Issued: 01/05/22  Revised: 1/28/24

“For we walk by faith, not by sight.”

2Corinthians 5:7

PLEASE NOTE:  Because Bible versions sometimes differ from each other in crucial ways, the version quoted here will be the one that best clarifies the point being made.  For a quick comparison between versions, please go to: http://www.biblehub.com.

   All bracketed material may be authorial comments, attempts at proper syntax, or minimal rewordings of Scripture for the sake of clarity and continuity.  These emendations will not be italicized.

   The “/” will be used to signify “and/or.”  The symbol “↔” is used to connect verses corroborating each other and so establishing doctrinal truths (Matthew 18:16↔2Corinthians 13:1).

   In differentiating between Yahweh Son [Jesus] and Yahweh Father [the Most High God], lower case letters have been used when discussing the former; upper case letters are reserved for the Only and Most High God.  Since Jesus was at pains to differentiate himself from Father, we have followed his lead here.

   The term neo-Christians will be used to differentiate between false Christians and Jesus’ true followers.

The Biblical Standard

   We all know the definition of faith:  “Faith is assurance of things hoped for, a conviction of things not seen” (2Corinthians 4:18; Hebrews 11:1), a claim totally bonkers to empirical minds (1Corinthians 2:13-14).  Science relies on the reverse:  Observable, quantified phenomena, oftentimes replicated in order to be believed.  Visual evidence, not faith, is man’s best shot at unraveling reality’s inner workings—the seen one, because the ‘unseen’ is a moot point.  Though there are atheists galore in every scientific discipline, agnostics amongst them do not categorically deny Father’s existence, instead arguing that as human knowledge is limited to experience, Father is unknowable in the scheme of things.

   Creationists, evidentiarists,¹ and irresolute scientists on the see-saw of half-hearted, Christian commitment fall somewhere in the spectrum between unbelief and faith:  They want their cake and eat it too.  They scour scientific endeavors cherry-picking those findings that jibe with their views; and when other findings do not, they re-interpret them, repackage them, or downright ignore them.

   Yahweh Son proxy Creator made Adam in his and Father’s image (Genesis 1:26); but as a plethora of hominid skulls cannot be reconciled with the features of an unchanging, homo sapiens-like Deity, science-dependent neo-Christians either downplay discrepancies or come up with counter theories to accommodate them.  Biblical chronologies and the Flood account indirectly contradict our planet’s age and the existence of dinosaurs; but if a fossilized human footprint next to a dinosaur’s is found, it is milked for all its worth. No matter what sophisticated, scientific dating methods suggest—on the basis of the geology where that tell-tale footprint is found, the world is not billions of years old and dinosaurs could not have died off 65 million years ago.  And even if to this day some semblance of evolution takes place under microscopes, perceived or misinterpreted gaps in overall evolutionary theory are thought to tilt the record in favor of ‘intelligent design.’

   Shamefully, this is done in name of Father and Jesus to give them due credit for a Creation that must be accepted on faith, for its ‘evolution’ from Days Two to Six—the Holy Spirit’s record of it, anyway (2Peter 1:20-21)—glaringly does not correspond with science’s timetable of the unfolding of the natural order.  And if science is wrong in this, what role does it play in faith?  If “a little yeast leavens the whole lump,” and if this “yeast” is symbolic of double-standards, can Christians introduce any measure of science into the Gospel of him who was the unleavened [and unscientific] bread from Heaven (Leviticus 2:11; Luke 12:1; John 6:51; Galatians 5:9)?  No.  For which reasons both Jesus and Paul dismissed scientific approaches in their respective ministries (John 20:29; 1Timothy 6:20-21).

   Alas, there is no middle-ground for wishy-washy Christians: Neither Father nor Jesus can stomach them. One is either hot or cold: The lukewarm is ejected and rejected (John 20:29; Hebrews 11:6; James 1:6-8; Revelation 3:15).  James’ target in particular, the “double-minded man inconstant in all his ways” (James 1:8), needs focus on faith alone in order not to be like “little children, tossed like waves and blown about by every wind of doctrine, by people’s trickery, or by clever strategies that would lead us astray” (Ephesians 4:14)—especially Satan’s.  Inasmuch as science contradicts faith, it is the gospel Satan has chosen to undermine everything Father stands for and seeks to reveal.

   But there is a price to pay for believing Father’s word over that of science:  Ridicule, the contempt and condescension every righteous person has endured for remaining true to their Creators.  If people in thrall of evil men are willing to go the extra mile for them, surely faithful Judeo-Christians can extend Father and Jesus the same courtesy?  But before we pat ourselves on the back for being good little troopers, this is exactly what they demand of us in exchange for future rewards.  Nothing else but the freedom to choose between compliance or rejection, faith or doubt, Jesus’ cross or Satan’s temporal delights, worldly scorn or worldly acclaim, is left to us:  The imitation of Christ is literally a case of do or die.

Believing is “Seeing”

   “Seeing” has contradictory meanings when applied to faith and to human sight.  Despite claims to the contrary, faith does not give us the ability to see Father (Exodus 33:20; John 1:18) or heavenly realms.  “Seeing” means understanding, like when getting the gist of something we say, “I see,” yet human vision is not involved.  We need not see Father in order to know He exists:  Our willingness to believe gets supplemented with the force of that certainty.  When Lydia set her mind to absorb Paul’s preaching, [for faith comes by hearing↔Romans 10:17], Jesus “opened” her understanding and she acted accordingly (Acts 16:11-15).  All that it took was Lydia’s willingness to believe; the imparted wisdom came to her from heavenly sources.

   Simply stated, Father does not wish to be appraised through science but through faith (Hebrews 11:6).  If He wants to give incontrovertible proof of His existence, He could open the heavens and pose for selfies.  If camera-shy but still wishing to leave material evidence of His handiwork throughout history, why not preserve Noah’s Ark for future generations, the Ten Commandment tablets written with His own finger (Exodus 31:18), or whichever and whatever Scriptural relic corroborates the veracity of its related event?  Is not everything possible for Him (Matthew 19:26)?

   The overriding answer is always the same:  Father wants people to believe sight unseen.  There are other considerations linked to faith’s second premise:  Pro and con explanations undermining the assurance of what in the lifetimes of righteous people was never meant to be confirmed (Hebrew 11:1,13,39), any of which would open the door for Satan to generate counterproductive, endless controversies (1Timothy 6:20-21).  As has been the case:  Multiple theories as to which mountain the Ark rested on; the Shroud of Turin with features suggestive of Jesus’ crucifixion and burial; relics possessed and venerated by many churches; etc.²

Impossible Events:  Signposts to the Unseen

   How does the Bible prepare us for this mindset?  Through narratives contradicting scientific interpretations and prioritizing unwavering belief in order to pit faith against science.  Inexplicable events—from an empirical point of view, that is—are stock and parcel of Scripture, telling us that what men perceive and quantify is a contrived reality; that this order of things, however vast and solid it may seem, is background scenery for a stage on which the drama of redemption is being played out until getting dismantled at performance’s end (Hebrews 12:27).

   For example, there have been sightings of Ark remains on today’s Mount Ararat, plus stories of people actually having been in it.  Whether the stratovolcano Ararat believed to have been the resting place for Noah’s Ark is the factual site, nobody can tell; but the Bible does not support that assertion.  What does it say?  That on the 17^th day of Tishrei [seventh month of the Hebrew calendar], “the Ark came to rest on the mountains of Ararat,” which coupled with the following verse, “the flood water continued to recede until the tenth month, when, on the first of that month, the tops of the mountains could be seen,” clearly tells us that the Ark was floating at a standstill over Ararat’s mountainous ranges on 17^th Tishrei, not that it had come to rest on land (Genesis 8:4-5).

   Let us timetable the events as presented.  From 18^th Tishrei to 1^st Tevet [tenth month], the waters continued to recede until mountain tops came into view (Genesis 8:5)—not firm land, mountain tops!  Using the 30-day lunar Hebrew calendar, we compute a total of 75 days [counting the 17^th, there were 14 Tishrei remaining days + 30 Marcheshvan days + 30 Kislev days + 1^st Tevet].  Noah then waited 40 more days (Genesis 8:6); to wit, 29 Tevet remaining days +11 Shevat days.  Adding these totals, we have 75+ 40 = 115 days.

   Then comes a time of unspecified duration, during which Noah sent a raven that flew back and forth until dry land appeared (Genesis 8:7); as did a dove that could not find a perch for its feet because the waters had not fully receded (Genesis 8:8-9—let us call this total “x”).  On the 1^st of Nissan [the first month], Noah saw no water covering land; but it was not until 27^th Iyear [the second month] that the ground dried up so that people and animals could safely debark (Genesis 8:13-19).  Thus we have 14 days, 7 of which the dove was sent out and returned with an olive leaf in its beak, and 7 more days after which the dove roosted somewhere and never returned (Genesis 8:10-12).  Since it took 150 days for the waters to recede, we end up with the equation 115 + (x – 14) = 150, or x = 49 [19 remaining Shevat days + 30 Adar days], the total days encompassed by Genesis 8:7-9.

   It has been suggested that since Mount Ararat’s rock formation does not contain evidence of having been underwater, it must have been formed after the Flood.  This is the sort of pseudo-scientific trap Paul was trying to avoid (1Timothy 6:20-21):  Bets are on that dating Ararat’s geology will yield far more time than the ±6 millennia back to the Flood.  Nevertheless, we need not look beyond Scripture to surmise that Mount Ararat could not have been the unknown resting site for the Ark.

   We have just discussed the time lapse between Ark floating over Ararat to debarkation time.  Lacking precise data, it is impossible to calculate the Ark’s drift over 150 days, but at the mercy of wind and water currents, drift it must have.  Also, although nothing is impossible for Father (Luke 1:37), let us consider how impractical such a landing site would have been.  If all the animals leaving the Ark had to walk down the mountain, how challenging or impossible that would have proven for lots of species—let alone breathing difficulties or inhospitable weather conditions?³  These were winter months for that region of Turkey, where temperatures average from -6ºC at night to 3ºC during the day.  A third fact to consider is that Ararat’s latitude was too far north for the cultivation of olive trees at that time; and Scripture unequivocally states that the dove brought back an olive leaf (Genesis 8:11).

   But that leaf has a greater significance than habitat issues.  When Genesis 8:11 says upon seeing that leaf Noah “understood” the waters had receded from the earth, what are we being told?  That the foliage of trees were then fully exposed, since no plant life had been destroyed in the disaster!  Let us pay attention to detail, and never ever forget that Father flaunts His power to snub the constraints science imposes on His handiwork and on the minds of men.

   As Yahweh Son warned, the Flood would destroy every land creature that breathed through its nostrils (Genesis 6:17, 7:4,21-23), which by definition exempted all marine life and all plant life alike.  We have been so bombarded with narratives of land animals leaving the Ark that no attention has been given to other life forms; for if Ark passengers repopulated the world (Genesis 8:17, 9:19), are we to assume that marine and plant life underwent a third creation?  No.  No matter how high the waters went [as per Genesis 7:20 presumably higher than Mount Everest], physical laws were circumvented so that neither water depth, nor pressure, nor lack of oxygen could harm submerged, living forms.  Sounds crazy, but perfectly in keeping with gazillions of animals occupying the Ark’s finite dimensions and being fed from a finite food supply that could not be replenished at sea (Genesis 6:14-21)—unless by supernatural means like the oil in the Zarepthah widow’s containers (1Kings 17:16) or the fish/bread in Jesus’ baskets (Matthew 14:17-21).

   Here is the crux of the matter:  Should Judeo-Christians accept the Flood narrative at face value? Detractors of the Bible would call us fundamentalist fanatics, which is to be expected given that narratives authored by the Holy Spirit are both historical and symbolic by design; and since they must be appraised spiritually, they are beyond the understanding of unbelievers (1Corinthians 2:14; 2Peter 1:20-21).  Scholars would point out that in the history of mankind, Israel as a late-comer would have imported Flood myths from surrounding nations; but we have Genesis 9:19, 10:5,32 suggesting that Ark passengers and their descendants set the mythological ball rolling.

   Was Noah some patriarchal archetype as it is believed?  On this question, we have a definitive answer.  Yahweh told us so:  “Even if these three men, Noah, Daniel, and Job, were in [the midst of Jerusalem], they would save only their own lives by their righteousness, declares the Lord Yahweh” (Ezekiel 14:14,18,20).  [Please note that another “archetypical” man has been added to the mix:  Job].  And Jesus corroborated:  “Just as it was in Noah’s time, so it will be in the days of the Son of Man.  People were eating, drinking, marrying, and being given in marriage right up to the day when Noah went into the Ark; then the Flood came and destroyed all of them” (Luke 17:26-27).  Men may say Noah did not exist; Father and Jesus state he did.  Take your pick.

  How could the 4 BC to 30 AD (?) Jesus know Noah firsthand?   Because as the Yahweh Son proxy God interacting with Noah, he was an eyewitness to the event; it was he who made a provisional covenant with Noah distinct and separate from the everlasting one Father struck with Abraham; and to confirm the former, Yahweh Son sealed it with his sign, the rainbow of which the natural one is a facsimile (Genesis 9:9-17, 17:5-7; Matthew 24:30; Hebrews 6:13; Revelation 10:1).

   Jesus’ and Peter’s walking on water violated the law of gravity, let alone Jesus commanding storms to dissipate (Matthew 14:25-32).  Was teleportation involved in Philip’s case (Acts 8:39-40)?  When Paul was bitten by a poisonous snake, the shipwrecked believed he would die, yet Paul lived thanks to divine decree (Mark 16:18↔Acts 23:3-5).  There were none of the shenanigans practiced amongst neo-Christian sects, like milking snakes or gradually developing venom-tolerance, where surviving snake bites ostensibly is both a test and proof of faith.  Numerous deaths have shown that tempting Father to confirm misinformed piety is one of Satan’s oldest tricks (Luke 4:9-12).

   Bottom line: “Let God be found true, but every man a liar” (Romans 3:4); and if we are ridiculed for our faith, let us not be ashamed but rejoice in the assurance that when men speak falsely of us, our heavenly reward will be great (Matthew 5:11-12).

Faith Correctives

“In your patience you shall win your souls.”

Luke 21:19

   Jesus may have promised a rose garden in the world to come, but in this one he bequeathed us only thorns (John 16:33).  There is no sense denying our sad fates; even as modern neo-Christian preachers urge us to enjoy life’s party, their Apostolic predecessors emphasized the need for endless prayer, hope against hope struggles, tears, grieving, mourning, rejection of worldly trappings, and the hardest challenge of all, patience to overcome nigh unendurable challenges (1Thessalonians 5:17; James 4:2-4,9; 1Peter 4:2-4; 2Peter 1:3-8↔Luke 21:19).  This neo-Christian lot has joined the ranks of the opportunistic, pastoral cheerleaders of the past.

   In a way patience re-focuses urgent realities vis-à-vis delayed assurances.   Abraham, though not rewarded immediately, believed Father’s promise and was justified (Genesis 15:6).  From Enoch to the elderly Sarah a reality to be manifested millennia later was believed in (Hebrews 11:13; Jude 1:14-15); and Paul’s “great cloud of witnesses,” all exemplars of faith, became role-models for generations to come whose human senses would be challenged by the absence of evidentiary proof (Hebrews 12:1).

   There was a subtler corrective, as for example 2Kings 6:17:  “Elisha prayed, and said, ‘Yahweh, please open his [servant’s] eyes, that he may see.’  Yahweh opened the eyes of the young man; and he saw: and behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire around Elisha.”  Whereas Elisha at all times was able to see the celestial host protecting them, neither his servant nor the Syrian army surrounding them could.

   When Jesus appeared to two of his disciples on the road to Emmaus, what are we told?  “But their eyes were prevented from recognizing him,” until their eyes were “opened” and Jesus disappeared from view (Luke 24:16,31).  Does this mean that the disciples were walking with their eyes closed?  No; it means that though their eyes were processing visual stimuli, they had been acted upon in some fashion so that while seeing Jesus they could not register his true appearance.  And when Stephen was stoned to death, he saw the Heavens open while the phenomenon remained unseen to those present—including Paul (Acts 7:55-58).  If Paul had seen this, it would have been recorded for posterity in Acts 22:20; but since the time of his calling had not yet come (Acts 9), and with the “veil of Moses” still over his eyes (Acts 22:3; 2Corinthians 3:15-16; Philippians 3:5-6), Paul was a non-Christian lacking the faith “to see.”

“One-Way” Veils Partitioning the Seen from the Unseen

   In 2Corinthians 3:13-16, Paul referenced the “veil of Moses,” with which Moses hid his altered countenance from a fearful congregation (Exodus 34:29-35).  Moses’ shining face, upon exposure to Yahweh’s presence, shared the bronze-like refulgence ascribed to Yahweh Son/Jesus; and because the latter was created in the image of Father, other features are similarly shared between them (Ezekiel 1:26-27; Daniel 7:9, 10:5; Revelation 1:13-15).  Since Moses was interacting face to face with Yahweh Son (Exodus 25:22; Numbers 12:8), Yahweh’s ‘radiation’ [for lack of a better word] altered Moses’ skin tone.  Let us not, however, become mired in the literalness of it all.  The “veil” is Paul’s metaphor to suggest a spiritual dimension hiding behind what we call reality, so that in order to appraise it, we need Jesus to remove the veil (2Corinthians 3:14).

   But there is a different ‘veil’ alluded to in Isaiah 25:6-7:  “In this mountain, Yahweh of Armies will make all peoples a feast of fat things, a feast of choice wines, of fat things full of marrow, of well refined choice wines.  He will destroy in this mountain the surface of the covering that covers all peoples, and the veil that is spread over all nations.”  What is this all about?  The feast is the “marriage banquet of the Lamb,” with Jesus as host and waiter (Matthew 8:11; Luke 12:27: Revelation 19:9); so that the “mountain” must be the Zion prophesied to bulldoze nations and extend over the new earth (Daniel 2:34-35), upon whose summit the Heavenly Jerusalem will repose (Revelation 21:10).

   What about the veil spreading over all nations?  Is this the cosmos that will be rolled up like a carpet (Isaiah 34:4; Revelation 6:14)?  The self-same expansion created on Day Two to separate heavenly beings [waters above] from human beings [waters below]—remembering that waters in Scripture are symbols for people (Genesis 1:6-8; Revelation 17:5)?  A metaphor for something preventing human eyes from seeing spiritual realities?   According to Scripture, the heavens do open and close (Ezekiel 1:1; Matthew 3:16; Acts 7:56; Revelation 4:1, 19:11); so when the science that has not observed the phenomenon cannot verify the existence of Heaven one way or another, on whose version of reality must the faithful align?  On that of science or Father’s?

   How far from earth is this Heaven?  Between our planet and the moon?  Past Alpha Centauri?  Beyond the Oort Cloud?  Scripture tells us very close; in fact, within eyesight.  The Apostles followed Jesus ascent into Heaven until a cloud covered him (Acts 1:9).  Stephen was not looking through a telescope when he sighted the Son sitting to the right of Father (Acts 7:55-56).  We are not qualified to do calculations, but assuming Jesus was of average height and the Apostles were able to monitor his ascent, how far up could he have gone and still be seen [depending of the height of the cloud that hid him]?  During the Millennium of Revelation, the redeemed will be able to look down upon Satan chained on earth (Isaiah 14:15-17 [↔the “kings” of Revelation 4:10]; Ezekiel 28:17; Revelation 20:2-3).  Note that the term “the deep” is consistently used throughout Scripture to reference the distance between Heaven at the top and earth at the bottom where Sheol is to be found (Genesis 1:2, 7:11, 8:2; Isaiah 14:15; Revelation 9:1, 20:1).⁴

   How about proportions, the Creator’s size in relation to the natural world (Psalms 40:12) and to humankind (Isaiah 40:22)?  Our Sun is humongous; yet how can an angel pour his cup over it (Revelation 16:8-9)?⁵  Or another to stand with one foot on the sea and another on land (Revelation 10:5)?  We are fond of singing that the whole world is in Father’s hands.  Is this literally so?

   We need not belabor the point any further.  The faith Father asks of us does not come equipped with the science/technology proving it; otherwise it would not fit a definition that admittedly sounds oxymoronic:  Evidence of the unseen, substance of as yet unmanifested things (Hebrews 11:1).  If it all boils down to a test of faith, the gist is this:  Father will ask the max from each human being in terms of believing His word against men’s.  If not, fine; bring your dinosaur bones as exhibits on Judgment Day and let Jesus rule on their admissibility.  The faithful non-empiricists will fare better.

Technology

“Technology… is a queer thing.  It brings you great gifts with one hand, and it stabs you in the back with the other.”

Carrie Snow

   To paraphrase Alexander Pope, foolishness springs eternal in the human quest.  No matter how disruptive and dangerous technology proves to be, there are those who rank it among Father’s greatest gifts; though which ‘god’ is being alluded to is a matter of opinion.  Certainly not the Father whose prophesied Kingdom lacks all the technological wizardry of science fiction’s predictions; and if indifference counts as disdain, Father thinks next to nothing of science and its achievements (Daniel 12:4; 1Timothy 6:2-21).  Now, the “god of this world” (2Corinthians 4:4) is another matter, knowing as he does men’s obsession with technological gadgetry.

   In great literature, the jester is usually the wisest person amongst characters, and the above quotation confirms this view.  Miss Snow is a stand-up comedian; how she came to the above conclusion is not as relevant as its truth:  For every dazzling technological advance, doors are opened for consequences that exact a terrible toll in human suffering.  Technology as handmaiden to science finds its Biblical corollary in 2Corinthians 11:14:  A beguiling guise to ensnare the unwise, like bait hiding the hook.  If science is Satan’s gospel, technology is Satan’s quinella:  Both are bets maximizing the odds of winning human souls.

   The gunpowder invented by Chinese alchemists was not conceived as a weapon of war, but given the predisposition of men’s hearts to evil (Ecclesiastes 8:11), a means of exterminating obstacles in the pursuit of Satan’s defining goal—absolute power (Isaiah 14:13-14)—it did become.  So did planes stemming from the Wright Brothers’ primitive attempts at aviation:  Theaters of conflict during World War I were pockmarked with air-dropped bomb holes to rival the moon’s craters.  Einstein’s famous equation made the splitting of the atom possible; and H-bombs dropped in Japan showed the world which nation wielded the biggest stick.  Rocket technology cemented its future during the London Blitz; over Viet Nam; and in the conquest of space, where weaponized satellites now orbit over enemy—time is not the only relative perception—nations to discourage bellicose shenanigans, or to return them to the proverbial dust (Genesis 3:19).

   It would seem, in fact, that Revelation 13:11-13 intimates such a scenario.  We have discussed that “horns” are symbols for powerful nations; and while this particular “beast” is different from its European-based counterpart (Revelation 13:1-2), they both share Satanic influences (Ezekiel 29:3; Revelation 12:9, 13:11).  This should not surprise us in view that Satan has been given power over nations past and future (Luke 4:6; 2Corinthians 4:4; 1John 5:19).  Yet unlike its continental, Satanic kin, the two-horned beast rises from the earth, not from the sea of humanity as the former did, suggesting an alliance of two nations ethnically/ideological distinct but equally matched in terms of power [the two horns are of equal size].⁶

   By what means does this two-horned beast make “fire come down from heaven to earth in front of people” (Revelation 13:13)?  Orbiting high-energy laser satellites created by technology?  Certainly this type of “fire” is different from the one that consumed Elijah’s holocaust offering (1Kings 18:38), or that will consume the adversaries at Armageddon (Isaiah 26:22; Hebrews 10:27; Revelation 20:9).  The latter are deployed by Father from Heaven; the former triggered by superpowers on earth.

   What of Revelation 13:16-17?  How would these things be possible without computers, biometric recognition systems, surveillance and facial recognition techniques?  Technology has the capability to control our lives, freeze our bank accounts, wipe us off from existence by deleting our digitalized data, so that Revelation’s scenario of being unable to buy or sell unless submissive to dictators is more than possible—China being the preeminent prototype.  Obviously these controls will be in times of great natural and social upheavals, possibly during the Great Tribulation and the final plagues, when personal freedoms will be rescinded to implement the whims and agendas of the powers that be.

   As per Psalms 2:3, 74:8, and Revelation 17:16-17, it may be that Judeo-Christianity will then be crushed.  We must remember that our religion is the sole focus of Scripture; and while other faiths are entitled to their beliefs, it is only through Jesus that Father can be reached (John 14:6; 1Timothy 2:5).  Thus only Judeo-Christian beliefs stand between Satan and his goal:  Taking down with him as many souls as he can when he burns (Revelation 20:7-10).  As far as the Bible goes, every non Judeo-Christian person of faith is technically in Satan’s bag, barring those individuals whose moral character affords them mitigating factors (Acts 10:34-35; Romans 2:12-16).  Despite what score-settling neo-Christians regurgitate, Father is about saving souls, destroying them only after strategies for their conversion have failed and in order to give His people the bounties that the unrighteous deprived them of in this world (2Samuel 14:14; Isaiah 5:4-6; Jeremiah 29:11, 35:15; Ezekiel 33:11; Luke 20:13-16; Revelation 21:4).

   Further indirect evidence of massive technological failure involves unprecedented solar activity (Revelation 16:8-9).  It is well established that radiation from the sun can play havoc with electric grids and telecommunications satellites.  Will all of these go out of commission during this event?  Are these the times prophesied by Amos 8:12?  How many people resort to social media and religious blogs for their theology, however wrong/faulty, instead of reading their Bibles?  That takes effort and eats away at their fun time, right?  Why not be fed childish pap, which is easier to stomach, rather than the solid food—hard fare indeed—Scripture provides (Hebrews 5:12-14)?  Can we fault Father for tuning people out because they choose not to listen to and comply with His rules (Psalm 1:2; Proverbs 1:24-33, 28:9; Isaiah 66:4; Jeremiah 6:10; Zechariah 7:12-13; John 9:31)?

   We must hand it to Satan for his unerring assessment of human nature.  He knows what makes men tick, be it biases, ethnic/racial hatreds, political partisanship, each and every possible action which leads to deceptions of every sort—even technology-based IEDs [Insidious Electronic Devices].  We only have to look around us and see battalions of people glued to their laptops, smart phones, or what have you, unable to bridge the gap from the digital to the spiritual, like zombies tripping aimlessly in virtual realities.

   Why bother to enumerate the stabs in the back technology inflicts on us while numbing our minds and souls with its own brand of ether?  We have bitten the bait and welcomed the hook that we will not let go of even as it transfixes our very souls.  Cleopatra had more sense taking an asp to her bosom:  She wanted to escape an ignominious fate; but we are like Odysseus, who jettisoned caution to be in thrall of forces that finally destroyed him.

   Can every techno-addict possibly envision how he/she will function in a world suddenly gone dark?  Without Facebook, or Twitter, or Instagram, or What’s App, or Tik Tok, or any form of social media shaping his/her perception?  The Internet, modernity’s counterpart for the Babel of Genesis 11:7—yet useful as it is, has become the domain of crackpots, conspiracy theorists, nihilists, propagandists, hate mongers, xenophobes, cultists, sexual deviants, each appealing to base—pun intended—groups which collectively set in motion the avalanche burying everything Jesus stands for. Has anybody ever wondered why Satan is not given the chance to state his own case in the Bible?  Because he has nothing worthwhile to contribute to the ennoblement of mankind, desiring instead to demean it by way of showing his contempt for Father, Jesus, and men.⁷

   From 2016 on in American politics, the incalculable harm done to democracy by social media is a matter of record still reverberating; and truth be told, despite half-hearted attempts at damage control, they were instituted too late and are now ineffectual.  Like human anglers, Satan has many kinds of technological hooks in his fishing gear; a twit stopped in time will not deter nine coming from elsewhere.  And talking about fishing, is it just coincidence that Jesus told the Apostles they would be fishers of men (Matthew 4:19), while men stuck to Satan’s scales are also called fish (Ezekiel 29:3-4)?

   We have to thank technology for global warming and climate change, both currently denied by naysayers, but nonetheless decimating glaciers, animal and plant habitats; altering weather patterns; warming Arctic regions at an accelerated pace and contributing to freak weather events now seen in Europe.  As glaciers melt, sea levels rise; and the recent spate of earthquakes may be the result of a fragmented earth’s crust bouncing back.  Animal species are on the move northwards, away from warming tropical regions; and thanks to the mix blessings of run-off fertilizers, technology’s ‘great gift’ to agriculture, algal blooms are depriving oceanic fish and reefs of vital oxygen for survival.  Nuclear energy is a wondrous source for lighting our homes and zapping our cancers, but the resulting waste dumped underground or deep in oceanic trenches may in time aggravate man’s unease and disease.

   It is so characteristic of Satan to offer alluring visions of progress laced with dire consequences:  The way he tripped Eve with the promise of wisdom; the way science views Father as an imaginary variable; the way technology has stultified the minds and souls of men so that human interactions have become coarsened, cheapened, emotionally/spiritually disconnected.

   Satan’s science and technology card is knavish indeed.

¹ Modern innovators arguing that science ‘properly interpreted’ strengthens the faith that requires no corroboration (Romans 8:24).

² The trend was started by Empress Helena, Constantine’s mother.  During her travels to the Holy Land, she claimed to have discovered a cave with three crosses, one of which had the inscription “Iesus Nazarenus Rex Iudaeorum” [Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews] affixed to it.  Helena was still unsure of which cross was the real McCoy until a dying woman brought before her was healed when touched with the ‘true’ cross.

   Elena was on a roll.  Almost 300 years after the crucifixion, she is reputed to have found the nails that pierced Jesus’ body, pieces of the rope with which Jesus was tied to the cross [supporting his wrists against the crossbeam], and the burial shroud now believed to be the Turin relic.  Not to be outdone, a modern preacher claimed to have found underground traces of Jesus’ blood below Golgotha, which was then subjected to DNA analysis revealing that the male Jesus had none of Joseph’s Y-chromosomes but only Mary’s X ones. 

   Needless to say, these relics were preserved in Roman Catholic churches and monasteries, reinforcing the widespread idolatrous worship Father abominates [↔Revelation17:5].  In 2016 a fragment of the ‘true’ cross was radiocarbon-dated to the 11^th Century, an age when forged relics were more ubiquitous than today’s Amazon products.  There are records of multiple baby Jesus’ prepuces and milk teeth to rival those of dinosaur remains.

³ The Ararat proper has two peaks about 7 miles apart, ranging in elevations from 12-16,000+ feet above sea level.

⁴ Sheol is the Hebrew equivalent of the Greek Hades, an underworld realm where the souls of the departed were believed to go.  While Numbers 16:31-33 creates the impression that this is where unrighteous people end up, Scripture is very clear that upon departing the body, the soul goes back to Father in state akin to human sleep (Genesis 35:18; Ecclesiastes 9:5-6, 12:7; Isaiah 26:19; Daniel 12:2; Luke 8:52; Acts 7:60; 1Thessalonians 4:13-17; Revelation 6:9-11).  While Korah et al were swallowed up while still alive, they were no longer so when they hit bottom.  Their souls, as per the prescribed pattern, must have returned to Father.

   The idea of Sheol as hell in relation to Heaven may come from the fact that when Armageddon takes place, this reality of ours will be literally burnt away—both earth and that seemingly infinite cosmos the James Webb Space Telescope so magnificently photographs (Amos 9:5; Micah 1:4; 2Peter 3:10).  But we should consider that if Satan and his angels were cast out of Heaven onto earth, and they are imprisoned in “prisons of darkness” awaiting Judgment (Jude 1:6; 2Peter 2:4), such location might have been misperceived as being underground, since they are nowhere to be found above ground (Revelation 12:4,9).

   Whether this prison is real, metaphorical, underground or in a parallel reality devoid of light, no one can ascertain.

⁵ Scripture’s way of warning us that climate change and its consequences will be exacerbated by an unprecedented solar event.

⁶ Refer to Part V: Creatures’ Features.

⁷ A proscription he circumvented in the Koran where identified as Iblis, he was presumably banished from Heaven for refusing Allah’s request to prostate himself before Adam, Islam’s presumed first prophet.  Such a view flagrantly contradicts the Bible’s position that angels, prophets and men are fellow servants ranking no superiority over one another (Hebrews 1:14; 2Peter 1:10-12; Revelation 22:9), another reason why Judeo-Christians must anathematize the Koran (Galatians 1:8-9).

  The only Angel all must prostrate to is the last Adam, Jesus, the former Yahweh Son Angel God, the beginning of God’s creation within time (1Corinthians 15:45; Colossians 1:15; Hebrews 1:5-13; Revelation 3:14).  Maybe the Iblis spin is Satan’s way of venting his refusal to honor Jesus.