• The hurricanes are part of a larger world-wide series of floods and other water catastrophes hitting every continent in the world. 2005 began with the tsunami, which rolled across Asia, but notice also how Europe got flooded; other parts of the world are also being flooded as I write. Conversely, there have been bigger droughts than normal, also ravaging countries: fires often accompany them. So, Romans 1: God is doing this, not man. So we are all getting a wakeup call, Leviticus 26, Deuteronomy 28 (last halves of each chapter). Frequent original languages Bible metaphor of a flood of water or troops if you don’t drink the water of the Word, playing in real time. Syncopated Tribulation characteristic, appetizer format, illustrating the principles in Revelation – and showing how that future is both warranted and valid.

• Update, October 12, 2005: now we have Hurricane Stan hitting Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador. Almost simultaneously, we have the earthquake ‘just happening’ to hit the most-disputed area of Kashmir, ‘just happening’ to hurt both the Hindus and the Muslims on both sides of that dispute. Then there’s the floods in China. Probably similar disasters occurred in the former Soviet Union, I’m not sure I remember where, offhand. Hmmm. Let’s think over the wider effect of these disasters since last Christmas, if you classify these geographic sites by dominant religion.

1. 1. You’ll notice that the Asian tsunami, hit mostly those of animistic or Hindu / Muslim faith;
   2. The floods in Europe, hit areas which were strongly Catholic and traditional (i.e., Lutheran) Protestant;
   3. Hurricanes hitting the United States, aimed at the Bible belt;
   4. Latin America is overwhelmingly Roman Catholic;
   5. And of course the dispute in Kashmir, is over a very old holy war about whose sacred ground it should be (both Muslims and Hindus claim Kashmir mildly like both Muslims and Jews claim Jerusalem).
   6. China has traditionally been animist, and the official position of the Chinese Government, is atheism. But grassroots Bible study Christianity has experienced a massive upsurge in China, particularly since the 1980’s (namely, those pictures of overcrowded stairs with people studying their Bibles on them, since there is no other place they can go).

• Update, October 12, 2005: Looks like God is warning everyone of any faith, to look upward. Sure, God can’t be all the definitions of Him that religions claim, since only 1=1 (only one definition will be correct). But God made all humankind, since only God makes the soul (i.e., per Genesis 2:7, last clause). So we all need Him, but are too wrapped up in people and things. So we all need a wake-up call. No matter what faith we espouse. For God is an equal-opportunity Savior, John 3:16, 1 Timothy 2:5-6, Titus 2:11 and 1 John 2:2.

• “Sea” in Bible means people, and it’s usually pejorative; the term is always a metaphor for people, even when depicting literal sea, as in Genesis 6 and Revelation 13. Specifically, people-politics and human-viewpoint thinking, which are always and innately, anti-God. Human thinking doesn’t mean to be anti-God, but is — due to the sin nature. You can prove it quickly, since people are put ahead of God, even (and especially) when in God’s Name. We mouth “God” but always define Him in terms of stuff to people, so it’s not God we are worshiping. We define the First Commandment in terms of people, for crying out loud – though “people” isn’t even in the First Commandment. As 1 John repeatedly says in the Greek, if you’re not doing the first Commandment, you’re not doing any of them. And you’re not doing the First Commandment, unless you know God – which means you have to be breathing Bible, “truth in” you (compare 1 John 1:5-10 parallelisms which set up the entire epistle’s structure).

• You see this anti-God, human instead of God-thinking ‘born’ in Genesis 3 – a choice to rebel against God, in favor of the self. Specifically, in favor of self-righteousness (see also Isaiah 14:13-14), without which no politics are even possible: people who are not self-righteous don’t seek control over others, and don’t seek to buttress ego. You see Satan use politics in Genesis 3, and throughout Bible, with Revelation 13 being his last big push; Revelation 17 is his strategy, a fake church which is politically-active. That push began to institutionalize in Rome, in 96 AD (see Clement I). Push continues, to this day. The criterion for the Rapture is not what Europe does, but what fake church does, duh. So to have the sea active, is a realtime metaphor, from “the” flood until modern times, warning man he’s not drinking the water of the Word, so needs a flood to remind him he’s flooding himself with the wrong thinking.

• In the Garden, the test was whether God would be more important individually to each member of the Eden couple, than they were to each other. God First. First Commandment really goes back to eternity past, that contract where the Son (as God) chooses to throw Himself away on Father, Isaiah 53:10-12. There is no ‘lateral’ element; it’s all vertical. For Father, or forget it. Forget others, forget self.

• The Eden couple flunked that test. Christ passed it: “My food is to do the will of Him Who sent me”; not, to do the will of people. Notice how true love, means forgetting people and self – and thereby, the entire world can be saved. Kinda like the choice to have a public (i.e. Business, political) life, where you must abandon your family and friends, and the public role in which you serve becomes instead your master, eating all your time and effort. Like a soldier, you leave the masses behind and for the greater than you meaning, you instead live. They will hate you for it. And you must ignore them. So how much more, did the world thus hate Him? Think about it...

• That’s why Matthew 4 reads as it does: Satan is taunting Christ that Father doesn’t love Him, that Christ doesn’t love people, because He won’t feed the world, won’t do something spectacular to make everyone believe in Him, won’t take over the kingdoms of the world (and thus solve all world problems). Satan is accusing Father of being sadistic – therefore, accusing Christ of being masochistic and sadistic. The world has always sung the siren song of Matthew 4, buys those temptations wholly. So is enormously offended to hear that people are not important, that good deeds don’t thus save anything, but instead are evil (namely, Revelation 20:11-15, the last chance to believe in Christ, has no takers, who instead demand their good deeds be accredited).

• Greek of Ephesians 4:14 sums up the principle: the world is a hurricane of childishness, tossing you around with human scheming, and your only buoy is the Bible growing in you. Else, you drown. Ephesians 4:11-16 is always egregiously mistranslated in published Bibles.

• So Katrina plays like Psalm 14:1-2, Psalm 53:1-2 in a cacophony of disbelief, everyone expecting someone else to do his job. So having seen the disaster of disbelief, those now believing morph in overreaction to Rita, three weeks later. Thus Rita played like Leviticus 26:17: people not in danger from the hurricane, mindlessly flooded I-45 in exodus from Houston. Hence there was no gas, since the available supplies to those who had to leave were sufficient; who could expect so many lunatics to also get on the road? [Bear in mind that when the evacuation order was given to people, the people who run gas stations, left as well, as a Houstonian explained to me this morning (September, 26). So there was no gas delivered, or stations were closed early, duh. Moreover, Houston’s topography is nothing like New Orleans. Lots of little towns around Galveston Bay, lots of ways out, high ground not very far away, and it’s easy to escape the storm surge in advance. For example, only those near the Ship Channel in SE Houston, or (being ultraconservative) within 10-20 miles of the shoreline needed to travel, even had Rita been a Category 5 at the time of impact with the original Galveston-Houston ‘eye’. For Galveston, allow about 70 miles (again, being ultraconservative). The Category 5 warning meant an expected storm surge up to within 5 miles of 610, not beyond it. Since all the channels were blanketed with news about the impending hurricane, it’s not like anyone could not know this. So, there was no need to travel much beyond it. So there was no need to travel all the way to Dallas; to Mexico; or even much beyond Loop 610, just to get past Houston’s Southeast quadrant (where ‘downtown’ is, among other things). It’s true Houston easily floods even during a regular rain, within the Loop (its streets don’t slope properly); but Houston’s many bayous are relatively narrow, so you don’t need much distance from them; hospitals and other concrete structures are many; if you only got as far as Westheimer and Post Oak, even – you would have been fine. So to crowd on I-45 and other freeways beyond the Loop was sheer, baseless panicking. So it’s not any government’s fault, but people behaving badly. Just as Leviticus 26:17 warns. Now that the danger is known to be over, people are still ignoring government advice, so are clogging the freeways etc. On return – where of course there still is no gas. Just as the beginning of Deuteronomy explains, we reject what God says, and then when God retracts what He says due to our rejection, we rebel again by ‘obeying’ what He’s now retracted (analogy to the 'going into the Land' command that first year they arrived in Kadesh Barnea, in Numbers and Deuteronomy).]

• No one dies who is old enough to reject the Gospel, who doesn’t know he is rejecting it, if he is still an unbeliever at the time of death. Great White Throne Judgment of Revelation 20:11-15 shows those unbelievers get another chance to believe, and still don’t do it – how blunt can it be, when you can see the Lord judging you. Notice it takes time, and it’s a courtroom, so one can plead guilty and believe, even post-death. So also, in those Second Advent verses where everyone sees the Lord coming from the sky in total darkness, His Coming being the only light – and still they don’t believe? So with these and many other verses showing how we have no excuse (theme of Romans 1), you just know that God Himself makes the Gospel clear, even at the very last minute, to anyone who has refused Him. What, the God who saved Adam in Genesis 3 for admitting his sin will suddenly become inconsistent? 🤣 It’s not as though the Word of God had failed, Romans 9. Babies and other folks unable to refuse because too undeveloped obviously are saved, duh. So disasters end up saving a whole lot of people who’d otherwise not go to heaven...

• God would not create a soul for His Son to purchase on the Cross and then neglect to give the Gospel repeatedly to that soul: Father would never cheat Himself, His Son, the Holy Spirit, or the soul He ordained be created at birth. So forget all that claptrap claiming folks haven’t heard the Gospel. God talks, and if we get to be used as agents, it’s a secondary method and a royal privilege. The Bible is pretty clear on that: you gotta be the most arrogant person on the planet to think your saying something, counts; that people need people (rather than God, 🤣) to learn Him; that if we don’t know how God gets out His Message, somehow it didn’t happen. What arrogance. Sheesh.

• God talks directly to everyone, but not with ‘voices’ or ‘visions’, post-Canon (theme of Hebrews 1) – because it takes His power for you to even hear or understand Him. So human agents and a Book (partly) signify that we won’t hear Him, so He gives more grace and uses other means as well (theme of Hebrews 1, and the Lord’s statement on “an evil generation seeks a sign”, among other things). Notice how He talks face to face with Adam, with the Old Testament greats, with the apostles – so belief level is the criterion. Lack of belief, means refusal, rejection. So, gets no conversation. Love never coerces. If you don’t want to hear God, then He won’t ‘talk’ to you. World progressively negative over time, like when Israel got so negative God ‘left’ the Temple – so leaves behind a copybook in writing – ultimate grace, for a God-hating world. Tie in passages like the silence of Jonah verse, the silence in Revelation, Hebrews 1, end Malachi and the terseness there and in Revelation. Trace the pattern from Old Testament to New, since it runs from Genesis to Revelation. Trace how the covenants upgrade and become more distant in direct discourse, yet more intimate in written proof, so one is freed of doubt – since the Word is progressively (and now completely, since 96 AD) in writing.

• When you’re dying, you know your status as you die, in regard to God. Too many verses on this, like the deaths of Aaron and Moses, David, the very Hebrew meaning of the name “Methuselah” (telling everyone 969 years in advance when the flood would occur – at his death), Paul’s exultant 1 Timothy 7:8 (right verse? The one about the crown of righteousness), 1 John 5:16 (Greek wordplay in Acts 5 on the deaths of Ananias and Sapphira shows they and Peter knew their status at the very time of dying). Lots of other examples in Bible not so easy to see in translation, like Nahor’s death, Joab’s, Jehu’s. Then there’s the Cross itself, the very doctrine of knowing your status at death, since the Lord trained for the Cross all His life to get that death, and exults in that status, Psalms 31:5, His Last Words. So what’s true for Him, is true for us, Isaiah 53. So God lets no one die without them knowing where they stand with Him. Which makes sense, given that God alone breathes life into the nostrils at birth, Genesis 2:7. The one who gives you life and takes your life talks to you, because He loves you. Unconditionally. Infinity = absolute, hence absolute Love. We are free to reject Him, and thus free to get the consequences of that rejection, John 3:36, Colossians 3:25 (latter parallel verse applies to believers).

• For those still not listening to the hurricane / tornado / whirlwind (Hosea 4-6): survivors are given a wake-up call, if negative, idea behind Hebrews 12:6ff. Conversely, if positive, they are being tested in order to accelerate their spiritual growth (idea in 2 Corinthians 12, Job, etc). You can’t tell from the outer characteristics of life which it is, and you can’t tell for anyone but yourself, either (spiritual life quality is not conclusively evidenced from externals). We know that disaster can be either a praise or a punishment, since The Perfect Person of History went to the Cross – so ‘bad’ happened the most, to Him. Many verses on this. Likewise, good happening might be happening because the person is too far gone so punishment won’t help him wake up. So all you know en masse is that God is saying something rather drastic, and we the world haven’t listened to His earlier, nicer style of ‘speaking’.

• Noah-flood scoffers get help understanding how “the” flood worked to kill everyone on earth, so that stupid objection can be set aside and the Bible can be examined objectively, for a change. See, people have always lived near water. So “the” flood was an upwelling of water from rivers, lakes, streams, the oceans, according to the Hebrew in Genesis 6. Rain was not the cause of the flood, but merely added to it. The entire planet’s landmasses float on water and molten minerals, as any geologist will tell you. Think of a giant bowl with partial ‘lids’: these ‘lids’ are what we live atop. So when the water in the bowl upsurges (storm surge, tsunami, rivers / lakes / streams rising), you have flooding. Heck, the whole left half of the United States used to be underwater: that’s how we got the Grand Canyon, for crying out loud. So it’s not as though we have no geologic evidence to understand how “the” flood could happen. But anyone looking to deny God, will deny even sound science, sorry – and call himself nonetheless, ‘scientific’ in his denial. Denial, of course, is a psychological defense mechanism – one of the eight or nine, all of them irrational.

• Underlying idea of God looking at the world, seeing too small a portion seeking to know Him, and those not seeking are so far gone they need to die to prevent the destruction of the human race. Contagion of sin is the most deadly, leprous. Smaller devastated areas will also have that characteristic, but again – it’s a mix, you never know from externals who’s getting the disaster because he’s a spiritual giant, and who’s getting it because he hates God.

• Do-gooders get help understanding that they can’t play God, that their altruism is often just another manifestation of hatred of God (people replacing God in importance, so people aren’t being loved, either). Someday the money will run out. Why do we look at each other: horizontally, but not up? Need an “act of God”, to look at God – which means we aren't looking at Him, normally. We are disinterested in Him, so in grace He has to do something which gets our attention. When the disaster goes down or goes away, we’ll resume our disinterest. But the meanwhile, some few do wake up, believe in Christ, and get with the spiritual life: the “harvest” still happens, Luke 8.

• It’s normal to want to help people, but evil to replace God or to blame Him. You can’t help but want to help people, once you know God via His System: Christ wanted to die for all mankind, so what do you think happens to the person who via God’s System, is given His Thinking under the Spirit? My first thought when I heard the levies broke was, okay, all of what I own can fit into a ship container and be shipped down there – before my brain turned on and I realized there was no way to distribute my stuff to anyone, especially since they had no homes in which to put it. So I prayed, instead. Every day. The Christian in God’s System can truly ask anything in His Name, and know it will be righteously done!

• But what really constitutes help? What do you pray for? What do you do, especially since a human’s ability to do anything, is always corrupt? Competence is destroyed by emotion, and emotion is controlled by the body, the sin nature: only His Thinking is competence which overcomes emotion. The popular psychological garbage about expressing your feelings just makes those feelings control you the more, the next time! So we need His Thinking to ask the competent questions. Like, what’s really a benefit – if disaster wakes us up to God so we believe in Him, then we are truly helped forever. Problem is, we are disinterested by nature: disinterested in God, disinterested in our fellow man. Only when emotionally motivated — and that for a short time — do we look outside ourselves. The tyranny of life is preoccupation with the “me”; as Romans 6, Romans 8, and 2 Corinthians 5 so deftly explain, Christ freed us from that tyranny, so we can live for Him, now! Looking up to God saves you from this tyranny, progressively more every second. So a disaster is a salvation. So what helps, is to live in God's System, and also to pray, which is a royal voting – i.e., about what should the self do? Often, the answer is do nothing but think toward the Father, Matthew 4:4. The Father will handle it, having ordained the solution from eternity past. That way people can know the solution came from the Father, not from man. And thus turn and be healed...

• Christian right can get help understanding how wrong it is. Christians being the Royal Family are to blame for all disaster, because we aren’t growing up in God’s System. True anywhere anytime in the world, post-Pentecost. No one else can be blamed. No one else can help the world, since this is Satan’s world, duh. It’s our royal role, to be the mediating Body of Our Mediator Christ, 1 John 4:12-17. So we all should read this as a call to grow up, and if we’re in the Christian right, we should get out of politics, and learn Our Ruler, not the roller coaster of Satan’s world. In the world but not of it means living a normal life (i.e., good citizen verses of Romans 13), but not crusading, for crying out loud. God needs no help, we need to train to become kings, the world gets blessed if we do. Couldn’t be more obvious, since Christ Himself didn’t do anything we do, but spent His Whole Life learning and living on Word (i.e., Matthew 4:4).

• “The Immortal Yi Sun-sin”, a current drama on Korean TV about the end-16th century war between Korea and Japan, in which the king of Korea was unjust to one of his best naval generals, is a great analogy to the Christian’s unjustness if he doesn’t grow up in God’s System. Our Lord was responsible for saving all mankind; we too are thus responsible. Doesn’t matter that mankind rejects us. A king is a king, even over a rebellious people. But for the king to be unjust is the worst of all crimes. We will have a lot to answer for, at the Bema.

An unusually mature Pleroma believer in the South must be dying (do I really want to explain this? It’s probably too hard for the reader to grasp). 68 AD parallel to Paul’s death which devastated Rome (Year of the Four Emperors) and culminated in the destruction of the Temple, also predicted as per Bible (i.e., Daniel 9:26) – well, Katrina occurred on the 1935th anniversary of the destruction of the Temple and Jerusalem siege. According to page 71’s diagram in Atlas of the Bible and Christianity, the Temple was stormed beginning on August 15th, the inner Temple began burning August 28th, and by August 30th Titus’ Fifth legion had finished with the Temple and flooded the lower City. So August 29thth, 2005 is not a coincidence, surely: the first of the New Orleans levies were over-flooded / breached beginning early that day, as we now (September 21) know. The 70 AD Temple was then still burning (Israel is about 9 hours ‘ahead’ of New Orleans); and a good month or two of cleanup and roundup remained. Masada and Machaerus to the south and southeast, remained to be overrun. So Temple destruction was but part of the larger campaign of destroying both Jerusalem and all Jewish Resistance, in Roman eyes. Meanwhile, Daniel 9:26 played out, right on schedule. And to this day, Jews worldwide regard August 28th as the day of mourning: just as will those Two Human Witnesses, in Revelation 11:1, who are clothed in sackloth. So the “temple” they stand in front of then, will not be of God’s ordination. Hint hint. The believer is the Temple of the Lord, 1 Corinthians 6, 12, Ephesians 2, Hebrews and 1 John (in Greek – i.e., 1 John 1:9 uses a temple-purification word, καθαρίζω, usually mistranslated “cleansed”). And there’s a concentration of Bible believers in the Southern United States, both historically and now. Note: God ‘talks’ to people in their own language and using their own customs and values, which is why the Bible is written the way it is. Notice how this ‘anniversary’ meaning goes by western calendar standards...

• Of course, this linking of a famous believer dying (famous to God, not necessarily known to man, post-Cross) to subsequent destruction has precedents going all the way back to Methuselah (whose name meant when he died, the Flood would begin). Note the mayhem accompanying Christ’s Own Death on the Cross; before Him was (most notably) David. Like David, Moses provided for a successor God chose. But until the death occurred, you had destruction / civil war / usurpation within the people. But the pattern of destruction occurs after the person dies, if the succession is not accepted – hence, among other reasons for it, the official and future Tribulation has event precedents (Church is not accepted, so is removed).

• Meanwhile, we have Two stone Witnesses, both Dome of Rock and the Wailing Wall, mutely testifying to Daniel 9:26. Since we humans worldwide aren’t listening to the two stone witnesses, how about an anniversary of Jerusalem destruction present, especially since Bible is rife with proof that God orchestrates time based on Israel – now with the 490s based on Crucifixion anniversary and Temple destruction anniversary?

• Um, maybe the Temple destruction anniversary is a too in your face topic? Should I shy away from it? Yet how can I shy away from it, when the diaspora quality is also mirrored, with groups of the refugees of katrina (term coined by a tsunami-experienced reporter on NBC, very compassionate, very apt, shouldn’t be criticised by politicians who forced NBC’s Brian Williams to apologize on the September 8 broadcast) – with groups of the refugees of katrina, fleeing to various states within the United States? That’s exactly the outcome of the destruction of the Temple. Can we be more blind to God’s replay of the Leviticus 26, Matthew 24 warnings? It was from the Diaspora that people learned of God, as Paul so frequently explains – Paul, whom God sent in personal diaspora (in chains to Rome, as promised, Acts 15-22). Cursing turned to blessing, for all! Church wouldn’t be Church, were it not for that event...

• Bear in mind that the ‘Bible belt’ is mostly in the south of the United States, Europeans having made fun of Bible-believing “fundamentalists” for some decades. So now they can crow how the “fundamentalists” get their comeuppance. Notice, in the larger picture, how fashionable it is for European and other United States-hating journalists to piously intone against the United States for not being able to handle the disaster, as if being rich meant you were god or something so you could cope with massive disaster. Of course, they didn’t care about the Iraqis, either, deeming the United States evil for going to Iraq – as if Saddam Hussein were Mary Poppins? The ones fulfilling the Five Pillars are the Coalition Forces and the brave Iraqis who stand up to their fellow Muslims terrorizing them, not the surrounding Muslim nations, huh. Allah knows who is for him, and who is against him, says their Koran.

• Yet all we do, is bad-mouth our governments. We don’t look to God; we instead exploit disaster to gain 15 minutes of fame; to blame (thereby proving the blamers should never hold political office, not even that of dogcatcher). Yet in all the news coverage of Katrina, you see some who did look to Him; the folks who wrote on a mirror in their home that they were safe and left, ending with the verse of Hebrews 11:1 (Sin fronteras, Pedro Sevcec narrating). The many folks who took the opportunity to say God delivered them, that “material things don’t matter” – comments you hear in passing as a microphone is stuck in a face; the six Louisiana police in the Dateline piece of September 9 (post that stupid relief concert), one of whom said (with all nodding) how he talked to God all the time, now. All this, recorded for all the world to hear. Louisiana witnesses of Him, helping all to maybe believe, for a change. This life down here is not the real one, but a pregnancy period, last half of Romans 8 – playing live before all eyes. So that all can maybe turn and be healed. For God never wants anyone to perish, but to change the mind and believe, 2 Peter 3:9, John 3.

• But a few didn’t bad-mouth. Elizabeth Vargas’ comment on ABC that it was a “perfect storm” of errors, why the Feds didn’t arrive for four days – she didn’t blame anyone. John in the 60 Minutes II first piece on Katrina (September 2005), who said that things slipped through the cracks. Passim recognition that you can’t properly plan for such a disaster (hint hint, look to God, not to man for help), and by week’s end the recognition that blaming is stupid, seeps through even reporter consciousness, meaning the public itself is changing its mind toward a more positive attitude. You hear it in private conversations, too. Yet the frenzy to feed on Mike Brown of FEMA – as if the head of an organization were the only ‘employee’ of it, so must be to blame for everything. See: if we blame God but won’t admit it, we’ll substitute other authorities and blame them (to hide from ourselves our hatred of God). It’s called denial and projection, in psychology.

• Conversely, all the die-hards despite the polluted levee broken water; die-hards despite the withdrawal from Gaza. The disaster of disbelief. Yet how human. Genesis 3, playing live; Daniel 9:26c playing live with Two Stone Witnesses everyone in Israel and the world can see – yet seeing, we all still don’t see. Deaf stones, we humans. Instead, we blame and blame like Adam and the woman did, not learning anything because we keep on disbelieving. What does it take for us to recognize God lives, and who He is? Could it be easier to be permanently saved, than John 3:16? Why do we treat the Gospel like it was bad news, something unfair, singing stupid songs on all the network television channels in America for Hurricane relief on September 9, 2005 (8PM EST) claiming there shouldn’t be “one way” to God? Could we demonstrate how much we hate God more than this? See how much sense Revelation 6-19 suddenly make – all those disasters yet people criticize God for sacrificing His Son on the world’s behalf (Romans 5:6-8, John 3:16, 1 John 2:2, Titus 2:11)? No set can contain itself, so even math proves who God is. Even we believers, likewise deaf and blaming: when will we use 2 Chronicles 7:14? When will God be something rather more than a clapping or mouthing we do on Sundays, a chore like the laundry?

• Our thinking is naturally like a hurricane (“whirlwind” verses and beginning of Genesis 6, Ephesians 4:14, Proverbs 23:6, “heart of man is deceitful and desperately wicked” verse in Jeremiah or Isaiah, etc) . Windy, destructive, feeding on others. So only when we receive destruction, do we begin to wake up to our own destructiveness; and, ideally, look up for a change.. To God. All you have to do is watch daytime network television in America, to see the native destructiveness of human thinking. So disbelief is our natural disastrous state. So believing is a need we have, since we were designed to live in fellowship with God. But from Genesis 3 onward, disbelieving became the prime directive. So we are each a hurricane, running counterclockwise (against our initial design); that’s why the hardest thing you will ever ‘do’, is believe in Christ for your salvation.

• Even more impossible, once you are saved, God’s Word in you enables you to actually love (1 John 4, John 14-17, Romans 5-12, Philippians 2-3). Hence the Luke 22:15-19 principle – if you love God, you want it to ‘cost’ you. Love wants cost, can’t get enough cost, wants unending Crosses. By contrast, hatred complains about cost. So when we piously exclaim how we love God despite what it costs us (sweetly saying how we believe God, we have faith), we prove we hate Him, instead. How could God let this happen? Thinking proves hatred is operating. But so does all this I believe God claptrap. If you say you still believe in Him anyway, making an issue of your belief, then you are making an issue of yourself, not God. Making an issue of self betrays hatred, never love, 1 Corinthians 13:4ff. World is full of making an issue of itself, its racial and cultural and gender and political distinctions – making itself the god. Disaster really shows up this hatred in spades. Genesis 3 sin is self-righteousness, and self-righteousness is the fountain of all sin of any kind, anytime and anywhere – which disaster, makes plain. The blame game is all based on self-righteousness, the ultimate form of fornication (Revelation 17 harlot, underlying concept).

Post-death, every believer will be thinking like Christ in Luke 22:15ff, since we will all then be like Him (i.e., 1 John 3, 1 Corinthians 15). The one thing we will be forever grateful for, is any suffering we had down here. Do you ever look back at your childhood and laugh (or cringe) at yourself for being so babyish, so preoccupied with yourself? Well, what will you think then of your life now? Save yourself regret, God counsels. Much of the Bible is devoted to explaining how you will yourself regret not taking advantage of His Gift of His Son, namely, the verse where Christ says what gain is there if you get the world, but lose your soul? It’s not said because God is trying to lord something over you – He sees ahead, and would spare you the grief...

For then, we will see how gorgeous He really is – and will want to incur cost forever, if possible – just like those angels throwing down their crowns, in Revelation 4. God throws down Himself to God (Son, to Father, Father to Son, Spirit to Them Both and Both of Them to Him) – so if that’s how God is – which is how love is, 1 Corinthians 13:4ff – how much more, will we also think that way... forever? Look how excited Paul is about it (his drink offering verse)! So the best thing that can happen to a human being down here, is suffering. Not self-induced, not masochism, but deftly orchestrated by God, for more Divine DNA forever.

Voting for God is what counts. See, only God can build His Truth in you: that’s why your sins had to be paid for in advance on the Cross, so that putting His Truth in you can be justified. For, that’s what happened to Christ, as per Isaiah 53, so what’s to happen to us, is the same. See, if you don’t get His Truth built in you, you cannot overcome sin: Christ Himself only overcame sin via that building of Truth in Him which the Holy Spirit did to Him: John 4:23-24, and “full of grace and truth” (John 1:14). Surely you don’t think you are better than Christ, right? So what had to happen to Him, has to happen to you: exactly as promised back in eternity past, in that Isaiah contract (five infinites, amalgamated).

So all the works on the planet don’t accomplish any votes for God, but only accomplish votes for human stuff. So you gotta learn Him, not the world. So you gotta learn the word, in order to know how to vote for God, and that means living in His System. Doesn’t matter, anything else. Doesn’t matter your religion, ethnicity, sex, social status, your past or future sins. Works never atone for sins: only the cross did that, get it? Works are often evidence of sin, because works are usually done via the sin of self-righteousness, of guilt, of fear. Sin never accomplishes God’s Will, obviously; so applying sin to sin doesn’t cancel sin – but like a hurricane, strengthens sin. Satan tempts Christ to do good deeds for mankind, in Matthew 4. Check it out yourself, even in any translation you like!

So it only matters, “what think ye of Christ”. You can’t think anything of Christ if you don’t learn Him, John 4:23-24, Matthew 4:4. What He thought was... Bible. That’s why we get the Bible. To learn Him – Peter uses the deft term “ὑπογραμμός”, copybook, to designate this. Paul, of course, uses many metaphors. 1 John is wholly dedicated to this topic of learning Him. That’s the only way to vote for God, and since every believer is forever a Royal Priest to Him, voting by believers, alone matters. So, vote! Forget works – that’s Satan’s siren song, same song as Genesis 3 temptation: all the world already buys Satan’s song, so plenty of works are already being done. Works, not votes. Voting for Satan, not God. Same as Matthew 4 temptation (people vs. God, Matthew 4’s theme). Vote instead for the First Commandment, which means knowing God, which means learning God, 2 Peter 3:18. Then your learning will truly benefit people. Only God can heal the soul, theme of Romans 7. So we vote to get that thinking, and then He puts it in us. We can do absolutely nothing of ourselves, and that’s not bad news.

• So, what to do? Regroup! 1 John 1:9 and keep moving! Gotta keep thinking at God’s Level, breathing 1 John 1:9 as necessary, with whatever Bible Doctrine He put in this soul, living ever more in HIS System! Keep on keeping on (κατὰ σκοπὸν διώκω), Philippians 3:14! That is the best relief for hurricane victims, which no amount of money or good deeds can ever buy, Diamond Doctrine Facets – for all of us worldwide, indirectly!