The Return of the King: Part One
In the 1950's, "I Love Lucy" was THE television show. It was a sitcom where Lucille Ball played the nutty red-headed wife of successful band leader Ricky, played by here real life successful band leader and singer Desi Arnaz. She was always doing something to get into show business and it was always ending in some crazy situation. And she was always overspending and putting herself in money problems. In one episode, she and her best friend, Ethel, took jobs in a candy factory, figuring "How hard can it be?" They were out on the "assembly line". candy pieces were sent by them on a conveyor belt and they were given the job of wrapping the candies and sending them along the conveyor to the next room to be boxed. the candies went by rather quickly and the ladies wrapped some, then they began getting behind. Lucy would eat a candy, Ethel would eat a candy. Lucy slipped a couple into the work apron supplied by the company.
Then the foreperson poked her head in and saw they seemed to be keeping up. Then she congratulated them, looked at someone in the next room and said, "Okay , girls, Speed it UP!"
Then Lucy and Ethel were hopelessly overwhelmed. Lucy was eating candies, Ethel was eating candies. Lucy took off the chef's hat they gave them for workwear and scrapped several of the candies into that. They had their cheeks filled with candies they'd crammed into them. The papers they were to use to wrap the candies were flying all over. It was hilarious.
An end times believer feels that way these days. The events keep flying at you one right after the other and you barely have time to get the news in your head before something else comes roaring in. We sometimes feel like Lucy with her mouth full of sickly sweet candies and with so many coming at you what should have provided the gratification of justification is merely a flood of warnings no one else is listening to
So here, filtered down to a couple "candies", goes:
Earthquakes and volcano eruptions are predicted by the Bible to accelerate as the End Times near, the sense of "birth pangs." The idea they will start small and slowly grow in intensity.
https://abcnews.go.com/US/incredible-aerial-footage-shows-fountain-lava-bubbling-kilauea/story?id=55690217
Incredible aerial footage released by the United States Geological Survey shows lava bubbling out of the Kilauea volcano on Hawaii's Big Island.
In the video, taken from a helicopter around 6:30 a.m. Tuesday, a fountain of lava feeds into a red-hot river and travels northeast, where it eventually enters the Pacific Ocean through Kapoho Bay.
The lava completely filled the bay and built a delta extending nearly a mile from shore, according to USGS.
And don't forget the constant earthquakes that came with it.
And hardly a month later:
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-guatemala-volcano/death-toll-climbs-to-109-in-guatemala-volcano-eruption-idUSKCN1J322H
Rescue teams have been searching frantically for survivors and victims in the ravaged landscape, covered in ash and lava.
The eruptions, which began on Sunday, have showered volcanic ash over a vast area and spewed deadly, fast-moving pyroclastic flows through nearby towns.
The U.S. government expressed its “deepest condolences” to the victims on Thursday and said it was sending emergency aid at Guatemala’s request, including an unspecified amount of financial resources to help with food, water, and sanitation.
The White House said in a statement it was also dispatching aircraft to transport burn victims for treatment in Florida.
The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) raised concerns about the economic cost of the disaster in the poor Central American country.
“We should not underestimate the scale of this disaster. Critical, emergency needs are still enormous, and affected communities will need sustained and long-term support,” IFRC President Francesco Rocca said in a statement on Thursday.
Rocca noted that ash had fallen across more than half of Guatemala, covering areas where agriculture is crucial.
“We hope it will not mean a secondary disaster,” he said.
The IFRC has pledged more than 250,000 Swiss francs ($253,000) to support rescue efforts, and said those worst hit would need at least a year to recover.
The suspension of rescue efforts around the volcano may be lifted if conditions on the ground improve, CONRED said.
Volcan de Fuego, which means “Volcano of Fire” in Spanish, lies about 25 miles (40 km) southwest of the capital, Guatemala City, near the picturesque colonial city of Antigua, a UNESCO world heritage site.
The 3,763-meter (12,346-feet) peak is one of several active volcanoes among 34 in Guatemala.
Reporting by Sofia Menchu; Editing by Rosalba O'Brien and Sandra Maler
And since we are talking to a USA audience, some help in placing the country on the globe. (I was lousy ar geography, too.)
And who knew there were actually different types of volcanoes:
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/guatemala-hawaii-volcano-how-they-compare-differ/
Volcan de Fuego in Guatemala and the Kilauea volcano in Hawaii actually don't share much in common. Yes, they're both volcanoes, but, as CBS New York chief weathercaster Lonnie Quinn explains, Volcan de Fuego is a composite volcano and Kilauea is a shield volcano.
Volcan de Fuego, or "volcano of fire," looks like a typical volcano, steep and 12,346 feet tall. The eruptions are explosive, with ash blown about 47,000 feet in the air out of the main vent. That ash combines with hot gas and rocks to create a pyroclastic flow that can pour down the mountainside at over 50 mph. Think of it as a flash flood filled with rocks and ash speeding down the mountain at over 50 mph.
Outrunning it is impossible. People die when they can't escape it because it burns or destroys everything in its path. It eventually hardens into a dense mud.
Kilauea, on the other hand, is very wide but only around 4,000 feet tall. Most of the eruptions happened as lava traveled 30 miles underground, breaking through the earth at more than two dozen fissures. The lava has been fountaining about 250 feet high because the pressure is spread out. It has a consistency like maple syrup, traveling at under a half mile per hour. It hardens into a heavy rock.
One thing they both have in common? The danger isn't over yet. At Volcan de Fuego, if it rains, that is going to push the dense volcanic mud down steep terrain causing mudslides called "lahars." At Kilauea, the eruption continues. Scientists think they could keep going for another month or two.
The point being God sends messages in the Pacific area.
Meanwhile, Puerto Rico is still struggling to recover from the last hurricane season as this one roars in. The USA seems to have forgotten this is a territory of the USA. Their power grid still isn't restored completely and, yes, the Trump administration is so busy throwing up smoke screens related to porn stars and trying to get a nice reality show feel to their meeting with North Korea that they have long since turned a deaf ear to calls for hope from that island.
Which segues into:
And Jesus said the world would be "like the time of Noah" as the End Times approached.
Suicide is in the top ten causes of death in the USA. It was a driven home this week by the suicide of Anthony Bourdain.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-44414747
US celebrity chef and television personality Anthony Bourdain has been found dead in his hotel room, aged 61, of a suspected suicide, CNN reports.
Bourdain was in Strasbourg, France, working on a shoot for his series, Parts Unknown, on CNN.
"It is with extraordinary sadness we can confirm the death of our friend and colleague, Anthony Bourdain," the cable network said in a statement on Friday.
Bourdain was a best-selling food, fiction and nonfiction author.
Recall that generation before the flood began the idea of multiple wives. Not look at the stats. The rate of divorce in the church is equal to or larger than the non-churched. And, yes, divorces are often to get another wife, just not at the same time, though I will not tell you the number of times I have heard folks tell me they were cheating on their current spouse with their ex.
We have Putin, who clearly never forgets his KGB roots, in Russia. We have Trump, who clearly thinks everything is about him, and says he can pardon himself even as he says he hasn't done anything, in an US that is clearly okay with a man who openly violates the will of God as its' leader. We have "strongmen" rising to power in many countries or close to election in others.
http://time.com/5264170/the-strongmen-era-is-here-heres-what-it-means-for-you/
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, Philippines' President Rodrigo Duterte, President of Turkey Recep Tayyip Erdogan are only a few.
And we have the oddity of Mr. Rudy Giuliani going from the "hero of 9/11" to the "dolt of 2018." He is matching Mr. Trump for saying outlandish easily discovered lies and then lying again to cover the lies or the motives for the lies. He is following the idea of throwing soi much garbage at the media that it will be inundated and not concentrate on the central point: that Trump is following an agenda to destroy the US economy so he and his friends can profit by buying everything in the country at a low price after they have inflated it to excess and watched it crash yet again. likely to never recover They are essentially killing the golden goose because they think it has gotten too fat to keep feeding it. Just as Putin clearly learned the lesson of Animal Farm too well: that some pigs are more equal than others.
Which reminds us of the Biblical strong man at the end before the Flood, the multimarried Lamech:
https://www.gotquestions.org/Lamech-in-the-Bible.html
The first Lamech was a wicked descendant of Cain. After Adam and Eve were forced out of the Garden of Eden as a punishment for their sin, they had children. Two of their sons were Cain and Abel. The Bible tells us that both men offered God a sacrifice, and God accepted Abel’s sacrifice but rejected Cain’s (Genesis 4:3–5). Out of jealousy, Cain murdered Abel in cold blood. God punished Cain by cursing him and sending him away to live as a fugitive (verses 11–12). When Cain complained about the severity of the punishment, God marked Cain and promised that anyone who harmed him would receive punishment sevenfold (verse 15).
Cain settled in the land of Nod and eventually begat children (Genesis 4:16–18) who continued the trend of sin. Lamech son of Methushael was Cain’s great-great-great grandson, and he followed Cain’s disobedient and murderous ways. Lamech married two wives—the Bible’s first mention of polygamy—and he committed murder. Another man struck and wounded Lamech in some way, and Lamech killed him for this seemingly small offense. Afterward, he boasted of his sin to his two wives and exulted in that he suffered no consequences: “If Cain is avenged seven times, / then Lamech seventy-seven times” (verse 24). This Lamech was the father of Tubal-Cain (verse 22).
Ge 4:23 And Lamech said to his wives, Adah and Zillah, give ear to my voice; you wives of Lamech, give attention to my words, for I would put a man to death for a wound, and a young man for a blow;
24 If seven lives are to be taken as punishment for Cain's death, seventy-seven will be taken for Lamech's.
(BBE)
A power crazed fool with two wives who is credited in Rabbinical history for writing "The
Song of the Sword." His ego and selfishness reek from the verses. And I am reminded of a T.S. Eliot poem;
T.S. was both right and wrong.
The Tribulation nears its end. The AC has gone from the handsome warrior king of the people to having lost one eye and the use of an arm during his battle with the two Prophets. His friend and lover the False Prophet created an artificial arm and eye using science and magic and they function more than adequately. He has led with true viciousness, slaughtering all in his way.
The False prophet has initiated human sacrifice in the Temple and conducted a manhunt for every member of the 144, 000. They have proved impervious to harm until the False Prophet remembered the Marvel movies he saw as a child and how the Wolverine who had a healing power could only be killed by cutting off his head. He has been running down the Christians and those hiding them, using them for experiments and tortures, though some have escaped despite starvation and the slaughtering. He has found what he believes is the last of the 144, 000 and has just sacrificed him in the name of the AC, and both have washed their hands in that blood.
Satan, cast from heaven, has used the AC to launch the final assault on humanity. He revels in every killed human, the multiple images of God stamped out like the idols the Jews threw down from their high places.
Some people today make the mistake in thinking Satan knows this is his end. They forget that he may read Scriptures but he doesn't always believe them. They are a tool he uses to deceive, like everything else he touches. Ye, he wants to destroy humanity, but he also wants to find a way to victory. He wants the False profit to discover by science what Satan can't by his own means: a way to destroy God, not just in man's mind, but in reality. He was happy on Earth and regrets the need to destroy it, but, in destroying a planet, humans, made in the image of God, able to CREATE things, even in imitation, may at last find the weapon he needs to focus the power of hate even as God has long focused the power of love. Satan never believes for a minute he can lose. There must be some way to win. He is the true Frankenstein monster who turned on his creator and now seeks t destroy the Creator.
The armies of what's left of the world have formed a wall of humanity surrounding Israel. 3 and 1/2 years ago, Satan broke his alliance with the Jews. He had the AC form it initially to take advantage of God's promise o protect them in their homeland. It gave the AC temporary protection as a political leader being in alliance with them, he had seen the truth of that promise and used it as the Gibeonites in their alliance with Joshua to prevent God from harming them. But when the Treaty was broken, the last years f the Tribulation unleashed the worst of the judgements because God was without that restraint. Still, he held back as he had once promised Abraham not to destroy Sodom if even one good man was alive there. Now the False Prophet has killed the last of the Witnesses.
And men now come to the final war before the Millenium in Meggedo. The plain is filled with humans armed to the teeth. The AC and the FP remain in the background. Satan has powered every previous victory. he doesn't need the help of the soldiers. (Soldiers? there are children with wooden spears on both sides willing to die for their leaders.) He is still and Angel, banished or not. At the right time he will rise and destroy the opposing army, but not before they have claimed almost all his own. The plains are covered in blood, blood that they have learned to drink in since the curse ion the waters. Blood and they have come to relish to taste. The beast of humanity inhabits them all.
Fully 3/4 of humanity has been wiped out and now this last great battle with end it all and Satan will leave his habitat in the AC stand over the corpses and dance in the depth of the destruction. They can't keep the planet if none of them are left alive to claim it!
As the final battle rages, storms filling th arena with mud. blood rising like a flood at the feet of the soldiers, there is a sudden tearing of the skies and someone new enters the battle with a force follwing Him.
Re 19:1 After these things there came to my ears a sound like the voice of a great band of people in heaven, saying, Praise to the Lord; salvation and glory and power be to our God:
2 For true and upright are his decisions; for by him has the evil woman been judged, who made the earth unclean with the sins of her body; and he has given her punishment for the blood of his servants.
3 And again they said, Praise to the Lord. And her smoke went up for ever and ever.
4 And the four and twenty rulers and the four beasts went down on their faces and gave worship to God who was seated on the high seat, saying, Even so, praise to the Lord.
5 And a voice came from the high seat, saying, Give praise to our God, all you his servants, small and great, in whom is the fear of him.
6 And there came to my ears the voice of a great army, like the sound of waters, and the sound of loud thunders, saying, Praise to the Lord: for the Lord our God, Ruler of all, is King.
7 Let us be glad with delight, and let us give glory to him: because the time is come for the Lamb to be married, and his wife has made herself ready.
8 And to her it was given to be clothed in delicate linen, clean and shining: for the clean linen is the righteousness of the saints.
9 And he said to me, Put in the book, Happy are the guests at the bride-feast of the Lamb. And he said to me, These are the true words of God.
10 And I went on my face before his feet to give him worship. And he said to me, See you do it not: I am a brother-servant with you and with your brothers who keep the witness of Jesus: give worship to God: for the witness of Jesus is the spirit of the prophet's word.
11 And the heaven was open; and I saw a white horse, and he who was seated on it was named Certain and True; and he is judging and making war in righteousness.
12 And his eyes are a flame of fire, and crowns are on his head; and he has a name in writing, of which no man has knowledge but himself.
13 And he is clothed in a robe washed with blood: and his name is The Word of God.
14 And the armies which are in heaven went after him on white horses, clothed in delicate linen, white and clean.
15 And out of his mouth comes a sharp sword, with which he overcomes the nations: and he has rule over them with a rod of iron: and he is crushing with his feet the grapes of the strong wrath of God the Ruler of all.
16 And on his robe and on his leg is a name, KING OF KINGS, AND LORD OF LORDS.
17 And I saw an angel taking his place in the sun; and he was crying with a loud voice, saying to all the birds in flight in the heavens, Come together to the great feast of God;
18 So that you may take for your food the flesh of kings, and of captains, and of strong men, and of horses and of those who are seated on them, and the flesh of all men, free and unfree, small and great.
19 And I saw the beast, and the kings of the earth, and their armies, come together to make war against him who was seated on the horse and against his army.
20 And the beast was taken, and with him the false prophet who did the signs before him, by which they were turned from the true way who had the mark of the beast, and who gave worship to his image: these two were put living into the sea of ever-burning fire.
21 And the rest were put to death with the sword of him who was on the horse, even the sword which came out of his mouth: and all the birds were made full with their flesh.
(BBE
Read it.
Now read it again. Know that He will win the final victory in THAT war. Understand that the victory is HIS victory. We have only to follow, to praise, to await our role in the follow-up.
Consider those verses in light of what we have discussed about the strong men, the hollow men.
It is curious that the worldly seem to know what's coming and keep interpreting it through their foggy vision. Annihilation is a recent movie that featured a group of five women sent into "the shimmer" , an area created when an alien craft landed on Earth near a lighthouse and sent out "vibrations' changing everything around it. The lead character has had her husband who was sent unto this secret area suddenly return to her doorstep and she has been commissioned to join the group and see what has been going on.
Along the way they encounter overgrown gators and a bear who can mimic language and a panther as big as a house They also discover videos records left by the previous scouts who were led by the returned husband. On one of the videoes. the husband is seen opening up the belly of one of the soldiers with him and we see something moving like a snake in the man's intestines. Later, we see him with his body exploded by the thing bursting from him, but it seems to have emerged and died. In the final scenes, the heroine arrives at the landing sight next to the lighthouse, discovers another video of her husband committing suicide and we see another "him" walking into the picture. The heroine goes into the burrow created by the alien, discovers a glowing rock with a deep indentation in the center. Then she discovers she has a duplicate also. She battles with it and ends up stickinga grenade into it and it blows up. The entire altered area goes back to normal.
In the end, we see the wife with her "husband". They hold hands and nwe see a gleam coming from his eyes, then we see one coming from her eyes as well.
The husband's name is Cain. And the screen writer seems intent on using the symbol of that polluted race that Satan sent to corrupt and destroy the world as what will happen with the breeding of the "new" husband and wife. He sees the new couple as the annihilation of humanity.
And, in fact, Cain's way, Lamech's way are what lead to the Armageddon annilhiation
Everybody wants to rule the world.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ST86JM1RPl0
"Married with a lack of vision."
Pastors claim they have a vision for their ministry. What's your vision for your ministry, here and now? Do you realize that despite all the uproar on the End Times, this moment, the return of the King, Jesus exploding into our reality in physical form, is the ONE thing that exists for all of them? Some take this as symbolic, some as a moment not quite like this, but every one of us believers, even those misled, hold this moment as sacred, as actually happening: He returns to the world.
Next time, we will detail more about it, but read and reread this passage: the armies of man and Satan, demon and unbeliever standing with every possible supernatural and natural weapon, aiming them at the skies, at the King coming to claim his throne, ready to battle Him to the last man and demon and with one word, with the power of creation in Him, He uncreates them all. The enemy of man and God is laid waste in an instant. He never really ruled the world, but he was allowed a time, allowed. It was all part of a plan which seems odd and beyond us to understand, But we are not called to understand, We are called to obey. And yet He gives us understanding enough to know the Truth: He is God. And to see that he has the vision and the power. Forever and ever. Amen.
Next we will spend time in the above verses and in the last three of Zechariah examining the return and the nature of it all.
In the 1950's, "I Love Lucy" was THE television show. It was a sitcom where Lucille Ball played the nutty red-headed wife of successful band leader Ricky, played by here real life successful band leader and singer Desi Arnaz. She was always doing something to get into show business and it was always ending in some crazy situation. And she was always overspending and putting herself in money problems. In one episode, she and her best friend, Ethel, took jobs in a candy factory, figuring "How hard can it be?" They were out on the "assembly line". candy pieces were sent by them on a conveyor belt and they were given the job of wrapping the candies and sending them along the conveyor to the next room to be boxed. the candies went by rather quickly and the ladies wrapped some, then they began getting behind. Lucy would eat a candy, Ethel would eat a candy. Lucy slipped a couple into the work apron supplied by the company.
Then the foreperson poked her head in and saw they seemed to be keeping up. Then she congratulated them, looked at someone in the next room and said, "Okay , girls, Speed it UP!"
Then Lucy and Ethel were hopelessly overwhelmed. Lucy was eating candies, Ethel was eating candies. Lucy took off the chef's hat they gave them for workwear and scrapped several of the candies into that. They had their cheeks filled with candies they'd crammed into them. The papers they were to use to wrap the candies were flying all over. It was hilarious.
An end times believer feels that way these days. The events keep flying at you one right after the other and you barely have time to get the news in your head before something else comes roaring in. We sometimes feel like Lucy with her mouth full of sickly sweet candies and with so many coming at you what should have provided the gratification of justification is merely a flood of warnings no one else is listening to
So here, filtered down to a couple "candies", goes:
Earthquakes and volcano eruptions are predicted by the Bible to accelerate as the End Times near, the sense of "birth pangs." The idea they will start small and slowly grow in intensity.
https://abcnews.go.com/US/incredible-aerial-footage-shows-fountain-lava-bubbling-kilauea/story?id=55690217
Incredible aerial footage released by the United States Geological Survey shows lava bubbling out of the Kilauea volcano on Hawaii's Big Island.
In the video, taken from a helicopter around 6:30 a.m. Tuesday, a fountain of lava feeds into a red-hot river and travels northeast, where it eventually enters the Pacific Ocean through Kapoho Bay.
The lava completely filled the bay and built a delta extending nearly a mile from shore, according to USGS.
And don't forget the constant earthquakes that came with it.
And hardly a month later:
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-guatemala-volcano/death-toll-climbs-to-109-in-guatemala-volcano-eruption-idUSKCN1J322H
Rescue teams have been searching frantically for survivors and victims in the ravaged landscape, covered in ash and lava.
The eruptions, which began on Sunday, have showered volcanic ash over a vast area and spewed deadly, fast-moving pyroclastic flows through nearby towns.
The U.S. government expressed its “deepest condolences” to the victims on Thursday and said it was sending emergency aid at Guatemala’s request, including an unspecified amount of financial resources to help with food, water, and sanitation.
The White House said in a statement it was also dispatching aircraft to transport burn victims for treatment in Florida.
The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) raised concerns about the economic cost of the disaster in the poor Central American country.
“We should not underestimate the scale of this disaster. Critical, emergency needs are still enormous, and affected communities will need sustained and long-term support,” IFRC President Francesco Rocca said in a statement on Thursday.
Rocca noted that ash had fallen across more than half of Guatemala, covering areas where agriculture is crucial.
“We hope it will not mean a secondary disaster,” he said.
The IFRC has pledged more than 250,000 Swiss francs ($253,000) to support rescue efforts, and said those worst hit would need at least a year to recover.
The suspension of rescue efforts around the volcano may be lifted if conditions on the ground improve, CONRED said.
Volcan de Fuego, which means “Volcano of Fire” in Spanish, lies about 25 miles (40 km) southwest of the capital, Guatemala City, near the picturesque colonial city of Antigua, a UNESCO world heritage site.
The 3,763-meter (12,346-feet) peak is one of several active volcanoes among 34 in Guatemala.
Reporting by Sofia Menchu; Editing by Rosalba O'Brien and Sandra Maler
And since we are talking to a USA audience, some help in placing the country on the globe. (I was lousy ar geography, too.)
And who knew there were actually different types of volcanoes:
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/guatemala-hawaii-volcano-how-they-compare-differ/
Volcan de Fuego in Guatemala and the Kilauea volcano in Hawaii actually don't share much in common. Yes, they're both volcanoes, but, as CBS New York chief weathercaster Lonnie Quinn explains, Volcan de Fuego is a composite volcano and Kilauea is a shield volcano.
Volcan de Fuego, or "volcano of fire," looks like a typical volcano, steep and 12,346 feet tall. The eruptions are explosive, with ash blown about 47,000 feet in the air out of the main vent. That ash combines with hot gas and rocks to create a pyroclastic flow that can pour down the mountainside at over 50 mph. Think of it as a flash flood filled with rocks and ash speeding down the mountain at over 50 mph.
Outrunning it is impossible. People die when they can't escape it because it burns or destroys everything in its path. It eventually hardens into a dense mud.
Kilauea, on the other hand, is very wide but only around 4,000 feet tall. Most of the eruptions happened as lava traveled 30 miles underground, breaking through the earth at more than two dozen fissures. The lava has been fountaining about 250 feet high because the pressure is spread out. It has a consistency like maple syrup, traveling at under a half mile per hour. It hardens into a heavy rock.
One thing they both have in common? The danger isn't over yet. At Volcan de Fuego, if it rains, that is going to push the dense volcanic mud down steep terrain causing mudslides called "lahars." At Kilauea, the eruption continues. Scientists think they could keep going for another month or two.
The point being God sends messages in the Pacific area.
Meanwhile, Puerto Rico is still struggling to recover from the last hurricane season as this one roars in. The USA seems to have forgotten this is a territory of the USA. Their power grid still isn't restored completely and, yes, the Trump administration is so busy throwing up smoke screens related to porn stars and trying to get a nice reality show feel to their meeting with North Korea that they have long since turned a deaf ear to calls for hope from that island.
Which segues into:
And Jesus said the world would be "like the time of Noah" as the End Times approached.
Suicide is in the top ten causes of death in the USA. It was a driven home this week by the suicide of Anthony Bourdain.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-44414747
US celebrity chef and television personality Anthony Bourdain has been found dead in his hotel room, aged 61, of a suspected suicide, CNN reports.
Bourdain was in Strasbourg, France, working on a shoot for his series, Parts Unknown, on CNN.
"It is with extraordinary sadness we can confirm the death of our friend and colleague, Anthony Bourdain," the cable network said in a statement on Friday.
Bourdain was a best-selling food, fiction and nonfiction author.
Recall that generation before the flood began the idea of multiple wives. Not look at the stats. The rate of divorce in the church is equal to or larger than the non-churched. And, yes, divorces are often to get another wife, just not at the same time, though I will not tell you the number of times I have heard folks tell me they were cheating on their current spouse with their ex.
We have Putin, who clearly never forgets his KGB roots, in Russia. We have Trump, who clearly thinks everything is about him, and says he can pardon himself even as he says he hasn't done anything, in an US that is clearly okay with a man who openly violates the will of God as its' leader. We have "strongmen" rising to power in many countries or close to election in others.
http://time.com/5264170/the-strongmen-era-is-here-heres-what-it-means-for-you/
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, Philippines' President Rodrigo Duterte, President of Turkey Recep Tayyip Erdogan are only a few.
And we have the oddity of Mr. Rudy Giuliani going from the "hero of 9/11" to the "dolt of 2018." He is matching Mr. Trump for saying outlandish easily discovered lies and then lying again to cover the lies or the motives for the lies. He is following the idea of throwing soi much garbage at the media that it will be inundated and not concentrate on the central point: that Trump is following an agenda to destroy the US economy so he and his friends can profit by buying everything in the country at a low price after they have inflated it to excess and watched it crash yet again. likely to never recover They are essentially killing the golden goose because they think it has gotten too fat to keep feeding it. Just as Putin clearly learned the lesson of Animal Farm too well: that some pigs are more equal than others.
Which reminds us of the Biblical strong man at the end before the Flood, the multimarried Lamech:
https://www.gotquestions.org/Lamech-in-the-Bible.html
The first Lamech was a wicked descendant of Cain. After Adam and Eve were forced out of the Garden of Eden as a punishment for their sin, they had children. Two of their sons were Cain and Abel. The Bible tells us that both men offered God a sacrifice, and God accepted Abel’s sacrifice but rejected Cain’s (Genesis 4:3–5). Out of jealousy, Cain murdered Abel in cold blood. God punished Cain by cursing him and sending him away to live as a fugitive (verses 11–12). When Cain complained about the severity of the punishment, God marked Cain and promised that anyone who harmed him would receive punishment sevenfold (verse 15).
Cain settled in the land of Nod and eventually begat children (Genesis 4:16–18) who continued the trend of sin. Lamech son of Methushael was Cain’s great-great-great grandson, and he followed Cain’s disobedient and murderous ways. Lamech married two wives—the Bible’s first mention of polygamy—and he committed murder. Another man struck and wounded Lamech in some way, and Lamech killed him for this seemingly small offense. Afterward, he boasted of his sin to his two wives and exulted in that he suffered no consequences: “If Cain is avenged seven times, / then Lamech seventy-seven times” (verse 24). This Lamech was the father of Tubal-Cain (verse 22).
Ge 4:23 And Lamech said to his wives, Adah and Zillah, give ear to my voice; you wives of Lamech, give attention to my words, for I would put a man to death for a wound, and a young man for a blow;
24 If seven lives are to be taken as punishment for Cain's death, seventy-seven will be taken for Lamech's.
(BBE)
A power crazed fool with two wives who is credited in Rabbinical history for writing "The
Song of the Sword." His ego and selfishness reek from the verses. And I am reminded of a T.S. Eliot poem;
The Hollow Men
Mistah Kurtz-he dead
A penny for the Old Guy
I
We are the hollow men
We are the stuffed men
Leaning together
Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!
Our dried voices, when
We whisper together
Are quiet and meaningless
As wind in dry grass
Or rats' feet over broken glass
In our dry cellar
Shape without form, shade without colour,
Paralysed force, gesture without motion;
Those who have crossed
With direct eyes, to death's other Kingdom
Remember us-if at all-not as lost
Violent souls, but only
As the hollow men
The stuffed men.
II
Eyes I dare not meet in dreams
In death's dream kingdom
These do not appear:
There, the eyes are
Sunlight on a broken column
There, is a tree swinging
And voices are
In the wind's singing
More distant and more solemn
Than a fading star.
Let me be no nearer
In death's dream kingdom
Let me also wear
Such deliberate disguises
Rat's coat, crowskin, crossed staves
In a field
Behaving as the wind behaves
No nearer-
Not that final meeting
In the twilight kingdom
III
This is the dead land
This is cactus land
Here the stone images
Are raised, here they receive
The supplication of a dead man's hand
Under the twinkle of a fading star.
Is it like this
In death's other kingdom
Waking alone
At the hour when we are
Trembling with tenderness
Lips that would kiss
Form prayers to broken stone.
IV
The eyes are not here
There are no eyes here
In this valley of dying stars
In this hollow valley
This broken jaw of our lost kingdoms
In this last of meeting places
We grope together
And avoid speech
Gathered on this beach of the tumid river
Sightless, unless
The eyes reappear
As the perpetual star
Multifoliate rose
Of death's twilight kingdom
The hope only
Of empty men.
V
Here we go round the prickly pear
Prickly pear prickly pear
Here we go round the prickly pear
At five o'clock in the morning.
Between the idea
And the reality
Between the motion
And the act
Falls the Shadow
For Thine is the Kingdom
Between the conception
And the creation
Between the emotion
And the response
Falls the Shadow
Life is very long
Between the desire
And the spasm
Between the potency
And the existence
Between the essence
And the descent
Falls the Shadow
For Thine is the Kingdom
For Thine is
Life is
For Thine is the
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.
A penny for the Old Guy
I
We are the hollow men
We are the stuffed men
Leaning together
Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!
Our dried voices, when
We whisper together
Are quiet and meaningless
As wind in dry grass
Or rats' feet over broken glass
In our dry cellar
Shape without form, shade without colour,
Paralysed force, gesture without motion;
Those who have crossed
With direct eyes, to death's other Kingdom
Remember us-if at all-not as lost
Violent souls, but only
As the hollow men
The stuffed men.
II
Eyes I dare not meet in dreams
In death's dream kingdom
These do not appear:
There, the eyes are
Sunlight on a broken column
There, is a tree swinging
And voices are
In the wind's singing
More distant and more solemn
Than a fading star.
Let me be no nearer
In death's dream kingdom
Let me also wear
Such deliberate disguises
Rat's coat, crowskin, crossed staves
In a field
Behaving as the wind behaves
No nearer-
Not that final meeting
In the twilight kingdom
III
This is the dead land
This is cactus land
Here the stone images
Are raised, here they receive
The supplication of a dead man's hand
Under the twinkle of a fading star.
Is it like this
In death's other kingdom
Waking alone
At the hour when we are
Trembling with tenderness
Lips that would kiss
Form prayers to broken stone.
IV
The eyes are not here
There are no eyes here
In this valley of dying stars
In this hollow valley
This broken jaw of our lost kingdoms
In this last of meeting places
We grope together
And avoid speech
Gathered on this beach of the tumid river
Sightless, unless
The eyes reappear
As the perpetual star
Multifoliate rose
Of death's twilight kingdom
The hope only
Of empty men.
V
Here we go round the prickly pear
Prickly pear prickly pear
Here we go round the prickly pear
At five o'clock in the morning.
Between the idea
And the reality
Between the motion
And the act
Falls the Shadow
For Thine is the Kingdom
Between the conception
And the creation
Between the emotion
And the response
Falls the Shadow
Life is very long
Between the desire
And the spasm
Between the potency
And the existence
Between the essence
And the descent
Falls the Shadow
For Thine is the Kingdom
For Thine is
Life is
For Thine is the
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.
T.S. was both right and wrong.
The Tribulation nears its end. The AC has gone from the handsome warrior king of the people to having lost one eye and the use of an arm during his battle with the two Prophets. His friend and lover the False Prophet created an artificial arm and eye using science and magic and they function more than adequately. He has led with true viciousness, slaughtering all in his way.
The False prophet has initiated human sacrifice in the Temple and conducted a manhunt for every member of the 144, 000. They have proved impervious to harm until the False Prophet remembered the Marvel movies he saw as a child and how the Wolverine who had a healing power could only be killed by cutting off his head. He has been running down the Christians and those hiding them, using them for experiments and tortures, though some have escaped despite starvation and the slaughtering. He has found what he believes is the last of the 144, 000 and has just sacrificed him in the name of the AC, and both have washed their hands in that blood.
Satan, cast from heaven, has used the AC to launch the final assault on humanity. He revels in every killed human, the multiple images of God stamped out like the idols the Jews threw down from their high places.
Some people today make the mistake in thinking Satan knows this is his end. They forget that he may read Scriptures but he doesn't always believe them. They are a tool he uses to deceive, like everything else he touches. Ye, he wants to destroy humanity, but he also wants to find a way to victory. He wants the False profit to discover by science what Satan can't by his own means: a way to destroy God, not just in man's mind, but in reality. He was happy on Earth and regrets the need to destroy it, but, in destroying a planet, humans, made in the image of God, able to CREATE things, even in imitation, may at last find the weapon he needs to focus the power of hate even as God has long focused the power of love. Satan never believes for a minute he can lose. There must be some way to win. He is the true Frankenstein monster who turned on his creator and now seeks t destroy the Creator.
The armies of what's left of the world have formed a wall of humanity surrounding Israel. 3 and 1/2 years ago, Satan broke his alliance with the Jews. He had the AC form it initially to take advantage of God's promise o protect them in their homeland. It gave the AC temporary protection as a political leader being in alliance with them, he had seen the truth of that promise and used it as the Gibeonites in their alliance with Joshua to prevent God from harming them. But when the Treaty was broken, the last years f the Tribulation unleashed the worst of the judgements because God was without that restraint. Still, he held back as he had once promised Abraham not to destroy Sodom if even one good man was alive there. Now the False Prophet has killed the last of the Witnesses.
And men now come to the final war before the Millenium in Meggedo. The plain is filled with humans armed to the teeth. The AC and the FP remain in the background. Satan has powered every previous victory. he doesn't need the help of the soldiers. (Soldiers? there are children with wooden spears on both sides willing to die for their leaders.) He is still and Angel, banished or not. At the right time he will rise and destroy the opposing army, but not before they have claimed almost all his own. The plains are covered in blood, blood that they have learned to drink in since the curse ion the waters. Blood and they have come to relish to taste. The beast of humanity inhabits them all.
Fully 3/4 of humanity has been wiped out and now this last great battle with end it all and Satan will leave his habitat in the AC stand over the corpses and dance in the depth of the destruction. They can't keep the planet if none of them are left alive to claim it!
As the final battle rages, storms filling th arena with mud. blood rising like a flood at the feet of the soldiers, there is a sudden tearing of the skies and someone new enters the battle with a force follwing Him.
Re 19:1 After these things there came to my ears a sound like the voice of a great band of people in heaven, saying, Praise to the Lord; salvation and glory and power be to our God:
2 For true and upright are his decisions; for by him has the evil woman been judged, who made the earth unclean with the sins of her body; and he has given her punishment for the blood of his servants.
3 And again they said, Praise to the Lord. And her smoke went up for ever and ever.
4 And the four and twenty rulers and the four beasts went down on their faces and gave worship to God who was seated on the high seat, saying, Even so, praise to the Lord.
5 And a voice came from the high seat, saying, Give praise to our God, all you his servants, small and great, in whom is the fear of him.
6 And there came to my ears the voice of a great army, like the sound of waters, and the sound of loud thunders, saying, Praise to the Lord: for the Lord our God, Ruler of all, is King.
7 Let us be glad with delight, and let us give glory to him: because the time is come for the Lamb to be married, and his wife has made herself ready.
8 And to her it was given to be clothed in delicate linen, clean and shining: for the clean linen is the righteousness of the saints.
9 And he said to me, Put in the book, Happy are the guests at the bride-feast of the Lamb. And he said to me, These are the true words of God.
10 And I went on my face before his feet to give him worship. And he said to me, See you do it not: I am a brother-servant with you and with your brothers who keep the witness of Jesus: give worship to God: for the witness of Jesus is the spirit of the prophet's word.
11 And the heaven was open; and I saw a white horse, and he who was seated on it was named Certain and True; and he is judging and making war in righteousness.
12 And his eyes are a flame of fire, and crowns are on his head; and he has a name in writing, of which no man has knowledge but himself.
13 And he is clothed in a robe washed with blood: and his name is The Word of God.
14 And the armies which are in heaven went after him on white horses, clothed in delicate linen, white and clean.
15 And out of his mouth comes a sharp sword, with which he overcomes the nations: and he has rule over them with a rod of iron: and he is crushing with his feet the grapes of the strong wrath of God the Ruler of all.
16 And on his robe and on his leg is a name, KING OF KINGS, AND LORD OF LORDS.
17 And I saw an angel taking his place in the sun; and he was crying with a loud voice, saying to all the birds in flight in the heavens, Come together to the great feast of God;
18 So that you may take for your food the flesh of kings, and of captains, and of strong men, and of horses and of those who are seated on them, and the flesh of all men, free and unfree, small and great.
19 And I saw the beast, and the kings of the earth, and their armies, come together to make war against him who was seated on the horse and against his army.
20 And the beast was taken, and with him the false prophet who did the signs before him, by which they were turned from the true way who had the mark of the beast, and who gave worship to his image: these two were put living into the sea of ever-burning fire.
21 And the rest were put to death with the sword of him who was on the horse, even the sword which came out of his mouth: and all the birds were made full with their flesh.
(BBE
Read it.
Now read it again. Know that He will win the final victory in THAT war. Understand that the victory is HIS victory. We have only to follow, to praise, to await our role in the follow-up.
Consider those verses in light of what we have discussed about the strong men, the hollow men.
It is curious that the worldly seem to know what's coming and keep interpreting it through their foggy vision. Annihilation is a recent movie that featured a group of five women sent into "the shimmer" , an area created when an alien craft landed on Earth near a lighthouse and sent out "vibrations' changing everything around it. The lead character has had her husband who was sent unto this secret area suddenly return to her doorstep and she has been commissioned to join the group and see what has been going on.
Along the way they encounter overgrown gators and a bear who can mimic language and a panther as big as a house They also discover videos records left by the previous scouts who were led by the returned husband. On one of the videoes. the husband is seen opening up the belly of one of the soldiers with him and we see something moving like a snake in the man's intestines. Later, we see him with his body exploded by the thing bursting from him, but it seems to have emerged and died. In the final scenes, the heroine arrives at the landing sight next to the lighthouse, discovers another video of her husband committing suicide and we see another "him" walking into the picture. The heroine goes into the burrow created by the alien, discovers a glowing rock with a deep indentation in the center. Then she discovers she has a duplicate also. She battles with it and ends up stickinga grenade into it and it blows up. The entire altered area goes back to normal.
In the end, we see the wife with her "husband". They hold hands and nwe see a gleam coming from his eyes, then we see one coming from her eyes as well.
The husband's name is Cain. And the screen writer seems intent on using the symbol of that polluted race that Satan sent to corrupt and destroy the world as what will happen with the breeding of the "new" husband and wife. He sees the new couple as the annihilation of humanity.
And, in fact, Cain's way, Lamech's way are what lead to the Armageddon annilhiation
Everybody wants to rule the world.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ST86JM1RPl0
"Married with a lack of vision."
Pastors claim they have a vision for their ministry. What's your vision for your ministry, here and now? Do you realize that despite all the uproar on the End Times, this moment, the return of the King, Jesus exploding into our reality in physical form, is the ONE thing that exists for all of them? Some take this as symbolic, some as a moment not quite like this, but every one of us believers, even those misled, hold this moment as sacred, as actually happening: He returns to the world.
Next time, we will detail more about it, but read and reread this passage: the armies of man and Satan, demon and unbeliever standing with every possible supernatural and natural weapon, aiming them at the skies, at the King coming to claim his throne, ready to battle Him to the last man and demon and with one word, with the power of creation in Him, He uncreates them all. The enemy of man and God is laid waste in an instant. He never really ruled the world, but he was allowed a time, allowed. It was all part of a plan which seems odd and beyond us to understand, But we are not called to understand, We are called to obey. And yet He gives us understanding enough to know the Truth: He is God. And to see that he has the vision and the power. Forever and ever. Amen.
Next we will spend time in the above verses and in the last three of Zechariah examining the return and the nature of it all.
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