OK, Zane—here comes another day!
A lot of my time yesterday was consumed with our need for having a reliable clothes dryer. It has become kind of a taxing ride. But I’m hoping we now have a solution. I guess time will tell.
Once again, I’m not real excited with the sound of rain hitting our kitchen skylight. As a prelude to the day, I think I’ll try to take on a little ball-tossing jog with the dogs.
Blessings. Love and prayers—Tua/Ray.
I want to take a moment to reiterate how I am choosing to approach these readings in Revelation. I don’t have much confidence in my own ability to get all the bits and pieces of John’s visions put together so as to form a perfect picture of clarity that would allow me to know exactly how these future developments will play out in real and practical terms. I find support in the fact that even John did not fully grasp all he saw. I have to believe that the strange and cryptic style is intended. In processing it all I’ll leave the technical detail stuff to those who are more technical than I am. So I am reading more devotionally (for inspiration and practical application) than for precision. And I think this approach is supported and encouraged by the BLESSING PROMISE given at the beginning of the book. “Blessed is the one who reads (understanding is not required) the words of this prophecy, and blessed are those who hear it and take to heart what is written in it, because the time is near” (Revelation 1:3).
Reading through chapter 9 makes me feel like I’ve just watched another one of those wild spectacular digitally-animated super-power monster movies. The implication is that end-time events will stack up to be stranger than fiction—at least as strange as fiction.
Something equally strange is how the main-stream of human society at that time, who would witness the awful devastation of the plagues described, “still did not repent”—still did not turn to God—especially when they knew the source and the cause. It strikes me as absolute insanity. It’s as crazy as Pharaoh refusing to allow the Israelites to leave Egypt even though he beheld his land being devastated by supernatural plagues. Someone has coined the quip that “Liberalism is a mental disorder.” I’m inclined to agree (…that is, if “liberalism” represents the progressive kind—the pursuit of a form of government overseen by a power-hungry ruling class of professional politicians who think they know what is right and best for everyone else…in other words, MARXISM). But unrepentant sin also produces a mental and spiritual disorder that is simply mind-boggling. What a perversion of human intelligence and our God-given freedom of choice! The tragedy of it all is that it is SO unnecessary! All that men have to do is seek and submit to the One Who is clearly Sovereign—as well as Gracious. Indeed, UNREPENTANT SIN IS JUST STUPID! I believe that this fundamental fact is as important to keep in my worldview folder as anything else it should contain.