Preacher’s Point
By Timothy Johnson
This week’s Preacher’s Point is difficult for me to write.
The difficulty is that I like to stick to Biblical facts; this week is nearly all theory.
The topic is something I have never preached or written about.
I have only discussed this in a few private conversations.
We had a guest speaker in college, Dr. Clifford Wilson (1923-2012).
Dr. Wilson was an archaeologist. During the 1970s and 80s, Wilson wrote a series of books about UFOs. His general premise was that the alien and UFO phenomenon was spiritual, not physical. He believed the aliens the world thinks are from a galaxy far, far away are demons. Dr. Wilson made some compelling arguments in his speeches at college and in the books he wrote. I will not get into the details here other than to say that comparing the two times we read about flying objects in the Bible and the descriptions of some UFOs will make a person think.
2 Kings 2 describes Elijah being taken “up by a whirlwind into heaven” at the appearance of a flying “chariot of fire.” Whatever the chariot may be, we know it has a crew of at least two. Elisha, who was with Elijah at the time, says he saw “the horsemen thereof.” Another occurrence in Ezekiel chapter one sounds more like a spacecraft. Ezekiel describes it as “a wheel in the middle of a wheel.” How the vehicle navigates coincides with descriptions of modern-day UFO maneuvers.
It turns at 90-degree angles without changing speed, appearing to defy physics.
An amber glow came from the inside of the vehicle. Four “living creature” are mentioned. It seems to land horizontally, like a helicopter. Are aliens demons? Before addressing that, let us look at some things we know. The entire world, except those that receive Christ as Savior, will worship the Antichrist (Revelation 13:8). A one-world religion will form to worship the Antichrist and the devil behind him.
Many wars have started because of religion.
There are separate sects (Christianity calls them denominations) within each religion,
as differences divide us. Uniting all the world’s religions seems an impossible task.
The Antichrist will rule the world. There will still be nations and heads of state,
but the Antichrist will have total control. He will establish a one-world financial
system requiring a mark on everyone’s right hand or forehead to buy or sell anything.
The government will monitor every transaction (Revelation 13:16-17).
The impossible will occur; nations will relinquish sovereignty to one individual.
We also know Rapture comes before the Antichrist rises to power.
How the world moves from hundreds of religions, all claiming to be correct,
to a one-world religion worshipping the Antichrist, we do not know.
How nations turn their governments over to one man is anyone’s guess.
How the disappearance of millions of people is explained is totally unknown.
Before I get back to the alien/demon theory, I want to explain it is only a theory.
Nothing I am about to say about space aliens/demons may ever happen.
There is nothing in the Bible to claim what you are about to read is true.
The Bible is silent regarding how the world will unite into a one-world
religion and simultaneously lift one individual to the height of world leader.
Again, what you are about to read is theory. There have been too many sightings and claims of abduction to say it is all a hoax. Sure, some of these experiences are fraudulent. Others have logical explanations, but where there is smoke, there is fire, and when it comes to UFOs, there is too much smoke for something not to be burning.
With the United States issuing its UFO report in 2021,
nations are moving toward admitting there is something out there.
Could a “Close Encounter of the Third Kind” be on the horizon?
Will a moment come when a ship lands, the occupants speak to world leaders,
talk to the press, and make their presence known?
Everyone will know that we are not alone.
But what if these creatures are not what they claim to be?
What if, instead of being from a galaxy off in the cosmos,
they have been here all along?
What if they are Satan’s demons and not visitors from outer space?
The world will automatically “know” they are from a distant planet.
The lack of spiritual thinking will cause no one to consider an ulterior explanation.
The Bible says that a “strong delusion” is sent to get people to believe the lies of the Antichrist (2 Thessalonians 2:11). Could the “strong delusion” be the world believing demons are space aliens? How would the world respond if the world believes superior beings with technology beyond our imagination arrive?
What would the world think of the Bible?
If the aliens tell the world, it is a book of fairy tales or lies,
hatred toward the Good Book would explode. Could our visitors explain the Rapture?
Could they claim to have removed those who believe in ancient book to help advance the human race? Will they tell the world that those archaic beliefs hold the world back from our full potential? What if the “aliens” point to a man and tell the world that this fellow
is the only one that can lead us out of the mess we are in and into the utopia the world desires?
Demons, believed to be space aliens, can explain the Antichrist’s rapid rise to prominence, the beginning of a one-world religion, the persecution of Christians and Jews during the Tribulation, and the Rapture.
While the lies are spreading, the two witnesses (Revelation 11) and the
144,000 (Revelation 7) will be telling people the truth of the Scriptures.
The vast majority of the world will fall for the lies of the Antichrist.
There shall be signs in the heavens.
Preacher Johnson is Pastor of Countryside Baptist Church in Parke County Indiana.
Website: www.preachers-point.com; Email: preacherspoint@gmail.com;
Mail: 25 W 1200 N; Kingman IN 47952. Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/
Timothy-Preacher-Johnson-101171088326638. All Scripture KJV.
History professor Yuval Noah Harari — author of Sapiens:
A Brief History of Mankind — explains why humans have dominated Earth.
The reason is not what you might expect.
70,000 years ago, humans were insignificant animals. The most important
thing to know about prehistoric humans is that they were unimportant.
Their impact on the world was very small, less than that of jellyfish,
woodpeckers or bumblebees. Today, however, humans control this planet.
How did we reach from there to here?
What was our secret of success that turned us from insignificant apes
minding their own business in a corner of Africa, into the rulers of the world?
We often look for the difference between us and other animals on the individual level.
We want to believe there is something special about the human body or human brain
that makes each individual human vastly superior to a dog, or a pig, or a chimpanzee.
But the fact is that one-on-one, humans are embarrassingly similar to chimpanzees.
If you place me and a chimpanzee together on a lone island, to see who survives better,
I would definitely place my bets on the chimp.
The real difference between us and other animals is on the collective level.
Humans control the world because we are the only animal that can cooperate
flexibly in large numbers. Ants and bees can also work together in large numbers,
but they do so in a very rigid way.
If a beehive is facing a new threat or a new opportunity,
the bees cannot reinvent their social system overnight in order to cope better.
They cannot, for example, execute the queen and establish a republic.
Wolves and chimpanzees cooperate far more flexibly than ants, but they can do so
only with small numbers of intimately known individuals. Among wolves and chimps, cooperation is based on personal acquaintance.
If I am a chimp and I want to cooperate with you, I must know you personally:
What kind of chimp are you? Are you a nice chimp? Are you an evil chimp?
How can I cooperate with you if I don’t know you?
Only Homo sapiens can cooperate in extremely flexible ways with countless numbers of strangers. One-on-one or ten-on-ten, chimpanzees may be better than us. But pit 1,000 Sapiens against 1,000 chimps, and the Sapiens will win easily, for the simple reason that 1,000 chimps can never cooperate effectively. Put 100,000 chimps in Wall Street or Yankee Stadium, and you’ll get chaos. Put 100,000 humans there, and you’ll get trade networks and sports contests.
Cooperation is not always nice, of course.
All the terrible things humans have been doing throughout history are also the product
of mass cooperation. Prisons, slaughterhouses and concentration camps are also systems
of mass cooperation. Chimpanzees don’t have prisons, slaughterhouses or concentration camps. Yet how come humans alone of all the animals are capable of cooperating flexibly in large numbers, be it in order to play, to trade or to slaughter?
The answer is our imagination.
We can cooperate with numerous strangers because we can invent fictional stories,
spread them around and convince millions of strangers to believe in them.
As long as everybody believes in the same fictions, we all obey the same laws,
and can thereby cooperate effectively. This is something only humans can do.
You can never convince a chimpanzee to give you a banana by promising that after he dies, he will go to Chimpanzee Heaven and there receive countless bananas for his good deeds.
No chimp will ever believe such a story.
Only humans believe such stories. This is why we rule the world, whereas chimps are locked up in zoos and research laboratories. It is relatively easy to accept that religious networks of cooperation are based on fictional stories. People build a cathedral together
or go on crusades together because they believe the same stories about God and Heaven.
But the same is true of all other types of large-scale human cooperation.
Take for example our legal systems.
Today, most legal systems are based on a belief in human rights.
But human rights are a fiction, just like God and Heaven.
In reality, humans have no rights, just as chimps or wolves have no rights.
Cut open a human, and you won’t find any rights there. The only place where
human rights exist is in the stories we invent and tell one another.
Human rights may be a very attractive story, but it is only a story.
The same mechanism is at work in politics. Like gods and human rights, nations are fictions. A mountain is something real. You can see it, touch it, smell it. But the United States or Israel are not a physical reality. You cannot see them, touch them or smell them. They are just stories that humans invented and then became extremely attached to.
It is the same with economic networks of cooperation. Take a dollar bill, for example.
It has no value in itself. You cannot eat it, drink it or wear it. But now come along some master storytellers like the Chair of the Federal Reserve and the President of the United States, and convince us to believe that this green piece of paper is worth five bananas.
As long as millions of people believe this story, that green piece of paper really is worth five bananas. I can now go to the supermarket, hand a worthless piece of paper to a complete stranger whom I have never met before, and get real bananas in return.
Try doing that with a chimpanzee.
Indeed, money is probably the most successful fiction ever invented by humans.
Not all people believe in God, or in human rights, or in the United States of America.
But everybody believes in money, and everybody believes in the dollar bill.
Even Osama bin Laden. He hated American religion, American politics and American culture — but he was quite fond of American dollars. He had no objection to that story.
To conclude, whereas all other animals live in an objective world of rivers, trees and lions, we humans live in a dual world. Yes, there are rivers, trees and lions in our world.
But on top of that objective reality:
We have constructed a second layer of make-believe reality, comprising
fictional entities such as the European Union, God, the dollar and human rights.
And as time passes, these fictional entities have become ever more powerful,
so that today they are the most powerful forces in the world. The very survival of trees, rivers and animals now depends on the wishes and decisions of fictional entities such as the United States and the World Bank — entities that exist only in our own imagination.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Yuval Noah Harari is a lecturer in history at
the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and the author of the book Sapiens:
A brief history of humankind, which was a best-seller in the US, UK, France, Korea, China and other countries.Born into slavery, a Kentucky Derby champ became an American superstar (msn.com)
Biden calls House Speaker Kevin McCarthy an ‘honest man,’ but says he ‘just about
sold away everything’ to appease far-right Republican lawmakers (msn.com)