A New Voice of Freedom

The Garden of Eden The story of the Garden of Eden, regardless of the chronological timeline, begins hard on the creation of the earth. It introduces the beginning of man on earth.  26 And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping...

The Garden of Paradise by Hans Christian Anderson Hans Christian Anderson (1805-1875), a prolific writer, is best known for his fairy tales. The Garden of Paradise, a fascinating allegory, raises the question, “What would you do if you were in the Garden of Eden rather than Adam and Eve? Would you have eaten the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil or would you have remained in the gard...

The Last Days Pt X, The Resurrection Most Christians, I think it is safe to say, believe in a literal resurrection. The model is Christ himself. When Christ came forth from the tomb, he looked like his former self. He talked with the saints.  He ate fish with the apostles.  6 And as they thus spake, Jesus himself stood in the midst of them, and saith unto them, Peace be unto you. 37 But they were...

The Last Days Pt IX The New Jerusalem In the previous podcast we listed the six stages of the earth.  In this podcast we shall focus on the sixth or final stage of the earth.  It marks, of course, the end of the world as we know it. The New Jerusalem descends, and earth becomes celestialized. In other words, earth becomes heaven. In the Sermon on the Mount, the third Beatitude says, “5 Blessed are...

The Last Days Pt VIII The Six Stages of the Earth Mother earth has gone through many stages. We have the fascinating scientific view of the earth. They estimate earth to be about 4.5 billion years old in a universe that is estimated to be about 14 billion years old. Its scientific history is mesmerizing, and science continues to study our terrestrial home.  Contrary to what some scientists think t...

The Last Days Pt VII The Millennium  The Garden of Eden has long been considered the quintessential Utopia, or perfect place. The word Utopia is a term coined by Sir Thomas Moore for his novel entitled Utopia. It means the perfect society. Other names for Utopia are Shangri la, Happy Valley, El Dorado, Erewhon, and Paradise. Today paradise is generally equated with palm trees, white sand beaches,...

Remarks by President Biden on Uvalde, Texas, an Analysis Welcome to season two of ‘A New Voice of Freedom.’  The Podcasts are based on the four volumes ‘In Defense of Christianity’ written by Ronald Keith Messer. This is from a series entitled Political Speeches. Podcast 101B is entitled “Remarks by President Biden on the Tragedy in Uvalde, Texas, an Analysis.” President Biden has once again shown...

Pride Webster’s dictionary defines virtue as a conformity to a standard of right, a particular moral excellence. A vice, of course, is just the opposite: a moral depravity or corruption, a moral fault or failing. We often pit the seven heavenly virtues (chastity, temperance, charity, diligence, kindness, patience, & humility) against the seven deadly sins (lust, gluttony, greed, sloth, envy, w...

The Opening of the Seventh Seal But the sixth seal is preliminary to the Second Coming of Christ.  Christ does not make his appearance until after the opening of the seventh seal or somewhere during the beginning of the seven thousand years. The time immediately prior to the Second coming is filled with “voices, and thunderings, and lightnings, and an earthquake.” The thunderings and lightnings ar...

The Last Days Pt V: The Signs of the Times Many events accompany the Second Coming of Christ. On the Mount of Olives, the disciples had a private conversation with the Savior about the end of the world. 3 And as he sat upon the mount of Olives, the disciples came unto him privately, saying, Tell us, when shall these things be? and what shall be the sign of thy coming, and of the end of the world?...

The Marriage Supper of the Lamb vs The Supper of the Great God Let’s turn to the Book of Revelation, Chapter 19, to read of the two great suppers that will be held at the Second Coming of Christ and prior to the Millennium. As we read this, let’s remember that the Second Coming is a series of events, not a single spectacular appearing. Many things happen during the Second Coming both for the prepa...

The Last Days Pt III The Ancient Prophesies of the Second Coming of Christ The story of Job remains dateless, but we can assume from the earliest days the people of God were looking forward to the Coming of Christ, and were aware of his birth, death, resurrection, and of his Second coming. Many prophesies refer to the first coming of Christ, or the date of his birth in Bethlehem of Judea. Many pro...

Ulysses by Alfred Lord Tennyson As with all poetry, I do not pretend to tell anyone what a poem means.  You may find scholars who will be thrilled to do that for you. But I do freely tell you what it means to me.  I find great inspiration in poetry.  As with all great writing I rely upon time to be my primary filter. If a poem endured through the ages, then it is more likely that it has a voice th...

The Last Days Pt II: The Fall of Babylon Nothing is clearer in the Book of Isaiah and the Book of Revelation than the fact that in the last days we will witness the fall of Babylon, which represents the world. John the Revelator tells us, 2 And he cried mightily with a strong voice, saying, Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen, and is become the habitation of devils, and the hold of every foul s...

The Last Days Pt I: The Rise of Babylon To the ancient Israelites, the land of Egypt represented all that was evil. They were slaves to the Egyptians for 400 years. One of the great challenges to the Children of Israel was to shake the shackles of slavery imposed by the Egyptians. To the ancient prophets, the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah also became symbols of evil. The children of Israel were war...

Millennium, The Third Estate In the last podcast we talked about the four estates of man: The First Estate is our premortal life; our Second Estate is our mortal life; the Third Estate is our Millennial life; and the Fourth Estate is our Eternal Life with God. The Kingdom of God established by Christ during his ministry is on earth and one of the charges to all Christians is to prepare for the Sec...

The Four Primary Estates of Man We are an eternal family of God, and the earthly family is patterned after the eternal family of God.  There are four primary estates of man. The First Estate was in heaven. As spirits we lived in the kingdom of heaven with God who is the Father of our spirits.  In Jude we read. 6 And the angels which kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation, he ha...

Poetry,  The Language of Worship Even though there are 150 Psalms, probably most Christians can quote what is simply known as The Twenty Third Psalm or The Psalm of David.   1 The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. 2 He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters. 3 He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name’s sake. 4 Yea,...

The Kingdom of God on Earth  We are tribal in nature. Our family is a tribe. Our country is a tribe. Our friends are a tribe. Our school is a tribe. Our religion is a tribe.  Political parties are a tribe.  Tribes may be formed by blood, by ideology, by skin color, by sexual orientation, by special interests. All tribes have important elements in common, even if that element is a common enemy.  We...

Ye That Follow After Righteousness One thing that all Christians agree on is that we are living in the last days spoken of so eloquently by the prophets Isaiah and John the Revelator and, of course, other prophets such as Daniel and Ezekiel and the Savior himself as recorded in Matthew 24. I think that what most of us didn’t comprehend is that it is one thing to read about the future.  It is anoth...

Let us Stand Together This morning at 4 am (I am an early riser) I was reading Isaiah Chapter 50. One’s first impression of Isaiah is that he seems, upon a cursory reading, to be talking about a far-away-land that has no relevance to one’s own personal dilemma.  But this time, reading Isaiah, I had an entirely different experience. I felt like Isaiah was talking directly to me. Bad news had made m...

The Truth Shall Make You Free We use the following terms interchangeably: Freewill, Freedom, Agency, and Liberty. In this podcast I want to emphasize the differences. I want to establish the boundaries of each word for each is unique.  In a recent podcast entitled “False Analogy” I drew attention to the fact that in the scientific world, some scientists do not believe that man has freewill. The er...

The Lamb of and the Tiger I have so many “favorite poets” that I may lose credibility by adding another; nonetheless William Blake (1757-1827) is one of my favorite poets. In his lifetime Blake did not achieve great fame. His genius had to wait to be discovered by later generations. Now he is considered one the preeminent Romantic Poets. He was a poet, a painter, and an engraver. In this podcast,...

False Analogy There are forms of logic that affect our thinking.  For example, critical thinkers use the following forms in analyzing concepts or problems: cause and effect, classification and division, comparison and contrast, example, and analogy. There are others of course, but the purpose of this podcast is to issue a warning about carrying concepts beyond the boundaries of logic. The scientif...

Who Runs the Universe? We attribute the rise of Darwinism to the split between science and religion. There is no conflict on earth more unnecessary, more ridiculous, and more confusing that the conflict between science and religion. Here are two aphorisms that can never be contradicted.  1.      Truth never contradicts truth.  2.      Law never contradicts law.  We often erroneously assume that th...