Salvation is on its way. . .

[ I began this note New Year’s Day. I added pieces to it on and off for a week or so before dropping it. Now I’ve come back to it. I share it now with you. Perhaps it’s a good time to do so. ] The New Year is barely underway, yet things are as CRAZY as ever. Happy New Year! [ belated, now. ]

Since I began this post on New Year’s Day, things haven’t changed much globally, though. There’s still the talk of a small financial hiccup that could lead to a major melt down of economies all over the world—or not. Your guess is as good as anyone’s guess. And people actually get paid to guess about these things. They don’t have to be right in their predictions. They just spout them off and move on to the next impending crisis meant to worry us.

I’d earlier written that the outlook for the new year is much the same as the events reported throughout the world as we closed out last year. Namely, refugees flooding into “safe-haven” countries, the ever-expanding Islamic State, terrorism, freak storms and other threats to our safety, and violence against and by law enforcement personnel. Oh, and of course we’ll see even more coverage on the American political scene. [ Here it is April, and that’s still accurate. ]

The common denominator in all events reported is that we need solutions to all that is going on in the world. The conclusions we are to reach is that the state of the world isn’t good, but there are people offering solutions that are good. It’s all about saving the world. It’s about salvation. Seriously!

What does salvation mean to us? What is the opposite of salvation? I’ve thought about these questions in the past. They return to me as I reread what we call the “transfiguration” of Y’shuaJesus, Matthew 17:1-13.

Salvation, according to Easton’s Bible Dictionary, means: “. . .the deliverance of the Israelites from the Egyptians (Ex. 14:13), and of deliverance generally from evil or danger. In the New Testament it is specially used with reference to the great deliverance from the guilt and the pollution of sin wrought out by Jesus Christ, “the great salvation,” (Heb. 2:3).

Simply put, salvation is an action that directly benefits us. It is an action of G-d through Y’shuaJesus toward us. The Name Jesus comes to us from the Hebrew name Y’shua. It literally means L-rd Saves. As John Parson puts it, it is “understood in light of G-d’s redemptive power and saving acts.”

But to a very secular world, salvation means something different. Science offers salvation when it gives us solutions to “help” us make our lives “better.” We have financial experts who offer the salvation of wealth, and the management of wealth. We have the medical establishment that includes the pharmaceutics industry that offers the salvation of health and healthy living. We have an automobile industry that offers the salvation of better and safer cars. We have military and law enforcement that offer us the salvation of protection, safety. And we have politicians that offer their own brand of salvation in creating laws to govern our lives, to make our lives “better.”

it is the last hour, and as you have heard that antichrist is coming, so now many antichrists have come. 1 John 2:18

The Biblical opposite of Salvation is the antichrist. Antichrist, according to Easton’s Bible Dictionary, refers to “against Christ, or an opposition Christ, a rival Christ. The word is used only by the Apostle John. Referring to false teachers, he says (1 John 2:18, 22; 4:3; 2 John 1:7), “Even now are there many antichrists.”

(1) This name has been applied to the “little horn” of the “king of fierce countenance” (Dan. 7:24, 25; 8:23- 25).
(2) It has been applied also to the “false Christs” spoken of by our Lord (Matt. 24:5, 23, 24).
(3) To the “man of sin” described by Paul (2 Thess. 2:3, 4, 8- 10).
(4) And to the “beast from the sea” (Rev. 13:1; 17:1- 18)”

So. . .

So, here we are and in the Northern Hemisphere we’re looking at summer coming. Well, here in the American State of Georgia that is very true. But just a couple weeks ago, snow and storms made their way through some northern states. It’s been five months since New Year’s Day. The Dow is climbing again after dropping severely. Nobody even notices anymore. The price of silver dropped, and now rises. Gold is following that pattern, too. Even the price of oil, which dropped so low folks were thinking it would cause a crash, has begun to rise just enough that it’s not a big topic. Yet still voices of doom cry that the economy is going to fail, that riots overwhelm the resources in cities, and martial law will be declared. And on and on and on. . .

Salvation. Buy this. Do this. Prepare for this. Worry about this. . . and that. . . and a whole lot of other things. It’s enough to make a person. . . CRAZY.

But not that’s not all. Rumors abound about political candidates for the highest office in America, the presidency. Controversy surrounds the death of a conservative Supreme Court Justice, Justice Antonin Scalia, who’d served since his appointment by President Reagan in 1986. We’ve got people attacking the right of Christians to conduct their business affairs according to Christian values. For two-hundred years America has stood for freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom to bear arms, freedom from unlawful search and seizure. Today these freedoms are being attacked. Not from foreign enemies, but from within our own borders, by people who are native-born citizens. We’re either being led to believe that the world is ending, or the world is ending.

It’s enough to drive a person. . . CRAZY!

What’s a person to do?

O keep my soul, and deliver me:
let me not be ashamed; for I put my trust in thee.
Let integrity and uprightness preserve me;
for I wait on thee. Psalm 25:20,21

Too simple?

It seems to me that the secular world wants it to be complicated to match the CRAZINESS of the world. The secular world is still filled with chaos. We still need to persevere in our preparations for any event, any disaster, that might come our way. We must be wise. We must be gentle. We need to be reminded occasionally that we need not worry. He who called us to Him, He who offers true salvation, will come. It will be in His time. It will be in His way. Like Gandolf in the Lord of the Rings, our Lord Y’shuaJesus will not be late; He will not be early; He will always be right on time. His time. His way. His truth.

I am rereading Romans. I came to chapter five and really didn’t like what I read. But there it is. We will experience tribulation. We will. Not only that but we will glory in tribulations. Wow. Okay. We’ll glory in tribulation. Ouch. But it has its reward.

Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ: By whom also we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God. And not only so, but we glory in tribulations also:knowing that tribulation worketh patience; And patience, experience; and experience, hope: And hope maketh not ashamed; because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us. Romans 5:1-5

Our L-rd Y’shuaJesus is our salvation. And that’s the only thing that’s not CRAZY!

Who will we turn to in times of trouble?

The world as we know it is about to end. We face devistating geological upheavals, increasing in number and scope. The Pacific Ocean is becoming radioactive, fish are dying. Chickens and turkeys are being killed, millions so far, as they are diagnosed with avian flu. We face and imminent monetary collapse, and not just in Greece. Riots rattle America. Racial tension is at an all-time high, like a pot about to boil over. A spirit of control pervades the world, as liberty is sent packing for a long, lonely holiday. We face tyrannical individuals that have allied themselves against the people of G-d. Islamic terror spreads its ugliness, its lawlessness throughout the world. We face deception from within our own ranks, within the Church. And in these times of trouble, to whom shall we turn? We must remember—we must not forget—how David responded:

Behold, God is my helper;
The Lord is the upholder of my life.
He will return the evil to my enemies;
In your faithfulness put an end to them.
— Psalm 54:4

Matthew Henry commented that “If we are for him, he is for us; and if he is for us, we need not fear. Every creature is that to us, and no more, which God makes it to be. The Lord will in due time save his people, and in the mean time he sustains them, and bears them up, so that the spirit he has made shall not fail. There is truth in God’s threatenings, as well as in his promises; sinners that repent not, will find it so to their cost. David’s present deliverance was an earnest of further deliverance. He speaks of the completion of his deliverance as a thing done, though he had as yet many troubles before him; because, having God’s promise for it, he was as sure of it as if it was done already. The Lord would deliver him out of all his troubles. May he help us to bear our cross without repining, and at length bring us to share his victories and glory. Christians never should suffer the voice of praise and thanksgiving to cease in the church of the redeemed.”

The Movie: GoodBye World!

In programming classes, during the dawning of the computer age, I recall the phrase, “Hello World.” It was used as the first statement a newbee programmer would have his first program write to a screen. This movie, “Goodbye World!” used a spin-off of that phrase as the last thing to be displayed on all cell phones as the computer age crashed into night. The movie, set in Northern California, centered on a group of old college friends, now middle-aged, that managed to get together as the world plummeted into chaos. It is explained that after college, after these friends went their own ways, two of the them, James and Lilly, were awakened to the fragility of the world, especially food production, electricity, and transportation. They not only saw that the modern world was headed toward an abrupt halt, they acted upon that vision. They left the city, heading to Northern California to build a self-sustaining home high on a mountain.

. . .let us keep awake and be sober. (1 Thes 5:6)

It is in this home that the old college friends gather. It’s not a movie with “we all lived happily ever after.” Right from the start the group finds it must deal with diverse personalities and perspectives. Ever the pragmatist, James has collected a sizable cache of food and medicine, and developed a large truck garden. He has a filtered well and solar panels providing power not only for the well, but also for the house. Lilly, on the other hand, would rather not think about tomorrow, and simply eat, drink, smoke dope, and be happy for the moment. James and another, more pragmatic friend, head into town to the small grocery store to pick up some supplies. They find that a motorcycle gang has taken over the store, and raise the prices a thousand percent. They pay with cash and a gold watch. Once outside the store, the witness three men taking groceries away from another man, and they leave without helping him. On the way home, they stop at a neighbor who often has sold them meat and things they don’t raise. They buy it at the same cost, added to their “tab,” that they’d always paid. They are neighbors, after all.

Internal tensions rise in the house as they learn of the extent of civil breakdown in the United States, and that two members of this old-college group, have contributed to the meltdown of society through their computer-hacking and virus-creating activities. Then the neighbor who’d sold them some meat comes by the house to ask for spare medicine. Someone from town has an infection and the motorcycle gang took all the drugs from the store when it left town. James says he doesn’t have anything to offer.

Next major event is that many of the neighbors from lower down the mountain have gathered at the home below James’s. Along come two armed National Guardsmen. They are told they can’t stay at James’s home, that the Constitution forbids it. They don’t leave the area, but settle in with the now larger group living in the home farther down the mountain. Trouble brews when that group is stirred up by these “soldiers,” when they learn of the large food cache and medicines that James and his friends have in their home. These soldiers come to James’s home, and at gun point, declare that James will not only share the food cache, but give all medicine to them. James sees no recourse, and agrees. The next day, James takes food down the hill, but not the medicine. He says that he will share the medicine, but the ill must come to him. It is his preparations, after all. One of the soldiers, a man named Damien, decides to kill James to make a point that to all not to defy Damien and his authority. That group does nothing. Just as Damien is about to kill James, he is shot by one of the old college friends, a woman, who’d come down behind James. She then makes a speech that begins with one spoken by General George Washington:

“The time is now near at hand which must probably determine whether Americans are to be freemen or slaves; whether they are to have any property they can call their own; whether their houses and farms are to be pillaged and destroyed, and themselves consigned to a state of wretchedness from which no human efforts will deliver them. The fate of unborn millions will now depend, under God, on the courage and conduct of this army. Our cruel and unrelenting enemy leaves us only the choice of brave resistance, or the most abject submission. We have, therefore, to resolve to conquer or die.” (Address to the Continental Army before the battle of Long Island, Aug. 27, 1776.)[Read more at http://www.notable-quotes.com/w/washington_george_ii.html#x4CP8VkwaPuVvH70.99]

Someone yells, “Who’s our enemy?” To which the woman says, “We are are own enemies.” She then goes on to say that we need to work together, for if we are are going to live free, we must work together.

What strikes me from this movie is that the character James is a hippie sort, yet wants to maintain control of that which he has stored, without sharing beyond his own household. Additionally, while wanting to maintain his home as his, to maintain his freedom and liberty, he is unwilling and unable to fight for it. It is the woman who ends up shooting the soldier Damien, that is willing to not only share, but to band together to form a cooperative, to work together for all their common good. And obviously she is willing to fight for that freedom, that liberty.

This soldier, Damien, represents the reign of tyranny an individual can inflict upon a community. These tyrants are not leaders, not rulers, not raised by G-d to serve people. They only wish to dominate, to control, to live at ease at the expense of humans for which they have no respect, no love. They gather others around them who’d rather join them than be against them. They suck the lives out of those they attempt to control. They are bullies. They deserve nothing more than to die. This is my opinion. As Christians we have a moral obligation to work toward righteousness, keeping always an eternal perspective. What does that mean? I think the meaning includes that the righteous have nothing to do with the schemes of the devil. I think the schemes of the devil include using willing humans to bring chaos and slavery to the lives of the righteous. If we fail to be on guard, fail to watch, we are going to sleep and darkness will fall upon us and we will be enslaved, economically, socially, morally. We will lose the rewards that we’ve gained, we will lose our crowns. If, as so many believe, the time is short, we must be doubly sure that we fall not into the devils way.

Lord Bless, Keep, Shine . . .