A New Creature. . . an Apostolic Pentecostal blog

Reading the Bible today about the New Jerusalem talked about in Revelation chapter 21, and how large it will be.  I looked and looked, and could not find anything, so I spent a couple of hours drawing up a CAD model of the United States, and then drawing the city of New Jerusalem to scale, and placed that model on the United States.  The picture is below. Revelation 21:9-25 (NKJV) Then one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls filled with the seven last plagues came to me and talked with me, saying, "Come, I will show you the bride, the Lamb's wife." 10 And he carried me away in the Spirit to a great and high mountain, and showed me the great city, the holy Jerusalem, descending out of heaven from God, 11 having the glory of God. Her light was like a most precious stone, like a jasper stone, clear as crystal. 12 Also she had a great and high wall with twelve gates, and twelve angels at the gates, and names written on them, which are the names of the twelve tribes of...

 Jackie and I's lives are full of dogs.  We have four.  We call them our fur-kids, and that is indeed what they are.  Our children are grown, and have their own lives.  We treasure our grandchildren, but weeks go by without our seeing them.   After a lifetime of raising kids, our dogs fill a role formerly held by our children.  As Sarah, our goldendoodle rescue lay on my lap this afternoon, it dawns on me how my relationship with my dogs, in some ways mirrors God's relationship with us. Our dogs can do nothing for us.  Some dogs are service dog, or guard dogs, or herding dogs, which perform important functions for their humans.  The only things our dogs do is love us, and if I might say, they worship us.  They are in great despair when we leave, and mightily celebrate when we return. They want to be near us, and keep us in sight no matter where we are in the house. . . kitchen, bedroom, and yes even the toilet. . . if we are th...

Coming back from Canada yesterday, I listened to Ecclesiastes on my audio Bible app.   Written by the richest man, in all likelihood the world has ever known.  From a Google search "Wealth of Solomon in today's dollars: King Solomon's total net worth is estimated by economic historians to be between $2 trillion and $3 trillion in today's U.S. dollars. I don't know that we've yet had our first official trillionaire?  In a melancholy mood he writes this book of perspective on his life, of the fruitlessness of all his life's work and efforts. I think to my own life, mirrored in the engineers who trained me. . . Jim Tweedy, Frank Whitmyer, Charlie Carlton. . . giants of their day, but with my passing no one will have any memory of their names, and their huge contributions to the workholding field. . . Now only digitized signatures of long gone paper drawings. . . rarely viewed. . . all vanity as the preacher said so eloquently.  Their earthly works, all fading ...

It's been on my mind for a couple of days, to do a study on Bible names.  Very often in the Bible names are so significant.  It's not a task that I will ever finish. It would take years to study every name in the Bible, but my mind needs the focus of this task right now. The first name of a person in the Bible, is 'Adam'.  Found in this passage: Genesis 2:19 (KJV) And out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air; and brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them: and whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof. But in the Hebrew the same word is used for 'Adam', and for 'man'.  Strong's Hebrew dictionary assigns two different numbers to the two meanings: H120 = man - 541 occurrences H121 = Adam - 21 occurrences The first occurence of H120 is here: Genesis 1:26 (KJV) And God said, Let us make MAN in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish o...

I've used the following several times  in my teaching in church on the awesomeness, and incomprehensibility of God and God's creation: Many years ago now they pointed the Hubble telescope at the darkest emptiest patch of sky that they knew of.  In that area of 'nothing there' sky, the Hubble telescope found 50,000 galaxies in an area about the size of the full moon.  Each galaxy containing billions of stars.  Multiply that by the 129,600 full moons it would take to cover the entire sky. . . beyond amazing. . .  Yesterday I read where they had performed the same exercise with the Webb telescope. . . .pointed it at the darkest patch of sky they could find. . . The Webb telescope saw 25,000 galaxies in an area the size of a grain of sand held at arm's length. . . How many grains of sand at arm's length does it take to cover the sky. . . beyond my puny mind's ability to calculate. . . AND. . . these are merely the galaxies that we can see with our infantile tech...

Working on my notes for our Wednesday morning Bible study, Matthew chapter 15. I was struck by this passage: Matthew 15:15 (NKJV) Then Peter answered and said to Him, "Explain this parable to us." 16 So Jesus said, "Are you also still without understanding? 17 Do you not yet understand that whatever enters the mouth goes into the stomach and is eliminated? There is a natural process of intake, digestion, and elimination for physical food.  That which is nutritious is retained.  That which is indigestible is passed through and eliminated. Matthew 15:18 (NKJV) But those things which proceed out of the mouth come from the heart, and they defile a man.19 For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies. 20 These are the things which defile a man, but to eat with unwashed hands does not defile a man." Things taken in by our ears, and eyes have no similar process of elimination.  They are retained, and becom...