Our Ultimate Spiritual Destiny

 

There has been an increasing amount of talk about UFOs and it will help if this topic can be engaged theologically. People who have faith in God might think they are blaspheming but to avoid this topic is perilous. This article will look at two places in the biblical text which at least allows us to consider an extra-terrestrial intervention of some sort other than a divine one. We may be in a ten thousand year cosmic war as quoted by some people today. To say ten thousand obviously predates the biblical text, but there are a few crumbs on offer worth inspecting.  

The book of Genesis, chapter 6 verse 4 (Gen 6:4), is of great interest for this topic. The middle part of the verse states, “…when the sons of God went in to the daughters of humans, who bore children to them…” This rare window into cosmic theology can be easily interpreted to read that extra-terrestrials mixed their DNA with earthly humans. The evil that seemed to come out of this grieved ‘Yahvah’ (God’s chosen name encountering Moses), so God brought about a destroying flood which killed all but eight humans on the planet! God may or may not have succeeded in eradicating the extra-terrestrial DNA through preserving these eight who were responsible for repopulating the earth. There are numerous flood stories that have come to us from antiquity.

There were many visitations by ‘angles’ (God’s messengers) and even a reading (Gen 18) when God was identified as ‘The One’ and then later in the chapter as Yahvah. In that chapter God personally conversed with Abraham. But these don’t lead to UFO descriptions. A clear one of these comes from whole of the first chapter of Ezekiel the Prophet (Ezek 1). The readers of this article are invited to carefully read the biblical account of this and the same time try to imagine Ezekiel’s vocabulary challenge when later he recorded the whole experience. Traditionally, Jewish children were not allowed to read this chapter until they were deemed to be adults. Peter has attempted to illustrate this through the ‘lens’ of Ezekiel’s eyes and has attempted to capture in the drawing the possibility of a described UFO. The result was to make the ‘landing gear’ too large for the craft’s main body and in a future drawing he will endeavour to fix that.

UFO sightings began in earnest after World War II. Until very recently the ‘official’ response has been to explain them away and mainstream news organisations restricted UFO stories to just the local area where the sighting occurred, and allowed them to fade from people’s memories. It is actually possible that all UFOs have been manufactured by humans under massive amounts of secrecy for reasons unknown or probably sinister. During the war, Germany is said to have made one such prototype and the technology grew from there. From that time, reliable information about any UFOs ‘escaped’ in such a restricted ways that any who believed UFOs existed were labelled conspiracy theorists. It is unfortunate that this secrecy has been allowed to fester into the Monolith of Mystery that it is today. Now that ‘officialdom’ is opening the door to a tacit conformation that, yes, there are UFOs, we must return to the biblical text and revisit some places that might also describe UFOs, only thousands of years earlier.

Let’s assume that extra-terrestrials exist and have the advanced technology to travel the enormous distances through the Universe. Let’s also assume they don’t really need our planet’s resources simply because they have got here on ‘their own steam’ so to speak. We can then assume that they want something more precious. Could they be watching how well we discover and develop scientific knowledge and advanced technologies because of their DNA they gave our ancestors? Or, could they be watching the development of spiritual character displayed through our ethical moral and emotional responses to life, to God even. Because the Bible convincingly presents Jesus and the most intelligent human ever to walk our planet, his vindication from being falsely tried, tortured and executed, having an astounding resurrection back to life, we have a solid frame to hold against any new theological additions. It might be that the extra-terrestrial watchers are particularly interested in who is a disciple of Jesus or not. Is it important that we know which side to be on at a spiritual level? Do we need to know this to be better equipped for a future hour of testing?

The motivation for the interest that extra-terrestrials have in observing us so secretly is a mystery. Nevertheless the Bible offers guidance for all who have been given this gift of faith. Jesus taught us in his amazing three chapter long ‘Sermon on the Mount’ (Matthew 5-7) how to do life in God’s kingdom both in the ‘here and now’ on earth as well as for eternity in the ‘heavens’. We are to behave as children of the kingdom and as such fall under the authority of God and not the influence and misdirection of extra-terrestrials. Jesus landmark sermon teachers that this kingdom is available to all and living in it generates a freedom to be compassionate, exercising loving-kindness and mercy for those who harbour fear and hurt, who are poor and lost. Extra-terrestrials may know that life on our planet is due to end soon and are particularly interested about this conferred authority over human souls.

True survival from the rubble of time may only be a faith and focus on the good news of Jesus Christ. God is a ‘hallowed’ and just God so there is plenty of room in God’s plan for complete surprises. We are called to survive with our spiritual position in Christ Jesus intact. This is a highest calling. If the extra-terrestrials don’t like this protective authority narrative, they could easily be actively intervening on and off throughout all of human history. We must be on guard not to depart from the kingdom base that Jesus won for us. It will be far better to be put under God’s authority instead of taking up the socially easy options of ‘fence sitting’ or even avoiding pain and torture.  

We must not allow ‘cognitive dissonance’ to cloud our observations to what might really be happening in the world today. We must be willing to stand for freedom when pressed. Earth’s prize that extra-terrestrials may be seeking is one massive spiritual and blood sacrifice and even now with the help of ‘smoke and mirrors’ they are succeeding with. Humankind is sliding into a trap. It is hard to shout about this loudly and not be labelled as a conspiracy theorist, someone to ignore or be put away for good. Those who for any number of reasons prefer the comfort of the status quo, do their best to ignore this, even the earnest plea of a close friend, if it goes against the ‘official narrative’. God has to intervene if this form of wilful ignorance is going to be swept aside.

Human beings have to deal with self-centeredness. A human must be born with this trait for natural survival. Infants will innocently ‘demand’ love and care through crying for it. They will continue to be self-centred through the early stages of human development. Their carers have to teach empathy in order to moderate this. This will be only partially successful, if society in general is any indication, and a divine intervention helps inculcate God’s love into our lives. Becoming a disciple of Christ Jesus is about exploring Jesus’s ‘Sermon on the Mount’ without seeing it as a bunch of rules. It will teach people how to freely live under the authority and protection of God. The holocaust that is potentially coming to planet earth ought to be enough of a motivation to scramble for this kind of protection if enough awareness of the truth of it got out. Many believe that hording provisions in a personal bunker and being willing to kill others who attempt to steal it, is the way of the future. No love there.

There is talk of a new world order and of a world currency reset. These events have the potential to benefit only the mega-rich. Even if the very best result happens, which follows a removal of the leaders who bankrupted nations, the agreeing parties will be fallible, as all humans are, and society will continue to harbour enough evil to bring the insurmountable problem to a head again. Do we really believe that we can solve the geo-political challenges without humbly and willingly falling under the authority of God?

A great spiritual darkness rules the world. If human kind survives this new form of holocaust the likelihood of slavery waits in the wings. Our resources have been wasted and our wealth stolen by people who have no intention of paying it back. Going after them (as some people are doing) to take their very lives from them is a ‘not of God’ response. As it is, most of the ‘elite’ are bunkered in. They think their quality of life won’t be so ‘cosy and sweet’ until they succeed in killing eighty percent of the planets human inhabitants. They want to return the planet to its pristine Garden of Eden state once the billions of polluters are exterminated. Does this outcome interest the extra-terrestrials? Are they horrified or is it part of their plan? Is there a connection between extra-terrestrials and the evil forces of Satan? That’s certainly Satan’s agenda. Are these groups the same? We will best have a careful and new review of biblical theology under this question. And soon.

Is God playing a joke on us? If that is not so, then God did send Jesus to be the demanded sacrifice and to call all people to him ‘purchased by his blood’, to please come under protective authority and to avoid the horrible outcome, still to be realised of the ten thousand year war raging on earth and possibly also in the heavens. Those who are under this protective spiritual authority may suffer physical depravation and physical death but a vast cosmic kingdom awaits. Within the biblical text are many clear promises that give hope for its fulfilment. We are called to deeply explore the biblical narrative for clues, called to take up those found promises step by humble step, and called to be watchful, ready to do God’s bidding on earth and beyond. 

Anniversary 43

 

Around the start of each year we remember our wedding, right back in 1978. That's a lot of water under the bridge. We note any special things that happen on the day. This year, we received a late Christmas card and newsletter from Glenda who played the organ at our wedding. Great timing. When we returned home from a cuppa and a walk through the local wetland, we found a yellow rose blooming in our garden. These are nice reminders of the occasion, dare we say reminders of God's attention to detail.

The Heart of Marx

 

We have been reading Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s ‘The Gulag Archipelago’ and it is obvious that a powerful and ruthlessly evil intelligence was behind this slaughter of over fifty million Russian innocent people. How does a country recover from that? Solzhenitsyn’s book totally exposed this evil for what it was in a way that the USSR could not slip out of. Their ideology was finally seen for that it was. Nowadays this book is mandatory reading for Russian adolescents (at least we have been led to believe that) in order that it never happens again (at least in Russia). Communism is waxing in other places so it is certainly important that we get to the root cause. Let us inspect the heart of one of the original thinkers of this doctrine, Karl Marx.

Over 200 years ago, Karl Marx was born (5 May 1818) in the Prussian city of Trier, Prussia, into an Ashkenazi Jewish family. Karl's father, Herschel Marx, was a lawyer and his mother, Henrietta Pressburg, was a semi-literate Dutch Jew. He was the third of the nine children born to his parents and was baptized in the Lutheran Church. How might Karl have felt as a Jew having to perform as a Christian? How coerced was this for himself and his siblings?

In 1830 Karl Marx attended Trier Gymnasium ‘secondary education’ and then in 1835 he enrolled at the Bonn University as a law student. To do this, he was adequately supported financially by his father. In the summer of 1836, Karl was engaged to Jenny von Westphalen in Trier. He then enrolled at Berlin University to continue law and pursue philosophy, with a strong interest in Hengel.

While still a student Marx had begun to express his deeper self through his poetry, “I wish to avenge myself against the One who rules above”.

From the poem ‘Invocation of One in Despair’ are the words:

So a god has snatched from me my all

In the curse and rack of destiny.

All his worlds are gone beyond recall!

Nothing but revenge is left to me!

I shall build my throne high overhead,

Cold, tremendous shall its summit be.

For its bulwark – superstitious dread.

For its marshal – blackest agony.

Who looks on it with a healthy eye

Shall turn back, deathly pale and dumb

Clutched by blind and chill mortality.

May his happiness prepare his tomb.

From another poem written during his student years, “The Player”:

The hellish vapours rise and fill the brain,

Till I go mad and my heart is utterly changed.

See this sword?

The prince of darkness sold it to me.

For me he beats the time and gives the signs.

Ever more boldly I play the dance of death.

The purchase of a sword from Satan and its cutting to spill blood is listed as part of a satanic rite. At this stage, Karl would be in too deep to easily return to what is good and wholesome.

From the poetic drama of his “Oulanem”:

(Act 1, Scene 2)

Yet I have power within my youthful arms

To clench and crush you [i.e. personified

Humanity] with tempestuous force,

While for us both the abyss yawns in darkness

You will sink down and I shall follow laughing,

Whispering in your ears, ‘Descent,

Come with me, friend.’

 (Act 1, Scene 3)

Ruined, ruined. My time has clean run out

The clock has stopped, the pygmy house has crumbled.

Soon I shall embrace eternity at my breast, and soon

I shall howl gigantic curses on mankind.

The above references are drawn from: Marx, Karl und Friedrich Engles, Historisch-kritisch Gesamtausgabe. Werke, Schriften, Briefe. (Complete Historical Critical Edition. Works, Writings, Letters) on behalf of the Marx-Engles Institute, Moscow, published by David Rjazanov. (Frankfurt-am-Main: Marx-Engles Archive, 1927), from the pages ranging from 30-68.

What Marx reveals in the imagery of his youthful poetry (which soon discontinues) is that he made a critical turn into Satan’s hands while still a student at the university. He believed God was real enough but set out to punish God for reasons unclear. The words above feel as though it is Satan not Marx writing them and they make much more sense when read that way.

A letter (2 March 1837) from Karl’s father reflected a growing concern: “Your advancement, the dear hope of seeing your name someday of great repute, and your earthly well-being are not the only desires of my heart. These are illusions I had for a long time, but I can assure you that their fulfilment would not have made me happy. Only if your heart remains pure and beats humanly and if no demon is able to alienate your heart from better feelings, only then will I be happy.” (ibid., p. 203)

This father to son letter was too little and too late. Karl wrote to his father later that year (10 November 1837): “A curtain has fallen. My holy of holies was rent asunder and new gods had to be installed.” (ibid., 218) He was obviously very reluctant to admit to his father that the new gods were Satan and his legion.

The following year, 10 May 1838 his father died. Marx graduated with a doctorate in philosophy in 1841, then late in 1842 he first met Engels. They then work together to sow discontent in German and French society. In the course of their lives they create a counter-productive narrative, exploiting ever-present injustice. Through Moses Hess, who introduced the socialist ideal, Marx and Engels saw in it a way of destroying religion and politics. That was it! Socialism was to be the bait to entice intellectuals to embrace Satan’s perpetual agenda of destroying God’s creation.

It is clearer now! The Communist Manifesto carries with it an aggressive anti-Christian doctrine, which in the case of Russia slaughtered over fifty million innocent people (one hundred million souls as an upper estimate). Marx’s heart, through his poetry, exposes the origin of this sinister plot. Christians for their part, once self-stripped of the trappings of materialism (pride and the like), will find ways to live the socialist ideal, applying truth and equality to all and still preserve individual sovereignty and respect. That is the very ideology that Satan fears.

So we are in a cycle of needing to share some hard truths about Marx as the devil’s elect servant and the importance of never letting the history of the Russian ‘experiment’ fade. History will repeat itself on a people who forget. Posted with prayerful care.

Hilkiah House

This might seem like a post by 'House and Garden' magazine and maybe one day it's going to be that. Peter had the pleasure of visiting Hilkiah House at Kinglake on New Year's Day 2021 and to explore its amazing garden growth. In twenty years this bare grassy two acre property has been transformed into a massive 'secret' garden. The fires of Black Saturday licked its edges eleven years ago, as one of the pictures (tree with a face) will show, nearly destroyed it. But the family were committed to keeping it safe if at all possible, and they did. It is a place of healing and renewal. Peter's friends offer this little piece of God's healing touch through their hospitality vision. It was a lovely way to 'book end' the change of the years, first with Gembrook Retreat the day before and then with Hilkiah House to step into the year with. Enjoy, and imagine being there. 

Double Christmas Zoom

We haven't done this before but since we have had so much practice doing it during times of movement restriction this year this was relatively easy to arrange. The platform Zoom seemed to be in on the Christmas spirit because we did not have a 40 minute cut off but allowed us to keep on going. That was nice. What a motley family bunch we all make! Some windows showed whole families, others at work and grand children and grand nephews popping in and out. For most of the time we all just looked at each other with the occasional bit of structure of nearly an announcement. It did not matter of course because just to see everyone was a gift indeed. And smiling. The 'gathering' came from Manitoba, Alberta, Canada, and Brisbane people including regional Queensland, a few from Sydney, and three different family spots from Melbourne. 

This event flowed into a second Zoom with our direct family in Manitoba. It was truly wonderful to chat with our loved ones there. This succeeded in enriching the Christmas season for us. And there were no internet glitches. We might have been on at a time when Zoom was not overloaded, but whatever the reason we are grateful to God for these family connected blessings. 

 

Christmas Wishes for 2020