Independence Day - The Chemistry of Liberty - Revisited

I published this back in 2012 and thought it worth publishing again. The principles of this Declaration, along with the Constitution, have governed us for almost 250 years. Hopefully they will continue to be the law of the land for many years to come. Remember that individual FREEDOM plus personal RESPONSIBILITY(accountability) equals LIBERTY within society! True Liberty is living as we should not as we please. We can not and will not remain a free nation (have a free society) if we take personal responsibility out of how we live. Freedom without Responsibility results in Lawlessness.

The definition goes as follows:

• Freedom = The power or right to act, speak, or think as one wants without hindrance or restraint
• Responsibility = The state or fact of being accountable for your actions
• Liberty = The state of being free within society from oppressive restrictions imposed by authority

Freedom + Responsibility = Liberty

OR

The power or right to act, speak, or think as one wants + The state of being accountable = A free Nation (society)

Paul summed it up in 1 Corinthians when he told us to "seek the good of many," not just our own good.

1 Corinthians 10:32-33 (NIV) - Do not cause anyone to stumble...try to please everyone in every way. For I am not seeking my own good but the good of many, so that they may be saved.

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In CONGRESS, July 4, 1776.

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

On July 2, 1776, the Second Continental Congress of the United States approved the Lee Resolution and declared their LIBERTY from the tyranny of King George and the British Empire. A committee was already working on a formal declaration and John Adams had proposed Thomas Jefferson to draft the document for Congressional approval. On July 4, 1776 Jefferson's draft, a formal explanation of why Congress had voted to declare independence, was approved.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

The document declared that men have certain God given rights - to be governed justly, to be represented equally, and to not be oppressed. No one person is born more important than another. No elite has a right to rule over the masses by virtue of their birth.

--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,

And that governments are established to guarantee this equitable treatment, establishing the law based on the will of the people, something we seem to be forgetting today.

--That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

Whenever the existing government becomes oppressive, the people have the right to alter or to institute a new form of government. In a representative government such as ours, this means the right to elect new representatives.

Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

And this right can not be taken lightly. The decision to change must be made only after patient pursuit of all possible solutions to the problems at hand. But once all efforts are exhausted it is their (and our) right, indeed their (our) duty, to look to move to independence from such tyranny.

--Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States.

So having patiently tried all means to make such change as to allow the United States to continue under the rule of the British Empire, the only possible solution was the succession from that government in the pursuit of LIBERTY and the establishment of a new government.

To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

So the Congress let the evidence of British Tyranny be clearly stated to the world. King George had:

• He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
• He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
• He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
• He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
• He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
• He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
• He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
• He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.
• He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
• He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.
• He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.
• He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.
• He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
  • For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
  • For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
  • For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
  • For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
  • For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:
  • For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences
  • For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:
  • For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
  • For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
• He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
• He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
• He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
• He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.
• He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.
  

Are we seeing some of these same injustices today?

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

With these offenses, the King and his country were no longer fit to rule the Colonies.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Brittish brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

With repeated warnings, the Continental Congress informed the British of their injustices and of the consequences of continued oppression. Separation was inevitable.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

By signing this Declaration of Independence, the Colonies broke away from all allegiance to the British Crown, totally dissolving all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain. They declared themselves FREE and INDEPENDENT.

All thirteen colonies, a total of 56 representatives, signed the declaration, including John Adams, Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson. John Hancock, as president of the Second Continental Congress and one of the representatives for Massachusetts, signed his name largely and clearly so that King George could read it without his spectacles.

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True Liberty is to Live As We Should, Not as We Please
Liberty = Freedom + Responsibility

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All of this struggle began years earlier. Originating in the 1750s and 1760s, the notion of "taxation without representation" was one of the primary grievances of the British colonists and was one of the major reasons for the American Revolution. Many colonists believed the lack of direct representation was an illegal denial of their rights as Englishmen, and therefore laws taxing the colonists or laws applying only to the colonies, were unconstitutional.

One of the early actions against the British was the Boston Tea Party. It was the culmination of a resistance movement throughout British America against the Tea Act, which had been passed by the British Parliament in 1773. The Tea Party Colonists objected to the Tea Act for a variety of reasons, primarily because they believed that it violated their right to be taxed without representation in the Parliament. On December 16, 1773, after officials in Boston refused to return three shiploads of taxed tea to Britain, a group of colonists, the Sons of Liberty, boarded the ships and destroyed the tea by throwing it into Boston Harbor.

The Boston Tea Party was a key event in the growth of the American Revolution. Parliament responded in 1774 in part by closing Boston Harbor until the British East India Company had been repaid for the destroyed tea. Colonists in turn responded with additional acts of protest, and by convening the First Continental Congress. The crisis continued to escalate, and the American Revolutionary War began near Boston in 1775.

Other memorable actions strengthening the American resolve were the Gadsden flag and Patrick Henry's "Give me Liberty, or Give me Death!" speech. "Give me Liberty, or Give me Death!" is a quotation attributed to Patrick Henry from a speech, given on March 23, 1775, to the Virginia Convention. Reportedly, those in attendance, upon hearing Henry's speech, shouted, "give me liberty or give me death!"

In 1754, during the French and Indian War, Franklin published his famous woodcut of a snake cut into eight sections. It represented the colonies, with New England joined together as the head and South Carolina as the tail. The other colonies were listed in between, in their order along the coast. Under the snake was the message "Join, or Die". This was the first political cartoon published in an American newspaper. This was followed by the Gadsden flag which has a yellow field with a rattlesnake coiled and ready to strike. Positioned below the snake are the words "DONT TREAD ON ME". The flag was designed by and is named after American general and statesman Christopher Gadsden. It was first used by the Continental Marines in the fall of 1775. The symbol of the rattlesnake became one of the images of the resolve of the colonists.

The Declaration of Independence, drafted by Thomas Jefferson between June 11 and June 28, 1776, is at once the nation's most cherished symbol of Liberty and Jefferson's most enduring document. Jefferson concisely expressed the convictions of the American people. The philosophy was not new; the idea of individual freedoms had already been expressed by John Locke and the Continental philosophers. What Jefferson did was to summarize it in "self-evident truths" and set forth a list of grievances against the King justifying before the world the breaking of ties with the mother country.

The American colonists revolted for Liberty over a list of grievances, chief among them the lack of representation in the British legislature and the accompanying tyrannical rule, and the rest is history.

2 Corinthians 3:17 (NIV) - Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is Liberty.

The Chemistry of Prayer

Prayer, what is it? Webster’s says it is…

“…an address (such as a petition) to God in word or thought”

For most non-Christian religions and even some Christian ones, it is a ritualistic expression of obedience to an unknown or unknowable God. A monologue with something beyond themselves. And yet over half of the world claims to pray daily and 75% say that prayer is an important part of their daily life. I would dare to say that almost everyone prays or has prayed at some point, even if it is just saying “Oh my God!” or “God help me,” without thinking, in a moment of crisis or stress.

But for many Christians, the focus of this blog, prayer is indeed an essential. For us, it is a dialogue with our Savior; open, continuous communication with the one we love and the one who loves us. Paul says in 1 Th 5:16-18 (NKJV) – “Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, in everything give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.”

Prayer is communication with God, who is, by definition, outside of our space-time continuum. He exists everywhere, not just in the physical world, so He cannot be quantified by physical scientific measures. We see that when we say that the world was created by God, juxtaposed to Evolution and the Big Bang. Science can create theories and perform tests and study these terms because they exist fully inside our physical existence. A Theory of God cannot be tested, nor can prayer be fully examined and quantified by science as it is partially in that realm of God and partially in our physical realm.

Scientific studies examine what happens when, as an example, drug A is given to Patient B with disease C and then a certain outcome is expected when all the variables are accounted for. When a study looks at anything outside the physical universe, the variables can’t even be known, let alone accounted for in total.

But science has tried and will continue to try as this is the nature of man, to want to know and understand his world, with or without God. Because prayer crosses over from our physical world into the spiritual world, we can “test” that part which lies with us, but because we cannot test it all, our answers may not satisfy nor be complete.

Scientific (and not so scientific) studies have been conducted for centuries attempting to quantify the effects of prayer, focusing on physical healings. Are the sick or injured comforted by prayer? Are they cured? Do miracles really happen? Individual prayers, group prayers, specific prayers derived from Scripture, and free form prayers have all been tested.

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No form of scientific inquiry presently available
Can suitably address the subject
Of Prayer

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Recent studies on prayer have had a focus within medicine. According to the Washington Post, "...prayer is the most common complement to mainstream medicine, far outpacing acupuncture, herbs, vitamins and other alternative remedies." In much of the scientific research when people learn they have been prayed for, many say they feel comforted, both physically and emotionally.

An article, printed in the Indian Journal of Psychiatry in 2009, where numerous clinical trials involving prayer were studied reported on the efficacy of prayer in healing. The authors share evidence from studies where prayer was effectual, where it had no impact and where it actually appeared to be detrimental to the prayed for subjects. In their work, the authors report that this line of scientific research has led nowhere, and that future research, if any, will forever be constrained by the scientific limitations that they outline in their article. They conclude:

“Where does this leave us? God may indeed exist and prayer may indeed heal; however, it appears that, for important theological and scientific reasons, randomized controlled studies cannot be applied to the study of the efficacy of prayer in healing. In fact, no form of scientific inquiry presently available can suitably address the subject. Therefore, the continuance of such research may result in the conducted studies finding place among other seemingly impeccable studies with seemingly absurd claims...”

“The aim of science is not to open a door to infinite wisdom but to set a limit to infinite error.” Bertolt Brecht, from the play: The life of Galileo.

One scientist proposed a study with a clear cut endpoint, prayer would result in the regrowth of an amputated limb. His thought was that this is something that can only be done by a power outside our physical world. He suggests if all the amputees in the world were gathered and prayed for over the course of a year, and monitored and tracked in a scientific fashion, if just one limb grew back, it would be proof.

But would it really? I think not! In Matt 12: 9-14 (NIV) the miracle of the man with a shriveled hand shows Jesus miraculously restoring the hand back to normal and the Pharisees not only did not believe, they went out afterwards and plotted how they might kill Jesus! I am sure the same would be true with the amputee study, it would be claimed as trickery or as a random though extremely rare event, unrelated to an act of God. There would be many who would not believe in this, nor any evidence that could be presented, that God exists.

Mankind has been praying since Adam and Eve. And though we may never be able to scientifically establish that God actually hears our prayers, recent scientific research suggests that prayer may be very beneficial.

In an entry in his Psychology Today blog in June of 2014, Clay Routledge, Ph.D. identifies:

“Five Scientifically Supported Benefits of Prayer”

1. Prayer improves self-control
2. Prayer makes you nicer
3. Prayer makes you more forgiving
4. Prayer increases trust
5. Prayer offsets the negative health effects of stress

These benefits are focused on how we relate with one another in an increasingly complex and stressful world. Although not specifically religious, they are valuable traits that help us live a better life. But in addition to these, the secular, religious and medical literature is abounding in extemporaneous examples of healings and answered prayer.

Just as physicians use individual case studies from the literature as a source for evidence of a new treatment or for alternative uses for older medications or procedures, so too can these examples be used as evidence for the power of prayer. Prayer may not be stated as the reason for the successful treatment or healing but when a spontaneous cure comes about, many times it is accompanied by prayer.

Could we take the experiment proposed above for amputees and turn it around? Might this be a better study? A review of the medical literature could be done to find “miraculous” healings – unexplained by expected science (or any physician could submit them), and then these cases could be examined to see if the subject of the “miraculous” healing prayed or was prayed for during their illness. I would suspect that most would have had prayer involved in the process but would skeptics be convinced? Most likely, as with the other experiment, the results would be brushed off as meaningless since, as stated above, 50% of all people pray daily and 75% consider prayer an important part of their lives. Just these sheer numbers make it improbable that prayer would NOT have been involved.

I am sure most of us who routinely pray or have friends who do so can expound on a story or two (or more!) of answered prayer. If the walls within the many prayer rooms and churches worldwide could speak, the stories would be endless.

To say that God does not answer prayers is like saying that He does not exist or He did not create the Universe. Although the proof does not neatly fit within the scientific worldview, I think the anecdotal evidence is overwhelming. Just as “the heavens declare the glory of God..." (Psalm 19:1 (NIV)), the sheer number of healings and miracles seen in the Bible (the words “pray” and “prayer” occur 259 times in the NIV) and in our world today declare that God hears His people when they pray!

Matthew 21:22 (NIV) - If you believe, you will receive whatever you ask for in prayer.

Romans 12:12 (NIV) - Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer.

Philippians 4:6-7 (NIV) - Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God; And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

James 5:15-16 (NKJV) - And the prayer of faith will save the sick, and the Lord will raise him up. And if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven. Confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The effective, fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much.

Christmas and the Three Kings - Revisited

Several years back I published two blog entries about Christmas, more specifically about the Three Kings and their gifts. I am sharing them again, together, below. But before you jump down, I want to address the first blog and discuss the information I gave there. I talk about the "Magi" and how they may have known of the coming of the Messiah because of Daniel. Daniel was made the administrator over all of the Wise Men (Magi means Wise Men) of Babylon by King Nebuchadnezzar:

Daniel 2:48 NIV "Then the king promoted Daniel and gave him many great gifts; and he made him ruler over the whole province of Babylon, and chief administrator over all the Wise Men of Babylon."

So it is possible that the "Kings" coming to see Jesus were really wise men from Babylon, who learned of His coming through the teachings of Daniel many years earlier.

Ok, so far so good. But in the next paragraph I say that the vision of the 70 weeks from Daniel 9 points to the "birth" of the Messiah and that is why the three Kings knew to follow the star.

Daniel 9:25 NKJV "Know therefore and understand, [That] from the going forth of the command to restore and build Jerusalem until Messiah the Prince, [There shall be] seven weeks and sixty-two weeks; The street shall be built again, and the wall, Even in troublesome times."

But that is not what Daniel 9:25 says. It says "from the going forth of the command to restore and build Jerusalem until Messiah the Prince, [There shall be] seven weeks and sixty-two weeks..."

If you look at this verse more closely, it says there will be 69 weeks (of years? = 483 years) from the command to rebuild Jerusalem until the Messiah is proclaimed as Prince or King. So it most likely was not the arrival of the Magi that happened per Daniel 9 but possibly the Triumphal Entry of Jesus into Jerusalem as described in the Gospels, where the people called out “Hosanna! Blessed is He who comes in the name of the LORD!"

Now this day has been calculated by some to be the date April 6, 32 AD, which also happened to be the 10th of Nisan on the Jewish calendar, the day when the Passover lamb was chosen for the sacrifice. If we count back from this date 483 years (360 day years) we land on March 14, 445 BC which is suspected to be the day that Artaxerxes Longimanus issued a decree to rebuild Jerusalem, thus matching Daniel 9:25.

However, not everyone agrees with this date or this decree since several decrees were issued prior to this, most notably that of Cyrus in 538 BC, but the decree of Ataxerxes was the only one to allow the rebuilding of the walls of the city. Another date given for Atarxerxes' decree is March 5, 444 BC.

Also, why was the time split into 7 weeks of years and 62 weeks? It is suspected that the 7 weeks was the time required to rebuild the city.

Now there are many interpretations of these dates and times as well as what constitutes a year and the "end" of the 69 weeks of years. Issues come with using a prophetic calendar year (360 days) or a current calendar year (365) plus leap years (different for Jewish calendars verses the accepted calendar of today). Next, there are four possible "decrees" that could establish the starting date - from Cyrus, Darius, and Artaxerxes.

Also, the time period is questioned in why is it divided into 7 + 62 + 1? Could there be different time periods in each and not literally 7 years for each week? Finally, what constitutes the endpoint of the 69 weeks? Is it the Triumphal Entry, or the baptism by John at the start of Jesus' public ministry or is it His birth as I mentioned in the earlier blog entry?

I think all of this creates a fascinating study into one of the greatest prophesies of the Old Testament. Like many of the Old Testament prophesies we may never know the answer in this life!

We commemorate the manifestation of Christ to the gentiles in the persons of the Magi on the Twelfth-day of Christmas - January 6. It is called the Epiphany.

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We Three Kings of Orient Are... Or Were They?

At Christmas we sing the carol: "We three Kings of Orient are..."

We three Kings of Orient are
Bearing gifts we traverse afar
Field and fountain, moor and mountain
Following yonder Star

But were they Kings? Were there just three? Did they come from the Orient? Did they really follow a star? Did they bring Gold, Frankincense and Myrrh? We talked of Gold in the last blog being the metal of Kings. So what are the other two? Over the next few blogs we will look at the three Kings, the three Gifts and the three Destinies of Jesus.

So what about the three Kings? The Bible calls them Wise Men, not Kings. The word for Wise Men in the Greek is magos, where we get the term Magi. Were there three? The Bible does not say how many came. It speaks of three Gifts but those Gifts could have been brought by one or many. Magos is a plural noun so there was most likely more than one. It is also unlikely that they would travel so far in such a small group.

The Bible says the Magi came from the East. But does the East mean the Orient? The Bible does not say the Orient specifically, just from the East. The word magos, however, was a name given to teachers, astrologers, seers and interpreters of dreams by the Babylonians (Chaldeans), Medes and Persians. This could put the Wise Men as coming from Babylon (east of Bethlehem) where Daniel had been in captivity almost 500 years earlier. Daniel was made the ruler of the Wise Men in that day when he interpreted the King's dream. (Daniel 2)

Daniel 2:48 "Then the king promoted Daniel and gave him many great gifts; and he made him ruler over the whole province of Babylon, and chief administrator over all the Wise Men of Babylon. (NKJV)"

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The Wise Men knew when the Messiah
was to be born and watched for His Star

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A number of years later Daniel remembered that God had said the Jews would be in captivity for 70 years, a time that was nearing completion, and he set himself to pray to God to keep His covenant. The Angel Gabriel came in response to his prayer and prophesied the birth of the Messiah in 69 weeks (of years) from the rebuilding of the Temple in Jerusalem. The 69 weeks of years would mean 483 years from the rebuilding of the Temple the Messiah would be born, precisely the time when the Magi arrived following the star. Could it be because of Daniel and this prophesy that the Magi knew of the star that would point them to the birthplace of Jesus? (Daniel 9)

Daniel 9:25 "Know therefore and understand, [That] from the going forth of the command to restore and build Jerusalem until Messiah the Prince, [There shall be] seven weeks and sixty-two weeks; The street shall be built again, and the wall, Even in troublesome times. (NKJV)"

And the Star? Was it a real star or something else? The website Star of Bethlehem describes in detail one possible explanation - a conjugation of the star Regulus and the planet Jupiter with cameos by the sun and the new moon. It is an intriguing, scientific study of how these celestial bodies could have moved together to point the way to the birthplace of the Messiah.

Matthew 2:9-10 "When they heard the king, they departed; and behold, the star which they had seen in the East went before them, till it came and stood over where the young Child was. ¹⁰ When they saw the star, they rejoiced with exceedingly great joy. (NKJV)"

And the Three Gifts? What do they mean? They signify the three Destinies of Christ - King, Priest and Savior.

Matthew 2:11 "And when they had come into the house, they saw the young Child with Mary His mother, and fell down and worshiped Him. And when they had opened their treasures, they presented gifts to Him: gold, frankincense, and myrrh. (NKJV)"

We will examine the Gifts and Christ's destiny in the next blog.

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Gold, Frankincense, and Myrrh - King, Priest and Savior

In our last blog, we talked about the Star of Bethlehem, the Wise Men, and the three Gifts they brought to Jesus - Gold, Frankincense and Myrrh. So what were these gifts and why did the Wise Men choose them to give?

We know that Gold is the metal of Kings as was mentioned in a previous blog. It was, and still is, a precious metal due to its relative scarcity, its unusual color and lustre, and its malleability. It is well suited for ornamentation and decoration in art or jewelry and for signifying wealth, things important to kings and princes (and princesses!). The Magi brought Gold to recognize Jesus' kingship.

Matthew 2:1-2 - "After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, during the time of King Herod, Magi from the east came to Jerusalem ² and asked, "Where is the one who has been born King of the Jews? We saw his star in the east and have come to worship him. (NIV)"

How about Frankincense? Frankincense is an aromatic resin obtained from trees of the genus Boswellia. The trees are striped and the resin exudes and dries into pearls that are then harvested. The pearls are burned as incense in a fire to release the fragrance of the resin. Frankincense was an important part of the Temple service in Jerusalem. The incense was burned by the priest as part of the offering.

The essential oil of Frankincense, produced by steam distillation of the tree resin, contains monoterpenes, sesquiterpenes, monoterpenoles, sesquiterpenols, and ketones. Terpenes are a class of molecules that typically contain either ten or fifteen carbon atoms built from a five-carbon building block called isoprene. These are volatile aromatic hydrocarbon esters used in incense and perfumes. Frankincense has a good balsamic and sweet fragrance. Many terpenes such as menthol (found in throat lozenges) and camphor also have medicinal values.

Exodus 30:34-35 - "Then the LORD said to Moses, Take fragrant spices--gum resin, onycha and galbanum--and pure frankincense, all in equal amounts, ³⁵ and make a fragrant blend of incense, the work of a perfumer. It is to be salted and pure and sacred. (NIV)"

Leviticus 6:15 - "He shall take from it his handful of the fine flour of the grain offering, with its oil, and all the frankincense which [is] on the grain offering, and shall burn [it] on the altar [for] a sweet aroma, as a memorial to the LORD. (NKJV)"

Frankincense, which was often burned, symbolized prayer rising to the heavens like smoke. The Magi brought Frankincense to acknowledge the holiness or divinity of Jesus, our Divine High Priest.

Myrrh is a reddish resin that comes from the species Commiphora myrrha, a plant native to northeast Africa and the adjacent areas of the Arabian Peninsula. It is gathered in the same fashion as Frankincense, as pearls of dried resin from striping the tree. Myrrh is an aromatic oleoresin consisting of sterols and volatile oils. It can also be found in a liquid form. So valuable was it at times in ancient history that, ounce for ounce, it was more costly than gold. Because Myrrh was used in the embalming or anointing of the dead, it came to represent mortality, suffering, and sorrow.

The Magi brought Myrrh to symbolize the hardship, suffering and death that Christ would endure as our Savior.

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Jesus Christ, the Messiah
Our King, Priest and Savior!

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Thus these three gifts foretell of the three destinies of Jesus - King, Priest and Savior. Jesus came 2000 years ago as our pure and spotless lamb of God, offered up for us on a cross, a Savior for us, dying for the forgiveness of our sins. Myrrh symbolized His impending death.

1 Peter 1:18a-19 - "Knowing that you were not redeemed with corruptible things,... ¹⁹ but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot. (NKJV)"

John 19:39-40 - "And Nicodemus, who at first came to Jesus by night, also came, bringing a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about a hundred pounds. ⁴⁰ Then they took the body of Jesus, and bound it in strips of linen with the spices, as the custom of the Jews is to bury. (NKJV)"

He is now our Great High Priest in heaven, interceding for us with His Father. Frankincense symbolized His Priesthood and prayers for us.

Leviticus 2:2 - "He shall bring it to Aaron's sons, the priests, one of whom shall take from it his handful of fine flour and oil with all the frankincense. And the priest shall burn [it as] a memorial on the altar, an offering made by fire, a sweet aroma to the LORD. (NKJV)"

Gold symbolized His Kingship. He will return as a King, ruling and reigning over the Earth in the millennium that follows His return.

Luke 1:31-33 - "And behold, you [Mary] will conceive in your womb and bring forth a Son, and shall call His name JESUS. ³² He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Highest; and the Lord God will give Him the throne of His father David. ³³ And He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of His kingdom there will be no end. (NKJV)"

He is coming soon!

The Chemistry of Matter & Vibration

A few weeks ago I was invited to talk at my church on a selection of verses from the Gospel of John. I chose the first three verses as my focus. I then expounded on them in relation to God - Jesus - as the Word or Logos, looking at it from a scientific point of view. I am taking part of that sermon and sharing it here with you, my blog followers. Hope you will find it interesting and thought provoking.

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Today we will look at the Gospel of John. I want to focus on the just the first three verses of the Prologue, where John identifies Jesus as the Logos or the Word.

John calls Jesus the “Word” or in the Greek the “Logos”. So what is the Logos? It is more than a spoken word, or written word. The “Logos” is that part of God that spoke the world into existence - all and everything that sums up the Universe and everything in it - matter and energy, life and death, thought and reason.

John 1:1-3 (NIV) - In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. ²He was with God in the beginning. ³Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made.

In these first three verses John says that Jesus:

• Was the Logos
  • As God He spoke us into existence and as a man spoke to us during His life (as we have recorded in the Gospels).
• He was WITH God
  • He was with God in the beginning, that is, He always existed! – He was not created by God (He is the God-man not just a good man).
• He WAS God
  • God and the Logos are not two beings, and yet they are also not simply identical. Jesus said: "I and the Father are one" (John 10:30 NIV) and also, "...the Father is greater than I." (John 14:28b NIV).
• Through Him all things were made (created)
  • Reaffirms that Jesus was active (and probably took, and still takes, the lead role) in the creation.

So now let’s take a look at these three verses in connection with several other verses that speak to God’s creative power. Any of you that were here the last time I spoke, you know that I like Science and the Bible. So I can’t speak here without some connection between John’s opening verses and current scientific facts.

So let’s now look at Genesis, Colossians and Hebrews:

Genesis 1:1-3 (NIV) - In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. ²Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters. ³And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light.

Colossians 1:15-17 (NIV) - The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. ¹⁶For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him. ¹⁷He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.

Hebrews 1:3a (NIV) - The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his (God’s) being, sustaining all things by his powerful Word.

So, what do these verses tell us?

• God speaks creation into existence with His Word.
• In John, Jesus is called “The Word” and in Genesis Jesus spoke the universe into existence.
• God uses His “voice” to make the world. It is through His spoken word that the world was created.
• It is through God’s Word (Jesus) all things were made and by His Word (Jesus) all things are held together.
• Jesus sustains all things by his powerful word.

These words were spoken thousands of years ago. What do we know about the world today that relates to these ideas?

Science has told us that matter, everything in the physical world, is made up of smaller and smaller particles. When I was in school it was molecules, atoms, protons, neutrons, electrons and...?

As an example, an atom looks something like this (Helium):

	Although shown as motionless on an orbit, in reality the electrons are moving rapidly (at the speed of light) around the nucleus (the protons & neutrons). An Atom is actually a blur, like a cloud, and is in reality 99.99999% empty space.
Source: Skulls in the Stars Blog

Now today, we can go even deeper.

An electron cannot be broken down but the protons and neutrons can. Almost all the matter or mass (think e=mc² – everything is either mass or energy) of anything physical is in the protons & neutrons of its atoms.

Speaking at the sub-atomic level (smaller than an atom), matter - protons & neutrons - consists primarily of particles called quarks, anti-quarks and gluons and is regulated by the strong nuclear force (a form of energy). The strong nuclear force is the force that holds protons and neutrons together in the nucleus. At the sub-atomic level, matter and energy are in constant flux (changing back and forth between the different forms).

If we take one of the Protons or Neutrons (together called Nucleons) we see in an atom and look much closer, they look something like this:

An image of protons and neutrons as full of quarks, anti-quarks and gluons. A proton consists of two up quarks and one down quark plus many gluons (g) plus many quark/anti-quark pairs (u, d, s stand for up, down and strange quarks; anti-quarks are marked with a bar.)
	Source: Professor Matt Strassler's Blog

The protons and neutrons are full of quarks, anti-quarks and gluons, moving around at high speed (basically the speed of light) inside the proton or neutron. Protons & neutrons are also somewhat like an electron cloud, without all the empty space.

The mass (or matter - think weight though not exactly the same thing) of a proton or a neutron - and thus the mass of an atom, a molecule, a substance and a being, comes from this chaos (the constant, crazy movement and changes happening to the quarks and gluons) going on inside a proton or neutron. The mass does not come from the nucleons themselves (think energy not substance).

OK.  I know it is confusing but it’s important to take a moment to let all this sink in.

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The Mass of Everything
Comes from the Vibration Within
The Protons & Neutrons of Its Atoms

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How amazing and awesome is this!  Almost all of the mass found in all the things around us (and in us!) is that of the protons and neutrons within its/our atoms... 

And most of that mass...

Comes from the vibrational-energy of a proton’s or neutron’s quarks and gluons, and from the interactional-energy (also a vibration) of the strong nuclear forces that hold those protons or neutrons together.

The whole creation around us, our physical being, our very breath are what they are as a result of an internal, imperceptible turbulence of constant energetic vibration, the vibration of the fundamental parts of an atom’s nucleus!

As we continue to drill deeper into the center of the atom, we have discovered that when you get to matter at the smallest level it is almost as if there is nothing there except vibrations. When we talked about the Big Bang we said “First there was nothing and then it exploded.” When talking about matter we can almost say “There’s nothing there and it’s vibrating!”

So Scientists have spent millions of dollars to build a sub-atomic particle accelerator (Large Hadron Collider) where they accelerate nucleons at crazy high speeds and crash them into each other so that they can see what is left when they break apart. And what have they found? At the heart of it all is a vibration!

So hold that thought for a moment.

Now there is another way to think about vibration. Vibration is the essential foundation of sound. When a note is played on the piano it makes a sound because of the vibration of the strings. When you speak, you make a sound because of the vibration of your vocal cords. The sounds we hear are actually vibrations which cause our eardrums to vibrate which our brains then interpret and give meaning to. My voice is a vibration which your brain makes sense of. (I hope!!!)

Now sound as we know it does not travel through a vacuum, such as space, but there are electromagnetic waves, or vibrations, emitted by the sun and planets that have the same frequencies (rate of vibration) as the sounds that the human ear can hear.

And NASA captured these background electromagnetic vibrations with instruments on the Voyager spacecraft and has converted them into sounds of the same wavelength. Here is a sample of what the earth sounds like:

NASA Recording of Earth Sounds - YouTube

So picture this... in the beginning God’s voice spoke out and it reverberated into the nothingness that was there, and His voice, His Word, the vibration of the sound of His voice, actually took on physical characteristics. It became something visible, something more than simply a spoken word. It became matter, energy and light. And His voice continued to ring out, and continues to ring out still, holding all things together by His powerful Word!

The vibration at the base of all matter in the universe is the sound of God’s voice, His Word, continuing to ring through all creation!

So where do we go from here?

We must realize that Jesus (as man) is GOD in the flesh and how absolutely overwhelming it is that He would love us so much that he would create a world for us and then come into that world to save us. If He can do all this for us, we should desire to share Him with those that do not know Him. We cannot keep our faith a secret.

We know that all things are possible with God. The Logos (Jesus) spoke us into existence, He holds us together and redeems us by His Word, and ultimately calls us to be with Him (and the Father) in heaven.

He is faithful! His Word is True!

Hebrews 13:8 (NIV) - Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.

AMEN? AMEN!

Carbon Dating - The Chemistry of Carbon-14

I was running around doing errands a couple of weeks ago and I decided to drop into the local Chick-fil-A for lunch. I waited my turn in line and then the young cashier called me up to her window. She said, "Welcome to Chick-fil-A." Now I think I look young for my age but; and then she said, "Hi, what would you like in your order today?" But I definitely am in THAT age group. So then she took my order and when she handed me my receipt I saw it. She had given me the "Senior Discount!" I did not even need to ask! Now I was glad to get my 10% off but it made me think... Was it my graying at the temples, or my dewlap, or my crow's feet that gave away my age?

The cashier used her deductive reasoning skills to assess my age and determined that I must be over 60, hence the Senior Discount. Scientists do the same thing when determining the age of plants or animals found in the fossil record. Particularly, they use carbon dating to determine the approximate age of organic materials that are considered to be less than 50,000 years old, the practical limit of this type of test.

	The system of carbon dating has been around for about 100 years. It is sometimes called Radiocarbon Dating and depends on the rate of decay of one isotope of Carbon, Carbon-14. Carbon has 15 known isotopes, ranging from Carbon-8 to carbon-22. Only two are stable (carbon-12 - the most common, and carbon-13) and, of all the rest, only carbon-14 has a half-life of more than just a few seconds.
Accelerator Mass Spectrometer - to detect Carbon-14

All elements have what are called isotopes. An element is an atom with a set number of protons defining that specific element. For carbon that number is six protons. An isotope is each of two or more forms of the same element that contain equal numbers of protons but different numbers of neutrons in their nuclei, and hence differ in relative atomic mass but not in chemical properties. Some isotopes are stable, such as carbon-12, and others, carbon-14 in particular, are radioactive forms of an element. Radioactive isotopes can release electromagnetic radiation or particle radiation to become stable. Particle radiation includes alpha and beta particles as well as proton and neutron radiation. Carbon-14 emits an electron and an electron antineutrino, converting one of the neutrons in the carbon-14 atom into a proton and thereby changing the carbon-14 into the stable isotope nitrogen-14.

Carbon-14's half-life is about 5700 years, making it a good marker for items up to that 50,000 year limit we mentioned earlier. After about 50,000 years, almost all carbon-14 will be gone from a given fossil specimen once no more can be adsorbed. Once all the carbon-14 is gone, at about 50,000 years, the specimen can no longer be dated by this method.

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Carbon-14 Dating
Helps Us Validate the Bible

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Carbon is often considered as the foundation of life. Many molecules containing carbon, when bonded with hydrogen, oxygen and nitrogen, are considered organic and are part of the makeup of planets and animals. After water, carbon would be considered as an essential element in molecules discovered in the search for extraterrestrial life. I wrote about carbon in a previous blog post, "Gods Favorite Elements".

So how does carbon dating work? The interaction of cosmic rays with atmospheric nitrogen is constantly creating carbon-14. This carbon then combines with atmospheric oxygen to form radioactive carbon dioxide (CO₂). The resulting carbon-14 carrying CO₂ is incorporated into plant molecules by photosynthesis and animals then acquire it by eating the plants. The amount of carbon-14 in the animal or plant continues to remain steady with the environment, until that plant or animal dies. Accumulation of the carbon-14 into the organism then stops and the amount of carbon-14 it contains begins to decrease as the carbon-14 undergoes radioactive decay. Measuring the amount of carbon-14 in a sample from a plant or animal fossil provides information that can be used to calculate when the organism died. The older a sample is, the less carbon-14 there is to be detected.

But it is not as simple as comparing the amount of carbon-14 in the fossil to a chart and getting its age. Presuming the rate of production of carbon-14 to be constant, the activity of a sample can be directly compared to the equilibrium activity of current living matter and the age calculated. But is the production of carbon-14 constant? Years of work were required to develop the technique to the point where accurate dates could be obtained. Research has been ongoing since the 1960s to determine what the proportion of carbon-14 in the atmosphere has been over the past fifty thousand years. The resulting data, in the form of a calibration curve, is now used to convert a given measurement of carbon-14 in a sample into an estimate of the sample's calendar age.

But this calibration curve is also impacted by other factors - different types of organisms can have varying levels of carbon-14, burning of fossil fuels in the past 100 years has decreased the amount of carbon-14 in the atmosphere and nuclear tests in the past 50 years have added to it. So carbon dating may not work so well in the future. Carbon dating can be validated by other methods so the curve is constantly being refined. The use of various radioisotopes (along with carbon-14) allows the dating of biological and geological samples with a high degree of accuracy. But anything that died after the 1900s, when fossil fuels and open-air nuclear tests started changing carbon-14 concentrations, will be harder to precisely date.

Another possible problem with this dating method is the existence of carbon-14 in geological samples that are said to be millions of years old. In 1997 one group of scientists started a study of coal and diamond samples, previously tested by other means to be in the millions of years old, and therefore should contain no carbon-14. All of their samples, according to their tests, contained detectable levels of carbon-14 and thus would rate much younger by this method. They claim this shows proof of a young earth. Could this prove that earth is only about 10,000 years old?

The study of the age of fossils and geological materials does require some assumptions that makes their accuracy questionable but in the past 50+ years of development, scientists now have a remarkable understanding of most if not all of carbon dating's subtleties and complexities. Carbon dating is a powerful tool in helping us understand the history of our world and all of God's creation on it. Carbon dating provides another source of evidence that the Bible accurately describes the record of mankind.

Isaiah 46:4 (NIV) - Even to your old age and gray hairs I am He, I am He who will sustain you. I have made you and I will carry you; I will sustain you and I will rescue you.

Job 36:26 (NIV) - How great is God—beyond our understanding! The number of his years is past finding out.