Are You Still There?

After the solar eclipse on Monday, you may have woken up this morning and pinched yourself just to make sure you were still here.  There were a few celestial phenomenon at the same time. Let me fill you in on all the catastrophic supernatural events that were (allegedly) taking place.

              There was an epic battle between Mars and Saturn, and the sun apparently also crossed paths with Aries! All this took place while Cetus, the constellation of the whale, covered the sky. This was supposed to be the sign of Jonah.

No sign was to be given to us, of the end times, except the sign of Jonah. – Matthew 12:39

I’m shocked you’re still here! Perhaps it’s because the Bible says nothing about Jonah and a ‘whale’. Anyway, as you might suspect, there was much more afoot: In addition to the Devil’s Comet,  several stars, six planets, were visible in the path of totality (actually they weren’t since it was daytime). Also, in dramatic fashion we were informed that 7 Ninevehs in the United States would fall under the path of the eclipse. Nineveh and 7 together? It was too much. God must be telling us something.

Unfortunately, there were only two cities of Nineveh in the path of the eclipse (Indiana and Ohio). The 2017 Eclipse allegedly fell across 7 Salems in the United States. The path of that eclipse and yesterday’s intersected Little Egypt, Illinois, and of course Egypt is a notorious location in the Bible, and making it more ominous, Little Egypt has experienced SEVEN earthquakes in the last year! https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2024/04/05/april-8-eclipse-totality-path-nineveh/73215252007/

  Unfortunately, a number of these claims are dubious. The Salem assertions are as erroneous as the Nineveh ones. Also, Little Egypt is not really a name of a town, but a nickname for southern Illinois, in which the town of Carbondale sits, more precisely the location where the path of the two eclipses crossed (I looked, there’s no Carbondale’s in the Bible). Also there have been NO earthquakes IN Carbondale exactly, but there have been at least 11 in the area.

Just to be sure, I spoke with Adam, the minister of the Carbondale Church of Christ. He said when he experienced the eclipse in 2017, this cataclysmic judgement of God was was awe inspiring and uneventful. He watched from his backyard as the moon hung over the sun for two minutes and forty seconds.

I was also able to quickly locate ministers in Nineveh, Ohio and their observations were similar to Adam’s. They all said they are in awe of creation and the God who made it but were not making particular plans for coming doom.

Is it coincidental that John, the minister of the church of Christ in nearby Greenville, Ohio shares 4 letters of his name with the prophet of doom? Probably, but why should we let that hinder a great theory? He noted that his congregation saw Y2K, and then the monsoons of 2012 – when Hurricane Sandy devastated the Caribbean. Less than a decade later we all saw a worldwide virus.

People are fatigued

              In my observation there are three types of anxiety: We have anxiety which is our body’s natural response to danger. The second is perceived anxiety, when a traumatic event occurrs, but the victim is unable to turn off the fight or flight mechanism. These are legitimate, but the third type of anxiety is created anxiety.

              News organizations and social media design their content to create a response from the consumer. If you didn’t respond, they would have no platform. They create a narrative, which puts the consumer in a constant state of anxiety. This allows them to market solutions like medicine, books, investments, or simply create a dependence on them for information. We are kept in a constant state of panic concerning pending disasters, real or imagined: wars, natural disasters, economic woes, climate. What will happen next? Tune in and find out.

              Religions are just as guilty, if not more so. God’s pending judgment is constantly being predicted. Jehovah’s Witnesses in 1914, Hal Lindsey’s “Late Great Planet Earth”, 88 reasons God will come in 1988, and the Branch Davidians, are just a sampling of religious hysteria.  What is the result? Every failed prediction produces eye rolls and fewer people listen. Someone is predicting the end of the world every day.

Here’s the reality: As humans we come with a built-in countdown, whether it is individual or world-wide. The law of entropy basically states that everything is wearing down. Energy is being used up.  It was made to do so. My life will come to an end, just as the universe will end.

But concerning that day and hour, no one knows, not even the angels of heaven nor the Son, but the Father only – Matthew 24:36

If you are ready to meet the Lord, there is no need to dread it. He has demonstrated again and again that He is in control. You do not need an eclipse to be prepared. During a great storm, 12 men huddled in fear while Jesus slept. They thought their lives were in danger, but they didn’t realize that at that very moment, they were in the safest place on the planet they could possibly be. It wasn’t until they woke him up that they were made aware of this.

But the men marvelled, saying, what manner of man is this, that even the winds and the sea obey him! – Matthew 8:27

If you get in the boat with Christ with both feet, you will watch your anxieties melt away. You don’t need to be afraid of the things that secular society and religious zealots use to keep you constantly afraid.