TEOTWAWKI. Apocalypse, Gathering

Given the massive strife here in the US, and the evil blossoming from the Middle East, and all the dystopia and apocalyptic shows and movies, I sometimes wonder. I’m not so concerned about the apocalypse, but TEOTWAWKI, The End Of The World As We Know It. 

Will Europe still be Europeans, will we have anything even close to privacy with all the government and corporate surveillance, will the hatred exhibited by Black movements (Black Lives Matter, New Black Panthers, Black Panthers), White Supremacy and the racist clash between the two result in a race war?

The meme for Comic Book based TV shows. I’d hate to live in the DC world. Good guys teaming up and arguing with each other, blaming themselves for things they have no control over, bickering, while the evil guys are focused and kicking ass. In the Marvel world much the same. 

In movies, film scholar Kristen Thompson: “…twenty-five disaster movies appeared throughout the eighties. But in the nineties fifty-six disaster movies were released… From 2000-2009 over sixty apocalyptic films were released, and about the same 2010-2016. 

Incessant doom and gloom. Incessant race and cultural conflict. Incessant climate doom and gloom, we’re all going to die soon. Much of the angst is because of all the divisions between groups, male against female, race against race, governments doing terrible and stupid things, corporations doing terrible and stupid things. What do we turn to? More government, more breaks for corporations, more riots, more technological surveillance, and more political failure. Just doubling down on what got us here in the first place. Before when we talked about apocalyptic events, they were religious or spiritual. All those things mentioned earlier, are all secular. Yet we keep turning to secular solutions.

The idea of this arose out of the sermon today, based partially on Isaiah 56:1-2.

1: This is what the Lord says:

“Be just and fair to all.

Do what is right and good,

for I am coming soon to rescue you

and to display my righteousness among you.

2: Blessed are all those

who are careful to do this.

Blessed are those who honor my Sabbath days of rest

and keep themselves from doing wrong.

Gathering on the Sabbath, whatever day you select, shows the answer is in gathering together. At our jobs we have all races, all religious backgrounds and beliefs and work together just fine. Gathering together on the Sabbath, looking beyond secular solutions, to corporately share something outside that secular life we experience daily, has the answer. More technology, business and government don’t. 

Just for starters, if every person that calls himself/herself a Christian actually gathered with other Christians on the Sabbath, how calming that would be? 

Apocalypse means unveiling, revelation. From that we know that on the other side of it, will be revealed good news; it is an ending to all this horribleness and divisiveness. Our not going to experience that, the gathering to reconnect with each other outside of the secular, leaves us almost entirely with the secular and solutions that don’t work. 

At the center of any Sabbath gathering is the Eucharist, Communion, sharing at the table, sharing bread and wine. Nothing is more important than doing this every time Christians come together. That gathering for that ritual, brings us all so very close together, brings a calm. 

Personally, I’m not a calm man, and this centering every week is vital to me. If it’s vital to one, then that means it vital for many, and I hope for all. All Christians going to Church would have a profound impact on the conflict and hatred rampant in the world. There are about 247 million people in the US that claim to be Christian. Think of the calming effect on the nation if we all went to Church. That experience moves out into the secular world. We know this “apocalyptic” time looks to gloomy and ultimately destructive because no one, including Christians that don’t gather, can see beyond the secular. They can’t see God’s heavenly creation beyond: can't see what is revealed. 

Think how much conflict and hatred would be reduced, if millions more that professed Christian faith, would gather together. How helpful that it would be to be just and fair to all, and do what is right and good, and know that Christ will come to rescue us, and see heaven and righteousness, and how blessed all of those that do this thing would be.

Pie in sky? I think not, but Christ in the sky, revealing Good News? I think so.  

Will the Cycle be Unbroken? The Fall of Civilizations Through Ignoring God

I’m not much on the Book of Revelations. No matter how much I listen to explanations, explications, read on it, it’s just messiness to me. I do believe prophecy, and wrote in 2009 about The Harbinger byJohnathan Cahn. Extremely detailed connection between what happened to ancient Israel when they fell to Babylon and what’s happened to the US (and by extension Western civilization) since 9/11. The connection to the fall to any civilization is directly connected to a nation turning its back on God.

My last post on New Years' Day bemoaned the terrible things that beset the year 2014. I don’t see things much improving in 2015, for reasons explained in that blog. Christmas for us Western Christians traditionally end Jan 6^th the Epiphany, so this is, I suppose, the last New Year thoughts.

I’m concerned we, as a nation, still think we can wallow in an oversexed world, reject the family, ridicule and reject and disrespect authority, have state funded abortion, reliance on excessive drugs and alcohol, and the abuse and abandonment of children. Lip service is given to support of the military, but cutting their budgets, sexualizing and feminizing the armed forces does not bode well for the protection of the US or Western civilization.

What comes around goes around; Babylon brought Jerusalem down and later Babylon fell. Scripture from Isaiah about Babylon’s downfall:

 “Come down, virgin daughter of Babylon, and sit in the dust.

    For your days of sitting on a throne have ended.

O daughter of Babylonia, never again will you be

    the lovely princess, tender and delicate.

 Take heavy millstones and grind flour.

    Remove your veil, and strip off your robe.

    Expose yourself to public view.

 You will be naked and burdened with shame.

    I will take vengeance against you without pity.”

 Our Redeemer, whose name is the Lord of Heaven’s Armies,

    is the Holy One of Israel.

 “O beautiful Babylon, sit now in darkness and silence.

    Never again will you be known as the queen of kingdoms.

 For I was angry with my chosen people

    and punished them by letting them fall into your hands.

But you, Babylon, showed them no mercy.

    You oppressed even the elderly.

 You said, ‘I will reign forever as queen of the world!’

    You did not reflect on your actions

    or think about their consequences.

 “Listen to this, you pleasure-loving kingdom,

    living at ease and feeling secure.

You say, ‘I am the only one, and there is no other.

    I will never be a widow or lose my children.’

 Well, both these things will come upon you in a moment:

    widowhood and the loss of your children.

Yes, these calamities will come upon you,

    despite all your witchcraft and magic.

 “You felt secure in your wickedness.

    ‘No one sees me,’ you said.

But your ‘wisdom’ and ‘knowledge’ have led you astray,

    and you said, ‘I am the only one, and there is no other.’

 So disaster will overtake you,

    and you won’t be able to charm it away.

Calamity will fall upon you,

    and you won’t be able to buy your way out.

A catastrophe will strike you suddenly,

    one for which you are not prepared.

 “Now use your magical charms!

    Use the spells you have worked at all these years!

Maybe they will do you some good.

    Maybe they can make someone afraid of you.

 All the advice you receive has made you tired.

    Where are all your astrologers,

those stargazers who make predictions each month?

    Let them stand up and save you from what the future holds.

 But they are like straw burning in a fire;

    they cannot save themselves from the flame.

You will get no help from them at all;

    their hearth is no place to sit for warmth.

 And all your friends,

    those with whom you’ve done business since childhood,

will go their own ways,

    turning a deaf ear to your cries. Isaiah 47:1-15

This is pretty much where we are now. History repeating itself, again. We know if we follow, listen to God, this cycle will be broken. Even something as simple as obeying the Ten Commandments, even if we threw out the first one about God to appease atheists and secularists, and just didn’t do stuff like murder, steal, covet other peoples stuff and relationships would be a vast improvement.

Thinking back on the 20^th century, and the horribleness of it; genocide many times over, WWI, WWII, intentional mass starvation, the Holocaust, Hitler, Mao murdering millions, Stalin and Lenin murdering millions, gulags and the rest of it. Abortion has killed millions of babies. I read one analysis that estimated the Black population of the US would be about 30%, not the about 13% it is now, if they had not aborted so many of their children. Yet the very attitudes that brought us all that horror continue into the 21^st Century, and at the beginning of 2015 I see no rethinking to restart working with God, with natural law, with love, to turn all that horribleness back.

I don’t see any indication that church attendance will increase, that people will fall on their knees and acknowledge God, or repent. This is where Revelations, talking about Babylon as a symbol now, since it has fallen, describes us:

After all this I saw another angel come down from heaven with great authority, and the earth grew bright with his splendor. He gave a mighty shout:

“Babylon is fallen—that great city is fallen!

    She has become a home for demons.

She is a hideout for every foul spirit,

    a hideout for every foul vulture

    and every foul and dreadful animal.

 For all the nations have fallen

    because of the wine of her passionate immorality.

The kings of the world

    have committed adultery with her.

Because of her desires for extravagant luxury,

    the merchants of the world have grown rich.”

 Then I heard another voice calling from heaven,

“Come away from her, my people.

    Do not take part in her sins,

    or you will be punished with her.

 For her sins are piled as high as heaven,

    and God remembers her evil deeds.

 Do to her as she has done to others.

    Double her penalty for all her evil deeds.

She brewed a cup of terror for others,

    so brew twice as much for her.

Yet we as a nation, as a civilization, embrace this as a home for demons, rather than God’s direction, rules, and discipline. How can it be that Satan and the destruction he promises and brings be embraced? Over and over, civilizations throughout history. The Church, Christians and Jews, must stand up to this. Many in the Church are ignorant of their own Faith, and have been successfully secularized. The Church, the Body of Christ is so so weakened.

All we can do is pray and educate in a way that doesn’t alienate more, and bring them back to the Church, and don’t let Satan or the State dictate to us how we should accept all this repetition of hatred and destruction. I’m terrified the 21^st Century will be a continuation of the 20^th. I think more in our daily lives and in Churches, we need to speak in a way about Repentance that doesn’t turn them off. The Enemy has even made the idea of Repentance something to be mocked. We need to pray for a miracle.