Could Gas Find Fulfill Two Prophecies?

July 5th, 2009

        Sometimes one event can be the fulfillment of two totally different prophecies. Such an event may have occurred this year, and no one seemed to notice. On January 18, 2009, a joint venture between Noble Energy of the US and Isramco from Israel resulted in a gigantic find of natural gas off the coast of Haifa, Israel. It is estimated that the field contains a staggering 3.1 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. Not only will this find eliminate Israel’s need to import natural gas, but it could very well result in that tiny country becoming a major exporter.

        This find is significant to us today because it not only fulfills a prophecy that skeptics thought God had missed on, but it also may be the start of fulfilling a prophecy that could be meaningful in our lives.
        The first prophecy that we see fulfilled was given in Deuteronomy 33:24 when Moses, just prior to his death, was predicting blessings for each of the twelve Jewish tribes. Through Moses, God said,  And of Asher he said, Let Asher be blessed with children; let him be acceptable to his brethren, and let him dip his foot in oil.”  In the above map we show the positioning of the different Hebrew tribes as well as the new energy find in Haifa. Notice that Asher’s land is shaped like a foot, and that is where the natural gas was discovered. I find that extremely interesting.
        But another scripture pops in my mind as a result of this phenomenal new discovery. In Unlocking God’s Secrets I made the point that the last major prophetic event that must occur prior to the Tribulation is the War of Gog and Magog that is described so fully in Ezekiel 38-39. As that war is about to start, which will pit Russia, Iran, Turkey, and others against Israel, there is a minor prophecy that has always seemed curious to me. In Ezekiel 38:13 we read, “Sheba and Dedan, and the merchants of Tarshish, and all her villages will say to you, ‘Have you come to plunder? have you gathered your hordes to loot?”
        As an aside, the word “villages” in that scripture is considered to be the only place in the Bible where America could be mentioned. Although it may be a stretch as far as I am concerned, since the Hebrew word for “villages” is the same word for “strong or young lions,” some scholars feel that if Great Britain was the Old Lion, then Australia, Canada, and the US are the strong, young lions. As I said, I personally think that may be a stretch. Sheba and Dedan are obviously Southern Arabia, and Tarshish was probably in Spain, so I think it may be just wishful thinking to see America in that verse, but I thought I would mention it for you to ponder on your own since some Biblical scholars are adamant about that interpretation.
        At any rate, what has been so curious to me was that countries could even consider at the start of that upcoming war that Israel might even possess anything that other countries would want to plunder or loot. Obviously Israel has been a nation without any natural resources. There has been nothing at all to plunder. At least that was true up until this year. Over three trillion cubic feet of natural gas all of a sudden changes things.
        Could this awesome natural gas discovery have been necessary in order to fulfill all of the details of the Ezekiel 38-39 prophecy? We will have to watch current events play out to see. But I will be honest and tell you that I felt a chill go down my spine as I first read about the Haifa find. To me it was one of the very few remaining puzzle pieces that had to come together before the rapture, tribulation, and second coming of our Lord could occur. We definitely live in exciting times.

An Important Homonym

July 2nd, 2009
        Words that have different meanings are plentiful in the English language. Such words as might, long, file, wind, ball, bear, dash, fast, right, light, stall, and sound can all mean at least two things. These words are called homonyms, and some may have multiple meanings, such as pound. But English isn’t the only language in which these occur. Greek has the same oddities, and today I thought we would look at an interesting one, apostacia, which can mean either “a falling away” or “a spacial departure.”
        The importance of these two meanings for apostacia can become monumental when we read 2 Thessalonians 2:3. The verse is a critical “end time” verse that deals with the second coming of Jesus Christ. Let’s first read the King James Version:
        “Let no man deceive you by any means; for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition,”
        Did you catch the words, falling away? In the original those words were the word, apostacia. In a more modern translation, the NIV, falling away has been upgraded to the word, rebellion. We are being told here, and rightfully so, that there will be a falling away or a rebellion against Christ and the Father prior to the appearance of the antichrist. None of us can doubt that. In fact, we can already see it taking place, even in America, the nation that was once the bastion of Christianity.
        A month ago President Obama said in a speech in Turkey that America was not a Christian nation, and most Christians, including me, were appalled. But the more I have thought about it, maybe he was right. Sure, more people claim to be Christian than any other religion in the United States. But if we ask most of them to talk about it, the majority truly have no clue of what it means. We will hear things like, ”I believe Jesus was right that we should feed the poor,” or ”Jesus was a good man,” or “I really believe Jesus actually lived.”
        And even within some of our traditional churches we can find ministers preaching that the resurrection really didn’t occur, or that the Bible truly is not “God’s Word” to mankind, or that because Jesus died on the cross everyone in the whole world will go to heaven, no matter what. We even now have homosexual ministers and bishops, and ministers and church leaders that vote for baby killing.
        Even the nation as a whole is trying to kick Jesus and the Father right out of our country. Such things as taking the Bible and prayer out of schools, and the ten commandments out of public buildings, are prime examples. The final straw will be the abandonment of the US of God’s chosen people, Israel. Yes indeed, a falling away, a rebellion, is occurring. And it will speed up even faster in the months to come. Don’t be surprised. God told us it would happen.
        But let’s get back to the Greek homonym, apostacia. Jerome translated apostacia in the Vulgate into the Latin “discecto,” meaning “a spacial departure.” Somehow, between the earlier Vulgate and the King James Version the meaning was changed to a falling away. So let’s read the King James Version, using what obviously was the earlier interpretation,
        “Let no man deceive you by any means; for that day shall not come, except there come a spacial departure first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition,”
        What could a ”spacial departure” be except the rapture? In the first letter to the Thessalonians, chapter 4:16-17, God had written, “For the Lord Himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead will rise first. After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever.” 
        So, which interpretation of apostacia is correct. I believe they both are. Just as God often prophesied two separate events with one prophecy, as we discussed in Unlocking God’s Secrets, he did the same thing with the word, apostacia. He told us that we would experience the falling away that we are now seeing, but with the same word he told us that some of us would be a part of the glorious rapture of the true bride of Christ; not just so that we could escape his wrath, but also to prepare us for the jobs we will have in the coming Millennial Kingdom, as was also discussed at length in my book.
        Yes, God used the Greek homonym, apostacia for a reason, and we need to understand both meanings. More importantly, we need to understand the Greek homonym, pistevo, that our English Bibles weakly translate only as the word believe. Please study that discussion in Unlocking God’s Secrets earnestly. That is the most important homonym God used. It can be critical to our eternal lives.
        God is complex. So, too, is His Word. But the more we search out the matter, as he wants us to do, the more comfort and peace we gain. He communicated with us thoroughly. He gave us everything we need to know. It is up to us to “search out the matter.”  

Chuck’s Amazing John 14 Story

June 29th, 2009
        After our last article concerning John 14, I received the following e-mail from a friend and true servant of God, Chuck Hall. Read it and you, too, will be blown away:
 
Dear Bob; 
        I have a short story to tell you. 
        When we learned that my wife’s mother had been taken to the hospital and was near the end, we prepared for the worst.  I was asked by the family to be prepared for the worst and be ready to speak at her funeral. 
        Going to my library, I picked up a book of biblical passages, and it seemed to fall open to John 14, which I read again and was reminded of The Promise, and took comfort from it.  The next day, I casually opened my Bible and it fell open at John 14.  Again I read it and began to put together some thoughts on my mother in law.  I was in my office later, where I also have my late father in law’s Bible at hand.  I opened it and it automatically went to John 14.  Later that day, I visited the hospital and waited for my wife and her sister to come while I was alone with their mother.  A Bible was there and I opened it - It opened automatically to John 14.  I read it to her……and when my wife and her sister arrived, I told them of my experience of late, so when her mother passed, there was no doubt that my final words for her would include John 14.  She often taught Sunday School at her small church, and had a teaching Bible.  I received that Bible when she was gone and opened it later……automatically to John 14.
        I have no doubt that there was a purpose and a reason and a message for her and for her daughter’s and for me.  The Promise for Ruth has been confirmed. 
        Is our Savior awesome or what?   
        Thanks for reminding me again, Bob.
 
        This phenomenal story from Chuck confirms several things to me. First, the precious Holy Spirit is real and communicates to God’s children, reminding us of the words of Jesus. In fact, in the fantastic Biblical chapter we have been discussing, John 14, Jesus tells us, “The Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you.” John 14:25-26.
        Second, Chuck’s wonderful account of how the Holy Spirit supernaturally opened five different Bibles to John 14 for him at this important time in his family’s life confirms for me that the following words in the last article were also the result of a nudge from above: “This may be the one chapter in the Bible that clearly tells us everything we need to know about the absolute plan of God. This one chapter gives us as Christians our true “hope,” and dare I say it, “our responsibility.” And it was given to us by Jesus Himself.”
        Please reread the last article. It is directly below this one. And please, please read thoughtfully John 14 in it’s entirety. Absorb all that God is telling you in it. The complete message results in life eternal.

John 14

June 26th, 2009
        As you know, most of the articles at this site deal with exciting things that are hidden within the Word of God. Things like ”types and shadows” are fun to explore and teach us about God, prophecy, and things God truly wants us to know. As He says, He wants us to “search out the matter,” and we are normally awe struck when we do.
        Today, however, I want to look at a chapter in God’s true and definitive communication to us that may not have anything hidden in it. It surely could not be any more informative if it did, because this may be the one chapter in the Bible that clearly tells us everything we need to know about the absolute plan of God. This one chapter gives us as Christians our true “hope,” and dare I say it, “our responsibility.” And it was given to us by Jesus Himself. The chapter I am talking about is the fourteenth chapter of the Gospel of John. Let’s look at a few of Jesus’s own words from that incredible chapter.
        “Trust in God - trust also in me.” John 14:1.
        Trust in Jesus. This is not a suggestion. This is a commandment.
        “In my Father’s house are many rooms. If it were not so I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am.” John 14:2-3.
        Heaven is not an ethereal place without physical properties. It is a real place, and Jesus Himself is preparing something special for us there, where we will actually have eternal life with Him. And He is promising to come back and take us there to live with Him. Our “hope” is not that Jesus will make things peachy keen for us here on earth, although he does help us in this earthly life. No, our “hope” is in an eternal life in a real place called heaven. That is what our focus should be on.
        “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” John 14:6.
        We can not get to heaven by being good. We can’t get there by being Muslim or Buddhist or Hindu. There is no possible way of gaining eternal life in heaven except through Jesus. Our Savior could not have been more clear. The majority of the world is in for a huge shock. Jesus is the only option. Otherwise we perish.
        “If you love me, you will obey what I command. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counselor to be with you forever - the Spirit of truth.” John 14:15-17.
        We need to notice that the promise of the Holy Spirit that guides us and helps us in so many ways begins with a big word, “if.” “If you love me, you will obey what I command.” We must ask ourselves, how can we obey what Jesus commands unless we know what His commandments are? We can’t. And the only way to know what He commands is to study what He says to us in the Bible. How many people who call themselves Christians have even read the words of Jesus in the New Testament? From what I see, the answer is relatively few. We are talking about the Holy Spirit here, God Himself. We are talking about eternal life. This is not a child’s game. We are talking about the most important thing in each person’s life, and it is sluffed off as something trivial. Jesus even reiterates this point.
        “Whoever has my commands and obeys them, he is the one who loves me. He who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love him and show myself to him.” John 14:21.
        Does Jesus need to hit us over the head with the same thought again. He must, because He goes on to say:
        “If anyone loves me, he will obey my teaching. My Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him.” John 14:23.
        Dear reader, heaven is real. This life is less than a split second compared to eternity. Jesus even said in John 6:63, “The flesh counts for nothing.” Heaven is our goal. Heaven is our “hope.” Jesus is the only way to get there. And to get there we must love Him and obey Him. This is not a game. This is serious business. Wishing won’t get us there. Unlike what most teach, we do have a part in all of this. Reread Jesus’s own words above. Personally I put my trust in what Jesus tells me more than what some men tell me from our modern church. Jesus expects us to read our Bibles, obey His commands, and love him. We need to read God’s Word and spend time in prayer. Heaven is too glorious a “hope” to be flippant about.
        Chapter and verse numbers were added long after they were written, but we can be assured that God was as much in control of them as the words themselves. God is big on numbers. If seven is perfection, then fourteen must be double perfection, or divine perfection. John 14 is God’s divinely perfect plan. It takes only three minutes to read in its entirety but all we need to know is in it. Please read it all yourself today. Jesus is right now preparing a special place for us, and if we love Him, trust Him, and obey Him, He will come and get us and we will live there with Him for eternity.
        Heaven is real. So is hell. If you haven’t made your choice, do it now. Putting it off is a decision, and it is the wrong one. God advises us to “Choose life.” Deuteronomy 30:19.

The Three Woman Bride

June 23rd, 2009

        As you know by now, I am utterly in awe of the way God wove shadows of future events throughout the Bible. Seeing the abundance of them drives home the point to me that only our divine Creator could have written such a phenomenal book. Unfortunately, seldom do scholars ever seem to “search out” the shadows, other than a few obvious ones in the Old Testament that are included as pictures of the first coming of Christ. But shadows are just as plentiful in the New Testament as previews of what was to come following His resurrection.
        For example, on March 24 and April 8 we discussed at this blog site the fact that the Samaritan woman and the Canaanite woman respectively were both shadows of the coming church. If you have not read those teachings or have forgotten them, I encourage you to check both articles out by clicking on the archived articles to the left.
        Less than an hour ago I was stunned when reading a well known story in Mark 5 by seeing that another woman was just as surely a shadow of the church. The story I am referring to is the one in which a Jewish ruler, Jairus, asked Jesus to come to his house and save his dying daughter. On the way to the house Jesus was interrupted by the woman with the issue of blood. Because of that interruption the daughter of Jairus died before Jesus could reach the child. Think about it. Jesus came to first save the Jewish people, as we learned in the story of the Canaanite woman, but that woman also interrupted His journey to complete His mission. In the same way the woman with the issue of blood interrupted Christ’s journey to Jairus’s house. Three women, all represented the coming church. Three women, all shadows of His bride. And all three women were shadows of this two thousand year church age interruption which has given us Gentiles the chance to enter paradise.
        Fortunately for the Jewish people, in the end of the story in Mark 5, Jesus brings back to life the daughter of Jairus, obviously a shadow of what is still to come for the Hebrew nation, the nation that because of God’s promises to the Patriarchs is and forever will be His children.
        What a remarkable treasure the Bible is. Cherish it. Study it. Put His Word in your heart daily. Nothing on earth compares to it.

Announcements

June 4th, 2009
        I have three announcements to make. First, Unlocking God’s Secrets is now available in e-book form at a very low cost for those who have e-book readers. Those interested can click “Purchase Now” to the left and order it from Amazon. It is also available at a number of other on-line sites.
        Second, I want to humbly thank you for spreading the word about this site. This past month the articles were read by an unknown number of people in over two hundred cities, in forty one states, and fourteen different countries around the world. That only happened because you shared the site address with others and I truly appreciate it.
        Third, due to other commitments I will not be posting any new articles until the end of June. The first forty one articles, however, are all archived below and by month at the left. Hopefully you might take this time to go back and read any that you might have missed. They are all timeless so reading one now from February won’t detract from its message.
        Finally, may I leave you with a question: how long has it been since you closed your eyes and said with meaning, “Jesus, I love you.” I promise you that He is longing to hear it from you this very moment. By saying it you will bring a big smile to His lips.
 
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A Crowded Church

June 1st, 2009

        We are told in 1 Peter 1:12 that “Even angels long to look into these things” that have been told to us by those who preach the gospel.
        And then we find an extremely interesting but unheralded scripture that says, “..to the extent that now the manifold wisdom of God might be made known by the church to the principalities and powers in the heavenly places.” Ephesians 3:10.
        The “principalities and powers” referred to in that verse are angels. Notice how they now learn about “the manifold wisdom of God.” It is “by the church.”
        W.A. Criswell said, “Just the idea of it is astonishing: that the angels in heaven are taught the manifold wisdom of God by the church. What an amazing discovery!”
        So next Sunday, when you are in church, you can ponder the Biblical fact that there are angels sitting there with you, probably listening even more intently than you are. It truly is an amazing discovery.

Bronze

May 29th, 2009
        In the last article we saw how God’s timing and description of the events of the first six days of creation are in exact agreement with modern science. But what about the events and dating during the historically fuzzy period from Adam to the flood? Is there any way to see if what little historical data there is for those years might coincide with Biblical accounts? Let’s look at one obscure scripture from that period and “search out the matter.”
        The fourth chapter of Genesis tells us about the descendants of Cain, of Cain and Abel fame. Verse 22 says, “Zillah also had a son, Tubal-Cain, who forged all kinds of tools out of bronze and iron.” That may be interesting reading but is there a reason God would have included it in His Word? As with virtually every sentence in the Bible we might be surprised at what we might find if we dig deeper.
        The Holy Scriptures are chocked full of things like numbers of years a person lived, and ages of people when they had their first son, etc. From these Biblical statements the Israelites came up with their calendar, using the creation of Adam as its beginning. According to the Hebrew calendar we are now in year 5769.
        Getting back to “searching out the matter” in the selected verse that tells us that Tubal-Cain forged tools out of bronze, the Bible does not give us years and ages for his lineage from Cain up to him, but it does list his ancestors by name. His mother was Zillah and his father was Lamech, his grandfather was Methushael, and before them came Mehujael, Irad, Enoch, Cain and Adam. The subject of our search, Tubal-Cain, was the last in the line prior to the flood, which wiped out all of Cain’s descendants.
        If we look at Seth, Cain’s brother, we can trace his descendants up to Noah, and since the age of the father at each son’s birth is given, we can even come up with a date for the flood, when our hero, Tubal-Cain, obviously died. To be exact, Adam and Eve had Seth when Adam was 130, Seth had Enosh at age 105, Enosh had Kenan at age 90, Kenan had Mahalalel at age 70, who had Jared at 65, who had Enoch at 162, who had Methusaleh at 65, who had Lamech at 187, who had Noah at 182. Noah was 600 when the flood came.
        Using a mid point of Noah’s 600 years before the flood we can add up those numbers and come up with about 1,350 years after the arrival of Adam for Tubal-Cain to be working in his home made bronze tool factory. By subtracting 1,350 years from today’s Jewish year of 5769 we find ourselves back at about 2400 BC when the Bible asserts that Tubal-Cain was forging all kinds of tools with bronze. What is so fascinating about that is that of all of the millions and millions of bronze age artifacts that have been uncovered by archeologists and carbon dated, the oldest dates back to the same date of 2400 BC.
        The Bible is always 100% accurate. Always. Since we know that science does occasionally make mistakes, rather than science being used to prove the Bible, scientists should look to the Bible to prove their findings. The Bible is always 100% accurate. Always.

Six Days

May 26th, 2009
        There was a portion of the original manuscript of Unlocking God’s Secrets that did not make it into the published book because the publisher was concerned that it would be so controversial in some Christian circles that they would not allow their flocks to read the rest of the book. He was probably correct in his assessment; however, there is another point that may have been even more important that I want to correct today.
        By omitting the truth of that unpublished portion we may have inadvertently continued to push the unbeliever in God away from the total truth of His existence, because our silence in the matter once again made the atheist feel that since we Christians as a whole teach one thing that flies in the face of known and proven reality, anything else we say about the Bible must be taken with the utmost skepticism. Rather than beating around the bush, let me get right into the heart of the matter.
        Up until 1950 most of the non believing scientists subscribed to what is known as the “steady state theory”, which basically taught that the universe as we know it had existed eternally. Everything changed with the idea of the “big bang theory.” This theory is widely held today as truth and is based on the thought that everything started at a particular point in time.
        God told us in His very first sentence, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” Genesis 1:1. But what about believing and being adamant that God created everything in six 24 hour days? I will state here, much to the raised eyebrows of some of my believing friends, that God’s Word is always accurate, but our insistence on the days being made up of normal earthly 24 hours is less than rational and often extremely harmful, because it drives away people who otherwise might be brought into the light of Christ. Please bear with me as I explain. 
        First of all, common sense will tell us that the days could not have been our solar days, since the sun and earth were not even listed in the creation story until “days” two and three, and yet God talks about what happened on day one. There simply was no earth making a 24 hour revolution which is what our day is defined as. The earth did not exist. Period. Neither did the sun.
        We need to also understand  that the days could not represent our earthly thousand years, which some believers have tried to make fit, because once again, at the very beginning there were no earthly measures to even multiply by a thousand. As we have seen in our earlier blog articles, those six thousand years do come into play, but in relation to end time prophecy, not in relation to time prior to our calendar dating, or the time that is referred to by scientists as cosmic proper time or CPR. 
        Science, however, is now aligning itself with everything that God said all along. Science took a giant leap forward in 1915 when Albert Einstein stunned the world with what is now known as fact, that there are changes in time flow dependant on gravity and velocity. This difference in the passing of time is known in scientific circles as “time dilation.”
        Most of us can understand how gravity affects our weight, but we haven’t come to grips with how it can slow down time. Science, though, has proven that it does. The other thing that affects time is speed. The easiest way to understand it is to visualize waves of sound or light going out from a central gravitational point in space. They don’t go in a straight line. They are “waves” because they go back and forth as they travel outward. The farther out they go, the farther back and forth they go in an increasingly widening arc. As they travel out, it takes longer to go a specific straight distance away from the original gravitational point because they are traveling ever and ever farther on their back and forth arcs. The end result is that in the second year they can only go half as far away from the starting point as they did in the first year. In the third year they go only half as far as they did in the second year. The reason again is that the farther out they go, the more back and forth on the wave arc they also have to go.
        Our day is in reality a measure of distance. If the circumference of our earth were three times greater, and if the earth revolved at the same speed, it would obviously take three times longer to see the sun each revolution at any given spot on the earth as it does now. In that situation our day would be 72 hours long instead of 24 hours as it really is. The first CPR day, before there was an earth or sun, was also a matter of distance. It was a distance from the origin of the “big bang”, or to state it simpler, the origin of the first explosion of energy. This is the point at the beginning when “God spoke” everything into being.
        Scientists know that the “big bang” was an explosion of radiation, the basis of all forms of light. It has actually been named cosmic background radiation (CBR) and it was discovered by Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson in 1965. It is the only source of radiation that has existed since creation.
        At the moment creation occurred, we know that the first “expulsion” of universe was a million million times hotter than black space is today, and it was a million million times smaller than it is today. It was a burst of energy beyond compare, and since, according to science, energy can neither be created nor destroyed, it had to come from somewhere. That “somewhere” was the voice of God. God spoke and everything was created.
        But getting back to the six days, the energy traveled out, and according to Einstein’s formula, E=MC2 (energy equals mass times the speed of light squared), mass or matter was created out of that energy. Actually it took a massive amount of energy to create a tiny amount of matter. So, matter was being created from “God spoke”, which scientists look at as the initial burst of energy.
        The main thing to understand is that the first cosmic day the energy, or light, traveled twice as far as it did the second cosmic day, so, since a CPR day was measured in distance, as ours is, the first cosmic day was twice as long as the second cosmic day, which in turn was twice as long as the third cosmic day, etc. Stated another way, since the energy traveled a shorter distance away from the source the second day, due to the widening back and forth arc, the second day was shorter by one half. 
        Genesis 1:3 says, “And God said, ‘Let there be light’, and there was light. God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness. God called the light ‘day’ and the darkness He called ‘night.’ And there was evening, and there was morning - the first day.” 
        Scientists tell us that after what they call the big bang (when God spoke), light did in fact separate from darkness, as electrons bonded to atomic nuclei, just as Genesis states. Galaxies started to form during this period, which took eight billion years. So eight billion years was the length of the first day of cosmic proper time (CPR).
        The second day, therefore, would have lasted four billion years, since it would have had to have been about half the length of time of the first CPR day. During this second day, God’s Word tells us He formed the firmament which He called “sky.” The scientists tell us that during this four billion year period the Milky Way was formed, which obviously is our sky. God’s Word was correct, as it always is.
        During the third day, which lasted about two billion years (half the second day), the Bible says that the earth was formed with dry land and water, and vegetation began. Surprise, surprise, the scientists as one voice tells us that this is exactly what happened during this two billion year length of time.
        During day four, in verses 14 through 19, God says, “Let there be lights in the expanse of the sky to separate day from night.” He goes on to talk about the sun, moon and stars. The scientists tell us that during this one billion year period, the fourth CPR day, the earth’s atmosphere became transparent, so the sun, moon, and stars were now visible from earth. The scientists and God are in total agreement again.
        The Bible now tells us in verses 20 through 23 that God created fish and birds on the fifth day. Interestingly, that is exactly what scientists say happened during the next five hundred million years, the fifth CPR day.
        The two hundred and fifty million years leading up to the beginning of Jewish dating, which would have been the sixth CPR day and the sixth day in the Bible, according to scientists were the years in which the large land mammals and humans first came on the scene. As we would expect, those are the exact things God said He created on the sixth day.
        God’s Word is exact. Every time. And science is unwittingly proving that fact. Scientists say that creation started at one point in space with a burst of energy that, according to their own laws, had to have come from an outside entity. They further state that the creation, or big bang, occurred about sixteen billion years ago, which they themselves break up into six cosmic proper time days. The big bang was God speaking, and those six CPR days are God’s original six days. We just didn’t know it until now.
        Understanding the truth of the six days of creation does not lesson the miracle at all. In fact, for me, seeing the complexity of God’s plan to create us, His ultimate object of love, makes the miracle of creation even more astonishing and awe inspiring. And by having a better understanding of this phenomenal miracle of creation we just might be able to eliminate a stumbling block of many unbelievers and bring those we love who are in the dark into the glorious light of the love of Jesus Christ, who “by Him and for Him all things were created.” Colossians 1:16.

Joshua’s Big Goof

May 22nd, 2009
        First, I want to apologize that the “comments” section at this site has been inadvertently disabled. From now on you should be able to click on “comments” below each article and leave any comments or have discussions with other readers. I hope you will. At any rate, I think you will find the following little known fact to be fascinating. I sure did.
        Benjamin Netenyahu of Israel met with President Obama this week and although he wanted help with the Iranian nuclear proliferation problem, all Obama had on his mind, like Bush before him, was Israel giving up more land for a Palestinian state. Obama wanted Israel to build no more settlements in the Golan Heights so that the Palestinians could have that area like they currently have the Gaza Strip, a great place from which they can launch their rockets into Israel. Since that is so much in the news all the time, I thought you might find a short Biblical history lesson intriguing.
        We read, “Joshua waged war against all these kings for a long time. Except for the Hivites living in Gibeon, not one city made a treaty of peace with the Israelites, who took them all in battle. For it was the Lord Himself who hardened their hearts to wage war against Israel, so that He might destroy them totally, exterminating them, without mercy, as the Lord had commanded Moses.” Joshua 11:18-20.
        Notice that it was God who wanted all of these groups destroyed totally. I won’t go into all the reasons for this, but take my word for it, these were bad dudes who should have been destroyed. And General Joshua was God’s man to do it. One of the groups God wanted completely wiped out was the Anakites, so we read further, “Joshua totally destroyed them and their towns. No Anakites were left in Israelite territory; only in Gaza, Gath and Ashdod did any survive.” Joshua 11:21-22.
        The other group God wanted destroyed were the Rephaites, and we read in Joshua 13:12-13, “Moses had defeated them and taken over the land. But the Israelites did not drive out the people of Geshur and Maacah, so they continue to live among the Israelites to this day.”
        If you haven’t guessed by now, Gaza, Gath and Ashdod is the land we now call the Gaza Strip. Geshur and Maacah is today the Golan heights. How different things might be today if only Joshua had done 3,400 years ago what God wanted. The only two places in the entire land that Joshua did not do what he was told to do are the very two places that are the thorns in Israel’s side today. Coincidence?