Bert Hielema–Columns and Writings

SEPTEMBER 2 2017

THE REVENGE OF CREATION.

“Do not take revenge, my dear friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: “It is mine to avenge; I will repay,” says the Lord.” Romans 12: 19.

I love Romans 8, where it says that “creation is in the pangs of giving birth to a new earth.”

This brings up an interesting question: is the earth a living system, an organism that has all characteristics of such creatures as humans and animals, trees, and other thriving entities?
“Yes”, says James Lovelock, the author of THE REVENGE OF GAIA, EARTH’S CLIMATE IN CRISIS AND THE FATE OF HUMANITY. Lovelock writes, “Unless we see the earth as a planet that behaves as if it were alive, at least to the extent of regulating its climate and chemistry, we will lack the will to change our way of life and to understand that we have made it our greatest enemy”.
The Bible too is quite definite in seeing the earth as alive, as the text quoted above indicates. Only substances that are alive can give birth to a replica of itself.

When we see creation as an enemy, then creation fights back. That’s what happening now, and that’s why both the Bible and Lovelock’s book THE REVENGE OF GAIA, speak to us today. Gaia is the Greek name for EARTH. The science ‘geo-logy’ refers to that also.

Lovelock implies and the Bible confirms that if we regard Creation as a life-less entity, as a planet to be exploited, as dead matter not affected by torture, pain or even feeling, as the enemy to be destroyed, we can expect repercussions.

THE RELEVANCE OF SCRIPTURE: the earth lives!!

When we read Matthew 24 it is striking that Jesus himself uses the phrasing of ‘birth pains’.
Let me quote that passage, (verse 7) “Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be famines and earthquakes in various places. All these are the beginning of birth pains.”
Yes, Jesus himself sees the earth as living matter, as PREGNANT!!

There are numerous places where the Bible sees creation as alive. Psalm 98, credits the earth with ‘eyes and voice’, “All the ends of the earth have SEEN the salvation of our God. SHOUT to the Lord all the earth, RING out your joy.” Later in that same Psalm, “Let the rivers clap their hands and the hills ring out their joy.”
Isaiah 55: 12 expresses similar emotions: “the mountains and hills will burst into song before you, and all the trees of the fields will clap their hands.” Even the stars join in, as recorded in Job 38: 6, “While the morning stars sang together, all the angels shouted for joy.”

Does Creation portray God?

Of course. In the hearing of the Bach cantatas, in the presence of a portrait by Rembrandt, in the rhythm and import of a sonnet of Shakespeare, we are in direct contact with the truth and spirit of these creators. The same and more is true when we regard God’s creation: there we hear and taste and sense the presence of the divine. When harming it, we harm the Creator. A person openly destroying a Rembrandt painting is severely punished. Will God condone the harming of his creation? Of course not. That’s why we have HARVEY.

Something unexpected.

Then there is Isaiah 62, where in verses 4-5 it says, “But the Lord will take delight in you, and the land will be married. As a young man marries a maiden so your sons marry you.” Isaiah states here that THE LAND WILL BE MARRIED.
That passage finds fulfillment in Revelation 21. There the New Earth appears, prepared as a BRIDE beautifully dressed for her husband. That means that the New Humanity will marry the Earth, the Bride of Christ. That’s why John 3: 16 is the most important text in the Bible.

Yes, that’s what the Bible tells us: NOT THE CHURCH but the Renewed Earth is THE BRIDE.

BIRTH PAINS: HARVEY, the Herald of what is to come.

However, the earth giving birth to another earth is not a smooth matter but a very, very difficult affair, a painful process as the gestation period is taking millennia, but now, in our time, this actual event is about to happen, right on schedule.

That birth is the end of the old world and the start of the new one. Once the birth has taken place, the old earth and everything in it will vanish, but the shell will remain. It will not be a new earth, no, it will be a renewed planet, in a renewed atmosphere, as the immediate space around the earth is full of space junk.

Giving birth goes in stages. Today there are certain indications that birth is imminent, evident in the current contractions, which are painful, and the shorter the intervals, the closer the time of giving birth.
Today we live in such a contracting time.

Hurricane HARVEY is directed at the State of Texas and City of Houston where OIL IS KING, where CLIMATE CHANGE is seen as a joke, where its subdivisions have paved over the wetlands with no regard for NATURE. That very area is now undergoing THE WRATH OF GOD.

FUKUSHIMA is another example.

Just like Texas, Japan should have known better. As the only country on the receiving end of two ATOMIC bombs, it built nuclear reactors so close to the ocean that a disaster could be predicted. And the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in March of 2011 received the full Revenge of Creation.
Of course, no one could have foretold the timing and scale of the tsunami, and virtually nobody expected that it could overwhelm the facility as spectacularly as it did. But that changed as the first of several hydrogen explosions was observed among the reactors. Now more than 6 years later much of the Pacific Ocean is contaminated with radioactive particles. Thankfully the radioactive fuel that melted through containment still remains in a molten state, so the worst-case scenario didn’t materialize.

The speeding up of the arrival of THE KINGDOM.

The signs are all around us for discerning eyes. Ever since we entered the CARBON AGE, some 200 years ago, we have speeded up history. That in full agreement with the Bible where, in that awesome chapter Matthew 24: 22, Jesus tells us that those days of utter destruction, will be cut short, which means that everything will accelerate, will increase in speed, will have overwhelming momentum. That’s what we are experiencing now, from the horse-and-buggy-stage to automobile to jet planes to space travel in record time; from snail-mail to Internet, from still photography to instant physical recording, all at the speed of light.
This is also true throughout nature. Glaciers that took millennia to form calve off into the sea in a matter of moments. The entire ARCTIC, with its 10,000 plus years of ice-cover, suddenly becomes ice-free, with catastrophic consequences for the World’s weather, analogous to a household without warning losing its air-conditioning. Or take Greenland, the largest island in the world and also the largest accumulated ice volume anywhere, except the Antarctic. Greenland is buried under 3000 meters of ice. Yet, for the first time in recorded history, there have been fires there on the few exposed spots, endangering the ‘permafrost’.
Or look at the old-growth forests filled with thousand-year-old trees decimated by a single wildfire. Should I mention the mysterious sinkholes in Siberia, spontaneously spouting methane-filled flames?
Fast change is also a hallmark of human society. Movements and ideas — oftentimes simmering for years, decades or longer – now, today, reach a critical state in which the populace is swept up into history-making action. Today we see that in the TRUMP tragedy, the unexpected shift from benevolent, more or less democratic rule, to autocratic anarchy in the USA.

Also today we see the disappearance of marriage. Is that an indication of what Jesus said that in the New Creation people will neither be married nor be given in marriage? (Luke 20: 35). We again see it in the weather where ‘once in a thousand year’ events become commonplace to the astonishment of insurance companies, governments, people along rivers and coasts, or those poor depending on glaciers to provide timely irrigation.
When these changes come, they happen swiftly. And life after — for better or worse — is forever different.

2008 Financial Crisis

You may remember how Queen Elizabeth visited the LSE, the London School of Economics shortly after the 2008 Financial Crisis and asked the professors of this supposedly best school in the world, why they had not seen that crisis coming.
Good question, no answer.
How quickly the bubble popped: between September and October, the S&P 500 lost one-third of its value, and continued falling through March, ending at over 50% lower than its pre-crisis high. Millions of jobs were lost over these months. And the prices of other major assets from houses to bonds were savaged, too.
Today the stock market, the house prices, all assets, except gold are again in maximum territory. Will financial history repeat itself? Of course.

No one can predict when the next market downturn will happen.

HOW THEN SHALL WE LIVE?

That question must always be uppermost in our minds. They are different for each age. Today the laws of Ecology must rule us. Ecology is the science that busies itself with the ‘eco’ a word that is based on the Greek word OIKOS which means ‘house’, now more used for the house humanity lives in.

ECOLOGY has four rules which are valid for all times. These simple directions are important enough to remember. Print them out and look at them every day, and try to live by them.

These directives are:
(1) There is no free lunch.
(2) Everything is connected to everything else.
(3) Nothing ever disappears, and
(4) Nature knows best.

Not adhering to them has brought us where we are today, as captured in my original statement:
THE REVENGE OF CREATION.
And the quote from the Bible: “Do not take revenge, my dear friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: “It is mine to avenge; I will repay,” says the Lord.” Romans 12: 19.
The four (4) laws of ecology give us an indication on how to live to avoid God’s wrath and consequent revenge.

(1) There is no free lunch.
We are discovering that the use of any carbon-base device, whether that is an automobile or a lawnmower, an electric kettle or a refrigerator has consequences for the environment. We simply cannot keep on driving or cooling and not expect consequences for the world we live in: there’s no free lunch.

(2) Everything is connected to everything else.
Whatever we do has consequences far beyond our immediate vicinity. We see it in HURRICANE HARVEY. Because of Climate Change the water in the Gulf of Mexico was 30 degrees Celsius. Hurricanes intensify in fierceness when it passes over warmer waters. We can expect more and stronger hurricanes in the future. The ferocity of Harvey will result in higher fuel prices; the US deficit will balloon, the emotional despair will accelerate and general wellbeing decline. Indeed everything is connected to everything else.

(3) Nothing ever disappears.
We live in a closed system out of which nothing escapes.
Gasoline burns and is broken down into different gases, all harmful, witness Climate Change and destructive storms.

(4) Nature knows best.
Anything that harms Creation is an affront to the Creator and constitutes SIN, that dirty word we are loath to utter.
The Government of the USA and those in charge of the State of Texas and the City of Houston believe that all regulations are wrong, so with no laws to protect wetlands, and an abundance of paved surfaces, the excess water could not be absorbed. Wetlands and flood plains are there for the sole purpose to absorb excess water supply. Draining them, allowing construction there, as happened in Houston, is inviting disaster, and that’s exactly what happened.

Our entire economic system will collapse because of the WRATH AND REVENGE of creation, God’s HOLY DIRECT REVELATION.
God will not be mocked. His creation has her direct defense mechanisms and we see them at work today.

August 26, 2017

IS IT TOO LATE?

Is it too late to return to the days when matters in minds and atmosphere were more balanced? Is it too late to return to a saner world?
My short answer is: yes, it is too late.

I will stick my neck out and say that the good days were those decades when immensely creative spirits were alive, composing major pieces of art which found a ready reception.

And when was that? What were the years when great artists thrived because there were responsive audiences?

My instinct tells me they were the decades of the 17th and 18th Centuries. Then in England there was Shakespeare, in France Moli?re, in the Netherlands (then known as the United Provinces) outstanding painters were at work, such as Rembrandt van Rijn, Jan Vermeer, Frans Hals, just to name a few. In Germany there was the music of Johann Sebastian Bach, born in 1685 and died in 1750, and also Georg Friedrich Handel, born in the same year as Bach, but lived 9 years longer. This period also included the Austrian born Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-91) who was a worthy successor to these musical giants, followed by Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827).

So basically the good old times were the 200 years from 1625-1825. During that period the world had less than One Billion people. It immediately preceded our CARBON AGE. From 1825 -1925 the world’s population doubled to two billion and from there it almost quadrupled, thanks to the brain-dulling convenience of our mechanical slaves. It is a sign of our times that a man like Trump has gained prominence, an outcome of the presence of false religions and lack of intellectual discernment, fostered by ubiquitous television and technical brainwashing.

The enormous increase in our world’s population in the past century is a definite example of OVERSHOOT. The world is a FINITE system, with limited resources. What will happen to these billions of ever more greedy mouths once the resources are gone and the pollution they caused becomes an untamed killer?

I dare say that people in the time of Handel and Bach would have recognized the consequences of today’s foolish use of carbon-based fuels and mind-dulling entertainment. Would a man such as Isaac Newton who lived around 1700, or Galileo, who lived a century before that, also physicist, engineer, philosopher, and mathematician, have identified its dangers and would their warnings then have been heeded? Were people then wise enough to recognize truth and follow their advice?
I do believe that people then were more willing to recognize genuine leaders, witness the REFORMATION in 1517 which spread rapidly in the 16th and 17th Centuries.

Even in the late 19th Century in the Netherlands an Abraham Kuyper emerged and was a true politician with an enthusiastic following, my parents and grandparents among them.
Of course there also was Germany, in the 1930s, where an Adolf Hitler arose, and influenced a large percentage of the German people, exploiting the uncertainty caused by the Great Depression of that time. Trump today is tapping into that same sentiment.

Overshoot.

Fact is that we are saddled with the aftereffect of our carbon overshoot, and I believe that it is too late the remedy this situation.
Addiction to a substance usually ends in death. Take my family: my father was a heavy smoker and died of lung cancer, and so did 3 of my 4 sisters and 2 of my 4 brothers. We now, as a generation of earth-dwellers are in the same position: we, as a world, are carbo-holics, are addicted to carbon fuels. Thanks to CARBON FUELS everything has gone into overdrive, everything is on a permanent high, and also everything will come crashing down.

Over the past two centuries enormous amounts of cheap energy from fossil fuels has enabled the rapid growth of resource extraction, manufacturing, and consumption. These in turn has led to population increase, pollution, and loss of natural habitat and hence biodiversity.
In my lifetime I have seen the world population increase 350 percent, overshooting Earth’s long-term carrying capacity for humans while upsetting the ecological systems we depend on for our survival.

Our bitter harvest.

We now live with the consequences of this exuberance. Oh yes, we do what we can, we try to save threatened species, hope to feed a burgeoning population with genetically modified crops, but these are mere band aids, are simple stopgap measures that are bound to fail. That doesn’t mean that we should stop: as individual citizens we must do everything within our limited means to live differently, in the full knowledge that Jesus demands this of us as future citizens of the COMING KINGDOM.

It reminds me of an episode I wrote in my book DAY WITHOUT END (available via LULU- Google it) where one of the principal characters, INITIA I called her, a former Chinese empress, rejected during her reign the invention of gunpowder as it would have resulted in undue deaths. She was a wise ruler and became a character in my novel which is set in THE NEW CREATION, a manuscript repeatedly refused by numerous publishers, including Eerdmans, because the theme clashed with the generally accepted HEAVEN destination.

Today we proceed in spite of many warnings.

In Limits to Growth (1972) Jay Forrester investigated the interactions between population growth, industrial production, food production, resource depletion, and pollution, and issued a warning, which, of course, was not heeded. In Overshoot (1982) William Catton named our systemic problem and described its origins and development in a style any literate person could appreciate.

Suppose I would approach my Liberal Member of Parliament and tell him that “We have to change everything, including our entire economic system—and fast”. He is a nice guy, and probably would agree with me, but he would be powerless to change that. I am sure that Justin Trudeau, Canada’s Prime Minister, knows the score, but he too, as well as Germany’s Angela Merkel, are unable to change direction.
We, as a society, simply can no longer change, and I believe that this notion has penetrated the minds of many, either acknowledged or lingering without being verbalized.

That does not mean that we can do nothing. Since 1993, thus about 25 years ago, I have had solar panels and battery storage and so have reduced my electricity usage. Since 1977 I have driven a diesel powered automobile in the understanding that its better mileage would benefit the air. I now know better, a victim of false information. I do use canola oil to compensate for its destructive impact, and also use my car as little as possible by biking more but that is not a year-round possibility.

It is believed that technology will save us. Fact is that since technology has been the main culprit, more technology will not cure our predicament. It reminds me of Jesus as related in Matthew 12: 26-28 where he says that `If Satan drives out Satan, then he is divided against himself, and his kingdom cannot stand.` The same is true for our beautiful and marvelous technological fixes, but in the end they only aggravate the situation.

Everybody loves technology. It already does nearly everything for us. During the last century it solved a host of problems: it cured diseases, expanded food production, sped up transportation, and provided us with information and entertainment in quantities and varieties no one could previously have imagined. Why shouldn’t it be able to solve climate change and all the rest of our problems?

Well, I stick to Jesus’ words, my ultimate source of wisdom: technology cannot cure what technology has caused.
That begs the question: “What is wisdom?” The Bible is a bit vague on that score when is says that “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. And the knowledge of the Holy One is understanding”. (Proverbs 9:10). We have to translate these words in terms that speak to us today. Just as we KNOW Bach by listening to his music, so we KNOW God by studying his works – Creation – and his Word, the Scriptures, and regard Creation too as holy. This makes “Loving Creation” the key to wisdom.

My initial question was IS IT TOO LATE? E.O Wilson recommends that we preserve 50% of the earth for rewilding: excellent idea which will never happen under current conditions.
The NEW YORKER MAGAZINE a few weeks ago published
THE UNINHABITABLE EARTH.
Famine, economic collapse, a sun that cooks us: What climate change could wreak — sooner than you think.
Its opening words are:
“Peering beyond scientific reticence.
It is, I promise, worse than you think. If your anxiety about global warming is dominated by fears of sea-level rise, you are barely scratching the surface of what terrors are possible, even within the lifetime of a teenager today. And yet the swelling seas — and the cities they will drown — have so dominated the picture of global warming, and so overwhelmed our capacity for climate panic, that they have occluded our perception of other threats, many much closer at hand. Rising oceans are bad, in fact very bad; but fleeing the coastline will not be enough.”

That is one of the many warnings. THE ARCTIC NEWS website scares the wits out of me.

With the Arctic Ice gone, the extra heat will instead reach sediments at the seafloor of the Arctic Ocean that contain huge amounts of methane in currently still frozen hydrates.
The danger is that more and more heat will reach the seafloor and will destabilize methane hydrates contained in sediments at the bottom of the Arctic Ocean, resulting in huge methane eruptions.

Methane is in the long run 100 times more dangerous than simple car exhaust, the GHG, the CO2 we produce when we drive. The Arctic Ocean is quite shallow – and the waters there float over trillions of tons of methane clusters which, when suddenly released, would cause the earth temperature to quickly rise by TEN DEGREES CELSIUS, burning everything on earth to a crisp.

The Apostle Peter, in his second letter to us (2 Peter 3), writes:
7 By the same word the present heavens and earth are reserved for fire, being kept for the day of judgment and destruction of the ungodly.
8 But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day.
9 The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. Instead he is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.
10 he day of the Lord will come like a thief. The heavens will disappear with a roar; the elements will be destroyed by fire, and the earth and everything done in it will be laid bare.a
11 Since everything will be destroyed in this way, what kind of people ought you to be? You ought to live holy and godly lives
12 as you look forward to the day of God and speed its coming.b That day will bring about the destruction of the heavens by fire, and the elements will melt in the heat.
13 But in keeping with his promise we are looking forward to a new heaven and a new earth, where righteousness dwells.
14 So then, dear friends, since you are looking forward to this, make every effort to be found spotless, blameless and at peace with him.
15 Bear in mind that our Lord’s patience means salvation, just as our dear brother Paul also wrote you with the wisdom that God gave him.
16 He writes the same way in all his letters, speaking in them of these matters. His letters contain some things that are hard to understand, w which ignorant and unstable people distort, as they do the other Scriptures, to their own destruction.

Sam Carana of ARCTIC NEWS estimates that this could happen before 2026. He even has mentioned 2021 as a likely date, based on his close examination of the ARCTIC as published in his ARCTIC NEWS.

When the New Earth comes, not 50% but One Hundred Percent will be reserved, so that all species and all humans can live in perfect symbiosis.

Those are the days, my friend, and they will never end.

August 19 2017

WORSE THAN THE DEPRESSION OF THE 1930s?

Will we soon experience that our life savings will be vulnerable, our pension plans go broke and government financial generosity and its medical system cease to be because we live too long, and/or because our financial framework will falter?
These questions are more than mere academic. They are to be seriously considered because of recent developments.
Decades ago, when I was associated with a Life Insurance Company, I took special courses to qualify for CLU -Chartered Life Underwriter-, and learned that pensions, for instance, depend on two factors: the interest earned on the contributions, and the life expectancy of the participants. You can be sure that the pension planners would be delighted when the interest earned would be higher than assumed, and equally thrilled when people die before they are supposed to go to their rest. The aim of the pension people is the opposite of their life insurance colleagues who like to see their clients live forever because the final payout only comes with death.
In those days- 1950s-1980s – a standard condition in the life insurance policies I sold was that it guaranteed 6% on its cash values.
All through the 19th and 20th century this was seen as a fair return on the money – until some 10-15 years ago. My first and only mortgage in 1963 carried 6.25% interest and that was considered normal. We all know how low the rate is now!
Oh Those Pension Plans Today!!
It so happens that people live much longer than projected, and the rate of return on money invested is much lower than assumed, so guess what? You might not receive what you were promised: pension plans everywhere are going broke if they contain the clause that they will pay a guaranteed amount, so-called Defined Benefits.
But there’s some good news: Longer lives, especially for men!
Longer lives are now actually favoring men judging by the mortality tables. I have in front of me a Period Life Table, the latest being from 2014 , and applying for US conditions, which are a tat less favorable than Canadian statistics, but that’s all I could find, and it affirms that “The older you get, the older you get.”
Here is the proof of my premise. In the good old USA – BT: Before TRUMP – in 2014, a male baby at birth had a life expectancy of 76.33 years, while a female one had 81.11 years, a difference of almost 5 years. Canadians, thanks to their country-wide health insurance, do a bit better.
Of those who are alive at 65, men still live, on average, till 82.84 years, and women till 85.44 years. That means that men have gained almost 7 years since birth and women just less than 5. It gets even better: at age 70 when life expectancy narrows even more: 84.32 versus 86.53.
Thus slowly the men are gaining on the women. That trend continues, narrowing the gap at 75 to 86.11 and 87.59, and almost getting even in life expectancy at 90, with a difference of a bit less than a year, at 94.08 and 94.85.
Perhaps I should add that a man lives an average of 15 years after becoming impotent. So, keep IT up, you guys. Moses, at 120, still had excellent eye-sight and was still going strong, his natural force- including sexual drive- unabated. (Deut. 34:7).
But….Yes, there always is a ‘but.’
Getting older comes at a price, a steep monetary one for the nation as a whole. Scores more of seniors mean huge tax increases in the near future…for the young. With a growing number of aging people and with fewer workers entering the economy, tax dollars to support our generous old age allowances and the increasing medical costs are becoming harder and harder to come by. The current stimulus injections, already causing immense deficits on all government levels, will make matters worse, especially in the USA.
So what are the real ’old age’ numbers?
I am a great one for statistics: in 1900, 4.1 percent of U.S. citizens were older than 65, but by 2000 that number had jumped to 12.6 percent; by 2030, 20 percent of us will be in that category.
Canada is not ready for that, even though it is in better shape than most other industrial countries.
How do we prepare for the unavoidable?
Although it is not a bible text, nevertheless it is true to some extent, that “God helps those who help themselves”. By this I mean that only you can take it upon yourself to become and stay in good shape, and so grow older without becoming dependent on waning government assistance, because next to rapidly growing pension outlay, the cost of medical care is also growing exponentially, making it certain that our welfare state will not be able to continue in its present state.
Expect the unexpected.
It is simply impossible to keep on conducting business as usual. Circumstances have changed dramatically. Look what’s been happening: wages are flat or declining, consumer debt is up in the stratosphere, and job security is disappearing, while our natural habitat is suffering and the air is being saturated with our carbon deposits. Student debt is sky high. Don’t expect them to pay for environmental repair. Nobody will, so…………
In other words: the old track is broken. The new track has fewer jobs, less income, larger deficits, increasing hardship and greater weather volatility. This simply means that the current economy can never “recover”, can never go back to where it was before the crash and before the air-water-soil was relatively pure.
So instead of asking when the recovery will start, we should be asking what the new economy will be and when the new economy will begin. Expect the unexpected.
First the good part: so far the elderly enjoy the best of all worlds: they are diligent voters and the politicians have greatly rewarded them, so they have a lot to be thankful for.
For my wife and me, there are definitely great blessings in being older. For one, we are at peace. Tranquility is the word for us. No more battles to wage, no more arguments to win or lose. Let go, let God. We can’t solve the world’s problems, so we don’t get worked up as we sometimes used to do, although Trump is something else.
We two ever more clearly see the interconnectedness of us with the entire creation. I love my vegetable garden – and now that the beans are picked, I don’t mind that a few rabbits eat my green bean plants.
I pray for my trees even though our four apple trees have taken this year off. I treasure my bike and often pray while pedaling on my frequent trek to the village, almost 6 km away, along a busy highway to get our groceries.
How can we enjoy life, even in old age?
Love for creation is the first holy commandment. The second love commandment includes our holy duty to love our neighbors as ourselves. To love takes effort. To love one-self means to purposely keep fit: “Old minds and bodies are like old horses; you must exercise them if you wish to keep them in working order.”
It is exercise that supports the spirits, and keeps the mind in vigor. Healthy older adults can do much more than had been assumed even a few years ago. Now middle age can go well into the 80’s. If you want to stay alert, read, and limit T.V. to the minimum. If you want to stay healthy: walk, bike, run, write a blog, mow the lawn not on a riding mower, but a push one, preferably an electric one. All others spout out pollutants, and lawn mowers are the worst for the environment, especially your own lungs. I would not be surprised that there is a connection between prostate problems and gas-powered mowers.
Even moderate levels of physical activity can limit declines in brain function. The best kind of exercise is aerobic, a sustained movement, such as in running and biking, something that makes you sweat: it improves verbal and nonverbal memory and gives you new ideas. My best thoughts come when I run, which I do 2-3 times per week.
A startling statistic reveals that for every hour we RUN (not bike or walk), we gain seven hours in our lifespan.
Basically there is no such thing as being old as long as we stay active, socially involved, eat well – not too much – and consume genuine food, preferably home-grown, like our grandparents did, visit with friends and relatives, stay optimistic, agreeable and open to new experiences and new theological concepts, such as seeing CREATION as God’s PRIMARY word.
Let’s face it: the church has lost THE GOSPEL OF THE EARTH. It must REGAIN CREATION. Instead of aiding in the birth of new ideas it has caused the dearth of them.
No wonder there are dark and ominous clouds on the horizon.
Today one of the questions affecting us all is: how long will the generous pension support for seniors and free medical care continue to be?
A few weeks ago the Board of Trustees of Social Security sent a formal letter to the United States Senate and House of Representatives to issue a dire warning: Social Security is running out of money. Tens of millions of Americans depend on this public pension program as their sole source of retirement income, so you’d think this would have been front page news, and that every newspaper in the country would have reprinted this perilous projection out of a basic journalistic duty to keep the public informed about an issue that will affect nearly everyone.
But that didn’t happen.
It’s astonishing how little attention this issue receives considering it will end up being one of the biggest financial crises in US history. That’s not hyperbole either– the numbers are very clear. Mind you, the same is true of CLIMATE CHANGE. There too nobody seems to care.
The US government itself calculates that the long-term Social Security shortfall exceeds $46 TRILLION.
In other words, in order to be able to pay the benefits they’ve promised, Social Security needs a $46 trillion bailout.
Fat chance. Tax cuts for the rich, yes, that is important.
The Social Security shortfall is more than TWICE the national debt, and nearly THREE times the size of the entire US economy.
Even so, though the Social Security Trustees acknowledge that the fund is running out of money, their projections are still too optimistic.
Back to the INTEREST PROBLEM. What will interest rates be in the future and how high (or low) will inflation be? Or take productivity growth. TRUMP promised 3 percent growth. This will not happen. No growth is more likely, and that means collapse, because our total economic model is based on growth.
Social Security assumes that productivity growth in the US economy will average between 1.7% and 2% per year.
This is an important assumption: the higher US productivity growth, the faster the economy will grow. But -actual- US productivity growth is far below their assumption: over the past ten years productivity growth has basically been stagnant and last year it actually was NEGATIVE.
The refusal to admit immigrants to the USA will cut the birthrate, meaning a shortage of workers. This is important, because a higher population growth means more people entering the work force and paying in to the Social Security system.
And of course, the most important assumption for Social Security is interest rates, which are far below projections. Some even predict negative rates. Trump is rapidly achieving the opposite of his campaign slogan.
An ominous warning.
Gail Tverberg, an actuary with an international reputation, in her August 14 blog, OUR FINITE WORLD, concludes:
“We seem to be sleepwalking into an even worse version of the Depression of the 1930s. Even if economists were able to figure out what is happening, it is not clear that there would be a good way out….We seem to be facing a predicament with no solution.”

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August 12 2017

AM I AN OPTIMIST OR A PESSIMIST, OR…….?

Optimism (from the Latin optimus, best) and pessimism (from the Latin pessimus, worst) are two opposing worldviews or states of mind. An optimist has an overall positive view of things (the glass is half full), while the pessimist holds a negative view of happenings. (the glass is half empty).

So I ask my readers: what am I? An optimist, a pessimist, or what? I know what I am, and at my age I don’t think I will change.

A brief life history.

I was born in 1928, the year before the Great DEPRESSION started, then lived through 5 years of German occupation (1940-45), experienced 8 years of rigorous academic training (1941-49), and endured 18 months of compulsory military service (Sept.49-Mar.51). In June 1951 I immigrated to Canada.

There I worked on a farm and a feed mill for a year, after which I became permanently self-employed – insurance, real estate, real estate appraising – always dealing with people and their properties, and also always involved in church affairs – elder- and serving on Christian school boards. Married in 1953 we successfully raised 5 children, all becoming professionals.

I have always been a reader. In 1972 two books changed my life: THE LIMITS OF GROWTH gave me an awareness of the Finiteness of the earth, and a Dutch book, given to me by one of my salesmen, AFTER DEATH….WHAT? convinced me that HEAVEN was a heresy based on Greek pagan philosophy, a teaching that has conquered most of Christian thinking and still doing irreparable harm to creation.

In 1959 I quit smoking and started running. Even now I do this 2-3 times each week, at least 5km. I should also mention that we, since 1975, have basically been vegetarian, both for health reasons and environmental concerns.

The 1975 energy crisis – when oil suddenly shot up to $100 per barrel – influenced my thinking to the point where a move to the country, building an energy-efficient dwelling, trying to live more simply, was the result.

In the year 2000 I started writing a weekly 750-800 words column for the daily Belleville-based INTELLIGENCER. I did that for 10 years, when the chain was sold, and all columns were syndicated from Toronto, so my contribution was suspended. Before that I wrote a bi-weekly column for THE CHRISTIAN COURIER, basically a Christian Reformed magazine, both commenting on the news and also writing the odd feature article.

I quit that about 5 years ago when I no longer agreed with its editorial policy.

Since then I have translated 4 books, of which 3 have been published. Google “Bert Hielema” for details.

So what sort of label can you hang on me? I will not keep you any longer in suspense: I see myself not as an OPTIMIST, nor as a PESSIMIST but something totally different: I see myself as a PROPHET, PRIEST and KING.

That sounds quite presumptuous. Being a prophet …. OK that would not surprise you, judging by my writings, resembling somebody like the prophet Jeremiah, of whom the terms “Jeremiads” comes from, those ominous predictions, calling for doom and gloom. So where do the “priest and king” office come from?

This threefold office originates in Jesus Christ, and is a Christian doctrine based upon the three functions in his earthly ministry – those of

prophet (Deuteronomy 8: 14-22),

priest (Psalm 110:1-4), and

king (Psalm 2 and 8).

I agree: admitting to these callings sound pretentious, different, unreal and, perhaps, out of touch with daily living in a secular society where God is hardly ever honored. It smacks of hubris, of elevating oneself beyond one’s status.

Yet, whether we like it or not – and I guess as a Christian we have to be obedient to Christ – we must follow in Jesus’ footsteps, and live with him as an example.

So what does this entail?

PROPHET

The average human thinks that a prophet is a special person who speaks for God or one who foretells the future, at least that’s what my dictionary tells me, but I take issue with that explanation, because it would limit the office of prophet to crackpots, since nobody can predict the future.

In the Old Testament there were prophets galore. There are the major ones, such as Isaiah and Jeremiah, and a host of minor prophets, twelve in total, such as Amos, Jonah – perhaps the most well-known for that Big Fish story.

Prophets, then and now are always unpopular.

Prophets in Old Testament times were shunned and avoided, because the Lord always sent them to remind the people of Israel that they had strayed from THE COVENANT, that treaty between God, his people and creation. Prophets were bringers of bad news, warning them of the consequences of breaking the Promise.

Today this is no different because that same Covenant outlined in Genesis 9 – when God allied himself with us and creation – is still in force today, so I think that now more than ever prophets are needed, and, yes, equally held in contempt as pessimists and doomsayers.

One thing prophets always do is questioning the status quo: people hate that, hate change, loath being reminded of occupying The Comfortable Pew, as Pierre Burton called it.

Matters have not changed. A line from Amos comes to mind when he, pointing to worship proceedings said, (Amos 5: 21) “I hate, I despise your religious feasts, I cannot stand your assemblies”. It’s so easy to see this now that the extent of Christian service is often fulfilled in an hour of church attendance.

So if prophets don’t foretell the future, what do they do?

In the Bible they were called ‘seers’ not because they could see into the future, but because they could see the truth, could understand the deeper meaning of life and have a holistic view on events, not stating what’s going on in isolation, but grasping the true consequences of the day’s happenings, and the deeper spiritual message of the present moment.

Today that is plain in the matter of CLIMATE CHANGE, which solely is the result of our day-to-day energy use. Prophets point this out, issue warnings and call for obedience to God’s creation, because God’s Primary Word is the world we live in.

Thus a prophet is first and foremost a believer who is convinced that a new present requires new thinking and different approaches. They openly and unabashedly dare to look at what is happening ‘out there’ and advocate to assume full responsibility for the immense changes needed to live according to God’s laws. Prophets also have the courage to critically look at past doctrines, to test them on their relevance for today and tomorrow, and advocate changes reflecting more inclusive thinking.

All this means that they tell the TRUTH about the Way of Death we are pursuing and proclaim as the only hope in life and death the advent of The New Creation, which Christ promised to bring with him upon his return.

That’s why prophets see Scripture as a lamp for their feet and a light for their path in God’s wonderful creation, knowing that Christ, as the Son of Man, the Ben-Adam, the Son of the Soil, will return to make all things new. That’s why a prophet, in spite of all the sin and evil in this world, looks to the future with full confidence. That’s why a prophet already can visualize what this future will be like and thus can critically evaluate the present in the light of the glorious newness that is coming.

OK, that sounds very much like me, and it should, because, as a believer, that is my mandate, and, dare I say, the mandate of all believers.

Looking back how we have arrived at the circumstances we are in today I detect that the economic boom that made America in the 20^th century the globe’s largest economy and the envy of the world can be traced to some fortunate circumstances.

Where Europe and the rest of the world suffered ruinous wars, North American industrial hinterlands were not only spared destruction, but benefited immensely as producers of war materials and the providers of the black gold in Texas and elsewhere in its territory: the United States, in the 20^th     Century, produced more petroleum than all the other countries on Earth put together. The oceans of oil on which the US floated to victory in two world wars made it the economic super power of the by-gone era.

That domestic oil-flow must now be reduced, which also holds true for global supplies, as we now know the ultimate dangers inherent in its continued use, which makes the task of a prophet a precarious one. Breaking our addiction to the conveniences on which our way of life is based, makes the task of a prophet not an easy one.

With the ongoing CHANGE IN CLIMATE it is not difficult to predict for those who have ears to hear, eyes to see and minds to embrace, that the big challenge facing today’s industrial societies is managing the end of abundance, rather than the onset of greater wealth for the Rest of the World.

The brief period of cheap and plentiful energy, must end. For an all too short a period this was in itself an exceptional occurrence in historical terms. It amounted to nothing else but a tremendous acceleration of human history- of which the more than tripling of the number of humans in my life time is just one example – so that the Coming of Christ would be sooner.

A realistic look at what’s happening makes plain that the period of unprecedented prosperity, extraordinary extravagance and gigantic growth, is ending, perhaps suddenly. That means that society has to relearn the lessons of more normal and less unusual times, times where we can once again truly and purposely honor creation. That’s what Peter alluded to in 2 Peter 3: 11-12 when he asked us “to live holy and godly lives as we look forward to the Day of God and speed its coming.”

In this connection I’d like to draw your attention to a line in the Lord’s Prayer, where we ask the Lord “Your Kingdom Come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” That is a direct appeal for the speedy coming of The New Creation.

Enough about our task as PROPHET.

So what about being a PRIEST AND A KING?

Psalm 110: 14 points to our eternal priesthood.

We live on God’s earth, God’s Holy Earth, the place where he dwells as we sing:

1. This is my Father’s world,
   And to my list’ning ears
   All nature sings, and round me rings
   The music of the spheres.
   This is my Father’s world:
   I rest me in the thought
   Of rocks and trees, of skies and seas—
   His hand the wonders wrought.
2. This is my Father’s world:
   The birds their carols raise,
   The morning light, the lily white,
   Declare their Maker’s praise.
   This is my Father’s world:
   He shines in all that’s fair;
   In the rustling grass I hear Him pass,
   He speaks to me everywhere.

 This is our Father’s world. Living in his holy temple, in his world, means that we are priests. As priests we have to obey his order of creation, which means loving creation, caring for it and engage in holy living.

I admit that’s a different view! God’s presence is not in a church building or cathedral or basilisk or synagogue. No, God’s temple is his creation, and we are called to administer this on God’s behalf. That is our priestly function.

KINGS.

So no, I am not an Optimist, not a Pessimist, but in essence I am a servant, a servant to God’s command to be A PROPHET, A PRIEST AND A KING.

August 5 2017

AMERICA: A NATION IN DECLINE?

Half of our immediate family lives in the USA. Of our 5 children 2 make their home there; of our 13 grandchildren 7 work or study there. Of our two greatgrandchildren, each country hosts one, so it is about even between it and Canada.

The USA has always been attractive to others, perhaps because it always was a trendsetter: the telephone was invented there and more recently so were the Internet, Google, Facebook and Apple, all setting the tone in communications.

On two occasions America’s intervention was the deciding factor in global cliffhanger situations: in 1917 when it entered the war against Germany and its troops changed the outcome and again in December 1941 when Japan bombed Pearl Harbor and the USA fought on two fronts, giving priority to Europe.

Just as it pioneered modern progress the United States of America is now leading the world into decline in spite of current good economic conditions. And Donald J. Trump is the catalyst there. His campaign slogan “Make America Great Again” is an indirect admission that God no longer is blessing America as he used to do in the heydays of old, when General Motors fully manufactured half of the autos bought there, and the UAW, the United Automobile Workers called the shots, with a guaranteed annual wage and full pensions and health benefits.

Through the Marshall Plan the USA gave billions of dollars to help its former enemy and set Europe on the path to prosperity. That was then, the glorious fifties and sixties, when America was really great and a force for good.

The paradox today is that “to make America great again” Trump is pursuing the exact opposite. Now, in the most decisive war ever, the fight that will decide the fate of the world, the struggle against CLIMATE CHANGE, the USA has decided not only not to participate but even to exacerbate this ever more dangerous situation. The USA wants more economic growth and sees Climate protection as an impediment, as an enemy to prosperity.

How totally stupid.

Economic development always has come at a cost. Growth and wealth today is increasingly based on borrowed money, used to purchase something now against the uncertain promise of paying it back in the future.

Growth has especially been at the expense of the environment, now causing changes which are impossible to reverse. The ever higher living standards rely on the unrestricted use of underpriced, finite resources, especially water and energy, which have been exploited without concern about conservation for future use.

Oh, Wisdom, where art Thou?

That the USA is on decline was foreseen by Paul Kennedy, a Yale University historian. He, in his classic THE RISE AND FALL OF GREAT POWERS, written in 1989, in its introduction, says something that relates directly to the USA today, ”Great Powers in relative decline instinctively respond by spending more on “security,” and thereby divert potential resources from “investment” and compound their long-term dilemma.”

That’s exactly what the Trump budget proposes: a$30 billion increase in ‘defense’ spending, reducing support for the needy, the bulk of whom supported the president.

Yes, Donald Trump’s promise to make America great again is indeed a tacit acknowledgement that the United States is a power in decline, long reflected in the Vietnam disaster and today evident in the unending wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and the war on drugs where now more people than ever before are dying of ODs.

These events point to exaggerated views on what America can do: it portrays a sense of hubris, a lack of measure, an unrealistic expectation in what armed responses can accomplish.

This is coming to a head in Washington, where the State Department – in other countries called The Foreign Office – the diplomatic arm of the USA, is being gutted and where now career soldiers – my generals, as Trump calls them -call the shots. Soldiers are dangerous people: they kill: that’s their inclination and occupation.

A military dictatorship.

Here’s what I think happened earlier this week when Trump needed a new Chief of Staff and approached General Kelly.

I think Gen. Kelly made a few conditions. He’s no fool, unlike his boss. Here’s what he told Trump: “I accept, but first Saramucci, that foul mouth, has to go,” to which Trump replied, “OK”.

Next, as a straight shooter the general probably said. “Here is my other condition. If you fire me or force me to resign, the other two generals plus the secretary of state, Rex Tillerson, will leave as well, making it difficult for you to continue.”

Trump, desperate, accepted, which could well mean that, in essence, the USA now has a military dictatorship.

Let`s face it: basically Trump is a MONEY MAN. He is not a politician, he is not a mediator, he’s not a person who tries to persuade people by pointing to reason and seeking a wise middle ground, which is what politics is all about: he only sees two things: himself and his family.

He totally lacks maturity and has not a grain of wisdom. That he is revered by a third of the US population is both frightening and revealing: frightening because they share and admire his nihilism, his psychic void of conscience and morals; revealing, because it shows the total absence of genuine religious insight among his followers.

Here is a thought.

I believe that the present day political play in the USA can be traced to what Dietrich Bonhoeffer observed when he was a visiting scholar at Union Seminary in 1939. He then stated that, “America has not seen a Reformation.”

Here are his exact words:
“God has granted American Christianity no Reformation. He has given it strong revivalist preachers, churchmen and theologians, but no Reformation of the church of Jesus Christ by the Word of God”.

500 years ago Luther stirred up the religious scene of his time in a small town in East Germany, called WITTENBERG, where he challenged the all-powerful church, the institution which dominated ALL OF LIFE then. His action has had an immense influence on Europe, an impact that has lasted until today.

Thanks to Luther taking on – with the help of God – the Religious Monopoly of that day, Europe became more ‘people’ oriented, resulting in SOCIALISM, with its CHRISTIAN basis.

The word SOCIALISM has as root the Latin word ‘socius’ which means companion, associate, and indicate concern for one’s neighbor.

The essence of Christianity can be formulated in TEN words:

“LOVE GOD’S EARTH ABOVE ALL AND ONE’S NEIGHBOR AS ONESELF.”

That rule still lingers on the European continent. That’s why all countries there plus the British Australia and Canada have universal healthcare and greater environmental concern.

The USA has not been influenced by the REFORMATION, and it shows it in the absence of ‘social’ provisions and its lack of love for the earth, which are totally deficient by European – Reformational – standards.

Dr. Harold Bloom, in his classic THE AMERICAN RELIGION, categorically states that what is called religion in the USA has ceased to be Christian, and this is all too evident in the way the Christian Republican Party conducts itself during the TRUMP regime, both in the matter of Health Care and Climate Change.

YES, CLIMATE CHANGE IS THE DECIDING ISSUE TODAY.

The climate crisis is starting now. Mass migration, in part due to climate change, is already starting. Deaths by weather extremes are increasing as we watch them. The three hottest years on record are the three immediately behind us. We’re so close to +2 degrees Celsius warming already that we can almost taste it.

So what’s happening?

Simple. We have ceded control of climate policy to the greedy capitalists and crowd-pleasing politicians and spineless preachers, all who are marching to their final destination, unconcerned for leaving a depleted planet behind.

I believe that politics in the USA is dominated by Hal Lindsey’s THE LATE GREAT PLANET EARTH. There is a definite suicidal tendency in the USA, which is totally frightening.

REMEMBER EASTER ISLAND?

Jared Diamond in his book, appropriately called COLLAPSE has related several of such instances, of which the Easter Island is just one example.

The peoples settling the isolated Easter Island around 900 AD engineered their own collapse after several hundred years of expanding their population and quarrying gigantic stone statues (weighing up to 270 tons) which they then moved to the perimeter of the island. They deforested the island and the surrounding waters filled with silt, while at the same time vast energies were expended on rivalries over which clan could build the biggest stone head.

The first-recorded European contact with the island was on 5 April (Easter Sunday), 1722. Then Dutch navigator Jacob Roggeveen visited it for a week and estimated a population of 2,000 to 3,000 inhabitants.

When Captain Cook arrived at the island in 1774, he found a tiny population (down perhaps from a peak of 20,000) that he described as “small, lean, timid, and miserable.” The civilization had collapsed in a cannibalistic endgame.

Now picture this happening to our SEVEN BILLION poor souls, rapidly doing an imitation of the EASTER ISLAND TRAGEDY.

Imagine some concerned villagers on Easter Island. They see people cutting down trees right and left, and many are getting worried. At some point, the number of worried people reaches critical mass, and they go as a group to the island chief and say, “Sir, we have to stop cutting trees.”

The chief, who’s also CEO of a wood products company, checks his bottom line and orders the cutting to continue.

Do the villagers walk away? Or do they depose the chief?

There’s always a choice.

Do we depose the banks CEOs and the offending politicians and save the island, or fail to act while action is still possible? Or is it already too late in the game? Are we too drugged by our ‘carboholic’ lifestyle?

GNOSTICISM BACK IN STYLE.

GNOSTICISM is the dominating American religion. It separates nature from grace, the earth from the Creator. It preaches ‘HEAVEN’ and RAPTURE, both heralding a total disregard for the planet, again a typical American phenomenon.

The American “Christian” Right has fully endorsed Trump in his aims to call all environmental rules RUBBISH. For them this makes sense because they see the earth as evil and escape from it is seen as freedom. There is not a shred of Christianity left with the Republican Party, which now has a majority in Congress, in the Senate and in the White House, but is unable to rule.

AND NOW THE GENERALS CALL THE SHOTS.

Trump got elected by telling lies, half-truths and cover-ups, all manifestations of fatal weakness. When we can no longer tell the truth because the truth will bring the whole rotten, fragile status quo down in a heap of broken promises and lies, we’ve reached the perfection of dysfunction. When the truth cannot be told because it threatens the power structure of the status quo, that status quo is doomed.

Is America in decline?

A nation that has never been touched by the REFORMATION, that never really saw creation as a gift from God but always saw it as a source of exploitation; a nation that refuses to see human beings of all color and creed as equals, is a nation signing its own death warrant.

The USA is leading the world again: this time into chaos. It is too late to change course: the system has become ungovernable.

It is time to change course, individually and as families, “so that you will not share in her sins, so that you will not receive any of her plagues, for her sins are piled up to heaven”, (Revelation 18: 4).

The Bible says that THE TRUTH SHALL SET YOU FREE, John 8:32.

The TRUTH is that under the leadership of the USA this planet will self-destruct by human action and that Jesus, when he returns, will bring with him a perfectly cleaned planet where the saints will come marching in.

That’s why we now must train ourselves to live the kind of life that will be practiced in what the Scriptures call THE NEW CREATION, where pious people pursue perpetual permanency.

July 29 2017

WHY GOD HAS DISAPPEARED

In THE HIDDEN FACE OF GOD Richard Elliott Friedman, professor of Hebrew and Comparative Literature in California traces God’s physical appearances in the Bible, and also how, on several occasions, God hides his face.
One of the most intriguing statements in the Bible is found in Deuteronomy 31: 17-18; 32: 20. There God for the last time talks to his ‘friend’ Moses, and says, “I shall hide my face from them. I shall see what their end will be.” Dr. Friedman, who knows his Hebrew, writes that the word ‘end’ does not mean their finish, but rather their distant future. I believe we now live in ‘that distant future’.

God hiding his face indicates two things: (1) It gives humanity an opportunity to grow up; (2) it also means his abandonment. Both events are intimately connected with the COVENANT God made with Humanity and CREATION.

God’s gradual disengagement.

God initially was quite involved with humanity, evident in the first Bible chapters where we can easily trace God’s direct concern with the human race. This was quite extensive with Adam and Eve, intimate even. God personally breathes life into the first human being, personally forms the first woman, personally shapes the Garden of Eden and fashions the animals.
Then each day he walks there where the humans hear him. There’s constant contact between God and Adam and Eve. God sees them as children, tells them to multiply, what to eat and what not. In other words, Adam and Eve take little responsibility themselves. When they are embarrassed over their nudity God even makes them their first clothing. All this makes them appear quite immature.

Noah is completely different. While God gives him the broad outlines about the building of the Ark, Noah does all the work: a gigantic task, involving decades of hard labor.

Then there is Abraham. He is told to start a journey without really knowing where he would end up, and when he arrived, he is told to “take your son, your only one, whom you love, Isaac, and offer him”. Imagine being tested that way! The stakes of human responsibility are raised sky high. His implicit trust in the Lord gives him the audacity to argue with God about the fate of Sodom and Gomorrah. Quite a change in attitude!

Then, except for an appearance with Moses on Mount Sinai, God never appears again in person. His voice is heard – Samuel – and his presence felt, but, he’s never seen again.

THE COVENANT WITH CREATION!!

Because Noah believed in God, his family was chosen to make a new start in creation. For that purpose God made a Covenant involving all of creation.
In this Covenant, related in Genesis 9, we read that God repeats six times that this Covenant is with every living creature and with the earth. It sets the tone for the entire Bible. In essence God says here: “People of the earth, I am the Creator. Here I now pledge to form a triad, a Covenant with three parties (1) With the Earth, (2) With you as my image bearers, and (3) With me, as the Head of the Covenant.”
It should be noted that the parties to the covenant are considered to be equals!!

“Remember,” God said, “the line of the Covenant is not vertical: first Me, then you, then the earth, with the earth not really in touch with Me. No, no, the earth, the trees, the rocks, the bees and buffaloes, all are my creatures, the works of my hands. Consider them equal partners and treasure them as you treasure me!”
Picture a triangle: God is on top and the two corners occupy us and the earth, with two lines extending to and from each corner as we all are interdependent, as the Earth gives life to us humans, but also receives input from us. We are dependent on the earth, but must also enhance it. God gives life to us and the earth and both praise God in return: “the hills clap their hands, the mountains leap with joy”, the Psalms say.

In other words, when we look after the earth and after ourselves and our fellow creatures, caring for the crocodiles in the jungle and our cousins next door, then God will look after us. That’s what Genesis 9 says. That’s what a COVENANT is all about: a mutual help society, like a marriage.

This Covenant, said God to Noah, will endure throughout eternity. God, People, the Land are an inseparable Triad. To seal it all, God sent his Son, as the New Head of the New Covenant. Jesus, God’s Son: Jesus, the heart of our religion; the Head of the Covenant.

The signs of the Covenant.

In 1 Samuel 18 we read that David and Jonathan made a covenant. As a sign of the Covenant Jonathan, the crown prince, took off his clothes and gave them to David. He also gave his sword and other weapons. And David did the same.
They completely exchanged their personal belongings, as a sign and symbol that they were one. Imagine!! God did that with us!! He gave all he had, his creation and his Son, and we do the same with God!

David and Jonathan also did something else, not related in the Bible, but part of the general rule of personal Covenant. This ritual required an incision in their wrists. Both parties would then raise their wrists to heaven and let the blood mingle. In the incision they would rub dirt to leave a scar as a permanent sign of their mutual allegiance. They then would sit down, make a list of their possessions, and exchange those lists with the promise that whatever the one part owned would become the rightful property of the other.
In order to seal all this they would walk in the figure of an 8 around two altars as a sign of eternity. Then the two parties to the covenant would eat a special Covenant meal, a lamb and unleavened bread, with each party bringing its own bread and offering it to the other, and the same with wine, pouring the wine of the one into the goblet of the other.
That’s what God did with us!! Made us equals!
Jesus’ blood flowed for us. His wounds are still visible as an eternal sign of the Covenant, an everlasting scar on the God of the Trinity, that whatever is God’s, is also ours.

Yes, the Lord of Creation gave it all to us. He is the God of the Universe. He signed over the ownership of this cosmos to the people of the Covenant, those who confess Jesus to be their Lord.

An amazing treaty!

Yes, God and we have become one in Jesus Christ. Look at the Lord Supper. There Jesus says the familiar words: “This is my body, given for you, and this cup is the New Covenant in my blood poured for you.”

Now not God, but Jesus is the party of the Covenant. God has disappeared from the scene and Jesus is now at the center. Paul tells us to clothe ourselves with the cloak of righteousness, with the Lord Jesus Christ, and so become a new creation, for God has reconciled the cosmos to himself in Christ’s full-bodied Covenant language.

The Covenant idea is woven throughout the entire bible. In essence the Bible is the Covenant story. God made a covenant with us and with all creation. The covenant between God- Jesus- humanity-creation is the intimate foundation, the meaning and purpose of creation.

Creation is the visible basis of the Covenant, its ultimate realization. Creation is there because God in Jesus desires to enter into a Covenant with humanity. We, as human beings, exist because God continuously calls us to the Covenant. God makes us discover our existence more and more as the daily experience of living in the Covenant, in his creation. All this is derived from the loaded expression of “created in God’s image and likeness.”

Our day-to-day life refers to God. Our life resembles God because we, as men and women, as conscious persons, experience our living as participants in the Covenant. We realize the meaning of God’s self-revelation in creation through the Covenant. In the created world, we are the visible representatives of the invisible God. Psalm 82: 6 says, “You are all children of the most High,” so we must not sell ourselves short.
Jesus is the original human pattern, the prototype of all human existence. God, in his plan of salvation, revealed himself fully in Jesus, who represents humanity for us and in this way completed creation and attained the perfect life in God.

We are created after the pattern of Christ. Through the Covenant we experience that likeness to God in a personal response of love. As Children of God, as his heirs, through the Covenant with God we share our humanity with the Son, who is the Lord of all that exists, and through whom the universe was made. The entire creation is there because it is permanently willed in Christ by the Father, because the Father loves it as the Christ.

SO, WHY HAS GOD DISAPPEARED?

Two reasons. (1). God withdrew his presence when we refused to abide by THE COVENANT, the treaty between God, the Earth and Us, when we ventured on our own, and declared God irrelevant.
When one of the parties to the Covenant reneges, that’s it. That is the tragic situation we now experience every day, as is evident from an article in THE NEW YORK MAGAZINE, entitled
THE UNINHABITABLE EARTH,
an essay that has been widely circulated. The article predicts famine, economic collapse, a sun that cooks us: total chaos: soon.

Genesis 15 gives an illustration of what happens when we break the conditions of the Covenant. There it is related how God and Abraham covenanted. Abraham is asked to cut animals in two and both God, in the form of fire, and Abraham in person, pass through these severed animals. The cutting of these beasts illustrates that if the covenant is not kept the bodies of the parties concerned would be cut in half as punishment. But those who abide by its terms will, when Christ returns, share in his glory and complete the work of creation: an eternal assignment, because Creation is Infinite as God is Infinite.

I started this essay by stating that, “One of the most intriguing statements in the Bible is found in Deuteronomy 31: 17-18; 32: 20. There God for the last time talks to his ‘friend’ Moses, and says, “I shall hide my face from them. I shall see what their end will be.”

The warnings are out.
Just as all future forecasts have been far too optimistic, with the NEW YORK MAGAZINE article the most pessimistic so far, it will also turn out to be too optimistic, with far worse to come and far sooner. It paints the world without God.

Hebrew 10 relates what happens when we break THE COVENANT. Verse 31 says, “It is a dreadful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.” God’s revenge is built-in into Creation. By breaking our treaty with God and creation, a Covenant sealed by the blood of Christ, we have heaped on our heads the wrath of God, who so loved the world, the cosmos, that he offered his Son to buy it back from the Satan.

(2). Another reason why God has disappeared is that he wanted us to become what we are: mature enough to stand on our own feet, without God’s help.
God made a virtue out of us breaking the Covenant by giving us the opportunity to live ‘etsi deus non daretur’ to quote Bonhoeffer, ‘to live as if God no longer exists’.
Bonhoeffer calls this our “coming of age.”
God wants us to grow up to be ready to inhabit the New Creation. Adam and Eve needed God’s help. Over the many millennia God has directed us to maturity. Yes, this time we will be and can be on our own.
Thanks be to God.