But is it déjà vu?

        In my letter last month we looked at the intensity of evil taking place in our world today. Political corruption in many government from the so called banana republics to the apparently sophisticated governments of the west is blatant, crude, and secretive as well. Hardly anyone is exempt. The riots, mob thuggery, shocking disregard for the elderly, the removal of male-female birth identity by governments that should know better, the deliberate destruction of our children’s boy-girl gender identity promoted by several ‘first world’ governments, and the desire among men and women to marry whomever they chose regardless of gender distinction, and the bewildering intolerance of the other’s views outweigh any attempts to deal with what some call Climate Change. If we continue the way we are going with such hatred for one another and with the destruction of our gender identity at birth we could all be gone to the grave before anything life-threatening happens to our climate!

        Some wonder whether we’ve been there before, is this déjà vu? According to the dictionary déjà vu is due to physiological and psychological processes in our brain that produce only a feeling of having been there, having seen, or having heard an event or series of events before. So while you and I may have these feeling of ‘been there, done that’ it is just an illusion, we have only experienced déjà vu. However, there is legitimacy that many of us have actually been there and done that. As the wise man once said, ‘there’s nothing new under the sun.’ Ecl. 1:9. Past experiences are there to help us to either repeat them if they were pleasant and useful, or to avoid them if they were harmful and useless.

        Folks, note this. You and I may not have been there before and witnessed the intensity of evil that took place in our world in the past, but our planet has been there before and stand, broken as it is, as a witness to all this. You see friends, our earth, once basking in exquisite beauty and harmony, due to rebellion against its Creator by the two inhabitants of earth, the two curators of earth, fell into the very same rebellion, intolerance, mob rule, male-female perversity, murders, wars et al that we are witnessing in our societies today! It’s all because of sin. And sin is defined as lawlessness, rebellion against the rules of engagement for happy and harmonious living on earth given to humans by the Creator. 1 John 3:4. So what we are witnessing today in our societies is not new, it is a repeat of the behaviour of those that went before us. Let’s look at some accounts of this in the world that once was. We find this account in the Bible.

        Find in your Bible the book of Genesis, chapter 6 verses 1-8 (Gen. 6:1-8). These verses tell us that after sin came into the earth (see Genesis 3 and 4) and mankind began to populate the earth, these ancient people who were giants became divided into two classes, those who loved God and those who had rejected Him and His rules for living. Unfortunately, there came a time when both groups began to fraternize and God’s group joined with the ungodly and married their daughters and sons. The Bible says that the daughters of men were beautiful (Hebrew word is ‘tov’, we will look at that word in another letter) and the sons of God inter-married with the ungodly men and women. When this took place all mankind with few exceptions began to totally reject God as their Saviour and Creator who had given them good, moral laws to live by.

        As the godly men and women continued to inter-marry with the ungodly the entire earth eventually became corrupt, wicked and violent. Can you imagine, folks, what this was all about? Perhaps we will never know all the evil that these long-lived people were up to, however, the Bible does give us some indications as to what went on. Before looking at that passage in the New Testament, let’s reflect on what happened. The godly people married the ungodly individuals and soon the entire world corrupted itself. Men totally rejected God and fell into all kinds of evil actions and practices. What is the message for people today? Is it not true that when one leaves his or her God’s instructions and joins with those who disregard God, that eventually they will end up completely leaving a productive and active relationship with their God?

        It begins ever so subtly; they begin to talk about God less and less in the home, followed by infrequently attending the worship services until they cease all together to attend the services. The restraining influence of godliness vanished when they inter-married with the ungodly; and without this godly restraint there was no godly conscience, no ‘inner voice’ directing men to do good. Evil began to settle in the hearts of men and women until the very imaginations of their thoughts were evil continually, according to the Bible.

        Friends, isn’t this ghastly, frighteningly, similar to where we are today? Is it possible that the mass killings, the violence, the rapes, the intolerance of others’ viewpoints, the corruptions in governments and people alike, the immorality, and inordinate sexualization of society, the aggressive homosexual behaviour of governments, men and women, and now the stripping away of human gender identity at birth, could be exactly what the antediluvian practised that brought on their total destruction by God? ( See my web page on this global flood: https://hangonthebestisyettocome.com/what-the-bible-says-about-bible-studies-5/the-flood-did-it-really-happen/ ).

        Yes, friends, this is exactly what took place before God’s destruction of the first world. It’s not déjà vu, my friends. It’s real. It happened before and near killed all out! (Even science recognizes a time when humanity was almost wiped out; see: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/279723381_Volcanic_winter_in_the_Garden_of_Eden_The_Toba_supereruption_and_the_late_Pleistocene_human_population_crash. We will say more on this in another letter). Here’s what the Bible says about this wicked behaviour in the past. Please read Romans 1:20-32. This passage tells us that in creating the world God left evidences of His handy work. These evidences were things like: design, beauty, the DNA, the laws of nature and the universe, the irreducible complexities and much more. Yet in spite of these evidences of God’s existence, mankind sank so low in rebellion against God that God had to destroy them in order preserve the earth and the faithful few on earth, there were only about eight righteous people among about two to three billion people that existed then, according to some demographers, those who calculate the population growth.

        In Jude 1:5-7, 14, 15 it is made clear that men and women in the past practised these wicked acts and were consequently destroyed, and those continuing the same behaviour today will be destroyed. In 2 Peter 2:4-9; and 2 Pet. 3:3-7 we again read among others of the people before the flood who were destroyed due to their rebellion against God. So my friends, the evil and wickedness we are witnessing today in our societies are not new, they took place in the past and many were destroyed consequently.

        My appeal to each one of you today in our world is to make peace with your Creator. He’s a loving and kind God. He sent Jesus into the world to die for our wickedness that we in turn may confess our sins, repent, and walk a new life in Jesus. My encouragement to you is to please not postpone this decision, tomorrow can well be too late. Regardless of how wicked you might have been, or the things you might have done, Jesus came specifically for those actions, to remove our sins and draw us once again into the family of God. May God bless you my friends. Let’s plan on being there.

In my next letter to the people of the world we will look at the term ‘fair’ (Hebrew, ‘tov’) in Genesis 6:2 that led to the destruction of the first world by a flood and what the implications for humans today are.

If there are any questions please contact Pr. Ron at ronhende@outlook.com