Joseph’s Alabaster Box

“Sticking one’s head in the sand” has long since been shown to be an unsatisfactory solution to existing problems. This is true, both spiritually and worldly.

Examining the world around us unemotionally and objectively (both same thing) usually results in a rational decision, though the decision may not be what we would like for it to be. Truth is not like smoke. It is more like a tree planted by a river.

Some say laughter is the best medicine. If that is true, then I can understand why I have lived so long. But I have found that truth is far more solubrious to the human psyche. And truth is never found in the human head (nor my dog’s). Truth is too big to be found in such a small place. Truth, like God, is bigger than the universe, for God is Truth, and He is bigger than the universe.

Fortunately for us, He has provided us with a Book of Truth. In it, we can find all the wisdom and understanding we need to survive and thrive.

If the Book needed any recommendation, I would gladly add my recommedation.

In Genesis 1:4, “. . .God saw the light, that it was good. . .”. In Genesis 1:10 “. . .God saw that it was good.” Again in 1:12 “. . .God saw that it was good.” Again in 1:18; 1:21; 1:25 “. . .God saw that it was good.” God saw the dry land and the seas and it was good; God saw the plants He had made, and it was good, God saw the sun, moon, and stars He had made, and it was good; God saw the fish, whales, birds, and physical life He had made and created, and it was good; God saw the animals on the dry land that He had made, and it was good, but when He had finished the creation, and every atom was in place, after man and woman had been created and made, verse 31 of chapter 1 says, “And God saw every thing that he had made, and behold it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day.”

The completed creation was “. . .very good. . .” – it was perfect. There was no more to be done to add to the beauty and utility of the universe. The earth was paradise. Perhaps the other eight planets were of such nature that they could have been inhabited, and that their beauty far exceeded even what they are today. Even our moon must have been more beautiful than what it is today, perhaps even inhabitable. God created nothing to stay cold and dead. Isaiah 45:18 says, “For thus saith the LORD that created the heavens; God himself that formed the earth and made it; he hath established it, he created it not in vain, he formed it to be inhabited: I am the LORD; and there is none else.” That verse doesn’t say anything about the planets, but it makes it clear that He intended for the earth to be inhabited.

If scientists found life on some other planet, that would give us a great deal to wonder about, but it should not come as a faith-shattering shock to us. We do not, and cannot know the mind of God beyond what He has revealed in His Word, and He has not revealed all His secrets. Mankind thinks he knows a great deal – and certainly he does, but how little that is compared to the whole. Man should not be puffed up in his knowledge.

Since the universe was perfect at the end of the sixth day, it should follow that there was no sin in it at that moment. Death is a result of sin. Sin and death are almost synonymous. In a universe that was very good, there could have been no death. That was the condition of the universe at the end of the sixth day – it was very good . It was perfect. There were no sin and death. There were no fossils in the crust of the earth to declare that there had been death.

Satan is the source of sin. Ezekiel spoke of this in chapter 28 and verse 15. “Thou was perfect in thy ways from the day that thou wast created, till iniquity was found in thee.” A living creature cannot be perfect without a free will, and that opens a Pndora’s Box. Sin was found in Satan when he used his free will unwisely. Since we are walking by faith, and studying about eternal matters, and things that happened long ago, we must understand that there are many places where we must lay aside knowledge, and step by faith. Like most humans, I have an insatiable appetite for knowledge, and I don’t like cracks or gaps in my knowledge. When I come upon a matter that there seems to be no explanation for, I tend to fill in the cracks with imagination. “I will meditate also of all thy work, and talk of thy doings.” (Psalm 77:12).

A very intriguing part of this is the time element. When did Satan fall, and when did God cast him out of Heaven? Jesus said that He “. . .beheld Satan as lightning fall from heaven.” (Luke 10:18). The time to place Satan’s fall was on Sunday the eighth day – the first day of the second week of Earth time. As soon as God had completed the creation, and declared it perfect, Satan lusted for power over it, and attacked God in Heaven. God cast him out, and as soon as Satan landed on Earth, he approached Eve. A problem is: Why were these two lovers separated at this time? It seems that they would have been enjoying the mother of all honeymoons so that they could not have been apart for more than a minute or two.

Eve may have been standing under the tree of knowledge of good and evil,

looking at the fruit thereon, and thinking about what her husband had told her. God had given His command to Adam concerning the tree, and Adam was responsible to instruct his wife. Paul wrote in I Corinthians chapter 14 and verse 35 concerning wives, “And if they will learn any thing, let them ask their husbands at home: for it is a shame for women to speak in the church.” As the head of the wife, the husband is her spiritual leader. He is responsible for her spiritual welfare.

Even so, we believe that Eve was not lusting for the fruit as she examined the tree of knowledge of good and evil.. She was not thinking that the Lord was cruel or mean in His command (Genesis 2:16, 17). Eve was innocent, and had not the propensity to sin until the tempter placed it in her mind. She was not holy in the true sense, but rather was innocent. She was like a little baby. When Satan spoke to her, she did not show any embarrassment that she was without clothes. She had no embarrassment in the presence of the Lord Christ, even though she had no clothes. Still, she had something in her being that would make it possible and pleasant to conceive and bare children, for the Lord had told them before they fell to reproduce. All temptations are the fiery darts of the devil.

Where ever Eve was, and whatever she was doing, when the serpent approached her, she was not alarmed. Satan had taken possession of a consenting serpent. The serpent walked upright when he was created. If he was not bipedal, then certainly he went on four legs as the most graceful of animals. The relationship between Satan and this serpent is cloaked in mystery, but there are some things we might reasonably assume on the basis of what we know from the Word of God. First of all, the serpent was a willing servant of Satan. It is true, as far as we can know, that animals have a divinely-given free will. The serpent is the only animal that has ever sinned again God. We know the serpent had a free will because God cursed its decision to be used by Satan. God cursed the serpent and all its descendants with an everlasting curse because of its involvement in the downfall of humanity. That curse is recorded in Genesis 3:14. “And the LORD God said unto the serpent, Because thou hast done this, thou art cursed above all cattle, and above every beast of the field; upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of they life:”.

This part of the curse is only on the serpent – the animal that loaned its body to Satan. The next verse, verse 15, of course, is the great first Messianic verse, and the curse in that verse is on Satan himself. We are not told that the two verses are directed to two different individuals. In fact, the two verses (14, 15) are joined by the word “and.” Evidently, God is speaking to Satan as he still resided in the serpent’s body. Verse 15 says, “And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.” Verse number 14 is the curse upon the serpent, and verse 15 the curse upon Satan, but the two verses constitute one single sentence.

The serpent was subtle, according to our text verse. Let’s read it. “Now the serpent was more subtle than any beast of the field, which the LORD God had made. And he said unto the woman, “Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?” Satan is not a dirty, crude, dumbbell. Notice what Paul said about him in II Corinthians 11:13, 14, “For such are false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into the apostles of Christ. And no marvel: for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light.” Folks, it is scary to know that Satan and his emissaries are well-to-do, educated, gracious, liberal, positive, optimistic (scientists?). How can those who bear the truth compete with such as that? How can a poor mother with no more than a high school diploma, working as a cook in a restaurant, tell her college- attending daughter that her professors with their high salaries and college degrees and prestige, are dead wrong about the origin of the universe? Parents must pray for great wisdom to defend their children against this heinous philosophy.

The world has a concept of Satan as a harmless old drunk who just wants to party and make people happy. Satan is not omnipresent, however, and he attends few parties. Satan is busy accusing the brethren in Heaven (Revelation 12:10). He has a horde of demonic followers who do the work of tormenting individual humans. When the devil is on Earth, he is most likely in Salt Lake City, or Rome, or Mecca. The Bible tells us that his seat (throne) was in Pergamos when Pergamos was an important religious center (Revelation 2:13). Satan is God’s enemy, and therefore man’s enemy. He does not know the future, but God, Who does, tells us that Satan will spend eternity in Hell.

This brings to our attention another question. When was Hell made, or prepared? And where is it? The last question first. There is a passage in Ephesians that answers that question: “Wherefore he saith, When he ascended up on high, he led captivity captive, and gave gifts unto men. 9 (Now that he ascended, what is it but that he also descended first into the lower parts of the earth? 10 He that descended is the same also that ascended up far above all heavens, that he might fill all things.) (Ephesian 4:9-11).

Hell is in the lower parts of the earth. Satan has never been there, but God will some day cast him there, and then cast the whole she-bang into the lake of fire.

But when was it created? We must assume. It seems reasonable to assume that it was prepared on the day that Satan became Satan. It certainly was not created during the creation week. How could the universe be perfect with a Hell in it? It was not needed until there was sin to punish.Please take note of Matthew 25:41 “Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels:”. Hell was not prepared for man, but it was prepared for the devil and his angels, and it was prepared when it was needed – when Satan sinned.

Do you think we are getting more politically correct all the time? Bill asked his guest. His guest agreed that we are.

Bill asked his guest why we are getting more politically correct all the time. The guest gave some sort of politically correct answer. Truth is, he didn’t know. And I didn’t either until I went to bed, and thought about it. The answer is quite simple. Man love darkness rather than light. Man love lies better then truth. Truth often requires superhuman strength that only the Holy Spirit can provide. Fortunately, anybody can have this strength – even me. It makes a person joyously reckless. Millions of martyrs have died in ecstasy because they loved truth rather than lies. They have been (and are being) boiled in oil, burned at the stake, tortured to death, shot, stabbed, strangled, drowned in wine. All for the sake of truth. You can kill me if you choose, but “I will tell the truth” was their daily bread.

Let me give you a couple of examples of political correctness. Since I am a half-baked homophobe (half-baked because I don’t hate sodomites) I will begin with sodomy. We are introduced to sodomy in Genesis chapter 9. When Noah woke up, and “… knew what his younger son had done unto him. And he said, Cursed be Canaan: a servant of servants shall he be unto his brethren.” Wow! There’s an oil tanker load of history in those two verses, but there’s hardly a pickup truck load of people who will believe it. What did Canaan do to his sleeping (drunken) daddy? Well, read the chapter, and you’ll know.

The next time we meet up with sodomites is in Genesis 19. Two angels came to, you guessed it, Sodom. They entered into Lot’s house. That night the men of the city came to the house demanding that Lot put the two men out so they could “know them.” (verse 5). Now we know what “know them” means because in Genesis 4:1 we are told that Adam “knew Eve” his wife, and she conceived. The sodomites were prepared to break into Lot’s house, and take the angels (men) by force. Note two things: they were violent, verse 9, and they were fearful of being judged, verse 9.

Sodomites are not so violent as they were a few years ago. They attacked churches, and government officials. They went all out to infect the public with AIDs to gain federal (that is to say “our”) money for research. Now it seems that they have cooled it because they learned that violence gives you a bad name. They are not only violent, but they incite violence, as in the killing of Harvey Milk in 1978. Their violence is seen in their willingness to force their agenda upon others. California has just passed a law giving a day to honor Harvey Milk. This law requires school children to attend school that day even if the parents object to having their youngsters subjected to all the sodomite programs that will be forced on them that day. Where is freedom to choose? If a woman has freedom to choose to kill her baby, surely, parents would have the freedom to choose whether their children should hear or see something?

Sodomites resent being judged, as anybody else does. But we must realize that everyone is judged. We can’t decide what sort of character a person is if we don’t judge him, and we don’t know how to interact with a person if we don’t know him. Judgments are often unfair and false, being made by unfair and false people. But if we are right, we shouldn’t mind honest evaluation. The sodomite can avoid judgment by keeping his private life and behavior to himself. If I told folks what I do in the bedroom, I would be judged for that, and I could expect to be. There is a basis for judging, and it has just been quoted. The Bible, as a book of absolutes and truths, can be relied upon to inform us about just about any subject. The Bible is God’s Word whether you believe it or not. And like all other things available to us, it can be used for good or bad, depending on whether you choose to accept it or twist it to mean what you want it to mean. For those who wish to twist it, God has provided in it enough rope for them to hang themselves.

Like Margaret Sanger, who changed the name of her institution, the American Birth Control League, when it became too associated with the German Third Reich (the Nazi Party), sodomites changed their name because “sodomites” described all of what I have just discussed. (Sanger changed the name to Planned Parenthood.) Sodomite behavior is so disgusting, filthy, abnormal, perverted, learned, and unhealthy that they couldn’t live with that label any longer. When they became “honosexuals,” nothing was changed. The good-looking, prosperous guys in business suits were still sodomites. What a shame a man can’t change himself by changing his name. That important congressman is still a sodomite. Why can’t sodomites just keep their mouths shut, and live their life like the rest of us? Why can’t he stay in the sexual closet like the rest of us do?

Sodomy is so vile because it turns upside down the second greatest pleasure God gave to man when He created him. God created two models of humans. One model was built to love and protect, the other was made to bear babies and nourish them. They were built to reproduce their kind, and to enjoy each other. They are the only creatures I know of on Earth that engage in reproductive activity face to face. God created man and woman to love each other sexually face to face, and just as “Dead flies cause the ointment of the apothecary to send forth a stinking savour: …” so reversing the order God created causes human sexuality to stink.

It’s just not nice to call anybody a sodomite any more, they say. In fact, you could get your home bombed, or you could get slapped with a serious lawsuit if you do. You could face a federal judge, accused of a “hate crime.” But not to worry. You won’t be martyred at this point in time for telling the truth.

Always refer to terrorist bombers as “radical Muslims.” You would not want to insinuate that Muslims would do such a thing. If I understand the definition of “radical” correctly, I am glad to be called a radical Baptist! I am also a fundamental Baptist, and a liberal Baptist. Just as I respect a radical Baptist more than an ordinary Baptist, I respect a radical Muslim more than an ordinary Muslim. Just as the radical Muslim’s faith is all important to him, my faith is all important to me. I respect him because he is real, genuine, just as I work hard to be real, genuine.

The Muslim religion is wrong, dead wrong. With that fact firmly fixed in my mind, I have a desire to convince Muslims that they are wrong. My church spends a great deal of money making information available to the Muslim world that would convince any thinking Muslim that his religion is wrong. Can you love a person, and hate his habits or beliefs? If your child had a virus, would you love the virus just because your child had it? It should be noted that the religious leadership of Islam is the force behind the “holy war” that is killing so many. It should be noted that when 911 occurred, the Muslim world celebrated. Drop the word “radical” from the politically correct phrase, and tell the truth. It was Muslims that bombed the World Trade Center. Mohammed told them to. “Profiling?” I wouldn’t get on an air plane with an Arab if I could help it.

Man hates truth today as he always has. He believed a lie in the beginning, and he has been believing lies ever since. Truth in American society is almost nonexistent today. You don’t dare believe a politician. School teachers are required in most places to teach evolution which you don’t dare believe. Scientists have been repeatedly caught in lies. Television will tell you anything to get you to buy something you don’t need. Preachers lie when they don’t tell their people that Jesus Christ is Lord. We live in a matrix of falsehood. The Church, and I’m not referring to the Catholic Church, has led the way to this situation by it steady adoption of the entertainment and methods of the world, and modern culture. Instead of being the solid rock of truth we should have been, we’ve fallen in love with the allurements of the world. Television has made our people so short of attention span that the average Saint can’t bear the burden of a thirty minute sermon, even a good one, without a commercial break.

Remember, the best answer to any question is the truth.

When America began its wholesale rejection of biblical truth, it began to adopt a culture of lies, and this has spawned the widespread use of political correctness. Political correctness attempts to hide the true character of people, things, or events. Political correctness does not change anything to the better. It doesn’t change all people’s perception of others. When preachers adopt political correct speech, they weaken their message, and God is not pleased with that. Political correctness stifles honest, forthright speech, and encourages make-believe language.

I am sure I will be thought of as a right wing nut by most people. For those folks, I invite them to write to me, and tell me where I have said a dishonest thing. I’m am not the best writer in the town, but my desire to be honest is absolute. Tell me, if I’m wrong. Correct me, or believe me – and Jesus.

Let’s read Genesis 1:20-23: “And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven.” 21 “And God created great whales, and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind: and God saw that it was good.” 22 “And God blessed them, saying, Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let fowl multiply in the earth.” 23 “And the evening and the morning were the fifth day.”

Man is diving deeper and deeper into the seas, and it is interesting to think what they might find down there. There is a vast fortune in the seas. Great numbers of ships have gone down all through the ages, taking treasures to the bottom. Man has been to the moon, but there are many places in the seas where man has not been. In the March ’96 edition of the Reader’s Digest there is an interesting article on modern deep sea exploration titled “Voyage to the Last Frontier.”1 According to the article, there are riches awaiting the persons who can go into the deepest regions of the oceans. There are vast quantities of minerals and chemicals as well as the notoriety of being a deep sea explorer. Scientists were surprised when they discovered living creatures around hydrothermal vents deep in ocean trenches. They found bacteria; 30-inch long worms; big clams; mussels, and a “strange pink-skinned, blue-eyed fish.”1 They figured that creatures living without plant life, must be living on chemicals. They are chemosynthetic rather than photosynthetic. Their energy is derived from chemicals rather than sunlight. When something like this is discovered, you can depend on evolutionists jumping on it to claim that that may have been the way the first life on Earth appeared. Evolution is a secular religion, using science as a cloak of deception.

It is amazing that these creatures can live in total darkness, and withstand enormous pressures. Truly, God created some marvelous things. These creatures found at great depths in the sea are strange-looking things, with odd-shaped bodies, and huge jawbones full of needle sharp teeth. God created every animal to live in a particular place for a particular purpose, but many animals had to adapt to new environments in the sea when it became salty (supposing it had been created fresh water), and much deeper than when it was first made. Research should be directed at finding out as much about these creatures as we afford for the benefit of the creatures as well as for man, but research to discover how life began is silly. True scientific research can produce many beneficial results, because of God’s mercy to man, but it will never reveal how life began. Such research as that will be only a curse to man. Evolution contributes nothing of value to science or humankind.

The first thing God did on the fifth day was to command the waters to bring forth many moving creatures that have life. Swarms of swarms it could be said. Not just two of each kind, but multitudes of them. Think of how many creatures can live in 320 million cubic miles of water! Every creature in the oceans was created to eat plant life just as the creatures on the earth. There is no way to know what sorts of plants the creatures would eat, but we know that today there are great numbers of plants in the oceans besides the tiny plankton that are the bottom of the food chain. Great whales live on tiny shrimp exclusively, and other enormous creatures live solely on plankton.

Then God made the birds, the fowl spoken of in verse 21. I am glad I have been able to see films of so many different sorts of birds. What a privilege it is to live in a world where we have the technology to bless us with much knowledge. When I see the huge beaks on some birds, every one of which could have been used to eat fruit, I am not impressed as Darwin was, to think about how the evolved. I am impressed to think of what engineering skill was required to design such things. Pelicans, toucans, storks, and other birds have great beaks that would be unwieldy if they were not so perfectly designed and made. Evolutionists who claim that birds evolved from reptiles are as foolish as one who would say that a junk car could be driven until it became brand new. Feathers don’t even look like scales, let alone give enough evidence to believe that scales turned into feathers over millions of years of evolution. A feather is so intricate, so perfectly made for flying, that it is preposterous to say such things as feathers evolved from scales, or anything else. What an insult to people’s intelligence. The problem is not that people say such foolish things – the problem is that people believe them. People believe what makes them comfortable. That is why God gives us the faith to believe in Jesus Christ as Savior.

One of the creatures the Creator commanded the waters to bring forth was the Coelacanth (see’ la canth). Evolutionists declared this creature to be a transitional form, and it was pronounced as being extinct for 50 million years . Then in l938 a live one was taken in a fisherman’s net off the coast of Madagascar. More have been taken since then. There is no explanation from evolution philosophers as to how this creature could remain completely unchanged for 50 million years while all around it creatures were evolving.

The diversity of creatures in the oceans defies the imagination. The particular manner of life of these different creatures makes the evolutionist appear silly when his claims are examined objectively. Only an omniscient Creator with unlimited imagination could produce such a vast array of creatures.

These water creatures are the first things the Bible mentions as living things. In verse 20 he says “. . .that hath life. . . .” Here is the second thing God created – physical life.

The material for the bodies of these creatures existed from day one when God created all the matter in the universe, and He brings part of it together to form the bodies of these creatures, and creates physical life to make them live. Christ, the great Giver of life, Christ, the lover of life, He created life. How do you, explain life, evolution philosopher? A lightning bolt? You can’t be

serious. How silly can you get? God is the Source and Giver of life. Isn’t it marvelous that the writer of the book of Genesis knew that whales breathe air like land dwelling creatures? Whales have the breath of life. The breath of life is the soul. Some folks just can’t seem to bring themselves to believe that animals have a soul, but it is so. How can we know what animals have or don’t have, or what they think or don’t think, except their Creator tell us? Animals have “… the breath of life …” according to Genesis 6:17.

Fish and other sea creatures are not said to have the breath of life, and may or may not have a soul. All of the souls of all the animals on Earth living or dead are not worth the soul of one human being. Christ Jesus made that clear when he said that a human soul is worth more than the world, and that evidently included the animal kingdom. Listen to Him carefully: “For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?”

If only the sinner could understand what his soul is. A man’s soul is the breath of life that Christ breathed into him, and it will never die. What a horrible thing to think of the breath of God going to hell! Do you understand how precious the breath of God is? You may think you are not worth much because you are not handsome or pretty. You may think you are not worth much because you sweep floors for a living, or cook hamburgers at a hamburger store. You may think you are not worth much because you are not young or healthy. You may think you are not much because you are the only member of your family who didn’t make it big in life. There are millions of reasons why you may not think you are not worth much. But hear this if you never hear anything else: you are precious to Jesus Christ. To Jesus Christ, you are worth as much as His own blood. You are worth as much to Him as His own life. You are worth as much to Him as this world.

All of our sins: past, present, and future, are all forgiven and forgotten by the Judge of all the earth. There are sins that man can not forgive, but not so with God. Man’s prejudices are such that he cannot bring himself to forgive certain sins that he feels are beyond restoration, but not so with God.

1. Michael D. Lemonick, “Voyage to the Last Frontier,” The Reader’s Digest, March 1996),

_______

2. Ibid., p. 85

All of the matter appearing on this site is copyrighted by Joseph Kennedy in books of various sorts. I am always careful to give credit to others if I uses their work. The material on this site may be used by anyone, but I would like to be given credit for what I write. that goes especially for my poems. I have this problem with vanity for some unknow reason, and I pray often about it, but I feel I am not being unreasonable to make this request. Thanks.