I know for a fact that I am much less attentive, a great deal more forgetful, and more prone to mistakes when I have not had enough sleep, even for just a couple of nights in a row.  In case you are sleep deprived, the Sleep Deprivation website might provide some beneficial information.

Somehow, as living in this world becomes more perilous, I think that people who think like this will be on the increase.  If they believe that the population of the world should be decreased significantly, maybe they should be the first to volunteer to jump off a cliff.

Basically, a regular Hebrew day begins, in darkness, at sunset.  At dawn, that day continues in sunlight.  It continues until sunset, at which time the next day commences.

Likewise, the Day of the Lord will have a very dark, destructive, terrifying beginning, the “day of vengeance,” which I am inclined to believe will transpire for about a year (Isaiah 34:8, 61:2, 63:4).  However, following Jesus’ return back to earth, the bright, prolific, joyful portion of the Day of the Lord will commence and will last for 1,000 years (2 Peter 3:8).  I greatly look forward to the latter.

Christ’s death and resurrection did not represent the end or conclusion of the Law.  Rather, He was the fulfillment or goal of the Law, which we should do our best to observe, not to disregard.  This absolutely does not mean that adherence to the Torah is necessary for eternal salvation.  Belief and faith in Jesus alone is the only requirement for this (Galatians 2:16; Romans 3:28, 10:9,10).

If anything came to an “end,” once Jesus went to the cross, it was idea that strict observance of the Law, on its own, could bring righteousness to anyone.  The fact is that only Jesus was perfect in following every aspect of the Torah.  Thus, if we desire to emulate Him, why would we not strive to do the same?  We cannot do it perfectly as He did, of course; nevertheless, we can persevere in doing so to our best ability.

Orthodox Jews attempt to keep the Torah; however, the primary component missing from Judaism is Yeshua, their Messiah.  Likewise, Christians know that Jesus is the Christ (Messiah); but, for the most part, Christianity has abandoned the Torah.  I believe that both are important for one to have the most optimal relationship possible with the one, true God.

Ongoing adherence to God’s Law—which did not “end” at the cross—liberates people from their dismal, dreary bondage to sin.  I am convinced that those Christians and Messianic believers who endeavor to abide by the parameters and principles of the Torah are much more likely to lead contented, joyful, fulfilled lives.  Moreover, I believe that their existence will be less difficult and more trouble-free than that of the people around them who do not do the same.

Aug. 27, 2010

I don’t know why, but for some reason I was in the mood to make cookies.  Maybe it was because I had a cookie at some open house the other day, and the taste stuck with me.

In any case, I made two giant batches of a dozen cookies and then a dozen normal-sized cookies.  Had I made them all the smaller size, I easily could have made 3½ dozen, probably even 4 dozen.  Here is one of the giant batches as the first photo, followed by three photos showing the sequence I went through to make the smaller batch:

     

I have to admit that these are outrageously good.  My recipe is here, in case you have any interest: Oatmeal Raisin Chocolate Chip Cookies.  Maybe I should open a bakery.  Nah...too much work.  In any case, I will be giving most of them away.  Even one of the smaller ones, every other day, would be more sweets than I normally eat.

I woke up at 3:00 a.m., turned on the radio, and listened to the news on the hour.  Then I rolled over to go back to sleep but couldn’t.

For awhile, I thought about a series of stupid, dim-witted things I had done a couple of days ago that I should have done differently, and it really bothered me.  I could see the good steps I should have done and wondered why I took the bad steps.  It was like part of me was condemning myself, pointing out what I should have done instead.

Yet, another part was defending my actions and feeling, “But, as I was doing it, it was like I had no control over myself.  The good that I wanted to do, I did not do; and the bad I did not want to do, I kept doing it.”

It made me think of Paul in Romans 7:15-25.  Like Paul, I thanked the Lord that, one day, I will be rescued from this body of death (7:24,25).  I also thought about how Paul was following the “script” written for him, just as I was doing and as we all do.

I am a strong believer that predestination and free will are both true, simultaneously.  In one sense, we cannot help what we are doing, because our actions are predestined to occur the way they happen from before the beginning of time.  Yet, concurrently, we make independent choices in the things we do.  Thus, we cannot “blame” anyone for what we do that gets us, and others, into trouble.

Maybe one difference between those who are unsaved and those who are saved is that the unsaved recall their negative actions, justify them in their minds, believe that they themselves are innately “good,” and think what they did was no big deal.  They don’t let it bother them and, presumably, are more likely to repeat whatever they did in the future.

On the other hand, the saved look back, analyze a situation where they acted inappropriately, see the sinful nature clearly working within them, feel remorseful for acting the way they did, and long to be released from this dreadful body of evil and death.  Hopefully, what they did bothers them enough that the next time a similar situation arises, they will think twice and not behave the same way again.

Furthermore, once we have been changed and perfected (1 Corinthians 15:51-54), maybe will be able to look back and fully understand and appreciate how all of our actions, good and bad, fit into the overall “script.”  Maybe, at that time, there will be a virtually infinite sequence of things that we will comprehend about ourselves, about God, and about good and evil.  Then we will take that understanding into the Millennium, where evil contantly will be curbed and restrained by those who rule and reign, and after that into the new Creation to come, where evil no longer will exist.

It seems that one or two of the dolphins taught the other ones how to do make those.  Very cool.  Of course, I believe that their amazing Creator originated the idea in the first place.

Do a web search for Brigitte Gabriel to find her videos and more things she has written.

Aug. 15, 2010

For five days last week, I took over 1,000 photos at a church’s Vacation Bible School for kids.  Here are just a few of the elaborate decorations that were set up.

       

       

I was very impressed with the amount of God’s Word that was presented to all the kids.  Even if they were not able to process all of it this week, I feel that many of them had moments when a “light turned on” and something that was said suddently made complete and total sense to them.  An example of this was given by the church’s pastor in his message today.

He explained how his young grandson had come to him, very troubled, earlier in the week.  He told his grandpa how, weeks before that, he and another boy had carried out a prank that they shouldn’t have done.  The other kid had told him never to tell anyone.  However, that day, he had learned how important it is not to lie (Leviticus 19:11), so he told his grandpa about it.  Maybe this is something that applies not only to little boys but to all of us.

Another thing that is believed by those who feel the Gog/Magog war will occur prior to the 70th Week is this:  Once God supernaturally destroys these attacking armies, Israel no longer will have anymore enemies.  Furthermore, Israel will know their Lord and God, from that point forward.

But what about the “man of lawlessness” (2 Thessalonians 2) or Antichrist, who will deceive the whole world (2:9), including Israel, after he sets up the abomination that causes desolation in the holy place (Matthew 24:15)?  What about the armies that will surround Jerusalem (Luke 21:20) in the middle of the final seven years?  If the Israelites will have acknowledged God, wholly and completely, at the beginning of the final seven years, why will God allow a gigantic earthquake in Israel to kill seven thousand people (Revelation 11:13)?  This probably is the same earthquake mentioned in Ezekiel 39:19, which I believe will occur upon Jesus’ second advent to earth.

I see too many reasons, even besides the ones just described, to reject the notion that the Gog/Magog war is imminent.  This is not to say that there cannot be war in the Middle East, and even in Israel, relatively soon.  However, I definitely would not equate such a conflict with the prophecy of Ezekiel 38 and 39, although it certainly could set off an unstoppable chain of events, which would lead to the Gog/Magog bloodbath in just a few years.

I know that a great many Christians prefer the King James version of the Bible.  I prefer the New International version, although I frequently refer to the King James and other versions to see their renditions of specific words, verses, and/or passages.

Incidentally, this person wrote back and indicated that I had not convinced him that there will be a Rapture.  That’s OK.  I think that people should believe whatever gives them satisfaction and contentment to believe.

Aug. 4, 2010

I went on a couple of nature walks and took a few snapshots along the way.  I was thinking I should have brought along a fishing pole.  Then I remembered that I don’t like to fish, although I can’t think of one type of fish that I don’t like to eat.

     
     

I was hoping to see a bear.  Well, maybe not.  I didn’t have a good pair of running shoes on.

Aug. 3, 2010

I am up in the mountains where some friends live.  They have a vegetable garden and some chickens, so they could be self-sufficient for awhile if they needed to be.

In the garden, they are growing onions, carrots, beets, zucchini, tomatoes, green beans, peas, blue corn, asparagus, melons, lettuce, cilantro, and some other stuff.  All of this food is growing at an elevation of 8,000 feet.

       

       

In my July 27 entry, I wrote a little about surviving the hard times to come.  Growing food will help a person or a family to be self-sufficient, to some extent.

By the way, my friends showed me the collection of dead dragonflies that they found in an old, abandoned car.  I was suggesting that they stir-fry them along with some of their vegetables. 

 

Somehow, those grotesque things remind me of the swarm of demonic locusts in Revelation 9:3-10, which will torment people for five months during the “day of vengeance” period.  I am looking for the Pre-wrath Rapture to get me out before then.

Aug. 2, 2010

Over the weekend, someone broke into a friend’s car.  But it wasn’t a person; it was a bear.

 

I asked him (my friend, not the bear) if there was any food in the car at the time, and he said there was a dessert of some type that he accidentally had left in the back seat.  Oops.  As a result, I don’t think he was all that surprised it happened.

By the way, evidently the bear was too big to squeeze through the window, because the dessert was still there.  I think the bear got the raw end of the deal.

Aug. 1, 2010

I have been craving lasagna, so I made two of them today.  One of them will last several days.  I froze the other one.

     

I had one slice, and it was incredibly good.  I am a good cook (so I’ve been told), even though I don’t really like to cook. 

July 31, 2010

There were a few extra fireworks left over from earlier this month, so we set them off.

       

Watching each one reminded me of how I believe God created the universe: from an infinitesimal point, containing all matter and energy that we know, expanding outward into all the galaxies.  Unlike many (perhaps most) Christians, I believe in a very ancient, rather than in a young, Creation.

Does that mean that I believe in macro-evolution?  No, absolutely not.  Several billion years does not even begin to be long enough for life to begin, spontaneously, much less to evolve into higher life forms.  On the time scale of a God with virtually infinite patience, the ages of this universe and earth—about 13.7 and 4.56 billion years, respectively—have been but a brief passage of time.  Furthermore, from the perspective of human kind, living in the final few millennia of those very lengthy eons of time, the phrases “little while” of Haggai 2:6 and “coming soon” of Revelation 22:7,12,20 make complete sense.

Only in the past decade or so have scientists been able to look into living cells with such extremely high magnification.  Never before has it been so evident that there must be a Creator to have crafted, fashioned, and generated such an infinitely complex relationship between all the parts of a cell (much more all the components of the universe).

Dr. Fazale Rana, of Reasons to Believe, has demonstrated, very well, the extreme complexity of microscopic cells in his book The Cell’s Design.  See Eight Examples of Molecular Design to see what a strong case there is for God as the Creator of all things.

In case you think that Islam is a “religion of peace,” you might want to re-think that idea.  Read the Qur´an, from beginning to end, and find out for yourself.

Basically, I cannot give anyone specific advice on how to prepare for the future.  Only God knows what is coming and how it will affect each person and family.  The best counsel I can give is to read and study God’s Word, in the Bible, and to consult Him in prayer.  My Adversity Supplies Check List might be beneficial to some.  Furthermore, growing one’s own food, if possible, wouldn’t be a bad idea.

The viewer can come to his/her own conclusions about this.

I actually do believe that a Post-tribulation Rapture will take place, on the day Jesus returns to earth, on the final day of the 70th Week.  However, I believe that this event will be pre-dated by the main Pre-wrath Rapture by about a year.

I began fasting at sunset last night and will eat again after sunset tonight.  I did the same thing on the 17th of Tammuz (June 28 to June 29).  Today ends the three-week period of mourning since then.

Personally, I do not think so.  First of all, I believe that the bulk of the "Day of the Lord" period will last for 1,000 years (2 Peter 3:8).  God is so patient with people that He will extend time, as we know it, for an additional millennium because He wants as many as possible to come to repentance and salvation (3:9).

At the end of that 1,000-year period, though, all rebellion--by Satan and by steadfastly rebellious humans--will be crushed (Revelation 20:7-10).  Even death itself will be destroyed (1 Corinthians 15:25,26; Revelation 20:14).  It is at that time, I believe, that the entire creation in existence now will pass away and will be replaced by a brand new, imperishable, indestructible, eternal Creation (Psalm 102:25,26; Revelation 20:11, 21:1,5).

In my opinion, then, it is at the end of the 1,000 years when all of this creation will be utterly and completely destroyed by fire (2 Peter 3:7,10,12).  Then God will create the new heaven and the new earth, the home of righteousness (3:13), and they will remain eternally.  I describe more about this in the old and new Creations section in Part 2 of my Creation commentary.

Now, I am not predicting that the catastrophe, described in the first article above, will happen.  I have absolutely no idea what to expect.  However, I have learned to understand that just about anything in this world is possible. 

This so-called “art” is not only anti-Christian, it also is anti-Jewish, since the Bible is a Judeo-Christian book.  Can you imagine the extreme outrage that would have arisen from Islam if the Qur´an, rather than the Bible, had been depicted in that picture?

If there ever were a Work of Art, the Bible—the eternal Word of God—is it, in my opinion.  I support Jeri Wyrick’s right to create this piece of garbage.  However, I am infuriated that it is hanging in a public place, with California state tax dollars being used to put it there.

I am no artist, but I was experimenting with colors on my graphics program.  I made 23 separate regions with no two identical in color, although some pairs are similar in hue.  It turned out to be a complicated, muddled mess.

Looking at it brought to mind one of my favorite sayings, so I wrote it on the chaotic, jumbled array of colors.  Click on it to read it.  I have learned to follow those words, as much as possible, when dealing with other people.  (One might make exceptions in the case of partners, kids, and other family members.)

Incidentally, some have not abandoned the idea that the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) could be the prophesied seven-year agreement of Daniel 9:27.  Certainly, the European Neighbourhood and Partnership Instrument, among other things, caused me to suspect for over three years that the ENP might be the agreement beginning the 70th Week.

Right now, the date some are looking at is July 20 as being, potentially, the beginning of the Great Tribulation.  This is because July 20 is 1,260 days (Revelation 11:3, 12:6) prior to the last day of 2013, which is the final year of the ENP’s scheduled time frame.

Interestingly, July 20 this year is Tisha B’Av, or the 9th of Av.  It is an infamous date in Jewish history commemorating tragedies that have befallen the Jewish people in the past.

I probably will fast on this day, as I did on June 29, the 17th of Tammuz.  I am not looking with much expectation, though, for that day to begin the last 1,260 days of the 70th Week.  However, if it does, we should anticipate the appearance of the two witnesses of Revelation 11:4 at that time.

You can read it if you want.  It is rather lengthy, though.

I also have the Names and Attributes of God in a table at my website.  YHWH is so multi-faceted, complex and diverse that even these titles and traits are not all-inclusive; they are just the “tip of the iceberg.”  I believe that it will take an eternity to learn about His characteristics because they are infinite.

July 7, 2010

A friend in Rochester, NY, said that he and everyone in his office felt the Canadian earthquake, magnitude 5.0, back on June 23.  Today, he sent me photos of all the “terrible devastation” experienced in Rochester, due to the quake.

     

Wow, how come So. CA doesn’t have quakes like that?  Oh wait, there was just one at 4:53 p.m. this afternoon, with a substantial number of things falling over and breaking.    It gave the desert a good shaking, and it also was felt from Los Angeles to San Diego.

Magnitude-5.4 quake strikes
Southern California

This quake was not on the San Andreas Fault but, rather, on the San Jacinto Fault, which was stressed by the 7.2 quake on Apr. 4 (Easter Sunday).  I’ve been checking the USGS page for the magnitudes of aftershocks, and there have been several.

Of course, I suspect that all the “pleasantries” by Obama, in front of the cameras, were staged and not sincere.  Some have used the word “choreographed,” which I think is a good description.

Obama has got to be concerned about the mid-term elections, in less than four months, where a perceived anti-Israel sentiment by the Obama administration can only hurt Democrats.  It will be interesting to see how Obama reacts if Netanyahu reinstates new settlement construction after the moratorium ends in September, as I expect him to do.

I feel that there is a relatively high probability that the leader Gog (Ezekiel 38:2,3, 39:1), who will mount a devastating attack on Israel (38:16, 39:2), will be from Turkey or surrounding area rather than from Russia, as many believe.  This is explained in my Final Battles commentary, in the first three paragraphs of the Gog and Magog section.

Some have suggested that Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan is a candidate to be Gog.  Others have suggested Syrian President Bashar Assad.  As of yet, I do not have an opinion as to Gog’s identity, although I think he may turn out to be Abaddon or Apollyon of Revelation 9:11.

I will say, though, that unlike many, I do not feel that the battle of Gog and Magog is imminent.  I believe that Gog’s attack on Israel will not take place until the seventh year of the 70th Week.

July 4, 2010

Happy 4th of July, fellow Americans!

Please attach any leftover cake and ice cream to an email and send it to me. 

July 3, 2010

Today is my cousin’s birthday, and I flew to Alabama to make her a cake.  Well, that’s not the only reason I came here, but that is one thing I wanted to do while I was here.

I will have to call this the “mystery cake.”  For one thing, although I followed all of the directions exactly, it is the smallest bundt cake I’ve ever seen.  For another thing, the cake mix box had Arabic writing all over it.  I didn’t buy it; my cousin had it in the cabinet, and she does not remember where she got it.  At least, it tastes good.

   

   

That’s surprising...I didn’t realize that we were under Sharia law quite yet.  Maybe Betty Crocker has converted to Islam. 

We went to a farmer’s market, where we saw a little 4th of July “parade” (even though it’s only the 3rd of July), composed mainly of golf carts decorated with red, white and blue.  I didn’t know any of the people in the parade.

       

       

Better than the parade, though, were the free snacks at some of the booths.  Since I hadn’t eaten anything yet, I had “breakfast” there.  Too bad nobody had free raw oats; that’s what I was really craving.  I had a couple of handfuls of them later, and my cousin said, “Eeeewwww!!!”

Secondly, for multiple reasons, I do not accept that the Rapture will take place on May 21, 2011.  The main reason is because I feel quite strongly that the primary Rapture event will occur on a Rosh HaShanah or Yom Teruah, the Feast of Trumpets, which always is in the Fall of the year, not in the Spring.  This, and other reasons, are detailed in my commentary, The Rapture.

You also can view a GLC July Program Schedule (in PDF form).  Keep in mind, though, that GLC is in Texas; therefore, all of the times listed are Central Time.

Bill Cloud’s GLC Schedule
Sunday, 5:00 p.m., CT Wednesday, 4:30 a.m., CT Wednesday, 10:30 a.m., CT Thursday, 11:00 p.m., CT Friday, 1:30 p.m., CT Saturday, 12:30 p.m., CT

I like many competent and interesting Bible scholars on GLC, such as Jim Staley, Eddie Chumney, Valerie Moody, and others.  Maybe my favorite is Bill Cloud.  He reads and writes Hebrew and is very knowledgeable about the Old Testament, the Torah, the Prophets, and the New Testament.  Some of his free videos can be found at Bill on GLC (scroll to about halfway down the page).

When listening to him, I virtually always learn something or some things that I did not know before.  His 30-minute show is televised several times a week, with the original show on Sunday (5:00 p.m., CT) and the other shows being reruns of that show.  Click here to go to his video archives page at GLC, where you can link to his first twelve videos.