Vatican's Luciferian AI propaganda

Inspired by Pope Leo's first encyclical, "Magnifica Humanitas," 70 leaders in New York City have begun drafting the "Codex Humanitatis," an independent initiative said to "safeguard human dignity as artificial intelligence becomes increasingly powerful and influential in people’s lives."

The organization behind this endeavor, Saint Peter for Humanity, was at the Vatican last month to present the pope with the "Sphere of Humanity" — a green, Murano glass sculpture that "incorporates handwritten passages from his first encyclical, Magnifica Humanitas, reflecting on human dignity, vulnerability, solidarity, conscience and the challenges posed by artificial intelligence."

As Olivier Francois, president and chairman of the organization explained, "We recognize the benefits of AI. We just believe again that there is another force that should belong to that conversation; that other force is humanity. So, the Codex Humanitatis starts from that simple idea. AI should serve people, protect human dignity, expand human potential and advance common good.

"What are we going to do in New York? We are going to gather 70 Nobel laureates, artists, scientists, thinkers, philanthropists, technology and AI experts, obviously that's important, and we will ask them maybe the hardest question of our times, you know, as AI grows even more powerful, what must remain human?"

"Obviously, before we head over to machines, we should be clear about what we value most in ourselves. We will try to define what being human means and what should stay human in the age of AI. So, this is a little bit of the initiative we shared with Pope Leo while presenting the sphere and this symbolic gift."

The findings from the 70 will be presented at the World Economic Forum in Davos in 2027. 

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Here is commentary from a Christian YouTuber out of London:

Pope Leo says in his first encyclical, "I feel entrusted to look upon another huge transformation with openness to mystery and with cries of the poor and the earth resounding in my heart."

He's drawing these dichotomies between the physicality, including transhumanism and AI, and that we need to ascend spiritually into this New Age religion.

In one statement from the encyclical he said, "Humanity, created by God, in all its grandeur, is today facing a pivotal choice. Either to construct a new Tower of Babel or to build the city in which God and humanity dwell together."

Now, on the surface level, you may agree with some of the pope's points. As time moves forward in these days, the nature of spiritual deception is becoming that much more fine-tuned and may even become convincing to those not paying attention.

Quote: "Transhumanism is designed to take this entrapment to the next stage. This is what the great global promoters of transhumanism, like Ray Kurzweil in the U.S., are trying to sell, that getting attached to technology will make us super-human. It will make us sub-human and that's the idea."

You can see this portrayed very clearly in the new Toy Story 5 movie. In the film, the traditional toys face an existential threat with the arrival of modern technology.

With children increasingly glued to screens, the older playthings find themselves sidelined in favor of a new tablet called Lilypad. And the movie deals with this dichotomy between the old traditional toys feeling left out and not being any comparison to the children's desire to play with the new digital toys entering into the new digital age.

At the end of the film the tension is resolved by finding some sort of balance between the two. That both can be synthesized and co-exist together in a balance that creates this harmony and this true unity.

All this is really showing is that same Hegelian Dialectic where you have the thesis of the old, traditional, natural world, and then you have the antithesis, which is the new digital age coming upon them, but through the tension that is created between those two things it leads to this synthesis which is creating harmony and unity by merging the two together to create a higher truth. That is the definition of the Hegelian Dialectic.

When you've got propaganda like this, when you've got Pope Leo coming out and furthering this trajectory, and you've even got so-called "truthers" who are highlighting the risks that technology poses to humanity but then actually from that going forward and giving this false solution that we need to spiritually ascend in this false form of spirituality in this New Age religion and somehow that, or reaching that balance, is going to be the answer for humanity's problems . . . 

Playing one obviously bad thing against another subtle bad thing and then claiming that this is going to reach some kind of synthesis or solution, which is essentially the Golden Age, the Age of Aquarius, the New Age that the Luciferians are attempting . . . 

Not just about tech, it was about advancing this New Age. Remember, with the Jesuits' Teilhard de Chardin, he believed in reaching this "Omega Point" in which there will be an elevation of the consciousness of humanity and the universe, and some of the literature of those who follow him do mention this type of thing about the two sides of this.

The modern followers of de Chardin and the movement led by Theta Noir aiming to merge technology and spirituality by viewing the universe as a dynamic, evolving system akin to an organism or brain . . . 

You see here it says that what set de Chardin apart from other thinkers of his day was his "audacious attempt to bridge the gap between mystical theology and evolutionary materialism."

So, you see the two sides here of this false, evolutionary movement. Not only is it transhuman in using tech to supposedly evolve humanity and advance humanity, but it's also the mystical theology where you've got this so-called spiritual evolution of mankind, the New Age religion and neo-gnosticism and those two things we can see right now side by side.

Remember that the Tower of Babel was built with these bricks that can be considered as a form of tech or high technology, that they were able to create these particular types of bricks in order to build the tower, but that was just the vehicle to get them there. It was part of the self-ascension, but the ultimate goal was to create a gateway to the gods.

In vale of sorrow and tears, life is like a mountain railroad

(please forgive me, still working on new piece and will have to wait until tomorrow now to post--guaranteed to have then)

One of the first hymns Isaac Watts ever wrote began with, "God Is The Refuge Of His Saints,

When Storms Of Sharp Distress Invade;
Ere We Can Offer Our Complaints,
Behold Him Present With His Aid!"

The hymn was inspired by Psalm 46: [1] God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.

Watts, recognized as one of the most prolific hymn writers of all time, suffered a stroke in 1739 that left him unable to write.  A secretary was provided to transcribe his dictated poems and books, but he became increasingly weak and eventually bedridden and died nine years later.

***** 

I heard this the other day: "I just wish the Lord would come; I just want to get out of here." Well, that's not patiently waiting. Patience is the ability to endure; it's that steadfastness that grows under pressure, says Richard Jordan.

II Thessalonians 1:4: [4] So that we ourselves glory in you in the churches of God for your patience and faith in all your persecutions and tribulations that ye endure:

These Thessalonians were under tremendous persecution. They just didn't have the little nitnoid problems of life most of us face on a daily basis. They faced all of that too, but they had people using the government to try to get them.

They had people using the religious system around them to try and get them. They were suffering physical assaults, intimidations, persecutions, all kind of financial things, social things, economic things, governmental things.

He told them in I Thessalonians 3: [3] That no man should be moved by these afflictions: for yourselves know that we are appointed thereunto.

[4] For verily, when we were with you, we told you before that we should suffer tribulation; even as it came to pass, and ye know.

Paul's saying, "You know that you were appointed to these things and I'm just worried about you that the tempter doesn't tempt you and get the best of you and cause you to fall by the wayside."

"So I'm praying that God would direct your heart into the love of Christ." You just constantly be focused on how much God loves you; that the love of Christ be what constrains you and the "patient waiting for His Son." There's your faith, hope, charity kind of thing. 

Romans 8: [18] For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us.

[19] For the earnest expectation of the creature waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of God.
[20] For the creature was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of him who hath subjected the same in hope,
[21] Because the creature itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God.

We know the reason we haven't been delivered from the bondage of corruption, and that the reason that hasn't happened, is because God has postponed that event in order to extend the dispensation of grace another day.

In order to let the Body of Christ continue to be formed and matured, He has to put off the kingdom program over there. When you understand that you can say, "Okay, I reckon that the sufferings of this present time, the things we're going through now because God is doing what He's doing, and we know where we stand in His program, they're not worthy to be compared to the glory which will be revealed in us when He comes."

Verse 22: [22] For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now.

Somebody says, "Well, why are we having so much trouble in life?" Somebody answers back, "Well, because you're here." The alternative is not to be here because this is a vale of sorrow and tears.

In verse 22, you see that little dispensational term stuck at the end there? There's a timeline here. We're not over there yet where the deliverance is; we're still over here in the "but now."

A song from the 1950s I recently came upon, entitled, "Life is Like a Mountain Railroad," is written by Charlie D. Tillman. Here it is:

1    Life is like a mountain railroad,

With an engineer that's brave;

We must make the run successful

From the cradle to the grave;

Watch the curves, the fills, the tunnels,

Never falter, never quail;

Keep your hand upon the throttle,

And your eye upon the rail.

Refrain:

Blessed Savior, Thou wilt guide us,

Till we reach the blissful shore,

Where the angels wait to join us

In Thy praise forevermore.

2    You will roll up grades of trial,

You will cross the bridge of strife;

See that Christ is your conductor

On this lightning train of life;

Always mindful of obstruction,

Do your duty, never fail;

Keep your hand upon the throttle,

And your eye upon the rail. [Refrain]

3    You will often find obstructions,

Look for storms and wind and rain;

On a fill or curve or trestle,

They will almost ditch your train;

Put your trust alone in Jesus;

Never falter, never fail;

Keep your hand upon the throttle,

And your eye upon the rail. [Refrain]

Miracles in spiritual DNA

(note: below is an article that's probably in the top 10 for most read. I will have new article tomorrow)

Psalm 139:16 is a verse that would have puzzled people until the '70s and '80s.

Describing the creation of man, David says to God, "Thine eyes did see my substance, yet being unperfect; and in thy book all my members were written, which in continuance were fashioned, when as yet there was none of them."

Richard Jordan explains, “DNA is not a random sequencing of stuff; it’s a genetic package that’s in your chromosomes that is a 'book' of your life, pre-written the moment of your conception. David knew that 3,000 years ago. Modern science figured it out 50 years ago. Stick with your Bible; you’ll be way ahead of life.

“You see how he says 'my substance was yet unperfect, but in this book you wrote’?  The book David’s talking about was written by God in advance. David's saying, ‘They’re all written here, and as I grow, what’s growing is what you wrote over here in the book.'

“When you read that expression ‘thy book,’ and you see here it’s talking about David’s genetic coding, well, God wrote another book, didn’t He?

“Isaiah 34:16 says, ‘Seek ye out of the book of the LORD, and read.’ Where’s the book of the Lord? That’s the Bible. So not only did God have this book of DNA He wrote, He wrote a book called the Bible.

*****

“They discovered DNA in the 1950s, but they began to understand how to operate it and read it in the ’70s and ’80s. DNA is the basic building block of our life and it’s WRITTEN.

“When David says ‘thy book,’ DNA literally is written like a book. At first they thought it was just a bunch of trash, but now we know DNA has letters that make words that form sentences. There are periods, stops and paragraph marks.

“It literally has letters that make words that make sentences that tell a story and everything you are—the color of your eyes, the color of your hairs, the look of your hand . . . 

“Your mom’s 23 chromosomes joined with your dad’s 23 chromosomes to make the 46 chromosomes that made you, and when you were conceived, all of the identity, the genetics of who you are, what you’re going to look like, was determined right there. Everything else is just letting it grow, letting it come out, doing just what that verse in Psalm 139 says.

*****

“There’s something Satan didn’t see studying man from his beginning as he did. What he was looking for was, ‘How’s God going to use man to beat me?’ He’s looking for any hidden danger in man, any potential in man to defeat him and he looks, observes, but he can only see the physical.

“What Satan’s trying to counterfeit and duplicate is this. In Psalm 139:15, David is describing our creation. He writes to God, ‘My substance was not hid from thee, when I was made in secret, and curiously wrought in the lowest parts of the earth.’

"He’s talking about how we were made out of dirt. You’re not a real high-class cut of meat. 'From dust thou art and dust thou shalt return.' You're of the earth earthy. Listen, there’s more valuable minerals in my cell phone than there is in your body.

“But notice something else happened: ‘I was made in secret.’ David understood that the real him was that soul. You could see the body, you could see the spirit but it's I, the part of me that can never be shared with anybody else, that is my soul. So there’s a secret part of him that was made by God. Even though our physical part isn't very valuable, that part is!

*****

“Now, there’s an interesting comparison all through the Scripture between the book He wrote and your DNA and the Book He wrote called the Bible.

“As we learn from Psalm 139:16, that DNA is a book of your life. You know what the Bible’s called? Philippians 2:16 says, ‘Holding forth the word of life.’ What’s that? That’s that Book. Philippians 4:3 talks about those ‘whose names are in the book of life.’

“You know why it’s important to have your name in the Book of Life? Revelation 20:15 says that people standing at the White Throne Judgment to see whether they’re going to be cast in the 'lake of fire' or not, everybody’s name that is not written in the Book of Life gets cast into that lake.

“It’d be an advantage of have your name in the Book of Life, wouldn’t it? You have to have the life that that Book of Life gives you and that life is Jesus Christ, who said, ‘I am the way, the truth and the life.’ Jesus told his apostles in John 6:63, ‘The words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life.’

“The Book of Life is a LIVING word of the living God, and that written word puts you in connection with the LIVING Word, the Lord Jesus Christ. So there’s going to be a connection between the structure of your existence, the way God made you in the DNA, and His Word and the Lord Jesus Christ.

*****

“When you study DNA, you’re studying a science called genetics. When you study genetics, Genesis is a book of genetics, beginnings. Genesis 5:1 says, ‘This is the book of the generations of Adam. In the day that God created man, in the likeness of God made he him.’ The verse is saying, ‘Here’s the genetic coding structure of Adam’s descendants.’

“You see that phrase, ‘this is the book’? That’s the first time that term ‘book’ occurs and it occurs in connection with the encoding of what Adam’s descendants are going to be about.

“By the way, if you look at verses 30-32, you learn Genesis 5 starts with Adam and goes to Noah, the 10^th from Adam. When you take a DNA structure, it has two panels; two side posts. It’s like a ladder and there are 10 strands that make up the DNA package. It just happens that in ‘the book of the generations,’ in the genetic structure of Adam, there are 10 generations there.

“I’m trying to get you to see that there’s a connection between the physical creation and the spiritual creation.

“Luke 8:11 says, ‘Now the parable is this: The seed is the word of God.’ What’s in a seed? It’s the DNA, or genetic coding, of a plant. And the seed is the Word of God. You see the connection between the two?

“Now, with ‘the book of the generations of Adam,’ you have the seed. This Book that God wrote, that book David calls ‘thy book,’ it was written in the Hebrew language. The Hebrew language has 22 letters. DNA has 22 amino acids that make up the words that make up the DNA. Your New Testament, the second half of the book, is written in the Greek language, which has 44 letters.

*****

“By the way, you have 22 chromosomes in your cells. The 23^rd chromosome is the one that determines whether you are a male or female. In a female, it’s called XX. In a male, you’re an X and a Y. What’s the difference between those two things? One rib is taken out. Now you know something about Genesis 2 that you didn’t know before.

“The way you make one flesh is by taking the combined 46 chromosomes and there you are. That’s described for you in Genesis 2:23: ‘And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.’ You become one flesh in the 23 and 23 becoming 46 in your children.

“If you sat down and took Genesis 2: 23-24 and counted the words in Adam’s quote, you’ll find there are 46 words. In the quote in your Bible that tells you about being one flesh, it just happens to have the right number of words that that one flesh produces.

“In chapter three, if you go through the first five verses and count the number of words Satan speaks to Eve, you get 46. The Bible says in Romans 5:12 that ‘by one man sin entered into the world and death by sin.’ The way Satan enticed Adam and Eve into sin, and into producing an offspring who are genetically, physically and spiritually contaminated by sin, He only used 46 words.

“Romans 1:28 says, ‘And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient.’ God lists 23 specific things that life and culture will be filled with when people don’t want to retain God in their knowledge. In verse 32, it says that people who do those things are worthy of death.

“You go into that culture, you don’t need to call a sociologist or a politician to tell you where it came from; that verse told you 2,000 years ago! You see, this stuff’s been written in the encoding of our being.

*****

“When you trust Christ as your Savior, there’s a miraculous thing that happens in your spiritual DNA. Colossians 3:11 says, ‘Where there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcision nor uncircumcision, Barbarian, Scythian, bond nor free: but Christ is all, and in all.’

“In every Believer, Jesus Christ has come to be our life, not be some entity that floats around in you. Verse 16 says the Word of Christ literally DWELLS in your spiritual life, in your soul.

“How this happens is in I Peter 1:23 says, ‘Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever.’

“What does it mean to be ‘born again’? Jesus defined the new birth in John 3:6 when he talks to Nicodemus he says, ‘That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.’

“That’s fleshly DNA. So just like your physical birth produces life, your spiritual birth produces life. Just like there’s a combining of the 23 and 23 into a new creature here, there’s a spiritual union that your spirit has with the spirit of God. Verse 23 says it’s by the Word of God. There’s the spiritual DNA that gets implanted into your spirit that produces this new life.

“James 1:21 says, ‘Wherefore lay apart all filthiness and superfluity of naughtiness, and receive with meekness the engrafted word, which is able to save your souls.’

“What He does is He literally grafts into your spiritual DNA Jesus Christ’s life. How does He do that? By His Word: ‘Because the words I speak unto you there are spirit and they are life.’ You and I literally have the spiritual DNA of the life of Christ engrafted into our inner man and we are begotten, given life, by the gospel. That’s why there’s a comparison.

*****

“Now, Satan looked at man and all he saw was the physical, so he missed the real source of God’s life. If all you look at is the physical, you don’t really see the real Church the Body of Christ. Where’s the real life of God today? It’s not in the outward. Jesus told the apostles, ‘Seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and the physical will be added.’

“That’s always the way it is. Paul says ‘the kingdom of God is not meat and drink but righteousness, joy and peace and the Holy Ghost. It’s always the spiritual first that then lives itself out. The real genuine working of truth, the Body of Christ is a spiritual body of Believers.

“That’s why ordinances, rites and doing this and that won’t help you. It has to be a supernatural transaction that God accomplishes in your inner man when He implants and engrafts His word into your spirit because you believe it.

“I Thessalonians 2:13 says, ‘For this cause also thank we God without ceasing, because, when ye received the word of God which ye heard of us, ye received it not as the word of men, but as it is in truth, the word of God, which effectually worketh also in you that believe.’

“The real genuine working of truth is in the inside by His Word working.

“Satan’s trying to counterfeit that. He’s trying to join together God and the earth by physical means; by genetic manipulation. God wrote a DNA code and man’s trying to read it and rewrite it. God wrote a spiritual DNA and man reads it and tries to rewrite it. You need to understand where your spiritual life is and let it make the choices for you."

“Your body is equally divided into two parts by your spine, right down your back. One side of you will be stronger than the other. For a left-hander, his left side is stronger than his right.

“You know how many bones are in your spine? 33. How many books are there in the Bible? 66 books. The Bible’s divided into what we call the Old and New testaments, but the real way to divide the Bible is between prophecy and mystery. You’re really dividing it between law and grace ‘and what the law couldn’t do because it was weak . . .’ There’s a weak side and ‘you can be strong in the grace that’s in Christ Jesus.’ See how that kind of thing works out there?

“Half of 66 is 33, so your Bible’s going to have a spine through it. There are 1,189 chapters in the Bible. Half of that is 594.5. That means you’d have 594 chapters before that one and 594 after and that’s going to be the middle chapter, which is Psalm 117 (the middle verse is Psalm 103).

“How many parts does that Psalm have? You see any others that have just two verses? How many parts are there to a spine? Two. If you counted the number of words in that Psalm, there are 33. divided into two parts. It has to do with your back.

“When I think about that, I think about Moses. He told the Lord, ‘I want to see your glory. Show me your face.’ God said, ‘You can’t see my face and live, but I’ll let you see my backside,’ and He went by him and Moses saw God’s back side.

“You know where that’s at? Exodus 33. Moses wanted to see God’s face. Your face is part of your skull. You know how many bones are in your skull? 22. The No. 22 in the Bible is the number that talks about revelation, knowledge, showing forth something.

“By the way, you need to be careful when people come along and say, ‘Well, it doesn’t really matter how these verses are translated,’ because what I’m telling you is only going to be true in a King James Bible.

*****

“John 19:17 says, ‘And he bearing his cross went forth into a place called the place of a skull, which is called in the Hebrew Golgotha.’

“What was happening at Calvary? God was in Christ reconciling the world. If you want to see God revealed, where would you really look? If you want to see the love of God, where do you look? God commended His love toward us that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for you--at the place of a skull; a place of God revealing Himself. There’s something in your DNA that compares to what God’s doing over here in His Word.

“Again, the number 22 in the Bible is associated over and over again with making things known; revealing things with knowledge being made known.

“Revelation 22:3-4 says, [3] And there shall be no more curse: but the throne of God and of the Lamb shall be in it; and his servants shall serve him:
[4] And they shall see his face; and his name shall be in their foreheads.

“Where are they going to see His face? It’s going to be in chapter 22 of the Book of Revelation.

*****

“It just so happens that I Corinthians is the 46^th book of the Bible. It just so happens to quote that verse in Genesis 2 about one flesh. I Corinthians 6:16 says, ‘What? know ye not that he which is joined to an harlot is one body? for two, saith he, shall be one flesh.’

“The problem is Believers shouldn’t be joined to the harlot so in verse 19 he says, ‘What, know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost.’ So the temple and your body, it’s the dwelling place of God.

“You go back in the Old Testament and God had a temple that He dwelt in. That temple in the Old Testament is a picture of your body. Before Solomon built the temple, God gave Israel a tabernacle which was a temple made out of skin.

“When God told Solomon how to build that tabernacle, He gave him a pattern and said it was going to be a tent, and He said on the north side He wanted 20 boards, and 20 boards on the south side. On the back were to be six. That adds up to 46 boards holding up the tent.

“He said to ‘make it like I made the pattern in the heavens.’ My point is, there’s a repetition going on here. You see how that structure works? He wrote up there, He wrote it here, then He wrote it in YOU!

“Repetition is the first law of pedagogy. You say it over and over and over again and pretty soon it gets in between that mush in your ears and sinks in.

*****

“I Kings 7:21 says, ‘And he set up the pillars in the porch of the temple: and he set up the right pillar, and called the name thereof Jachin: and he set up the left pillar, and he called the name thereof Boaz.’

“In the temple, Solomon’s going to be put a pillar on each side of the entrance. If you read the text, you know how high each one of those things are? 23 cubits high. That’s just fascinating.

“In the structure of DNA you have two pillars, two panels. Those two panels are made out of sugar phosphate.

“In Revelation 10, John says he ‘took the book and ate it and it was sweet.’ Sugar is sweet. Phosphate gives light. ‘The entrance of thy word giveth light.’

“In DNA, the ladder up is a twisting one. It’s a spiraling staircase. Every 10th spiral you get a period and start a new one, so you have that panel of DNA but it’s got those two pillars on the side and the 10 spirals of a ladder on the inside.

“I Kings 6:7 says, ‘And the house, when it was in building, was built of stone made ready before it was brought thither: so that there was neither hammer nor axe nor any tool of iron heard in the house, while it was in building.’

“I Peter 2 says that Israel’s made with lively stones, talking about the members. Verse 8 says, ‘And a stone of stumbling, and a rock of offence, even to them which stumble at the word, being disobedient: whereunto also they were appointed.’

“So they’ve got a staircase, a ladder, but it’s not just a straight ladder. By the way, in Genesis 28, you read about Jacob’s ladder. The top is in heaven, the bottom’s on the earth. The ladder’s designed to bring heaven and earth together. Who does that ladder represent? In John 1:51, Jesus said, ‘That ladder represents me. I’m the one going to bring heaven and earth together under God’s authority.’

“You see, there’s a connection between your DNA, that Book and the Lord Jesus Christ. The thing that God wrote in creation reflects what He’s done spiritually in His Word.

*****

“God wrote with His finger the 10 Commandments. By the way, He wrote them on two stones.

“Romans 2:14 says, ‘For when the Gentiles, which have not the law, do by nature the things contained in the law, these, having not the law, are a law unto themselves.’ Any culture you go into, anywhere on the planet, no matter what the level of sophistication is, they all know it’s wrong to murder. They all know it’s wrong to steal, lie. That’s something written into the spiritual DNA of every person. The problem isn’t that they don’t know it; they know it’s WRONG. God fixed you with His Word written into your spiritual DNA.

“Verse 15 says, ‘Which shew the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and their thoughts the mean while accusing or else excusing one another.’ You don’t know these things because of man’s law; you know them because of God’s law and God’s Word. The problem is they hold it in unrighteousness."

A body beyond comprehension

Sure enough they've asked me to come into work two hours early tomorrow since we're having our second "inventory" of the year involving the state, etc. It's always a last-minute thing even though managers know it's coming months in advance. Just what you want--unneeded last-minute pressure for something that didn't have to be a pressure-cooker situation.

*****

Just like God used His hands to form Adam out of the dust of the ground and “fashion” him with an intricate cardiovascular system, respiratory system, muscular system, nervous system, etc., He’s going to do the very same thing with our resurrection body.

“That body you now have is literally going to be beyond comprehension then,” says Richard Jordan. “If you think you’re fearfully and wonderfully made now, just wait ’til you see what’s coming—the systems of the new body will be SO far in advance beyond!”

*****

In the Bible, the Old and New testaments are sprinkled with references to God’s own body features—His head with hair, His face, His eyes, His mouth, His lips, His voice, His nose and nostrils, His hands, His fingers and His feet.

The Apostle Paul tells us in II Corinthians 5 that “we know if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.”

Jordan explains, “That’s where you’re gonna be for eternity and that’s why your body is important. Your earthly body is not just some cloth you exist in—some hapless prison, some meaningless abode that you live in—it has an integral purpose in the plan of God because it’s the vehicle in which He put you without which you’re not complete.

“It’s a required part of your humanity and we’ll be a required part of your glorification in order for you to function in the purpose God has for you. It’s the vehicle of your inner man; the home for your soul and it’s necessary to your soul’s full action and function.

“And that’s why in the intermediate state between death and the resurrection you’re found naked. That is, you’re not ready to go to work yet.”

*****

Paul tells us that what gave him a new perspective on what life was to be in his current body was the knowledge that the Lord will “change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body.”

He writes in II Corinthians 5, “For in this we groan, earnestly desiring to be clothed upon with our house which is from heaven: If so be that being clothed we shall not be found naked.

[4] For we that are in this tabernacle do groan, being burdened: not for that we would be unclothed, but clothed upon, that mortality might be swallowed up of life.

[5] Now he that hath wrought us for the selfsame thing is God, who also hath given unto us the earnest of the Spirit.

[6] Therefore we are always confident, knowing that, whilst we are at home in the body, we are absent from the Lord:

[7] (For we walk by faith, not by sight:)

[8] We are confident, I say, and willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord.

[9] Wherefore we labour, that, whether present or absent, we may be accepted of him.

[10] For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ; that every one may receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad.”

*****

Jordan explains, “Paul’s saying, ‘This hope I have out here, it’s not making me have suicidal kinds of ideas; it’s not making me where I’m discontent with down here and can’t stand to be here. I’ve got a new perspective on what life here is all about. And my living here— I live with eternity in view. I live with the perspective of what’s real, lasting and never-ending.’

“If this body is what you lived in and thought was all there was going to be, or that maybe after this body died you’d come back as a cow or a roach or whatever—you know, the reincarnation routine—you wouldn’t have much of a hope because even when you hope to do better . . .  I mean, (believers in reincarnation) don’t hope to get much higher on the ladder than what they are now and Paul’s talking about sharing God’s glory.”

*****

A favorite story at my church about soul-winning efforts has to do with an aunt who approached her niece while manning the checkout counter at a grocery and said to her, in part, “We’re going to get new bodies and we’re getting out of here!”

The spur-of-the-moment encounter happened shortly after the 1997 Heaven’s Gate suicide scandal (in which cult followers planned their departure in conjunction with the appearance of Comet Hale-Bopp), and the niece, who later got saved, admitted thinking to herself, “My aunt’s gone off her rocker! What’s happened to her!”

*****

Similarly, Jordan tells the story of how when he was 19 and doing handyman work with a friend at a lady’s home, the friend began witnessing to her in the front yard about how he longed to go to heaven and be with the Lord.

“This friend of mine began to wax eloquent and, as I’ve told you before, when you hear Christians talk about, ‘Boy, I just wish the Lord would come today,’ that’s sort of a quasi-Christian suicide. They know you shouldn’t take a .38 and blow your brains out, so the way to practice escapism is, ‘Oh, Lord, please come today,’ and that’s the way this lady took it and she pulled me aside and said, ‘How well do you know him? He needs some help; he’s contemplating suicide.’

“She was just absolutely confident this guy was having mental problems and I said, ‘No, no, no, no.” and she said, ‘Oh, yes he is! He’s only 19 and talking about going NOW—that he hopes to be there today!’

“I got to thinking about that and I thought, ‘You know, lost people could get that idea about you.’ Sometimes we can come across that way.”

*****

When Paul talks about being “absent from the Lord,” and then about being “present with the Lord,” he’s making reference to eyesight absence and eyesight presence.

“You are not in the presence of God as far as sight is concerned today. Peter talks about ‘whom having not seen yet have ye loved.’ When Thomas in John 20 said, ‘I have to put my hand in the place in His side and in the palms of His hand,’ Jesus responded, ‘Here touch me, see me and believe. Blessed are thee that don’t see me and believe.’

“So there’s an issue of ‘walking by faith and not by sight.’ You’ve never seen God, never felt Him, never touched Him, and yet you believe in Him. What kind of a kook is that? Well, you’re not kooky. You’ve got evidence; you’ve got a Book and you believe Him and you bring into your experience by faith the reality of His truth, His Word.

“But you still haven’t seen Him. Now, whatever it is you thought you saw that was Him, wasn’t Him. I know how people are. They say, ‘Well, if God just stood right here!' or, 'I had this vision last night,’ and everything is based upon experience. Your faith is to be founded on what God says."

Fashion statements

I saw this YouTube "short" the other night entitled "What is wrong with Christians?!" and showed a guy in his early 40s with a "Eww, yikes!" kind of expression on his face.

Among other things, this guy wondered why at his little son's soccer games he'd see home-schooled kids with their Christian parents wearing Dockers pants and plaid long-sleeved shirts (for the husbands) and long old-fashioned skirts (for the wives) that he said looked somewhere between "Amish and Prairie."

This instantly reminded me of my first years (starting in 1992) at Shorewood Bible Church on Neva Avenue on the very edge of Chicago near O'Hare Airport. I was introduced to the church by a stranger and had no church prior to that, save for the First Baptist Church in downtown Loudonville, OH where my dad has us attend as children. Oh, and then there was my church from early childhood before we became missionaries in Costa Rica and Ecuador, the Akron Baptist Temple.

At the time in Chicago, I was working as a feature reporter and columnist for the Naperville Sun newspaper in Naperville, the big western suburb and wealthy "bedroom community" of Chicago.

To backtrack, my grandmother was a longtime dress buyer for her Anne Shop boutique women's dress store in Akron, OH that she owned with a partner for decades. Their customer base was mostly older wealthy women and she would travel to Manhattan twice a year (as did her partner at separate times of the year) to buy dresses directly from the designers on 7th Avenue.

My grandmother taught me from the get-go to always look good and dress well, which included dressing "in style."

So, in 1992 the big fashion style was what I called the "Murphy Brown Look," spurred on by Candice Bergen as Murphy Brown in the TV sitcom of the same name that was No. 1 in the country.

Basically, it was a blouse with a blazer and same-color skirt that was above the knee. It was very popular business attire in Chicago and I thought I was just being a fashionable professional by wearing the same.

One of the problems was I have very long legs (at 5' 10" and a half) and with my high heels it just accentuated the shortness of the skirt, especially when I sat down, as in a pew. Of course, I was always wearing panty hose and often tights when it was cold out.

So, no wonder, I wasn't what you call shocked (but still VERY surprised) when my friend Daniel, the same one who introduced me to Shorewood, informed in a delicate way that he had heard some of the older women at the church were wondering why I wore such short skirts.

The funny thing is, as much as I was somewhat disconcerted to hear the "critique," I didn't switch to any old-fashioned clothing. I just knew that my grandmother taught me to be interested in fashion and I didn't look any different than the businesswomen I saw on the subway, or in Union Station to get the train to Naperville, or in Naperville itself, etc. etc.

Being in style only took on a whole new level when I moved to NYC in 1999 and saw how the women there dressed for work, etc. While I was a normal weight coming into town, I naturally thinned down pretty quickly with all the walking (as well as jogging in Central Park almost every other evening) and became svelte enough where I could wear the latest clothing and shoes with model-like flair.

Of course, I was very much hoping to find a man as well as look good for my employers who were constantly sending me to conventions, seminars, press conferences at company headquarters, etc., to act as a PR agent for our trade magazine (Graphic Arts Monthly, covering the commercial printing industry) as well as a reporter and editor.

I only stopped worrying about fashions after quitting my job in 2004 and finding I didn't need to impress anyone anymore or worry about being acceptably dressed for the right people.

Nowadays I NEVER wear a skirt. It's been at least 15 years now I figure, coinciding mostly with me leaving Manhattan for the backwoods of Alabama in 2008. I am a jeans-and-slacks only kind of gal, for better or for worse, not worrying about being "fashionable."

Single because of Harlequin Romance habit? I'll never know

My recent post on hearing Doris Day singing "Que Sera Sera" at the I-75 rest area between Dayton and Cincinnati continues to get "hits" to my surprise. The thing I forgot to include was how when I first got out of the car and headed for the restroom there was a motorcyclist parked near the entrance with his back facing me. The back of his black leather jacket had a very prominent embroidered logo with large letters in a half circle that read, "SATAN'S SIDEKICK".

Of course, I absolutely HAD to check this guy out from the front and he didn't look menacing necessarily but certainly someone you could be scared of. I'd say he was in his mid-50s, weighed maybe 225 pounds and had the usual longish (and graying) beard that many hard-core motorcyclists like to keep. He was looking down at his phone so he didn't notice me looking at him. 

*****

The only books I really wanted to read in my mid-teens were Harlequin Romance paperback novels.

The thing that engaged me was the romance. I especially liked the ones written by Great Britain authors, where you could actually get to the very last page of the paperback before they had their first kiss!

Years later I realized that, between the old classic romance movies I watched on late-night TV and the Harlequin Romances, I might have doomed myself for ever finding a mate!!!

What I remember most is when I slowly, vaguely realized my dad had a sort of unhealthy attraction to me when I was 13-16 and wanted to know where I was all the time (mostly because he was always wanting me to work at his doctor's office), I cleaned out the closet in my little room (my mom converted her sewing room into a bedroom so I could finally be separate from my older sister) and I put a gooseneck reading lamp in it that had an extension cord running to the electric outlet.

I would literally hide in the closet with just that little light going and read my Harlequins without him knowing where I was. The only dead giveaway, and it became the thing that eventually "ratted me out," was my dear Shih-Tsu who would inevitably come scratching at the closet door, wanting me to let her in.

The bottom line is these Harlequins, at a very crucial period in my life, could very well be why I turned out the way I am--a single woman in her 60s who's never been married!

To make a point on that reality, when I had my first boyfriend in my junior year at Ohio State University, he started to really fall for me. He finally let me know this in his own way, and I told him, because I did not share his attachment that way, that he was "not Cary Grant"! You talk about insensitive! I still can't believe that was what I chose to say to him as an explanation.

We happened to be in his car when I said this, on the way home from celebrating his birthday at a fancy seafood restaurant in downtown Columbus (that he paid for), and he later told me that after dropping me back off at the off-campus house I shared with two roommates, he was driving down a street and took the wrapped present I gave him and tossed it out his passenger window as far as he could throw it!

Haunting sin? God doesn't even remember it

New article tomorrow and, in meantime, here’s a post from last year that continues to get really big numbers:

Psalm 103: [10] He hath not dealt with us after our sins; nor rewarded us according to our iniquities.
[11] For as the heaven is high above the earth, so great is his mercy toward them that fear him.
[12] As far as the east is from the west, so far hath he removed our transgressions from us.

You know how far the east is from the west? If you go south far enough, you’ll start going north, but if you start going west, you’ll never go east, explains Richard Jordan.

North and south meet, but east and west never meet. If you go east, you’ll never, ever go west. If you go west, you’ll never go east.

They never meet! That’s how far God has removed our sins from us, according to David. Paul writes in Romans 4: [6] Even as David also describeth the blessedness of the man, unto whom God imputeth righteousness without works,
[7] Saying, Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven, and whose sins are covered.
[8] Blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not impute sin.

You see, the forgiveness is total; it’s complete and you never meet them again. Now you don’t do that, do you? They haunt you, because in your mind you bring those things up. You bring up your failures, the cross words you spoke, the bad attitudes you had, the actions you took that you shouldn’t have, and they can come back from years ago.

They’re there because they’re saying, “Hey, remember this?” Your conscience, your memory is sort of like a picture gallery. You go along and you’ll paint a picture, and it will be a real detailed picture, and you’ll hang it up. You craft your sin, your attitudes, your words, your actions—and then you’ll hang it in the gallery of your memory.

Then you walk on down and you hang another one there and every now and then your conscience will walk through that gallery and it will turn the light on a particular one. You know what God did? He didn’t turn the light out; He took the picture down. He doesn’t remember.

Now, that’s God’s attitude. It’s not just David’s. I’m using Old Testament examples so you understand this is something that didn’t just show up with Paul. This has been God’s attitude on these things all along. We now can understand how He can do it through the blood of Christ, but this has always been God’s promise.

Isaiah 38:17: [17] Behold, for peace I had great bitterness: but thou hast in love to my soul delivered it from the pit of corruption: for thou hast cast all my sins behind thy back.

Hezekiah’s saying, “I got right down in the pit of misery and conviction from my failures.” You delivered me. How? “For thou hast cast all my sins behind thy back.”

If you turn your back to somebody, can you see them? You’re looking at something else. God took your sin and cast them behind His back. He ain’t looking at them. That’s a pretty good deal, because He’s the Creator.

Isaiah 43:25: [25] I, even I, am he that blotteth out thy transgressions for mine own sake, and will not remember thy sins.

“They ain’t there anymore; I’ve removed them from the record.” God Himself is determined not to remember your sins. You see how that word remember is “re” plus “member”? He’s never going to connect your sins to you again. You’re free!

Micah 7: [18] Who is a God like unto thee, that pardoneth iniquity, and passeth by the transgression of the remnant of his heritage? he retaineth not his anger for ever, because he delighteth in mercy.
[19] He will turn again, he will have compassion upon us; he will subdue our iniquities; and thou wilt cast all their sins into the depths of the sea.

You ever been out on a boat and thrown something overboard? Dude, it’s gone. When I was young, I was out fishing on the river with my dad and he got out at the bank while I stayed in the boat waiting. I started playing with his fishing pliers and accidentally dropped them into the water. I saw them sinking and reached down into the water as far as I could to try and grab them but, you know what, they were gone forever.

God says, “You know what I’ve done with your sins? I’ve cast them into the sea.” I couldn’t get those pliers back. God said, “I can’t get your sins back.” That’s what David says.

He’s forgiven your iniquity; He’s covered your sins. He’s put them under the blood; taken them away and He will not impute them to your account because He’s given you His righteousness through the blood of Jesus Christ. That’s the extent, and he says, “Blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not impute sin.”

That ought to thrill your soul. Take you out from under the cloud of your own failure and set you under the sunlight of God’s grace. Absolute, complete, total forgiveness; absolute, complete, irrevocable righteousness of God in Christ.

Locked toward the future

I'm still working on describing my strange "relationship" with--no point in keeping the suspense going--legendary comedian Jonathan Winters (1925-2013), a native of Dayton, OH where I have been living with my mother since COVID broke out and I left Chicago.

Here is a post from a few years back on songs and WW III: 

The more I think about relationships I've had in the past, both with men and women, I can see where some of them were unbalanced, meaning I had more affection for the person than they had for me. They simply meant more to me than I meant to them.

When I first started listening to music, one of the artists I found myself gravitate to was Cat Stevens. A hit I really liked was "On the Road To Find Out."

The lyrics:

But sometimes you have to moan
When nothing seems to suit ya
But nevertheless you know
You're locked towards the future, oh-oh-oh, whoa-whoa

So on and on you go
The seconds tick the time-out
There's so much left to know
And I'm on the road to find out, oh-oh-oh, whoa-whoa

Then I found my head one day
When I wasn't even trying

And here I have to say
'Cause there is no use in lying, lying

Yes, the answer lies within
So why not take a look now?
Kick out the Devil's sin
Pick up, pick up the Good Book now, oh-oh-oh, whoa-whoa

Upon moving to the little farm/resort village of Loudonville, OH at age 10, I wrote a letter to my one friend from a year of living at my grandmother's in Akron, OH. She lived near me and I would ride my bike over to her house to play sometimes in addition to seeing her in my fourth-grade classes.

I told this friend in my letter that Elton John's "Don't Let the Sun Go Down on Me" song was how I was feeling. Part of the song goes:

Don't let the sun go down on me
Although I search myself, it's always someone else I see, yeah
I'd just allow a fragment of your life, to wander free, yeah oh
'Cause losing everything, is like the sun going down on me

No wonder this friend never wrote me back! Of course, I didn't know what the song was about or anything. I just was feeling down after moving to a totally foreign town full of strangers and Elton's new hit was being played on the radio a lot.

I was already down before we moved from my grandmother's. One of my biggest memories from that time, in fact, was when I snuck a pack of cigarettes from my dad's glove compartment and then a book of matches from atop my grandmother's gas oven.

I went to a stream only blocks from her house and then down a secluded embankment to the water's edge. I remember sitting on a rock being really sad and telling God that I didn't like Him anymore.

I tried and tried to get the match to light against the flimsy paper matchbook (from a restaurant) but couldn't make it happen, so I finally gave up and went home, sneaking both the cigarettes and matches back to their original spot.

*****

To completely change subjects, I saw through a YouTube post on WW III a really wild snippet of a message given at a recent U.N. meeting by a man with the country of Nicaragua on a name placard from where he addressed the crowd.

In his comments, which were translated into English, he said he was keeping "our great Ruben Dario in mind," which I learned from a quick search was a Nicaraguan poet (1867-1916).

Here's the clip that was shown:

"A great flight of crows stains the celestial blue.
A thousand-year-old breath brings threats of plague. In the Far East men are being murdered. Has the apocalyptic Antichrist been born? Omens have been witnessed and wonders seen. The return of Christ seems imminent.

"The earth is pregnant with pain. This is the beginning, the dawning of a new world which IS being born, rising from the ashes of anguish and pain. Brothers and sisters, humankind is at a critical time. We are giving birth to a NEW history. To a new global order that is more fair, more collective."

*****

“There is a peculiar condition that reveals how the love of God dwelleth in our hearts," writes a female Christian author from the early 1900s. "When our love is burning strong and bright, and our hunger for our Beloved is deepening, we are more concerned to have Him work IN us and make us to His glory, than we are to work FOR Him . . . "

A hymn from 1864, written by Susan B. Warner, goes:

Jesus bids us shine with a clear, pure light,

1. Like a little candle burning in the night;
   In this world of darkness, we must shine,
   You in your small corner, and I in mine.
2. Jesus bids us shine, then, for all around
3. Many kinds of darkness in this world abound:
   Sin, and want, and sorrow—we must shine,
   You in your small corner, and I in mine.
4. Jesus bids us shine, as we work for Him,
   Bringing those that wander from the paths of sin;
   He will ever help us, if we shine,
   You in your small corner, and I in mine.

Influence of music on me

On the subject of music influencing people, I was nine years old when we first returned from being missionaries in the jungles of Ecuador (HCJB, Shell) and I got my wish for Christmas--a portable record player.

So, what was the first vinyl record I ever purchased? It was a 45 of the 1973 international hit single "Rock On" by David Essex.

The tune starts out: "Hey, kid, rock 'n' roll, rock on

Ooh, my soul
Hey kid, boogie, too, did ya?
Hey, shout, summertime blues
Jump up and down in my blue suede shoes
Hey, kid, rock 'n' roll, rock on"

Now, I did not a know a thing about what this song meant. It was the sound that attracted me. I remember my parents did not care one iota what I purchased from the record store and it could have been anything.

So, here's the real funny part. Sometime after we moved to Loudonville in 1974, I figured out I could have fun by myself (I was a lonely kid at the time) using my mom's old tennis racket to hit tennis balls against the cinder block walls in the basement. 

I would purchase candy cigarettes from the store and "smoke" them as I played tennis with--get this--my two friends who were IMAGINARY! The cigarettes would sometimes break off when the ball came back to me in an uncontrolled way.

Who were they? One was Julie, a hairdresser, and the other was an English rock singer in a rock band whose name was Wesley Essex! Of course this was a made-up name that I gave him.

This would begin a string of "friends" I kept in my head, including Johnny Appleseed, who I would think of as I cycled through the Mohican Forest and countryside around Loudonville where Appleseed was known to traverse and plant apple trees.

Unbelievably, I have kept specific persons in my head in the cities I've lived in, EVEN NOW living in Dayton, Ohio. This person, who I will reveal soon as I collect my thoughts better, is long dead but was a legendary comedian who appeared frequently on Johnny Carson's talk show. He was from Dayton.

*****

In my copy of “The Complete Idiot’s Guide to the Bible,” the chapter on the Song of Solomon has the headline parenthesis (Parental Warning: Explicit Lyrics). Imagine the Bible being censored by today’s standard of what’s “too sexual”!

The authors, supposed experts in the Bible with all kinds of accolades to their credit, have no real idea what the book means. They even admit as much, writing, “And what is the song about? Love, obviously—but is it about ordinary romantic love, or is it an allegory? Some say the song is about the relationship of love between God and the nation of Israel, or Christ and the Church his bride, or Christ and the individual.”

The passage goes on, “These days a woman might not be as happy to hear that her hair is like a flock of goats, her teeth are like a flock of sheep, her temples are like the halves of a pomegranate, her neck is like a tower, or her breasts are like two fawns. (Song of Songs 4:1-7).  The description sounds like Picasso’s kind of woman. Really, the Lover (the man) is praising the Beloved’s flowing black hair, lovely white teeth, rosy face, majestic bearing, and soft, enticing body.”

*****

Of course, the writers don’t even touch on any prophetic value of the book, which happens to serve as one of God’s many biblical “dress rehearsals” for the last days and the Second Coming.

As Richard Jordan explained in a study from the Book of Hosea, “The Song of Solomon is one of the songs of Israel and it’s a prophetic song about the last days of Israel. It’s about the ‘little flock’ or the ‘believing remnant’ in Israel resisting being seduced away by the Antichrist and how the Lord Jesus Christ, the real bridegroom, keeps their heart fixed on Him. It describes how they face the seduction attempts and how the Lord Jesus Christ, the real Christ, will protect them from it.

“When you study a book like Song of Solomon, it’s not just a love story to tell a man how to love his wife or a wife how to love her husband. Now, you can do that stuff, I’m not recommending against it, I’m just saying that’s not what it’s for in the Bible.

“So when you find a passage like Hosea and he says, ‘Come, and let us return unto the LORD: for he hath torn, and he will heal us; he hath smitten, and he will bind us up.’ The issue here is, ‘Come back, Lord, come back, and save us and deliver us and revive us up.’

Song of Solomon 6:13 says, "Return, return, O Shulamite; return, return, that we may look upon thee. What will ye see in the Shulamite? As it were the company of two armies."

Odd coincidences--'Resident Evil', 'Biological War' and Taylor Swift's 'Patient Zero'

With all the news coverage of a potential pneumonic plague outbreak in Siberia, I found this commentary from a Christian YouTuber tonight very interesting:

Resident Evil, released September 18, is a movie based on a video game where an outbreak turns people into zombies and other kinds of mutations. Oddly enough, the outbreak started in the video game through an organization that's pure evil, but in the movie the organization is basically a bunch of bumbling fools. One of the scientists accidentally drops the virus because the floor is slippery. I said to myself, "That's a complete 180 from how the outbreak started in the video game."

And why did they change it? Maybe it was a director's artistic view or maybe it was Hollywood being Hollywood, showing us what's going to happen ahead of time. I just find it to be such an interesting quote-unquote "coincidence" that the worker handling the virus drops it, the vial shatters and then the virus begins to spread.

Talking about coincidences, there was a book that came out by author Annie Jacobsen on July 28th of this year called "Biological War." If you go to Amazon, a description of the book talks about a global infection and it gives multiple scenarios, for example, a lab accident.

Looking up key details of this book, a synopsis reads, "At a biosafety level 4 containment facility in Siberia, a single laboratory worker accidentally releases a sophisticated, genetically engineered strain of the pneumonic plague and passes away from the exposure. The result: the pathogen escapes the facility and sparks a global catastrophe that collapses modern society."

But there's even another eerie coincidence. We had high ritualist Taylor Swift release a song single on September 25th that just happens to be called "Patient Zero."

Even Swifties have taken notice of this with posts on Reddit like, "Taylor releases a single and a week later there's this plague in Russia. Her mind, her power."

They see her as some kind of god. Now, in this song she's not actually sick or infected; it's all metaphorical because she falls for a toxic guy and she believes she's infected with toxic love.

We all know what Patient Zero means. It's a person who's been identified as infected with an illness or disease during an outbreak. 

The dates are also very interesting too because the song "Patient Zero" was released on September 25 and the whole incident with this test tube at this lab started on September 25. The song reaches No. 1 in the United Kingdom on October 2, the same date the woman who had dropped the vial passed away.

Music MAKERS

(sorry for the many delays now in getting out a new article, which I will have tomorrow--no more giving up! I've had trouble getting the writing to come out again, etc., etc . . . and realize I've got to look at it differently)

Last week, my pastor brought up the subject of music, calling it “one of the dangers nobody seems to be alerting parents or Christian leaders about.”

“It’s just fascinating to me how often and how thoroughly regular people miss the danger in music. They’ll protect their kids in every way except that. A lot of times parents don’t protect their children because they themselves are not protected against it.”

*****

An old saying is, “When the devil fell out of heaven he landed in the choir loft.” We all know Lucifer was THE superstar musician.

On her Christian website Crossroad, Norwegian author Berit Kjos writes:

“Man's attempts to transcend the boundaries of the physical world through music are intricately interwoven with the history of mankind. While God encouraged His people to enter His presence through genuine worship and songs of praise, Satan offered seductive counterfeits.

“Thus, pagan societies used music as a conduit to help them connect directly with the occult spirit realm. Neville Drury, who promotes New Age meditation and visualization in his book, Music for Inner Space, points to ancient cultures as models for today:

" ‘In societies where magic and myth define and influence everyday existence man aspires to be like the gods and to imitate them.... [Magical] incantations and songs are a source of Power.’

“In primitive Africa and South America, witch doctors function as mediators between the tribe and demonic spirits. The sacred drum (credited with magical powers) together with hallucinatory drugs (sorcery) induces trances, which transports him into the spirit world where he receives occult guidance and power.

“Nanci des Gerlaise, author of Muddy Waters, is the daughter and granddaughter of Cree medicine men. Now, as a believer in Christ, Nanci warns others about the occult music in Native Spirituality:

" ‘Now when I hear powwow music, my spirit recoils, and I know that it is because there are spiritual forces of darkness at work. Some people, even some Christians, believe there are two different kinds of powwows -- one used only for entertaining tourists and the other for traditional competitions. Frankly, it makes no difference to the spirit world which version is used as long as there are drums and chanting.’ ”

*****

"Music is an essential part of life. Every piece of living creation has music to it; has a vibration—that’s what music is,” Richard Jordan says. “Music is really just math in regard to the tonal vibrations.

“When the Bible says back in Ezekiel 36 about the trees singing, well, they literally do. Music is so engrained in the creation that it’s everywhere.

“So when you see music, people call it ‘the universal language.’ You can affect people with music. One of the most dangerous things that happens with your children is the music they listen to, because it communicates ideas and you don’t even need to have words to go along with it.

“Listen, baroque music is considered to be the highest form of musical expression, but Mozart was an ungodly wreck.

"They’ve done experiments where if people have Mozart in the background, they actually do better in their learning curve. You think, ‘Oh, that must be godly music.’ You ought to go find out something about Mozart!

*****

“My point is, in I Chronicles 24, David organized the priests. Why didn’t he just let them do it any way they wanted to do it? Because God is ‘not the author of confusion.’ So in chapter 25, he’s going to organize the music ministry. He talks about the choir directors and the singers.

“When you hear about this guy, Asaph, understand this about him—he was not just a musical director.

“As I Chronicles 25:1 says, ‘Moreover David and the captains of the host separated to the service of the sons of Asaph, and of Heman, and of Jeduthun, who should prophesy with harps, with psalteries, and with cymbals: and the number of the workmen according to their service was:’

“Notice what they’re doing. They’re not just singing; they’re prophesying. In other words, God’s Word was being communicated in the psalms that they sang.

“This is a teaching prophesy, but I want you to notice what he does in Psalm 78. What he does, if you read down through that chapter, what’s literally here in Psalm 78, is a recap of the history of Israel from the Exodus all the way to through the reign of David.

“This tells you that from Exodus to II Samuel where David is, it’s used here as a prophetic parable to teach Israel about what’s going to happen to her in the ‘last days.’ That’s why Hosea says, ‘As in the days of your youth . . . ’

“Hosea 2:15 says, ‘And I will give her her vineyards from thence, and the valley of Achor for a door of hope: and she shall sing there, as in the days of her youth, and as in the day when she came up out of the land of Egypt.’

“Psalm 105 and 106 are others recounting the history of Israel. Those psalms are laying out a dress rehearsal for what’s going to happen in the ‘last days.’ ”

*****

“Music is not an issue of sacred and secular. Lazy Christians have made secular and sacred out of life, but you don’t have a sacred life and a secular life; you only have a life in Christ, and in the Bible music is music. It’s not church music and ‘Saturday-night-boogie-oogie-woogie’ music.”

Job. 22: 15-17: “Hast thou marked the old way which wicked men have trodden?
[16] Which were cut down out of time, whose foundation was overflown with a flood:
[17] Which said unto God, Depart from us: and what can the Almighty do for them?”

“They’re saying exactly what the people in Genesis 21 say, but the context is some people who were overthrown in the days of Noah in the Flood.

“What I’m trying to get you to see is God created music and from the creation to the Flood, music didn’t go up, it went down and it degenerated from the Creation morning until it debauched the world and filled it with violence.

"They weren’t praising God; they didn’t want to know Him and He wound up wiping them out. You have to be careful about music. Just because you like it don’t make it good for you.”

*****

From the Book of Daniel, we know Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar, a picture-type of the Antichrist, employed loud, beat-driven music to engender the mass idolatrous worship of his “beast” image by all the rulers of the nations—it’s judges, police, politicians, etc.

“It was a regular ‘rock festival,’ ” writes Noah Hutchings in his 1998 book, Daniel the Prophet. “Now, why would Nebuchadnezzar accompany this anti-God mass with loud music? Satan knows the power of music to stir the emotions of man and to deaden his natural senses.

 “Loud and discordant music brings out the worst beastlike qualities in man and drives him on to godless pursuits and inhuman behavior. It is no wonder that Nebuchadnezzar used loud and harsh music at his worship service that was base and godless. And this is why we question the wisdom of using modern rock music in the worship service today.”

*****

When Daniel’s three Hebrew compatriots held in Babylonian captivity—Shadrach, Meshach and Abed-nego—remained true to God and refused to worship Nebby’s image, they were by the king’s law to be cast into a fiery furnace.

 Hutchings writes, “The king was absolutely furious, but he doubtless liked his three Jewish governors, and he said to them, ‘I’ll tell you what I’m going to do. I’ll have the band play my song one more time, and if you fall down and worship the image, we will forget all about this first offense. But if you are still stubborn and refuse to worship the image, when the last note is played I will order the guards to overpower you and throw you into the furnace.’

“We notice in these last verses which we read that the musical portion of this false and idolatrous worship service is stressed twice again. Music can be used to create any type of specific mental attitude that is desired . . ."