Here are your show notes for today’s class:
I was trying to figure out what I should teach today. I had nothing, and I had not felt led to anything, so I went to an old fall-back: I just asked YHWH to give me something and opened my Bible. You will see where I landed later. The part that really made things weird is an email I received from a friend of mine shortly after I had finished reading the section of Isaiah that I had opened to. The link read as follows:
Evil is not committed by people who feel uncertain about their righteousness, who question their own motives, who worry about betraying themselves. The evil in this world is committed by the spiritual fat cats, by the Pharisees of our own day, the self-righteous who think they are without sin because they are unwilling to suffer the discomfort of significant self-examination. Unpleasant though it may be, the sense of personal sin is precisely that which keeps our sin from getting out of hand…It is a very great blessing because it is the one and only effective safeguard against our own proclivity for evil.
-M. Scott Peck, People of the Lie: The Hope for the healing of Human Evil (1983).
*********************
So, after I read the blog post my friend had sent me, and I saw the picture on the cover of the book, my mind immediately jumped to the way Dr. Heiser has explained the serpent in the Garden of Eden:
The short version:
Was the Snake of Genesis 3 a Spiritual Being?
And the longer, expanded version:
Genesis: The Serpent (Nachash) in the Garden of Eden- Michael S. Heiser
As well as Heiser’s book, “The Portent” and “The Facade.”
[NOTE: If you want to get into the UFO/Alien/Reptilian thing, without going full-blown tinfoil head, READ — THESE — BOOKS!]
*********************
Then I got to thinking about the Biblical definition of ‘evil,’ and I found the following:
What Is Evil—Biblically? What the Bible Says about Good & Evil
Evil is not the absence of good nor is it preexistent before the creation of heaven and earth. … Evil, in human hands, is found to be the independent taking of something created as good and twisting it for self-fulfilling, autonomous purposes rather than enjoying and employing it as God intended. Thus, that which is intended for good becomes corrupt and distorted for evil.2
*********************
*********************
Related, ‘real-world’ stories (a very brief history lesson):
CHINA
Biden Administration China Ties Reveal a Deeper Disturbing Truth
Personnel is policy. By dint of such ties, and past dutiful service to administrations that pursued the very policies of engagement and accommodation that enabled Communist China’s rise, we can surmise that the president, and the architects of his agenda, will likely be uniquely soft on China.
The Tragic Legacy of Bill Clinton’s China Doctrine
The U.S.-China Relations Legacy of President George H. W. Bush
How Nixon’s 1972 Visit to China Changed the Balance of Cold War Power
Why FDR Embraced China as a Great Power
‘PHARMA’
*********************
Now, back to the section of Isaiah I opened to after asking for help. I opened to Isaiah 10:1. Here is where I get to tie all of this together: Reptilians, Evil and Scripture. However, you will have to watch the show for that part of this class.
*********************
SCRIPTURES
23 And someone said to Him, “Lord, are there just a few who are being saved?” And He said to them, 24 “Strive to enter through the narrow door; for many, I tell you, will seek to enter and will not be able. 25 Once the head of the house gets up and shuts the door, and you begin standing outside and knocking on the door, saying, ‘Lord, open up to us!’ and He then will answer and say to you, ‘I do not know where you are from.’