The Presidential Election – A Christian Post Mortem

As I reflect back on the last 20 months or so of the recently concluded election cycle, I must say that I was extremely disappointed with how the mainstream Christian community conducted our selves. I can’t tell you how many emails I received that were part of some smear campaign based on outright lies, fear mongering, and distorted facts. I was even more disturbed by the number of Christian friends and colleagues who fell prey to this practice and blindly forwarded these outright lies and misleading messages that were so obviously written by campaign staffers or ultra-conservative, politically motivated ideologues with no other agenda but to smear and destroy the opposition to dozens of friends and colleagues without so much as moments hesitation. We allowed our good sense and Christian morality to be hijacked by politically motivated thugs. We should be ashamed of ourselves.

I have been a life-long independent voter and have never aligned myself with any political party. However, I understand it is the right of every citizen of this nation to do so if they desire. But it is absolutely un-Christian to try and turn our Christian faith and the church in general into an arm of any political party; left or right. As Christians, we must remain completely independent of the political system.

As citizens, we have an obligation to make our voices be heard during the election, but only as individual citizens and voters. I defy anyone who considers themselves to be a Bible believing Christian to find one word in Christ’s commission to us, or the epistles of the apostles, where we were told to become part of the political process. In fact, we were told just the opposite.

There is no doubt that Christians in this nation (about 80,000,000 of us if polls are correct) make up a very powerful voting block. But that should only become evident on election-day as each of us who is eligible goes to our polling place and votes our individual conscience. We should never be offering collective “Christian” support or endorsements to any particular candidate or offering one red cent of money donated for the cause of Christ to be used in support of a political party or candidate. We should be the great unknown that the pollsters simply cannot figure out until after the fact when the votes have been cast.

The Christian church in America has been hijacked by the political process and we have stood by and watched as it has happened. Somehow, over the last 30-40 years, we have come to equate Christianity with conservatism, or patriotism, or capitalism, or Americanism, and it is shameful. We are called to be in the world but not of the world. We are told to not be concerned over such matters as who is in office and what laws we must live under. We are told that God alone rises leaders up and puts them down in His time for His purposes. We in the Christian church have somehow come to believe that we should be attempting to build a “Christian Nation” here in America. Anyone who truly studies history knows that we have never been a Christian nation and were not founded to be a Christian nation, nor are we called by the gospels or epistles to build a Christian nation. We just happen to have had several founding fathers who claimed to be Christian and therefore used a lot of Christian language in the documents that formed this Republic. But a close examination of most of their personal lives reveals them to have not been very “Christian” at all. We must take back the Church from the politicians and restore it to the mission Christ set before us at his ascension. The twenty-first century cannot be allowed to be the century in which the Church of Jesus Christ becomes the new Sadducee and Pharisee arms of the current government. We are perilously close to that today, and we must wake up to the truth and get back to tasks Christ has set before us.

I will have much more to say on this topic as time goes by, but for now I will leave you with this question. Please sit and think long and hard about this before you answer. “When Christ returns, what kind of government and economic system do you believe He will install and lead?”

Until next time – God Bless

If you would like to learn more of my essays or books based on the Book of Genesis, visit my website at http://thewitnesschronicles.com.

The Tower of Babel and Confusion of Tongues

Exactly how long after the Biblical Flood of Noah took place the Biblical story of the Tower of Babel incident occurred we have no way of knowing, and since none of the four patriarchs who survived the flood or their direct descendants as listed in the Table of Nations are mentioned in this story by name, it makes it impossible to date this event with any certainty. But at some point between the flood and the story of Abraham, we have the story of the people coming together to build a city and a tower and rebelling against God’s command to spread and occupy the whole earth.

Genesis 11:1-9 ¹Now the whole earth had one language and one speech. ²And it came to pass, as they journeyed from the east, that they found a plain in the land of Shinar, and they dwelt there. ³Then they said to one another, “Come, let us make bricks and bake them thoroughly.” They had brick for stone, and they had asphalt for mortar. ⁴And they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city, and a tower whose top is in the heavens; let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be scattered abroad over the face of the whole earth.” ⁵But the LORD came down to see the city and the tower which the sons of men had built. ⁶And the LORD said, “Indeed the people are one and they all have one language, and this is what they begin to do; now nothing that they propose to do will be withheld from them. ⁷Come, let Us go down and there confuse their language, that they may not understand one another’s speech.” ⁸So the LORD scattered them abroad from there over the face of all the earth, and they ceased building the city. ⁹Therefore its name is called Babel, because there the LORD confused the language of all the earth; and from there the LORD scattered them abroad over the face of all the earth. (NKJV)

The story of the Tower of Babel and God’s confusion of tongues is one of the most controversial stories in the Bible. Before we get into the confusion of tongues, let’s look at what the scripture has to say about the building of the tower.

First, this passage contains and very strange statement:

Genesis 11: 5-7 ⁵But the LORD came down to see the city and the tower which the sons of men had built. ⁶And the LORD said, “Indeed the people are one and they all have one language, and this is what they begin to do; now nothing that they propose to do will be withheld from them. ⁷Come, let Us go down and there confuse their language, that they may not understand one another’s speech.”

 

To read the full text of this article, go to http://thewitnesschronicles.com/Tower_of_Bable.htm.

 

To read all of my articles on Genesis, visit http://thewitnesschronicles.com/.

 

Shem, Ham, and Japheth After the Flood

What became of the sons of Noah after the flood is somewhat of a mystery, however, the Table of Nations listed in the 11th chapter of Genesis gives us a general idea of what happened to their descendants and in which direction they each spread. I have written four separate essays, one general and one on each son, which details much of the research that has been done to trace the Table of Nations as it appears in Genesis. The essays are too lengthy to include in this blog format, so I have included the links to them below.

It is widely believed however, that much of the Mythologies coming out of just about every ancient culture in the world relating to major and minor gods, can be traced back to Noah, his sons, or their wives and children. The second book in my, The Witness Chronicles fiction series, Table of Nations, also follows the dispersion of the children of Noah and relies heavily on the work of such world renowned researchers as George Rawlinson and Arthur C. Custance to trace the dispersal of Noah’s sons. To read my essays on each of the sons of Noah, please click on the below links:

Table of Nations General         http://thewitnesschronicles.com/Table_of_Nations.htm

Shem                                        http://thewitnesschronicles.com/Sons_of_Shem.htm

Japheth                                    http://thewitnesschronicles.com/Sons_of_Japheth.htm

Ham                                         http://thewitnesschronicles.com/Sons_of_Ham.htm

To read more of my essays on Genesis, or to learn more about my fiction books based on the stories inn Genesis, please visit my website at http://thewiitnesschronicles.com.

Migration to Shinar

Genesis 11:2 ²And it came to pass, as they journeyed from the east that they found a plain in the land of Shinar, and they dwelt there.

The Bible states, in this passage that almost immediately after Noah had sent his sons away that they came to a plain in the land of Shinar. This is how we know that the sons did not disburse before this time. They all came to this place and they dwelled there together. What happened next I will deal with in my essays on The Tower of Babel and Confusion of Tongues, but we know from this passage that they all came together and dwelled together in Shinar for some period of time. Exactly how long it was before the Tower incident we cannot say, but it was probably no more than a couple of hundred years, as archeologists can detect the ages of artifacts such as the Gilgamesh tablets and other ancient Sumerian and Akkadian writings and artifacts and know that by around 2600 B.C. the legend of Gilgamesh, who is thought to be Nimrod of the Bible, was already well established and told throughout the land. If the actual events that led up to these tales took place around 3300 B.C. as shown in Chart 1 of this essay, then there was probably no more than 150 to 300 years from the flood to the confusion of languages. Another clue to the early dates is that Egypt was known to be in the very early stages of the first dynasty of Menes by around 2800 B.C. and they already had a well establish culture and language of their own by this time…

For the full text of this essay, vist http://thewitnesschronicles.com/Migration_to_Shinar.htm.

 This essay contains several charts showing the timelines and ages of the Patriarchs from Adam to Jacob using three different timeline models.

To view all of my articles on Genesis, visit http://thewitnesschronicles.com/

 

After the Flood of Noah

Geologists from around the world all agree that the Earth has been changed and altered in innumerable and inconceivable ways throughout its history. Regardless if they are secular or Christian, Apocalyptic or Uniformitarian, there is no dispute over the fact that the Earth’s topography has been shaped and reshaped on several occasions. Scientist who speak of how the earth has changed over eons of time, believe that these changes have been caused by a number of major super volcanic events and asteroid or commit impacts, as well as slow repositioning of the land masses and the tectonic plates move that has caused the Earth to change. I am more inclined to believe in one major event caused by a single major event as described in my essay titled, The Flood of Noah. I am also inclined to believe that God’s methods and time table for the initial creation process was may well have been billions of years long or even very short due to the compression of time caused by folding dimensions during the initial expansion of the universe, either way is not really important to me. See my essay titled Old Earth vs. Young Earth for more info on that.

 

To read to read the full text of this article, visit http://thewitnesschronicles.com/After_the_Flood.htm

If you would like to read more of my essays on Genesis or learn more about my fiction books based on the stories in Genesis, visit my website at http://thewitnesschronicles.com.

What Caused the Flood of Noah?

This is indeed the million dollar question. The simple theological answer is obviously, God caused the flood to happen. That is a given since God is in complete control of all aspects of the universe. However, from a more practical and mechanical sense, we still want to know how it happened. There are so many theories, educated guesses, and outright fictions, that it is confusing for even those of us who study the topic intently to know what is true, if any of them at all are. Some say that the Flood was a regional event caused by the ending of the ice age that resulted in the Mediterranean Sea breaking through the land barrier currently known as the Bosporus Straits; flooding a low lying area that now lies under the Black Sea.

Others believe it was a global event caused by God releasing all the waters from the sky and pouring down onto the land. This idea however, has been mostly abandoned by even Creation Scientist. Many have calculated how much water would have had to have been in the “Vapor Canopy” as it is called, and found that in order for it to hold enough water to flood the Earth, it would have been so dense that temperatures on the Earth would have been to hot to sustain human life.

To read the full text of this article, visit http://thewitnesschronicles.com/The_Flood.htm

If you would like to read more of my essays on Genesis or want to learn more about my fiction books based on the stories in Genesis, visit my website at http://thewitnesschronicles.com.

The Ark of Noah

There is no more controversial topic than the story of Noah’s Ark and a world wide deluge that destroyed all of mankind and animal kind except that which was aboard the ark. The Biblical story is very sparse, yet it tells us in very specific details about the size of the ark and the type of animals that should be taken aboard it.

Genesis 6:13-22 ¹³And God said to Noah, “The end of all flesh has come before Me, for the Earth is filled with violence through them; and behold, I will destroy them with the Earth. ¹⁴Make yourself an ark of gopher wood; make rooms in the ark, and cover it inside and outside with pitch. ¹⁵And this is how you shall make it: The length of the ark shall be three hundred cubits, its width fifty cubits, and its height thirty cubits. ¹⁶You shall make a window for the ark, and you shall finish it to a cubit from above; and set the door of the ark in its side. You shall make it with lower, second, and third decks. ¹⁷And behold, I Myself am bringing floodwaters on the Earth, to destroy from under heaven all flesh in which is the breath of life; everything that is on the Earth shall die. ¹⁸But I will establish My covenant with you; and you shall go into the ark — you, your sons, your wife, and your sons’ wives with you. ¹⁹And of every living thing of all flesh you shall bring two of every sort into the ark, to keep them alive with you; they shall be male and female. ²⁰Of the birds after their kind, of animals after their kind, and of every creeping thing of the Earth after its kind, two of every kind will come to you to keep them alive. ²¹And you shall take for yourself of all food that is eaten, and you shall gather it to yourself; and it shall be food for you and for them.” ²²Thus Noah did; according to all that God commanded him, so he did. (NKJ)

To read the full text of  this article, visit http://thewitnesschronicles.com/The_Ark.htm

If you would like to read more of my essays on Genesis or want to learn more about my fiction books based on the stories in Genesis, please visit my website at http://thewitnesschronicles.com.

The Sons of Noah

Of the sons of Noah who entered into the ark with him and his wife, we know almost nothing directly. Of Shem we know the most, because it was through his line that Abraham came and therefore we have more details of his genealogy. We do know that Shem was 100 when his son Arphaxad was born, just two years after the flood. Arphaxad is believed to be the first born after the flood but some scholars believe that ham’s son Canaan may have actually been the first born. We have no empirical evidence one way or the other. All we know is what Genesis tells us, which is precious little.

Genesis 11:10 This is the genealogy of Shem: Shem was one hundred years old, and begot Arphaxad two years after the flood. (NKJ)

 

To read the full text of this article, visit http://thewitnesschronicles.com/Sons_of_Noah.htm

If you would like to read more of my essays on Genesis or want to learn more about my fiction series, The Witness Chronicles, based on the stories in Genesis, visit my website at http://thewitnesschronicles.com.

The Biblical Noah

The Bible makes it perfectly clear that at some point in Human history, 1656 years after the creation of Adam, to be precise if the genealogies passed down to us are accurate, God had had enough with man and the evil that prevailed in the world and decided that He had to begin anew. Whether it was because of the sin of the Watchers or the just plain sinful nature of man, the civilizations that grew up from the offspring of Adam and from the Sons of God, had become so evil and destructive, that they needed to be extinguished and a new line of inheritance established. That line, the Bible tells us, was the line of Noah.

Genesis 6:5-8 ⁵Then the LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the Earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. ⁶And the LORD was sorry that He had made man on the Earth, and He was grieved in His heart. ⁷So the LORD said, “I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the Earth, both man and beast, creeping things and birds of the air, for I am sorry that I have made them.” ⁸But Noah found grace in the eyes of the LORD. (NKJ)

So what was so special about Noah? Why did he find Grace in the eyes of the Lord. Well, we have a small clue to unraveling this mystery in the previous verses in Chapter 5 with the Genealogy of Seth.

To read the full text of  this article, visit http://thewitnesschronicles.com/Noah.htm

If you would like to read more of my essays on Genesis or want to learn more of my fiction series, The Witness Chronicles, visit my website at http://thewitnesschronicles.com.

Enoch was Taken to Be With God But He did Not Die

Genesis 5:21-24 ²¹When Enoch was 65 years old, his son Methu’selah was born. ²²After the birth of Methu’selah, Enoch lived another 300 years in close fellowship with God, and he had other sons and daughters. ²³Enoch lived 365 years in all. ²⁴He enjoyed a close relationship with God throughout his life. Then suddenly, he disappeared because God took him. (NLT)

Aside from the passages regarding the sons of God, this small, almost foot note, in the genealogy of Noah, is arguably the most referenced verse in all Biblical mythology. Outside of the book of Genesis, Enoch is mentioned in only four other places in the Bible, but in only two of those places is it other than in a genealogy; 1 Chronicles 1:1-4, Luke 3:37, Hebrews 11:5, Jude: 1:14-15. Here are the two passages aside from the genealogies.

Hebrews 11:5 It was by faith that Enoch was taken up to heaven without dying — “suddenly he disappeared because God took him.” But before he was taken up, he was approved as pleasing to God. (NLT)

Jude: 1:14-15 ¹⁴Now Enoch , the seventh from Adam, prophesied about these men also, saying, “Behold, the Lord comes with ten thousands of His saints, ¹⁵to execute judgment on all, to convict all who are ungodly among them of all their ungodly deeds which they have committed in an ungodly way, and of all the harsh things which ungodly sinners have spoken against Him.” (NKJV).

These passages, once again tell us that the early Christians: those who were Jews before they called themselves Christian, had a basis of belief that included the stories and mythologies of Enoch and the events leading to him being taken by God in his 365^th year without first having died. The question still remains however, what was so special about Enoch? Well once again, to try to understand this, we must look to some non-Biblical sources and into the mythology surrounding the story of Enoch to get a sense of what the Jews believed about this man and his transfiguration. In fact the passage above, taken from Jude, is in itself a quote from the book of Enoch:

Book of Enoch, Chapter 2:1 Behold, he comes with ten thousands of his saints, to execute judgment upon them, and destroy the wicked, and reprove all the carnal for everything which the sinful and ungodly have done, and committed against him. (Translated from Ethiopic by Richard Laurence, London, 1883.)

It seems that Enoch was more than just a man of great faith however. Enoch was a writer.

The Book of Enoch Chapter 12  ¹Before all these things Enoch was concealed; nor did any one of the sons of men know where he was concealed, where he had been, and what had happened. ²He was wholly engaged with the holy ones, and with the Watchers in his days. ³I, Enoch, was blessing the great Lord and King of peace. ⁴And behold the Watchers called me Enoch the scribe. ⁵Then the Lord said to me: Enoch, scribe of righteousness, go tell the Watchers of heaven, who have deserted the lofty sky, and their holy everlasting station, who have been polluted with women. ⁶And have done as the sons of men do, by taking to themselves wives, and who have been greatly corrupted on the Earth; ⁷That on the Earth they shall never obtain peace and remission of sin. For they shall not rejoice in their offspring; they shall behold the slaughter of their beloved; shall lament for the destruction of their sons; and shall petition forever; but shall not obtain mercy and peace.

The Book of Enoch Chapter 13 ¹Then Enoch, passing on, said to Azazyel: You shalt not obtain peace. A great sentence is gone forth against you. He shall bind you; ²Neither shall relief, mercy, and supplication be yours, on account of the oppression which you have taught; ³And on account of every act of blasphemy, tyranny, and sin, which you have discovered to the children of men. ⁴Then departing from him I spoke to them all together; ⁵And they all became terrified, and trembled; ⁶Beseeching me to write for them a memorial of supplication, that they might obtain forgiveness; and that I might make the memorial of their prayer ascend up before the God of heaven; because they could not themselves thenceforwards address him, nor raise up their eyes to heaven on account of the disgraceful offence for which they were judged. ⁷Then I wrote a memorial of their prayer and supplications, for their spirits, for everything which they had done, and for the subject of their entreaty, that they might obtain remission and rest.”

Enoch, according to legend, was the Watcher of the Watchers. He was given great visions of the hidden happenings between Heaven and Earth, and he wrote great accusations before the Lord of the sinful deeds of the heavenly Watchers. Upon learning that God was listening to Enoch’s accusations, the Watchers themselves asked Enoch to go before the Lord and ask forgiveness on their behalf. It appears that he was not taken to heaven just for his faith alone, but to accomplish a specific task. Without quoting the entire book of Enoch, let me just paraphrase the story for you. According to the mythology, Enoch was taken to heaven as the “Scribe of the Lord” to record all the deeds and men and angels. The books of the deeds that Enoch scribes even today, will be opened and read by the Lord on the great Day of Judgment.

Enoch is reported to be the inventor of writing. He saw the blasphemous deeds of the Watchers who had taken these daughters of men as wives. He saw how they taught sorceries to their wives and he saw the corrupted and evil Nephilim that were their descendants and he wrote accusations to the Lord about their evil deeds. God saw this as a just and right thing that he was doing and took him to heaven to become the Watcher of the Watchers and of the deeds of men as well. Enoch, it seems, has a very special place in God’s plan. According to the mythology, we will all see him on the final Day of Judgment as he opens and reads our deeds before God, unless of course you have been redeemed and had the slate wiped clean by the Blood of Christ, according to our Christian faith.

I am not claiming that the Book of Enoch is Holy Gospel Truth, but it is a good story, and it seems to fit quite well with other Biblical text about the existence and relationships between men and angles. In fact Jude correlates one more thing taught in Enoch, and that is that these Watchers who sinned were bound and placed in a holding place to await their judgment.

Jude 6 And the angels who did not keep their proper domain, but left their own abode, He has reserved in everlasting chains under darkness for the judgment of the great day; (NKJ)

To read more of my essays on Genesis or to learn more about my fiction series, The Witness Chronicles, based on the books in Genesis, visit my website at http://thewitnesschronicles.com.