Nations And Invaders

So the anger of the LORD was kindled against Israel, and he said, "Because this people have transgressed my covenant that I commanded their fathers and have not obeyed my voice, I will no longer drive out before them any of the nations that Joshua left when he died, in order to test Israel by them, whether they will take care to walk in the way of the LORD as their fathers did, or not." (Judges 2:20-22 ESV)

The invaders of Israel who came and went.
Egyptians, Assyrians, Babylonians, Persians, Greek, Romans, Byzantines, Arabs (Rashidun, Umayyad, Abbasid, Fatimid), Crusaders, Mamelukes, Ottoman, British ...

The Feast of the Trumpets

Behold! I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed. (1 Corinthians 15:51-52 ESV)

For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord. (1 Thessalonians 4:16-17 ESV)

Then the seventh angel blew his trumpet, and there were loud voices in heaven, saying, "The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ, and he shall reign forever and ever." (Revelation 11:15 ESV)

Meritocracy Favours The Elites

For we who worship by the Spirit of God are the ones who are truly circumcised. We rely on what Christ Jesus has done for us. We put no confidence in human effort, though I could have confidence in my own effort if anyone could. Indeed, if others have reason for confidence in their own efforts, I have even more!
I was circumcised when I was eight days old. I am a pure-blooded citizen of Israel and a member of the tribe of Benjamin - a real Hebrew if there ever was one! I was a member of the Pharisees, who demand the strictest obedience to the Jewish law. I was so zealous that I harshly persecuted the church. And as for righteousness, I obeyed the law without fault. (Philippians 3:3-6 NLT)

The Apostle Paul gave a list of accomplishment he could have confidence in the flesh:

1. With respect to birth and pedigree, circumcised on the eighth day, from the people of Israel and the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of the Hebrews;
2. With respect to observing the Law, a Pharisee who strictly obeyed the Law of Moses;
3. With respect to zeal, persecuting the church;
4. With respect to righteousness under the Law, blameless.

For those who believe in work and meritocracy, they must be like Paul, who was not only self-disciplined, hard working, principled and zealous, he was also born of the right parents and pedigree.

Christianity does not favour the elites.

Christianity is for those who are hopeless, those who cannot make it in life. For an elite like Paul, he must give up all the works of the flesh in order to gain the righteousness that is from Christ.

But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith - that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead. (Philippians 3:7-11 ESV)

666 And 668

After this many of his disciples turned back and no longer walked with him. (John 6:66 ESV)
These were the people and went on to live their lives and died naturally of disease or old age.

Simon Peter answered him, "Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life, and we have believed, and have come to know, that you are the Holy One of God." (John 6:68-69 ESV)
This guy who went on to preach Christ and died by crucifixion.

What would your choice be if you were there?

Global Flood Evidence

Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson are going camping. They pitch their tent under the stars and go to sleep. In the middle of the night Holmes wakes Watson up: "Watson, look up at the stars, and tell me what you deduce."
Watson: "I see millions of stars and even if a few of those have planets, it's quite likely there are some planets like Earth, and if there are a few planets like Earth out there, there might also be life."
Holmes: "Watson, you idiot, somebody's stolen our tent!"

It is always possible for two person to look at the same thing and come up with completely different conclusions. It all depends on their view or perception. Buddha taught that the first of the eight-fold path is right view. If you hold on to a certain view or convictions, you will interpret observations through that view. I am not sure if Buddha taught this, but the view you hold will blind you to other possibilities. It creates a blind spot for you.

Scientist never looked for soft tissue in dinosaur bones. Their view is the bones are millions of years old. There should be no soft tissue left. This quote taken from Controversial T. Rex Soft Tissue Find Finally Explained:
QUOTE
"The problem is, for 300 years, we thought, 'Well, the organics are all gone, so why should we look for something that's not going to be there?' and nobody looks," she said.
UNQUOTE
So soft tissue in dinosaur bones had to be discovered by accident through a mistake.

A global flood must have left plenty of evidence. But the secular scientist's view is that religions are myths. While the myths may originate from truth or contain some truth, you cannot take the myths as truth and try to prove them. Furthermore, scientists do not allow God to be a factor in science theory. Otherwise, they will find themselves to be theologians, proving or disproving this religion or that religion. Actually scientists are in the business of proving gods to be fakes and superstition, such as thunder god, rain god, wind god, etc, rather than proving god(s) to be true.

Since scientists think that the global flood catastrophe is a myth, so the fossil and geological observations has to be explained in a uniformitarian view. What happened today is used to extrapolate the past. So the geological evidence of the flood may be hiding in plain sight, waiting for a Nobel prize winner. Do you want to be that winner?

Brothers, consider your calling: Not many are wise from a human perspective, not many powerful, not many of noble birth. (1 Corinthians 1:26 HCSB)

Especially if you are considered by your superiors, peers and inferiors as "not likely to achieve greatness" and "quite ordinary". I heard somewhere that it is better to be lucky than to be good, and that you have to be wise to know that you are lucky.

But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. (1 Corinthians 1:27 NIV)

The person without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God but considers them foolishness, and cannot understand them because they are discerned only through the Spirit. (1 Corinthians 2:14 NIV)

For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men. (1 Corinthians 1:25 ESV)

Too Much

But Jesus, aware of this, said, "O you of little faith, why are you discussing among yourselves the fact that you have no bread? Do you not yet perceive? Do you not remember the five loaves for the five thousand, and how many baskets you gathered? Or the seven loaves for the four thousand, and how many baskets you gathered? How is it that you fail to understand that I did not speak about bread? Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees." (Matthew 16:8-11 ESV)

How come there are leftovers? Why Jesus cannot create the exact amount of food to feed the people? This is our idea of a great miracle.

That reminds me of another theological argument on the scope of atonement. If Jesus died for all and some are not saved, does that means that the provisioning for redemption is over provided? If that is true, is it less miraculous? God does not know the exact number of people to be saved in advance?

Wait, if we want to doubt, why don't we go all the way to the beginning? God is supposed to know all things in advance. Why did He create Satan and put the tree of the knowledge of good and evil in the garden of evil. Didn't He know what will happen later?

For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the LORD. (Isaiah 55:8 ESV)