thing. Routing the Patriots… a team which not only seemed utterly dominant just a few years ago but which is obviously and directly symbolic of those who founded this country. And he was given an award for it. Nobel PP? Hmm…

Interesting…

Note the pictures in this post in which BRees is depicted, 1) as Jesus, the caption reading “all hail Drew Bees”, 2) as Superman (just like BHO, as GardenGirl has painstakingly chronicled) and 3) in relation to a masked monster fan growling at the camera in front of the number 22, above the caption “Who Dat Nation Raising the Roof”. (Recall the exploration I did, relative to another football item, on the significance of “roof” in scripture. Short take: it relates to course-changing events of divine origin such as the Noahic flood.)

If you care to keep reading beyond chapter one, the first line of Zechariah 2 will, in this football context, knock your socks off:

I lifted up mine eyes again, and looked , and behold a man with a measuring line in his hand.

First down Israel? We shall see… Their national colors match those of the Colts (blue and white).

CONCLUSIONS:

We are in a “pregnant” time. As others have noted, if the world looks the same a year from now, or even for that matter, this summer, I will be very surprised. Pregnancy entails birth, and while there will surely be horrors on the way to that joy, we know what is ultimately being birthed (Christ’s Kingdom and the New Jerusalem). Those things are good beyond our wildest hopes and imaginings.

I will not go so far as to predict that we will witness some terrorist spectacle at the game Sunday night. I would not be surprised if we do, but we must keep our minds open to the way God works, and to myriad possibilities that don’t fit our preconceived notions of a magnified 9-11-style event. These include but are hardly limited to:

Israel launching an attack on Iran (or vice versa), revelation of dark powers (take your pick from a very long list of hobgoblins that others are better at plumbing than I am), a natural disaster of some kind, a rapture or supernatural message during the game, or some “last straw” affront to God (e.g., like the Janet Jackson thing, or various commercials). I’m hoping Garden Girl puts up some of the material she has been working on in this vein very soon because it is extremely insightful. [UPDATE: She has! Go see it. Great (if very scary) stuff.]

Regardless of what may transpire, or when, we MUST — and I really cannot emphasize this enough — we MUST draw our strength from the Lord and the resources he had admonished us to use (e.g., prayer, fellowship, his Word and the Holy Spirit), remembering that He has overcome all this crazy, dark stuff already.

We need to do that not only so we do not tremble, faint and fall short, grasping too tightly onto the things of the world when things start going wild, but so we can help bring in the harvest of souls that will suddenly look to us for guidance in a world that will appear to have lost all moorings to the reality they once thought they knew.

UPDATE I: Please see Greg’s comment, and my myrtle-faced response, regarding the proper spelling of Drew Brees’ last name. To coin a Winny-the-Poohism: beeses may fly in breezes, but they are not the same thing.  

In all seriousness though, I recognize the essential slap of humility this brings and urge everyone to consider that while I went a step too far in my eager analysis, the other connections still stand (or fall) independently on their merits. The fact that there are so many of them makes me take them seriously.

UPDATE II: H/T to High Hopes Abounding for an early morning tip to this article about Drew Brees’ saving faith. Note that he accepted Christ on his seventeenth birthday, January 15, 1996 — exactly fourteen (2X7) years before the eclipse that occurred on the first Hebrew anniversary of BHO’s inauguration. Here’s the ten-minute interview from which it is derived. I get the strong sense from it that he is the real deal (i.e., Brees is filled with the “breeze” of the Holy Spirit), and that he’s in this game for a good reason.

UPDATE III: Just dawned on me that the brassy/bronze color of the N.O. Saints’ uniforms links them to the bronze serpent which God commanded Moses to lift up on a pole for all to look upon and be healed in Numbers 21:4-9:

4 From Mount Hor they set out by the way to the Red Sea, to go around the land of Edom. And the people became impatient on the way. 5 And the people spoke against God and against Moses, “Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no food and no water, and we loathe this worthless food.” 6 Then the LORD sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people, so that many people of Israel died. 7 And the people came to Moses and said, “We have sinned, for we have spoken against the LORD and against you. Pray to the LORD, that he take away the serpents from us.” So Moses prayed for the people. 8 And the LORD said to Moses, “Make a fiery serpent and set it on a pole, and everyone who is bitten, when he sees it, shall live.” 9 So Moses made a bronze serpent and set it on a pole. And if a serpent bit anyone, he would look at the bronze serpent and live.

In addition to being the original symbol of the medical profession, it provides a foreshadowing of judgment, borne by Christ on the cross for all who will accept his having taken it for us. How many people will see another set of bronze-colored Saints lifted up tonight? Lots. May they look on the one Drew Brees accepted as his Lord and Savior and be healed.

At the risk of beating this one to death, there are a few critically important clues that I neglected to include in Part I, Part II or Part III of this series that both lend it credence and expand what I believe to be prophetically useful information our modern eyes have grown blind to seeing.

(There will not, I repeat, NOT be a Part IV!!)    

I drove by the billboard again the other day. Unlike “license plate eschatology”, (which can help confirm, on a very personal level, other urgings and signs from the Holy Spirit) the board is large and prominently placed. Anyone leaving the city of Boston via this route (and it is a major artery) could not possibly miss it.

For reasons I’ll lay out below (and in addition to the fact that the Bible is readily available to anyone in America who cares to read it) that leaves those who view this billboard without excuse.

They cannot say, when it becomes clear to all, very soon, that we have come under judgment, that they were not warned, only that they were disinclined to credit the knowledge that would have enabled them to SEE it as a warning. It is just one among many signs of this type and a big part of the reason I blog at all in this vein.

We are inclined, in this age (and in other ages, in some churches) to make excuses for Biblical illiteracy. Despite the occasional flourish of hyperlinks to Greek and Hebrew root-word references that might give one an impression to the contrary, I am hardly a Bible scholar. I was one of those Biblical illiterates until the fall of 2001 when I began reading it seriously without scoffing while doing so. I still have lots of catching up to do in that vein after 30 years in the secular wilderness.

Yet the more I’ve thought about this, the more I’ve become convinced that, in another era (say, Jonathan Edwards’ time, here in New England) the observation that gave rise to this series would not have been thought “weird” or “out there” at all.

Drawing a connection between this secular edifice, the “Maker” of Genesis, the “Mark” of Cain and the cross, and the expiration of all time and all history in Revelation would have been one of the most ordinary and obvious things to do with a billboard like this were it to have been presented to the average church-goer just five generations ago — and maybe not even that much.

Going further, I don’t think it a stretch to assert that anyone living in this part of the world 200-300 years ago, including even closet secularists, Deists and Unitarians would have seen this in the context I’ve seen it right off the bat. One can imagine it, plopped down in the midst of Enfield, Connecticut in the 1740s as a kind of Rorshach test for folks leaving an Edwards sermon. 90% of them would “get it” immediately.

Thus how can we say that God is not speaking through such things now if, in that time and that place, it would have been regarded as a clear and powerful sign? Does his message change? No. Only we do, as our vision dims to the signs throughout His Creation and the ample clues He has left that — in addition to the Bible, which is more than enough — leave even the illiterate among us without excuse. The cacophonous volume of relativistic culture has been turned up to eleven and beyond, drowning out the quiet whispers that used to steer our great-grandparents’ lives with things like this as a matter of course.

On my second pass Wednesday afternoon, I observed that the red half-moon on the sign (meant to resemble a parking meter) sticks up above the top of the rectangular billboard in roughly the shape of the BHO campaign logo… except this one is bright blood red instead of white. (The red horse of the apocalypse signals war. Though I hate to use racial designations, it is a fact that BHO “rode in” on the white horse of the white vote inclined to excuse the many gaps in his character because of his skin color. Red follows, then black (famine) then ‘chloros’ — death.)

One of the pictures I collected but forgot to post was this one, below. Yes, those are the Twin Towers.

It appears to be from an older advertising campaign for the brand. (This other site has done a yeoman’s job of cataloguing “pre-visions” of 9-11. They confirm the image, dating it to May, 2000 and whether that is precise or not, it must be pre-9-11, for who in their right mind would do such a thing since?)

I still maintain that those who end up being the conveyors of such prophecies are unaware of their role, however if they “predicted” the last one…

I’ll let you finish the thought. To be fair though, the same ad campaign appears to “predict” a debacle in Louisville, Kentucky…

Hmm… Back to the Big Brown meme? (The Kentucky Derby, where he failed in spectacular fashion is contested there.) I’ll confess that one’s a stretch…

Then there is this, the Maker’s Mark seal:

In terms of the surface meaning, the ‘S’ stands for the Samuels’ family — the originators of the brand. The five-pointed star represents “Star Hill” where their distillery is situated. And the IV (Roman numeral four) represents the number of generations they thought had passed since the family began distilling. (It was actually six, but they were stuck with the logo by then.)

With all of that symbolism, it would not be hard to run off in any number of different directions, e.g., Samuel as powerful prophet, pentagram on a hill = occult, seals on covenants, messages and scrolls, and all the stuff I’ve said before about the number four. I’ll assume anyone inclined to do so can run down those possibilities (or non-possibilities) on their own, as the Spirit leads. If you find something, please share.

I was led in s slightly different direction. I’m not saying it’s the right one, but it is at least consistent with the previous themes that are clearly present in this series. What direction is that? WHEAT. (See Part II.) When you pronounce the letters on the seal (SIV) as if they were a word, what does it sound like? Yes, that’s right: sieve. One ’sieves’ or sifts grain, e.g., wheat. Whether you prefer KJV or ESV, that word shows up exactly twice in scripture in the same two passages. I’ll use the ESV:

Isaiah 30:27-30 — “27 Behold, the name of the LORD comes from afar, burning with his anger, and in thick rising smoke; his lips are full of fury, and his tongue is like a devouring fire; 28 his breath is like an overflowing stream that reaches up to the neck; to sift the nations with the SIEVE of destruction, and to place on the jaws of the peoples a bridle that leads astray. 29 You shall have a song as in the night when a holy feast is kept, and gladness of heart, as when one sets out to the sound of the flute to go to the mountain of the LORD, to the Rock of Israel. 30 And the LORD will cause his majestic voice to be heard and the descending blow of his arm to be seen, in furious anger and a flame of devouring fire, with a cloudburst and storm and hailstones.”

Amos 9:8-10* — “Behold, the eyes of the Lord GOD are upon the sinful kingdom, and I will destroy it from the surface of the ground, except that I will not utterly destroy the house of Jacob,” declares the LORD. 9 “For behold, I will command, and shake the house of Israel among all the nations as one shakes with a SIEVE, but no pebble shall fall to the earth. 10 All the sinners of my people shall die by the sword, who say, ‘Disaster shall not overtake or meet us.’”

Did that get your attention? Yeah, me too. I urge you to re-read both passages slowly in light of the rest of what I’ve laid out in this series. Though the chances of landing on a judgment-related passage in the Bible are reasonably high, I know of few that are as eerily and consistently specific to the rest of the themes in this series, and to what time it appears to be as these two are.

*Sieve appears in v9 of Amos 9. Nine is the scriptural number of judgment.

The root word in Amos (kev·ä·rä’) is unique in scripture. That nearly always implies special significance. The root word in Isaiah (nä·fä’) connotes not only winnowing, but winnowing from (or on) a lofty height, e.g. as on the threshing floors of ancient Israel and particularly the one David purchased in Jerusalem but also, obviously winnowing by God Himself. Interesting… It is used precisely four times, the first two coming in the book of Joshua, in one instance rendered as “coast” and another as “border”.

Hmm… what countries can you think of that has mostly coastline for border? How about the subset that’s overdue for sieving, sifting and judgment from a lofty place? (I suspect that eliminates Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Japan, Vanuatu and Fiji, among others…)

Finally, as we touched on in each of the three previous posts in this series, the “Maker’s Mark” we’re dealing with prophetically here begins with the Mark of Cain, which in turn traces back to the bad seed planted in the minds and DNA of man by the serpent in the Garden. (For a well-researched, mature, though controversial take on where and how the DNA part of that bad seed may have been planted, see Bob Schlenker’s three-part series on Cain’s paternity which he posted last month.)

Because we’re therefore dealing with seeds, and specifically eggs, I found this image, apparently from yet another Maker’s Mark (Christmas-time) ad campaign at least thought-provoking:

And finally, speaking of Cain, note what pops up as an animation when one clicks on the “rebel” in the kitchen on the entertainment portion of the Maker’s Mark website:

Note the four bullet holes (are we seeing a theme here?) In case you can’t read the text on the scroll that emerges from the gun fired by a woman (Eve, much?):

We… have a history of being wanted… the rebel gene does tend to run in the… family… [e.g.] our not-too-distant relative Jesse James… Some tend to remember him for all that mischief he got into. But not us. We prefer to look at him as someone who gathered a pretty loyal following. And we can relate to that…

It’s clever marketing copy, with many double-entendres. I must reiterate: I am NOT in any way suggesting the writers were aware of the deeper meanings I’m outlining in this series. Yet if one reads the prophetic symbolism that runs deep and wide throughout the brand’s marketing campaign, and which appears to have done so for at least a decade — the billboard being only the most recent example — it’s hard not to read this screen and think of Cain.

Like Jesse James, the bad-seed (both DNA and ideas) led him to go in opposition to the law (literally, “outlaw”) and to take that all the way to murder. Soft terms like mischief-maker and rebel may sound positive, even sexy to our modern ears, but they are, at their root, efforts to obscure and gloss over the truth.

I promised there would be no Part IV. I hope also not to have to go to 3.2.

Have a good weekend, everyone. God bless.

UPDATE: Shackleton’s Whisky Dug Up in Antarctica

“…three crates of Scotch whisky and two crates of brandy left beneath the floorboards of a hut by the polar explorer Ernest Shackleton in 1909, at the end of a failed expedition to the South Pole, have been unearthed by a team from the Antarctic Heritage Trust.”

Hmm… 101 years, 3 crates, a guy who symbolically represents the absolute pinnacle of ENDURANCE and leadership and who ensured none were lost…

(H/T: Mrs. Ultraguy)

Recalling what Bostonians fondly call “the Blizzard of ‘78″, which I experienced as a teenager thirty-two years ago this Saturday (and Senator Scott Brown experienced his freshman year at Tufts) I called my parents today to see how they are doing.

They moved down to the DC ex-urbs years ago (to get away from the harsh winters up here). They now sit in the path of what is shaping up to be the second of two once-in-a-lifetime blizzards down there in scarcely six weeks.

Accumulations have the potential to reach 2 feet… matching or exceeding snowfall from the December blizzard… snowfall rates may reach 3 inches per hour.

I find it interesting that, on the map, the term “paralyzing” sits directly over the nation’s capital. Scott Brown is being sworn in to his Senate seat as I write this, a week earlier than Democrats would have liked, after a brief if impotent legal tussle.

Paralyzing indeed.

Recall that another strong storm struck the Kennedy compound with incredible precision the very day of Teddy K’s funeral. Then, the very day the door slams shut on the last trace of Camelot (an interim TK friend sat in his seat pending Brown’s swearing-in)… another big storm comes to town.

Interesting.

With this audience I hardly need to expound on the symbolic significance of the flooding expected to follow it, except to add emphasis to something Joseph Herrin said in one of his recent posts. Floods and torrents can represent words, e.g., Revelation 12:15 — “The serpent poured water like a river out of his mouth after the woman, to sweep her away with a flood” (I.e., false words/seeds).

All of which reminds me of George Bush’s first inaugural:

After the Declaration of Independence was signed, Virginia statesman John Page wrote to Thomas Jefferson: “We know the race is not to the swift nor the battle to the strong. Do you not think an angel rides in the whirlwind and directs this storm?”

Much time has passed since Jefferson arrived for his inauguration. The years and changes accumulate. But the themes of this day he would know: our nation’s grand story of courage and its simple dream of dignity.

We are not this story’s author, who fills time and eternity with his purpose. Yet his purpose is achieved in our duty, and our duty is fulfilled in service to one another.

Never tiring, never yielding, never finishing, we renew that purpose today, to make our country more just and generous, to affirm the dignity of our lives and every life.

This work continues. This story goes on. And an angel still rides in the whirlwind and directs this storm. God bless you all, and God bless America.

UPDATE I: Ran across this bedrock passage (Isaiah 55:10-11) and thought it apropos in view of a city known for spewing words of all kinds in all directions.

For as the rain cometh down, and the snow from heaven, and returneth not thither, but watereth the earth, and maketh it bring forth and bud, that it may give seed to the sower, and bread to the eater: So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it.

UPDATE II: David Wilkerson uses Elijah’s experience of God and storm on Mt. Horeb (1 Kings 19:11-13) in his lesson today (Friday):

And, behold, the Lord passed by, and a great and strong wind rent the mountains, and brake in pieces the rocks before the Lord; but the Lord was not in the wind: and after the wind an earthquake; but the Lord was not in the earthquake: And after the earthquake a fire; but the Lord was not in the fire: and after the fire a still small voice. And it was so, when Elijah heard it, that he wrapped his face in his mantle, and went out, and stood in the entering in of the cave. And, behold, there came a voice unto him, and said, What doest thou here, Elijah?”

When that wind began to howl, I think Elijah thought, “It’s about time, Lord. Blow Jezebel right off her throne—throw her and her sinner friends to the winds. Blow them all away!” But God was not in the wind!

Wise words. And particularly remarkable since I believe he writes these things days or weeks in advance. Read the rest. As usual, it is both short and very good. (Thursday’s is equally awesome, also on Elijah — the “one way servant”.)

This piece builds on and (I hope) refines and corrects some of the raw ideas I began thinking about in another post last July. I just happened to notice in my morning devotions, that…

In Ezra, chapter 3, Yeshua (son of Jozadak) is mentioned three times (v2, 8 & 9). The word “foundation” (yacad) is also used three times (v6, 10, & 11). In verse 12, those who remembered the old temple, before the Babylonian captivity, weep for it even as others cheer and rejoice at the new temple going up in front of their very eyes. They just couldn’t see the new one for what it was.

Foreshadowing typology, much? The question, as with all such types and allegories, is whether the echo stops with one major confirming fulfillment (i.e., in this case, Christ himself) or whether the pattern repeats somehow. Usually, it’s the latter.

In 1st Corinthians, 3:16-17, Paul writes (to believers):

Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you? If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy him. For God’s temple is holy, and you are that temple.

Later, in 1st Corinthians 6:19-20, he reiterates the point:

Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.

All of which draws upon Jesus’ words, in John 2:19-21, where we read:

Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” The Jews then said, “It has taken forty-six years to build this temple, and will you raise it up in three days?” But he was speaking about the temple of his body.

As well as passages such as Romans 12:4-5 –

For as in one body we have many members, and the members do not all have the same function, so we, though many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another.

Or 1st Corinthians 12:12-31 (One Body With Many Members).

Unless we are to allegorize these clear and repeated passages describing how the body of Christ and God’s holy temple were redefined after Christ’s resurrection — the new temple going up right in front of the eyes of those still looking at the empty old one, then we are left with something that flies in the face of (or at least flies in parallel to) most of the end-times scenarios I’ve ever run across.

As a newbie to end-times prophecy, the notion that the abomination of desolation in the end times (Daniel 11) will look much like the old one (a pagan sacrifice on a pagan altar set up by military force in a newly rebuilt marble temple building in Jerusalem) seems to be set in virtual concrete. (Ironic expression intentional.)

Maybe it will happen that way. Or maybe the abomination that causes desolation will happen, as it did in Christ’s body on the cross: via the body of his church universal. Or maybe it will be both — one track for the church, and one for the Jews. I.e., both notions being correct, but separate. I don’t know.

Back in July I wrote:

I’d always heard the ’standing in the holy place’ bit [Daniel 11] as referring to the temple in Jerusalem. The ‘holy place’ (and ‘most holy place’) both have very specific meanings in OT scripture, e.g., in Exodus. Yet as I noted above, the OT temple [didn't yet exist in Exodus]. And why the aside from Jesus, (or perhaps Matthew himself), “let the reader understand”. Why is that necessary if it’s the [conventional] interpretation of holy place?

What if… just what if maybe, perhaps… [it refers, instead or in addition] to the most holy place we can find in a New Testament context, the very ‘room’ in which Christ manifested as man, namely the womb of Mary and (by extension, all women)?

Or for that matter, all people — in their DNA… the word of life. Note also that regulations, rulings, directives and military incursions can “stand” just as people can.

With ample references to the body of Christ (and bodies of Christians) as temples, it’s hard NOT to head down that path and keep our minds open to that possibility. A look at the colors, fabrics, and physical and symbolic architecture of the tabernacle in the OT in comparison to the womb and the process of conception only amplifies that tantalizing possibility — especially in light of discussion about high-tech physical persecution, eugenics, bio-warfare, bio-engineering, cloning, abortion, and manipulation of pharmaceuticals, vaccines, DNA and whatnot.

The list of potential abominations that would cause desolation (i.e., death or an inability to produce life) in the bodies of human beings (selectively or en masse) as well as in the larger body of Christ are myriad here in the second decade of the 21st century.

Furthermore, the number of people and organizations who would love to see exactly that happen is myriad also. See, just for example, the piece on the Georgia Guidestones that Steve Coerper linked to as homework earlier this week — an absolute must read to see how feeble and defenseless the body of Christ has become to abominable ideas.

In Ezra 6:15, we read about the finalization of the re-built temple in Jerusalem: “and this house was finished on the third day of the month of Adar, in the sixth year of the reign of Darius the king.” That is, the king of Persia, aka modern Iran. The third of Adar falls on President’s Day this year — February 15th. (Rosh Chodesh Adar — the evening that begins the month occurs precisely seven days after the Superbowl.)

Wouldn’t it be interesting, and upside-down ironic if, on the eve of what looks like war with the same nation (Persia/Iran) whose leader ordered the second temple rebuilt, another temple — that of the body of Christ, i.e., His church — were completed, and perhaps also, subject to “the abomination that causes desolation”?

A dear sister in Christ and I have been discussing a compound, highly improbable set of signs that came to my attention yesterday — highly improbable that it is merely ‘noise’ or ‘chance’, because of the number and depth of mutually reinforcing signs and layers to it that cut across what any one person is seeing or working on. I won’t burden this post with that still-incomplete bunny trail that’s being tested by the Holy Spirit. The upshot is that it also point towards President’s Day, the president, various military elements, the occult… and perhaps fire.

We shall see. In the meantime, pray and be at peace. The temple of the body of Christ is one day closer to completion. His return is one day closer.

In Part One, I began unpacking some of the links between a billboard I glimpsed Sunday evening (which became the title to this series) and the word ‘mark’ (small ‘m’)  in scripture, especially the protective mark God put on Cain and the nail marks in Jesus’ hands and feet at his crucifixion.

In Part Two I outlined, among other things, how (in addition to the prophetic-looking billboard) other themes and images in the marketing of Maker’s Mark whisky appear (inadvertently, we must presume) to signal key elements of apocalyptic prophecy.

In Part Three, below, I will describe how these elements, properly digested with the help of the Holy Spirit, help us to better understand THE Maker’s mark (that is, God’s provision for our salvation through Jesus Christ). I also expect to elucidate what appear to be key pointers that this secular landmark (the billboard) provides to practical scriptural prescriptions for these desperate if not unprecedented times — times when pagan culture may appear, for a time, to be winning.

Yes, I know this seems weird, but bear with me. This is the least “woo-woo” symbolic post in the series. Quite frankly, as I shared at the outset, I didn’t expect to find this much in it either.

I certainly didn’t set out expecting to write this much on it, or even a determination to write anything this week at all. To some, it may appear that I’m “chasing my tail”, expending effort on fruitless, distracting things that don’t help the kingdom. Jabbing at and causing undue fear at what are passing shadows.

Strange as the inspiration may have been however (and I’ll be the first to admit it), I urge you to follow where I’ve been led, test it against scripture and the Holy Spirit, and see if it doesn’t take you to the remarkable, God-fearing, awe-inspired set of conclusions I’ve come to by studying it.

Makers Mark: Time Expired

Having spent most of this series focused on the Maker and his marks, I note in passing a few other angles on what is otherwise obvious, i.e., we are in the very end times: “time expired”.

That phrase is used commonly around sports contests, including football. (Google shows over 37,000 references for that game alone.) Furthermore, major events as “time expires” are characteristic of the most exciting games, e.g., those in which the team that ultimately loses plays on stubbornly to the bitter end. Unfaithful players and spectators (especially those with a stake in the outcome) may bite their nails with worry as to whether their team can really pull off a win.

(Obviously I’m constructing an allegory and, like all of them, it is imperfect. Please indulge me on it one more moment. If you were watching a tape-delay of a nail-biter game for which you already knew the ultimate outcome “prophetically”, you would be much more relaxed, perhaps even gleeful in anticipation of what you knew was coming — assured that the right team would win because they already had.)

Time Expired is also the title of a short 1992 film I’m glad I didn’t see, the plot of which makes me marvel at why God didn’t smote us all eighteen years ago, and another equally bad-sounding film just last year that can only have added to our ultimate dose of judgment at having wasted so much time on such foolishness. Fortunately one late soul — Barbara Sue Manire — had a sense of humor about the phrase.

Moving on…

Whereas in Part I of this series, we saw that the first uses of the Hebrew, ‘owth, and Greek, typos (the words translated into English as ‘mark’) reference God’s provision of grace and salvation — on Cain, in Genesis 4:15, and literally through (as in pierced-through) Jesus’ hands and feet in John 20:25), the last several uses of those same words, in the Hebrew and New Testament scriptures respectively, provide important clues also.

HEBREW

Specifically, the last uses of the word that in Hebrew sounds and means (in part) “oath”, and the word that in Greek sounds and means “type” help us to understand how the Divine provision inherent in those marks is to be drawn to conclusion when “time expires” (the first, on Cain, being merely a foreshadowing type of the latter, at the cross). I believe that time to be very soon.

One of the more remarkable, and well-known uses of the Hebrew word ‘owth (though not the last) comes in Isaiah 7:14 — “…the Lord himself shall give you a SIGN; Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.” (That is, “God with us”). The very last use of the ‘owth (H226, אוֺת) in the Hebrew scriptures comes in Ezekiel 20:20 where ‘owth is translated as “sign”: “And hallow my sabbaths; and they shall be a SIGN between me and you, that ye may know that I am the LORD your God.” Second-to-last? Ezekiel 20:12 (interesting number): “Moreover also I gave them my sabbaths, to be a SIGN between me and them, that they might know that I am the LORD that sanctify them.”

The third-to-last use of ‘owth comes in Ezekiel 14:8 but it deserves some more context (the word of the Lord, via Ezekiel):

3 Son of man, these men have set up their idols in their heart, and put the stumblingblock of their iniquity before their face: should I be enquired of at all by them? 4 Therefore speak unto them, and say unto them, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Every man of the house of Israel that setteth up his idols in his heart, and putteth the stumblingblock of his iniquity before his face, and cometh to the prophet; I the LORD will answer him that cometh according to the multitude of his idols; 5 That I may take the house of Israel in their own heart, because they are all estranged from me through their idols. 6 Therefore say unto the house of Israel, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Repent , and turn yourselves from your idols; and turn away your faces from all your abominations. 7 For every one of the house of Israel, or of the stranger that sojourneth in Israel, which separateth himself from me, and setteth up his idols in his heart, and putteth the stumblingblock of his iniquity before his face, and cometh to a prophet to enquire of him concerning me; I the LORD will answer him by myself: 8 And I will set my face against that man, and will make him a SIGN and a proverb, and I will cut him off from the midst of my people; and ye shall know that I am the LORD. 9 And if the prophet be deceived when he hath spoken a thing, I the LORD have deceived that prophet, and I will stretch out my hand upon him, and will destroy him from the midst of my people Israel. 10 And they shall bear the punishment of their iniquity: the punishment of the prophet shall be even as the punishment of him that seeketh unto him; 11 That the house of Israel may go no more astray from me, neither be polluted any more with all their transgressions; but that they may be my people, and I may be their God, saith the Lord GOD.

Fourth-to-last? Ezekiel 4:3 (the commission of his first public prophetic task) –

Moreover take thou unto thee an iron pan, and set it for a wall of iron between thee and the city: and set thy face against it, and it shall be besieged, and thou shalt lay siege against it. This shall be a SIGN to the house of Israel.

The message I hope you’re getting (and which I got) from all this is that God cares very much about His sabbaths, that he provided them to us for the purpose of rest, contemplation and worship of Him, and for remembering the provision He made for us through His son, Immanuel, and that we are to turn our faces away from idols. Sabbath-keeping and idol-rejection are closely tied. In addition, there is the suggestion, in Ezekiel 4:3, that such face-time idols can create a hard, impenetrable barrier between us and the Father.

Can you think of anything in our modern culture that, a) pollutes and distracts from the Sabbath, b) offers up myriad idols, c) demands “face time” and d) looks like a hard, smooth, impenetrable barrier?

Ravi Zacharias did a teaching sermon a few years back in which he related the experience of entering into a Hindu home. (He grew up Hindu in India, discovering Christ after a suicide attempt as a teenager.) He described how the small altar in those homes tends to dominate the center of the main living space, and how anyone in the room or passing by turns their rapt attention to it.

Let me stop being elliptical and suggestive.

The Lord, through Ezekiel, clearly meant to describe all kinds of idol worship however, in our modern culture, it’s nearly impossible not to apply this series of passages to television, and especially to the American Sunday* (Sabbath) ritual of watching football. Therefore it is even easier to apply it to the annual mass-global idol worship-fest of the Superbowl, during which even those with little interest in the game itself are enticed to watch by a combination of social pressure and curiosity at tasting (and amusing oneself) with the culture’s very best efforts at idol-temptation through advertising.

*(Please don’t bother with comments about Sunday vs. Saturday Sabbath-keeping. I am aware of and sympathetic to the arguments for, and against, both. Until more people — including me — return to keeping a Sabbath at all, it’s best not to quibble on this.)

FOOTBALL

Not to distract from the primary point with a much smaller, more humorous one, but when I see the word “stumblingblock” in this context (Strong’s H4383, מִכְשׁוֹל, or mik·shōle’ — a masculine noun) I can’t help but think of the primary object of the defensive line in football: being a stumblingblock to the offense, with their fondest wish and highest aim being to sack (symbolically “kill”) the quarterback.

Before we leave off with this, let me just note in passing a few things about this Superbowl that I’m sure others have already noticed, namely that the Saints (from one of the most destitute, “crushed” cities in this country — an improbable, hapless, perennially losing team for years) will get the chance to square off one that has enjoyed multi-year dominance matched in recent years only by the Patriots, namely the Colts.

I won’t attempt to draw any prophetic significance out of the odds or possible final score, however two theories of the symbolism of the Colts are worth noting: 1) “symbol of burden-bearer, stubbornness, patience, endurance” (Conner), e.g., Genesis 49:11, Job 11:12, Zechariah 9:9, Matthew 21:1-7, John 12:15, and 2) the four horsemen of the apocalypse.

Further, this is Superbowl XLIV (for the Roman-numeral challenged, that’s #44) I’m not sure if there’s much to make of transliterating the Roman numerals, e.g., as “Excel Ivy” or “Ex-Live”, though the latter one sounds suspiciously like death…) Short take on 44: though the number four harbors good things (e.g., the four points of the cross and the gospels) they do not come without ample suffering. None of the factors of 44 represent overtly happy or easy things in scripture.

As noted in previous posts, the president is also #44 (as is the book of Acts — an even more radical, and far more successful change in a wholly different direction). The symbolism behind the number 44 and its factors, four, eleven, two and twenty-two is thus at least a curious at juncture in history as we await the full flowering of BHO’s realization that he cannot, “simply speak things into being”, juxtaposed against psychological profiles of him such as this and this (confirmed by a mental health professional who reads this blog) and which I wrote about here and here. Short take: brace yourselves (and read the rest of this post).

In a recent post, Joseph Herrin, back from a series of trials, expounded further on the significance he has found in the number 22 (basically, the cutting or dividing of the flesh — hmm… sounds a bit like what one football team attempts to do to the other, both individually and en masse, on the field, as well as what we will likely be called to endure, and what is happening to this nation).

Let’s move on…

GREEK

The Greek word for ‘mark’ (“typos”, G5179) in the New Testament is used exactly fifteen times. As we saw in Part I with the Hebrew word ‘owth (used 77 times), this is highly significant — one of many fingerprints of God that mark scripture as inspired, complete and inerrant. Bullinger says of fifteen:

Five is, as we have seen, the number of grace, and three is the number of divine perfection. Fifteen, therefore [being the product of those two], specially refers to acts wrought by the energy of Divine grace… Deity is seen in it, for the two Hebrew letters which express it are y, Yod (10), and h, Hey (5). These spell the ineffable Name… being 8 + 7 [as well], it may also include a reference to resurrection, as being a special mark of the energy of Divine grace issuing in glory.

None of this should not come as a surprise, given the anchoring use of the word in John 20:25, in the scene with “Doubting Thomas” (“the other disciples told him, “We have seen the Lord.” But he said to them, “Unless I see in his hands the mark of the nails, and place my finger into the mark of the nails, and place my hand into his side, I will never believe.”)

The last use of the word comes in 1st Peter 5:3, in which the Greek “typos” is translated as “examples” in the ESV. More context is helpful:

1 So I exhort the elders among you, as a fellow elder and a witness of the sufferings of Christ, as well as a partaker in the glory that is going to be revealed: 2 shepherd the flock of God that is among you, exercising oversight, not under compulsion, but willingly, as God would have you; not for shameful gain, but eagerly; 3 not domineering over those in your charge, but being examples to the flock. 4 And when the chief Shepherd appears, you will receive the unfading crown of glory. 5 Likewise, you who are younger, be subject to the elders. Clothe yourselves, all of you, with humility toward one another, for “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.” 6 Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you, 7 casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you. 8 Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. 9 Resist him, firm in your faith, knowing that the same kinds of suffering are being experienced by your brotherhood throughout the world. 10 And after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you. 11 To him be the dominion forever and ever. Amen.

Second-to-last use in the NT comes in Hebrews 8:5b (ESV), as the word “pattern”:

“…when Moses was about to erect the tent, he was instructed by God, saying, ‘See that you make everything according to the pattern that was shown you on the mountain.’”

Third-to-last? Titus 2:7, in which the word is translated as “model” –

“6 …urge the younger men to be self-controlled. 7 Show yourself in all respects to be a model of good works, and in your teaching show integrity, dignity, 8 and sound speech that cannot be condemned, so that an opponent may be put to shame, having nothing evil to say about us.”

Fourth-to-last: 2nd Timothy 4:12 (“example”) –

7 Have nothing to do with irreverent, silly myths. Rather train yourself for godliness; 8 for while bodily training is of some value, godliness is of value in every way, as it holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come. 9 The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance. 10 For to this end we toil and strive, because we have our hope set on the living God, who is the Savior of all people, especially of those who believe. 11 Command and teach these things. 12 Let no one despise you for your youth, but set the believers an example in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith, in purity. 13 Until I come, devote yourself to the public reading of Scripture, to exhortation, to teaching. 14 Do not neglect the gift you have, which was given you by prophecy when the council of elders laid their hands on you. 15 Practice these things, immerse yourself in them, so that all may see your progress. 16 Keep a close watch on yourself and on the teaching. Persist in this, for by so doing you will save both yourself and your hearers.

Thus the conclusion of the “mark” that started with God’s graceful (undeserved) protection on Cain and his graceful (undeserved) suffering on the cross for our sins rests on us (that is, believers) as we strive through the process of sanctification, patterning ourselves on our Savior as examples, patterns and models to others of things like self-control, purity, and sobriety in love, speech, conduct and works (among other attributes).

In short, we are called to stand for the exact opposite of what our licentious, idol-mad culture does (e.g., worship of the Superbowl, booze and the myth of wealth). If that’s a surprise to any professing Christians out there, it may be time to pick up and read your Bible more thoroughly. 

Part IV? Gosh, I sure hope not. It’s not a good number.  

UPDATE: I can think of no better coda than this admonition by Joseph Herrin:

The days are near when many a Christian will deeply regret the missed opportunities they had to become firmly grounded in the Scriptures. Many will lament that they failed to avail themselves of the hours they could have been feeding upon the Word of God. The wasted hours in front of the television, or pursuing endless entertainment and pleasure will indeed prove very costly.