Update: the New York Times, Snopes and a whole host of other mainstream news sources reported last month that everything was on track for reproductions of the giant 48-foot-tall arch that stood in front of the Temple of Baal in Palmyra, Syria, to be put up simultaneously in Times Square in New York City and Trafalgar Square in London during the month of April. But now that will not be happening.
When the Institute for Digital Archaeology (IDA) revealed last December that it was intending to use its data and expertise to build not one but two replica Palmyra arches – to be unveiled simultaneously in Trafalgar Square in London and Times Square in New York – it generated headlines across the world.
Since then there has been some backtracking on the original idea. There will be no simultaneous unveiling in New York – they may transport the London arch there later, or build another one – and the Palmyra arch that is being reconstructed is no longer the entrance to the Temple of Bel (which survived an attempt to blow it up in August 2015) but the Arch of Triumph (partially destroyed in October) formerly located at one end of the Great Colonnade. ( Excerpt of an article from the Telegraph, Apr 8 2016)
News item: On April 19 reproductions of the arch that stood in front of the Temple of Baal are going to be erected in Times Square in New York City and in Trafalgar Square in London. This is also the exact day when a very important occult festival related to the worship of Baal begins.
Let it sink in with a Limerick:
In New York: A Temple of Baal
It’s not surprising at all.
When it comes to abort
New York State swayed the court.
We must protect life, lest we fall.
April 19th is the first day of a 13 day period of time known as “the Blood Sacrifice to the Beast” that culminates on the high occult holy day of Beltane on May 1st. In some parts of the world, Beltane is much better known as “May Day”, and it has been described as the “Illuminati’s second most sacred holiday”.
Maybe this is why the sailor’s universal distress call is “MayDay”?
Or is it because the Socialist International’s most holy day is May 1?
April 19th is also known as “the Feast of Moloch”. If you are not familiar with “Moloch” or “Molech”, it is an ancient Canaanite god that is repeatedly denounced in the Old Testament. Child sacrifice was a key feature of the worship of Moloch, and a giant statue of this pagan deity is set up at the Bohemian Grove in northern California every year.
The organization responsible for the “celebration” in London put the following on its website:On April 19, 2016, in cooperation with national and international cultural heritage preservation organizations, and in conjunction with World Heritage Week 2016, the Institute for Digital Archaeology will install a monumental scale reconstruction of Palmyra’s Triumphal Arch on Trafalgar Square. Through this project — and others like it scheduled throughout 2016 in cities both inside and outside the Middle East — the IDA seeks to provide an optimistic and constructive response to the ongoing threats to history and heritage that have captured headlines over the past year. Our aim is to highlight the potential for the triumph of human ingenuity over violence by offering innovative, technology-driven options for the stewardship of objects and architecture from our shared past.
Coincidence? I think not.
What we have here is a return to the old Baal worship, much condemned in the Bible. Elijah’s epic challenge at the mount of Carmel comes to mind. The Asherah poles (or groves) everywhere on prominent places in the middle East gives an illustration how widespread it was among the Canaanite’s and adopted by the Israelites.
A short excerpt from a sermon by pastor John Mabray of Rivermont Evangelical Presbyterian Church in Lynchburg, Va. explains it like this:
“Ritualistic Baal worship looked like this: Adults would gather around the altar of Baal. Infants would then be burned alive as a sacrificial offering to the deity. Amid horrific screams and the stench of charred human flesh, congregants – men and women alike – would engage in bisexual orgies. The ritual of convenience was intended to produce economic prosperity by prompting Baal to bring rain for the fertility of “mother earth.” The natural consequences of such behavior – pregnancy and childbirth – and the associated financial burdens of “unplanned parenthood” were easily offset. One could either choose to engage in homosexual conduct or – with child sacrifice available on demand – could simply take part in another fertility ceremony to “terminate” the unwanted child.”
So this is what modern progressives are reduced to. It is an old religion in new clothes, and it has incorporated the environmental movement, which among other things has at its roots to reduce the world population to less than 10% of its present size.
Update:
Negative publicity cancels the Apr 19 entrance arch of Baal in Times Square.
“This is My commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.” (John 15:12)
“But if you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them.” (Luke 6:32)
After becoming a follower of Jesus Christ many years ago but as a mature man I thought I already knew what love really was, having a real wife, two wonderful children with a third on the way, a good job and no known enemies. Yet I knew, and everybody kept telling of God’s love, especially around Valentine, saying that God’s love is different.
Having joined the choir in church it became my passion to sing as often as possible, even to waking up in the morning with a song in my heart. This was nothing new, but the words and the melodies changed. So I volunteered to sing solos, but they were hesitant to add me to the roster, and instead suggested that I sang once a month at the downtown rescue mission. I had made the promise to God that what He wanted me to do I would do if possible, so I went. One thing led to another, and I became responsible for the music, and also to select a preacher for the service.
I complained to God: Why do you insist that this is the only opportunity I have to minister, I don’t even like those down and out people? It was like I heard God answer: I never asked you to like them, I asked you to love them. So once humbled I persisted, and I did it faithfully for 15 years, until moving from the area. My pastor liked to coach a number of “preacher boys” and I got the privilege to present them one at a time as the featured preacher. The crowed really appreciated that since the boys only spoke for less than 10 minutes. We spent the rest of the time singing, and since I always had a good accompanist I took requests, trying anything they suggested. The audience was more than half black, some were good singers, and they sometimes laughed at me for my lack of rhythm. They thought me a lot about singing in the joy of the Lord, and they did it differently than I was used to. One time they asked to sing “Just a closer walk with thee” and I started in what I thought was a normal tempo, but was overruled by four young black men starting to sway and slap their legs in a very slow beat. Suddenly the song took on a whole new dimension, and I found the joy of the Lord in the song. Looking at the men, happily and triumphantly smiling that their way of singing won the day, I felt a love for the men I never thought possible.
I never learned to like the men, seeing them destroy their lives with drugs and alcohol, estranged from family, and with no ambition to change their position in life. Some were repenting of their ways, but were usually back in even worse shape after a few months. During the 15 years I found they went under at a younger and younger age. What usually took 10 years to make an alcoholic could be accomplished in 3 with drugs.
Yet, with God all things are possible, and rescue mission fulfils an urgent need, standing in the gap. The social agencies act too slowly and with a bureaucracy that sometimes makes matters worse. It is also far more cost effective than to involve the social agencies.
Clouds have always been my fascination. They come and go, form and disappear, cool by day and warm by night. But most impressive of all are thunderstorms, forming when the temperature and humidity are high, transport a lot of water vapor to higher elevations, there condensing as rain or ice, coming down, cooling and watering the earth. Clouds and thunderstorms are the thermostat of the earth. Without it the earth would respond like climate models, predicting a sharp temperature rise as carbon dioxide levels increase. The models are all flawed, since they predict a hot spot in the troposphere over the equator, but there is none. The thunderstorms in the tropical doldrums take care of that. “Settled science” instead has settled on ignoring the lack of the hot spot, for to acknowledge it would make the global warming claim invalid.
I thank God for providing us with a thermostat that protects the earth from overheating, and especially for thunderstorms!
Such was the case in July 1885, when Carl Boberg, a 26 year young pastor of a small congregation of the Swedish Missionary society was the honored guest of the ladies’ auxiliary annual picnic, held in a meadow near Mönsteråsviken, (a bay of the Baltic Sea in southeastern Sweden). The day was perfect, the sky was clear, pleasant temperatures, the cows were grazing on the meadow, the birds were singing, in short, a pastoral idyll. Then it happened. In a few short minutes thunderclouds appeared out of nothing. There was no time to go home, so they all sought shelter in a barn close by. The rain came down hard, and lightning struck a nearby tree. Then as suddenly as it started the rain stopped and all was calm. In Sweden it turns much cooler after a thunderstorm, and the birds sing like they got a new lease on life.
They all went home, and the young pastor pondered the events of the day. He
080419-11, digital 28,8 mb RAW, 12-00 Koltrast, Turdus merula Uppland
heard the Coalthrush singing its melodic, beautiful drill and in a distance he heard the church bells ringing from Kronobäck’s church. The bay was calm like a mirror, and inspired he started penning the song “O store Gud”. Here is the first verse:
O Lord my God, When I in awesome wonder, Consider all the works Thy Hands have made; I see the stars, I hear the mighty thunder, Thy power throughout the universe displayed.
Refrain: Then sings my soul, My Savior God, to Thee, How great Thou art, How great Thou art. Then sings my soul, My Savior God, to Thee, How great Thou art, How great Thou art!
He continued to write and write of all the mighty works that God has made and what He has given us through His word, and continued long into the night. Before going to bed he had penned over twenty verses. The next Sunday he wove the poem into his sermon. They all loved it, but that was about it. Slowly the word got around the poem was pretty good, after much editing down 9 verses were published in the local newspaper Mönsteråstidningen in 1886. Carl Boberg didn’t make any efforts to publish it further, and was surprised when he heard it sung a few years later to a Swedish folk melody (in 3/4 tempo). This was then published in the periodical “Sanningsvittnet” (witness of the truth) in 1891.
It was translated into German by an Estonian, Manfred von Glehn. Five years later it was translated into Russian by Ivan S. Prokanoff, the Martin Luther of modern Russia. It was published in a book with the title “Cymbals”.
Later, while in the Carpathian Mountains of what is now Western Ukraine the English Missionary couple Hine heard the song sung in Russian, this time as a wandering song in march tempo. He got impressed by God’s great works in the Polish mountains, and as Stuart Hine heard the people singing it on their way to church he penned a translation. This become the second verse:
When through the woods, and forest glades I wander, And hear the birds sing sweetly in the trees. When I look down, from lofty mountain grandeur And see the brook, and feel the gentle breeze.
Refrain
From now on the English version is different than the Swedish original. This is the origin of the third verse: It was typical of the Hines to ask if there were any Christians in the villages they visited. In one case, they found out that the only Christians that their host knew about were a man named Dmitri and his wife Lyudmila. Dmitri’s wife knew how to read — evidently a fairly rare thing at that time and in that place. She taught herself how to read because a Russian soldier had left a Bible behind several years earlier, and she started slowly learning by reading that Bible. When the Hines arrived in the village and approached Dmitri’s house, they heard a strange and wonderful sound: Dmitri’s wife was reading from the gospel of John about the crucifixion of Christ to a houseful of guests, and those visitors were in the very act of repenting. In Ukraine (as I know first hand!), this act of repenting is done very much out loud. So the Hines heard people calling out to God, saying how unbelievable it was that Christ would die for their own sins, and praising Him for His love and mercy. They just couldn’t barge in and disrupt this obvious work of the Holy Spirit, so they stayed outside and listened. Stuart wrote down the phrases he heard the Repenters use, and (even though this was all in Russian), it became the third verse that we know today: And when I think, that God, His Son not sparing; Sent Him to die, I scarce can take it in; That on the Cross, my burden gladly bearing, He bled and died to take away my sin.
Refrain
The second world war broke out, and the Hines were forced to return back to England, but they continued their ministry. The fourth verse was was added by Stuart Hine after the Second World War. His concern for the exiled Polish community in Britain, who were anxious to return home, provided part of the inspiration for Hine’s final verse. Hine and David Griffiths visited a camp in Sussex, England, in 1948 where displaced Russians were being held, but where only two were professing Christians. The testimony of one of these refugees and his anticipation of the second coming of Christ inspired Hine to write the fourth stanza of his English version of the hymn. According to Ireland: One man to whom they were ministering told them an amazing story: he had been separated from his wife at the very end of the war, and had not seen her since. At the time they were separated, his wife was a Christian, but he was not, but he had since been converted. His deep desire was to find his wife so they could at last share their faith together. But he told the Hines that he did not think he would ever see his wife on earth again. Instead he was longing for the day when they would meet in heaven, and could share in the Life Eternal there. These words again inspired Hine, and they became the basis for his fourth and final verse to ‘How Great Thou Art’:
When Christ shall come, with shout of acclamation, And take me home, what joy shall fill my heart. Then I shall bow, in humble adoration, And then proclaim: “My God, how great Thou art!”
Refrain
The complete song was soon published, not in England but in the Soviet Union (in English). The famous Gospel singer George Beverly Shea got hold of it, liked it a lot, but he wanted to change two words in the first verse: Instead of works, he wanted to use worlds, and instead of mighty he wanted to use rolling. Very reluctantly Stuart Hine agreed, but only for use in the Billy Graham Crusades. It was first sung in Canada in 1955. It became so popular that in Billy Graham’s 1956 New York Crusade it was sung at all 99 events, and from there the song spread out through all the world, even back in Sweden where the new version became the popular one.
There have been over seventeen hundred documented recordings of “How Great Thou Art”. It has been used on major television programs, in major motion pictures, and has been mentioned as the favorite Gospel song of at least three United States’ presidents.
In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.2 Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.3 And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. (Genesis 1:1-3)
It is hard to explain. Has matter always existed? Take it one step further. Has time and space always existed? Is the universe infinite?
Albert Einstein once said: “Only two things ate infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I am not sure about the former.”
He is also famous for his theories of relativity. The first, the theory of special relativity states that space and time are interwoven into a single continuum known as space-time, where time is relative. The general theory of relativity stares that massive objects cause a distortion in space-time.
So the question is: Does space and time exist apart from mass and light, or was there a beginning? Let me explain, or, better yet, let Einstein explain.
Shortly after his appointment at Princeton, Einstein was invited to a tea in his honor. At the event, the excited hostess introduced the great man and asked if he could perhaps, in a few words, explain to the guests the theory of relativity.
Not missing a beat, he rose to his feet and shared the story of a walk he had with a blind friend. It was a warm day, so at one point Einstein said to his friend, “I could really do with a glass of milk!”
His blind friend asked, “I know what a glass is, but what is milk?”, to which Einstein replied, “Why, milk is a white fluid.”
“I know what fluid is,” the blind man responded, “but what is white?”
“Oh, white is the color of swan-downs.”
“Down, I know what that is, I sleep on a down pillow, but what is a swan?”
“A swan is a bird with a long, bent neck.”
“I know bird and neck, but what do you mean by bent?”
Einstein took his blind friend’s arm, straightened it, and said “There, now your arm is straight.” He then bent his friend’s arm at the elbow, and said, “And now, your arm is bent.”
To which his blind friend exclaimed, “Ah! Now I know what milk is!”
Einstein smiled and nodded at his audience, then he sat down.
And so it is. We know, according to the laws of Thermodynamics the Universe cannot exist, since nothing can be created out of nothing (first law), that things go from bad to worse (second law), and that nothing can ever be perfect (third law).
But we exist, the whole universe exists, we see beauty and purpose everywhere. As we see how we are wonderfully made, it becomes obvious that this could not have happened by time plus chance plus nothing. There must be a creative force, but we can never grasp it since we are bound, both physically and in our thinking, in a time-space box.
Methinks the beginning of the Holy Bible gives the best explanation of how Creation happened, completely void of scientific jargon.
In those three verses God establishes His principles:
In the Beginning – There was a beginning.
God – God was before the beginning of time and space.
Created – God Created all in the beginning
The Heavens and the Earth. – Yes, indeed every matter.
The earth was without form – Not even the sphere was formed.
And void -No life yet.
And darkness was on the face of the deep – No stars were yet formed, only matter, even water.
And The Spirit of God hovered over the waters – The Holy Spirit – God’s Spirit was there at Creation forming everything.
And God Said – Here is introduced the Word that later became flesh and dwelt among us. Jesus Christ was present and active during creation.
Let there be Light – And so, the creation of life could begin.
At my mature age I try to keep my brain active by making Limericks. There are many types of Limericks, and millions have been made and printed over the years, some straight forward as the one above, some with a twist. I try to stay with the clean ones.
In my childhood’s Sweden we started learning English in fifth grade. The first semester, since English has weird spelling we learned the basics in phonetic script, and right from the start we were introduced to finer English poetry, such as this Limerick:
There once was a lady from Riga
who rode with a smile on a tiger.
They came back from the ride
withe the lady inside
and the smile on the face on the tiger.
Since then I have always loved the format, a strict rhyme scheme (AABBA), and a predominantly anapesticmeter 88668, or in this case 99669.
But my real love has been for songs and music. I have a very hard time to memorize things, but if it is set to music I hear the melody inside me and it stays with me for life. Even now I sometimes wake up in the morning with a song in my heart, a song I heard maybe fifty years ago and have not heard since I emigrated from Sweden. Such is the power of music. The cadence in the song and the melody work together to bring to remembrance the emotions I felt as a young lad.
Coming to America I decided to join the Rochester oratorio society. We sang Handel’s Messiah. It meant nothing to me except fantastic music. But the next piece was Elijah, and at the performance, the great base William Warfield was Elijah. He didn’t just sing, he was Elijah!
We moved away from Rochester and I didn’t sing for five years. Things didn’t go so well moodwise, but circumstances led me to again sing Handel’s Messiah. This time it spoke to me and rekindled in me the joy I once had singing. So I joined a church choir, still unsaved, but they let me sing anyway.
Since I found new life in Christ I have found that whenever things go bad, as they often do, God brings back a melody in my heart, not always with words, but they usually come back to remembrance a little bit later.
Thank God for hymns and songs with melody and words that bring back to remembrance the greatness of God!
(Sometimes I wake up with songs I heard in my youth that has very little to do with God and His greatness, but that is another story).
2 Corinthians 3:6 He has made us competent as ministers of a new covenant—not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.
I woke up this morning with what I thought was a true bible verse: “The word killeth, but the Spirit giveth life”. Looking up the verse in the Bible it turned out I was wrong. It says the letter, not the word.
Over 40 years ago my wife and I emigrated to America. She became increasingly disillusioned with life here and got more and more unhappy as we realized more and more of our life goals, two beautiful children, a good job, a new house, two cars, in short, all you could ever wish. But she was unhappy and started to question the meaning of life. Is that all there is? At the same time she started seeking, and enrolled in a study course on great literature. One of her assigned readings was the Gospel of Matthew, and reading it she asked me the question: Since Jesus said: You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery. But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart. (Matthew 5:27-28), can that be true? If that is so then heaven must be empty. Nobody can control their thoughts.
I tried to assure her that heaven is just a concept to make us desire to live as good a life as possible and let God sort it out. This didn’t go over well, so she grew more and more unsatisfied. A friend invited her to a bible study and she agreed to go with her once to ask some pointed questions, but to her surprise they didn’t get mad at her but answered all her questions patiently. She went back week after week and she finally accepted that she couldn’t do it herself, but she had to accept the fact she was sinful and only through believing and trusting in Jesus Christ could she find the meaning of life. That changed her attitude completely. Initially I was very glad for her, smiling and even occasionally laughing again, a trait that once made me fall in love with her. But then she decided I needed this new-found purpose of life also, so she started to work me over at least one hour every night and even longer on weekends. This continued for months and she had no success in making me see things her way. The biggest point of disagreement was: What has Jesus to do with that?
Then one night she prayed and cried out to God: God, I can’t do it, you do it! She felt the spirit giving her assurance. “I sure will, don’t worry, just believe.”
From that day, she was different, and half a year later I too became a believer.
What made the difference? For months she had tried to quote scripture at me, thinking something must stick, but nothing worked. She tried to do it herself apart from the spirit thinking the letter of the word would do the work. This is, I believe one aspect of the verse, and I too can testify that the Spirit gives life.
In every thing give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you. (1 Thesslonians 5:18)
After being reborn from above early in 1974 i felt challenged to find my life verse, a Bible verse that would best define me and my new life in Christ.
It was late February, lots of snow on the ground, it started to snow, mixed with sleet. I was in church, and the Pastor happened to mention the verse: Rejoice always. This seemed unrealistic to me, but my eyes fell on the next verse, and I made up my mind to give thanks for everything. Going out, there was a lot of slush in the parking lot, and as I started the car (an old Volvo with manual transmission), after putting the car in reverse my foot slipped on the clutch, breaking the gearbox.
This was the first test, and it was easy to thank God for his protection from something worse. So I gave thanks for the broken transmission.
Years passed and I found it more and more difficult to give thanks for everything that befell me. Then, 40 years later, after revisiting the verse many time I suddenly realized. It doesn’t say “For everything give thanks” but “In everything give thanks”.
Thanks God, that feels much better. With times being what they are it is still possible to give thanks, no matter the circumstances.
Yes, the thanksgiving spirit is to give thanks. For what? We may be entering WWIII with terror all around. That is why the verse (my life verse) is 1 Thessalonians 5: 18. In context here is 1 Thessalonians 5: 18-24
15 See that no one repays another with evil for evil, but always seek after that which is good for one another and for all people.16 Rejoice always;17 pray without ceasing;18 in everything give thanks; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.19 Do not quench the Spirit;20 do not despise prophetic utterances.21 But examine everything carefully; hold fast to that which is good;22 abstain from every form of evil.
23 Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you entirely; and may your spirit and soul and body be preserved complete, without blame at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.24 Faithful is He who calls you, and He also will bring it to pass.
Notice it did not say we are to give thanks for everything, but to give thanks in everything. This helps, when we are reading the new regulations coming out of the Government trying to regulate every aspect of our life. As the Limerick goes:
Now don’t get me started. You are what you eat.
Don’t eat the hot dogs, they are processed meat.
And the new EPA,
they must have the last say.
With beans you fart methane, which gives greenhouse heat.
On to Paris with the Climate change conference! According to Kerry, Obama, Clinton and Sanders Climate change is the biggest and most urgent threat to mankind.
Len Bilén's blog, a blog about faith, politics and the environment. 