First of all, I’m sorry I waited too long to give this to you, but it’s 11:55 p.m. somewhere in this world, like how it’ll be in Hawaii three hours from now. If you don’t read this before midnight tonight, don’t worry, you can blame me for watching Captain America: The First Avenger (2011) first. (We were going to get Alita: Battle Angel, but the DVD wasn’t released yet, so we rented Shazam! — but then Jonathan wanted to sleep, so I put in that Marvel movie instead of the other ones. I would’ve made a double feature for myself, but I wanted to write this. This was written before midnight on July 18th.)
Anyway, I’m here to give you a pretty important piece of information concerning the history of Israel, as we now see it, nearly 4,000 years later. Abraham has multiple descendants over the next three generations, and ten of them put their brother, Joseph, in the hole, sell him to slavery, and report him dead. (I’m like, “Eck! That’s really reprehensible!”) But over time, the land of Canaan suffers a famine, and Joseph liberates not only himself and his family, but everyone around him! (You can read chapters 37-50 for more details, as I won’t get to them now.) Then an evil king, who, unlike Joseph’s king in his day, enslaves the Hebrews, but then some crazy stuff happens… you can read from there through the end of Judges 16 for some more information (and on how Israel’s leadership system worked before David was born). But as for this passage, it’s found in page 8 of my NKJV Bible, page 10 of my NASB Bible, pages 16-17 of my VOICE copy, and page 17 of my Amplified Bible (Classic Edition) copy.
Most of these five verses explain Abraham’s family’s future briefly, though I added a few more details in that previous paragraph, but I once watched a video (I think it was by Perry Stone) in late 2012 after I had read this chapter when I was doing my first round of Bible notes (this and chapter one were the only chapters throughout the entire thing in which I never wrote notes for, but I did put one in the beginning, yet removed it later, as it wasn’t chronological) — I really don’t want to say it, but the man explained that based on verse 16 of this chapter, only when iniquity is full, judgment occurs. He had said the four levels were sin (missing the mark, which we all do daily though I want to do what’s right), trespass (sub-consciously going out of bounds when it comes to something we should do), transgression (violating something knowingly), and iniquity (not caring about wanting to do good but only taking pleasure in evil, and without the fear of God) — I really don’t want to say anything else about this, but these days, my heart is in great sorrow and in deep dismay, for right-wing politics is gaining too much ground, and I think those who promote those unforgivable ideas not only want to eliminate the good around them, but all across the world. Revelation 11:18 says that God will destroy those who destroy the earth, and I think that includes wiping off an entire species or ethnicity. Fortunately, though, God’s heart is not judgment. It’s not as though it has occurred yet, but there have been many episodes of retribution from Him in the past, most notably the fall of Jerusalem in 586 B.C. and the absence of any life for nearly 1,900 years — between the Second Temple’s destruction in A.D. 70 by Titus and the Romans and when Israel was restored in 1948 as a result of the Nazi regime ending just three years before.
But even so, God’s heart has always been restoration, and I don’t want to preach fire and brimstone at all, even though we’re just a few chapters before the controversial Sodom and Gomorrah account. I’m going to warn you right now: it’s not because of homosexuality that those two cities and their neighbors got destroyed. It’s not as though we should freak out about any sexual sins as much as the unholy injustices occurring all over the world (though lust is a pretty scary thing, and as a result, I won’t go to any strip clubs; I hate them so much!)
I’m going to show some people this post over the next 12 days (I won’t do that with anyone I don’t know, but if you are reading this for the first time and don’t know me, that’s ok 😊 but I still am on the fence on making my website public), and hopefully, I get some good reactions. I pray people would respond to this with the reality that good prophesies can undo the bad stuff our nation’s caused for so long. I do believe still that the U.S. is the Babylon of the 21st century, and preaching the gospel anywhere is difficult, not to mention that our country ranks 127th out of 163 nations when it comes to safety and such… you can find this information and the top 10 safest countries as of this year in this video, brought to you by General Knowledge of YouTube. (Sidenote: I found that other videos when I searched for “top 10 safest countries in the world” also have the thumbnail saying that the U.S. is not safe — we need to do better lest anyone create an even more ridiculous and unbiblical reality than the one we already have.) On the plus side, when WatchMojo.com made a top 10 video about what the Europeans consider strange about the U.S., at least that one had honorable mentions; otherwise it would’ve just been a prophetic indictment. I think it’d be pretty fun to explore other cultures firsthand! I just wish I could travel on a bargain…
If you need prayer for anything, please drop a request in ron.outland4727@gmail.com! I’ll read the e-mails (if there are any) and write them down and post them on my bedroom walls! And speaking of top 10 lists, I don’t have many ideas, but I can give some good opinions about some Mario games even though I’ve played about 20 of them (though I played Mario Kart 64 and Super Mario World until I was blue in the face). But I still want to honor Christ in everything, including any gameplay on a Nintendo console or something. Anyway, I’ll see you in less than two weeks! Ciao!
Ron And His Stories 