December 10, read the Bible in a year in PowerPoint; with comments.

Revelation 2:12-29 continues the message to the seven churches, church three and four: Pergamos, a church that looked good but compromised itself, and the church of Thyatira, a corrupted church, but with hope of repentance. These can be seen as seven historical churches; which they were, but also as seven types of churches as they exist today and throughout history. They can also be taken as seven states of the individual believer. Whichever way you take it, there is something in it for every believer, even today.

Habakkuk 1 begins with the prophet’s first complaint and the LORD’s reply. After that the prophet poured out his second complaint.

Habakkuk 2. The LORD answered the prophet to his second complaint. It contains this gem, just as valid today as it was then: “The just shall live by his faith“.  On the other hand God promised more woes to the wicked.

December 9, read the Bible in a year in PowerPoint; with comments.

Revelation 2:1-11 begins the message to the seven churches. The first two are: Ephesus; the church that lost its first love and Smyrna; the church that stood firm even when it was persecuted;  These can be seen as seven historical churches, which they were, but also as seven types of churches as they exist today and through history. They can also be taken as seven states of the individual believer. Whichever way you take it, there is even today something in it for every believer.

Proverbs 26 is a collection of more proverbs of Solomon collected after his death during the reign of Hezekiah.

Psalm 145, a Psalm of Praise, of David. In an acrostic fashion David praised God for his fame, glory and for His goodness; for his kingdom and His providence, and most of all for his saving mercy.

Psalm 146 is the first of the five final songs in the Book of Psalms, known as the Hallelujah Psalms. This one gives praise to the Lord for creation, for what He is doing and will do forever.

December 8, read the Bible in a year in PowerPoint; with comments.

Revelation 1. The final book of the Bible begins with an introduction and promises a blessing to all who read it and take it to heart. It sends a greeting to the seven Churches followed by the most wonderful vision of the Son of Man.

Nahum 3. The prophet Nahum ended with a “woe to Nineveh.”

December 7, read the Bible in a year in PowerPoint; with comments.

Jude. Greetings from the half-brother of Jesus Christ to the called ones. Jude told the followers to contend for the faith for there had crept in apostates in the church, and since they lived in the last days he urged them to maintain their life with God and give all glory to God.

Nahum 1 speaks of God’s wrath on His enemies, in this case the coming destruction of Nineveh.

Nahum 2 is a prophesy of the coming fall of Nineveh.

December 6, read the Bible in a year in PowerPoint; with comments.

3 John. The Apostle sent a greeting to Gaius, who was commended for his love and generosity, and urged to follow good people like Demetrius, but to avoid bad people like Diotrephes. The letter ends with a farewell greeting. That’s it.

Proverbs 25 is a collection of more proverbs of Solomon collected after his death during the reign of Hezekiah.

Psalm, 141, of David. A short Psalm telling that confession without compromise comes before God’s protection and victory over evildoers.

Psalm 142, of David. When all strength fails “The LORD is my only refuge.

Psalm 143, of David. There is hope, even in the deepest despair.

Psalm 144, of David. He is a man of war, but gives praise to God with a new song, for God is the one who grants victory.

Daisy World, The Gaia Hypothesis and the real story of Creation. Part 4: Creation of life.

Let’s look what happens in Genesis 1: 9-13; And God said, “Let the water under the sky be gathered to one place, and let dry ground appear.” And it was so. 10 God called the dry ground “land,” and the gathered waters he called “seas.” And God saw that it was good. So now water is organized and land has appeared, and the earth is fully formed. This completes the physical creation, and in the 1983 book The Intelligent Universe, the famous astronomer Fred Hoyle wrote, “The list of anthropic properties, apparent accidents of a non-biological nature without which carbon-based and hence human life could not exist, is large and impressive.” The “fine tuning” of the universe is specifically designed to make life possible.

God is producing an ecosystem for the earth, but there is yet no physical life. Here God is silent on what lifeforms He created first. Scientists are trying to reproduce the conditions which make spontaneous creation of life possible, using all their intelligence and having the right combination of amino acids and other chemical conditions come together to form life. One thing is for sure; they did not imagine random processes in “the primordial soup” but tried to fabricate the best estimate of the environment using every ounce of scientific knowledge available. Whenever an amino acid is formed via lightning or whatever, half are created of the left type and half of the right type. (When one drinks fresh squeezed orange juice the vitamin C is all left oriented, but if the vitamin C is taken in a manufactured tablet it is half left, half right oriented. Only the left oriented vitamin is useful, the right oriented is just acid and is not generated by life and cannot be used by life.) So they are not able to reproduce life or even be able to explain how it could have happened since so many left oriented processes have to come together at the same time without being interfered by the unusable right oriented molecules hindering the process. And this is the generation of the simplest life form! Rather than trying to explain the inexplicable apart from creation, I will jump right in with Phytoplankton. These are very primitive plants, living mostly in oceans, wetlands, rivers and lakes but can also be found on land providing there is enough water, Most phytoplankton contains chlorophyll and absorbs carbon and generates oxygen.

God omits all the discussion of how life on earth started and jumps right into explaining that plant life started first, and what follows is a list of all kinds of flora. It is found in Genesis 1:11-13

 Then God said, “Let the land produce vegetation: seed-bearing plants and trees on the land that bear fruit with seed in it, according to their various kinds.” And it was so. 12 The land produced vegetation: plants bearing seed according to their kinds and trees bearing fruit with seed in it according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good. 13 And there was evening, and there was morning—the third day.

In fact this is a step that evolutionists skip, because there is no plausible explanation how life could emerge out of dead matter. Some have suggested that life could have entered from outer space, and indeed the Webb telescope, when looking at the “empty” part of universe, have found that it is not totally empty but seems to have some rudimentary amino-acids and even metals, which are necessary but by no means sufficient building blocks for life.

Let us take a look at one of the simplest phytoplanktons, the cyanobacteria.

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The cyanobacteria is the simplest form of reproducing organism that contains chlorophyll and produces its own food; carbohydrates:

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To produce its own food, it needs additional nutrition, among them Aluminum and Nitrogen compounds. They have to be included for photosynthesis to function via RNA interpreters, proteins and sunlight. The main food is CO2 and the process exhausts O2. The one celled organism looks like this:

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This is the simplest of the phytoplanktons. It has all the necessary functions to be able to duplicate itself. To do it it must have a nucleus contained inside a cell wall, and how to create the cell wall is programmed in the nucleus. This is a very simple nucleus and the smallest of the cyanobacteria has a nucleus of about 1.4 million base pairs. 3 base pairs form one codon and tells which amino aid to use to add one link in the protein to build. The rest of the DNA was thought to be evolutionary redundant “junk DNA,” but recent analyses have shown that they are start codes and stop codes to show where, when and how to build it, with processes not yet understood. All this is interpreted by RNAs and other compounds, and together they enable how to build and duplicate themselves. The information stored in the DNA is about the same as is contained in a large fiction novel. All this was prepared in creation “day 3” and led to all plant life. Nowadays phytoplanktons generate about half of all carbohydrates and release half of all Oxygen in the world.

The first origin of life can only have come to pass thru a creative act of God, since it involves a catch 22 conflict many times over. But the first live substance may not have been based on sunlight and photosynthesis, but could have been microbes known as methanotrophs that convert methane gas into carbon dioxide and biomass. Scientists are unsure how these microbes get all the nutrients they need to accomplish this task. But this we know: God did not give us the story of creation to be scientifically complete. The only thing He says about mildew is that it is bad and how to get rid of it. The grass and the trees were created by God when the environmental conditions were right for them to appear, nearly all of them after the sun was lit.

Next installment: The sun, moon and the stars were formed on “day 4.”

December 5, read the Bible in a year in PowerPoint; with comments.

2 John is a very short letter, greeting the elect lady with joy that she and some of her children walk in Christ’s commandments, but also warning her to beware of Antichrist deceivers.

Micah 5. The promise of the coming Messiah: “But thou, Bethlehem Ephratah, though thou be little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of thee shall he come forth unto me that is to be ruler in Israel; whose goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting.”  But first, God promised punishment of Israel’s injustice.

Micah 6. The LORD laid out His a case against Israel and how He will punish Israel’s injustice. One remedy: “He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?

Micah 7. The prophet expressed deep sorrow for Israel’s sins, coupled with the hope that the nation will rise again and that God will forgive Israel.

December 4, read the Bible in a year in PowerPoint; with comments.

1 John 5. Being born of God and believing in the son of God means exercising obedience by Faith. The certainty of God’s witness is : “These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God; that ye may know that ye have eternal life, and that ye may believe on the name of the Son of God.” There is  confidence and compassion in prayer, We must follow the true one and reject the false. And so the letter ends: “Little children, keep yourselves from idols. Amen.”

Micah 1. The prophet told of the coming judgment on Israel with mourning for Israel and Judah.

Micah 2. The prophet proclaimed woe to evildoers and lying prophets. After that Israel will be restored.

Micah 3. There was wicked rulers and wicked prophets. Micah still had full confidence in God.

Micah 4 speaks of the LORD’s future reign in Zion and Zion’s triumph.

December 3, read the Bible in a year in PowerPoint; with comments.

1 John 4. Test the spirits. There is the spirit of God, and then there are many spirits of the Antichrist. Remember: “greater is he that is in you, than he that is in the world.” We know God through love and we see God through love, “We love him, because he first loved us.”

Proverbs 24 completes the sayings of the wise, and begins some more sayings of the wise. The two last verses are notable: “Yet a little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to sleep:  So shall thy poverty come as one that travelleth; and thy want as an armed man.

Psalm 137. When the Jews were exiled into captivity they were forced to sing songs on their way. So somebody wrote a psalm about it. Compare that to when Paul and Silas were put in jail, they voluntarily sang songs of praise to God.

Psalm 138. David, as psalmist reminds us that God will honor His word and perform it to completion.

Psalm 139, of David. God knows everything, and He knows me much better than I know myself. Fittingly, the Psalm ends up with a song: “Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts: And see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.

Psalm 140, of David. A heartfelt prayer for deliverance from evildoers.

December 2, read the Bible in a year in PowerPoint; with comments.

1 John 3:11-24. We are children of God. As children of God we no longer sin, but it is important we love and show the outworking of love, for in it is the spirit of truth.

Jonah. The short but great story of Jonah, the famous solar eclipse of 763 B.C. the great solar eclipse of 2017, the eclipse of 2024 and the tearing down of statues.

Psalm 136 is called the Great Hallel (or Great Psalm of Praise). Each one of its 26 verses repeats the phrase, “His mercy endureth forever.”  It was sung responsively by the Levites and the assembly of people at both Solomon’s and Zerubbabel’s temple dedication and is now sometimes sung or recited at the Passover Seder.