Conflict

I get some strange thoughts sometimes and I got thinking about conflict and how our world is infected with it. (maybe that should be infested).

Every good story that is told usually involves conflict of some kind. It could be a person battling themselves, think weaknesses like alcohol, gambling, cowardice etc, and how those weaknesses are overcome or not. It could be person against person, animal or alien,  group against group, nation against nation etc etc. Within these conflict stories you could also get a love story. A good love story though is not that exciting unless conflict is involved somewhere.

Life itself is full of conflict and usually every life is a story in itself. Think of some of the stories which make it on TV. There are stories of children who overcame bad starts to life (which is a form of conflict) to triumph in some small way. These are stories which can hold our interest and have us dreaming about how we can overcome  adversity in some way.

And yet in a perverse way when we are faced with adversity we are not happy with it. You see we don’t mind conflict and overcoming in others but as soon as we get conflict it is suddenly not so interesting. I can understand this in some ways because usually the adversity we get is not what we dreamed of dealing with. As an example people don’t want to deal with cancer. The main reason being that there is no way to fight against cancer. When people say they fought cancer and won are not telling the truth.  They went to some doctors who came up with a strategy to deal with that cancer and that strategy happened to work. How many people lose against cancer? Far more than those who win. People would rather face a dragon to slay. Why? Because it is a something you can physically face off to and try to beat with a sword. (or a machine gun).

Conflict is a fact of life and the bible has this to say about it.

Heb 12:5  And have you forgotten the exhortation that addresses you as sons? “My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, nor be weary when reproved by him.
Heb 12:6  For the Lord disciplines the one he loves, and chastises every son whom he receives.”
Heb 12:7  It is for discipline that you have to endure. God is treating you as sons. For what son is there whom his father does not discipline?
Heb 12:8  If you are left without discipline, in which all have participated, then you are illegitimate children and not sons.
Heb 12:9  Besides this, we have had earthly fathers who disciplined us and we respected them. Shall we not much more be subject to the Father of spirits and live?
Heb 12:10  For they disciplined us for a short time as it seemed best to them, but he disciplines us for our good, that we may share his holiness.
Heb 12:11  For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.

AND

Act_14:22  strengthening the souls of the disciples, encouraging them to continue in the faith, and saying that through many tribulations we must enter the kingdom of God.

For the non christian it is usually the outcome of conflict which leads us to Christ then more conflict in the form of discipline or tribulations leads us deeper into Christ. What this means is that we mature and have a deeper faith in Christ if we let ourselves be led that way. Conflict could also leave us bitter and twisted if we choose to fight God’s way. See Heb 12:15.

The story of Christ coming to earth to die on the cross then His resurrection has been described as “The Greatest Love Story Ever Told”, however I would term it as the Greatest Story Ever Told as it is a story of love amid conflict. It was the showdown between Christ and Satan over the souls of men. Christ won a resounding victory even though it looked like He lost the contest.

Everyday there is a conflict – or it seems that way. Try and use it as an opportunity rather than a setback. Now this is the strange thought, if conflict produces great stories and it also provides us with an interesting life, what will keep us interested in the Kingdom of Heaven? A thought worth exploring in the next post.

Analysis

When I was at Morningstar church back in 2005 you could go and get a prophetic word. Since I’ll try most things once I thought I would do that. There four people prayed over me and they told me what they thought God was saying to them about me. I didn’t have pen and paper and after it was over I went outside and wrote down what I could remember.

One of the more interesting words was that I could gather information from a number of sources to discover the truth of a matter. That word has been pretty much true. I read the bible but I also read Books of Enoch and Book of Jasher. There is some remarkable information in both those books which complement the bible. I seem to have the ability to be able to discern what is true and what is not. I remember in my early days as a christian that I was not happy with Calvinism theology but I didn’t know why. It just didn’t seem to be ring true for the God I knew at that time. I was pointed to verses in Ephesians and was able to work out the why.

One of the characteristics of being an Analyst is that you must be purely objective. Personal feelings and even knowledge must be put aside so that you can study the problem from a few different sides. The other characteristic is that you need a minimum amount of data to come to a conclusion. If you don’t have this minimum amount than any conclusion will be pure speculation. This minimum amount will be different for different cases. A lot of scientists are lousy analysts and that is the reason a lot of science is rubbish. Many don’t know how to be objective and secondly they don’t have the minimum amount of data needed to come to a satisfactory conclusion. AGW Climate Science is one of those.

I can also read books by supposed christian authors and find flaws in them. What happens is that I read the book and if the material is not Christ centered then I get a bad feeling in the pit of my stomach. I then go looking for the inconsistencies with scripture and then can work it out. A few years ago there was this book written by a Korean women who lives in America. She was supposedly given a God-given vision of her mother in the Lake of Fire. People were supposedly blessed by this. However when told of this book I went out and bought it and read it. I got the usual pit in the stomach feeling and had to go looking for the reason. The reason is this. Jesus told the story of Lazarus and the Rich Man. Lazarus went to Paradise and the rich man to torments. Jesus never identified who the rich man was to save shame and embarrassment to that family. Jesus in his mercy would not subject us to the knowledge of who is saved and who is not especially close family members. The truth is that this Korean women’s mother still could have been saved even though she never gave her life to Jesus. Actually she had never heard of Jesus so she would have fallen under the consciousness clause mentioned in Romans 2. The Korean women who wrote the book forgot to “test the spirits” and wrote a false testimony. Unfortunately many people have been fooled by that book.

It is not just christian truth though. There is supposed truth from the world which I am able to discern. e.g. Global Warming is a scam. I have known that since it reared its ugly head back in the early 90′s. I discovered the Electric Universe back in the early 2000′s and have seen how this theory has slowly been taking traction over the thermonuclear sun and gravity universe. DNA as a very sophisticated computer program, magnesium and silver can prevent and even reverse cancer and most of what the food police tell us is mostly trash.

Now we come back to the question that is, “What use is an Analyst to the Church?” Not a lot unless the church in question wants to be on the front lines of exposing falsehoods. Usually any falsehoods is done by the leader of the church who may not be any good at analysis anyway and most churches like to stay clear of controversy. So basically I have this talent which I can’t really do anything with. I started this blog to give people a different perspective of things but the number of visitors here is extremely low even though I have advertised this blog around. Still the way to look at it is that even if one person takes this stuff and then is able to reap a harvest it will also be counted in my reward bag.

I don’t have Rick Joyner’s book The Call and the Quest on me at the moment so I could misquote this but there are a quote worth thinking about. Jesus is sharing with Rick about the cross and he says, “I would go to the cross for these little ones again if it brings joy to my Father.” What we do matters if it brings joy to our Father in Heaven. So with that in mind I believe that this is my call for the moment and even if nobody reads this whatever the Lord brings to my mind I will post.

Talents & Callings

The last few weeks I have been subjected to writings and preaching about what our roles are in church. It comes down to what we are good at and how we can be our best in the efficient running of church. There are the obvious roles as outlined in Ephesians.

Eph 4:11  And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers,
Eph 4:12  to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ,
Eph 4:13  until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ,

However I am pretty sure that I am not one of those so what other roles are there? There is  music, administration, ushers, cleaners, hospitality, carers and probably a host of others that I cannot think of at the moment. What talent do I have that can possibly be useful to the church. I am told I have one but for the life of me I don’t have a clue. I was reading a report today that said that 95% of attendees who have attended conferences at a certain large church do not know what their talents or callings are. I have been a Christian for 31 years and I still don’t really know. I thought I knew a few times but it turned out I was wrong.

One of the questions I was asked is what am I good at. That is a good question and I know the answer to that. But before answering I would like to share what I am not good at. I really wanted to be a sportsman when I was young. I played rugby league in winter and cricket in summer. I would rank myself as a level 5 in both sports so not real good. Squash was not bad but still a level 5. Lawn Bowls I actually made minor club champion which was not bad but I would say a level 4. Basically I could play sports but was decidedly average. Next music. I dreamed of being a rock star but I can’t sing. I learned to play piano when I was 8 yr old and could play but was far away from professional so I switched to guitar. Again I could play a bit but hit the wall at a certain point and never could get better. I did get to play the guitar at a small church many years ago but at the church I am at the moment there is no chance of being in the music team. Those guys are professionals.

I am actually reasonable at a lot of things but all average. This brings me to what I am good at. It all started back in 1981. I worked for Telstra Australia at Newtown Telephone Exchange (Sydney), where I installed stuff that switches telephone calls. I was doing a particular project where we were extending a mechanical group switch. At the same time was another team who were putting together a new computer/mechanical hybrid switch system called ARE11. Well Christmas came around and I didn’t take vacation but the ARE11 guys took their vacations which added up to two to three weeks. Well I was pretty much on top of my project so I started looking into this ARE11 stuff. The team had installed it but they hadn’t got it working yet. By the time they came back from holidays I had gotten most of it working. For the next 25 years I had progressed to the full computerized switching systems for landlines and by 1987 was working as the National Network Support for AMPS mobile phone systems and then 1992 GSM Support. In 1996 I went International working in China for Ericsson as a system support expert for GSM. Basically I was the troubleshooter. This meant I had to identify and fix the faults that occurred in the computerized switching networks. What I am good at is analysis.

So now the question becomes, “What use is analysis at church?” I think I know the answer to that and will cover it in my next blog.

DNA and Computers

Today I read this article

www.nytimes.com/2012/09/06/science/far-from-junk-dna-dark-matter-proves-crucial-to-health.html?_r=2nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_th_20120906&
Sometimes I get amazed at how thick certain supposedly bright people can be. I was reading about the inroads that the Genome Project were making. They had mapped the human DNA and identified certain genes. Genes are the bits of DNA that identify who we are. e.g. Hair colour, eye colour etc etc. Embedded in those articles was references to ‘junk’ DNA. These are large amounts of unidentified sections of DNA. From the above article it seems they have kinda figured out what some of these sections do.

Now my question is, “Why did they call it ‘junk’ DNA. Couldn’t they figure out a basic concept. I did and I still reckon I am in front of them. DNA is a computer program. Yes folks it is our programming code. The DNA is there to make our bodies work. We are the ultimate Sims.

For those of you who don’t know how computers work. A computer program is made up of two or three sections depending on size and complexity. There is

1. The Program Code

2. The Data Storage area

The Program code is the control code and tells the computer what to do and the Data area is where variable or unchangeable data is placed. For example you may want to draw a picture of a house on the screen. The parameters of the house is kept in the Data area and the program code will access those parameters then draw it on the screen. So that brings us to DNA.  The genes that are identified is the data, that seems pretty obvious to me. However you need the program code to access that data. That would be what the rest of the DNA is used for. It is NOT ‘Junk’.

All living species have two main phases in life. The first is growth and the second is maintenance. Some sections of the DNA will be involved in growth then shut down whilst other sections will be involved with ongoing maintenance. When you turn on a computer there is a small section of program code called the Bootstrap. This is usually in a fixed position and when the computer powers on the program start registers point to this position then the computer loads the operating system (as well as a few other functions).

With life whether animal or plant a female seed is fertilized by a male seed. This is the ‘booting up’ so to speak which starts the growth process. The DNA will control this process. Another section of DNA will start up different processes as they come online. Heart, lungs, stomach, arms, legs, head, brain. The control code in the DNA will control when they start and when they are finished – just like drawing a picture on the computer screen.

Control code is very difficult to decipher if you don’t have the user manual. For example if I have the code F22154, without the book I wouldn’t have a clue what it meant. As an example the Z80 Instruction set. The Z80 is an 8 bit processor but is capable of 16 bit addresses. F22154 means  Jump(F2) to address 2154. On a computer with a different processor these six numbers could mean something completely different. Then you have 32 bit and 64 bit processors where the code would be completely different. Therefore if I am given a printout of program code I would have to know which processor the printout came from to start with. The people who want to decipher the DNA will have to try to work out how many bits of information makes up the program code.

I say good luck to these guys who are trying to decode DNA – it will not be easy. However they need to start with some basic correct assumptions. DNA is a computer program, treat it as such. There will be many similar sections of DNA across species. For example the bootstrap will be similar for mammals, similar for birds, similar for reptiles etc etc. There will be maintenance functions which will be similar across species. Don’t treat unrecognized DNA sections as ‘junk’. The God who created us does not make junk.

Why the Lake of Fire

The Bible is very clear that a human being’s final destination is either Eternal Life or Eternal Death. The Book of Revelation tells us that the eternal death is Gehenna or the Lake of Fire.

Rev 20:15  And if anyone’s name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire.

Most people seem to have a problem with this. They see it as a ‘bad’ thing that a ‘loving God’ could not possibly do and for the individuals that end up here it will be a ‘bad’ thing. However I want to explore the possibility that the lake of fire is a ‘good’ thing that a loving God must do.

Way back in the beginning of time there was a war in heaven. Lucifer rebelled and dragged one third of the angels with him. They were kicked out and I am going to assume that they all reside in our earthly realm. The root cause of this rebellion was/is pride. I say ‘is’ because Lucifer/Satan still believes himself to be equal with God. There are two passages in the bible which describe this event.

Isa 14:12  “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!

Isa 14:13  You said in your heart, ‘I will ascend 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;

Isa 14:14  I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will make myself like the Most High.’

Eze 28:12  “Son of man, raise a lamentation over the king of Tyre, and say to him, Thus says the Lord GOD: “You were the signet of perfection, full of wisdom and perfect in beauty.

Eze 28:13  You were in Eden, the garden of God; every precious stone was your covering, sardius, topaz, and diamond, beryl, onyx, and jasper, sapphire, emerald, and carbuncle; and crafted in gold were your settings and your engravings. On the day that you were created they were prepared.

Eze 28:14  You were an anointed guardian cherub. I placed you; you were on the holy mountain of God; in the midst of the stones of fire you walked.

Eze 28:15  You were blameless in your ways from the day you were created, till unrighteousness was found in you.

Eze 28:16  In the abundance of your trade you were filled with violence in your midst, and you sinned; so I cast you as a profane thing from the mountain of God, and I destroyed you, O guardian cherub, from the midst of the stones of fire.

Eze 28:17  Your heart was proud because of your beauty; you corrupted your wisdom for the sake of your splendor. I cast you to the ground; I exposed you before kings, to feast their eyes on you.

Eze 28:18  By the multitude of your iniquities, in the unrighteousness of your trade you profaned your sanctuaries; so I brought fire out from your midst; it consumed you, and I turned you to ashes on the earth in the sight of all who saw you.

Eze 28:19  All who know you among the peoples are appalled at you; you have come to a dreadful end and shall be no more forever.”

The angels are created beings similar to humans but lacking a vital ingredient – they are not creative. Lucifer lived in the glory of God yet managed to look inward and imagined he was as great as God. He also managed to lead astray one third of the angels. This event caused great damage in the Kingdom of God. All the angels have their individual tasks, responsibilities and authorities. The war would have disrupted the workings in the Kingdom. This war would have pit friend against friend, colleague against colleague. It would have been a time of great emotional distress just as war on earth creates great emotional distress.

As an aside, there will be people that argue that angels don’t have emotions. However I beg to differ. There is this verse from Job and from Jesus’ own words

Job 38:6  On what were its bases sunk, or who laid its cornerstone,

Job 38:7  when the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy?

Luk 15:7  Just so, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance.

Unemotional beings don’t shout with joy. God is also very emotional. A God who has no emotion cannot create humans with emotion.

In summary if angels who are not creative and live in the Glory of God can rebel how much more damage can creative man who hate God do?

This brings us to the nature of man. This is what one of the Psalms say.

Psa 8:4  what is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him?

Psa 8:5  Yet you have made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor.

The correct translation should be “Yet you have made him a little lower than the ALMIGHTY…” The word in Hebrew is Elohym which is translated God in every other place in the bible other than this verse. Man is only a little lower than God. Man is of a higher order than the angels and only a little lower than God Himself. God took a huge risk creating Man. People have absolutely no idea how much power they have within themselves. In our sinful, earthly bodies we have very little or no access to this power but when we die and take on our spiritual bodies we will be far greater then what we are here. We will also have our brand new bodies given to us.

Now imagine these powerful beings only a little less than God and yet they hate God. How much more damage could they do to the Kingdom of God then what the angels did?  I would propose that it would be very damaging. There is a whole universe out there and we have no idea what God has prepared for us in this Universe

Gehenna, the lake of fire is the only solution. The people and fallen angels that will inhabit this place will not be able to escape. There will be no way out. All the creative ability cannot be used. There is one thing that Man cannot do but God can and that is create something out of nothing. Man still needs material to create and in Gehenna there will not be enough material to create with.

God loves His creation and we need to love Him back so that He can trust us with His riches, glory and power. Gehenna will definitely be a bad place to spend Eternity but it will safeguard God’s Kingdom

Terms and Conditions

When people think about God they usually think about God being tough with rules and regulations and refuse to think any more about God. However instead of thinking rules and regulations, think terms and conditions.

The world is full of terms and conditions (T&C). When you sign up with a Bank or insurance company you receive a book of T&C. Driving a vehicle on the road, school, uni, work, contracts – life is full of T&C’s. You think God is tough- the world is tougher.

The Old Testement of the bible contains the 10 commandments as well as the rules for living. These basically applied to the Jews pre Jesus. Paul explains that these T&C’s were too teach the Jews that they were impossible to keep and that a Saviour was needed.

The New Testement T&C’ are pretty easy. Lets face it, God owns the universe and He can set whatever terms and conditions He wants. All He wants us to do is turn our back on ourselves and the world (repentance) and follow Jesus. When we do that we have access to the Kingdom of God forever. 

There are 2 parts to the work that Jesus did. The first is redemption and the second is restoration. Much is said about redemption and little about restoration. When Paul writes, “Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these; Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry… etc (Gal 5:19)”, Paul is talking about the things that block us from being restored. People who die soon after being redeemed will still inherit the Kingdom. Restored people shine brighter and are able to attract people to the Kingdom.

God has more T&C’s. If we reject Jesus then our eternity will be fire. God has the right since he ultimately owns everything in the universe. He wants us to accept His terms and conditions and we will get everything we could ever wish for plus more than we could imagine.

You accept the banks T&C’s so why not God’s which is much simpler.

Savior or Messiah Complex

In this day and age we are constantly being told what is good for us, what is bad for us and general meddling in our personal and private lives. What is it about people that they want to “save” us from something? What makes the whole thing worse is that governments get lobbied and laws passed that attempt to “save” us also. In the last 50 years or so we have this insidious idea by so called enviromentalists that we need to “save” the planet from evil human beings. Most of the people who push these ideas suffer from the Messiah complex. They have a need to save something so they look around and find what looks like needs saving and then begin to promote it. People want to save us from so called bad diets, smoking and drinking alcohol. They want us to live in a safe, risk free world by banning anything that could be dangerous like playground equipment etc and all to satisfy their need to feel important and be a savior.

In the past the religious world attracted those with a savior complex and many of the cults past and present are led by those with the savior complex. Even mainstream religion has them but they can generally be kept in check by the church hierarchies. However with more people rejecting the church and christianity those with the savior complex need to branch out into the world. They have moved into groups like Greenpeace and on the political scene they are more than likely to be involved with socialist type parties. Make no mistake about it, Greenpeace is a quasi-religious movement where their adherants move by faith than by reason and intelligence.

How do you spot a person with the savior complex as opposed to somebody who sees a need and tries to fix it?  People with a savior complex tend to be controllers and manipulators. They will use emotional triggers e.g. “We must do it for the children,” and “Think of the Polar Bears.” etc. These people want us to donate to them to help them save whatever needs saving. Their real coup is to be able to get governments to give them money. The 3rd point is that they usually get the followers to do whatever dirty work needs to be done and if you can get the people who don’t care about what needs to be save to do that work for them then they are really in the money. They also offer solutions but these solutions are not real and just create more problems.

Don’t get me wrong here. There are things in the world that need fixing and it takes someone to care to get things started but they usually do it themselves. For example, there was an eye doctor called Fred Hollows. He saw people going blind needlessly and he would go out to remote parts of Australia and other countries and perfom eye surgery for nothing. He would pack his equipment and set out. Other doctors started following him and thousands of people have sight that would be blind. No control or manipulation, no asking for other people to donate money and he got down and got his hands dirty. There are millions of people who see something wrong and they get stuck in to fix it. Not so those with the Savior Complex.

What is the biggest threat to us who live in the western world? It is the people who want to save us from Global Warming or Climate Change or Climate Disruption as it is called now. These people would have us believe that our planet is dying from Carbon Dioxide emmisions and they want to tax us for it or make power bills so expensive that nobody can pay for it. It is of course a fairy tale since it is physically impossible for CO2 to effect climate in any way. The solution is of course to take us back to the stone age.

Al Gore is one of the High Priests of global warming. How much sacrifice does he make to lower his CO2 emissions? Zero – His CO2 emissions are approx 20 times higher than the average person. The priests of global warming travel to exotic places in jet aircraft of course which also emits high levels of CO2 yet they expect us – the minions – to use less energy and freeze to death in winter so they can live in luxury. These are classic Savior Complex behaviours.

It is time to recognize who these people are and revolt against them and their dangerous fantasies because they are destroying us for no reason at all.

Slavery

If the Son shall set you free, you shall be free indeed.

There are many forms of slavery. The above verse is usually in connection with being a slave to sin. There is physical slavery, which was common in biblical times and even prevalent up to the American Civil War. There is mental slavery aka being a slave to a control freak. Large scale controllers were Adolf Hitler, Stalin and Mao Zi Dong but there are many no-names in present society who love to control people. There is economic slavery, which is the modern-day form of slavery practiced by the elite of the world.

The last one I want to touch on is cultural slavery. Eh? – you may ask. What is cultural slavery? Exactly what it says. People do things because their ‘culture’ is to do it that way. Most ‘culture’ is innocuous and really is no big deal but some cultures are far from innocuous.

Most cultures revolve around religion of some sort of another and involves superstitions and in some cases demon worship. In the Philippines and South America for example, most people would regard themselves as catholics and therefore christian yet in these region the people will mix church going with their cultural practices of sacrificing chickens, animals and even humans. Paul had something to say about that to the Corinthians.

Our modern-day Liberal Marxists who study socialism at university have espoused the idea of not losing cultures. However what they are doing is dooming people to slavery and  superstition and leaving them backward.

Jesus died to set us free from all sorts of slavery, Satan wants humans to be slaves.

On another note, I really marvel at the stupidity of people. There has been a lot of protests at the body scans performed at American Airline Terminals. Some guy wrote this comment, “Flying is a privilege not a right.”

Flying is neither a right nor a privilege – it is a service subject to certain terms and conditions. Certain people like blowing up planes and the terms and conditions have become tougher. If you don’t like these terms and conditions then don’t use the service. This goes with any service by the way.

Quirky Bible Stories

I just thought I would post a couple of interesting little stories to ponder on.

Act 1:12  Then they returned to Jerusalem from the mount called Olivet, which is near Jerusalem, a Sabbath day’s journey away.
Act 1:13  And when they had entered, they went up to the upper room, where they were staying, Peter and John and James and Andrew, Philip and Thomas, Bartholomew and Matthew, James the son of Alphaeus and Simon the Zealot and Judas the son of James.
Act 1:14  All these with one accord were devoting themselves to prayer, together with the women and Mary the mother of Jesus, and his brothers.
Act 1:15  In those days Peter stood up among the brothers (the company of persons was in all about 120) and said,
Act 1:16  “Brothers, the Scripture had to be fulfilled, which the Holy Spirit spoke beforehand by the mouth of David concerning Judas, who became a guide to those who arrested Jesus.
Act 1:17  For he was numbered among us and was allotted his share in this ministry.”
Act 1:18  (Now this man acquired a field with the reward of his wickedness, and falling headlong he burst open in the middle and all his bowels gushed out.
Act 1:19  And it became known to all the inhabitants of Jerusalem, so that the field was called in their own language Akeldama, that is, Field of Blood.)
Act 1:20  “For it is written in the Book of Psalms, “‘May his camp become desolate, and let there be no one to dwell in it’; and “‘Let another take his office.’
Act 1:21  So one of the men who have accompanied us during all the time that the Lord Jesus went in and out among us,
Act 1:22  beginning from the baptism of John until the day when he was taken up from us–one of these men must become with us a witness to his resurrection.”
Act 1:23  And they put forward two, Joseph called Barsabbas, who was also called Justus, and Matthias.
Act 1:24  And they prayed and said, “You, Lord, who know the hearts of all, show which one of these two you have chosen
Act 1:25  to take the place in this ministry and apostleship from which Judas turned aside to go to his own place.”
Act 1:26  And they cast lots for them, and the lot fell on Matthias, and he was numbered with the eleven apostles.                               Act 2:1  When the day of Pentecost arrived, they were all together in one place.
Act 2:2  And suddenly there came from heaven a sound like a mighty rushing wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting.

Many preachers will tell you that 120 people were filled with the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost. However think about this.

It was about 2-3 weeks into May – almost summer. We can guess that it would have been pretty warm. How big was this room to fit 120 people in comfortably? Think about toilet and washing facilities. Now we know there were 120 at one point in this 10 days. Acts 1:15 says so. However during which day of the ten days did this speech occur? We don’t know. It could have been day 1 or day 10.

Acts 2:1 says,” When the days of Pentecost had fully come…”. In case you readers don’t know, a Jewish day begins at sunset. So what it means by “fully come”, is the next morning – in other words half way through the ‘day’.

So here we have a hot time of year, 120 people in a crowded room with  limited toilet and bathroom facilities. Did these 120 stay in this room for 10 days? Did any leave because of hardship? All I can say is that the air must have been pretty rich. We don’t know of course. There may have been 120 or there may have been less. We know the apostles were all there but for the rest???

Exo 24:13  So Moses rose with his assistant Joshua, and Moses went up into the mountain of God.
Exo 24:14  And he said to the elders, “Wait here for us until we return to you. And behold, Aaron and Hur are with you. Whoever has a dispute, let him go to them.”                                                      Exo 32:15  Then Moses turned and went down from the mountain with the two tablets of the testimony in his hand, tablets that were written on both sides; on the front and on the back they were written.
Exo 32:16  The tablets were the work of God, and the writing was the writing of God, engraved on the tablets.
Exo 32:17  When Joshua heard the noise of the people as they shouted, he said to Moses, “There is a noise of war in the camp.”

In Exodus 24 we see Joshua (son of Nun) going with Moses into Mount Sinai and in Ex 32 arriving with Moses back into camp. Moses was in the mountain for 40 days and we have to assume that Joshua was on the mountain somewhere also. Basically Moses is with the LORD, the people are camped down below and Joshua is somewhere in between, on his own for 40 days.

Joshua is the anglicized name of the Hebrew Yehoshua. Jesus is the Greek anglicized name of the Hebrew name Yehoshua. Jesus after being baptized went into the wilderness for 40 days. This little story of Joshua, son of Nun, is a preview of what Jesus would do again confirming that Jesus is the Messiah.

Of course we can ask the question, what did Joshua do for this 40 days? I think I would have gotten bored after 2 days myself.

Post modernism

I am going to change tack with this post and deal with worldly issues. One of these is post modern philosophy. In simple terms post modernism deals with two facets of living – truth and reality or its opposites – lies and fantasy/illusion/idealism (choose the word that best fits)

Regarding truth, post modernism makes these statements.

1. There is no such thing as truth or

2. Truth is relative or

3. Truth is what you want it to be.

Regarding 1. If I write the sentence, “Want it truth to it be what you is”, you would think that I lack a command in the English language. It is nonsense. Sometimes people write or say sentences that look good but is still nonsense.

There is no such thing as truth. Ans: Is that true? If the person says the affirmative then the statement is obviously false because they want you to believe that the statement is true when it states that there is no such thing as truth. It is self-contradictory, in other words nonsense.

Regarding 2 & 3 since they are basically the same. Truth is relative to what exactly? Truth and lie are like an on/off switch. Something is either true or it is not true. There is no room for relative, that is there is no moveable line where you can adjust the truth around that line.

The idea of ‘nothing is real’ comes from the eastern religions – mostly Buddhism and most of the western ideas were expounded by Hume. The question they pose is, How do you know that that object (tree say) is real. Of course you then answer that your eyes see a tree so it must be a tree, then the questioner will tell you that it  is only your brains interpretation and it could be a cow to someone else. You then get befuddled by long-winded sentences which if you had time to break them down would be just nonsense. Our senses tell us what is real i.e. what we can see, hear, smell, taste and touch and we all rely on those senses to get along in the world.

How do you answer a person who is trying to tell you that things are not real? Well simple really. Ask that person if they are real. If yes then ask why? If no then you only have to say that you since they are not real you don’t have to listen to them.

Even though most of us are not eloquent enough to describe truth and reality we all know what they are. People who don’t know what they are usually end up in a mental institution or prison.

In individuals these two concepts are affected by our belief system. People unfortunately believe what they want to believe and regard it as truth even when that belief is false. It doesn’t make it any less false however. There are things that people believe that have some  truth (that is truth elements) and some false elements. The false bits are still false even mixed with the true bits.

Post modernism is a false philosophy. It exists to manipulate and control people. Practically all universities teach this insidious stuff but it can be easily refuted.