The Abysmal Finish
Two quick notes on the news:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/us-close-to-releasing-mideast-peace-proposal-that-palestinian-leadership-may-immediately-reject/2018/06/20/32ffa498-73f1-11e8-805c-4b67019fcfe4_story.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.2405bc336183
President Trump's "team" researching a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is said to be making progress on the answer. As we predicted, He will use his "success" with Kim as credentials to arrive at a solution, one that will put the Israelis at ease and open the door for the Russian invasion. Be sure that, if the treaty is reached, it will favor Russia, perhaps even setting up their military or Syrian surrogates as a guard for the treaty.
http://www.latimes.com/world/la-fg-mideast-peace-deal-20180621-story.html
The Trump team met Tuesday with Jordan’s King Abdullah II and Wednesday with Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who acknowledged the talks only after the fact.
Later Thursday, the U.S. team traveled to Qatar and met with its emir, Sheik Tamim bin Hamad al Thani, according to a White House statement. They discussed increasing cooperation between the two countries, ways to provide humanitarian relief to Gaza and possibilities for peace between Israel and the Palestinians.
In Egypt, Thursday's meeting with the U.S. delegation also dealt with increasing Egyptian-American cooperation, the White House said without elaborating.
Egypt's presidency released a statement after the meeting saying it mainly discussed the Palestinian-Israeli peace efforts and cooperation. It said the meeting was attended by Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry and the acting head of general intelligence, Abbas Kamel.
Washington gives Egypt some $1.3 billion in annual military assistance and hundreds of millions more in civilian aid that is linked to Egypt's 1979 peace treaty with Israel, and underpins a U.S.-Egyptian security relationship that is now mostly aimed at fighting terrorism.
And:
YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK (KIFI/KIDK) - After lying quiet for nearly four years, the Steamboat Geyser in Yellowstone National Park is roaring back to life. The first of 10 eruptions so far took place on March 15. The latest occurred just last Friday. This seemingly rare occurrence is actually pretty normal for the geyser.
"Steamboat is basically an enigmatic geyser," said Jeff Hungerford, a geologist with Yellowstone National Park. "And it tends to go off every, you know, a couple times every few years or so and then have these periods of heightened activity where we may get 20 eruptions during a year or so."
The eruptions have many wondering if the super volcano lying beneath Yellowstone is ready to blow. Scientists say, we won't see that happen in our lifetime.
"If we were actually to see some kind of erupted activity here in Yellowstone, which is very very improbable, we would see increased seismicity," Hungerford said. "We would see deformation or ground swelling that's indicative. We'd also see gas emissions that are more indicative of an eruption."
The eruptions have increased the crowds around Steamboat. Some even camp out around the geyser all day, hoping for a chance to see the world's tallest geyser erupt. Steamboat's eruption goes about 200 feet higher than the park's most famous geyser, Old Faithful.
"It's a once in-a-lifetime eruption," said Wanda and Rick Likens, who are waiting at the geyser for it to erupt. "You know, this is probably the best geyser so probably our best shot at getting to see it."
Scientists can't predict exactly when Steamboat will go off, but they can get a good idea by watching other geysers and pools in the area. Lately, it has been going off about every four to seven days. That means, it could go off again any day now.
So we have more signs of volcanoes. Perhaps we don't need any atomic bombs on the fissure to trigger them. God is sending signs to America and we keep saying, "No. Can't happen in our lifetime." Well, many of us won'tr be alive after the supervolcano goes off, so that it technically correct. :)
Now for the abyss.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abyss_(religion)
In religion, an abyss is a bottomless pit, or also a chasm that may lead to the underworld or hell.
In the Septuagint, or Greek version of the Hebrew Bible, the word represents both the original unfinished creation (Genesis 1:2) and the Hebrew tehom ("a surging water-deep"), which is used also in apocalyptic and kabbalistic literature and in the New Testament for hell; the place of punishment; in the Revised version of the Bible "abyss" is generally used for this idea. Primarily in the Septuagint cosmography the word is applied both to the waters under the earth which originally covered it, and from which the springs and rivers are supplied and to the waters of the firmament which were regarded as closely connected with those below.
In the Parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus there is an abyss between the righteous dead and the wicked dead in Sheol.[1]
In the Book of Revelation, Abaddon is called "the angel of the abyss".[2]
As with all things Wikipedia, not quite right.
The Abyss.
https://www.gotquestions.org/what-is-the-abyss.html
The word abyss simply means “a deep hole”—so deep that it seems bottomless or immeasurable. The word is often used in modern contexts to describe the sea.
In the Bible and in Jewish theology, the Abyss is often a metaphorical reference to the place of evil spirits. Sometimes the Abyss is pictured as a deep or bottomless hole in the earth. This is the background for the New Testament usage. The King James Version usually translates the Greek term abyssou as “bottomless pit” (e.g., Revelation 9:2).
In Luke 8, Jesus cast the Legion of demons out of a man, “and they begged Jesus repeatedly not to order them to go into the Abyss” (verse 31). The Abyss is obviously a place that the demons fear and try to avoid.
In Revelation a number of times we see the Abyss as a place of confinement for evil spirits:
Revelation 9:1–3, 11 — “The fifth angel sounded his trumpet, and I saw a star that had fallen from the sky to the earth. The star was given the key to the shaft of the Abyss. When he opened the Abyss, smoke rose from it like the smoke from a gigantic furnace. The sun and sky were darkened by the smoke from the Abyss. And out of the smoke locusts came down on the earth and were given power like that of scorpions of the earth. . . . They had as king over them the angel of the Abyss, whose name in Hebrew is Abaddon and in Greek is Apollyon (that is, Destroyer).”
Revelation 11:7 — “Now when [the two witnesses] have finished their testimony, the beast that comes up from the Abyss will attack them, and overpower and kill them.”
Revelation 20:1–3 — “And I saw an angel coming down out of heaven, having the key to the Abyss and holding in his hand a great chain. He seized the dragon, that ancient serpent, who is the devil, or Satan, and bound him for a thousand years. He threw him into the Abyss, and locked and sealed it over him, to keep him from deceiving the nations anymore until the thousand years were ended.”
(Notice that Satan started this fight with God, but Jesus doesn't even dirty His hands with this chore. And one angel, unnamed, takes Satan and drags him into the Abyss. Once Satan contended with Michael to keep him from answering Daniel's prayers and the fight went on for days. here it is simply over with Satan overcome by a superior force. Perhaps it is Abaddon. W.)
In all of these instances, the Abyss is a place for the containment of evil spirits. Many Bible scholars believe that this is the same place referred to in 2 Peter 2:4 as “hell,” where some evil spirits are “in chains of darkness to be held for judgment.” The word hell here is a translation of the Greek tartarus, which can be thought of as the “deepest pit” or the “lowest part of Hades.”
It is clear from Scripture that God has ultimate power over all evil spirits. Some of the demons have been consigned to the Abyss and held captive there, while others seem to be able to move more freely upon the earth. Ultimately, all evil spirits will be consigned to the lake of fire, along with all unbelievers (see Revelation 20:10–15).
Now the picture we have is this: a seemingly bottomless pit with a lake of fire in it.
It seems impossible and thus it must be symbolic. Or just another myth.
Except...have you ever heard of a black hole?
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/black%20hole
Definition of black hole
1 : a celestial object that has a gravitational field so strong that light cannot escape it and that is believed to be created especially in the collapse of a very massive star
The theory is that the star is so heavy it literally falls out of this universe leaving a gaping hole behind it.
https://www.physicsoftheuniverse.com/topics_blackholes_singularities.html
In the centre of a black hole is a gravitational singularity, a one-dimensional point which contains a huge mass in an infinitely small space, where density and gravity become infinite and space-time curves infinitely, and where the laws of physics as we know them cease to operate. As the eminent American physicist Kip Thorne describes it, it is "the point where all laws of physics break down".
Current theory suggests that, as an object falls into a black hole and approaches the singularity at the centre, it will become stretched out or “spaghettified” due to the increasing differential in gravitational attraction on different parts of it, before presumably losing dimensionality completely and disappearing irrevocably into the singularity. An observer watching from a safe distance outside, though, would have a different view of the event. According to relativity theory, they would see the object moving slower and slower as it approaches the black hole until it comes to a complete halt at the event horizon, never actually falling into the black hole.
The existence of a singularity is often taken as proof that the theory of general relativity has broken down, which is perhaps not unexpected as it occurs in conditions where quantum effects should become important. It is conceivable that some future combined theory of quantum gravity (such as current research into superstrings) may be able to describe black holes without the need for singularities, but such a theory is still many years away.
According to the "cosmic censorship" hypothesis, a black hole's singularity remains hidden behind its event horizon, in that it is always surrounded by an area which does not allow light to escape, and therefore cannot be directly observed. The only exception the hypothesis allows (known as a “naked” singularity) is the initial Big Bang itself.
(Notice how the Big Bang MUST exist in that mythology and, therefore, there are exceptions to rules to allow that creation myth to exist. W)
It seems likely, then, that, by its very nature, we will never be able to fully describe or even understand the singularity at the centre of a black hole. Although an observer can send signals into a black hole, nothing inside the black hole can ever communicate with anything outside it, so its secrets would seem to be safe forever.
I include the below article to show the power that a black hole can exert.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/black-hole-eat-star-image-space-astronomers-eruption-a8399266.html
Scientists have seen the vast blast thrown out by a black hole eating a star for the first ever time.
Researchers have finally watched the formation and expansion of the fast-moving jet of material that is thrown out when a supermassive black hole's gravity grabs a star and tears it apart.
Scientists watched the dramatic event using highly specialised telescopes, which are trained on a pair of colliding galaxies called Arp 299, nearly 150 million light-years from Earth. At the centre of one of those galaxies, a star twice the size of the Sun came too close to a black hole that is more than 20 million times big as our Sun – and was shredded apart, throwing a blast across the universe.
It was that blast that scientists were able to see happen for the first time ever. Theorists have long thought the events were common – speculating that material torn from the star makes a rotating disk around the black hole, emitting intense X-rays and visible light, and also pushes jets of material outward from the poles of the disk at nearly the speed of light – but have been yet to see it actually happen.
"Never before have we been able to directly observe the formation and evolution of a jet from one of these events," said Miguel Perez-Torres, of the Astrophysical Institute of Andalusia in Granada, Spain.
Most galaxies have supermassive black holes, which can pull matter into them and form a huge disc around their outsides as they do. But for the most part, those black holes stay quiet, not devouring anything.
That means that the violent events that scientists have finally seen can be a unparalleled insight into what actually happens around a black hole.
"Much of the time, however, supermassive black holes are not actively devouring anything, so they are in a quiet state," Perez-Torres said. "Tidal disruption events can provide us with a unique opportunity to advance our understanding of the formation and evolution of jets in the vicinities of these powerful objects," he added.
Researchers had initially turned their sights towards the doomed star as part of a search for supernova explosions in such colliding pairs of galaxies. They had initially thought that they were seeing was one such a supernova explosion – but it kept expanding, confirming that it was in fact a jet being spewed out as the star was torn apart.
Black holes convert matter to energy. Fire amounts to the conversion of matter, wood, cloths, paper, into energy: heat and light. Black holes produce certain energy signatures that indicate matter going into them is converted to energy. At least, they radiate energy seemingly produced by some actions inside.
And the phenomena have interesting power. If a black hole the size of a coin were to be placed in the center of the Earth:
http://www.slate.com/blogs/quora/2014/02/10/if_a_coin_sized_black_hole_were_placed_at_earth_s_center_what_would_happen.html
The Earth would be destroyed, but the whole planet would not be swallowed up by the black hole. A black hole with a Schwarzschild radius of about a centimeter, which would make it about the size of a coin, would have about the same mass as the Earth. The reason the Earth will be destroyed but not simply swallowed up is because the Earth will be resisting the black hole in at least two ways
First of all, not all of the Earth would simply be sucked into the black hole. When the matter near the black hole begins to fall into the black hole, it will be compressed to a very high density that will cause it to be heated to very high temperatures. These high temperatures will cause gamma rays, X-rays, and other radiation to heat up the other matter falling in to the black hole. The net effect will be that there will be a strong outward pressure on the outer layers of the Earth that will first slow down their fall and will eventually ionize and push the outer layers away from the black hole. So some inner portion of the core will fall into the black hole, but the outer layers, including the crust and all of us, would be vaporized to a high temperature plasma and blown into space.
Secondly, the Earth is rotating, so by conservation of angular momentum, when a significant amount of mass has started to fall into the black hole, the mass will also begin rotating at a higher and higher rate. (Imagine the ice skater pulling in her arms to rotate faster.) This angular momentum will tend to slow down the fall into the black hole and will eventually result in something like an accretion disc around the black hole. This will also limit the fraction of the Earth that will fall into the black hole and will greatly increase the time it takes for the black hole to consume whatever fraction of the mass of the Earth it will consume. The reason for the delay is that the accretion disc has to use friction to transfer angular momentum from the innermost portion of the disc to the outer edge of the disc, where it will cause material to be ejected from the vicinity of the disc—carrying away angular momentum. The lower angular momentum near the center will allow that innermost material to fall into the black hole.
In fact, even though the Earth only rotates once per day, the angular momentum of the Earth is huge. There are limits to how much angular momentum a black hole can have—roughly the maximum angular momentum is where the "surface" of the black hole (if it had a surface) would approach the speed of light. Trying to make a small (two Earth mass) black hole with all of the Earth's angular momentum would mean that the surface would have to travel at about 109 times the speed of light. So most of the mass of the Earth would have to be used to carry away almost all of the original angular momentum of the Earth in order to keep the black hole below its angular momentum limit.
Utter destruction by one the size of a quarter. They seem to be the glue of the universe holding the matter of galaxies together from the beginning:
https://medium.com/the-physics-arxiv-blog/supermassive-black-hole-at-the-centre-of-the-galaxy-may-be-a-wormhole-in-disguise-say-astronomers-bb5ae64fa4fa
The presence of a wormhole would actually solve a major problem of galaxy formation. In recent years, astronomers have observed what appear to be supermassive black holes at the centre of many galaxies. Indeed, many believe that supermassive black holes are necessary for galaxies to form in the first place— they provide the gravitational pull to hold galaxies together in their early stages.
But if that’s true, how do supermassive black holes become so massive so quickly? After all, the one at the centre of our galaxy must have been in place about 100 million years after the Big Bang. That doesn’t leave much time to grow.
A wormhole, on the other hand, is a primordial object formed in the blink of an eye after creation. So if wormholes did form in this way, they would be present in the early universe to trigger the formation of the first galaxies.
That’s why telling one from the other is so significant— the difference provides important clues about the nature of the early universe.
And the researcher goes: Again with creation and a link with it and wormholes and black holes and, oh, yeah, if those are massive black holes that suddenly popped up then the universe is really too old for our theories and if those are wormholes that could have popped up immediately on creation than the universe could be really a lot younger than our human theory and that old can of worm(hole)s about Christians being correct because the place isn't really all that old, just, you know, lived in. And how can they get away with using the C-word? Isn't that word "creation" the Christian word for it? Did you ever notice Christian is capitalized and scientist is not unless it is at the beginning of the sentence? Oh, well, back to my point.
Imagine in this little sidebar post that the abyss really is a giant black hole designed to hold the evil spirits and the physical bodies of beings like angels and humans as well. If space and time slow there than the angels must be able to move through them as they do through then air or water, as if this current Earth was something no more to them than us wading in a shallow pool of water. And one can bind another angel there with some sort of spiritual chains. Bind that angel so he is stuck where time doesn't move and space doesn't exist as we know it. The POWER of angels is assume if they can walk into a place that eats suns and come back again unscathed.
But we humans look at it from this distance of time and megamiles and see our future fate. God will place the ones who have opposed him there. Set in a place where there is no time or space as we know it. They won't be able to leave. Apart from the remade universe that is to come. Because sin has no place in God's Kingdom, in Jesus' Kingdom. Matter placed there being destroyed instantly and yet never being destroyed because there is no time. Recall the movie Jurassic Park we mentioned many posts ago. In the beginning, miners are digging furiously and they find this grand discovery, one we think must be gold but then the camera zooms in and we see they have discovered a mosquito trapped in amber. A mosquito from supposed millenia ago who has the blood of dinosaurs in him and the scientists leading the expedition rouse with the joy of triumph. They can use that blood for the DNA to recreate dinos. Now see every unsaved sinner trapped in the eternal amber of a black hole and no one coming after them. No one wants to reconstruct the dinosaur of sin, the reptile that the dragon Satan created. Even as the fear of him and the memory of his power fuels our going to those dinosaur movies and our fascination with them as our destroyers.
But, you say, why would God do this to the sinners? They made their choice. God offered them eternity with Him and they refused. They wanted their own way and it led to their misery or prosperity on Earth in the temporary instead of into the eternal. Even those who never heard of Jesus were testified to by the Creation around them. They tortured and mistreated Christians in their lives. They rejected God in rejecting them. They wanted everything now, to be like God now, right away. And God honored their choice. With tears in His Jesus eyes. He wanted to gather them to Himself like the chicks. Like Jesus said He wanted to gather Jerusalem to Himself.
God knew what was coming when He foresaw Jesus dying o the cross for all sin. Humans would all be resurrected. See that clearly. Humans will ALL be resurrected. Every last one of us. We are all coming back BECAUSE He died, On the cross the process became inescapable reality. No eternal nothingness. We return in our new, Final Flesh. This disagrees with most commentaries. Most of them belief the flesh of the newly resurrected sinner will be like our current flesh, but the judgement will be held in heaven and our current flesh cannot enter Heaven.
1Co 15:49 And in the same way as we have taken on us the image of the man from the earth, so we will take on us the image of the one from heaven.
50 Now I say this, my brothers, that it is not possible for flesh and blood to have a part in the kingdom of God; and death may not have a part in life.
51 See, I am giving you the revelation of a secret: we will not all come to the sleep of death, but we will all be changed.
52 In a second, in the shutting of an eye, at the sound of the last horn: for at that sound the dead will come again, free for ever from the power of death, and we will be changed.
(BBE)
The assumption made here by commentators is that Paul means all the Christians will be changed since he is talking to them, but I suspect all of humanity will enter changed into perfect flesh, into our Final Flesh and this as much as anything is what dooms the lost. Since they are now eternal beings they cannot simply be put down like mad dogs. Eternal beings need an eternal prison as Satan and the demons have already proven. And Sheol is cast into the pit with us. It was meant for the ones awaiting judgement, not for the judged. It was a part of the old universe. We may think there is a way out of the pit, that humans can find a way to earn their salvation afterward, How can we do any deed of salvation if we cannot even move in the amber of timelessness? How can we repent if we can't even speak?
I awoke from a dream to write this. In the dream I and some friends were discussing End Times, and we parked the car and walked a bit, and saying we must find a church. I was with several men. One was Jamie, a sandy haired smiling guy with bushy hair. We had to find a place to worship. We sat on the park bench to discuss it. I saw Jamie as a young man when we sat down. I looked up again and he was an old man and we were still sitting on that park bench. We hadn't moved the whole time and we were still talking about finding a place of safety to worship. So many of us, so many churches themselves are like that. I know of small churches in rural communities that never adapted to the growth around them, to the fact that the children of the generations that had grown up there to farm over the centuries, their children had left for jobs in cities and the churches had shrunk down to just a few, sometimes to just the remains of one family, and they were sitting on their park bench pews seeing this shrunken place sometimes with only their parents as ministers as safety while the world that needed saving was untouched by them. they stay due to pride. Or the ones in large churches, hiding, worshipping to themselves among a mass of humanity, untouched by others. I know folks on the internet who have churches nearby that they could join in worship, that they could reach out to and become united for Christ. They don't due to pride. We all have moments, even decades where we sit, listening to old Christian worship songs, hearing someone talking on the radio, seeing that one TV preacher we know has the truth, sitting on our park benches, following that Simon and Garfunkel song:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6YpK-qrGQrg
And our old man is our constant companion, trapping us in the amber of immobility, the saved suffering from the future Abyss fate now that they never have to face. An America harking back to a time of the wild west, a TV time of James West and Artemis Gordon solving Secret Service problems with James Bond doodads, voting in an old man President with old man dreams of one final glory for the flesh of this Earth. The only glory that flesh will ever know. That past traps us on the park bench as time actually does pass here. Satan has them in the hell on Earth, feeling alone when they belong to Christ and to each other. To each other.
"Do unto others as you would have them do unto you."
There is no one to do unto if you are sitting on an isolated park bench with only your old buddies and the amber of the past, listening to '60's Rock songs like they are hymns or to hymns like they are '60's rock songs.
Understand, a giant ME, TOO flows in all this. I fail like this so often. but we have this secret, every Christian has this secret. It isn't truly a secret, so much as a fact of our life, but we so often keep it secret. We can move any time. We are not trapped in amber except by our own making. When we move, the amber magically melts away. Unlike our unsaved friends, we are not the victims of our past, of our refusal to see reality. If we are not careful, the precious days of our lives, given to serve outside the ember, slip away and we are indeed trapped by the daily grind of living and even of worshipping by rote. We unlearn how to think, to love and act as Him and fall back into the being who is doomed to be trapped in the amber.
We are not off in a place beyond here, trapped forever, suffering the fate of every cell in a perfect body being destroyed in an instant that lasts forever. We are here serving forever, not sit on the park bench watching time go by ans not noticing it is taking us with it.
I publish this early and without any other thoughts on other texts though I said I would, This just strikes me as essential to get out there. I don't know why. God bless you all.
Two quick notes on the news:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/us-close-to-releasing-mideast-peace-proposal-that-palestinian-leadership-may-immediately-reject/2018/06/20/32ffa498-73f1-11e8-805c-4b67019fcfe4_story.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.2405bc336183
President Trump's "team" researching a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is said to be making progress on the answer. As we predicted, He will use his "success" with Kim as credentials to arrive at a solution, one that will put the Israelis at ease and open the door for the Russian invasion. Be sure that, if the treaty is reached, it will favor Russia, perhaps even setting up their military or Syrian surrogates as a guard for the treaty.
http://www.latimes.com/world/la-fg-mideast-peace-deal-20180621-story.html
The Trump team met Tuesday with Jordan’s King Abdullah II and Wednesday with Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who acknowledged the talks only after the fact.
Later Thursday, the U.S. team traveled to Qatar and met with its emir, Sheik Tamim bin Hamad al Thani, according to a White House statement. They discussed increasing cooperation between the two countries, ways to provide humanitarian relief to Gaza and possibilities for peace between Israel and the Palestinians.
In Egypt, Thursday's meeting with the U.S. delegation also dealt with increasing Egyptian-American cooperation, the White House said without elaborating.
Egypt's presidency released a statement after the meeting saying it mainly discussed the Palestinian-Israeli peace efforts and cooperation. It said the meeting was attended by Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry and the acting head of general intelligence, Abbas Kamel.
Washington gives Egypt some $1.3 billion in annual military assistance and hundreds of millions more in civilian aid that is linked to Egypt's 1979 peace treaty with Israel, and underpins a U.S.-Egyptian security relationship that is now mostly aimed at fighting terrorism.
And:
YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK (KIFI/KIDK) - After lying quiet for nearly four years, the Steamboat Geyser in Yellowstone National Park is roaring back to life. The first of 10 eruptions so far took place on March 15. The latest occurred just last Friday. This seemingly rare occurrence is actually pretty normal for the geyser.
"Steamboat is basically an enigmatic geyser," said Jeff Hungerford, a geologist with Yellowstone National Park. "And it tends to go off every, you know, a couple times every few years or so and then have these periods of heightened activity where we may get 20 eruptions during a year or so."
The eruptions have many wondering if the super volcano lying beneath Yellowstone is ready to blow. Scientists say, we won't see that happen in our lifetime.
"If we were actually to see some kind of erupted activity here in Yellowstone, which is very very improbable, we would see increased seismicity," Hungerford said. "We would see deformation or ground swelling that's indicative. We'd also see gas emissions that are more indicative of an eruption."
The eruptions have increased the crowds around Steamboat. Some even camp out around the geyser all day, hoping for a chance to see the world's tallest geyser erupt. Steamboat's eruption goes about 200 feet higher than the park's most famous geyser, Old Faithful.
"It's a once in-a-lifetime eruption," said Wanda and Rick Likens, who are waiting at the geyser for it to erupt. "You know, this is probably the best geyser so probably our best shot at getting to see it."
Scientists can't predict exactly when Steamboat will go off, but they can get a good idea by watching other geysers and pools in the area. Lately, it has been going off about every four to seven days. That means, it could go off again any day now.
So we have more signs of volcanoes. Perhaps we don't need any atomic bombs on the fissure to trigger them. God is sending signs to America and we keep saying, "No. Can't happen in our lifetime." Well, many of us won'tr be alive after the supervolcano goes off, so that it technically correct. :)
Now for the abyss.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abyss_(religion)
In religion, an abyss is a bottomless pit, or also a chasm that may lead to the underworld or hell.
In the Septuagint, or Greek version of the Hebrew Bible, the word represents both the original unfinished creation (Genesis 1:2) and the Hebrew tehom ("a surging water-deep"), which is used also in apocalyptic and kabbalistic literature and in the New Testament for hell; the place of punishment; in the Revised version of the Bible "abyss" is generally used for this idea. Primarily in the Septuagint cosmography the word is applied both to the waters under the earth which originally covered it, and from which the springs and rivers are supplied and to the waters of the firmament which were regarded as closely connected with those below.
In the Parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus there is an abyss between the righteous dead and the wicked dead in Sheol.[1]
In the Book of Revelation, Abaddon is called "the angel of the abyss".[2]
As with all things Wikipedia, not quite right.
The Abyss.
https://www.gotquestions.org/what-is-the-abyss.html
The word abyss simply means “a deep hole”—so deep that it seems bottomless or immeasurable. The word is often used in modern contexts to describe the sea.
In the Bible and in Jewish theology, the Abyss is often a metaphorical reference to the place of evil spirits. Sometimes the Abyss is pictured as a deep or bottomless hole in the earth. This is the background for the New Testament usage. The King James Version usually translates the Greek term abyssou as “bottomless pit” (e.g., Revelation 9:2).
In Luke 8, Jesus cast the Legion of demons out of a man, “and they begged Jesus repeatedly not to order them to go into the Abyss” (verse 31). The Abyss is obviously a place that the demons fear and try to avoid.
In Revelation a number of times we see the Abyss as a place of confinement for evil spirits:
Revelation 9:1–3, 11 — “The fifth angel sounded his trumpet, and I saw a star that had fallen from the sky to the earth. The star was given the key to the shaft of the Abyss. When he opened the Abyss, smoke rose from it like the smoke from a gigantic furnace. The sun and sky were darkened by the smoke from the Abyss. And out of the smoke locusts came down on the earth and were given power like that of scorpions of the earth. . . . They had as king over them the angel of the Abyss, whose name in Hebrew is Abaddon and in Greek is Apollyon (that is, Destroyer).”
Revelation 11:7 — “Now when [the two witnesses] have finished their testimony, the beast that comes up from the Abyss will attack them, and overpower and kill them.”
Revelation 20:1–3 — “And I saw an angel coming down out of heaven, having the key to the Abyss and holding in his hand a great chain. He seized the dragon, that ancient serpent, who is the devil, or Satan, and bound him for a thousand years. He threw him into the Abyss, and locked and sealed it over him, to keep him from deceiving the nations anymore until the thousand years were ended.”
(Notice that Satan started this fight with God, but Jesus doesn't even dirty His hands with this chore. And one angel, unnamed, takes Satan and drags him into the Abyss. Once Satan contended with Michael to keep him from answering Daniel's prayers and the fight went on for days. here it is simply over with Satan overcome by a superior force. Perhaps it is Abaddon. W.)
In all of these instances, the Abyss is a place for the containment of evil spirits. Many Bible scholars believe that this is the same place referred to in 2 Peter 2:4 as “hell,” where some evil spirits are “in chains of darkness to be held for judgment.” The word hell here is a translation of the Greek tartarus, which can be thought of as the “deepest pit” or the “lowest part of Hades.”
It is clear from Scripture that God has ultimate power over all evil spirits. Some of the demons have been consigned to the Abyss and held captive there, while others seem to be able to move more freely upon the earth. Ultimately, all evil spirits will be consigned to the lake of fire, along with all unbelievers (see Revelation 20:10–15).
Now the picture we have is this: a seemingly bottomless pit with a lake of fire in it.
It seems impossible and thus it must be symbolic. Or just another myth.
Except...have you ever heard of a black hole?
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/black%20hole
Definition of black hole
1 : a celestial object that has a gravitational field so strong that light cannot escape it and that is believed to be created especially in the collapse of a very massive star
The theory is that the star is so heavy it literally falls out of this universe leaving a gaping hole behind it.
https://www.physicsoftheuniverse.com/topics_blackholes_singularities.html
In the centre of a black hole is a gravitational singularity, a one-dimensional point which contains a huge mass in an infinitely small space, where density and gravity become infinite and space-time curves infinitely, and where the laws of physics as we know them cease to operate. As the eminent American physicist Kip Thorne describes it, it is "the point where all laws of physics break down".
Current theory suggests that, as an object falls into a black hole and approaches the singularity at the centre, it will become stretched out or “spaghettified” due to the increasing differential in gravitational attraction on different parts of it, before presumably losing dimensionality completely and disappearing irrevocably into the singularity. An observer watching from a safe distance outside, though, would have a different view of the event. According to relativity theory, they would see the object moving slower and slower as it approaches the black hole until it comes to a complete halt at the event horizon, never actually falling into the black hole.
The existence of a singularity is often taken as proof that the theory of general relativity has broken down, which is perhaps not unexpected as it occurs in conditions where quantum effects should become important. It is conceivable that some future combined theory of quantum gravity (such as current research into superstrings) may be able to describe black holes without the need for singularities, but such a theory is still many years away.
According to the "cosmic censorship" hypothesis, a black hole's singularity remains hidden behind its event horizon, in that it is always surrounded by an area which does not allow light to escape, and therefore cannot be directly observed. The only exception the hypothesis allows (known as a “naked” singularity) is the initial Big Bang itself.
(Notice how the Big Bang MUST exist in that mythology and, therefore, there are exceptions to rules to allow that creation myth to exist. W)
It seems likely, then, that, by its very nature, we will never be able to fully describe or even understand the singularity at the centre of a black hole. Although an observer can send signals into a black hole, nothing inside the black hole can ever communicate with anything outside it, so its secrets would seem to be safe forever.
I include the below article to show the power that a black hole can exert.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/black-hole-eat-star-image-space-astronomers-eruption-a8399266.html
Scientists have seen the vast blast thrown out by a black hole eating a star for the first ever time.
Researchers have finally watched the formation and expansion of the fast-moving jet of material that is thrown out when a supermassive black hole's gravity grabs a star and tears it apart.
Scientists watched the dramatic event using highly specialised telescopes, which are trained on a pair of colliding galaxies called Arp 299, nearly 150 million light-years from Earth. At the centre of one of those galaxies, a star twice the size of the Sun came too close to a black hole that is more than 20 million times big as our Sun – and was shredded apart, throwing a blast across the universe.
It was that blast that scientists were able to see happen for the first time ever. Theorists have long thought the events were common – speculating that material torn from the star makes a rotating disk around the black hole, emitting intense X-rays and visible light, and also pushes jets of material outward from the poles of the disk at nearly the speed of light – but have been yet to see it actually happen.
"Never before have we been able to directly observe the formation and evolution of a jet from one of these events," said Miguel Perez-Torres, of the Astrophysical Institute of Andalusia in Granada, Spain.
Most galaxies have supermassive black holes, which can pull matter into them and form a huge disc around their outsides as they do. But for the most part, those black holes stay quiet, not devouring anything.
That means that the violent events that scientists have finally seen can be a unparalleled insight into what actually happens around a black hole.
"Much of the time, however, supermassive black holes are not actively devouring anything, so they are in a quiet state," Perez-Torres said. "Tidal disruption events can provide us with a unique opportunity to advance our understanding of the formation and evolution of jets in the vicinities of these powerful objects," he added.
Researchers had initially turned their sights towards the doomed star as part of a search for supernova explosions in such colliding pairs of galaxies. They had initially thought that they were seeing was one such a supernova explosion – but it kept expanding, confirming that it was in fact a jet being spewed out as the star was torn apart.
And the phenomena have interesting power. If a black hole the size of a coin were to be placed in the center of the Earth:
http://www.slate.com/blogs/quora/2014/02/10/if_a_coin_sized_black_hole_were_placed_at_earth_s_center_what_would_happen.html
The Earth would be destroyed, but the whole planet would not be swallowed up by the black hole. A black hole with a Schwarzschild radius of about a centimeter, which would make it about the size of a coin, would have about the same mass as the Earth. The reason the Earth will be destroyed but not simply swallowed up is because the Earth will be resisting the black hole in at least two ways
First of all, not all of the Earth would simply be sucked into the black hole. When the matter near the black hole begins to fall into the black hole, it will be compressed to a very high density that will cause it to be heated to very high temperatures. These high temperatures will cause gamma rays, X-rays, and other radiation to heat up the other matter falling in to the black hole. The net effect will be that there will be a strong outward pressure on the outer layers of the Earth that will first slow down their fall and will eventually ionize and push the outer layers away from the black hole. So some inner portion of the core will fall into the black hole, but the outer layers, including the crust and all of us, would be vaporized to a high temperature plasma and blown into space.
Secondly, the Earth is rotating, so by conservation of angular momentum, when a significant amount of mass has started to fall into the black hole, the mass will also begin rotating at a higher and higher rate. (Imagine the ice skater pulling in her arms to rotate faster.) This angular momentum will tend to slow down the fall into the black hole and will eventually result in something like an accretion disc around the black hole. This will also limit the fraction of the Earth that will fall into the black hole and will greatly increase the time it takes for the black hole to consume whatever fraction of the mass of the Earth it will consume. The reason for the delay is that the accretion disc has to use friction to transfer angular momentum from the innermost portion of the disc to the outer edge of the disc, where it will cause material to be ejected from the vicinity of the disc—carrying away angular momentum. The lower angular momentum near the center will allow that innermost material to fall into the black hole.
In fact, even though the Earth only rotates once per day, the angular momentum of the Earth is huge. There are limits to how much angular momentum a black hole can have—roughly the maximum angular momentum is where the "surface" of the black hole (if it had a surface) would approach the speed of light. Trying to make a small (two Earth mass) black hole with all of the Earth's angular momentum would mean that the surface would have to travel at about 109 times the speed of light. So most of the mass of the Earth would have to be used to carry away almost all of the original angular momentum of the Earth in order to keep the black hole below its angular momentum limit.
Utter destruction by one the size of a quarter. They seem to be the glue of the universe holding the matter of galaxies together from the beginning:
https://medium.com/the-physics-arxiv-blog/supermassive-black-hole-at-the-centre-of-the-galaxy-may-be-a-wormhole-in-disguise-say-astronomers-bb5ae64fa4fa
The presence of a wormhole would actually solve a major problem of galaxy formation. In recent years, astronomers have observed what appear to be supermassive black holes at the centre of many galaxies. Indeed, many believe that supermassive black holes are necessary for galaxies to form in the first place— they provide the gravitational pull to hold galaxies together in their early stages.
But if that’s true, how do supermassive black holes become so massive so quickly? After all, the one at the centre of our galaxy must have been in place about 100 million years after the Big Bang. That doesn’t leave much time to grow.
A wormhole, on the other hand, is a primordial object formed in the blink of an eye after creation. So if wormholes did form in this way, they would be present in the early universe to trigger the formation of the first galaxies.
That’s why telling one from the other is so significant— the difference provides important clues about the nature of the early universe.
And the researcher goes: Again with creation and a link with it and wormholes and black holes and, oh, yeah, if those are massive black holes that suddenly popped up then the universe is really too old for our theories and if those are wormholes that could have popped up immediately on creation than the universe could be really a lot younger than our human theory and that old can of worm(hole)s about Christians being correct because the place isn't really all that old, just, you know, lived in. And how can they get away with using the C-word? Isn't that word "creation" the Christian word for it? Did you ever notice Christian is capitalized and scientist is not unless it is at the beginning of the sentence? Oh, well, back to my point.
Imagine in this little sidebar post that the abyss really is a giant black hole designed to hold the evil spirits and the physical bodies of beings like angels and humans as well. If space and time slow there than the angels must be able to move through them as they do through then air or water, as if this current Earth was something no more to them than us wading in a shallow pool of water. And one can bind another angel there with some sort of spiritual chains. Bind that angel so he is stuck where time doesn't move and space doesn't exist as we know it. The POWER of angels is assume if they can walk into a place that eats suns and come back again unscathed.
But we humans look at it from this distance of time and megamiles and see our future fate. God will place the ones who have opposed him there. Set in a place where there is no time or space as we know it. They won't be able to leave. Apart from the remade universe that is to come. Because sin has no place in God's Kingdom, in Jesus' Kingdom. Matter placed there being destroyed instantly and yet never being destroyed because there is no time. Recall the movie Jurassic Park we mentioned many posts ago. In the beginning, miners are digging furiously and they find this grand discovery, one we think must be gold but then the camera zooms in and we see they have discovered a mosquito trapped in amber. A mosquito from supposed millenia ago who has the blood of dinosaurs in him and the scientists leading the expedition rouse with the joy of triumph. They can use that blood for the DNA to recreate dinos. Now see every unsaved sinner trapped in the eternal amber of a black hole and no one coming after them. No one wants to reconstruct the dinosaur of sin, the reptile that the dragon Satan created. Even as the fear of him and the memory of his power fuels our going to those dinosaur movies and our fascination with them as our destroyers.
But, you say, why would God do this to the sinners? They made their choice. God offered them eternity with Him and they refused. They wanted their own way and it led to their misery or prosperity on Earth in the temporary instead of into the eternal. Even those who never heard of Jesus were testified to by the Creation around them. They tortured and mistreated Christians in their lives. They rejected God in rejecting them. They wanted everything now, to be like God now, right away. And God honored their choice. With tears in His Jesus eyes. He wanted to gather them to Himself like the chicks. Like Jesus said He wanted to gather Jerusalem to Himself.
God knew what was coming when He foresaw Jesus dying o the cross for all sin. Humans would all be resurrected. See that clearly. Humans will ALL be resurrected. Every last one of us. We are all coming back BECAUSE He died, On the cross the process became inescapable reality. No eternal nothingness. We return in our new, Final Flesh. This disagrees with most commentaries. Most of them belief the flesh of the newly resurrected sinner will be like our current flesh, but the judgement will be held in heaven and our current flesh cannot enter Heaven.
1Co 15:49 And in the same way as we have taken on us the image of the man from the earth, so we will take on us the image of the one from heaven.
50 Now I say this, my brothers, that it is not possible for flesh and blood to have a part in the kingdom of God; and death may not have a part in life.
51 See, I am giving you the revelation of a secret: we will not all come to the sleep of death, but we will all be changed.
52 In a second, in the shutting of an eye, at the sound of the last horn: for at that sound the dead will come again, free for ever from the power of death, and we will be changed.
(BBE)
The assumption made here by commentators is that Paul means all the Christians will be changed since he is talking to them, but I suspect all of humanity will enter changed into perfect flesh, into our Final Flesh and this as much as anything is what dooms the lost. Since they are now eternal beings they cannot simply be put down like mad dogs. Eternal beings need an eternal prison as Satan and the demons have already proven. And Sheol is cast into the pit with us. It was meant for the ones awaiting judgement, not for the judged. It was a part of the old universe. We may think there is a way out of the pit, that humans can find a way to earn their salvation afterward, How can we do any deed of salvation if we cannot even move in the amber of timelessness? How can we repent if we can't even speak?
I awoke from a dream to write this. In the dream I and some friends were discussing End Times, and we parked the car and walked a bit, and saying we must find a church. I was with several men. One was Jamie, a sandy haired smiling guy with bushy hair. We had to find a place to worship. We sat on the park bench to discuss it. I saw Jamie as a young man when we sat down. I looked up again and he was an old man and we were still sitting on that park bench. We hadn't moved the whole time and we were still talking about finding a place of safety to worship. So many of us, so many churches themselves are like that. I know of small churches in rural communities that never adapted to the growth around them, to the fact that the children of the generations that had grown up there to farm over the centuries, their children had left for jobs in cities and the churches had shrunk down to just a few, sometimes to just the remains of one family, and they were sitting on their park bench pews seeing this shrunken place sometimes with only their parents as ministers as safety while the world that needed saving was untouched by them. they stay due to pride. Or the ones in large churches, hiding, worshipping to themselves among a mass of humanity, untouched by others. I know folks on the internet who have churches nearby that they could join in worship, that they could reach out to and become united for Christ. They don't due to pride. We all have moments, even decades where we sit, listening to old Christian worship songs, hearing someone talking on the radio, seeing that one TV preacher we know has the truth, sitting on our park benches, following that Simon and Garfunkel song:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6YpK-qrGQrg
And our old man is our constant companion, trapping us in the amber of immobility, the saved suffering from the future Abyss fate now that they never have to face. An America harking back to a time of the wild west, a TV time of James West and Artemis Gordon solving Secret Service problems with James Bond doodads, voting in an old man President with old man dreams of one final glory for the flesh of this Earth. The only glory that flesh will ever know. That past traps us on the park bench as time actually does pass here. Satan has them in the hell on Earth, feeling alone when they belong to Christ and to each other. To each other.
"Do unto others as you would have them do unto you."
There is no one to do unto if you are sitting on an isolated park bench with only your old buddies and the amber of the past, listening to '60's Rock songs like they are hymns or to hymns like they are '60's rock songs.
Understand, a giant ME, TOO flows in all this. I fail like this so often. but we have this secret, every Christian has this secret. It isn't truly a secret, so much as a fact of our life, but we so often keep it secret. We can move any time. We are not trapped in amber except by our own making. When we move, the amber magically melts away. Unlike our unsaved friends, we are not the victims of our past, of our refusal to see reality. If we are not careful, the precious days of our lives, given to serve outside the ember, slip away and we are indeed trapped by the daily grind of living and even of worshipping by rote. We unlearn how to think, to love and act as Him and fall back into the being who is doomed to be trapped in the amber.
We are not off in a place beyond here, trapped forever, suffering the fate of every cell in a perfect body being destroyed in an instant that lasts forever. We are here serving forever, not sit on the park bench watching time go by ans not noticing it is taking us with it.
I publish this early and without any other thoughts on other texts though I said I would, This just strikes me as essential to get out there. I don't know why. God bless you all.
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