Burning Bushes
Ex 3:1 Now Moses was looking after the flock of Jethro, his father-in-law, the priest of Midian: and he took the flock to the back of the waste land and came to Horeb, the mountain of God.
2 And the angel of the Lord was seen by him in a flame of fire coming out of a thorn-tree: and he saw that the tree was on fire, but it was not burned up.
3 And Moses said, I will go and see this strange thing, why the tree is not burned up,
4 And when the Lord saw him turning to one side to see, God said his name out of the tree, crying, Moses, Moses. And he said, Here am I.
5 And he said, Do not come near: take off your shoes from your feet, for the place where you are is holy.
6 And he said, I am the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. And Moses kept his face covered for fear of looking on God.
7 And God said, Truly, I have seen the grief of my people in Egypt, and their cry because of their cruel masters has come to my ears; for I have knowledge of their sorrows;
8 And I have come down to take them out of the hands of the Egyptians, guiding them out of that land into a good land and wide, into a land flowing with milk and honey; into the place of the Canaanite and the Hittite and the Amorite and the Perizzite and the Hivite and the Jebusite.
9 For now, truly, the cry of the children of Israel has come to me, and I have seen the cruel behaviour of the Egyptians to them.
10 Come, then, and I will send you to Pharaoh, so that you may take my people, the children of Israel, out of Egypt.
11 And Moses said to God, Who am I to go to Pharaoh and take the children of Israel out of Egypt?
12 And he said, Truly I will be with you; and this will be the sign to you that I have sent you: when you have taken the children of Israel out of Egypt, you will give worship to God on this mountain.
13 And Moses said to God, When I come to the children of Israel and say to them, The God of your fathers has sent me to you: and they say to me, What is his name? what am I to say to them?
14 And God said to him, I AM WHAT I AM: and he said, Say to the children of Israel, I AM has sent me to you.
15 And God went on to say to Moses, Say to the children of Israel, The Lord, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob, has sent me to you: this is my name for ever, and this is my sign to all generations.
16 Go and get together the chiefs of the children of Israel, and say to them, The Lord, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob, has been seen by me, and has said, Truly I have taken up your cause, because of what is done to you in Egypt;
17 And I have said, I will take you up out of the sorrows of Egypt into the land of the Canaanite and the Hittite and the Amorite and the Perizzite and the Hivite and the Jebusite, into a land flowing with milk and honey.
18 And they will give ear to your voice: and you, with the chiefs of Israel, will go to Pharaoh, the king of Egypt, and say to him, The Lord, the God of the Hebrews, has come to us: let us then go three days' journey into the waste land to make an offering to the Lord our God.
19 And I am certain that the king of Egypt will not let you go without being forced.
20 But I will put out my hand and overcome Egypt with all the wonders which I will do among them: and after that he will let you go.
21 And I will give this people grace in the eyes of the Egyptians, so that when you go out you will go out with your hands full.
22 For every woman will get from her neighbour and from the woman living in her house, ornaments of silver and gold, and clothing; and you will put them on your sons and your daughters; you will take the best of their goods from the Egyptians.
(BBE)
Until now, God has been a distant being, as distant as the tin gods of Egypt. Moses understands God exists, that He is a single God, not the multiple beings of Egypt, not the diaphanous things that blended together and knitted in the legends and myths.
God has been waiting to speak to His prophet.
Heb 1:1 In times past the word of God came to our fathers through the prophets, in different parts and in different ways;
2 But now, at the end of these days, it has come to us through his Son, to whom he has given all things for a heritage, and through whom he made the order of the generations;
3 Who, being the outshining of his glory, the true image of his substance, supporting all things by the word of his power, having given himself as an offering making clean from sins, took his seat at the right hand of God in heaven;
But. you see here that God also spoke through His Son, the Angel of the Lord, to his prophets. The burning bush gets misused by various people for their own ends. For instance:
Ex 3:1 Now Moses was looking after the flock of Jethro, his father-in-law, the priest of Midian: and he took the flock to the back of the waste land and came to Horeb, the mountain of God.
2 And the angel of the Lord was seen by him in a flame of fire coming out of a thorn-tree: and he saw that the tree was on fire, but it was not burned up.
3 And Moses said, I will go and see this strange thing, why the tree is not burned up,
4 And when the Lord saw him turning to one side to see, God said his name out of the tree, crying, Moses, Moses. And he said, Here am I.
5 And he said, Do not come near: take off your shoes from your feet, for the place where you are is holy.
6 And he said, I am the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. And Moses kept his face covered for fear of looking on God.
7 And God said, Truly, I have seen the grief of my people in Egypt, and their cry because of their cruel masters has come to my ears; for I have knowledge of their sorrows;
8 And I have come down to take them out of the hands of the Egyptians, guiding them out of that land into a good land and wide, into a land flowing with milk and honey; into the place of the Canaanite and the Hittite and the Amorite and the Perizzite and the Hivite and the Jebusite.
9 For now, truly, the cry of the children of Israel has come to me, and I have seen the cruel behaviour of the Egyptians to them.
10 Come, then, and I will send you to Pharaoh, so that you may take my people, the children of Israel, out of Egypt.
11 And Moses said to God, Who am I to go to Pharaoh and take the children of Israel out of Egypt?
12 And he said, Truly I will be with you; and this will be the sign to you that I have sent you: when you have taken the children of Israel out of Egypt, you will give worship to God on this mountain.
13 And Moses said to God, When I come to the children of Israel and say to them, The God of your fathers has sent me to you: and they say to me, What is his name? what am I to say to them?
14 And God said to him, I AM WHAT I AM: and he said, Say to the children of Israel, I AM has sent me to you.
15 And God went on to say to Moses, Say to the children of Israel, The Lord, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob, has sent me to you: this is my name for ever, and this is my sign to all generations.
16 Go and get together the chiefs of the children of Israel, and say to them, The Lord, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob, has been seen by me, and has said, Truly I have taken up your cause, because of what is done to you in Egypt;
17 And I have said, I will take you up out of the sorrows of Egypt into the land of the Canaanite and the Hittite and the Amorite and the Perizzite and the Hivite and the Jebusite, into a land flowing with milk and honey.
18 And they will give ear to your voice: and you, with the chiefs of Israel, will go to Pharaoh, the king of Egypt, and say to him, The Lord, the God of the Hebrews, has come to us: let us then go three days' journey into the waste land to make an offering to the Lord our God.
19 And I am certain that the king of Egypt will not let you go without being forced.
20 But I will put out my hand and overcome Egypt with all the wonders which I will do among them: and after that he will let you go.
21 And I will give this people grace in the eyes of the Egyptians, so that when you go out you will go out with your hands full.
22 For every woman will get from her neighbour and from the woman living in her house, ornaments of silver and gold, and clothing; and you will put them on your sons and your daughters; you will take the best of their goods from the Egyptians.
(BBE)
Until now, God has been a distant being, as distant as the tin gods of Egypt. Moses understands God exists, that He is a single God, not the multiple beings of Egypt, not the diaphanous things that blended together and knitted in the legends and myths.
God has been waiting to speak to His prophet.
Heb 1:1 In times past the word of God came to our fathers through the prophets, in different parts and in different ways;
2 But now, at the end of these days, it has come to us through his Son, to whom he has given all things for a heritage, and through whom he made the order of the generations;
3 Who, being the outshining of his glory, the true image of his substance, supporting all things by the word of his power, having given himself as an offering making clean from sins, took his seat at the right hand of God in heaven;
But. you see here that God also spoke through His Son, the Angel of the Lord, to his prophets. The burning bush gets misused by various people for their own ends. For instance:
Aliens have friendly and supportive intentions towards the mankind. How do we know that aliens are friendly with the humans? We know it by studying the history of the mankind. Do you know that Moses was a friend with the aliens? Yes that’s right, Moses was either an alien agent or friend of aliens. One can find this shocking truth by deeply analyzing the Holy Bible. What is mentioned in The Holy Bible regarding Moses being an alien agent? There is no clear discussion which helps us gain the understanding that Moses was friends with aliens. All we need to do is to analyze the events when Moses had encounter with God. Do you know what happened on the Mount Sinai? Did Moses talk to God or aliens? Do we have conclusive evidence regarding what happened when Moses went up on the Mount Sinai?
We have been able to understand the event by analyzing it in a completely unbiased and rational manner. Moses went up on the Mount Sinai to talk to the superior-power. Do you know that Moses talked to a burning bush on the Mount Sinai? Is it possible that a burning bush can talk? No, it is not possible. A spaceship might have landed on the Mount Sinai surrounded in the smoke of active volcano while the fire came out of the exhaust of the UFO. The aliens might have talked through a speaker while the fire and smoke covered the UFO. This seems more logical then the explanation present in the Holy Bible.
Now I want it clear that the writer thinks they have taken an entirely unbiased approach to the idea it MUST have been ALIENS who contacted Moses. At least they don't act as of the event was made up.
Please notice it was the ANGEL in the burning bush that drew Moses and that God spoke through the bush. The bush didn't speak. If this writer can't get that right, what can he possibly get right? Nothing landed on the mountain. As "rational" as that explanation may seem.
Recall the incident of Elijah being taken up into heaven in the flaming chariot. (2 Kings 2)
https://bible.org/seriespage/5-elijah-taken-heaven-2-kings-2
Similar UFOligists (As a sure sign of the Apocalypse, this is actually regarded as a college degree and an occupation today.) say it was a spacecraft that took Elijah up, hence the flaming chariot idea. Problem: as a test , Elijah tells Elisha to keep his eye on the prophet the whole way. Elisha does,but he sees Elijah taken up in a whirlwind not the chariot. The chariot proceeds without the prophet. No one of the other witnesses sees the chariot which would be odd to have a UFO that can cloak itself specifically to one group and not another. None of the UFO folks I've read mention that since it does undermine any idea of an actual spacecraft. But then it isn't rational for a spacecraft to take a person into the air then have that person visible transported out and soar off until he disappears in the cloud, no helmet or oxygen or suit for high atmosphere protection. It would only be rational if there were a God and he was demonstrating his power and testing Elisha's ability to follow orders despite the distraction of the chariot. I suspect I would have kept watching the chariot, my heart and mind misdirected by the spectacle,
Recall the incident of Elijah being taken up into heaven in the flaming chariot. (2 Kings 2)
https://bible.org/seriespage/5-elijah-taken-heaven-2-kings-2
Elijah’s time on earth had come to an end, but he was not going to die. God was about to take this prophet up into heaven in an amazing way. God had made it known to Elijah, Elisha, and the other prophets that Elijah was going to be taken away from Elisha on a certain day (2 Kings 2:3, 5). That day, Elijah went to visit the prophet schools in Bethel, Jericho, and beside the Jordan River. Perhaps Elijah had some final words of wisdom for the young prophets. Several times Elijah told Elisha to stay behind, but Elisha was determined to go with Elijah every step of the way. He said, “I won’t leave you. And that’s just as sure as the Lord and you are alive.” (2 Kings 2:4) Then Elijah walked to the edge of the Jordan River, with Elisha right beside him.
Fifty men from the company of the prophets followed them. The men stopped and stood not far away from them. They faced the place where Elijah and Elisha had stopped at the Jordan River. Elijah rolled his coat up. Then he struck the water with it. The water parted to the right and to the left. The two of them went across the river on dry ground.
After they had gone across, Elijah spoke to Elisha. He said, “Tell me. What can I do for you before I’m taken away from you?”
“Please give me a double share of your spirit,” Elisha replied.
“You have asked me for something I can’t give you,” Elijah said. “Only the Lord can give it. But suppose you see me when I’m taken away from you. Then you will receive what you have asked for. If you don’t see me, you won’t receive it.” - 2 Kings 7-10
Then, Elijah rolled up his prophet’s coat. This was a coat made of animal fur. When he struck the Jordan River with it, the water parted. Each time we have seen waters part in the Bible, God is inviting His people into a new era, or a new beginning. When Moses parted the Red Sea, by faith the Israelites crossed out of slavery and into freedom. When Joshua parted the Jordan River, by faith, a new generation of Israelites crossed into the Land that God had promised to bless them with decades before. This time was no different. Elijah crossed the Jordan by faith, sure that he is going to a new place, where God wanted him to go. And back at the shore, some distance away, stood 50 of the lesser prophets. God had made it known to them that Elijah was about to leave. These prophets knew the amazing miracles God had performed through Elijah. Surely they wanted to see the way God would take Elijah from their presence.
When Elijah offered to do anything for Elisha, Elisha asked for the best thing he could ask for. He wanted even more of God’s Spirit than God had given to Elijah. It might seem to us that Elisha was being greedy, or that he wanted to become more famous than his master, Elijah. But that was not the case. In Bible times, a double-portion was the amount of property and belongings that a father gave to his oldest son. Now, Elijah was not Elisha’s actual father, but Elijah had become like a spiritual father to Elisha. Elisha did not ask for anything that he could touch or hold. He knew that God’s Spirit was better than anything this world has to offer, and he wanted as much as God would give him. Of course, this was not up to Elijah - it was up to God. Elijah told him that if God allowed him to see his master taken up into heaven, he would know that God had given him what he asked for.
Application: There is no such thing as greed when it comes to wanting more of God. Greed is wanting more of earthly things.The Bible says that being greedy for worldly things is sinful (Isaiah 57:17). However, God does not refuse those who want more of Him (Exodus 33:18-19). Wanting to know God more, or be more controlled by the Holy Spirit, or wanting to see God’s hand at work more is exactly where God wants us!
Elijah Taken Up To Heaven (2 Kings 2:11-12)
(Elijah and Elisha) kept walking along and talking together. Suddenly a chariot and horses appeared. Fire was all around them. The chariot and horses came between the two men. Then Elijah went up to heaven in a strong wind.
Elisha saw it. He cried out to Elijah, “My father! You are like a father to me! You are the true chariots and horsemen of Israel!”
Elisha didn’t see Elijah anymore. Then Elisha took hold of his own clothes and tore them apart. - 2 Kings 2:11-12
Wow! That must have been an amazing sight! A fiery chariot and horses rode between the two prophets, and then God took Elijah up to heaven in a swirling windstorm. This entire sight was not visible to the other prophets who stood at a distance watching. But God allowed Elisha to see it, more than likely as sign that God was answering his request to have a double portion of God’s Spirit. Elisha had been a wonderful and humble servant to Elijah. Even though this was a miraculous moment, Elisha was upset to see his master taken away. He tore his own clothes as a symbol of his great sadness. Elisha loved, admired, and respected Elijah, the great prophet of God. But, Elijah had to leave in order for Elisha to take his place.
Sometimes, even though we are right in the middle of God’s will, we can be sad about things that happen. For example, a missionary may have to leave his or her parents to go to another country and tell others the good news about Jesus. But, God promises to be with us. God gave Elisha a double portion of His Spirit, and He will be with us in the same way.
Similar UFOligists (As a sure sign of the Apocalypse, this is actually regarded as a college degree and an occupation today.) say it was a spacecraft that took Elijah up, hence the flaming chariot idea. Problem: as a test , Elijah tells Elisha to keep his eye on the prophet the whole way. Elisha does,but he sees Elijah taken up in a whirlwind not the chariot. The chariot proceeds without the prophet. No one of the other witnesses sees the chariot which would be odd to have a UFO that can cloak itself specifically to one group and not another. None of the UFO folks I've read mention that since it does undermine any idea of an actual spacecraft. But then it isn't rational for a spacecraft to take a person into the air then have that person visible transported out and soar off until he disappears in the cloud, no helmet or oxygen or suit for high atmosphere protection. It would only be rational if there were a God and he was demonstrating his power and testing Elisha's ability to follow orders despite the distraction of the chariot. I suspect I would have kept watching the chariot, my heart and mind misdirected by the spectacle,
In the case of Moses and the bush, God talks to His man and, millennia later, an atheist writer who believes in alien lifeforms as his gods suggests one of them must have been using radio technology which looked like a burning bush which talked.
And this:
The article points out "liberal" theologians believe we should discuss psychic events and "alien" events in the same breath as miracles.
Just recall that every time you hear anything about Ancient Aliens, you hear the term underlined above: "might have." Along with: "Could easily have" "Surely could." "Certainly could." All the discussions you will hear on The (so-called) History Channel. There is no real evidence of any outer space alien experience on this planet. Crop circles have long been discredited by rural European farmers showing how they can make them with ancient tools. Chalked out patterns on the ground that MUST have been part of an alien landing field because you could only lay them out from the air were long ago shown to be the easy result of old survey techniques. Mysteriously slaughtered cattle have been shown to be rustled heads of cattle taken for food. That the carcasses are "a world wide phenomenon" can be explained because beef is universally tasty.
The idea of Ancient Aliens attacks the Bible but does it most profoundly in two ways: 1) the idea that Ancient Aliens created life on Earth and 2) the notion that Christ himself was an alien.
That first notion came about to support the failed base premise of evolution: that life developed here independently. In the 1950's an experiment "proved" amino acids, some of which are considered the building blocks of life, but are not life, could be created under the right set of laboratory circumstances which were supposed to imitate the original lifeless Earth, and suggested this would result in higher life forms developing also. The two problems were/are the experiment is still going on and no life forms have developed and the chemical mix which developed the amino acids is now thought to NOT be the one that existed in the beginning of the planet.
So there is a new premise that life was somehow "seeded" here by meteors or on purpose by an alien race.
This premise is not new. I recall reading a short story years ago by Frank Herbert, whose Dune series concerns a messiah on another planet, where the surprise ending was an alien who looked exactly like us emerging from a spacecraft to say that humans were actually placed on Earth and now were developed enough to go to the stars. And that was hardly the first such story. Science borrowed from SF to explain the problem of no evidence and create an ongoing search for an explanation of how the seeding took place.
This allows us to arrive at Predator and Alien two modern SF movie myths which were blended by a comic book premise to keep to fading movie franchised going, but who both fit this discussion and another discussion way back in this blog.
Predator concerns an alien reptilian race which is a hunter culture. All their tech is aimed at the hunt. Instead of wars their civilization has developed on hunting other species including man. The initial idea was that they came to Earth through the centuries and hunted men They have taken trophies of human skins and skulls as we would keep an animal head. they are great warriors because they have honed their skills by killing the most advanced species on several planets and seem to have developed a fondness for man.
The Alien series features a lifeform that resembles a reptile but is actually a large insect. It's blood is acid and it has jaws that can extend outside it's body. The tail is used as a spear-like weapon. In the first movie, an ancient spacecraft is found on a desert planet by and Earth expedition, the alien pilot killed by something and a nesting ground growing things that look like mushrooms It turns out the Aliens breed by having what resembles a mobile womb one of which jumps from the mushrooms that open like flower petals onto the faceplate of a spaceship crewmember, attaching itself and sending a probe into the mouth of the crewman to "impregnate" him so he can carry an egg to full maturity. The "baby" alien bursts forth from his chest, killing him and skittering way to grow to full size in a very short time and then begin killing the rest of the crew. Only one woman survives and she eventually kills it by casting it into space.
In the next movie, though, it developes that the social organization of the aliens who take over the planet where the original egg was found and capture all but one member of a colony of humans that have gone there to mine the planet. The crew members are sealed in cocoons made of resins that trap them like flies in amber, they are exposed to the flying wombs and used to gests the Alein tin to their bodies blow apart in the birth process.
But the alien society shown has a queen who secretes eggs a that beccome the mushrooms that impregnate the humans and pn and on. Significantly, the woman who killed the first alien becimes the leader of the troops that come to kill all these aliens. With the help of an auto loading machine, she does person to person combat with the queen at the end of the movie. Woman against thing-woman.
In the next to last movie, the heroine has returns centuries later as a mixed race clone who yields eggs for the ubiquitous evil government guys to create the Alien race yet again and to do further battle with them as her human side prevails.
The first is the hunter culture we talked about earlier taken to its extreme.
The second is the matriarchal culture taken to its extreme.
And the A versus P comic and movie series that followed the two franchises seeming fold, shows that the Predators kept and bred the Aliens as an ultimate prey On the Earth and they actually used the people of Earth to grow the Aliens for annual hunting sprees, growth tanks being in, yes, pyramids. South American civilizations were their starting point, but, for some reason, it seems the humans rebelled against these "friendly" aliens and the Ancient Alien Predators left the Earth, but left behind some remnant of eggs which modern humans disturb thus triggering a reboot of the horror/SF franchise in films.
The films are about our ongoing battle of the sexes, the human tragedy of the woman's reliance on the man for protection in times of pregnancy and the man's attempt to use that to dominate women all the time and the woman's attempt to deny her need, the hunter culture against the matriarchal culture. Much like the subconscious war we just faced at the voting booth. Both those mythic leadership paradigms taken to their ultimate bad extreme, Significantly, the Predators are the most like humans in behavior and are usually seen as the heroes while the Aliens are mindless killing machines. Significant because Hollywood for all it's so-called liberal leanings is decidedly a boy's club bent on utilizing women in onensexoist fashion or aniother.
Satan determined long ago that successful male-female relationships would result in Jesus birth so, along with working to corrupt the bloodline physically, he has worked to break apart men and women and keep communications between them broken, even with the subtlety of those movies and thousands of others.
Significantly, in the last Alien movie, we discover the race of the giant pilot in the first move is a race that created humanity by "seeding" it's DNA in the primitive Earth. Along with creating the Aliens This newly introduced race seems to have gotten unhappy with the Earth and decided to purge it of life. The Ancient Alien gives and he taketh away.
We create our own versions of God. Some of us just have the toys that can let us drag others into our errors.
But if we were seeded by these aliens as God we need to consider this from Ancient Aliens Debunked http://ancientaliensdebunked.com/was-jesus-an-alien/ a blog which goes into much more detail on the arguments than I will here:
All of this is to say that miracles like the burning bush are simply that miracles of God. Sent to men and women specifically prepared by circumstances God allowed. Moses, I am sure, thought his life as a Hebrew and as a leader was over. The pride that led him to an angry act has been smothered out by the years of servitude ending in the prince now seeing himself as a shepherd, doing one of the lowliest acts in the world, beholden to his father-in-law. Now being asked by God to step in, seeing that calling as some sort of overwhelming idea.
Thomas Hawies:
Exodus Chapter 3
Verses 1-6: Moses now seems to have forgotten Egypt, and Israel to be no more remembered of their God; but this is the day of salvation. Moses, as usual, was attending his father’s flocks, buried in obscurity, and humbly acquiescing in his employment. Learn, 1. When we can see God’s call, obscurity becomes our duty, and the meanest occupation must be welcome. 2. It God be long before he calls us forth, it is because he is preparing us for what he hath prepared for us.
1. God appears to him in a flame of fire in a bush; and Moses, struck with the uncommon appearance, draws near to see this sight, a bush burning, yet unconsumed. The church of Christ is like this bush, ever in affliction, yet never to be destroyed.
(Notice that he turned to see the bush, had he ignored kit, what would have been lost? How often do we turn from a phenomenon out of fear or misunderstanding and lose that moment that Moses grasped? Please prepare for those moments in your life now by listening to God and reading His Word. He will always speak sometimes from burning bushes most often in a gentle whisper. Se directly below.)
2. God speaks to him out of the fire, and Moses answers. He is hereupon directed how to approach, with reverence and godly fear, in order to hear the revelation God is about to make to him. Note, (1.) Attention to providences is a great means of keeping up communion with God. (2.) An obedient ear is ever open to instruction. (3.) In our appearances before God, the posture of our body should comport with the deep abasement and sacred awe, which is upon our mind.
3. He makes himself known to him, as the covenant God of his fathers, to encourage his faith, and to engage his obedience. All live to God. Those whom we reckon among the dead, are only removed into that better world, where life eternal reigns, Lu 20:37.
4. Moses is deeply affected with what he sees and hears. A sense of our own great unworthiness may well cover our faces with shame, when we appear before God: and the more a saint of God experiences of his love, the deeper will be his humiliation before him.
More important, Moses has been spiritually prepped to go face to face with Pharoah.
Patrick and his law firm of commentators:
Exodus 3:10
Come now therefore, and I will send thee unto Pharaoh, &c. Leave thy flock; for I have another more weighty business, wherein I will employ thee. For thou shalt go with my authority to Pharaoh; and command him not only to release my propel out of their servitude, but to let them go also out of Egypt. He had called them by the name of his people, (Ex 3:7), and now mentions it again, to encourage their hope that he would take care of his own.
What Pharaoh this was (it being a common name to all the Egyptian kings) is very much disputed. (See my last few post for off and on discussions. W.) The common opinion is, that after Orus (in whose time Moses fled into Midian), Acenceres (or Achernes) reigned twelve years; and after him Achoris reigned seven years more; and then succeeded Cenchres, the worst of them all, to whom Moses was now sent. But Clemens Alexandrinus tells us, that Appion (a great enemy of the Jews, and who wrote three books about their affairs, in which he saith (lib. 1. Stromat. P. 320). But Tacitus calls him Boechoris, or, as some read it, Occoris (lib. 5. Hist. Cap. 3).
That thou mayest bring forth my people, &c. From this time we are to consider God as the king of this people: not in general only, as he is Lord of the whole world; but in a proper and peculiar manner. For whatsoever authority or power of jurisdiction the kings of other nations did exercise over their subjects (as power of life and death, of making laws and leagues, &c.), the same prerogative did the Lord of heaven and earth reserve to himself alone, over the children of Israel. Upon which ground, as Dr. Jackson well observes, Moses was delegated to be his ambassador to this king of Egypt; and constituted (it appears by the whole story) his deputy or viceroy over Israel.
At which point we arrive at a discussion of kings who seem to present evil incarnate. For the next time.
The idea of Ancient Aliens attacks the Bible but does it most profoundly in two ways: 1) the idea that Ancient Aliens created life on Earth and 2) the notion that Christ himself was an alien.
That first notion came about to support the failed base premise of evolution: that life developed here independently. In the 1950's an experiment "proved" amino acids, some of which are considered the building blocks of life, but are not life, could be created under the right set of laboratory circumstances which were supposed to imitate the original lifeless Earth, and suggested this would result in higher life forms developing also. The two problems were/are the experiment is still going on and no life forms have developed and the chemical mix which developed the amino acids is now thought to NOT be the one that existed in the beginning of the planet.
So there is a new premise that life was somehow "seeded" here by meteors or on purpose by an alien race.
This premise is not new. I recall reading a short story years ago by Frank Herbert, whose Dune series concerns a messiah on another planet, where the surprise ending was an alien who looked exactly like us emerging from a spacecraft to say that humans were actually placed on Earth and now were developed enough to go to the stars. And that was hardly the first such story. Science borrowed from SF to explain the problem of no evidence and create an ongoing search for an explanation of how the seeding took place.
This allows us to arrive at Predator and Alien two modern SF movie myths which were blended by a comic book premise to keep to fading movie franchised going, but who both fit this discussion and another discussion way back in this blog.
Predator concerns an alien reptilian race which is a hunter culture. All their tech is aimed at the hunt. Instead of wars their civilization has developed on hunting other species including man. The initial idea was that they came to Earth through the centuries and hunted men They have taken trophies of human skins and skulls as we would keep an animal head. they are great warriors because they have honed their skills by killing the most advanced species on several planets and seem to have developed a fondness for man.
The Alien series features a lifeform that resembles a reptile but is actually a large insect. It's blood is acid and it has jaws that can extend outside it's body. The tail is used as a spear-like weapon. In the first movie, an ancient spacecraft is found on a desert planet by and Earth expedition, the alien pilot killed by something and a nesting ground growing things that look like mushrooms It turns out the Aliens breed by having what resembles a mobile womb one of which jumps from the mushrooms that open like flower petals onto the faceplate of a spaceship crewmember, attaching itself and sending a probe into the mouth of the crewman to "impregnate" him so he can carry an egg to full maturity. The "baby" alien bursts forth from his chest, killing him and skittering way to grow to full size in a very short time and then begin killing the rest of the crew. Only one woman survives and she eventually kills it by casting it into space.
In the next movie, though, it developes that the social organization of the aliens who take over the planet where the original egg was found and capture all but one member of a colony of humans that have gone there to mine the planet. The crew members are sealed in cocoons made of resins that trap them like flies in amber, they are exposed to the flying wombs and used to gests the Alein tin to their bodies blow apart in the birth process.
But the alien society shown has a queen who secretes eggs a that beccome the mushrooms that impregnate the humans and pn and on. Significantly, the woman who killed the first alien becimes the leader of the troops that come to kill all these aliens. With the help of an auto loading machine, she does person to person combat with the queen at the end of the movie. Woman against thing-woman.
In the next to last movie, the heroine has returns centuries later as a mixed race clone who yields eggs for the ubiquitous evil government guys to create the Alien race yet again and to do further battle with them as her human side prevails.
The first is the hunter culture we talked about earlier taken to its extreme.
The second is the matriarchal culture taken to its extreme.
And the A versus P comic and movie series that followed the two franchises seeming fold, shows that the Predators kept and bred the Aliens as an ultimate prey On the Earth and they actually used the people of Earth to grow the Aliens for annual hunting sprees, growth tanks being in, yes, pyramids. South American civilizations were their starting point, but, for some reason, it seems the humans rebelled against these "friendly" aliens and the Ancient Alien Predators left the Earth, but left behind some remnant of eggs which modern humans disturb thus triggering a reboot of the horror/SF franchise in films.
The films are about our ongoing battle of the sexes, the human tragedy of the woman's reliance on the man for protection in times of pregnancy and the man's attempt to use that to dominate women all the time and the woman's attempt to deny her need, the hunter culture against the matriarchal culture. Much like the subconscious war we just faced at the voting booth. Both those mythic leadership paradigms taken to their ultimate bad extreme, Significantly, the Predators are the most like humans in behavior and are usually seen as the heroes while the Aliens are mindless killing machines. Significant because Hollywood for all it's so-called liberal leanings is decidedly a boy's club bent on utilizing women in onensexoist fashion or aniother.
Satan determined long ago that successful male-female relationships would result in Jesus birth so, along with working to corrupt the bloodline physically, he has worked to break apart men and women and keep communications between them broken, even with the subtlety of those movies and thousands of others.
Significantly, in the last Alien movie, we discover the race of the giant pilot in the first move is a race that created humanity by "seeding" it's DNA in the primitive Earth. Along with creating the Aliens This newly introduced race seems to have gotten unhappy with the Earth and decided to purge it of life. The Ancient Alien gives and he taketh away.
We create our own versions of God. Some of us just have the toys that can let us drag others into our errors.
But if we were seeded by these aliens as God we need to consider this from Ancient Aliens Debunked http://ancientaliensdebunked.com/was-jesus-an-alien/ a blog which goes into much more detail on the arguments than I will here:
When considering whether or not God of the Hebrew Scriptures is an alien, consider also what the Bible says about Him.
Genesis 1, God speaks everything – literally – into existence. A difficult feat for any alien to achieve given that the matter the alien and its technology are made of hadn’t existed before creation. Sort of like the joke about a scientist competing with God to create life. God created life from the clay. The scientist started to work the clay and God said, “no way, make your own dirt.”
Job 38, God declares some of His works to Job, including His sovereignty over the Pleiedes and stars of Orion. Psalm 147:5 notes that God calls each star by name.
Here’s a couple more verses about the power of God. Psalm 14 which I believe uses YHWH and Elohim interchangeably. Psalm 66 also talks of God’s power. Then there’s Job 12:14-15 where it describes that what God tears down, can not be rebuilt and His control over the waters, presumably all of the sea. Jeremiah 10:12 kind of clinches it, though the whole chapter is good. In verse 12, it describes how God has made the Earth and stretched out the heavens. No matter how advanced an alien’s technology is, making an entire planet is a pretty tall order, but add to that stretching out the heavens – expanding out the universe – it defies the imagination to think an alien could do such a thing.
In Exodus and elsewhere in the Bible, God reminds that no other god has done what He had done, nor were they capable of such. No other god had or has led a group into a land to prosper and multiply, become slaves, then led those people to freedom from slavery with signs and wonders to become a nation. Substitute gods for aliens, and even if an advanced alien may be able do some of those things, why would they travel light years to do it? Why choose only Israel alone to do these signs with? No other culture has an origin story like this. No other nation can call attention to so many signs and wonders in the role of their creation. If aliens had been involved in Israel and the establishment thereof, one would expect other cultures to have equally awesome origin stories merely for experimental purposes, or to see if all people groups reacted in the same way.
On another note, Israel was given a very elaborate law system in the book of Leviticus, as well as a ritual, blood-atonement system. An atonement system that was foreshadowed as early as Genesis 3. Barring a taste for barbecue, why would aliens travel such vast distances to receive or partake in animal blood sacrifices and burnt offerings of animals? Especially when such blood sacrifice foreshadows the atonement of Jesus Christ. Why would they provide such specific and sometimes peculiar laws for diet, property ownership, hygiene, justice, interpersonal relations and sex? If these laws are from advanced aliens, why do people take pride in not obeying them? Why do people dismiss them?
Anyone who claims that the God of the Bible is an alien, hasn’t read it, or doesn’t understand it. It’s clear from the text that God created everything, and revealed Himself to a specific nation for a reason. Reasons that would not make sense for aliens, namely the creation, fall and redemption of mankind. Fictional aliens like Q from Star Trek or the the”lords” from Philip Jose Farmer’s “World of Tiers” are capricious and have no motive to do these kinds of things. They would also be hard-pressed to accomplish the creation of all that exists, in addition to subsequent activities, predicting and shaping events to establish a nation. A nation whose sole purpose was to provide a means of redeeming mankind via the Messiah, Jesus. And if they could, one would have to ask “who created them?” Or even, “why bother?”
In short, aliens (if they existed at all) would have to be created beings, and as such it is impossible for God to be an alien as He has no creator. The Bible tells the story of THE creator God and His plan of redemption for fallen mankind. We know because He revealed it to us in the Bible. No matter how you look at it, there is no way possible that God as revealed in the Hebrew Scriptures could be an extraterrestrial as most understand the term.
Which brings us to Jesus Christ, aka Jesus Messiah.
We all know that some of the claims that Jesus was an alien stem from medieval art. Nevermind that medieval artists were centuries removed from the event, and therefore not eyewitnesses to Jesus’ conception, birth, death or resurrection. Obviously poor evidence for the argument in other words. Besides that, the art claims were thoroughly debunked.
Beyond that though, we know that Jesus cannot possibly be an extraterrestrial, hybrid or otherwise, simply because He is one with God the Father. The Bible demonstrates, and Jesus states that He and the Father (God) are ONE. Here is one proof
And I am indebted to the late Walter Martin for the following verses. He used these verses to demonstrate to Jehovah’s Witnesses that Jesus Messiah is the Son of God, and also God. God in human flesh.
Mp3 download of his sermon is available on this page. Be sure to also share it with your Jehovah’s Witnesses and Mormon friends.
God the Father is referred to as the first and the last. This is from the Old Testament. Please go here or reference your Bible to read the following verses.
Isaiah 44:6
Thus saith the Lord the King of Israel, and his redeemer the Lord of hosts; I am the first, and I am the last; and beside me there is no God.
In Revelation 1:8, Jesus, now resurrected and glorified, makes a similar statement of being first and last, Alpha and Omega. According to Martin, this verse is also equally applicable and attributable to God the Father. Kind of makes sense in light of the Isaiah verse. As if that isn’t enough though, Revelation 22:13emphasizes it.
Exodus 3 outlines God’s first use of “I AM”. Jesus also made the claim of “I AM” in several places. John 8 and 10 being a few.
Further indebting myself, now to Chuck Missler, the Bible demonstrates multiple times that Jesus is equal to the Father and the Holy Spirit, illustrating one God in three persons. If God the Father (of the old testament wasn’t an alien, Jesus can’t be, nor can the Holy Spirit. Proving that the incarnation of Jesus was not the result of aliens, but rather a supernatural act and indwelling of the Creator God.
In Hebrews 10:5 – 10, it would appear that the writer of Hebrews notes that the Father gave Jesus a corporeal body. In Philippians 2:5 – 7, it’s noted that Jesus is equal with God, and took up flesh, a human body. Seemingly of His own accord. Finally, in Luke 1:35, the Holy Spirit is cited as giving Jesus Christ a human body, by allowing Mary to conceive as a virgin. This is probably the most well-known part of Jesus’ conception.
There are other examples of each part of the Godhead receiving credit for a particular event, demonstrating that God the Father, the Son Jesus and the Holy Spirit are all one. A couple examples are: regarding atonement (Isaiah 53 – Father, Ephesians 5 – the Son and Hebrews 9 – the Holy Spirit) as well as the resurrection of Jesus (Romans 6 – God the Father, John 10 – the Son, and Romans 8 – the Holy Spirit.)
Since the Bible demonstrates that God is self sustaining, preexistent and that God is one, but revealed in three persons, no one part of God can be an alien. As demonstrated in the first half of this blog, God the Father created everything (Genesis 1), so He can’t be E.T. Jesus (God the Son) was there at creation and created everything (John 1), so He can’t be an alien creation. There was no UFO at Bethlehem, because Jesus wasn’t an alien. The Holy Spirit was involved in creation Psalm 33:6 and, so He can’t be an alien either. If all three persons of the Trinity were involved in the creation, they cannot be mere physical beings like you or I, because they were not created. Period. Nor can they be mere (or advanced) extraterrestrial beings, like a hypothetical Wookie, Q, Klingon or Yoda.
In short, the Bible clearly demonstrates that God is GOD and not an alien misinterpreted as a god. God was not an alien, neither was Jesus neither was the Holy Spirit. If you believe God is an alien, I would urge you to pray sincerely to the creator God to show you the absolute truth on the matter, in His Son Jesus’ name. In my experience, when I was struggling with who Jesus was and if He was an alien or ascended master, I prayed like that and discovered that God was God and that His son Jesus is the only way to Him. God, who is not an alien, gave us this good news about His son, who is also not an alien:
1 Corinthians 15:3 -5
For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures; And that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures: And that he was seen of Cephas, then of the twelve:
All of this is to say that miracles like the burning bush are simply that miracles of God. Sent to men and women specifically prepared by circumstances God allowed. Moses, I am sure, thought his life as a Hebrew and as a leader was over. The pride that led him to an angry act has been smothered out by the years of servitude ending in the prince now seeing himself as a shepherd, doing one of the lowliest acts in the world, beholden to his father-in-law. Now being asked by God to step in, seeing that calling as some sort of overwhelming idea.
Thomas Hawies:
Exodus Chapter 3
Verses 1-6: Moses now seems to have forgotten Egypt, and Israel to be no more remembered of their God; but this is the day of salvation. Moses, as usual, was attending his father’s flocks, buried in obscurity, and humbly acquiescing in his employment. Learn, 1. When we can see God’s call, obscurity becomes our duty, and the meanest occupation must be welcome. 2. It God be long before he calls us forth, it is because he is preparing us for what he hath prepared for us.
1. God appears to him in a flame of fire in a bush; and Moses, struck with the uncommon appearance, draws near to see this sight, a bush burning, yet unconsumed. The church of Christ is like this bush, ever in affliction, yet never to be destroyed.
(Notice that he turned to see the bush, had he ignored kit, what would have been lost? How often do we turn from a phenomenon out of fear or misunderstanding and lose that moment that Moses grasped? Please prepare for those moments in your life now by listening to God and reading His Word. He will always speak sometimes from burning bushes most often in a gentle whisper. Se directly below.)
2. God speaks to him out of the fire, and Moses answers. He is hereupon directed how to approach, with reverence and godly fear, in order to hear the revelation God is about to make to him. Note, (1.) Attention to providences is a great means of keeping up communion with God. (2.) An obedient ear is ever open to instruction. (3.) In our appearances before God, the posture of our body should comport with the deep abasement and sacred awe, which is upon our mind.
3. He makes himself known to him, as the covenant God of his fathers, to encourage his faith, and to engage his obedience. All live to God. Those whom we reckon among the dead, are only removed into that better world, where life eternal reigns, Lu 20:37.
4. Moses is deeply affected with what he sees and hears. A sense of our own great unworthiness may well cover our faces with shame, when we appear before God: and the more a saint of God experiences of his love, the deeper will be his humiliation before him.
More important, Moses has been spiritually prepped to go face to face with Pharoah.
Patrick and his law firm of commentators:
Exodus 3:10
Come now therefore, and I will send thee unto Pharaoh, &c. Leave thy flock; for I have another more weighty business, wherein I will employ thee. For thou shalt go with my authority to Pharaoh; and command him not only to release my propel out of their servitude, but to let them go also out of Egypt. He had called them by the name of his people, (Ex 3:7), and now mentions it again, to encourage their hope that he would take care of his own.
What Pharaoh this was (it being a common name to all the Egyptian kings) is very much disputed. (See my last few post for off and on discussions. W.) The common opinion is, that after Orus (in whose time Moses fled into Midian), Acenceres (or Achernes) reigned twelve years; and after him Achoris reigned seven years more; and then succeeded Cenchres, the worst of them all, to whom Moses was now sent. But Clemens Alexandrinus tells us, that Appion (a great enemy of the Jews, and who wrote three books about their affairs, in which he saith (lib. 1. Stromat. P. 320). But Tacitus calls him Boechoris, or, as some read it, Occoris (lib. 5. Hist. Cap. 3).
That thou mayest bring forth my people, &c. From this time we are to consider God as the king of this people: not in general only, as he is Lord of the whole world; but in a proper and peculiar manner. For whatsoever authority or power of jurisdiction the kings of other nations did exercise over their subjects (as power of life and death, of making laws and leagues, &c.), the same prerogative did the Lord of heaven and earth reserve to himself alone, over the children of Israel. Upon which ground, as Dr. Jackson well observes, Moses was delegated to be his ambassador to this king of Egypt; and constituted (it appears by the whole story) his deputy or viceroy over Israel.
At which point we arrive at a discussion of kings who seem to present evil incarnate. For the next time.
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