City bus swipes me plus complete apostasy

One rainy morning at Ohio State I was riding my bike to a Journalism Law exam and got hit by a city bus on High Street somewhere in front of the Ohio Union.

I was riding southbound when the COTA bus pulled out of a bus stop and sideswiped me as it gained speed to pass me.

As I've liked to tell people over the years, showing them my scar, "I went flying like Pee-Wee Herman in Pee Wee's Big Adventure."

The thing is I was wearing a heavy rubbery rain slicker and in my backpack on my back was a very large and heavy law-case textbook.

I actually landed on my back and the book kept my head from slamming into the pavement! I was looking up on the sidewalk outside the student union and a small crowd of students immediately gathered, circling me as they looked down at me to see if I was okay.

Amazingly the first thing I uttered in my dazed state was, "Where's my bike?" The bus driver finally stopped further down the street--I don't know if somebody had to tell him he hit a cyclist.

I could see him walking toward me on the sidewalk and eventually he was in the mix with the concerned students, looking down at me without saying anything, which I remember finding irritating.

An ambulance soon arrived and I was taken to University Hospital where I was told I had a shattered left elbow and would need surgery the next morning. They put in a plate.

As a quick aside, the hospital called my parents' home in Loudonville, OH to tell them I was injured in a bus accident and my sister picked up the phone. She went on to call my mom, who was working as the receptionist at my dad's doctor office, and told her all panicky, "Lisa got run over by a bus." As I've written about before, my sister had learning disabilities.

So here's where I have to fill you in on what my life at the time was like. I was a political humor columnist on the editorial page of the Lantern student newspaper and getting HUGE readership as well as many letters-to-the-editor either applauding me or expressing outrage over something I wrote.

I don't have a good memory for what I wrote about and, as I informed my classmates at the reunion to their laughter, a friend (I never did find out who it was) helping me move from one Chicago lakefront apartment to another in 1997 inadvertently threw in the garbage my Hefty lawn bag crammed full of my clips saved starting back in high school.

What I can tell you is a lot of my writings were based on me being a Christian conservative spoofing liberals. I even had a column poking fun at feminist causes that led to me actually being part of a mid-term exam in a Women's Study class.

(to be continued tomorrow and below is a 2024 article entitled "Corruption from the inside" that got very high numbers)

Hosea 4 ends with, [16] For Israel slideth back as a backsliding heifer: now the LORD will feed them as a lamb in a large place.

[17] Ephraim is joined to idols: let him alone.
[18] Their drink is sour: they have committed whoredom continually: her rulers with shame do love, Give ye.
[19] The wind hath bound her up in her wings, and they shall be ashamed because of their sacrifices.

This is describing how the rulers are going to rob and pillage and oppress the people. They’re going around trying to get more, saying, "Give me, give me!" That’s the way they were. Always out to get more. They loved their bellies.

Hosea 5: [9] Ephraim shall be desolate in the day of rebuke: among the tribes of Israel have I made known that which shall surely be.

[10] The princes of Judah were like them that remove the bound: therefore I will pour out my wrath upon them like water.
[11] Ephraim is oppressed and broken in judgment, because he willingly walked after the commandment.

That’s not the commandment of God he’s walking after. He’s walking after the commandment to do what verse 10 says, "Remove the boundaries." It’s the commandment the false prophets have given him.

******

You read some of this stuff in Micah, especially in chapter 6, and my blood runs cold when I watch what goes on in the news around us today. I’m so grateful to know my citizenship is in heaven, not on Planet Earth.

Micah 6:16 says, "For the statutes of Omri are kept, and all the works of the house of Ahab, and ye walk in their counsels; that I should make thee desolation and the inhabitants thereof an hissing: therefore ye shall bear the reproach of my people."

After he’s talked to them about the bogus currency and all the other things that are happening, he says, "For the statutes of Omri."

Notice their walking in the statutes. When it says in Hosea that they "willingly walk after the commandments," it’s the commandments and statutes of Omri in the house of Ahab.

Omri’s dynasty with Ahab and Jezebel made Baal worship the official religion of Israel. That nation’s in the complete and total grip of the Adversary and God destroys them from that internal destruction. This is this multi-generational problem; it didn’t just come up in one generation.

What’s happened now is Israel is completely taken away into that apostate system and they willingly walk in these statutes, and they willingly give their allegiance to the Baal worship system, and there’s a dynasty of it.

It’s not one generation; it’s a long-term infection and the only answer for it is to destroy the nation; the corrupt government established by it so they could establish a new government.

*****
Hosea 5:12: [12] Therefore will I be unto Ephraim as a moth, and to the house of Judah as rottenness. 

God says, "Because they’re in complete apostasy, I’m going to eat away; I’m going to destroy them."
A moth and rottenness. That’s stuff that corrupts you from inside. It’s not like somebody just comes along with a blowtorch and burns up your clothes. That moth is in your closet and you go to take something out of the closet and what happens? Now it’s all holes.

When Ephraim saw his sickness and Judah saw his wound, we read that passage in Isaiah 1 about how the whole body is sick from the top of the head down to the bottom of the feet. There’s a spiritual sickness that’s overtaken them and when Ephraim saw his sickness and Judah saw his wound, they wept.

Hosea 5:13-15: [13] When Ephraim saw his sickness, and Judah saw his wound, then went Ephraim to the Assyrian, and sent to king Jareb: yet could he not heal you, nor cure you of your wound.

[14] For I will be unto Ephraim as a lion, and as a young lion to the house of Judah: I, even I, will tear and go away; I will take away, and none shall rescue him.
[15] I will go and return to my place, till they acknowledge their offence, and seek my face: in their affliction they will seek me early.

******

Bible commentaries say that that name Jareb, if you count it out in numerics, comes out to be 666. Who would that be? The Assyrian (Isaiah 10, Micah 5) is identified as the Antichrist.

So what does Israel do to solve their problem? They turn to Satan’s program. They turn to the wrong guy. The false messiah. ‘Yet could he not heal you, nor cure you of your wound.’

They’re going to look to the Antichrist for help and you know what they’re going to find? There’s no help there. Verse 14 mentions the lion. When Nebuchadnezzar comes against Judah, he’s described in the Book of Jeremiah 50 as a lion. I Peter 5 describes Satan as a ‘roaring lion.’

The lion is the Antichrist and that’s what God’s going to bring against Israel to tear them; to devour them. He says, "I’m going to tear and go away." Now, that’s the point here.

Verse15: "I will go and return to my place till they acknowledge their offence." You can circle that word "till" because there’s the "nevertheless." There’s the hope.

Notice what God’s going to do. He’s going to go away; ‘return to my place.’ II Chronicles 36:23 says, "Thus saith Cyrus king of Persia, All the kingdoms of the earth hath the LORD God of heaven given me; and he hath charged me to build him an house in Jerusalem, which is in Judah. Who is there among you of all his people? The LORD his God be with him, and let him go up."

God had said to Israel, "I’m going to give you a place where you can meet with me." That was the door of the tabernacle. Then when they built the permanent temple, it was at the temple.

And God placed His name in Jerusalem; the place where He chose to put His dwelling. Now He says, "I’m going to leave and I’m going to change my place of residence from here to my place, meaning heaven."

He’s no longer "the Lord God of all the earth"; now He’s "the Lord God of heaven." The reason for that is explained in Hosea 5:14-15. He’s forsaken the earth and gone on exile.

Where was God supposed to be? Jerusalem. Where was He? He’s in heaven. He told the disciples, "When you pray, say, ‘Our Father which art in heaven.’ " That isn’t a good thing. He was supposed to be Emmanuel—"God with us.;"

Ran into Doris Day today

I realize in finishing up my recap of the Ohio State reunion event for Lantern newspaper staffers ('85-'87), I did not explain about my one classmate's first comment upon seeing me after 40 years, which was, "The question is did Lisa hit the bus or did the bus hit Lisa?" So, I've got that coming.

Got a rare chance to drive across the southern border of Ohio into Kentucky today and boy was it a splendid afternoon here. I always marvel at the fact that you make a curve on I-71 heading back north and there's the city skyline on Cincinnati appearing out of nowhere in the most postcard-fashion splendor you could imagine.

It makes me think of when you drive to Pittsburgh on the Penn-Lincoln Parkway and go through Fort Pitt tunnel to find the skyline on the other side in a true cinematic reveal.

"After about 3,600 feet, the tunnel opens suddenly to daylight, and Pittsburgh’s skyline, rivers, bridges, and downtown burst into view," says an AI overview.

I had to go to the bathroom heading back north to Dayton and so I stopped at the rest area on I-75, something I've only done maybe twice since moving to this area of Ohio six years ago during Covid.

What was cool is they have a big tourist display outside showing the "glaciated" and "unglaciated" plateaus of Ohio and there's a speaker box on the ground playing music from Ohio natives.

Just as I was approaching the parking slots in front after being inside, I could hear Doris Day, a native of Cincinnati, singing her most famous tune, "Que Sera Sera."

The classic refrain is, "Whatever will be will be. The future's not ours to see." Doris was my favorite actress when I was in high school and I wanted to be like her. I know part of my affinity for her came from knowing she was an Ohioan. 

(will have new Bible stuff tomorrow. in meantime . . . )

The Bible teaches there is a big difference between human happiness and godly joy. What gave Paul the ability to live in whatever circumstances and have joy was from not evaluating life the way human viewpoint does, on the basis of simple happiness.

Human happiness is about meeting personal expectations and having circumstances match desires, explains Preacher Richard Jordan. It means I’m happy when life and others respond the way I want them to, or expect them to respond.

God’s purpose in your life has nothing to do with making you happy. People say, "Well, certainly God wants me to be happy." If God’s goal was to make/keep you happy, then suffering wouldn’t have any real purpose in your life. In fact, it would be completely counterproductive.

Real joy is about meeting God’s expectations, not yours, and having done God’s will. God’s purpose is to use me to bring glory to His name, and in every circumstance of my life that’s my purpose, my privilege. I don’t need to look at circumstances and evaluate whether this is a place I can rejoice or not.

Glory is an outward expression. Rejoicing is an inner attitude. So the inner attitude of joy results in me being able to express that outward demonstration of that joy in times of trouble, difficulty and pressure, or persecution.

It isn’t enough just to say "tribulation works patience"; it’s KNOWING that it does that causes us to be able to have the glory—the outward expression of this joy in the midst of trouble.

All of your joy is eventually going to have to be based in who God has made you and what He’s going to do with you in Christ. Every time in Paul’s epistles when you see the issue of hope, it’s always looking to the future. It’s a Rapture-resurrection kind of a look.

Always talking to God about what His word says about the circumstances I’m in gives me the ability to continually endure through the trouble because I’ve got a hope out there in the end that fills my heart with rejoicing. My joy is going to come from the sufficiency of His grace."

*****

We instinctively withdraw our hand if it’s getting burned, right? But when it comes to tribulation, God’s attitude and perspective is, "No, I don’t want you to behave like that,” explains Alex Kurz.

There’s a direct correlation with the activity of godliness and the sanctifying effect that tribulations now have in life. It isn’t something that we dread. It isn’t something we run away from. It’s something that we can not only welcome, but we recognize we’re more than conquerors. God says there is a specific provision He gives to us so we can triumph in life.

Instead of looking at tribulation as something to avoid, we’re to see its value. It’s no longer an enemy. I don’t have to fear or dread. I now can welcome those tribulations.

*****

Hebrews 5:7 is a powerful, powerful verse of our Lord Jesus Christ: "Who in the days of his flesh, when he had offered up prayers and supplications with strong crying and tears unto him that was able to save him from death, and was heard in that he feared."

He was a man of sorrows. Jesus was acquainted with grief. You don’t think He was touched by the effects of living in a sin-cursed world or the emotional and psychological trauma; the rejection and alienation. He knows--He feels hurt. He feels pain.

Verse 5:8 says, "Though he were a Son, yet learned he obedience by the things which he suffered."

He didn’t succumb. While He’s in pain, while He’s in anguish, while He’s experiencing the trauma, you know what He chooses to do? "I’m going to learn." It’s a learning experience!

*****

The theme of II Corinthians actually has to do with sufferings, tribulations and infirmities. It’s probably the darkest epistle the Apostle Paul wrote.

He starts chapter 1 with, "Blessed be God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies, and the God of all comfort; Who comforteth us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort them which are in any trouble, by the comfort wherewith we ourselves are comforted of God."

Drop down to verse 9: ‘But we had the sentence of death in ourselves, that we should not trust in ourselves, but in God which raiseth the dead:
[10] Who delivered us from so great a death, and doth deliver: in whom we trust that he will yet deliver us.’

We’re going to learn to trust what God has to say about tribulations. Our flesh and our emotions, which are committed to avoiding all that . . . we now can learn what God says about it. So now we can tackle it with this renewed understanding; this renewed knowledge about it. Don’t fear it; don’t dread it.

Paul says, "I’m now going to trust what God says." If He says tribulation is ordained to be a spiritual benefit and blessing, are we going to believe what He says about it? We have to readjust the way we think about the problems of life.

God will not remove your affliction. Paul says three times, "Lord Jesus, please," and Christ responds, "Paul, you aren’t thinking about what’s happening in your life." Jesus Christ reminds Paul about the available inner-man capacity he already had: "Paul, you’ve already got something; I don’t need to do any more."

God will not miraculously reach down into your life and remove your problem or shield you from the problem. He doesn’t give us immunity or a hedge of protection. God said, "It’s a blessing."

What do we KNOW? "Hey, it’s going to work something!" When bad things happen in your life, it has absolutely nothing to do with God’s displeasure. It has everything to do with God’s delight in producing something in the core of your inner man.

“If I’m going to glory," Paul says, "I’m going to glory in the things concerning my infirmities. God’s not angry with me; He’s not angry with you."

"So wait a minute, Paul, why do you look like a physical mess?!" Paul’s going to say, "You know what, that’s my certificate."

Acts 14:22 says, "Confirming the souls of the disciples, and exhorting them to continue in the faith, and that we must through much tribulation enter into the kingdom of God."

It says, "We must." Is that optional? It’s a reality. The sooner we accept the fact that tribulation is part and parcel of our experience and edification, the sooner we can employ the very doctrines God says we need in order to glory in and see the value, worth, profit and advantage in it.

*****

In the godhead, every member of the godhead—the "life of the godhead" is that everybody lives for the benefit of the other.

Everybody lives with a confident expectation of what the wisdom plan is, and they all live in faith in the Word, in the plan and in the work of the Son; they all work together, says Richard Jordan.

That’s why Paul starts Ephesians 3:12, “In whom,” meaning in this eternal purpose that the Father has in His Son, secured by the Spirit: [12] In whom we have boldness and access with confidence by the faith of him.

You see, it’s IN whom and it’s the faith of HIM. For you and me it all focuses on the Word, the Son, the one who is the bridge for you and me. The one by whom we have ACCESS through the Spirit unto the Father.

The Lord Jesus Christ is the mediator. He’s the one who brings all of that life to you and me. Romans 8:38 is a strangely wonderful verse. Paul says: [38] For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come.

He goes on: [39] Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Where’s the love of God? It’s in a person! It’s in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ and when you got saved, where did God put you? He put you in Christ and you participate in His divine life; His relationships and all of the relationships that Jesus Christ has with the Father and the Spirit, we share.

Colossians 1:27: [27] To whom God would make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles; which is Christ in you, the hope of glory:

Galatians 2: [20] I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.

“Nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me.” You see that? He’s our life. He’s the one who gives us the boldness, the access, the confidence. Don’t spend your life trying to become something God’s already made you.

Spend your life living in the reality of who He’s made you and walk by faith in the details of your life—in EVERY detail of your life—because in every detail and in every decision you make, and every choice you face, and every obstacle you have to overcome, and every blessing you can enjoy, in all of those He is our life and we carry Him into life as we walk by faith in the reality of His grace.

That’s what the Christian life is about. It’s not tithing, it’s not religious ordinances etc., etc. We’re not doing things to get something from God. That’s why people do those things. We’re simply being who we are and we get to be that because of our faith in Him. 

Christ, our near kinsman

(note: Was awakened before 7 this morning with a phone call from my manager asking if I could come in early due to a co-worker leaving during her shift because she reportedly "felt ill." There was "truck," meaning boxes of goods from the warehouse, on the sales floor that needed stocking before customers' started coming in. So, what did I learn as the day progressed? At least two other employees from other departments left during their shift due to "feeling ill." One even said they thought maybe they had food poisoning. I've been at the company 5 years and remember well how when it's football season and the Cincinnati Bengals have a big game on TV (they lost to the Steelers) and it just happens to be a gorgeous sunny, warm Fall day with low humidity . . . )

Everybody’s worrying about women preachers and they aren’t legitimate; that’s rebellion against the structure God gave. But the work of the ministry couldn’t work without the ladies, says Richard Jordan.

In the genealogy of the Lord Jesus Christ, the lineage of the Messiah, there are five women and two of them were Gentiles.

How did Tamar get there? She got there because of her sinfulness, the wickedness she engaged in to trick her way into the genealogy. There’s God forgiving sinners, including sinners.

Every time you see Rahab in the Bible she’s called Rahab the Harlot. There’s God accepting Believers no matter who they are.

Then there’s Ruth, the Moabitess. Ruth 1:4: [4] And they took them wives of the women of Moab; the name of the one was Orpah, and the name of the other Ruth: and they dwelled there about ten years.

Ruth 1:16: [16] And Ruth said, Intreat me not to leave thee, or to return from following after thee: for whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge: thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God:

That’s not a marriage vow, as people have been told through the years. That’s a daughter-in-law telling her mother-in-law, “I want to go with you because your god is the God of gods; the God of Israel.”

So she’s going to claim status as a Moabite. Lot’s two girls commit incest with their father and have children and the Ammonites and the Moabites come from Lot’s incest with his daughters.

Deuteronomy 23:3: [3] An Ammonite or Moabite shall not enter into the congregation of the LORD; even to their tenth generation shall they not enter into the congregation of the LORD for ever:

The law says Ruth can’t have a possession in the land for 10 generations. So, Ruth goes back into the land with Naomi, understanding the limitations; the encumbrances on her.

Ruth 2: [1] And Naomi had a kinsman of her husband's, a mighty man of wealth, of the family of Elimelech; and his name was Boaz.

Now, Boaz is a kinsman of Ruth’s husband. Naomi says, “He can help you.”

Ruth 2: [19] And her mother in law said unto her, Where hast thou gleaned to day? and where wroughtest thou? blessed be he that did take knowledge of thee. And she shewed her mother in law with whom she had wrought, and said, The man's name with whom I wrought to day is Boaz.
[20] And Naomi said unto her daughter in law, Blessed be he of the LORD, who hath not left off his kindness to the living and to the dead. And Naomi said unto her, The man is near of kin unto us, one of our next kinsmen.

That term “kinsman redeemer”--Leviticus 25 says that in Israel if you had land and its been put in jeopardy . . . God’s justice set up some requirements to redeem that land from the jeopardy.

A kinsman redeemer had to have three qualifications. He had to be your nearest kinfolk. No. 2 he had to be wealthy, he had to be able to redeem the land and No. 3, he had to be willing to do it.

Boaz is wealthy, he’s got the money, but then there’s somebody else who is a nearer kin. Boaz is second in line. In chapter 4 he goes and talks to the guy and says, “Here, you’ve got to redeem this,” and the guy says, “I can’t; I’m not able. It’s going to mar my inheritance.”

Now Boaz is No. 1. Paul says in Ephesians 1: [7] In whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace;

Jesus Christ as the Redeemer is our kinsman redeemer. He is our near kinsman; that’s why Hebrews 2 says: [16] For verily he took not on him the nature of angels; but he took on him the seed of Abraham.
[17] Wherefore in all things it behoved him to be made like unto his brethren, that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God, to make reconciliation for the sins of the people.

Hebrews 1, talking about the Lord Jesus: [3] Who being the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high;
[4] Being made so much better than the angels, as he hath by inheritance obtained a more excellent name than they.

Jesus Christ is God but He’s also a man. He became our near kinsman. He’s both God and man in one person.  He can take God by the hand and you by the hand and He’s the connection. He’s able, because what did He do? You know the blood Jesus shed was God’s blood because He is God.

Acts 20:28: [28] Take heed therefore unto yourselves, and to all the flock, over the which the Holy Ghost hath made you overseers, to feed the church of God, which he hath purchased with his own blood.

You know what, Boaz takes the curse of the law away and provides redemption for Ruth. It’s amazing.

In Ruth 4 Pharez is their son: [17] And the women her neighbours gave it a name, saying, There is a son born to Naomi; and they called his name Obed: he is the father of Jesse, the father of David.
[18] Now these are the generations of Pharez: Pharez begat Hezron,
[19] And Hezron begat Ram, and Ram begat Amminadab,
[20] And Amminadab begat Nahshon, and Nahshon begat Salmon,
[21] And Salmon begat Boaz, and Boaz begat Obed,
[22] And Obed begat Jesse, and Jesse begat David.

If you count from Pharez to David you know how many generations that is? 10. There goes the curse of the law off of that line and it was Boaz, the kinsman redeemer, who took the curse away and let Ruth be in the lineage.

Romans 8: [3] For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh:
[4] That the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.

Jesus Christ took all the demands of the law and took them out of the way because He did them—perfectly, completely fulfilled them. He was without sin.

A new tack, thanks to Ohio State

For quite a few years now I've been lamenting to myself, "Boy, if I could just be around a group of journalists, I'd be in my element and I'd get so much juice out of it."

The unexpected Ohio State reunion (meaning I didn't find out about it until very recently when I unexpectedly went to Facebook, something I've rarely done in the past couple of years, and saw the invitation) I just had with my classmates the other weekend could not have been more rejuvenating from this perspective: I realized what made me who I became.

My dad attended the University of Michigan and when I applied to Michigan in 1982 I was accepted, but my dad said he would not pay for out-of-state tuition. I then chose to attend Ohio University in Athens, OH, but it didn't work out at all.

So, in a struggle with unhappiness and discouragement that I clearly remember, I decided to transfer to Ohio State. This changed the whole trajectory of my life! I realize today that I would have turned out quite different had I gone to Michigan! I would have been a different person today.

The thing that made Ohio State so great for me, looking back, is it really is a city inside a city--the capital of Ohio, in fact. People agree "Hang On, Sloopy" is the state fight song for good reason. I was free to explore anything and everything there it was so open as a campus. The attitude was, "Be who you want to be."

When I took my own little tour of campus the other weekend I walked in the rain down 18th Avenue from High Street to the Journalism Building, which is at the end of the street, and all the buildings on the street came right back to me.

As I told classmates that evening, at our final outing to see the OSU-Texas game on TV, the thing that threw me about finally coming upon the J-School was there was no bike rack out front. That was one of my biggest memories. I would always be locking up my bike when I got there, either to attend a class or coming in with a fresh story to write up for the Lantern as a campus reporter.

I walked around to the main entrance of the building on Neil Avenue and peeked inside the locked doors to see the same old highly polished linoleum floors I remember. It instantly brought back to me the times I would sit on that linoleum floor and wait for the faculty staff offices to open in the morning so I could make an impromptu appointment to see my favorite professor, Henry Schulte.

In my early days, I was always looking for him to go over a story element with me and tell me if I was on the right track, or if I had "holes" that needed filling in. Thankfully he was always delighted to help me and, honestly, I don't think there were any students at the time craving his perspective/input more than I was.

One of the best moments for me at the reunion was talking "shop" with my fellow classmate, Beth, who dated back to the very beginning of my Journalism classes, about the craft of writing. She was a star pupil and I always looked up to her.

After initially working as a business reporter for the newspaper in Cape Cod, Beth went on to write award-winning fiction books and has been interviewed about her writing many times in her hometown of Boston where she still lives.

I told her that I didn't know anything about what she had been up to since graduation, only finding out via Facebook since learning of the reunion (which Beth actually planned) that she was writing books.

I told her I read one interview with her online in which she said she learned to treat writing like her penchant for long-distance running. In essence, just keep going no matter how you're feeling.

I said, "That's been my whole problem. I let my emotions get in the way." The other problem I have is I lack self-confidence, something I've dealt with my whole life. In fact, my mom's told me many times that when she would meet with my teachers during my childhood, they would often note, "Lisa lacks self-confidence."

But, as I told Beth, seeing campus again reminded me of when I trained for a triathlon as a senior and me and another girl I trained with would get up super-early, as in 6 a.m., and run the track inside Ohio Stadium before our morning classes. They actually let students do that sort of thing! We would also run the bleacher steps.

It's funny how last year at this time I wrote on this blog about my self-concocted "near-death experience" where I went home to Loudonville, Ohio for the first time in 24 years and that I prayed to God (at a special place in the forest where I would always pray), "I don't want to be a writer anymore--it's too much pressure."

Now, thanks in part to the reunion, I'm thinking more and more, "What are you so scared of?!! Just do it and let the pieces fall where they may! Pretend you're back at OSU inside the stadium, training for a triathlon." 

I'm going to make a commitment to myself to write each day on this blog about personal things (even if it's just a paragraph or two) in addition to posting material about the Bible and current events, etc. So, until tomorrow . . . 

For Believers, the knowledge of what we have as our future heavenly inheritance is THE motivator to endure the pressures of our present life.

“The sufferings in this world simply aren’t worthy of even being considered with the glories that are ours in Christ," my pastor always likes to remind.

“If you understand your position in Christ, and the fact that you’ve been made an heir of God--but not just that, a joint-heir with Christ—you know EVERYTHING that belongs to Him belongs to you!

“That’s what’s called ‘co-per stirpes’ in legal jargon. It’s to have equal shares. Everything that Jesus Christ inherited from God the Father, we inherit. Whee, doggy! Occupy your mind with that! Be stabilized by that!

“Paul is saying, ‘Your understanding NOW of your sonship position isn’t just all this pie-in-the-sky-by-and-by; that life is yours right now and it affects your walk right now.

“If you can see what’s going on in the issue of suffering NOW you can actually—you know ‘endure’ is not the right word, and ‘waiting out’ is not the right expression. You can REJOICE in the things!

*****

“Do you know if you go out and serve the Lord what’s going to happen? ‘Yea, and all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution.’ You begin to get rebuffs, Satan comes against you, the religious system comes against you, the world system, your friends, your relatives, your neighbors.

“Everybody comes against you and tries to make you feel ashamed and dirty for serving the Lord; for not being under the law system, not being under the legalism.

“You begin to suffer pain, you get sick, your old body wears out. Are you going to begin to cry and moan and squall? That’s what the average Believer does.

“Listen, God Almighty expects you and me to live in light of who we are! When you begin to realize just who you are, like Paul says, ‘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.’

“That’s a mental-attitude dynamic. Paul’s saying, ‘Here’s the way I look at it.’ When you keep that eternal glory out there in front of yourself, and that privilege of sonship position and joint-heirship with Christ, here’s what it does.

“It lets you look at whatever it is and say, ‘This light affliction is but for a moment. And it works a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory.’

“Paul says, ‘This thing down here it isn’t even worth talking about! Let’s talk about that up there! We don’t want to talk about this and that in the same breath!’

*****

“You listen to me, God Almighty wants tough sons. You write that down, would you please. God Almighty expects us to be tough and He’s fixed it so we can be!

“Hey, folks, it doesn’t mean that when you stump your toe and you go crying to the Lord, it doesn’t mean He’s mad at you. It doesn’t mean He won’t listen. But God has equipped us to be grown-up Believers. Recognize who it is God’s made you, and who you are, and live consistent with that.

“Endure hardness. He didn’t say it’s all going to be lace pants and sunshine. He said, in order to get the job done that I put you here for in that Body of Christ, be tough! Endure hardness as a good soldier of Jesus Christ.

“You know what a soldier does? When the ol’ enemy comes along and takes a pot shot at him does he go squalling back to the battalion leader? Why somebody would kick him in the seat of the pants or lock him up on a Section 8. What does he do? He shoots back! You expect a soldier to be able to endure hardness.

“Talk’s cheap, gentlemen. Talk’s cheap. Easy to say that and ain’t so easy to do it and live it and walk in it unless you’re strong in the grace that’s in Christ Jesus.

*****

“How do you do it? Well, here’s an example. Hebrews 12: ‘Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us.’

“You know something, fellows, in your ministry, you don’t have to fear poverty, you don’t have to fear war, you don’t’ have to fear the government, you don’t have to fear the congregation, you don’t have to fear relatives and in-laws. You don’t have to fear but one thing and that’s sin.

“The only thing you need to fear is sin. I hope that will sink into your head. ‘The sin which doth so easily beset us.’ That’s the one that comes along so innocently looking like it might be so easy.

“You can’t run with patience with that sin out there. You see, it messes you up. What you’re doing is you’re messing yourself up.

“If you want to endure the sufferings you do what Christ did. He kept some information in His mind at all times that allowed Him, and helped Him, and motivated Him and empowered Him to endure.

*****

“Romans 8:19 says, ‘For the earnest expectation of the creature waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of God.’

“The idea there is it’s like a kid with his head stuck out the window looking for his daddy to come home. He’s eagerly anticipating. In other words, creation out here is waiting for what? Man, it’s waiting for the time the Lord Jesus Christ comes back and we’re put in the heavenly positions up there . . . He comes back to the earth, sets up His kingdom on the earth and then the whole shooting match out here is brought under the headship of Jesus Christ and is liberated.

“The globe out here, the whole universe, is waiting for the time the Lord Jesus Christ comes back and take up His inheritance which, as you recall from Hebrews 1, has to do with universal dominion over the heavens and the earth.”

'Your Moloch and Chiun, the star of your god'

(note: more about my Ohio State weekend reunion tomorrow)

"The day of the Lord is a long period and what we're focusing on in Amos is the early part; the gloominess, the judgment that's got to come to wipe away . . . 

"A verse to keep in mind all through this stuff is Zephaniah 3:8. Here's God's counsel to the little flock, the believing remnant: [8] Therefore wait ye upon me, saith the LORD, until the day that I rise up to the prey: for my determination is to gather the nations, that I may assemble the kingdoms, to pour upon them mine indignation, even all my fierce anger: for all the earth shall be devoured with the fire of my jealousy.

"God says, 'Wait upon me.' You've heard of the patience of Job; he patiently waited for the Lord to speak and to do. In James 5 is that patient waiting. He said, 'Wait on me.' Why? 'All this stuff here is not the end; wait til the end of the story,' " explains Richard Jordan.

"He said, 'I'm going to assemble all the Gentiles together; I'm going to get them in a United Nations.' Why? 'To pour upon them my indignation, even all my fierce anger.' 

"But it's going to take some time to do that and that's what the Antichrist's ministry is going to be about. Gathering the nations together, believing the lie. God says, 'I'm going to get them all together in one place so I can just get them all in one whack.'

"That's not exactly how He said it, but that's a free translation. All the patient waiting, just keep in mind that He's using the Antichrist to gather together all the unbelievers so that He can destroy them.

Amos 5:21: [21] I hate, I despise your feast days, and I will not smell in your solemn assemblies.

"God said, 'You guys have made a religion out of what I gave Moses and I despise it.'

"God says He hates religion. You ask, 'Well, why did He give one? Well, He didn't hate the one He gave; what He hated was what people did with it.

Proverbs 15:8: [8] The sacrifice of the wicked is an abomination to the LORD: but the prayer of the upright is his delight.

"That 'sacrifice to the wicked.' They're doing exactly what God told Israel to do but their heart is only to do it for themselves. He said, 'You draw near to me with your mouth but your heart's far from me.' He said, 'I despise that.'

Amos 5: [22] Though ye offer me burnt offerings and your meat offerings, I will not accept them: neither will I regard the peace offerings of your fat beasts. [23] Take thou away from me the noise of thy songs; for I will not hear the melody of thy viols.

"God's saying, 'You got all that praise and worship music going on and I don't want to hear it!' Why? 'Because you've got no heart for my truth; you just got a heart for pleasing yourself.'

[24] But let judgment run down as waters, and righteousness as a mighty stream.
[25] Have ye offered unto me sacrifices and offerings in the wilderness forty years, O house of Israel?

"The answer to that is no. They offered those sacrifices, but they weren't offering them to the God of the Bible. They were religious; but the religion was a false religion to a false god--the Baal worship stuff.

"They've gone out and in their vain imagination made themselves their own god. They decided God ought to look like this.

[26] But ye have borne the tabernacle of your Moloch and Chiun your images, the star of your god, which ye made to yourselves.
[27] Therefore will I cause you to go into captivity beyond Damascus, saith the LORD, whose name is The God of hosts.

"You know what Israel did when they were in the wilderness? They carried around with them the church of a false god; not just God's tabernacle but another one and it had a symbol called the Star of David.

"The Star of David is a six-pointed star made out of two triangles that are intersected like that. You've got six triangles inside. In the Bible, stars are angels. Do you know an angel in the Bible associated with that number 666? There's the symbol that represents him.

"Israel didn't even know what they were doing and they were carrying him around. He's used in everything in the world; that star shows up. What is it? It's got a point toward heaven and a point toward earth. You put the two together and it represents, in symbolism . . .

"From a Freemasonry Encyclopedia: 'In Freemasonry it is the symbol of the union of the two principle sources prevailing in the universe. Active, passive. Male, female. Heaven, earth.'

"When you mingle them together, you put together darkness and light, error and truth, ignorance and wisdom, good and evil. And what's Satan trying to do?

"He's trying to put heaven and earth--'I'm going to be like the most high God, the possessor of heaven and earth. I'll be the one who does that.'

"And they produced images . . . What's an image? You have an imagination, an idea, a foolish thought. You've decided something in your mind. 'I'm going to be God,' and you make an image that reflects the thinking in your mind. That image doesn't just pop out; it comes from an imagination inside of your thinking.

"That passage right there is quoted in Acts 7 by Stephen when he talks about Israel as they began to worship the host of heaven. And who's the prince the power of the air? That's who they began to worship and the way you worship him isn't that you're sitting down.

"They have all the incantations, the witchcraft, the occult stuff and all this business they do, but what they're doing is they're trying to substitute God's Word and the mystery.

The secret behind it all is in their symbolism where they're laying it out. You have to be part of the elite, the initiated group, to understand it. That's the secret aspect of it.

"The difference between the satanic secret and God's secret is God says, 'Here it is, here's what I plan to do--tell everybody about it!' But Satan says, 'If you want to understand it, I know something God knows that He doesn't want you to know, but if you come over here I'll tell you,' and that's exactly what he told Eve in Genesis 3: 'God knows that if you eat of that tree you're going to know something that you can't know unless you're one of the gods, so follow me.'

"That whole lie program will become personified in a man called the Lie; the man of sin, the son of perdition, and in the religious system that brings him to power."

'Rapture' making AI headlines

(well, still working on new piece and will have to wait until tomorrow now. in meantime, here are two separate posts from last year that garnered very high numbers:)

An article published May 19 by the New York Post, with the headline: “OpenAI cofounder wanted to build doomsday bunker to protect scientists from ‘rapture’ ” reads in part:

“The co-founder of ChatGPT maker OpenAI proposed building a doomsday bunker that would house the company’s top researchers in case of a 'rapture' triggered by the release of a new form of artificial intelligence that could surpass the cognitive abilities of humans, according to a new book.

“Ilya Sutskever, the man credited with being the brains behind ChatGPT, convened a meeting with key scientists at OpenAI in the summer of 2023 during which he said: ‘Once we all get into the bunker…’

“A confused researcher interrupted him. ‘I’m sorry,’ the researcher asked, ‘the bunker?’

“ ‘We’re definitely going to build a bunker before we release AGI,’ Sutskever replied, according to an attendee.

“The plan, he explained, would be to protect OpenAI’s core scientists from what he anticipated could be geopolitical chaos or violent competition between world powers once AGI — an artificial intelligence that exceeds human capabilities — is released.

“One OpenAI researcher went so far as to say that ‘there is a group of people — Ilya being one of them — who believe that building AGI will bring about a rapture. Literally, a rapture.’

“In May 2023, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman co-signed a public letter warning that AI technologies could pose an ‘extinction risk’ to humanity. But while the letter sought to shape regulatory discussions, the bunker talk suggests deeper, more personal fears among OpenAI’s leadership.”

*****

Here is some analysis of the story from a Christian YouTuber:

“It seems like for whatever reason now we have these tech gurus who are afraid of the ‘rapture’ and it kind of puts into perspective what all these underground bunkers, these underground cities and so forth are being made for.

“Haven’t you noticed that more and more of these tech gurus, when they talk about AI, they never talk about AI in a positive light or refer to them in a positive way?

“They say they are summoning the devil, calling them demons or devils, ‘The Great Old Ones’ or ‘Great Old Gods.’ They talk about AI like they’re scared of it, yet when you or I talk about this, when we say that AI is progressing too quickly, or it could doom humanity, we’re just crazy, kooky conspiracy theorists and nut jobs who hate technology.

“I just feel like certain news stories, like the Diddy trial, or phase one of certain files being released on Epstein and so forth, are meant to distract us away from the expansive growth of AI.

“I’m not the only one who feels this way. Geordie Rose, the founder and CEO of D-Wave, made this statement on AI: “Massively important for our entire species to navigate, and going back to that thing Sam Harris was saying, nobody is paying attention. This thing is happening in the background while people bicker about politics and health care, and underneath it all is this rising tsunami that, if we’re not careful, is going to wipe us all out.”

*****

In other AI news:

“I consider this a very, very large development: ‘xAI, TWG Global and Palantir unite to redefine financial services through AI.’ Don’t forget we just had the Stargate initiated by Trump a couple of months ago. Three mega-conglomerate tech companies conspire (oh, I mean unite) to better your health.

“Oh, yeah, it’s all about developing MRNA vaccines in order to cure cancer and whatnot, right? Well, this time it’s targeting the financial services. This is a BIG deal. Oh, and don’t forget, Elon Musk sold X (Twitter) to his own company, xAI, for (surprise, surprise) 33 billion. This is absolutely a HUGE deal for all these mega-companies, tech companies, to be UNITING (“Where we go one we go all” level stuff) to take over the financial and health systems. That’s what Stargate is all about. The key players behind Stargate—remember Oracle, SoftBank and OpenAI. This is happening; game on.”

*****

“What will humans do in Musk's robotic future? Certainly not working, Elon Musk wrote in an October X post,” reports Business Insider.

"AI and robots will replace all jobs," he wrote. "Working will be optional, like growing your own vegetables, instead of buying them from the store."

In a speech the other week, Musk predicted Tesla's Optimus robot “will actually eliminate poverty.”

“Minutes earlier, the crowd cheered and broke out into chants of ‘Elon, Elon!’ as shareholders approved Musk's $1 trillion pay package. The Tesla CEO — who is the world's richest person — will unlock up to $1 trillion in shares if Tesla achieves a series of lofty targets, including selling one million Optimus robots in the next decade,” says Business Insider.

Here is analysis from a Christian YouTuber:

Elon Musk is proposing an idea that his Tesla Optimus Robots will follow criminals around to make sure they never offend again and people will be on board with ideas like this.

We’re already seeing MAGA onboard with Palantir and ICE being able to track civilians via their technology and trace their movements.

We’re seeing everybody out there who once cared about this thing called “privacy” no longer care about it. We’re seeing those once worried about a surveillance state actually on board with Donald Trump and these big tech giants building out a surveillance state.

They don’t tell you what the crime could actually be. People just automatically hear about repeat offenders because the media’s constantly let us know that all these crimes being committed are from Democrats letting these convicts out of prison, who then go and commit the crime again. Think about how many times we heard these stories over the last couple of years where we keep hearing the term “repeat offender.”

Well, here’s the idea to solve the problem. Instead of overcrowding our prisons, because your home is going to be your prison once they initiate the carbon laws, “What we’ll do is have these Tesla robots follow you around—a personal handler.”

Not only does Musk talk about people being assigned for free their own Tesla robot that will be listening to everything they say, watching where they go and what they do, and you think this if for extreme offenders like murderers or rapists, but this is just going to be for people who disagree with the government.

People who, by the time 2030 rolls around, won’t be able to criticize the state of Israel, or have differences of opinions from what the current government regime tells them they’re supposed to think, and how they’re supposed to eat, and how they’re supposed to treat other people, and every other thing that Big Brother wants to control because it’s all about behavioral control . . .

Keep in mind, Musk is also talking about a “universal high income” for all that will "eliminate poverty." He put out a tweet about having Optimus replace human surgeons because, again, remember we hear about AI becoming big in the medical field . . . he said we won’t have to worry about the price of healthcare anymore.

People out there are on board will all this stuff because all it took was for Elon Musk to jump out on stage next to Donald Trump. All it took was for Musk to start saying he believes in Jesus Christ, like all these guys suddenly telling you they have found faith in Jesus Christ. Guys who for years and years talked about being atheists are all suddenly Christian and getting you on board with things like Tesla robots and autonomous vehicles and everything else they have planned for us.

Notice how they changed the wording from “universal income” to “universal HIGH income” so conservatives who always complain about their tax money going to Democrats who don’t want to work and want to sit home and watch video games, well, all they need to do is change the wording so people think, “Well, it will be universal high income, so yes, let’s build these robots out so they can follow around criminals AND so they can take all of our jobs away.”

Elon was even tweeting this out proudly because he’s fully on board with universal high income just like he’s fully on board with climate laws being in place, and if you understand what the plan is with Agenda 2030, and how these things tie together for human enslavement, you’ll start to see what’s really being built out around you.

In his speech, Musk talks about a time where we won’t need money; in fact, your wealth will be measured in how much energy you can provide. I guess that does us no good because we’re not allowed to actually generate free energy; they’re allowed to control all those things.

So, if you own Tesla, say, which provides a lot of energy, you’ll be the king of the world on top of the mountain while the rest of us, well, we’ll just be getting whipped in the rear end by Tesla bots.

Only love answers 'How?'

(new article this evening--promise)

Paul advises in II Corinthians 10:5, “Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ.”

The warfare we’re in with the Adversary today is a spiritual battle that gets fought in your inner man, says Richard Jordan. That’s why you need to keep your mind and your ears tuned like a laser. Just like your tongue can taste the difference in meats, your ear needs to be able to hear that message . . . The key is to win the battle for the mind because that’s where the conflict’s ALWAYS at.

Paul asks the Galatians in Galatians 3:3: "Are ye so foolish? having begun in the Spirit, are ye now made perfect by the flesh?"

You see all this performance stuff, all this activity aimed at the physical outward external stuff, is backwards. Satan works through your body into your soul and then into your spirit. God works in your spirit out through your soul, manifested in your body. So where’s the real battle? It’s going to be in the spirit of our minds.

Paul says, "Go over and grab all those vain imaginations; all those things you project in your mind, dream up or have other people put into your thinking." The course of this world is "bloop, bloop, bloop, bloop"--constantly.

He’s saying, "Take that stuff and just throw it out the window!" Imagine yourself on the third floor of a building and watch it go 'splat' on the pavement.

*****

“Bringing every thought into captivity." You see, you’re to renew your mind to develop a positive habit of BELIEVING what God says. Develop a positive habit in your mind that says, "I am beloved of the Father."

When I bring my thinking into captivity to the grace and love of God given to me through the Crosswork of Jesus Christ, I’ll be free from self-occupation--free from thinking about me and my stuff--and I’ll start thinking about me and HIS stuff. In fact, I’ll just start thinking about His stuff.

And that’s when you find rest in the Father’s love. And it won’t just be a theological point and a doctrinal statement to say, "God loves you." It’ll be something that comes into your intimate experience moment by moment.

*****

When you’re trusting your performance, what do you get? You get failure. There are ONLY TWO CHOICES, folks, when it comes to effectually changing your life. One is law and one is grace. You either believe the law changes you or you believe love changes you.

Let me tell you this, simply warning people to change can’t change them. Giving people reasons for changing, for doing what’s right and for avoiding what’s wrong, doesn’t change them.

You get to Romans 7 and look at Paul’s description of the life of a Believer lived under the law and it’s very clear that the law endorses the need for change but is powerless to produce it. That’s not its job description.

The job description of the law is to point out failure. That’s why it gives the rules and regulations and the demand for perfection so it can hold up the mirror and say, "See, you can’t do it. You’re not perfect. You need a Savior."

Have you ever seen somebody headed for a mess and you begin to give them reasons why they shouldn’t do it? Think about yourself. You got all these reasons not to do something and you do it anyway.

You see, reasons only answer the question of "Why?" Why should I not do this and why should I do that. You need motivation to answer the "How?"

What is it actually that causes you to love God? Is it Him telling you, "Love me," or do we love Him because He first loved us? Where does love for Him really come from? It’s His love for us that motivates our love for Him.

That’s why I John 4:10 says, "Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins." It says, "We love Him, because He first loved us.”

Three words: Pursue your dreams

After returning to my hotel room late Friday evening of the Lantern reunion at Ohio State two weekends ago (September 11-12), luxuriating in the king-sized bed and channel-surfing the state-of-the-art TV (I haven't had a bedroom TV since my studio apartment in Hell's Kitchen, NYC), I chomped on seaweed-flavored Turtle Chips and Cape Cod salt-and-vinegar kettle potato chips, followed by sour apple gummies.

I debated whether I wanted to go to the planned tour of the newsroom and J-school the next morning to see all that has changed in 40 years.

But it's very seldom anymore that I have ANY feeling of "getting away," in this case even staying at a nice hotel (Fairfield Inn on Olentangy River Road only a couple of miles from campus), so I made the decision to opt out of the tour and instead enjoy the complimentary breakfast before throwing on my swimsuit and spending the rest of the morning swimming and soaking in their super-bubbly hot tub that was truly hot in the best way.

Doing laps in the pool, another thing I hardly ever get to do anymore, my mind unexpectedly but, given all the news coverage from the day before, not surprisingly went back to the morning of September 11 when I got up inside the Michigan Avenue Hilton in downtown Chicago and immediately threw on my swimsuit to get in a swim in their humongous pool on the top floor before showering, doing my hair and putting on dress clothes for work.

I had to be ready by 10 to take the shuttle to McCormick for the trade show I was covering as Associate Editor of Graphic Arts Monthly. Our offices were on Hudson Street in Greenwich Village, NYC.

The elevator door opened on the floor of the gym/pool and a man red and sweaty in the face with a white towel around his neck was standing in front of me. He pointed to the elevator's built-in TV monitor and asked me if I had seen what was on the screen. I hadn't paid attention since there was no sound. He said, "A plane just hit one of the towers at the World Trade Center."

He entered the elevator and we both stared at the screen. I told him that I lived in Manhattan and that I had better hurry and get back to my room and call a co-worker at my office to see what they knew.

Sitting in my bathing suit on the edge of my king-sized bed inside the Hilton, a few feet from the TV, I saw everything unfold before me in an absolutely mind-blowing fashion.

The biggest thing I remember from those moments was crying and praying in earnest something close to, "I get it now, God. I'm not going to live for myself anymore; I'm going to do your work."

After leaving the Fairfield Inn around noon, my hair still wet from swimming, I decided to take my own tour of campus. 

I was floored to see that at the corner of High Street and Lane Avenue is a multi-story building with a huge Starbucks sign emblazoned across it. In the summer before my senior year, I actually lived in a house only doors away from this Starbucks!

A classmate and fellow staffer at the Lantern, Rachelle, invited me to live with her and four other girls, all of whom were Jewish. I found out at the reunion that Rachelle is a very successful lawyer in Los Angeles.

. . . . to be continued tomorrow and in the meantime here is an old post:

Change is good. Count your blessings. Seize the day. Be your best. Never give up. Adventure is calling. Do it now. Enjoy every moment. Dreams come true. Fall in love. Go for it. Just be yourself. Keep it simple. Less is more. Life is good. Life is short. Make it count. Never give up. Never look back. You will succeed. You are loved. Why not now?

You can’t get away from it; there’s an extraordinary way. It’s just fascinating how the Bible uses the number three.

This is the reality of the way the Creator created it; everywhere you look in creation, everywhere you look in the Scripture, the number 3 is just arbitrarily stamped, says Richard Jordan.

Jesus Christ was three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. Why not five, why not two?

Jonah was three days in the whale’s belly. Why not two days? It wouldn’t have stunk so bad when he got burped out. Why not four days? I mean, why three?!

Israel, they have three patriarchs. Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Levi, of the Levitical priesthood, was the third son of Jacob. The Book of Leviticus is the third book in the Bible.

When Moses was given the law, he came down off the mountain. You remember what happened? You remember how many people died that day? About three thousand.

When the Spirit of God was given on the day of Pentecost, you remember how many people got saved that day? About three thousand. A little symmetry there.

You go all through the Bible and that number three is over and over and over and over again. Abraham takes Isaac and for three days journey to take him up, he thinks he’s going to go sacrifice his son and the boy’s been dead for three days. You say, “Why three?”

There’ s three divisions in a Jewish Bible. When the wise men bring gifts, how many gifts do they bring? That’s why people think there’s three wise men. There might have been 40 of them; you don’t have any idea how many wise men there where.

They brought three gifts. Why did they bring three gifts? Because Jesus Christ wears three crowns, three offices: He’s a prophet, He’s a priest and He’s a king, so they bring gold for the king, they bring frankincense for the priest and they bring myrrh for the prophet.

There are three people in your Bible who entered into ministry when they were 30 years old. Jesus was one. Then King David, when he was anointed king, II Samuel 5. Then Joseph, when he took over Pharoah’s reign in Genesis 41. Three men.

Esther, she fasted three days. Why not five days? Why in the world would you think it’s better to fast three days than two or six? I mean, if three is good, wouldn’t six be better?

All through the Scripture. You say, “Why is that?” Well, three is an imprint. Romans 1:20 indicates that three is imprinted on creation itself.

[20] For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse:

You look around in creation and you’ll see the trinity; three stamped all over creation. We have three dimensions. Height, width, length. Time is in three parts: past, present and future.

If you take electromagnetic forces, it’s positive, negative and neutral. If you take pigments, there are three primary colors: red, yellow and blue. In light, coming off the sun, there are three primary colors. That’s red, green and blue. It’s interesting that they’re different.

The earth; it’s the third planet—third rock from the sun. Matter on the earth finds itself in three stages: solid, liquid or a gas. The strongest structural shape is a triangle.

DNA; the language of DNA is made up only of three-letter words.

It’s fascinating, but you do it all of the time just in the colloquial way that you live. “Stop, look, listen!” We say, “Three strikes you’re out!” “He won the Triple Crown!” “Gold, silver, bronze.” He’s “cool, calm and collected.” It’s “of the people, by the people and for the people.” “Lights, camera, action!” You can just go on and on with this stuff.

Three is just stamped all over creation. You say, “Why?” Because the invisible things of God from the creation of the world are clearly seen. You see His fingerprints on His creation.

Now you have to understand something about the trinity: the Father, the son and the Spirit. Those titles describe the roles that each person of the godhead has chosen to play in relationship to His creation.

There’s a thing in theology called submission, or subordination, in the godhead. There’s an internal relationship between the Father, Son and the Holy Spirit where they live together, and they’ve always lived together by the way.

And the way they relate to one another. They have chosen to assign responsibilities to each one of the members of the godhead, so that each one has their specific role. They’re all equally God but each one of them—the way God lives, the way God functions, “God is love.”

You know that verse? We teach the children, “God is good.” To be good means you’re always looking out for the interest of the other. Love is the carrying out of that which is good.

God, in His very nature, lives a life that is always focused on the benefit and the advantage of other people. In the godhead, the Father is always serving the Son, the Son is always serving the Father and the Sprit is always serving the Son. Each one, they live for each other. That’s the godhead.