God's Image and Traits

Abraham spoke with God (Gen 12, etc.). Jacob, his grandson, met God “face-to-face. “And Jacob called the name of the place Peniel: for I have seen God face to face, and my life is preserved” (Gen 32:30). So did Moses. “And the LORD spake unto Moses face to face, as a man speaketh unto his friend.” (Ex 33:11a).

Anthropomorphic.

The Scriptures frequently portray God as anthropomorphic -- having the physical figure, facial features, and appendages (sometimes used figuratively) of a human being.

He has a head with hair (“the hair of his head like the pure wool” -- Dan 7:9b); eyes and ears (“Now mine eyes shall be open, and mine ears attent unto the prayer that is made in this place” -- 2 Chron 7:15; 1 Pet 3:12); a nose with nostrils (“These are a smoke in my nose, a fire that burneth all the day” -- Isa 65:5b; Ex 15:8); a mouth with lips (“he shall smite the earth with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips shall he slay the wicked” -- Isa 11:4b).

God has a torso with shoulders (“the LORD shall cover him all the day long, and he shall dwell between his shoulders” -- Deut 33:12b); a back (“And I will take away mine hand, and thou shalt see my back parts: but my face shall not be seen” -- Ex 33:23); a behind to sit upon (“I beheld till the thrones were cast down, and the Ancient of days did sit” -- Dan 7:9a).

He has arms (“with a stretched out arm, and with fury poured out, will I rule over you” -- Ezek 20:33b); hands (“I will put thee in a clift of the rock, and will cover thee with my hand while I pass by” -- Ex 33:22b); fingers (“two tables of testimony, tables of stone, written with the finger of God” -- Ex 31:18b); legs to walk with (“And they heard the voice of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day” --Gen 3:8); feet (“the place of my throne, and the place of the soles of my feet, where I will dwell in the midst of the children of Israel for ever” --Ezek 43:7a).

God in human form seems to feel discomfort under the heat of the sun and get hungry as well. “And he took butter, and milk, and the calf which he had dressed, and set it before them (Elohim); and he stood by them under the tree, and they did eat (Gen 18:8).

Human emotions.

The LORD likewise displays the wide spectrum of human emotions. He can have positive feelings, like satisfaction (“And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good” -- Gen 1:31); love (“the LORD thy God turned the curse into a blessing unto thee, because the LORD thy God loved thee” -- Deut 23:5b); amusement (“I also will laugh at your calamity” -- Prov 1:26a); pity (“Like as a father pitieth his children, so the LORD pitieth them that fear him” -- Ps 103:13); mercy (“The LORD is gracious, and full of compassion; slow to anger, and of great mercy” -- Ps 145:8).

On the other hand, God can also be filled with negative emotions, such as sadness and disappointment (“And it repented the LORD that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart” -- Gen 6:6); anger (“And my wrath shall wax hot, and I will kill you with the sword; and your wives shall be widows, and your children fatherless” --Ex 22:24); hatred (“I hate, I despise your feast days, and I will not smell in your solemn assemblies” -- Amos 5:21); spite (“I will mock when your fear cometh” -- Prov 1:26b).

The LORD can also feel regret and change His mind (“And the LORD said, I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth; both man, and beast, and the creeping thing, and the fowls of the air; for it repenteth me that I have made them” -- Gen 6:7).

Based on these verses, it seems as though God is no different from any ordinary man!

The LORD’s proxy

Despite the preceding descriptions of God, the Bible tells us that nobody has seen or heard God at any time at all! To begin with, God, being spirit, is invisible: “Who is the image of the invisible God…” (Col 1:15a). Moses reminded the Israelites: “And the LORD spake unto you out of the midst of the fire: ye heard the voice of the words, but saw no similitude; only ye heard a voice” (Deut 4:12).

Christ says it could not have been God Himself: “And the Father himself, which hath sent me, hath borne witness of me. Ye have neither heard his voice at any time, nor seen his shape” (John 5:37). The apostle John teaches the same truth. “No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him” (John 1:18). Paul confirms it: “…God, the blessed and only Ruler, the King of kings and Lord of lords, who alone is immortal and who lives in unapproachable light, whom no one has seen or can see” (1 Tim 6:15b-16, NIV). Who, then, did Abraham, Jacob, and Moses speak with “face-to-face”?

Aggelos, the messenger.

Let us go over one passage wherein Abraham met God in person. “And the LORD appeared unto him in the plains of Mamre: and he sat in the tent door in the heat of the day; And he lift up his eyes and looked, and, lo, three men stood by him: and when he saw them, he ran to meet them from the tent door, and bowed himself toward the ground. And said, My Lord, if now I have found favour in thy sight, pass not away, I pray thee, from thy servant” (Gen 18:1-3).

God once appeared to Abraham as three men. The word in the original Hebrew Scriptures most frequently translated “God” is elohim, meaning “gods” (singular, el or eloah, “god”). Some Bible teachers interpret elohim as the three persons of the “Trinity.” But, usually, when the term Elohim is used to refer to God, it is said to be used as a plural of magnitude and majesty. When used in reference to angels, elohim truly means the plural form – more than one.

Now, consider the meeting between God and Moses. “And the angel of the LORD appeared unto him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush: and he looked, and, behold, the bush burned with fire, and the bush was not consumed. And Moses said, I will now turn aside, and see this great sight, why the bush is not burnt. And when the LORD saw that he turned aside to see, God called unto him out of the midst of the bush, and said, Moses, Moses. And he said, Here am I” (Ex 3:2-4). Note that, first, the “angel of the Lord” appeared to Moses from the middle of a burning bush. Then, we read it was the LORD Himself. Next, it was God who called to Moses from the bush. The terms “angel of the Lord,” “the LORD,” and “God” are used interchangeably. We get the impression that all three are one and the same!

An “angel of the LORD” also appeared to Manoah, Samson’s father-to-be. “But the angel of the LORD did no more appear to Manoah and to his wife. Then Manoah knew that he was an angel of the LORD. And Manoah said unto his wife, We shall surely die, because we have seen God” (Judg 13:21-22). The connection between the “angel of the LORD” and “God” is borne out clearly. Manoah knew that it was the “angel of the Lord,” and yet he referred to the angel as “God” Himself! 

The God whom Abraham, Jacob, Moses, Manoah, and even Adam and Eve conversed with was not the Ein Sof or “Infinite Nothngness,” but the “angel of the LORD” – His alter-ego, proxy, representative, or emissary. (The English word “angel” comes from the Greek aggelos, which means “messenger.”) The angel is also called “the LORD” by God’s authority. “Behold, I send an Angel before thee, to keep thee in the way, and to bring thee into the place which I have prepared. Beware of him, and obey his voice, provoke him not; for he will not pardon your transgressions: for my name is in him” (Ex 23:20-21). Similarly, as a country’s president today is addressed as “Excellency,” his or her ambassadors are also called “Excellency.”

When God destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah, there were two entities called “the LORD.” “Then the LORD rained upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the LORD out of heaven” (Gen 19:24). One called “the LORD” in the sky near the earth rained on the two cities fire and brimstone coming from another one also called “the LORD” higher up in heaven!

Author David Allen Deal (The Mystic Symbol) wrote: “The lesser YHWH (angel of the LORD), also called ‘Metatron’ in the Book of Enoch, is also well-attested to among the Jewish rabbinical sources. He is called the ‘lesser YHWH,’ and the use of the term acknowledges the existence of a greater YHWH, the Father, who is above all.”⁵⁶

The God with whom Abraham, Jacob, Moses, Manoah, even Adam and Eve, and the other blessed Biblical men had dealings and spoke “face-to-face” was the angel of the LORD.

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⁵⁶David Allen Deal, The Mystic Symbol, p. 169; quoted in Ancient American; cited in Indian Sabbath Trail tract

(Excerpted from Chapter 1, Mysteries of Our Maker, THE DEEP THINGS OF GOD: A Primer on the Secrets of Heaven and Earth by M.M. Tauson, Amazon.com)

God, the Omnipotent

God’s powers are truly awesome to His creatures. “And I heard as it were the voice of a great multitude, and as the voice of many waters, and as the voice of mighty thunderings, saying, Alleluia: for the Lord God omnipotent reigneth” (Rev 19:6). God is all-powerful. “Is any thing too hard for the LORD?” (Gen 18:14). The answer is obvious. “Ah Lord GOD! behold, thou hast made the heaven and the earth by thy great power and stretched out arm, and there is nothing too hard for thee” (Jer 32:17).

Manifested in “miracles.”

God often manifests His power to men in miracles – extraordinary, supernatural phenomena that seem improbable or even impossible to the human mind. In Scripture, they are called “signs and wonders.” Men’s unbelief is one reason why God performs miracles. “’Unless you people see miraculous signs and wonders,’ Jesus told him, ’you will never believe’" (John 4:48, NIV).

Some of the most spectacular miracles recorded in the Bible are those God did before and after the Israelites’ Exodus from Egypt, as well as some which interfered with the natural movement of the sun.

The 10 plagues of Egypt. God inflicted ten successive ordeals on Egypt when Pharaoh obstinately refused to let the Israelites go: (1) The waters of the Nile River turned into blood (Ex 7:14-25). (2) Frogs covered the land of Egypt (Ex 8:1-14). (3) Lice formed from the dust and infested both men and animals (Ex 8:16-19). (4) Flies swarmed into all the houses of the Egyptians (Ex 8:20-31). (5) A plague killed all the livestock in Egypt, except those of the Israelites (Ex 9:1-7). (6) A pandemic of boils afflicted all the Egyptians and their animals (Ex 9:8-11). (7) Hail and fire rained down over all Egypt (except Goshen, where the Israelites lived), killing all men and animals out in the field (Ex 9:13-26). (8) Locusts covered the whole of Egypt and devoured all green vegetation and fruits on trees (Ex 10:3-6,12-19). (9) Darkness blanketed Egypt for three days, but the Israelites had light in their dwellings (Ex 10:22-23). (10) All the firstborn of the Egyptians and their animals died (Ex 11:1-7,12:12-13,29-31).

Miracles in the wilderness. (1) The parting of the Red Sea by an east wind that blew all night, enabling the Israelites to walk across to safety from their Egyptian pursuers (Ex 14). (2) The provision of quail in the evening of the day the LORD promised to give them bread and meat (Ex 16:6-13), and when they longed for Egyptian food the LORD sent them a whole month’s supply of quail (Num 11:4-32). (3) The daily supply of manna (“bread from heaven”) that appeared on the ground daily for forty years (Ex 16). (4) Water from the rock in Horeb that Moses struck with his staff (Ex 17:1-6).

Miracles with the sun. (1) The sun stood still when Joshua asked the LORD to stop the sun until they would have defeated the Amorites (Josh 10:12-14). (2) The shadow moved back ten degrees on the sundial, the sign King Hezekiah had asked for to confirm that the LORD had truly healed him and added fifteen years to his life (2 Kings 20:8-11). (3) Darkness at noon over the whole land as Christ hung dying on the cross, from 12:00 noon until 3:00 in the afternoon (Luke 23:44-45).

Some miracles explained?

Unbelievers in ancient times tried to dismiss God’s miracles as the works of magic or evil spirits.⁴⁰ In our modern day scholars offer reasons, scientific or otherwise, to explain many Biblical miracles.

The ten plagues. The Nile’s turning into blood is said to be a natural effect of its annual flooding, with the water first turning green, then yellow, then ochre red starting around the 25^th of June due to the proliferation of algae and other microorganisms, similar to “Red Tide” today. Frogs subsequently multiply in September. An infestation by flies and outbreak of animal plague supposedly often follow in December. So do a purported epidemic of boils, hailstones, a locust invasion, and darkness caused by fine sand blown by the southwest wind from the desert, filling the atmosphere.⁴¹ Hence, Egypt’s magicians were able to imitate the first two miracles of turning water into “blood” and causing frogs to appear (Ex 7:22; 8:7).

In contrast, the feats of Moses were undeniably miraculous in the suddenness of the change in the river and the over-abundance of the frogs. Trying to mimic the third miracle, the magicians were unable to turn dust into lice (or gnats), (Ex 8:18). It is doubtful if they even attempted to copy Moses’s acts of bringing on swarms of flies, the animal plague, and the boil epidemic, from which they themselves terribly suffered (Ex 9:11), but not the Israelites. The hailstorm and locust invasion could not have been normal recurrences as they were said to be the worst ever in Egypt (Ex 9:24; 10:14). Lastly, the death of all the firstborn of both men and animals in Egypt, except those of Israel, has no parallel in human history. Can these be called anything other than miracles of God?

The Red Sea divided. The “Red Sea” that the LORD parted to let the Israelites escape from the Egyptians is in the Hebrew original Yam Suf, which means “Reed Sea” or “Sea of Reeds.” It was at the northern end of the Red Sea, where no reeds grow. Centuries after the Exodus, canal-building by pharaohs trying to link the Nile delta and the Red Sea drained the Reed Sea, leaving only marshes called Bitter Lakes. In 280 B.C., Jewish scholars translating the Hebrew Scriptures into the Greek Septuagint rendered “Reed Sea,” which no longer existed, as Erythra Thalassa (“Red Sea”). In 300 A.D. Jerome had the name Mare Rubrum (“Red Sea”) in his Latin Bible, the Vulgate. Martin Luther correctly translated Yam Suf as Schilfmeer (“Reed Sea”) in his German version of the Old Testament in 1534.

In short, the sea the LORD parted “with a strong east wind all that night” (Ex 14:21) and the Israelites crossed on foot was not the Red Sea, which has an average depth of 1,765 feet, but the shallow Sea of Reeds. Does that make the event a non-miracle? Absolutely not. Just the same, the shallow Reed Sea posed an impassable barrier to the Israelites.

In a computer-aided study, calculations by Nathan Paldor and Doron Nof of the American Meteorological Society showed that a wind blowing at 40-45 miles per hour for 10 hours would reduce the level of a shallow body of water by 10 feet.⁴² “Such heaping up of the waters by the wind is well known and sometimes amounts to 7 or 8 ft. in Lake Erie (Wright, Scientific Confirmations of the Old Testament, 106).”⁴³ That would have been enough to let the Israelites cross the sea and later drown the Egyptians and their horses weighed down by war implements. The miracle was, how did that east wind happen to blow with just the needed strength, at the right place, in the right direction, all night?

The provision of quail. The quail that fell on the Israelite camp were birds residing in or passing through Egypt and the Holy Land on their migrations northward in March and southward in September.⁴⁴ With strong wing muscles, quail can fly rapidly for a short time. When migrating, they spread their wings for the wind to carry them along.⁴⁵ The southeast wind blew the quail over the Red Sea,⁴⁶ across the mouth of the Gulf of Aqaba and Suez, and on to the Sinai peninsula. On their way north, they passed over narrow portions of the sea, but arrived so exhausted they could easily be caught by hand.⁴⁷

It was not a miracle if Moses knew about the annual migration and encamped in the birds’ path. What was truly miraculous was the number of the birds. God gave around two million Israelites enough quail to eat for a month! Can you imagine how many birds that was? The quails fell “by the camp, as it were a day's journey on this side, and as it were a day's journey on the other side, round about the camp, and as it were two cubits high upon the face of the earth. And the people stood up all that day, and all that night, and all the next day, and they gathered the quails: he that gathered least gathered ten homers: and they spread them all abroad for themselves round about the camp” (Num 11:31b-32).

A “day’s journey” is about 20-22 miles, so the quail extended some 40-44 miles on the two sides of the camp combined, piled “two cubits” (3 feet) or about waist-high on the ground!⁴⁸ No wonder the people went sleepless for 36 hours gathering them. A homer (“heap”) is about 8 bushels or one donkey-load. The birds were so many “they spread them all abroad,” that is, they dried them in the sun.⁴⁹

Some commentators, theologians even, cannot believe they were quail. “It is uncertain what sort of animals they were… The learned bishop Patrick inclines to agree with some modern writers, who think they were locusts, a delicious sort of food well known in those parts, the rather because they were brought with a wind, lay in heaps, and were dried in the sun for use.”⁵⁰ Now, if the quail were not a miracle, what is?

The daily manna. The World Book says: “Some historians say manna was a gluey sugar from the tamarisk shrub.”⁵¹ The Encyclopaedia Britannica adds: “An edible, white honeylike substance known as manna forms drops on the stem of a tamarisk tree, Tamarix mannifera. A scale insect either punctures the stem, triggering the exudation, or secretes the manna itself.”⁵² Fausset's Bible Dictionary provides more details, saying manna is “the sweet juice of the tarfa, a kind of tamarisk. It exudes in May for about six weeks from the trunk and branches in hot weather, and forms small round white grains. It retains its consistency in cool weather, but melts with heat. It is gathered from the twigs or from the fallen leaves. The Arabs, after boiling and straining, use it as honey with bread. The color is a greyish-yellow, the taste sweet and aromatic. Ehrenberg says it is produced by an insect's puncture. It abounds in rainy seasons, some years it ceases. About 600 or 700 pounds is the present produce of a year. The region wady Gharandel (Elim) and Sinai, the wady Sheich, and some other parts of the peninsula, are the places where it is found. The name is still its Arabic designation, and is read on the Egyptian monuments (mennu, mennu hut ‘white manna’).”⁵³

The Encarta Encyclopedia advances another theory: “Some experts believe that the manna of the Bible was the lichen Lecanora esculenta, or a related species. Arabs still gather this lichen and mix it with meal to produce bread. When dry, it can be torn from the soil and transported by the wind, producing a ‘rain’ of food.”⁵⁴ The Encyclopaedia Britannica concurs: “Manna is the common name for certain lichens of the genus Lecanora native to Turkey, especially L. esculenta. In the Middle East lichen bread and manna jelly are made from Lecanora.”⁵⁵

The manna God gave the Israelites, though, differs on several points: (1) It was found on the ground after the morning dew had evaporated, not under trees. (2) The quantity gathered in one day far exceeded the present yearly production. (3) It appeared six days a week, all year round, not just occasionally or for several weeks. (4) None was found on the seventh-day Sabbath. (5) It appeared for 40 years while Israel wandered in the wilderness, but disappeared the day after the Israelites first ate of the produce in the Promised Land (Josh 5:10-12). Now, decide whether manna was a miracle from God or not.

Tests for our faith?

Some miracles, like the ones we have just discussed have elements that leave the door open for speculation. Why would the LORD, who is all-knowing, choose circumstances that would allow room for doubt? Perhaps, God’s miracles are tests for our faith as well. By allowing alternative possibilities, He allows us to exercise our free will – to believe or not to believe. It is said: No miracle is needed for those who believe, but no miracle is sufficient for those who will not believe.

Yet, some miracles are truly inexplicable -- the darkness at noon at the Crucifixion, for instance. A solar eclipse was impossible, because it was the day of Passover, which always falls at the time of the full moon, when the Earth is between the sun and the moon. “But Jesus beheld them, and said unto them, With men this is impossible; but with God all things are possible” (Matt 19:26; also Luke 1:37). God is omnipotent.

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⁴⁰Miracles, Fausset's Bible Dictionary, Electronic Database, 1998

⁴¹Ibid.

⁴²“Computer Takes on the Bible,” St. Louis Post Dispatch, March 12, 1992; cited by Robert Faid, A Scientific Approach to More Biblical Mysteries, 1994, p. 69

⁴³Moses, International Standard Bible Encyclopaedia, Electronic Database, 1996

⁴⁴Animal Kingdom, The New Unger's Bible Dictionary, 1988

⁴⁵Animals, Nelson's Illustrated Bible Dictionary, 1986

⁴⁶Quail, International Standard Bible Encyclopaedia, 1996

⁴⁷Animal Kingdom, op. cit. 

⁴⁸Weights and Measures, Fausset's Bible Dictionary, 1998

⁴⁹Herodotus ii. 77; cited in Quail, op. cit.

⁵⁰Num 11:31-35, Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible, New Modern Edition, 1991

⁵¹Manna, World Book 2005 (Deluxe)

⁵²Manna, Encyclopaedia Britannica 2009 Student and Home Edition

⁵³Manna, Fausset's Bible Dictionary, 1998

⁵⁴Manna, Microsoft Encarta Encyclopedia Deluxe 2004

⁵⁵Manna, Encyclopaedia Britannica op. cit.

(Excerpted from Chapter 1, Mysteries of Our Maker, THE DEEP THINGS OF GOD: A Primer on the Secrets of Heaven and Earth by M.M. Tauson, Amazon.com)

God, the Omniscient

Solomon asserts that God is all-knowing. “The eyes of the LORD are in every place, beholding the evil and the good” (Prov 15:3). No one person or thing, good or bad, escapes from His sight. “Can any hide himself in secret places that I shall not see him? saith the LORD” (Jer 23:24a).

Because He is the Creator of heaven and earth, including space and time, God knows their every nook and corner, as well as everything that has happened and will happen. “Remember the former things of old: for I am God, and there is none else; I am God, and there is none like me, Declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times the things that are not yet done…” (Isa 46:9-10a; also Acts 15:18).

God does not only see all our actions and hear all our words, He also knows our innermost thoughts and feelings. “O LORD, thou hast searched me, and known me. Thou knowest my downsitting and mine uprising, thou understandest my thought afar off” (Ps 139:1-2). He even knows what we are going to say even before it is formed on our lips. “Before a word is on my tongue you know it completely, O LORD” (Ps 139:4, NIV). Thus, Christ told His followers: “Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him” (Matt 6:8, NIV).

Interconnectedness.

In traditional physics, the principle of separability states that connected objects once separated can no longer affect one another. Logical enough. Yet, quantum mechanics violates this principle and instead reveals a “quantum connectedness.” An object can still affect another, even when there is no longer any physical contact between them.³⁶ How is that possible?

Fred Alan Wolf says that some subatomic processes result in the creation of pairs of matter and antimatter particles. The twins have identical or closely related properties, except that these are reversed. For example, a negatively charged electron’s antimatter partner called positron has the same mass, but has an opposite positive charge (hence its name) and spins in the opposite direction.³⁷ QM predicts that attempts to measure complementary characteristics on the pair – even when traveling in opposite directions – would always fail. This had led Niels Bohr to speculate: If subatomic particles do not exist individually until they are observed, they probably do not exist as separate, independent entities. They must be parts of an indivisible whole that remains so even after their appearance.³⁸

In the earlier mentioned work of David Bohm with plasma, particles would stop behaving individually and start behaving like parts of an interconnected system. It was as though each particle knew what the trillions of other particles in the universe were doing.

In 1964 John Stewart Bell, a theoretical physicist at CERN (the European center for nuclear research in Geneva), developed a mathematical approach, now called the Bell Inequality, on how connectedness could be tested. As the level of technological precision needed was not yet available at the time, the experiment was conducted only in 1982 at the Institute of Theoretical and Applied Optics in Paris. Nevertheless, just as QM had predicted, two photons, although spatially separated, appeared in contact with each other and nonlocally connected! It showed that, on the subatomic level, all things in the universe are interconnected -- nothing is separate from any of all the others.³⁹

That finding provides us with more understanding about how God knows everything that is happening anywhere, anytime. “And there is no creature hidden from His sight, but all things are naked and open to the eyes of Him to whom we must give account” (Heb 4:13, NKJV). God is truly omniscient – all-seeing and all-knowing.

³⁶Fred Alan Wolf, Space-Time and Beyond, 1987, pp. 135-136

³⁷Op. cit., pp. 148-149

³⁸Paraphrased by Chuck Missler, Cosmic Codes, Revised 2004, p. 337

³⁹Op. cit., pp. 339-340

(Excerpted from Chapter 1, Mysteries of Our Maker, THE DEEP THINGS OF GOD: A Primer on the Secrets of Heaven and Earth by M.M. Tauson, Amazon.com)

Annihilation of Mankind in 3 Stages

Mankind will be almost totally wiped out at the time of the end, according to veiled prophecies in both the Old and New Testaments of the Bible

Mankind represented by the prophet’s hair.

In the book of Ezekiel, the LORD told the prophet to shave his head and beard. “And thou, son of man, take thee a sharp knife, take thee a barber's rasor, and cause it to pass upon thine head and upon thy beard: then take thee balances to weight, and divide the hair” (Ezekiel 5:1).

Ezekiel was instructed to divide the hair into three parts, with each part representing a third of mankind, and illustrate what will happen to each group. “Thou shalt burn with fire a third part in the midst of the city, when the days of the siege are fulfilled: and thou shalt take a third part, and smite about it with a knife: and a third part thou shalt scatter in the wind; and I will draw out a sword after them” (Ezekiel 5:2).

Let us now endeavor to analyze the meanings of the three parts of the prophecy, step by step. These are repeated in somewhat more direct and simpler terms a few verses later.

First 33% will die of pestilence and famine.

“Thou shalt burn with fire a third part in the midst of the city, when the days of the siege are fulfilled…” (Ezekiel 5:2a).

“A third part of thee shall die with the pestilence, and with famine shall they be consumed in the midst of thee” (Ezekiel 5:12a)  

This seems to be linked to the appearance of the fourth horseman of the Apocalypse, who will usher in a world war (“siege”) and the much-dreaded Great Tribulation that the apostle John wrote about in the last book of the Bible:

 “And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him. And power was given unto them over the fourth part of the earth, to kill with sword, and with hunger, and with death, and with the beasts of the earth” (Revelation 6:8).

They will hold sway over a quarter of the world. And, as the names of the horseman (Death) and his retinue (“hell” – Hades, region of the dead) denote, they will bring about widespread death through war (“sword”), famine (“hunger”), pandemics (“death”), and hunger-maddened animals (“beasts of the earth”).

The “pale horse” in the original Greek text is hippos chloros (“green horse”). As green is the traditional color of the Arabs and Islam, “green horse” probably refers to Islamic jihadists. Moreover, Muslims now make up about one-fourth of the world population.

Second 33% will perish on the day of the LORD.

“…and thou shalt take a third part, and smite about it with a knife…” (Ezekiel 5:2b).

“…and a third part shall fall by the sword round about thee…” (Ezekiel 5:12b).

An army of destroying angels will arrive on the day of the LORD to kill wicked people. “I have commanded my sanctified ones, I have also called my mighty ones for mine anger, even them that rejoice in my highness. The noise of a multitude in the mountains, like as of a great people; a tumultuous noise of the kingdoms of nations gathered together: the LORD of hosts mustereth the host of the battle. They come from a far country, from the end of heaven, even the LORD, and the weapons of his indignation, to destroy the whole land. Howl ye; for the day of the LORD is at hand; it shall come as a destruction from the Almighty” (Isaiah 13:3-6).

”A fire devoureth before them; and behind them a flame burneth: the land is as the garden of Eden before them, and behind them a desolate wilderness; yea, and nothing shall escape them. The appearance of them is as the appearance of horses; and as horsemen, so shall they run. Like the noise of chariots on the tops of mountains shall they leap, like the noise of a flame of fire that devoureth the stubble, as a strong people set in battle array. Before their face the people shall be much pained: all faces shall gather blackness” (Joel 2:3-6).

“And the number of the army of the horsemen were two hundred thousand thousand: and I heard the number of them. And thus I saw the horses in the vision, and them that sat on them, having breastplates of fire, and of jacinth, and brimstone: and the heads of the horses were as the heads of lions; and out of their mouths issued fire and smoke and brimstone. By these three was the third part of men killed, by the fire, and by the smoke, and by the brimstone, which issued out of their mouths” (Revelation 9:16-18).

Last 33% will remain.

The prophet Zechariah made a running tally of the casualties. “And it shall come to pass, that in all the land, saith the LORD, two parts therein shall be cut off and die; but the third shall be left therein” (Zechariah 13:8).

Last 33% will be scattered in the air.

“…and a third part thou shalt scatter in the wind; and I will draw out a sword after them” (Ezekiel 5:2c).

“…and I will scatter a third part into all the winds, and I will draw out a sword after them” (Ezekiel 5:12c).

How will the remaining people be scattered in the air? Planet Earth will overturn! “Behold, the LORD maketh the earth empty, and maketh it waste, and turneth it upside down, and scattereth abroad the inhabitants thereof” (Isaiah 24:1).

Last 33% will go through fire.

The worst, however, is yet to come. “And I will bring the third part through the fire, and will refine them as silver is refined, and will try them as gold is tried: they shall call on my name, and I will hear them: I will say, It is my people: and they shall say, The LORD is my God” (Zechariah 13:9).

Those who will call on the true name of the LORD will be physically delivered.

A few will be divinely protected.

“But take a few strands of hair and tuck them away in the folds of your garment” (Ezekiel 5:3).

Mercifully, a blessed few will survive through the ordeals. “For in the time of trouble he shall hide me in his pavilion: in the secret of his tabernacle shall he hide me; he shall set me up upon a rock” (Psalm 27:5).

“Seek ye the LORD, all ye meek of the earth, which have wrought his judgment; seek righteousness, seek meekness: it may be ye shall be hid in the day of the LORD's anger” (Zephaniah 2:3).

“Come, my people, enter thou into thy chambers, and shut thy doors about thee: hide thyself as it were for a little moment, until the indignation be overpast. For, behold, the LORD cometh out of his place to punish the inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity: the earth also shall disclose her blood, and shall no more cover her slain” (Isaiah 26:20-21).

The rest will go through fire.

“Then take of them again, and cast them into the midst of the fire, and burn them in the fire; for thereof shall a fire come forth into all the house of Israel” (Ezekiel 5:4).

The elect will be taken before fire engulfs the earth.

“Likewise also as it was in the days of Lot; they did eat, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they builded; But the same day that Lot went out of Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven, and destroyed them all” (Luke 17:28-29).

            Lot personifies the “elect”. They will be taken up in the first resurrection of the dead and “rapture” of the living elect saints before the fire from heaven burns up the earth.

Earth will burst into flames.

“And the angel took the censer, and filled it with fire of the altar, and cast it into the earth: and there were voices, and thunderings, and lightnings, and an earthquake” (Revelation 8:5).

“But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up” (2 Peter 3:10) .

Hardly any survivors.

“Therefore hath the curse devoured the earth, and they that dwell therein are desolate: therefore the inhabitants of the earth are burned, and few men left” (Isaiah 24:6).

“I will make a man more precious than fine gold; even a man than the golden wedge of Ophir” (Isaiah 13:12).

After the earth shall have been burned, it will be easier to find gold than a living man.

 Amen.

(Excerpted from, END TIME Decoded, by M.M. Tauson, Amazon.com)

God, the Omnipresent

The Holy Scriptures tell us that God is in all places at the same time. Quite unexpectedly, recent discoveries in a relatively new field of science seem to provide evidence that God is truly present everywhere all at once. We refer to the young branch of physics called quantum mechanics (QM).

Quantum mechanics.

Quantum mechanics, or quantum physics, which developed in the 1920s, is the study of the smallest parts that make up matter and energy – such as protons, neutrons, electrons, positrons, quarks, photons, neutrinos, and a host of other minuscule entities. As a theoretical science, QM provides precise mathematical rules that describe how the universe works on the smallest scales. It has proven so successful in predicting results that entire industries have been built on QM -- microelectronics, computers, lasers. Nonetheless, QM is still oftentimes referred to as “weird science.”

Many phenomena uncovered and predicted by quantum mechanics are so mind-boggling they leave physicists flabbergasted. Danish physicist Niels Bohr, winner of the 1922 Nobel Prize, said: “Anyone who isn’t shocked by quantum physics has not understood it.”³⁰

As his fellow Nobel Laureate Richard Feynman wrote, “it is often stated that of all the theories proposed in this century, the silliest is quantum theory. Some say that the only thing that quantum theory has going for it, in fact, is that it is unquestionably correct.”³¹

Cosmologist Andreas Albrecht of the University of California at Davis claims QM is "the fundamental language that Nature speaks. Nature doesn't answer questions for certain; it answers questions by giving probabilities... There’s a possibility that almost anything happens… It comes out of the mathematics. It's forced down our throats."³²

“Nonlocality.”

Quantum physicists have observed that subatomic particles perform magical or, more appropriately, sci-fi-like acts. Fred Alan Wolf wrote in Space-Time and Beyond: “Particles don’t behave as we might expect them to. For example, they vanish and reappear in unexpected places in violation of energy conservation rules.” Particles make quantum jumps -- that is, they go from one place to another without traveling across the space between the two locations!³³ How are they able to do that?

In the 1940s American-born British physicist David Bohm, a friend and protégé of Einstein, observed in his work in plasma (gases of high density electrons and positive ions) that, on the subatomic level, location ceases to exist! Any point in space is equal to all other points in space. They are conjoined, no matter how distantly separated they may appear to be. In other words, any one quantum particle is present everywhere in the universe. Physicists have since accepted the phenomenon and call it “nonlocality.” Paul Davis of the University of Newcastle upon Tyne has concluded that “the nonlocal aspects of quantum systems is therefore a general property of nature.”³⁴

According to the Encarta Encyclopedia: “The strong correlations observed in these experiments suggest to many that we inhabit a nonlocal reality, meaning that what happens here and now could depend upon something far away in space, time, or both.”³⁵ Nonlocality demonstrates how God can be present in all points of the universe at the same time.

David wondered: “Whither shall I go from thy spirit? or whither shall I flee from thy presence? If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there: if I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there. If I take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea; Even there shall thy hand lead me, and thy right hand shall hold me” (Ps 139:7-10).

Quantum mechanics proves God is omnipresent.

_______

³⁰Niels Bohr, quoted by Chuck Missler, Cosmic Codes, Revised 2004, p. 337

³¹Richard Feynman, quoted by Missler, op. cit., p. 338

³²Andreas Albrecht, quoted by Andrew Chaikin, “Are There Other Universes?”, Science Tuesday, 05 Feb. 2002, Internet

³³Fred Alan Wolf, Space-Time and Beyond, 1987, p. 133

³⁴Paul Davis, Superforce, 1948, p. 48; quoted by Missler, op. cit., p. 340

³⁵Bell’s Inequality, Microsoft Encarta Encyclopedia Deluxe 2004

(Excerpted from Chapter 1, Mysteries of Our Maker, THE DEEP THINGS OF GOD: A Primer on the Secrets of Heaven and Earth by M.M. Tauson, Amazon.com)

God, the Immutable

The most striking characteristic of nature, from Aristotle’s point of view, was “change.”²⁹ Intellectuals who are of a like mind in our modern age have even coined a clever maxim: “Change is the only constant.”

It is an established principle in physics that all things change. The second law of thermodynamics, entropy, states that spontaneous change in isolated systems proceeds from a state of order to one of disorder. In simple terms, all things break down, deteriorate, or decay through time. The general rule in the universe is change. Everything changes.

The only exception to that rule is God.

Outside time.

God declared through the prophet Malachi that He is immutable – He does not change. “For I am the LORD, I change not…” (Mal 3:6). David repeats that truth in a psalm: “They shall perish, but thou shalt endure: yea, all of them shall wax old like a garment; as a vesture shalt thou change them, and they shall be changed: But thou art the same, and thy years shall have no end” (Ps 102:26-27). God has passed on this immutability to His Son, who has the same nature. “Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever” (Heb 13:8).

There are at least two reasons, both backed by modern scientific principles, why God does not change.

First, as we have already seen, God, as the Ein Sof or “Infinite Nothingness” is outside space-time. Changes take place only in time. Since God is not subject to the passage of time, He is timeless. And, being timeless, He cannot change. God is immutable.

God is light.

The clue to the second reason is in James’s reiteration of God’s unchanging nature. “Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows” (James 1:17-18, NIV). An additional element, though, appears in the passage: “Father of the heavenly lights.” As such, God must also be light, which is precisely what John says: “This then is the message which we have heard of him, and declare unto you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all” (John 1:5).

What is light? It is pure radiant energy -- a form of electromagnetic radiation consisting of photons, the fastest moving things in the universe. Having no mass, photons travel through space at some 186,000 miles per second (about 300,000 km/sec.) without any loss of energy. Nothing travels faster than light, whose velocity is the cosmic speed limit. At the speed of light, time stops. Light therefore, is also timeless and cannot change. Naturally no less is its Creator, God, who is light as well. Yes, God is truly immutable.

²⁹Aristotle, World Book 2005 (Deluxe)

(Excerpted from Chapter 1, The Mysteries of Our Maker, THE DEEP THINGS OF GOD: A Primer on the Secrets of Heaven and Earth by M.M. Tauson)