USA: A NATION UNDER JUDGEMENT

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In the United States, June now brings a more sinister side. The nation celebrates June as “Pride Month.” Desecrated rainbows fill store displays and social media feeds. Sexual deviancy and perversion are celebrated as a virtue. Baseball teams host “Pride nights” at their stadiums. Government buildings are lit up with the colours of the rainbow. The US Navy joins in, changing their entire Twitter avatar and bio to boast of wickedness.

As Christians, we might easily look at June as a month where the darkness has overtaken the light, where godless people brazenly mock God by taking His rainbow and using it to celebrate what He describes as an abomination. But we do well to remember that God in His sovereignty rules over the darkness and that God is not mocked, no matter how vigorously men may try.

While the godless of society take this month to celebrate their ungodliness, we must acknowledge the sovereignty of God in that they label this celebration with a sin that is even worse than the one they are promoting: PRIDE. Proverbs 6:16-17 says, “There are six things which the Lord hates, Yes, seven which are an abomination to Him; Haughty eyes…” Haughty eyes are the visible, outward manifestation of a heart of pride. The Lord hates pride. The Lord says that pride is an abomination to Him. Peter wrote, “God is opposed to the proud, but gives grace to the humble” (1 Peter 5:5). To celebrate pride is to celebrate what God hates and to put yourself in a position where God is opposed to you. That includes all pride, not just pride in sexual immorality.

When our nation celebrates Pride Month, it is a manifest indication of God’s judgment against us. The reason it is such a clear indication of judgment is not because of the rejoicing in unrighteousness that occurs, although that in itself would qualify, but because this rejoicing in unrighteousness is done under the banner of another sin that God hates, the sin of pride. God’s judgment is manifest in taking those who love sin and doubling their guilt. They no longer are guilty before God for one sin — sexual immorality — but two sins that God hates, as pride becomes their adornment. The judgment of God is manifest when He not only condemns sinners in their sin but aggravates their condition so that they become even more guilty before Him.

We see this throughout all of Scripture. Pharaoh hardened his heart before God, and God hardened Pharaoh’s heart as well. When Pharaoh refused to repent, God hardened his heart to such an extreme that Pharaoh drove his army to their death in the sea (Exodus 14). We see this with Herod in Acts 12. Herod was guilty before God for executing the Apostle James. His unrepentant heart became so hardened that he exalted himself over God, and God executed him for it. When Eli rebuked his sons for their godless behavior, including sexual immorality, “they would not listen to the voice of their father, for the Lord desired to put them to death” (1 Samuel 2:25).

Besides the judgment of God, we also see the sovereign providence of God over all of these events. God is no mere bystander, watching helplessly or disinterestedly as His creatures defy His authority and flout His law. God is intimately involved in ruling His world and reigning over His creation. Part of that sovereign providence is bringing specific and terrifying judgment from which there is no escape. From that vantage point, we can say as Christians that pride month is not merely a manifestation of the wicked heart of man but an indication of the righteous judgment of God. That means as Christians we realize that God is sovereign over pride month and that He has a good purpose in what man means for evil.

A heart of pride might be the most terrifying judgment of all because it is the judgment from which there is no path of escape. The necessary element for salvation is the opposite of pride. God delights in a broken and contrite heart, not a proud countenance. Jesus said, “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted” (Matthew 5:3-4). The poor in spirit are those who recognize their spiritual poverty, and they are connected with those who mourn because they grieve over their sins. They are not proud, and they do not celebrate what God condemns. Their hearts are broken over their sins, and they are humbled to the dust before a holy and righteous God who judges everyone impartially.

The only way anyone can be saved is by abandoning their pride, their self-reliance, their delight in disobedience to God’s Word, and humbling themselves before the cross of Christ, seeking mercy through faith in His sacrifice for sinners.

God’s judgment becomes clear when the Lord begins to aggravate people’s sinful condition so that one sin begins to pile on top of another. That is what is happening during pride month, and that is why June is for judgment. The USA is a nation already under judgment and with much of the church compromised with the world on gay marriage, LGBTQ, and transgender issues it will also be deceived by the false prophet when the Antichrist comes to power. How foolish, when Jesus’ return is so close first to rapture the Saints but then to pour out His wrath upon an unrepentant world.

The USA church is the church of Laodicea. The church that will be left behind to face the wrath of God.

“‘I know your works: you are neither cold nor hot. Would that you were either cold or hot! So, because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth. For you say, I am rich, I have prospered, and I need nothing, not realizing that you are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked. I counsel you to buy from me gold refined by fire, so that you may be rich, and white garments so that you may clothe yourself and the shame of your nakedness may not be seen, and salve to anoint your eyes, so that you may see. Those whom I love, I reprove and discipline, so be zealous and repent. Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with me.” Revelation 3:15-20

The church of Philadelphia represents the church that is raptured look what God says to it.

“‘I know your works. Behold, I have set before you an open door, which no one is able to shut. I know that you have but little power, and yet you have kept my word and have not denied my name… Because you have kept my word about patient endurance, I will keep you from the hour of trial that is coming on the whole world, to try those who dwell on the earth. I am coming soon.” Revelation 3:8, 10-11

DON’T MESS WITH GOD

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Nations that are talking about Israel giving up land to re-establish a nation of Palestine do so at enormous peril. Biblical prophecy shows us that God has judged nations down through history: e.g. Egypt, Canaan, Ammon, Moab, Bashan, Heshbon, Midian, Babylon, Persia, Rome, and the 20th century, Germany, UK, and now America in the 21st century.

“If at any time I declare concerning a nation or a kingdom, that I will pluck up and break down and destroy it, and if that nation, concerning which I have spoken, turns from its evil, I will relent of the disaster that I intended to do to it. And if at any time I declare concerning a nation or a kingdom that I will build and plant it, and if it does evil in my sight, not listening to my voice, then I will relent of the good that I had intended to do to it.” Jeremiah 18:7-8

Even God’s chosen people were not exempt from His judgment if they rebelled against Him.  God instructed Moses to warn the people of the nation of Israel that He would rain down judgment on them if they were disobedient (Deuteronomy 29:24-26). He has used the Babylonians, Persians, Romans, and even Germans for that purpose.

This recent video by Nelson Walters shows us how in control God is of the events that are taking place in our world.

WHAT DOES THE BIBLE TEACH ON HELL?

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It is good to see more Biblical teaching on the fate of unbelievers. It is certainly not eternal conscious torment that has been the teaching of most institutional churches. Gary Black of Life, Hope, and Truth Ministries (www.lifehopeandtruth.com) explains why hell is not a place of eternal torment and how the Christian world came to that mistaken idea.

The research I did for my own book on this topic: Lake of Fire – Terminal Punishment/Second Death; Eternal Conscious Torment; Universal Redemption? (available as an ebook on Amazon) revealed that in the first five centuries, there were six known theological schools. Four of them taught that all people would eventually be rescued from Hell (Apocatastasis): these being the theological schools at Alexandria, Antioch, Caesarea, and Edessa/Nisbis. One school, Ephesus, taught Annihilationism (that sinners are totally incinerated into nothingness in the Lake of Fire). Only one theological school, Rome/Carthage taught eternal punishment. Source: The New Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge, Universalism entry, p. 96, Baker Book House. In fact, a case can be made that when the Church rejected a high view of God’s goodness and replaced it with a view of God as an eternal torturer, the Dark Ages began, almost to the day.

ANOTHER REASON WHY GOD’S JUDGMENT IS IMMINENT

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Abortion has topped several infectious diseases as the world’s leading cause of death for at least the fifth year in a row, even though multiple abortion restrictions have gone into place at the state level following the U.S. Supreme Court’s reversal of Roe v. Wade. 

This statistic alone tells you there is something desperately wrong with our world.

Statistics compiled by Worldometer, a database that tracks quantitative data on health, the global population and other metrics in real time, show that more than 44.6 million abortions were performed worldwide in 2023. The last available snapshot of Worldometer from 2023, captured by the Internet Archive Wayback Machine by Dec. 31, shows that the number of abortions performed last year exceeds the combined number of casualties caused by the other leading causes of death listed.

Abortion is just one of the reasons God is going to pour out His wrath upon an unrepentant world once He has rescued His saints.

“Then the kings of the earth and the great ones and the generals and the rich and the powerful, and everyone, slave and free, hid themselves in the caves and among the rocks of the mountains, calling to the mountains and rocks, “Fall on us and hide us from the face of him who is seated on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb, for the great day of their wrath has come, and who can stand?” Revelation 6:15-17

This scripture is at the sixth seal being removed from the scroll by Jesus. It is at the trumpet blast as the seventh seal is opened that the rapture of the Saints takes place. The dead in Christ having been raised first. The wrath of God is then poured out with the seven trumpet (Revelation 8. 9 & 11) and seven bowl (Revelation 16) judgements.

The trumpet and bowl judgements will last one year and ten days. Why one year and ten days? The year before a Jubilee year is always one year and ten days on the Jewish Calendar. The year following Jesus’ return will be a Jubilee year. Also, of significance, the length of time God poured out His wrath upon the Earth during the flood of Noah’s day was 1 year and ten days. We know that at the fifth trumpet judgement, the locusts are allowed to torment people for five months. However, the bowl judgements happen in relatively quick succession.

In the Olivet Discourse in the three gospels, Jesus tells us that the world before His return will be like the days of Noah. Unbelievers will be taken by complete surprise. Lawlessness will be rampant and the amount of time God’s wrath is poured out on the Earth will also be the same.

GOD’S RIGHTEOUS JUDGEMENT

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How do you line up with Paul’s assessment of people living in his day? Has God given you up “in the lusts of your heart to impurity” If you continue to deny Him and His goodness He will. Look around you at the beauty of the world He created. You do not take your next breath without Him making it possible. How can you deny His existence? Moreover, your Creator God sent His son, Jesus to become a man to not only reveal the truth about God but also pay the price for the original man and woman’s rebellion (SIN) against God. If this does not reveal His goodness to you nothing will.

“For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things. “Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.
For this reason, God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature; and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error. And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done. They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, and malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, and maliciousness. They are gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, foolish, faithless, heartless, and ruthless. Though they know God’s righteous decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them.” Romans 1:21-32

THE TRUE HISTORY OF THIS WORLD

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Read what the Apostle Peter reveals to us about God and His World, about angels, about SIN, about God’s judgement, about the worldwide flood of Noah’s day with eight survivors, God destroyed the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah as an example of what He does to the ungodly, and there is a day coming of judgement for all the ungodly – The Day of the Lord.

This is the true history of this world and its 6,000 years of existence. How did we get billions of years? It is absolutely essential if you believe in evolution to go from GOO to YOU. The worldwide flood of Noah’s day (God’s judgement) produced the fossils (billions of dead things all over the world) and the buried vegetation that produced all of our fossil fuels. It happened in one year not billions of years.

“For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell and committed them to chains of gloomy darkness to be kept until the judgment; if he did not spare the ancient world, but preserved Noah, a herald of righteousness, with seven others, when he brought a flood upon the world of the ungodly; if by turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah to ashes he condemned them to extinction, making them an example of what is going to happen to the ungodly; and if he rescued righteous Lot, greatly distressed by the sensual conduct of the wicked (for as that righteous man lived among them day after day, he was tormenting his righteous soul over their lawless deeds that he saw and heard); then the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from trials, and to keep the unrighteous under punishment until the day of judgment, and especially those who indulge in the lust of defiling passion and despise authority. Bold and willful, they do not tremble as they blaspheme the glorious ones, whereas angels, though greater in might and power, do not pronounce a blasphemous judgment against them before the Lord. But these, like irrational animals, creatures of instinct, born to be caught and destroyed, blaspheming about matters of which they are ignorant, will also be destroyed in their destruction, suffering wrong as the wage for their wrongdoing. They count it pleasure to revel in the daytime. They are blots and blemishes, reveling in their deceptions, while they feast with you. They have eyes full of adultery, insatiable for sin. They entice unsteady souls. They have hearts trained in greed. Accursed children!” 2 Peter 4-14

The Apostle Peter also told us that in the last days scoffers would come denying the true history of the world and the worldwide flood of Noah’s day.

“You should remember the predictions of the holy prophets and the commandment of the Lord and Savior through your apostles, knowing this first of all, that scoffers will come in the last days with scoffing, following their own sinful desires. They will say, “Where is the promise of his coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all things are continuing as they were from the beginning of creation.” For they deliberately overlook this fact, that the heavens existed long ago, and the earth was formed out of water and through water by the word of God, and that by means of these, the world that then existed was deluged with water and perished. But by the same word the heavens and earth that now exist are stored up for fire, being kept until the day of judgment and destruction of the ungodly.” 2 Peter 3:2-7

Do you know there are 86 verses in the Bible about The Day of the Lord: this is just one from Isaiah.

“Behold, the day of the Lord comes, cruel, with wrath and fierce anger, to make the land a desolation
and to destroy its sinners from it. For the stars of the heavens and their constellations will not give their light; the sun will be dark at its rising, and the moon will not shed its light. I will punish the world for its evil, and the wicked for their iniquity; I will put an end to the pomp of the arrogant, and lay low the pompous pride of the ruthless. I will make people more rare than fine gold, and mankind than the gold of Ophir. Therefore I will make the heavens tremble, and the earth will be shaken out of its place, at the wrath of the Lord of hosts in the day of his fierce anger.” Isaiah 13:9-13

Check out the rest, I am sure God wants you to know that The Day of the Lord is coming: Isaiah 24:21-22, Zephaniah 1:14-18, Jeremiah 46:10, Job 20:28-29, Isaiah 13:4-6. Isaiah 19:16-17, Ezekeil 30:3-4, Isaiah 27:1, Joel 3:12-14, Zephaniah 3:8, Romans 2:16, Revelation 6:15-17, Amos 5:18-20, Isaiah 2:12, Joel 1:15, Joel 2:1-2, Matthew 7:22-23, John 12:48, Romans 2:5, Jeremiah 30:7-8, Joel 2:23-28, Isaiah 11:11, Isaiah 27:12-13, Micah 4:6-7, Matthew 24:30-31, Mark 13:26-27, Zephaniah 3:14-20, Isaiah 4:5-6, Joel 2:32, Joel 3:16-18, Zechariah 9:16-17, Isaiah 4:3-4, Zephaniah 3:11-13, Zechariah 14:20-21, Malachi 4:1-2, Micah 4:8, Micah 5:8-9, Revelation 22:5, Philippians 1:6, Daniel 12:1-2, John 6:40, John 11:24, 1 Corinthians 1:8, 2 Timothy 1:12, Ezekiel 38: 14-16, Zechariah 14:2, Luke 21:20, Revelation 20:8-9, Isaiah 4:2, Isaiah 11:10, Jeremiah 30:9, Hosea 3:5, Amos 9:11, Zechariah 9:9, Zechariah 12:10, 1 Thessalonian 5:2-3, Matthew 23:43-44, Luke 12:39-40, Mark 13:32, 2 Peter 3:10, 1 Thessalonian 5: 4-8, Ezekiel 13:5, Zephaniah 2:1-3, Malachi 4:5, 2 Peter 3:11-12, Matthew 24:33, Marfk 13:29, Luke 21: 31, 2 Thessalonians 2:3, Acts 2:19-20, Joel 2:30-31, Isaiah 13:9-10, Joel 2:10, Luke 21:11, Isaiah 5:29-30, Ezekiel 30:10, Joel 2:2-4, Amos 5:27, Matthew 24:21, Mark 13:19, Isaiah 11:12-14, Haggai 2:23, Zecharia 3:8.

A WORLD RIPE FOR JUDGEMENT

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EUTHANASIA FOR 14-YEAR-OLDS?

One of Australia’s most senior Catholics has warned that a proposal being considered by the ACT Labor-Greens government to allow teenagers as young as 14 to access voluntary assisted dying could see assisted suicide become available to “anyone that wants it”. Sydney Archbishop Anthony Fisher said that every jurisdiction that had introduced assisted suicide had relaxed restrictions over time, cautioning that by setting such a low bar the ACT would see standards “end up in the gutter with no protections at all”. ACT Human Rights Minister Tara Cheyne said that the government was considering allowing children as young as 14 to access voluntary assisted dying, unveiling a community consultation report to help shape legislation to be introduced by the end of the year. “The fact is, every jurisdiction in the world that has gone down the euthanasia path has then gradually stripped away its protections,” Archbishop Fisher said.

“So, if we start as the ACT’s proposing to start, with the bar already very low, well they’re just going to end up in the gutter with no protections at all.” Archbishop Fisher branded the ACT government led by Chief Minister Andrew Barr, a “radical government” that he didn’t trust to enforce safeguards around assisted suicide. He also questioned why 14-year-olds were considered too young to drive and vote but mature enough to “make a life-and-death decision”. “Victoria has only had euthanasia for a year or two, and they’re already talking about removing most of the protections,” he said. “Well, if the ACT starts with almost none, where are they going to be two or three years on? “My guess is it will be euthanasia on demand for anyone that wants it, and that’s exactly, for some of the proponents of this, their ultimate goal.”

Ms Cheyne rejected as arbitrary the requirement in other Australian jurisdictions for assisted suicide to be accessed only by people with a life expectancy of between six and 12 months, and left the door open for dementia patients to access the scheme. NSW, Victoria, Western Australia, Queensland, South Australia, and Tasmania have legalised assisted suicide for people over 18 years old who have a terminal illness and are given less than six to 12 months to live. Health Minister Mark Butler and opposition health spokeswoman Anne Ruston said they would not comment on territory issues. Five MPs representing the ACT independent senator David Pocock, Finance Minister Katy Gallagher, and Labor members Andrew Leigh Alicia Payne and David Smith also declined to comment. Nationals MP Barnaby Joyce questioned the suggestion that 14-year-olds were mature enough to make an “informed cogent decision about the most precious thing they have, which is their life”.

“It’s what happens when you have a Greens left-wing Labor government and the idea the state reigns supreme over the individual; it’s the removal of all forms of religion to be replaced with the ethos of the state,” Barnaby said. The architect of the world’s first right-to-die laws and former Northern Territory chief minister Marshall Perron said it was “very hard to put a finger” on when a teenager developed the decision-making capacity to be eligible for assisted suicide. “You’ll get a different opinion from different people … 16 and 17 would be an easier step to go,” he said. “However, there is an argument to go beyond that. If we’re talking about terminally ill individuals who are going to die and are suffering horrifically, I mean, anyone who’s a parent would have to have some sympathy for the child.”

What we are seeing is just a prelude to the coming of the man of lawlessness, the Antichrist, but the good news is; the return of Jesus to restore righteousness and rule and reign with the resurrected Saints during Jesus’ transitional Millennial Kingdom is not too far off.

“Now concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our being gathered together to him… Let no one deceive you in any way. For that day will not come, unless the rebellion comes first, and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of destruction, who opposes and exalts himself against every so-called god or object of worship, so that he takes his seat in the temple of God, proclaiming himself to be God.” 2 Thessalonians 2:1,3-4

GOD’S LOVE FOR HIS PEOPLE IS INFINITE AND UNCONDITIONAL

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“But [King David] covered his face, and the king cried out with a loud voice, ‘O my son Absalom! O Absalom, my son, my son!’ 2 Samuel 19:4

Absalom, like King Saul, had a kingly and charismatic appearance but a self-serving bent. He gradually began to see himself as a potential successor to his father’s throne and began gathering supporters among the northern tribes of Israel. It was his intention to raise an army, mount a rebellion against his father, and take over the throne. But in a battle with David’s armies, Absalom was killed, throwing David into an extended season of grief. Even though Absalom was his enemy, David loved him unconditionally, even at the time of his death. 

Loving an enemy unconditionally is the New Testament’s picture of our salvation. Even while we were God’s enemies, He sent Christ to die for us. Thank God today for His unconditional love.

“God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God.” Romans 5:8

“No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.“ Romans 8:35

“God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.” Romans 5:5

GOD IS A RIGHTEOUS GOD AND HIS WRATH WILL BE POURED OUT ON AN UNREPENTANT WORLD

God poured out His wrath once before on an unrepentant world at the time of Noah’s Day and we know from Biblical prophecy that He will pour it out again in the not-too-distant future with the Trumpet (Revelation 8) and the Bowl (Revelation 16) judgements.

“But because of your hard and impenitent heart, you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath when God’s righteous judgment will be revealed.” Romans 2:5

WE ARE FIDDLING WITH TRIVIA AS THE WORLD BURNS

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This article by James Marriott in The Weekend Australian speaks heaps to the state of the world we live in. I doubt he is a Christian, speaking derogatorily of “po-faced” Puritans but he understands something is desperately wrong with society. Sadly, he cannot see that it has all to do with rejecting God and His commandments and what the dire consequences of doing that entail. It results in the prophesied coming wrath of God being poured out on an unrepentant world with the Trumpet (Revelation 8) and Bowl (Revelation 16) judgements.

“In La Serenissima, his masterly recent history of Venice, Jonathan Keates describes the fading republic’s “air of calculated triviality”, the ubiquitous “sense that serious initiatives and major political concerns had to all intents and purposes evaporated”.

Sound familiar? When I reviewed the book last year I noted the historical resonance. Since then, Keates’s account of a declining maritime empire in love with superficial distractions has returned to haunt me.

I thought of Venice as I watched the coronation of King Charles III, as BBC announcers consolingly explained that for all her travails Britain could still beat the world for marching bands, military spectacle and pomp. And I thought of Venice during this summer’s auto da fe of television personalities, as the country found itself transfixed by gossip about the alleged behaviour of Phillip Schofield and Huw Edwards.

Downwardly mobile nations tend to obsess over trifles and distractions because serious issues become too frightening to contemplate. Witness the cabarets of Weimar Berlin or the uneasy, teetering magnificence of Viennese culture in the decades before the Great War (the title of Frederic Morton’s classic book on that era, A Nervous Splendor, captures the mood well). I think something similar explains the strange, almost hysterical unseriousness abroad in British culture at the moment.

A bleak new essay by the economist Sam Bowman warns that Britain should get used to thinking of itself as “a developing country”.

But the national predilection for silliness is at present being over-indulged. A state that permits stand-up comedians such as Konstantin Kisin to set themselves up as public intellectuals and appear on Question Time is one that is afraid to hear anybody talk about its problems seriously. Our politicians suffer the same sickness. It is hard to feel you are living in a grown-up country when you have watched an ex-government minister eating a kangaroo’s gonads on national television (naturally, Matt Hancock’s disturbingly cheerful self-humiliation obsessed the public for weeks). A country in which MPs try to curry favour with the public by comically debasing themselves on social media is one that is losing faith in the idea that a politician might be impressive as a thinker or a leader rather than as a sort of second-rate comedian.

In such circumstances is it any wonder that Love Island is the cultural event of the summer? And I haven’t yet got into the really morbidly existential stuff. The fact that Europe is burning. Or that the World Economic Forum predicts artificial intelligence will destroy 83 million jobs globally in the next five years (even if it will also create a fair few). Or that American democracy looks an increasingly shaky proposition.

It doesn’t bear thinking about. And so the most talked about film of the week is about a plastic doll designed for six-year-olds. It is not that I object to Barbie. Or to Love Island. Or to the scrutiny of powerful men on TV. The problem is to do with priorities. Trivia has become the main event.

The Barbie movie has inspired celebrities to dress in full Barbiecore with the color pink being one of this year’s colors. The picture below shows Barbie girls in the Gay Pride Parade.

The world has dismissed it as myth, the last time God poured out His wrath upon the earth with the worldwide flood of Noah’s day, and yet millions of dead things buried all over the world including fossil fuels testify to its reality.

“You should remember the predictions of the holy prophets and the commandment of the Lord and Savior through your apostles, knowing this first of all, that scoffers will come in the last days with scoffing, following their own sinful desires. They will say, “Where is the promise of his coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all things are continuing as they were from the beginning of creation.” For they deliberately overlook this fact, that the heavens existed long ago, and the earth was formed out of water and through water by the word of God, and that by means of these, the world that then existed was deluged with water and perished. But by the same word the heavens and earth that now exist are stored up for fire, being kept until the day of judgment and destruction of the ungodly.” 2 Peter 3:2-7

GOD OFFERS HOPE IN THE MIDST OF JUDGEMENT

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Salvation in the midst of judgment is a common theme in the early chapters of Genesis. Just as God provided hope in the midst of punishment for Cain after murdering Abel by giving him a mark to protect him (Genesis 4:15).

When God judged the world (Genesis 6:18) the Lord spared Noah and his family. Additionally, the judgment of the city of Babel (Genesis 11:1–10) when God established the nations was followed by the call of Abram (Genesis 12:1–9) to establish His own nation, Israel, once again offering hope despite judgment.

It can therefore be expected that in the Bible’s first pronouncement of judgment at “The Fall“, God would offer the hope of salvation in the midst of judgment. I think the scriptural evidence shows that the following Scripture is messianic.

“The Lord God said to the serpent, ‘Because you have done this, cursed are you above all livestock and above all beasts of the field; on your belly, you shall go, and dust you shall eat all the days of your life. I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.’” Genesis 3:14-15

The essential messianic view is that Genesis 3:15 ultimately predicts the coming of a future individual (a “seed”) who will have victory over the serpent (Satan) through His own death.

A foundational element of that view is that the serpent must be identified as something other than just a mere snake. It appears to be, in the words of C. John Collins, “the mouthpiece of a Dark Power, whom later texts would call Satan.” A number of factors lead to this observation. For example, snakes cannot talk, even in Genesis. Moreover, a mere serpent from the good creation, apart from an evil force animating it, would have no reason to challenge God’s words or tempt humanity. Additionally, it is not the serpent’s seed that will be crushed by the woman’s seed after a long conflict but the serpent itself, indicating longevity, not normal for mere snakes.

Significantly, later biblical writers identified Satan with the serpent of Genesis

“The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet.” Romans 16:20

“And the great dragon was thrown down, that ancient serpent, who is called the devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world—he was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him.” Revelation 12:9

Although in Gen. 3:14 the Lord addresses the actual serpent, in the following verse (Genesis 3:15), He appears to address the dark power. As well, some have proposed that in Gen. 3:15 there is an alleged prediction of the virgin birth because of the use of the phrase “her seed” not a man’s seed.

The messianic view as espoused here posits that Gen. 3:15 teaches that the seed of the woman, although being struck, will also strike the serpent and his seed and thereby win victory for humanity. This text is just the beginning of the story. As John Sailhamer says, “More is at stake in this brief passage than the reader is at first aware. A program is set forth. A plot is established that will take the author far beyond this or that snake and his ‘seed.’

The verse shifts the meaning of seed from a collective group to a particular individual descendant of the woman. The evidence for this is that a singular pronoun and a singular verb are used to refer to the seed. In Gen. 3:15, the biblical author uses singular pronouns and verb forms in reference to the seed, so he plainly has a specific offspring in view.

When the original readers considered Genesis 3, they would have recognized that its author wrote of more than a mere serpent. As such, they would have expected not a long conflict between snakes and humanity, but a battle between a terrible dark force and a divinely powered deliverer. The problem of identifying the serpent was resolved in Jewish theology “by the doctrine that the serpent of Eden was the mouthpiece of the devil.” As a result, ancient Jewish interpreters also viewed the woman’s seed as the messianic victor over the serpent. This messianic reading of Gen. 3:15 is evident in the Septuagint and the rabbinic literature of the Targumim Pseudo-Jonathan, Neofiti, Onqelos, and the midrash Genesis Rabbah 23:5.27

God’s pronouncement of judgment (Gen. 3:14) is directed to the serpent proper—meaning the actual animal and not the dark force behind it. Since a serpent from the animal kingdom is an amoral being, it is surprising that the animal itself would be cursed. The purpose of cursing the animal is for it to become a perpetual reminder of the devastating destruction caused by the role of the serpent in the sin of Adam and Eve.

In the Millennium we read in Isaiah 65:25, “In Israel, the wolf, and the lamb will feed together, and the lion will eat straw like the ox, but the serpent’s food will be dust!” During Jesus Millennial reign the curse has not been totally lifted but in Israel, the curse on animals has been partially lifted but the curse on the serpent will remain. In this way, the serpent will remain an eternal outward symbol of the spiritual defeat of the dark force behind the fall.

In an apparent midrash on Gen. 3:15, the author of Hebrews writes:

“so that through his [Jesus’] death He might destroy the one holding the power of death—that is, the Devil—and free those who were held in slavery all their lives by the fear of death” Hebrews 2:14–15

Abraham is also promised that his seed will bless the nations (Gen. 22:17–18). In Baalam’s second oracle, he describes Jacob’s seed as “His king” who “will be higher than Gog (Antichrist)” and whose “kingdom will be exalted.” Just as Genesis develops that the woman’s seed would spring from a royal dynasty, this oracle identifies the seed as the end-time messianic king who will defeat the enemies of Israel and rule over an exalted kingdom. In the very next oracle in Num. 24:17–19, the promise of the future messianic king (“A star will come from Jacob, and a scepter will arise from Israel”) makes a thematic allusion to Gen. 3:15. Although Num. 24:17 uses different words than Gen. 3:15 for both the blow struck and the head that is crushed, the thematic literary allusion is plain. The expectation is that when the messianic king arrives, he will crush the heads of Israel’s enemies, reminding the readers of the promise that Eve’s offspring would crush the head of the enemy.

The rest of the Hebrew canon makes extensive direct and thematic allusions to Gen. 3:15, firmly identifying the woman’s seed as a royal and messianic figure. Perhaps the most significant way that later biblical writers develop the “seed” theme is in the Davidic covenant. David is promised a “seed” who will have an eternal house, kingdom, and throne (2 Sam 7:12–16), reminding readers of the promise of the royal seed described in (Genesis 3:15; 17:16; 35:11; 49:9–10). There are many more “seed” theme references and Micah 7:17 predicts that in the eschatological future, the enemy nations will submit to the Lord and “lick the dust like a snake.” Speaking of that same future time in an intertextual reference to Gen. 3:15, Ps 8:6 proclaims that the messianic king will have “everything under his feet.” The same image of the ultimate defeat of the nations is found in Psalms 110:1, where the messianic king is promised that God will make His enemies a footstool for His feet.

It is appropriate therefore to conclude that the evidence supports Genesis 3:14-15 as the first messianic prophecy of the Bible. The fact that the “seed” theme is carried through the Bible by different authors over an extensive period of time is proof positive the Bible is the inspired word of God. Fulfilled prophecies are also proof positive that the many prophecies about Jesus’ second coming that are not already fulfilled (Israel established as a nation again) will be fulfilled.

“They (Saints) came to life and reigned with Christ for a thousand years. The rest of the dead did not come to life until the thousand years were ended. This is the first resurrection. Blessed and holy is the one who shares in the first resurrection! Over such the second death has no power, but they will be priests of God and of Christ, and they will reign with him for a thousand years.” Revelation 20:5-6

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