A new decade of decadence
The world may be optimistic, but what does the Spirit say?
Optimism for a new beginning in this New Year was high. But our immediate future is built upon the restraining of Godliness, and the societal respectability of decadence and rebellion. The rebellion is to reject God and His way, to live and achieve in man’s way. There is the rebellion to save and govern our world without God, whilst wilfully displaying a bold independence from God. The decadence is disguised by the so-called new morality.
We have a twice-married, twice divorced Prime Minister living with his ‘now’ partner in an adulterous relationship in No.10, and all’s well with this new world. Prince William has taken on a prophetic role to the world. He mounted the ‘Climate Change’ bandwagon, declaring that humanity risks irreparably damaging the Earth with climate change. He wants to use our “unique power” to solve the climate crisis. People are being coerced into voluntarily surrendering their rights.
It was the virulently antisemitic [Paul] Joseph Goebbels, a German Nazi politician and Reich Minister of Propaganda of Nazi Germany from 1933 to 1945 who said: “If you repeat a lie often enough, people will believe it, and you will even come to believe it yourself.” That climate change is a natural phenomenon of a fallen creation, and cannot be controlled by man, is irrelevant to them. Climate Change as proposed by the kings of the earth and the rulers (Psalm 2:2; Acts 4:25-26), is a deception, manipulation and control, to bring in a new structure of world governance. We are being ‘legitimately’ wedged into an antichrist system. The nations rage, and the peoples plot in vain. The kings of the earth mentioned, are just that – of the earth, and they will perish with the earth. The plotting is against the Lord and the King that He has chosen. The kings of the earth take their stand. The rulers gather together. (See also Revelation 17:2). World leaders gather regularly in their various formal meetings, NATO, G20, G7, World Economic Forum, United Nations, and so on. Apostate ‘Christianity’ will play its part in the last days’ scenario too.
Baal worship
Considering the situation with the climate, the weather, the earth, and morality – Baal was the chief god of the Canaanite pantheon. He was the storm god and bringer of clouds and rain. Because of this, he was associated with fertility, including fertility of the soil. Sexuality and fertility played a central role in Canaanite ritual. The Church is straying into the territory of foreign gods in its doctrine and in its behaviour. The Hebrew verb, liznot, “to stray,” is often used in conjunction with the worship of Baal. The verb liznot is derived from the same root as “zona,” “prostitute,” and ritual prostitution was central to Baal worship. The political, moral, and spiritual movement in this decade will continue toward the mother of prostitutes and wanton murderer of the faithful, as mentioned in Revelation 17:5. Reflecting on the sexually perverted conventions of ancient pagan ritual, in Sanhedrin 63b, the commentator states: “Israel knew that idol worship was not genuine – they would only worship idols to allow themselves sexual relations in public.” The apostate Church isn’t that different, and that is why there is no condemnation or outcry against 10 Downing Street, and much else in this nation and Church.
Man messed up in Eden, and one catastrophe led to another. Having been removed from the Garden, many other changes and conditions took place, changes in the environment and the lives of humans that I have covered in various Hashkama articles (on the www.saltshakers.com website).
The world that was created to house man and all living earthly creatures and plants, now began groaning, waiting for its redemption. The environmentalists and unbelievers in the days of Noah got it all wrong. When they were told what was coming and what they should do, they laughed at Noah and mocked him. The world hasn’t changed. The environmentalists and unbelievers today are the ones issuing the warnings, but they have got it wrong again. Why? Because, as in the days of Noah, they have no interest in what God has said will happen to this world and its inhabitants. The fate of the world is not sealed in plastic bags but in the Word of God. Environmentalists spending billions of dollars to save the world, are barking up the wrong tree. The greatest threat to the environment and life are the environmentalists themselves – the earth dwellers. Man messed up in the Garden of Eden. Man messed up before the Flood; and man is messing up before the return of Jesus. We are without excuse. We have God’s Word. We have God’s Spirit at work in the world (John 16:8); and we have God’s creation. “How long will the land mourn and the grass of every field be withered? Because of the evil of its residents, the animals and birds have been swept away, for the people have said, ‘He cannot see what our end will be’” (Jeremiah 12:4).
God had judged the nation of Israel for sin, by sending a drought. The lack of rain caused the land to mourn because of the wickedness of the people (Jeremiah 14:1-6; Leviticus 26:19-20; Deuteronomy 28:22-24). The people believed that God was indifferent to their sin, claiming that He [would] not see what happened (Psalm 73:11; Psalm 94:7). A Prime Minister can take his adulterous relationship into the national residence believing that God doesn’t see. However, the best is yet to come in the creation story. There is a future glory for the whole of creation (Revelation Ch 21 & 22). “Creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God. We know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until the present time” (Romans 8:21-22).
Veggie tales …
Humans lost their herbivorous status along with everything else when the rains came down and the floods came up. The Bible doesn’t preach the virtues of a meat-free lifestyle. The environmentalists want beef production and meat-eating in general stopped. Those poor cows burping and their toxic rearends belching out methane are deemed to be a threat to life on earth! Adam and Eve were naked in the garden, but clothed when it was time to say goodbye to the old life. Apart from the nudist and their belief system, people mostly wear clothes. That is the same with eating meat … it is a product of, and fall-out of the Fall, and the environment that developed. Sit naked, eating as many green salads as you like, you can’t go back, the damage is done, the horse has bolted. “The world is passing away, and also its lusts” (1 John 2:17). Sin is your master until you are born again into the Kingdom of God – “For sin shall no longer be your master, because you are not under the law, but under grace” (Romans 6:14). “… whoever does the will of God lives forever” (1 John 2:17b). Because of Man’s wilfulness and sin, a paradigm shift has taken place, first of all at the Fall, and now at the Flood. God recovers and restores Man’s relationship with Himself through His Son, Jesus Christ (John 14:6). The world will return to its herbivorous state, but only when this world is wrapped up and the new world is rolled out. In the fallen condition and environment of the present world, humans are permitted, by God, to eat the meat of animals. In the new world and creation to come, the lion will lay down with the lamb (Isaiah 11:6-7; Isaiah 65:25). There will be a new environment, with no ozone holes, and no need for “Clean Air Acts” – “No longer will the sun be your light by day, and the brightness of the moon will not shine on you; for the LORD will be your everlasting light, and your God will be your splendour” (Isaiah 60:19; Revelation 22:5). With our new bodies, meat-eating will be unnecessary as a resource for healthy living (2 Corinthians 5:1-10; Revelation 21:1-4).
Rebirth!
Man, in the form of Noah and in obedience to God, builds the ark and gathers in the animals. He reminds me of Jesus, the Man, working in cooperation with God the Father to bring redemption to the world. When you read Genesis, you will note that the seventh day never ended, it still continues, and, “My Father is always at His work to this very day, and I too am working” (John 5:17). A new catastrophe was going to strike the earth as God dealt with sin yet again. Noah, under God’s charge, constructs this wooden protective womb, which would birth the new humanity. On the human side, Noah constructs the ark and gathers the animals in to preserve them from the judgment that is about to come upon the earth and from extinction. Perhaps we see a symbolic rebirth in their emergence from the ark, with Noah being the one that delivers them from their floating womb, sending them out into the world and to a new existence. Thinking this way leads us to some word-play. The expression for offspring in the Bible is, “yotze yereke,” – “the issue of one’s thigh/loins,” (Genesis 46:26; Exodus 1:5; Judges 8:30). The animals restored to the land by Noah are “yotze hateva” (Genesis 9:10), “the issue of the ark.” The animals are birthed from the ark into the new world, and it is Noah, in obedience to God, who is the one that brings them forth into the world.
There are parallels with the work of Christ, for instance, in Noah, and in the Ark itself that we are safe and preserved from judgment, and that Jesus is the Deliverer. We are the fruit of His loins, as Jesus was of the Father’s – “Therefore being a prophet, and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him, that of the fruit of his loins, according to the flesh, he would raise up Christ to sit on his throne” (Acts 2:30). Peter was speaking about Jesus in Acts 2. A site identified as the tomb of David was known in antiquity (Josephus, J.W. 1.61; Ant. 7.393; 13.249), but it is not the present-day tomb of David on Mt Zion. That was a tradition that began in the Middle Ages. The point is that David’s body was still in the tomb when Jesus was resurrected from the dead. So, the possibility of it being David that was enthroned as Lord is excluded. Rather, David (Psalm 110:1) was speaking of Jesus who was raised and seated at the right hand of God, thus confirming Him as Lord. This is what is referred to in Acts 2:31-32. Christ is Risen!