Preface:

Jude 9 — “But when the archangel Michael, contending with the devil, was disputing about the body of Moses, he did not presume to pronounce a blasphemous judgment, but said, ‘The Lord rebuke you.’”

Romans 12:19 — “Beloved, never avenge yourselves [even in your heart!!], but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, ‘Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.’”

Proverbs 19:21 — “Many are the plans in the mind of a man, but it is the purpose of the LORD that will stand.”

Psalm 2 — “1 Why do the nations rage and the peoples plot in vain? 2 The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the LORD and against his Anointed, saying, 3 ‘Let us burst their bonds apart and cast away their cords from us.’ 4 He who sits in the heavens laughs; the Lord holds them in derision. 5 Then he will speak to them in his wrath, and terrify them in his fury, saying, 6 ‘As for me, I have set my King on Zion, my holy hill.’”

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The Gist:

President Obama’s upcoming trip to Israel is timed and choreographed so as to mimic Jesus’ (Y’Shua’s) triumphal entry into Jerusalem, and with it the predictive ‘echo’ event all Jews should recognize: Joshua’s (Y’Shua’s) crossing of the Jordan with the Israelites into the Promised Land, led by the Ark of the Covenant.

Obama’s trip is also timed so as to coincide precisely with the Vernal Equinox, a pagan holiday predicated on the principle of equality and eternal balance between light and darkness — a concept wholly at odds with scripture.

The president’s arrival in the land, and entry into Jerusalem marks the only year and the only day within a span of nearly two centuries when such a confluence of the Vernal Equinox and Triumphal Entry would be possible.

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Important background:

• “It’s Him” (July 13, 2009), and
• Know Your Enemy Part 43 & Part 44 (8 & 12 minute videos)

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February 5th, 2013, NY Times (the initial announcement)–

President Obama plans to travel to Israel this spring for the first time since taking office… Israeli news media reported that Mr. Obama would arrive on March 20…

Nisan 10 begins at sundown that same evening (17:51 Israel time in Jerusalem).

From Hebrew4Christians:

Jesus’ last Passover began some time before the Festival actually began (see John 12:1-33). After visiting his friend Lazarus and his sisters in Bethany, He went to Jerusalem just before the city became filled with pilgrims coming to celebrate the holiday. On the 10th of Nisan He [Y'Shua, a.k.a., Jesus] entered the city [of Jerusalem], riding on a donkey to announce His Messiahship (this was the time the korban Pesach was being selected for the sacrifice). Examined for four days before His sacrifice (execution) for the sins of the world, He was found to be the true Lamb of God (seh haElohim) without spot or blemish.

JOSHUA 4:19a The people came up out of the Jordan on the tenth day of the first month.

I.e., the Israelites, led by Joshua (a.k.a., Y’Shua) crossed into the Promised Land on Nisan 10.

JOSHUA 3:7 The LORD said to Joshua, “Today I will begin to exalt you in the sight of all Israel, that they may know that, as I was with Moses, so I will be with you. 8 And as for you, command the priests who bear the ark of the covenant, ‘When you come to the brink of the waters of the Jordan, you shall stand still in the Jordan.’”

JOSHUA 4:19 On that day the LORD exalted Joshua in the sight of all Israel, and they stood in awe of him just as they had stood in awe of Moses, all the days of his life.

February 18, 2013, CNN –

When President Barack Obama visits Israel next month, he’ll be awarded the Presidential Medal of Distinction, Israeli President Shimon Peres’ office announced Monday.

Obama, the first sitting U.S. president to receive the recognition, will be awarded the medal for making “a unique and significant contribution to strengthening the State of Israel and the security of its citizens,” according to a release announcing the news.

He’ll receive the award at a dinner at Peres’ residence in Jerusalem, slated to be attended by senior figures from Israeli public life and the Obama administration.

The award is given to “private” individuals and organizations that have made “outstanding contributions to bettering the world.” …Obama bestowed Peres the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor, last year at the White House. Twelve others also received the award in 2012.

Obama is scheduled to arrive in Israel around 12:00 Noon on March 20th. That’s within minutes of the Vernal Equinox (13:02 Israel time that day, or 11:02 GMT) — a significant pagan/occult/wicca holiday, the origins of which trace back to Babylon. The Druids were one of many cultures known to have celebrated the Vernal Equinox (literally ‘equal night’). The Druids also made human sacrifices. Many others still celebrate it… including Freemasons.

This is the first time since the establishment of the modern state of Israel that the Jewish calendar has skewed this early relative to the Gregorian. The last time was 1899. The next time will be 2089. (H/T: Daniel Eggers.) I haven’t had time to check it out, but a Jewish friend told me, several weeks ago, and entirely unrelated to this story, that the Jewish calendar is never earlier.

In other words, 2013 is the first year in the lifetimes of all but a tiny handful of extreme-elderly people alive today that these two days coincide so closely — one dark and pagan, the other full of light and life… glorious beyond measure. The next time it will take place is seventy-six years from now, when most alive today will be dead.

February 12, 2013, YNet News –

Jerusalem and Washington have set the itinerary for President Barack Obama visit to Israel. Obama is scheduled to land in Ben Gurion International Airport [near Tel Aviv] around noon on Wednesday, March 20 [Nisan 9]. He will be welcomed by a State reception which will include speeches by President Shimon Peres, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and by the American president himself.

Obama will then fly to Jerusalem directly to Peres’ residence where he’ll again be ceremoniously received. He will continue with Peres and Netanyahu to Yad Vashem Holocaust Museum, where he will lay a wreath in the Hall of Remembrance.

The next stop will be Mount Herzl, where Obama will lay a wreath on Herzl’s tomb as a gesture to Zionism. Obama will continue to Yitzhak Rabin’s tomb, laying a wreath there as well.

In the afternoon [of Nisan 9] the entourage will arrive at the prime minister’s house, where Netanyahu and Obama will meet with small delegations to discuss issues such as Iran, Syria, the peace process and Jonathan Pollard. Following the meeting a joint press conference will be held, after which the two and their staff will dine together. [Presumably after sunset, thus Nisan 10.]

The following morning [March 21 -- Nisan 10] Obama will depart for Ramallah to meet with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.

Obama will return to Jerusalem by noon [on March 21 -- Nisan 10], when he will be taken by Netanyahu to examine a model of Second Temple Period Jerusalem. They will continue to the Shrine of the Book, where Netanyahu will show him the Dead Sea Scrolls. The American President will continue to see an exhibition in the Israel Museum, which will show Israel’s latest developments in high-tech, bio-tech, nanotechnology and agriculture.

At this point, I would strongly urge readers to pause and take time review this scripturally-based chronology tracing Jesus’ comings-and-goings during the days leading up to his crucifixion on Nisan 14 (Pesach) and resurrection, three days later.

Among other things, note that each goes into Jerusalem then retreats a short distance away to spend time with friends and supporters — Jesus’ to Bethany, with Mary, Martha and Lazarus, whom he raised from the dead, and Obama to Ramallah with ‘Palestinian’ President Mahmoud Abbas.

The word ‘Ramallah‘ is composed of two parts: “Ram,” an Aramaic word that means “high place or mountain” and “Allah,” the Arabic word for their ‘god’. I.e., Ramallah means “height of ‘god’”. The Hebrew word translated as “ascend” is pronounced ‘allah’ as well. It appears twice in Isaiah 14, where YHWH condemns Satan’s prideful ambition to mimic and replace him:

12 “How you are fallen from heaven, O Day Star, son of Dawn! How you are cut down to the ground, you who laid the nations low! 13 You said in your heart, ‘I will ascend ['allah'] to heaven; above the stars of God I will set my throne on high; I will sit on the mount of assembly in the far reaches of the north; 14 I will ascend ['allah'] above the heights of the clouds; I will make myself like the Most High.’

15 But you are brought down to Sheol, to the far reaches of the pit. 16 Those who see you will stare at you and ponder over you: ‘Is this the man who made the earth tremble, who shook kingdoms, 17 who made the world like a desert and overthrew its cities, who did not let his prisoners go home?’ 18 All the kings of the nations lie in glory, each in his own tomb; 19 but you are cast out, away from your grave, like a loathed branch, clothed with the slain, those pierced by the sword, who go down to the stones of the pit, like a dead body trampled underfoot.

(Parenthetically, in consideration of the various riches which Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will show Obama, I’d also recommend a refresher skim through 2nd Kings 20, from v12 on, and Isaiah 39.)

In the afternoon [of Nisan 10] Obama will address Israelis in a public speech in the Israel Museum or in the International Convention Center in Jerusalem. The Americans have requested the presence of at least 1,000 Israelis. Later, Obama will be hosted for a ceremonial dinner by Peres. [recall details, above]

Friday, March 22, Obama will breakfast with Netanyahu in his home or in King David Hotel. The two will go to visit an Iron Dome battery, where Obama will meet with the soldiers manning the battery. At 13:00 a farewell ceremony will take place in the International Airport, from which the president will depart to meet King Abdullah in Jordan.

I’ll note in passing that March 22 is a day positively soaked with (demonic) significance for Freemasons, while the number thirteen, throughout scripture, is associated with “rebellion, apostasy, defection, corruption, disintegration, revolution, or some kindred idea.”

March 22, 2013 marks the 33rd anniversary of the Georgia Guidestones being erected (a chillingly death-centric, Satanic ‘alternative’ to the Ten Commandments).

Jesus was 33 years old when he entered Jerusalem to go to the cross.

The 33rd degree is the highest in Freemasonry.

March 20th will be the 33rd day after the meteor explosion over Russia (February 15th), another hint (as if we needed one) that we’re living in days like Noah’s. (See here and here, and think about them together; see also Matthew 24:37 and Luke 17:26. H/T: Jeffrey Goodman.)

February 17, 2013, Arutz Sheva –

The English version of the code name chosen for the operations surrounding the upcoming visit to Israel by U.S. President Barack Obama, scheduled for March 20, is “Unbreakable Alliance.” The Hebrew name is “Brit Amim,” which means, literally, “an alliance between nations.”

See Deuteronomy 7 for why this is a problem.

Further adding to the intrigue is speculation that Obama might visit the Temple Mount and/or Dome of the Rock.

February 24, Arutz Sheva –

Palestinian political and religious leaders on Sunday stressed that US President Barack Obama should not visit the Al-Aqsa mosque compound in Jerusalem in a way that might compromise its “Muslim sovereignty.” Sheikh Akrameh Sabri, head of the higher Islamic council and former Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, said that Obama must enter through a gate that was not under Israeli auspices.“Any visitor is welcome to Al-Aqsa, but they should follow the regulations of the Waqf and enter through the Lions’ Gate and not through Mughrabi Gate, to ensure Muslim sovereignty,” he said at a press conference in east Jerusalem. “The visit shouldn’t have a political theme to it because Al-Aqsa belongs to Muslims only and it is their place of worship and we refuse that any Israeli official accompanies the visitor,” said Sabri. [More here and here.]

Interesting… that bit in bold. (E.g., See Matthew 7:12-14 , John 10, and Revelation 5:5).

I don’t believe he needs to go there to fulfill prophecy though, and here’s why.

In Matthew 24, Jesus famously warns:

15 So when you see the abomination of desolation spoken of by the prophet Daniel, standing in the holy place (let the reader understand), 16 then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains.

Jesus’ words had an obvious physical-literal fulfillment in 70 AD when Roman forces sacked Jerusalem and burned the Temple. None of those who had placed their trust in Messiah Y’Shua (Jesus Christ) were harmed however, for they had had a desert-like thirty-eight years to consider, understand, recognize and heed the warning when it came to pass. They took God’s Word seriously. They took time to let its meaning soak in with the help of the light of the Holy Spirit. They were wise virgins who did not need to seek Spirit-oil to light their spiritual lamps at the last minute when it was too late. They already had it inside of them.

As literal residents of literal Judea, they fled to the literal, geographic mountains for refuge, as instructed. Yet in doing so in obedience to His Word, they were also fleeing to the refuge of the mountain of YHWH — the mount on which His Christ reigns (see Psalm 2, at top). The obedience (to Christ) is the main thing. We ought not get too caught up on the physical fleeing itself, a particular instruction by Christ to a particular people at a particular time.

Does that mean that this part of Jesus’ prophecy in Matthew 24 (and Mark 13 and Luke 21) can be safely packed away and ignored? I don’t think so. Our God and His Word are unparalleled in their ability to put the same things to use in multiple ways, over vast spans of history, and all to the same end: sinful man reconciled to his God by the cross; Christ with His Bride, wedded eternal in the New Jerusalem.

In the past, I’ve conjectured various other ways in which the phrases “standing in” and “holy place” could be interpreted in idiomatic or symbolic terms, e.g., this and this. (Virtually all of scripture has this dual literal-symbolic aspect to it.) As such, I will not insist on the following interpretation. You’ll either see it or you won’t — and I could well be wrong. Be an Acts 17:11 skeptic. Consider everything carefully yourself in light of the Word of God.

Very simply, I have come to believe that “standing in the holy place” means imitating and usurping the role (i.e., the rightful image, office and authority) of the Holy One, YHWH’s Christ: Jesus.

Such an interpretation would be consistent with the definition John gives for antichrist (both plural and singular) in his first epistle, 2:18-27. (Just think about the common usage of the term ‘stand-in’, e.g., an understudy in a play, a back-up quarterback, a temporary corporate executive, an Olympic team alternate, a substitute teacher, a babysitter, etc. Only incidentally does the idea refer to the ground on which one’s feet happen to be placed. Primarily, it refers to performing the functions of a person who normally and properly performs them when all is in its right order.)

We’re so used to political parody that we forget: imitating a perfectly holy God entails mockery, i.e., blasphemy. It is in an important sense the same profound sin Satan committed. Submission and obedience to Christ are the believer’s route to supernatural (‘born again’) transformation, the ultimate, God-driven and proper form of imitation (being re-created, by his grace and Holy Spirit, into his image, over time and through testing and trial). Direct imitation without those elements, for one’s own purposes, amounts to usurpation and opposition. It is rebellion.

Because Jesus’ ministry was based in Israel, centered ultimately on Jerusalem and the Temple, geography is an essential part of of the abomi-nation’s “standing” — but only a part. It is but one aspect of a much larger ‘frame’.

Just as the gospel began in Jerusalem and went out to all the earth, so does the New Jerusalem. So does the temple of Jesus’ body, the church. So do the imitators, usurpers and rebels who would ascend to be like the Most High. And so does the ultimate man of sin, antichrist. His usurping role, office and self-aggrandizing ambitions are what define him. Geography is simply a base he needs to tag to round that out. I strongly suspect that is what Obama’s trip is all about.

For those steeped in a reading of prophetic scripture which requires the re-building of a physical-literal-geographic stone temple and Holy Place with human hands before the man-of-sin can stand in it, this may be hard. It’s been quite the trip for me also. Yet scripture must be our guide. As such, I urge you to consider the foundations of that assumption carefully (pun intentional) as you weigh this larger idea which could well incorporate it, but doesn’t have to.)

In our day, I believe, “those in Judea” refer to those in Christ.

See Revelation 2:9 and 3:9 about the fakes. See also:

Romans 2:29 — “…a Jew is one inwardly, and circumcision is a matter of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the letter. His praise is not from man but from God.”

Galatians 3:28 — “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” and Colossians 3:11 — “Here there is not Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free; but Christ is all, and in all.”

In our day, I believe, “flee[ing] to the mountains,” refers to our fleeing to YHWH, e.g., see Psalm 11. We are to “come out of her [Babylon]” (a city built on a plain – Shinar, in Iraq) and flee ‘up’ to the New Jerusalem. We are to flee to the refuge of Christ’s body, the fellowship of his Word and Spirit, embodied in his true (invisible) church, sheltered under his out-stretched, nail-scarred ‘wings’ — the ones he would have used to protect the original Jerusalem as a hen gathers her chicks (Matt 23)… but they would not.

In the same vein, speaking of one whose “heart shall be set against the holy covenant” (v28) the prophet Daniel is told to write (in chapter 11):

31 … And they shall set up the abomi-nation that makes desolate. 32 He shall seduce with flattery those who violate the covenant, but the people who know their God shall stand firm and take action.

I.e., by telling people what they want to hear, the abomi-nation (perhaps a male person, see v32) will talk unbelievers into a grand lie. (The exact same idea is reflected in 2nd Thessalonians 2:9-12, (“strong delusion so that they may believe what is false”), echoing Romans 1:18+ (“God gave them up”) and Isaiah 6:9-10. (“do not understand… do not perceive”). (This is the main reason I’ve lost all interest in politics. What we have witnessed the last several years in that arena is symptomatic of Divine judgment already working. As such, it is a fools errand to attempt to overturn or reverse it with anything other than sincere repentance, and obedience to the gospel of Jesus Christ.)

Daniel continues (ch. 11):

33 And the wise among the people shall make many understand, though for some days they shall stumble by sword and flame, by captivity and plunder. 34 When they stumble, they shall receive a little help. And many shall join themselves to them with flattery, 35 and some of the wise shall stumble, so that they may be refined, purified, and made white, until the time of the end, for it still awaits the appointed time.

36 And the king shall do as he wills. He shall exalt himself and magnify himself above every god, and shall speak astonishing things against the God of gods.

Recall Isaiah 14, above. Contrast this also with Joshua 3 & 4, also cited above, wherein YHWH is the one doing the exalting (of Joshua and, later, Jesus) as a result of their obedience to Him.

Recall also, in contrast, Obama’s statement at the 2009 White House Correspondent’s dinner — a statement profoundly ‘astonishing’ to anyone who knows their Bible and fears YHWH –

“My next 100 days will be so successful,
I will complete them in 72 days.
And on the 73rd day, I will rest.”

Not only was Obama’s statement a blatant blasphemy against YHWH (which, tellingly, garnered laughter from most of the audience) but it also served as a direct and potent reference to Islam — one almost no one in the West has fully understood, even now.

Correspondent ‘DT’ clued me in in an e-mail (see text about halfway down this post): 72 is the number of virgins which Islamic martyrs are promised in ‘paradise’ for acts of murder-suicide which take out infidels: i.e., anyone who does not bow the knee to ‘allah’; 73 is the Islamic number of perfection. Now, go re-read Obama’s statement with that understanding (72=virgins in payment for murder-suicide; 73 and perfection in the false demon-god ‘allah’). If you are not shocked to the core by what he was really saying, you were not paying attention.

Daniel continues (ch. 11):

36 He shall prosper till the indignation is accomplished; for what is decreed shall be done.

I.e., the man of sin will remain in power, contrary to all earthly reason, e.g., men’s political calculations. (Paradoxically, this fact should reassure all believers. The Most High God, YHWH is in thoroughly and permanently in charge of everything. Satan is a created being, restrained according to YHWH’s good, wise, sovereign, omnipresent and omnipotent control. We must not fear him who can only kill the body.)

37 He shall pay no attention to the gods of his fathers, or to the one beloved by women. He shall not pay attention to any other god, for he shall magnify himself above all.

I’ve read this passage dozens of times. I think it’s much simpler than many make out.

Consider: Anyone who seeks to unite the world’s faiths, either in their own mind on a small scale, or in Jerusalem on a grand scale (as Obama has said he’d like to do) is by definition staking out higher ground than any of them. (This realization should set us in awe regarding the patience and long-suffering of the One True God, YHWH, and His Christ, Jesus who does not delight in the death of the wicked and would wish all to come to saving faith.)

We’re so used to this kind of relativistic, little-o-this, little-o-that, tolerant-of-outright-falsehood thinking in our day that when someone rises to power who embodies it, we scarcely notice.

It’s the same common philosophy that holds that truth is relative to each person, and that all religions have a part of the truth and do not really conflict with one another in their essentials (a rather silly and willful obfuscation of the plainest and most basic tenets of each).

It’s the same philosophy that leads many to “roll their own” nowadays, selecting aspects of different religious philosophies to suit their tastes, making themselves little gods while denying each one, including the Real One. (I recently learned the term ‘Bu-Jew’ which some ethnic Jews following fashionable Buddhist teaching apply to themselves while denying the authority of Old Testament.)

38 He shall honor the god of fortresses [Babylon and physical force] instead of these. A god whom his fathers did not know he shall honor with gold and silver, with precious stones and costly gifts. [Hanuman?] 39 He shall deal with the strongest fortresses with the help of a foreign god. Those who acknowledge him he shall load with honor. He shall make them rulers over many and shall divide the land for a price.

That last line is the key thing to watch.

Will Obama’s trip result in a deal to divide Israel?

We shall soon see…

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Addenda:

I don’t claim to understand this bit yet, but it seems notable that the Vicar of (literally, the stand-in or substitute for) Christ, i.e., Pope Benedict XVI, should resign suddenly just six days after Obama announced his trip to Israel.

The latest date rumored for the conclave to choose the next (and allegedly last) Pope to succeed him is… March 20th… the Vernal Equinox… the day Obama is set to arrive in Israel.

To put it another way, the Pope’s exit process is framed by Obama’s trip. In such a context, Revelation 13 seems of increasing interest, i.e., regarding the co-temporal interplay between the two beasts (antichrist world systems stretching across time, the powers of which are concentrated in certain men). (Recall the material Mark Fairley puts forward regarding the Satanic interplay of light and darkness.)

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Given the timing of Obama’s trip, I’ve been looking with new eyes at Jesus’ words to his disciples in Matthew 24:20 regarding the start of the unprecedented Great Tribulation, a.k.a., Time of Jacob’s Trouble:

Pray that your flight may not be in winter or on a Sabbath.

Winter ends in the Northern Hemisphere on March 20th, at 11:02 GMT, an hour after Obama’s plane is scheduled to land in Israel. I.e., his flight into Israel will be in Winter.

Any ‘flights’ others may take as a result of what he says or does there (whether those ‘flights’ be physical or spiritual) will not be in Winter.

In other words, if his trip marks the start of the Great Tribulation (and I’m still keeping this one in the ‘if’ category), those praying as Jesus told us to will have their prayers answered. They will not have to ‘flee’ it in Winter but in Spring, Summer or Fall.

Further, Obama is scheduled to depart five hours before the start of that week’s Sabbath — Shabbat HaGadol, the Shabbat right before Passover. In no other year since 1899 would such a connection of those two things be possible on a three-day trip.

Hunkering down, preparing to watch the power of the story, still reflecting on one of the most majestic sunsets I’ve ever seen (last evening), I’m rejoicing at the grandeur, glory and sovereignty of our mighty God, signing out loud to this song on my iPod as I go about my morning routine. I hope you find it equally edifying.

Turn it up loud! Rejoice!

The ‘come let us adore him’ line, referring to Jesus reigning in power, seems like a wonderful antidote to the cultural insistence on diminution (‘little baby Jesus’) parodied in Taladega Nights.

Like a muddied spring or a polluted fountain
is a righteous man who gives way before the wicked.
(Proverbs 25:26)

“Due to a message of mine that has surfaced from 15-20 years ago, it is likely that my participation, and the prayer I would offer, will be dwarfed by those seeking to make their agenda the focal point of the inauguration. Clearly, speaking on this issue has not been in the range of my priorities in the past 15 years. Instead, my aim has been to call people to ultimate significance as we make much of Jesus Christ.” (Louie Giglio, pastor of Passion City Church in Atlanta, Georgia, in a written statement to FOX News, last week)

How can one “make much of Jesus Christ” without taking him at his word? How can one “call people to ultimate significance” by carving off part of that word as if it were not part of the whole He affirmed? When did the church start setting grace and truth in opposition to one another, rather than taking them to the cross? (See Psalm 85:10)

Here was the excerpt which created the furor — a quote which, quite ironically, Giglio had himself quoted, from the quasi-progressive book “After the Ball: How America Will Conquer Its Fear and Hatred of Gays in the 90′s” by Marshall Kirk and Hunter Madsen, (Plume, 1990).

“We must lovingly but firmly respond to the aggressive agenda of not all, but of many in the homosexual community. … Underneath this issue is a very powerful and aggressive moment. That movement is not a benevolent movement, it is a movement to seize by any means necessary the feeling and the mood of the day, to the point where the homosexual lifestyle becomes accepted as a norm in our society and is given full standing as any other lifestyle, as it relates to family.”

The “by any means necessary” comment (a veiled threat of violence) no doubt tweaked some on other levels. (Another irony is that, if it were not true, Giglio would have had little reason to back down.)

The quote was used most famously by Nation-of-Islam leader, Malcolm X, who cribbed it from French Existentialist, Jean Paul Sartre — both antichrists by definition. It also carries philosophical echoes with the Satanic creed “Do what thou wilt” and the anti-Christian credo that the ends justify the means — a credo used by a long list of despots.

By contrast, the call to take up one’s cross and follow Jesus is all about the means, trusting that He alone has the right end, since He Himself IS both Alpha/Creator and Omega/End. Jesus’ temptation by Satan, as chronicled in Matthew 4 and Luke 4 makes this doubly clear. The Creator and Lord of everything does not take shortcuts of expediency. His created opponent revels in and promotes them.

Presidential Inaugural Committee spokesperson Addie Whisenant commented:

“We were not aware of Pastor Giglio’s past comments at the time of his selection and they don’t reflect our desire to celebrate the strength and diversity of our country…”

If they were interested in representing true diversity, removing this widely held and wholly Biblical viewpoint from the inauguration of the President of the United States would not further that goal. Parsing the statement carefully, it’s clear she’s not technically lying. The comments probably don’t reflect their “desire to celebrate”. It’s not about diversity at all, but about a singular agenda… diversity which does not disagree. (Again, the irony runs deep).

ADDENDUM: It dawned on me after writing this that one of the reasons brother Giglio’s 1990-era comment sparked such an outcry (leaving aside his more recent muddied-spring back-off from it) was because it touched a much deeper and more sensitive spiritual nerve in the enemy camp than would be apparent from the flesh-and-blood issue at hand. The “by any means necessary” line, in the context he used it says, essentially: We know who is driving you; he’s not a man, but the serpent. If he were wrong, there would have been much less of a reaction.

Adding to the irony, this item came across my windscreen this evening:

“I will seek to thwart this action by any means necessary, including but not limited to eliminating funding for implementation, defunding the White House, and even filing articles of impeachment,” Texas Republican Rep. Steve Stockman threatened Monday afternoon, in a statement.

His statement, of course, was a reaction to tactics by the administration which also amount to a “by any means necessary” (i.e., ends justify the means) credo. Deception, and co-option to the enemy agenda are sad facts of a world fallen n sin and in need of a Savior. Such things know no party lines. Satan loves nothing more than to incite “any means necessary” combat — the essence of the ‘house divided’ statement by Jesus.

ISAIAH 26:3 You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you, because he trusts in you… 16 O LORD, in distress they sought you; they poured out a whispered prayer when your discipline was upon them. 17 Like a pregnant woman who writhes and cries out in her pangs when she is near to giving birth, so were we because of you, O LORD; 18 we were pregnant, we writhed, but we have given birth to wind. We have accomplished no deliverance in the earth, and the inhabitants of the world have not fallen. 19 Your dead shall live; their bodies shall rise. You who dwell in the dust, awake and sing for joy! For your dew is a dew of light, and the earth will give birth to the dead. 20 Come, my people, enter your chambers, and shut your doors behind you; hide yourselves for a little while until the fury has passed by. 21 For behold, the LORD is coming out from his place to punish the inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity, and the earth will disclose the blood shed on it, and will no more cover its slain.

“I prayed like I’ve never prayed before,
and I think those prayers have been answered…
those prayers have been answered…
they’re right in front of me…
you’re home!”

Be sure to watch the video. Quote starts at 1:29.

As scores of fires continued to burn the length of eastern Australia today, a remarkable survival story emerged from Tasmania, where five young children escaped a blaze that destroyed about 90 properties in their village by sheltering under a boat jetty with their grandparents.

Tim and Tammy Holmes were looking after the children in the fishing village of Dunalley last Friday when they noticed smoke rising from a nearby ridge. Not long afterwards, “we saw tornadoes of fire just coming across towards us,” said Mr Holmes, 62. “The next thing we knew, everything was on fire all around us.”

Sending his wife and grandchildren, aged between two and 11, running down to the jetty, “because there was no other escape”, he paused only to send a message to his daughter – the children’s mother, who was at a funeral in Hobart that day – before sprinting past the flames to join them.

For two-and-a-half hours, the family huddled beneath the jetty, up to their necks in water, gulping mouthfuls of increasingly toxic air. “There were times when we had to move deeper because it was too hot, and there were times when the jetty itself caught fire,” he told Australia’s ABC Radio. With smoke and embers swirling around them, “there was probably only about 200-300mm of air above the water”.

Eventually Mr Holmes found a dinghy and dragged everyone about 300 yards out to sea, where the air was cleaner. The children’s mother, Bonnie Walker, was beside herself with worry. All she knew was that they had left the house and were “surrounded by fire”. She told ABC TV: “I braced myself to lose my children and my parents.”

The family was reunited the following day.

[WARNING: Not light reading for a full stomach.]

As we draw to the end of the Mayan calendar today, I thought it worth reflecting on an aspect I’ve not seen discussed. In the back of most peoples’ minds is some notion of the Maya as fairly brutal (though the Aztec were worse), but I doubt the average person understands just how brutal. Here’s just a small sample:

The usual method of [Mayan]… sacrifice was decapitation in a public ceremony. Aside from decapitation, the favored method… [was] the removal of the heart. Women and children were sacrificed just as often as men. The intended victim was stripped and painted blue before being led to a courtyard or temple where the victim would be placed face-up [just as in a modern abortion] over a convex altar-like stone also painted blue.

The arms and legs of the victim were held by specially designated priests while a fourth, called the nacom, would penetrate the victim’s chest with a flint knife just below the left breast. Reaching inside the chest cavity, the nacom would pull out the still beating heart [again, note the similarities to a surgical room for abortion] and hand it to another priest, who would then smear the blood on that idol to which the sacrifice had been made.

If the sacrifice had taken place on the top of a pyramid, the corpse would be thrown to the courtyard below [dumpsters are a common means of abortion disposal] where priests of lower rank would skin the victim except for the hands and feet. The skin would then be worn by the officiating priest who would solemnly dance among the spectators. [Note the similarity to the Nazi practice of making human-skin lampshades.] If the victim had been an especially brave warrior his body might be butchered and eaten by the nobles and other spectators. [Derivatives from aborted children have made their way into any number of pharmaceuticals and cosmetics.]

Few are willing to acknowledge how the same kind of brutality (albeit dressed-up in surgical attire) has made its way into our own culture. As such, I couldn’t help drawing some parallels between the end of the Mayan calendar and the gluttonously barbaric slaughter in Newtown, Connecticut, as well as watershed-historical slaughters of children in the Bible, as we reviewed in a post earlier this week.

So, without fanfare, here’s a little ‘pop quiz’:

1. What do the Sandy Hook Elementary School slaughter, apostate ancient Israel, Pharaoh, King Herod, the Obama agenda and ‘Planned Parenthood’ and Mayan Civilization all have in common?
2. What was the highest test of obedience in faith ever given to any man (Abraham) and, simultaneously, the one thing YHWH was adamant that Abraham would not be allowed to consummate and thus that His people must never do?
3. What was the greatest demonstration of God’s love?

Answer (to all three): Child sacrifice. What’s radically different about the third (see John 3:16) compared to all of the others is that God Himself reached down and voluntarily sacrificed His own Son in our place rather than men taking their own initiative to sacrifice one another in an attempt to appease gods of their imagination.

REUTERS (January 23, 2008): Maya priests in the city of Chichen Itza in the Yucatan peninsula sacrificed children to petition the gods for rain and fertile fields by throwing them into sacred sinkhole caves, known as “cenotes.” … Archeologist Guillermo de Anda from the University of Yucatan pieced together the bones of 127 bodies discovered at the bottom of one of Chichen Itza’s sacred caves and found over 80 percent were likely boys between the ages of 3 and 11… children were often thrown alive to their watery graves to please the Mayan rain god Chaac. Some of the children were ritually skinned or dismembered before being offered to the gods, he said. 

Here are some pictures, from National Geographic. I marvel at the irony of how some take great offense when confronted with such grisly pictures from the present era. Here’s a video apologetic for the Maya sacrifices, trying to set them in some kind of relativistic context rather than simply calling them what they are: evil.

Equally fascinating is this short (1:22) Discovery Channel video illustrating some of the similarities between the Egyptians and the Mayans regarding worship of the dead, and practices of human sacrifice.

I had an opportunity yesterday, while stuck in traffic, to listen to an enormously lucid and illuminating lecture by former Muslim (now Christian) Abdul Saleeb, with introduction by R.C. Sproul, entitled ‘Opposing Foundations,’ the first in a Teaching Series entitled, ‘The Cross and the Crescent.’ (I’ve accumulated them for free via iTunes subscription to ‘Renewing Your Mind’. This one was podcast on February 22nd, 2012.)

The structure he works from has four doctrinal pillars:

1. God
2. Christ
3. man, and
4. the Bible.

The gist (which brother Abdul lays out with painstaking care and gentleness, and an obvious heart for his Muslim kin caught in darkness) is that Islam and Christianity are diametrically and fundamentally opposed to one another on each of these points. (That may come as a big yawn to many, but unless you’re a Koranic scholar, I guarantee you’ll learn much about how and why that is so, including marvelously encouraging implications regarding evangelism to Muslims.)

He shows how, although there are many similarities, it is a logical impossibility for both of them to be right. One of them must be wrong… on each of these four key points. (He goes on to lay out some apologetic strategies for talking to Muslims, illuminating some of the doctrinal trip-wires which the uninformed Christian (like me!) might run through too quickly or too early, in our eagerness to share our faith.)

The real mind-blower for me though were the close doctrinal linkages he illustrates (with quotes) between Islam and the last century or two of liberal theology, i.e., dilutions, perversions and re-interpretations of historic, Biblical Christianity. Taking on the point of view of his former Muslim kin as they hear of modern liberal projects such as the Jesus Seminar, his refrain is: “See, we’ve been saying this all along! You can’t trust the Bible!” In just half an hour I’ve come to appreciate why Islam and liberalism have become such comfortable bedfellows.

I have really, truly wanted to believe that President Obama’s remarks at the Newtown, CT interfaith prayer vigil (video; text) reflect the signs of a chastised and changing heart, moving towards repentance and trust in Christ. It would be good for him. It would be good for the nation. It would be good for the world.

Most important of all, it would give glory to YHWH and His Christ, the Most High and eternal God, who lives and reigns, utterly sovereign over His Creation. He has set in place, for a time, and a most excellent purpose, all nations, kings, princes and other leaders. They and we are like clay in His hands. He has done more with less. His Word, no matter how badly minced, will not return void. We should not fail to pray for such a great deliverance in such a dark hour.

As a brother in Christ pointed out, in an e-mail recommending the speech,

“He opened with scripture. He closed with scripture. He mentioned Jesus. He seemed very heartfelt. It was noted by the White House that he wrote most of the speech himself.”

On many levels, I will concede, it was moving — ‘Reaganesque’ in the very best sense of that term. Gone, it seemed, were the quick smirks and the subliminally flippant tone which have characterized so many of his remarks on what should have been solemn occasions. It’s not hard to imagine him looking at his own daughters and feeling what the rest of us have felt in contemplating the pain, horror and loss of the shootings.

Yet the question I have been considering, and ask you to consider, in the Spirit of Truth, and the light of the whole counsel of scripture, the Word of God, is what we can or should conclude from the speech. Are the use of scripture, the mention of Jesus, and a heartfelt tone enough for us to let our guard down? Are they enough to enable us to begin rejoicing at Godly change in a man who has been so thoroughly opposed, on so many levels, for so long, to virtually everything the Bible stands for?

One can recall the disciples’ understandable fear and caution regarding Saul-Paul’s conversion (Acts 9:26) without getting hasty. The fact that such 180-degree turns are so amazing is also what makes them useful as enemy decoys. We are told to be “wise as serpents and innocent as doves,” always wary of men (Matthew 10:16-18), even as we stand ready to embrace them as brothers in Christ, recognizing, as Jesus did, what lies in the heart of all of us (John 2:25) — deceitfulness and desperate sickness (Jeremiah 17:9). We are also told to test the spirits.

1st JOHN 4:1 Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, for many false prophets have gone out into the world.

And so we will.

But before we get to that, here are some of the scriptures queued-up in my regular reading plan for today — things the Lord had set in store from before time for me to ponder this morning, knowing that the speech would be there as backdrop. Please: don’t take my word for any of it. Check it all out for yourself.

This was the first text queued-up:

MALACHI 1:1 The oracle of the word of the LORD to Israel by Malachi. 2 “I have loved you,” says the LORD. But you say, “How have you loved us?”"Is not Esau Jacob’s brother?” declares the LORD. “Yet I have loved Jacob 3 but Esau I have hated. I have laid waste his hill country and left his heritage to jackals of the desert.” 4 If Edom says, “We are shattered but WE WILL rebuild the ruins,” the LORD of hosts says, “They may build, but I will tear down, and they will be called ‘the wicked country,’ and ‘the people with whom the LORD is angry forever.’” 5 Your own eyes shall see this, and you shall say, “Great is the LORD beyond the border of Israel!”

The first things to notice here is that the LORD is talking about Israel’s conflict with its arch-enemy, Esau/Edom (meaning ‘red’ or ‘red land’ — the ‘fifth-column‘ group which some commentators believe to be view in view in Revelation 2:9 and 3:9, when Jesus tells John to write about, “those of the synagogue of Satan who say that they are Jews and are not, but lie…”). A second thing to notice is how v4 echoes Isaiah 9:10, a text bandied about, in ironic defiance, desperately out of context, by so many since 9-11: “…but we will rebuild… but we will replace…”

The rest of Malachi 1 deals with how the LORD will not accept “polluted” food offerings from priests who take His Word casually and do not fear Him. It starts out:

6 A son honors his father, and a servant his master. If then I am a father, where is my honor? And if I am a master, where is my fear? says the LORD of hosts to you, O priests, who despise my name…

The post-resurrection equivalent of sacrificial food is the Word of God, and of offerings, prayers. With that in view, I hope you’re beginning to get the picture I got earlier today. It would be difficult to defend the proposition that the President was not performing a priestly function in Newtown on Monday. Therein lay the power and attractiveness of his words. It would be logically absurd to defend the proposition that a President who, for most of his life has worn and continues to wear a ring declaring that there is no god but Allah, is not despising the name of the Most High God, Jehovah, by virtue of doing so. (So-called ‘interfaith’ gatherings must still deal with contrary truth claims.)

The second text queued-up in my morning reading was Matthew 4. In a speech most of which Satan wrote himself, he opens with scripture, closes with scripture, addresses Jesus directly… and seems very heartfelt. (As with the President’s use of scripture, Satan quotes it out of context. Jesus’ rebuke is to set it back in context.)

The third text queued-up in my morning reading was Exodus 15 in which “Moses and the people of Israel [sing a] song to the LORD,” on what most assume to be the shore of modern Saudi Arabia (the seat of Edom/Islam). In it, they recount Jehovah’s mighty deeds on their behalf, to His glory, in crushing the forces of Pharaoh. The refrain is about what their own eyes saw (Exodus 14:30, Malachi 1:5) — Egyptian forces (symbolic of the realm of death) being “thrown into the sea” (v1), “sunk in the Red Sea” (v4), “sank like lead in the mighty waters” (v10), etc.

In three of the gospels (Matthew 18:6, Mark 9:42, Luke 17:2), we read of Jesus employing this same imagery to describe the fate of, “whomever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin. It would be better for him,” Jesus says, “if a great millstone were hung around his neck and he were thrown into the sea.” (‘Little ones,’ obviously indicates children, not only in the physical-chronological sense, but children of God — i.e., all of those trusting in Christ alone for their salvation.)

Verse 15 reads: “Now are the chiefs of Edom dismayed…” I.e., those who oppose Israel, including those who oppose the grafted-in Gentile branches — all those who are true Jews in heart (Romans 2:29).

The fourth text queued-up in my morning reading was 2nd Corinthians 6, the follow-on to the scripture the President quoted on Monday from 2nd Corinthians 4. Here’s the end of chapter 5 and first verse of chapter 6:

We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. Working together with him, then, we appeal to you not to receive the grace of God in vain.

The plain implication is that it is possible to receive the grace of God — i.e., to enjoy and appropriate all the blessings and benefits of living life in a society largely founded on and still grounded in faith in Christ — and yet to have it all be to naught in the end.

How is that possible? By misunderstanding Christianity as just another religion among many (the essence of an ‘interfaith’ gathering). By thinking of it in transactional rather than transformational terms. By ‘believing’ in Jesus a superficial, historical, perhaps even a pleasant myth, Santa Clause sense, without the accompanying fear, trust, awe and joy — the wholesale and seemingly irresponsible giving-over of oneself and one’s life in profound gratitude. As I read earlier, in Matthew 4:22, regarding the sons of Zebedee: “Immediately they left the boat and their father and followed him.”

************

All of which brings us to the speech itself… a speech I would urge you to read with spiritual not worldly eyes.

Said the President:

…someone once described the joy and anxiety of parenthood as the equivalent of having your heart outside of your body all the time, walking around. With their very first cry, this most precious, vital part of ourselves, our child, is suddenly exposed to the world, to possible mishap or malice, and every parent knows there’s nothing we will not do to shield our children from harm. And yet we also know that with that child’s very first step and each step after that, they are separating from us, that we won’t — that we can’t always be there for them.

None of what he said is incorrect. In fact, it’s deeply evocative. Yet we must note what he chose not to say — the net effect and thrust of his words. In four separate phrases, we are led to think of life as starting outside the womb: “outside of your body… very first cry… suddenly exposed… very first step”.

It’s at this point that we might benefit from reflecting on what led Pharaoh to finally release the Israelites — the children of God — from bondage in Egypt:

EXODUS 12:29 At midnight the LORD struck down all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, from the firstborn of Pharaoh who sat on his throne to the firstborn of the captive who was in the dungeon, and all the firstborn of the livestock. 30 And Pharaoh rose up in the night, he and all his servants and all the Egyptians. And there was a great cry in Egypt, for there was not a house where someone was not dead.

Don’t miss the fact that Pharaoh himself was deeply and genuinely chastened by the death of so many children, including his own… for awhile. Ultimately though, he didn’t repent. He received grace in vain.

31 Then he summoned Moses and Aaron by night and said, “Up, go out from among my people, both you and the people of Israel; and go, serve the LORD, as you have said. 32 Take your flocks and your herds, as you have said, and be gone, and bless me also!” 33 The Egyptians were urgent with the people to send them out of the land in haste. For they said, “We shall all be dead.”

The passage operates on many levels, connecting with Herod’s wholesale slaughter of boys under age two many centuries later in an attempt to kill Jesus, Jehovah’s repeated refrain that the Israelites were not to offer-up their children in sacrifice to idols (e.g., life passions other than God) and to Pharaoh’s predecessor, who had attempted wholesale infanticide on Israelite males, in Exodus 1:

8 Now there arose a new king over Egypt, who did not know Joseph.

I.e., typologically speaking, there arose a new leader over the world’s most powerful nation, and what was different about him compared to his predecessors, was that he did not know or respect Christ.

9 And he said to his people, “Behold, the people of Israel are too many and too mighty for us.

I.e., he appealed to his followers on the ground that those who knew God had too much influence.

10 Come, let us deal shrewdly with them, lest they multiply, and, if war breaks out, they join our enemies and fight against us and escape from the land.”

I.e., he questioned the loyalty of God’s people to him and to his national agenda.

11 Therefore they set taskmasters over them to afflict them with heavy burdens.

I.e., he expanded the reach of government, requiring them to work more for less.

They built for Pharaoh store cities, Pithom and Raamses. 12 But the more they were oppressed, the more they multiplied and the more they spread abroad. And the Egyptians were in dread of the people of Israel.

I.e., ironically, the longer Pharaoh stayed in power, and the more power he gained, the more his followers feared that God’s people would somehow gain power and do to them what they had done to God’s people.

13 So they ruthlessly made the people of Israel work as slaves 14 and made their lives bitter with hard service, in mortar and brick, and in all kinds of work in the field. In all their work they ruthlessly made them work as slaves.

See note above: work more; get less. Taxes are one route to this. Over-regulation is another.

But that’s all backdrop. Here’s the meat:

15 Then the king of Egypt said to the Hebrew midwives, one of whom was named Shiphrah and the other Puah, 16 “When you serve as midwife to the Hebrew women and see them on the birthstool, if it is a son, you shall kill him, but if it is a daughter, she shall live.” 17 But the midwives feared God and did not do as the king of Egypt commanded them, but let the male children live. 18 So the king of Egypt called the midwives and said to them, “Why have you done this, and let the male children live?” 19 The midwives said to Pharaoh, “Because the Hebrew women are not like the Egyptian women, for they are vigorous and give birth before the midwife comes to them.” 20 So God dealt well with the midwives. And the people multiplied and grew very strong. 21 And because the midwives feared God, he gave them families. 22 Then Pharaoh commanded all his people, “Every son that is born to the Hebrews you shall cast into the Nile, but you shall let every daughter live.”

One of the most powerful reasons behind why the tenth and pivotal plague took the form that it did (in addition to it being another specific in-your-face response to one of Egypt’s false gods, as were all the plagues) was that it directly mirrored the previous Pharaoh’s attempts to have a partial-birth abortion performed on Moses.

With all that as backdrop, can we look and grieve deeply at the tragic loss of so many young lives in Connecticut due in part to the legality of extremely powerful weapons and not also think about the tragic and ongoing killing of tens of millions of babies — also with powerful, national legal government sanction, just as in Egypt? 

Can we listen to the President’s moving words and not consider the moral weight of lives snuffed out before they had chance to live “outside of [their mother's] body”… before they were able to sound “their very first cry”… before they were “suddenly exposed”… before their “very first step”?

Here are some other excerpts from the President’s speech (below). It seems inadvertently prophetic (and damning, to him and the nation as a whole) in light of all of the above, in the context of his determined actions over the course of his political career, and in consideration of forty-plus years of legal infanticide (abortion):

…we bear responsibility for every child… This is our first task, caring for our children. It’s our first job. If we don’t get that right, we don’t get anything right.

That’s how, as a society, we will be judged.

And by that measure, can we truly say, as a nation, that we’re meeting our obligations? Can we honestly say that we’re doing enough to keep our children, ALL of them, safe from harm? Can we claim, as a nation, that we’re all together there, letting them know they are loved and teaching them to love in return? Can we say that we’re truly doing enough to give all the children of this country the chance they deserve to live out their lives in happiness and with purpose?

I’ve been reflecting on this the last few days, and if we’re honest with ourselves, the answer’s no. We’re not doing enough. And we will have to change.

May God have mercy on us. May He change hearts and lives as a result of this tragedy. May he cause blind eyes to see clearly that His plan does not hew neatly to political parties but first, last and only to faith in His Christ.

This morning, the Lord woke me up especially early — a circumstance, I have learned, that nearly always means: Art, your day is going to be busy and distracting. We need to spend some quality time together. You’ll thank me later.

I went into the kitchen and assembled some breakfast without really thinking about it. (What I eat in the morning can vary a great deal from day to day.) Sitting down at my desk with the plate of food I’d prepared, I opened my Bible to see what was queued-up for today’s reading. (I’m continuing to follow Professor Grant Horner’s Bible Reading Program, albeit not always at the pace he recommends.)

With a forkful of herring in one hand, a piece of toast in the other, I flipped to the first bookmark:

John 21…

12 Jesus said to them, “Come and have breakfast.” Now none of the disciples dared ask him, “Who are you?” They knew it was the Lord. 13 Jesus came and took the bread and gave it to them, and so with the fish.

Maybe one day in ten I’ll have that for breakfast. It takes me three months or more to get through the gospels. You do the probabilistic math. I love it when that happens.  

Here’s something else he showed me that I just had to share:

15 When they had finished breakfast, Jesus said to Simon Peter, “Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these?” He said to him, “Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.” He said to him, “Feed my lambs.”

16 He said to him a second time, “Simon, son of John, do you love me?” He said to him, “Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.” He said to him, “Tend my sheep.”

17 He said to him the third time, “Simon, son of John, do you love me?” Peter was grieved because he said to him the third time, “Do you love me?” and he said to him, “Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you.” Jesus said to him, “Feed my sheep.

18 Truly, truly, I say to you, when you were young, you used to dress yourself and walk wherever you wanted, but when you are old, you will stretch out your hands, and another will dress you and carry you where you do not want to go.”

19 (This he said to show by what kind of death he was to glorify God.)
And after saying this he said to him, “Follow me.”

Most studies I’ve heard deal with v18 in the simple, literal-physical sense outlined for us in v19a — and they’re not wrong. E.g., Peter would be arrested and imprisoned (‘another will dress you and carry you’) and, finally, executed (‘stretch out your hands… where you do not want to go’).

Yet there are other layers as well, says the Spirit. Here are some of them.

When you were young…

When one is young in the things of God, one speaks like a spiritual child — impetuously, from the ego, based on the wisdom of the world. One understands based only on what one can see in the physical. One reasons from one’s own spirit and feelings in the moment, steeped in a worldly perspective. See, for example, 1st Corinthians 13:11:

When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.

…you used to dress yourself…

The natural man is inclined to clothe himself in his own righteousness. It is insufficient.

Genesis 3:7 Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked. And they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths.

Matthew 22:11 “But when the king came in to look at the guests, he saw there a man who had no wedding garment. 12 And he said to him, ‘Friend, how did you get in here without a wedding garment?’ And he was speechless.

…and walk wherever you wanted…

Job 1:7 (repeated in Job 2:2) The LORD said to Satan, “From where have you come?” Satan answered the LORD and said, “From going to and fro on the earth, and from walking up and down on it.”

Matthew 16:23 But he [Jesus] turned and said to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan! You are a hindrance to me. For you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man.” 24 Then Jesus told his disciples, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.

I.e., Peter had been ‘walking’ (spiritually, intellectually, emotionally and perhaps even physically) where he wanted, not behind Jesus. In doing so, by default, he was following Satan (‘to and fro… up and down’) in earthly things without even knowing he was doing so.

…but when you are old, you will stretch out your hands…

Exodus 9:29 Moses said to him [Pharaoh], “As soon as I have gone out of the city, I will stretch out my hands to the LORD. The thunder will cease, and there will be no more hail, so that you may know that the earth is the LORD’s. 30 But as for you and your servants, I know that you do not yet fear the LORD God.”

Psalm 143:6 I stretch out my hands to you; my soul thirsts for you like a parched land.

There are many other layers and senses to this one as well, including that of going to the cross, of reaching out to embrace others with the gospel (love your neighbor as yourself) and of praying earnestly, in holiness, e.g.,

Psalm 28:2 Hear the voice of my pleas for mercy, when I cry to you for help, when I lift up my hands toward your most holy sanctuary.

1st Timothy 2:8 I desire then that in every place the men should pray, lifting holy hands without anger or quarreling…

…another will dress you…

Genesis 3:21 And the LORD God made for Adam and for his wife garments of skins and clothed them.

Isaiah 61:10 I will greatly rejoice in the LORD; my soul shall exult in my God, for he has clothed me with the garments of salvation; he has covered me with the robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom decks himself like a priest with a beautiful headdress, and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels.

Luke 15:21 And the son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.’ 22 But the father said to his servants,’Bring quickly the best robe, and put it on him, and put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet.

…and carry you where you do not want to go.

See Jonah and God’s directive to preach to the Ninevites — the last place on earth he wanted to go. See Numbers 14 — one of many examples of the Israelites’ persistent reluctance to leave behind the superficial comforts of Egypt, even in their imaginations, and simply trust God. See Abram’s multi-year delay in leaving Ur of the Chaldees, waiting to bury his father (a fact we learn only from Stephen’s speech, in Acts 7). See Acts 10 and Peter’s initial reluctance to embrace the Gentiles, or Acts 9 and Paul being led to ‘Straight Street’ and gospel preaching — the last place on earth he had wanted to go just hours earlier, certain of the rightness of his natural, serpentine view.

Brothers and sisters, even the giants of the faith didn’t like to be carried… at first.

The natural man wants to walk on his own, to and fro, up and down on the earth — master of his fate, captain of his soul… he imagines. Satan is more than happy to ‘lead’ many on a frenetic, aimless, fruitless and exhausting path based on the false promise that it leads to rest and happiness… anywhere other than to life in Christ. (Did you ever stop to consider that “the pursuit of happiness” is antithetical to receiving the grace of total fulfillment in Christ?)

Matthew 7:13 Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat: 14 Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it. 

John 14:6 Jesus said to him, ‘I am the way, and the truth, and the life.
No one comes to the Father except through me.’

It just so happened that the following text, about the conquest of a prosperous island-mainland nation (Tyre), came up today (the 71st anniversary of the Japanese (or perhaps Russian) attacks on Pearl Harbor) via the ‘random’ daily process I use to send snippets of scripture to family and friends. (If you haven’t read the story of the late Mitsuo Fuchida’s conversion to Christ — he being the Japanese Naval Officer who led the attacks… and the only one of 70 to return alive — I highly recommend it… a great reminder that our God is utterly Sovereign in everything.)

EZEKIEL 26

15 Thus says the Lord GOD to Tyre:

Will not the coastlands shake at the sound of your fall, when the wounded groan, when slaughter is made in your midst? 16 Then all the princes of the sea will step down from their thrones and remove their robes and strip off their embroidered garments. They will clothe themselves with trembling; they will sit on the ground and tremble every moment and be appalled at you. 17 And they will raise a lamentation over you and say to you,

‘How you have perished, you who were inhabited from the seas, O city renowned, who was mighty on the sea; she and her inhabitants imposed their terror on all her inhabitants! 18 Now the coastlands tremble on the day of your fall, and the coastlands that are on the sea are dismayed at your passing.’

In this text, Jehovah presents us with several criteria defining the typology of literal-historical island city-state of Tyre, portions of which later continued in smaller form on the mainland nearby after prophecy was fulfilled and the island was razed to bare rock. In order, these criteria range from the straightforward to the still somewhat opaque.

1) It was ‘inhabited from the seas’. I.e., all or nearly all of its historic population arrived by boat, and those from a variety of different directions (plural: ‘seas’). Does this remind you of any modern nations we know? Before you jump to the conclusion that this applies exclusively to the United States, it’s worth keeping in mind places such as Great Britain, Australia, and New Zealand, as well as Canada and Latin America. Anything land-contiguous with Eden, a.k.a., the ‘Fertile Crescent’ in the Middle East would be excluded, e.g., Russia, China, France, etc.

2) It ‘was mighty on the sea’. I.e., it was able to project power across “the sea” (singular) in a major way, perhaps superlatively so. In its original context, that would have meant the Mediterranean (Biblically, ‘the Great Sea’). That helps us narrow our list a bit if we accept historical context as an exclusive hermeneutic. Some, but not all of the nations from our first list operate in the Mediterranean now, e.g., most obviously the US and UK. But what if the text also alludes to “the sea” in the sense of the global sea… i.e., all the world’s interconnected, navigable salt water? Despite gains by others, e.g., China, including in-your-face snubs like the sub missile launch of LA a few years ago, combined with a relative decline in US naval forces since WWII, the U.S. remains the unparalleled leader — the only one to possess a true, multi-ocean ‘blue-water‘ naval capability.

3) The nation and its inhabitants imposed their terror on all her inhabitants. This one is tougher to parse, so we need to be cautious. Let me try something and, for the time being let’s all hold it ‘lightly’, i.e., as a possibility to keep in mind as the evidence comes in. In most of the historical sections of the Bible, a specific tyrant is usually identified as the bad actor doing the terrorizing of the domestic or conquered population. In this text though, the nation (collective) and its inhabitants do it to themselves.

Think about that. Does that sound, perhaps, like a democracy? To put it another way, they pursue their own schemes and devices to their own destruction in a manner not unlike C.S. Lewis’ vision of a hell (‘The Great Divorce’) where each person thinks it’s all about them and the result is terror. Sounds a bit like Romans 1 also… lawlessness… God gave them up.

In the context of the preceding lines of the text, one doesn’t need to stretch very far to imagine a nation whose military powers were turned in on its own population. I’ll leave it as an exercise to the reader to prove or disprove that one from responsible news sources. Put it this way: it’s a whole lot easier to credit the last 11+ years, and especially the last four than it was before that.

19 For thus says the Lord GOD:

When I make you a city laid waste, like the cities that are not inhabited, when I bring up the deep over you, and the great waters cover you, 20 then I will make you go down with those who go down to the pit, to the people of old, and I will make you to dwell in the world below, among ruins from of old, with those who go down to the pit, so that you will not be inhabited;

but I will set beauty in the land of the living.

21 I will bring you to a dreadful end, and you shall be no more. Though you be sought for, you will never be found again, declares the Lord GOD.”

The Hebrew term translated as ‘deep’ is the same one used elsewhere for the ‘abyss’.

In other words, the depths of the oceans, and phenomena such as the Great Flood of Noah (likely caused by an asteroid hit and 600-foot-high tsunami) are but a physical shadow of larger spiritual realities.

That doesn’t mean that floods like the one triggered by Sandy, Katrina, the Japanese earthquake, or the earthquake in Indonesia eight years ago are not real and horrible, just that we need to look beyond them to what they tell us.

In light of idiosyncratic stories like this, they may tell us a great deal:

Long Beach Students Assigned To Depict White House, Obama Under Water

Junior Carnal Washington said his Digital Imaging instructor told him it wasn’t enough to just submerge the White House, but somebody had to drown in their creations.

“My (project) was the president being saved instead of drowning him… so I drowned his wife and the dog,” he said. “I felt bad. It didn’t feel right drowning the president.”

Washington and a classmate said the student who got the most praise from the teacher took the Photoshop assignment a step further.

“The highest grade in the class was a girl who had Obama swimming toward a bucket of chicken instead of his family. I thought that was sad, but when (the teacher) saw it, he started laughing,” Washington said.

The Los Angeles Unified School District said the assignment was related to Hurricane Sandy, but students and parents said it just made them uncomfortable.

Parent Mouine Taylor said, “I see no reason that our president should ever be drowned. I see no reason why the White House should ever be drowned. What did the kids get from this project?”

“I think this whole assignment is uncalled for. First of all, why are you putting the White House under water?” said parent Sandra Hermosillo.

They didn’t put him “under water”.

In a larger spiritual sense, we the inhabitants of this nation have put ourselves there.

There is only one who can retrieve any of us: Jesus Christ… the same God who brought Jonah up from the depths.

Related I: ISAIAH 23, wherein I find it provocative to consider that ‘Tarshish’ likely referred to Spain, that Christopher Columbus made his famous entree into the Americas from Spain (‘Tarshish’), and that he was likely Jewish, pushed out by RCC Inquisition on the eve of Tish B’Av

1 The oracle concerning Tyre. Wail, O ships of Tarshish, for Tyre is laid waste, without house or harbor! From the land of Cyprus it is revealed to them. 2 Be still, O inhabitants of the coast; the merchants of Sidon, who cross the sea, have filled you. 3 And on many waters your revenue was the grain of Shihor, the harvest of the Nile; you were the merchant of the nations. 4 Be ashamed, O Sidon, for the sea has spoken, the stronghold of the sea, saying: “I have neither labored nor given birth, I have neither reared young men nor brought up young women.” 5 When the report comes to Egypt, they will be in anguish over the report about Tyre. 6 Cross over to Tarshish; wail, O inhabitants of the coast! 7 Is this your exultant city whose origin is from days of old, whose feet carried her to settle far away? 8 Who has purposed this against Tyre, the bestower of crowns, whose merchants were princes, whose traders were the honored of the earth? 9 The LORD of hosts has purposed it, to defile the pompous pride of all glory, to dishonor all the honored of the earth. 10 Cross over your land like the Nile, O daughter of Tarshish; there is no restraint anymore. 11 He has stretched out his hand over the sea; he has shaken the kingdoms; the LORD has given command concerning Canaan to destroy its strongholds. 12 And he said: “You will no more exult, O oppressed virgin daughter of Sidon; arise, cross over to Cyprus, even there you will have no rest.” 13 Behold the land of the Chaldeans! This is the people that was not; Assyria destined it for wild beasts. They erected their siege towers, they stripped her palaces bare, they made her a ruin. 14 Wail, O ships of Tarshish, for your stronghold is laid waste. 15 In that day Tyre will be forgotten for seventy years, like the days of one king. At the end of seventy years, it will happen to Tyre as in the song of the prostitute: 16 “Take a harp; go about the city, O forgotten prostitute! Make sweet melody; sing many songs, that you may be remembered.” 17 At the end of seventy years, the LORD will visit Tyre, and she will return to her wages and will prostitute herself with all the kingdoms of the world on the face of the earth. 18 Her merchandise and her wages will be holy to the LORD. It will not be stored or hoarded, but her merchandise will supply abundant food and fine clothing for those who dwell before the LORD.

Related II: Rotting Whale Casts Foul Stench Into Malibu

AMOS 5:18 Woe to you who desire the day of the LORD! Why would you have the day of the LORD? It is darkness, and not light, 19 as if a man fled from a lion, and a bear met him, or went into the house and leaned his hand against the wall, and a serpent bit him. 20 Is not the day of the LORD darkness, and not light, and gloom with no brightness in it? 21 “I hate, I despise your feasts, and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies. 22 Even though you offer me your burnt offerings and grain offerings, I will not accept them; and the peace offerings of your fattened animals, I will not look upon them. 23 Take away from me the noise of your songs; to the melody of your harps I will not listen. 24 But let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream. 25 “Did you bring to me sacrifices and offerings during the forty years in the wilderness, O house of Israel? 26 You shall take up Sikkuth your king, and Kiyyun your star-god — your images that you made for yourselves, 27 and I will send you into exile beyond Damascus,” says the LORD, whose name is the God of hosts.

NAHUM 3:1 Woe to the bloody city, all full of lies and plunder — no end to the prey! 2 The crack of the whip, and rumble of the wheel, galloping horse and bounding chariot! 3 Horsemen charging, flashing sword and glittering spear, hosts of slain, heaps of corpses, dead bodies without end– they stumble over the bodies! 4 And all for the countless whorings of the prostitute, graceful and of deadly charms, who betrays nations with her whorings, and peoples with her charms. 5 Behold, I am against you, declares the LORD of hosts, and will lift up your skirts over your face; and I will make nations look at your nakedness and kingdoms at your shame. 6 I will throw filth at you and treat you with contempt and make you a spectacle… 11 You also will be drunken; you will go into hiding; you will seek a refuge from the enemy. 12 All your fortresses are like fig trees with first-ripe figs — if shaken they fall into the mouth of the eater. 13 Behold, your troops are women in your midst. The gates of your land are wide open to your enemies; fire has devoured your bars. 14 Draw water for the siege; strengthen your forts; go into the clay; tread the mortar; take hold of the brick mold! 15 There will the fire devour you; the sword will cut you off. It will devour you like the locust. Multiply yourselves like the locust; multiply like the grasshopper! 16 You increased your merchants more than the stars of the heavens.

(If that last verse in Nahum doesn’t apply to the U.S. — better than any other civilization the world has ever known — then I’m not sure how we can apply any scripture to anything.)

Over the long Thanksgiving weekend, my family and I watched the 2006 National Geographic film, ‘God Grew Tired of Us,’ which my wife had seen before, and recommended. It chronicles the story of the so-called “lost boys” of Sudan and their harsh forced migrations across East Africa. The second portion of the film picks up the stories of several of them coming to the U.S. and beginning to make lives here. That transition is helping me to see with new eyes the deep isolation and spiritual desolation which has come to characterize great swaths of our culture.

The film operates on many levels, ranging from the hilarious (e.g., the child-like cultural naivete of the men in regards to aspects of day-to-day life here that even a three-year-old takes for granted) to the deeply disturbing (accounts of desperate famine, thirst and disease in the wake of mass killings by Muslim insurgents, not to mention what amounts to long-term imprisonment and neglect by the UN). The producers make several profound omissions and introduce certain ‘spins’ I wasn’t happy with (e.g., glossing over some of the above root-cause examples while featuring the symptoms), however the overall effect is still riveting… and deeply convicting.

I suspect many of you have already seen it. It’s a film I would watch again. I recommend it highly.

I found the following segment (below) particularly appropriate to the season — one of many which challenge the notion that these men are better off here, and that we are helping them rather than the other way around. As a friend remarked recently, in the context of traditional gospel-soaked Christmas carols: At the judgment seat, nobody who celebrates Christmas, will have the right to claim they didn’t have enough information.

The speaker in the clip, (John Bul Dau) experienced things in his youth which no one should have to experience — his own words being re-purposed out of context as the title for the film. He was not asserting that God had grown tired of them (past tense) — e.g., in an atheistic, Time Magazine (1965-66) ‘Is God Dead?’ kind of way — but rather sharing a sad, honest recollection from a deep, dark pit of suffering in which he still knew God was good. (‘We began to think that maybe God had grown tired of us’, implies the repentant attitude of one who knows he’s a sinner, and thus cries out, confessing on behalf of his people, rather than the defiant tone the title might imply.)

In context, his Godly demeanor makes clear that those horrible sufferings and Job-like wrestlings served to make his faith, hope and joy in Christ stronger, not weaker. We should all be so blessed.

Several years ago, a pastor from Ghana spent some time at our church (one I no longer attend) while he was studying in Boston. In a candid conversation (at Thanksgiving, as it turned out), I observed that his deep, humbly sacrificial and lived-out faith stood in stark contrast to the lackluster, quasi-carnal, highly individualistic and largely superficial religiosity of most of those in attendance. Perhaps he was a missionary to us rather than we to his church back in Africa, I opined. He humbly nodded his head, replying that he had had that same thought.