My Easter Message - Jesus Christ is here NOW!

For much of my life, I lived in a prophecy-saturated religious culture. I lived in constant apprehension and fear of an impending doomsday. I believed that “the end” could come at any time; I was convinced that we always lived in a window of a “few short years” from the events surrounding the second coming. I did not treasure the message of the Book of Revelation, I feared it. The specific “end-times” interpretation I was taught exercised enormous power over me and many others. Decades later God’s grace completely changed my understanding of Revelation – from a book to be feared to a book to be treasured. God’s grace helped me to find the authentic message and unique Messenger of Revelation and in the process to discover what it has to say about the real agenda of God – and this agenda does not include performance-based religion.



I was not alone in my experiences. In his book The Jesus I Never Knew, Philip Yancey shares his childhood experiences growing up in a church that sponsored annual prophecy conferences. Yancey relates that these conferences “revealed” that a ten nation European Common Market would fulfill the prophecy of the biblical beast with ten horns. “What sticks with me, though, is not so much the particulars of prophecy as their emotional effect on me. I grew up at once terrified and desperately hopeful,” Yancey says.


Today millions continue to be enslaved by “just-around-the-corner” interpretations of Revelation. Some live in fear within cultic groups where apocalyptic anxieties allow leaders to combine irresponsible prophecy teaching with authoritarian control, while others experience the rigors of prediction addiction (prophetic teaching that turns into a religious addiction) within churches that generally teach sound doctrine but corrupt and cheapen the gospel with unwholesome speculation. In either case Revelation is used by religion as a club to control and intimidate.


For many years my relationship with God was in large part dictated by what I was taught about the Book of Revelation. I was forever looking to future events and predicted dates that were misinterpretations drawn from Revelation. I was focused on a Jesus who would return, rather than the one who had already come and conquered on the Cross: the risen Lord, the head of the Church, who is always with His people corporately, and IN His people individually.


The power of God’s grace eventually dismantled my former understanding of Revelation. I came to see that Revelation was not about an out-of-control-beast I had to fear; rather it was all about the beauty of God’s amazing grace and the sovereign power of the Lamb.


I now see that such prophetic teaching is much like a drug, providing an incredible rush while also being the source of the depression and disillusionment that inevitably results from unrealized and unfulfilled expectations. By God’s grace, I came to see that the views I had cherished and believed amounted to a sleazy religious carnival where prophecy pundits and pushers sell their prophetic potions.


Along with its equally seductive cousin of religious legalism, prediction addiction had been the language of my life, the drum beat of my religious soul. It is an obsession, a compulsion to continually seek exhilarating “fulfillments of Bible prophecy” in current events of the day. In my experience, the bondage of legalism combined with an addiction to prediction gave meaning and order to my world while at the same time being the perfect one-two punch religion needed to control me. Legalism told me what I HAD to do in order to earn God’s love and the kingdom of heaven. Prophetic teaching assured me that people who did not do what I was convinced the Bible taught would experience the plagues of Revelation. And, on the other hand, if my works were acceptable to God, I would be saved from those plagues.


The two evil cousins of religious legalism and prediction addiction work hand in hand; where one flourishes the other cousin is surely to be found in the same general vicinity. They feed off of each other. They both lead to religious captivity and eventually control those who buy into their premises and beliefs.


For much of my life to age fifty (I am now seventy-nine), I was in a never-ending race to be found faithful at the soon-coming second coming, and so my life on earth consisted of earning my own salvation by deeds. There was no doubt in my mind that if I didn’t “get right” I would “get left.” I accepted date-setting as a part of my life; failed predictions would all simply be re-issued by extending the goal line to some even more future and far off date.


Political and historical events and people, past and future, had the lead roles in the Revelation I once knew, with Jesus far from center stage. The Jesus of the Revelation of my past was a far-off, future Jesus, not one who had already conquered on His cross and who was already reigning in my life and in the lives of those who trusted in Him. Seeing Revelation through the eyes of grace, with a Christ-centered filter, revolutionized this amazing book for me.


Most of what we believe about Bible prophecy has come from trusted sources: parents, teachers, pastors, congregations, and denominations. Most of us have been given one perspective and one perspective alone, and we often find ourselves woefully unaware of the teaching in other Christian faith traditions. No book of the Bible offers a better illustration of how these preconceived religious presuppositions work than the Book of Revelation.


Over the centuries Christian scholars, authors, priests, and pastors have attempted to blaze new interpretive trails to discover the treasures contained in the Book of Revelation. Most of these ideas and methods can be summarized within four foundational methods. What you have been taught about Revelation is almost certainly some permutation or modification of one or more of these views. Each of these perspectives claims to be based in Scripture and is now believed, and has been believed by millions of Christians throughout history.


The primary flaw in all of these methodologies is that each one (with the possible exception of spiritism) places a premium on attempting to answer the when of Revelation. While the when is definitely an issue, it is not THE issue.


The primary characters in Revelation are Jesus and religion (religion being defined as a system of belief that human relationship with God and His salvation for us is directly tied to human performance and accomplishment). Jesus is the Message, the Subject, the Object, and the Goal of Revelation.


The first method of interpreting Revelation is PRETERISM. Preterists believe that most and possibly all of the prophecies in the Book of Revelation were fulfilled during the time of the Roman Empire. They believe that this fulfillment took place in the years prior to and with the fall of Jerusalem in 70AD. They point to passages such as Revelation 1:1 which say that the message must “soon take place.” They point to Jesus’ Olivet Prophecy in Matthew 24 as being fulfilled in 70AD.


Their view is that most and possibly all of the apocalyptic language of events described in Revelation were fulfilled in the horrific events leading up to and surrounding the fall of Jerusalem.


The second method of interpreting Revelation is HISTORICISM. Historicists believe that the prophecies of Revelation have been fulfilled throughout history and are still being fulfilled today and refer to the entire history of Christianity.


Historicism isn’t as popular today as it once was, but most of the great Bible commentators from a century or more ago were historicists. Many of the leaders of the Reformation were historicists: Wycliffe, Knox, Tyndale, Luther, Calvin, and Zwingli for example.


They say that Revelation is a kind of survey of church history with historical events symbolically portrayed. For example, most Protestant historicists of the past believed that the Antichrist of Revelation referred to the Pope and the Roman Catholic Church, the two witnesses were Luther and Calvin, with the triumph of Protestantism over Catholicism being the ultimate victory promised by Revelation.


Critics point out that historicism has not kept up with history much past the fourteenth century and that it is Eurocentric, not recognizing more recent and significant developments in the church in other parts of the world. Historicists can miss the big picture of God’s grace while they attempt to retrofit history into the text.


The third method of interpreting Revelation is FUTURISM. This is the view held by many contemporary North American evangelical pastors and teachers. Ironically, many of its current advocates would be shocked to find that modern futurism originated in 1585 with Francisco Ribeira, a Spanish Jesuit priest, for the purpose of refuting the anti-Catholic views of the Protestant reformers.


The most popular version of futurism today has only been around since the 1830s when J.N. Darby began teaching his ideas of a secret rapture of the church followed by the “great tribulation” and the millennium – the thousand year rule of Christ and the saints. They believe in a literal view of Revelation, and from the 1830s until the present, each new generation has projected chapters four through twenty-two of Revelation into a future time, often future dates on the calendar that occur within, or just after, their lifetime.


When futurists insist upon a literal interpretation of Revelation, they not only ignore the apocalyptic style of writing Jesus inspired John to use, but they can also unwittingly twist and distort the meaning given and inspired by the divine Author.


The fourth method of interpreting Revelation is SPIRITISM. Spiritists believe that most prophecies in Revelation portray an ongoing cosmic conflict of spiritual realities. They look for lessons or principles that are symbolically depicted in Revelation. They take into account the apocalyptic style of Revelation, and see the central theme as the triumph of good over evil, Christ over Satan. While other approaches may take certain passages as chronological, spiritists take these as recurring realities in history, as part of God’s sovereign plan for humankind.


So we have four ways that Christians have interpreted the Book of Revelation over the centuries. But incredibly, many Christians today are not aware of these four views. They are only aware of the futurist interpretation that their pastor or favorite televangelist or favorite prophecy writer teaches.


Although scholars and teachers may identify themselves with one of these distinct methods for interpreting Revelation, in practice they may use various combinations of the four.


Attempting to fit Revelation into one humanly devised time-bound interpretive mold is missing the boat.


And what is the “boat” being missed?


It is critically important to realize that the Book of Revelation is not written in a straight-forward style easily understood by the twenty-first century western mind. Revelation is written in a literary style called apocalyptic. This writing style uses poetic language, metaphorical messages, and figurative images and symbols to convey its message. Some images that are used are known – common animals for example. Other images described in the visions given to John that form the text of Revelation are nightmarish beasts, unknown to any biologist or zoologist. It is a book filled with cosmic symbols.


Characters and events are portrayed in images because no literal description could convey the profound meaning that the Lamb of God reveals. They are physical symbols of spiritual realities, and in the Book of Revelation the greatest reality is spiritual, with the physical and earthly reality being but a shadow of the greater and deeper heavenly reality.


The symbols, figures, numbers, and colors in apocalyptic writing were not intended to be taken literally. Because of their culture and familiarity with apocalyptic literature, the original readers of Revelation would have had a better sense of how to interpret these symbols than we do. Christ, the Messenger of Revelation, inspired the human author, John, to use the literary style of apocalyptic exactly because it was familiar to the original audience. And in addition it was a time of great persecution both by Rome and by the Jewish Zealots, and some veiling of opponents and events was necessary. Thus Revelation cannot be read and understood the way we read and understand popular twenty-first century literature (but that doesn’t stop literalists from giving it the old college try!). The practice of placing a premium on literal meanings can actually block the intended message.


The emphasis of the four methods I have briefly considered is when. I believe there is a fifth way, A CHRIST-CENTERED PERSPECTIVE of Revelation based solely on GOD’S GRACE. This perspective primarily concerns the who of Revelation.


God’s grace enables us to see Jesus standing at the center of Revelation, and Jesus’ Cross as the hinge center of the book.


While blame for Christian preoccupation with detailed predictions, speculations, and the when of Revelation must be laid at the door of all four popular methodologies that have been used to interpret this book, futurism is the primary culprit. This is not to say that there is not a when element in the book, whether that time is past, present Whether the coming of Jesus Christ to this earth and the establishment of His kingdom on this earth occurred in 70AD as preterism asserts, or a future event yet to happen as futurists predict, the fact is that the risen Christ, for us Christians, is with us and IN US NOW, even while we often find ourselves engulfed by speculative predictions that obsess about specific events and times. Such an emphasis can lead us away from Him who is in us.


The emphasis of our daily walk with the indwelling Jesus Christ must be that He is reigning as King in our life right now – today. He has things He wants to lead us to today in His kingdom. He has character to build in us today. He has a ministry to others He wants to extend through us today.


Whatever the spiritual meaning of the wild beasts and strange images of the Book of Revelation, TODAY IS THE DAY OF SALVATION. We must allow Jesus to do His work through us today. He is our reigning King and we are in the Kingdom of God as His children today.

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The World's Leading-Edge Laboratory

What kind of machine do you need to explore the surface of Mars?
It’s quite a puzzler for the scientists tasked with the job. In fact, the best minds in space exploration have found it easier to get a spacecraft to reach that distant planet than to build a robot that can successfully navigate the rugged Martian landscape—with anything near the agility of your common mountain goat.
On Earth, everything rolls on wheels.
On Mars’s boulder-strewn, canyon-covered landscapes, wheels don’t work so well.
To address the problem, scientist Rodney Brooks took an alternative, yet eminently logical approach. From his earliest days of designing robots, Brooks began with the hypothesis that any successful system had to be grounded in the physical world. “I argue for simplicity,” he says. “I’m interested in building something that can’t fail to work.” So he built based on something that already worked.
In this case, he—perhaps unwittingly— followed the wisdom of a biblical proverb, and went to the ant. Anyone who has ever seen an ant crawl out of impossible- looking holes or up steep walls can understand why. The more Brooks observed the tiny six-legged creatures, the more amazed he became. He could scarcely believe humble insects were capable of forming logical descriptions inside “that puny little head with 50,000 neurons.”
By watching high-speed videos of insects running, he noticed that “they fall all the time and hit their metaphorical chin.” But because they are so lightweight and their skeletal strength is so great, they can have missteps and still recover.
While other scientists were building massive, unwieldy, fragile robots, Brooks (in conjunction with another scientist and a high school student) designed a small, lightweight, six-legged, ant-like robot called Genghis. It was good enough to get the attention of Pasadena’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (jpl) and nasa.
Brooks’s ant robot, built in the mid-1980s, represented an established trend in technology— one that has been exploding in popularity in recent years: When science reaches a limit, when it hits a wall, engineers, builders and inventors look to a fascinating source for inspiration.
They turn to the creation. It only makes sense. Whether or not you believe in the existence of a Creator, the natural world is teeming with eye-popping, mind-stretching engineering and scientific feats that, well, work. Elegantly, beautifully, without fanfare.
Nature’s Drawing Board
Perhaps you are familiar with the seeds of the burdock plant? A bane to hunters and woodsmen for thousands of years, this little-known photosynthetic organism is now the poster child for the burgeoning field of biometrics (or as it is also known, biomimicry).
Even before the fateful day in 1941 when George de Mestral went for a hike in the Swiss Alps, came back covered in sticky burrs and had an epiphany—Velcro— scientists have been copying the methods and systems found in nature and adapting them to everyday problems. In fact, learning and applying the lessons of living things is at the forefront of some of the world’s most cutting-edge technology.
During the early years of jet engines, researchers encountered a perplexing design barrier. As planes got faster and faster, the engines persistently stalled out at certain speeds. The air, instead of flowing into the engine, would for some reason flow around it. Puzzled, researchers looked to nature’s fastest animal: a diving peregrine falcon. How could the bird still breathe, they wondered, while traveling at an incredible 200 miles per hour? Looking at the falcon’s nostrils, they found that a small cone protruding from the front slowed down the air, allowing orderly airflow into the nasal cavity. Fashioning a similar cone in front of the turbine air intake slowed the air enough to maintain proper airflow into the jet engine.
Flight engineers continue to scrutinize the natural world for solutions. For example, it has long been known that the wing shapes of different birds favor different types of flight. Some wings work well for rapid acceleration; others work much better for long-distance cruising: Think sparrow versus albatross. Additionally, birds have the remarkable ability to spread their feathers during the different stages of flight to maximize efficiency.
Scientists from Penn State University want to exploit these advantages by building mechanical aircraft wings that can change form. With these next-generation wings, sliding scales cover a shape-shifting understructure that allows the wing to morph in mid-flight to enable faster, more efficient flying and conserve fuel.
Other scientists and planners are trying to boost flight efficiency by mimicking bird behavior. Some birds, like Canada geese, increase the distance they can fly by more than 70 percent by flying in V-formation. Scientists have discovered that when one bird flaps its wings, it creates a small updraft that lifts the bird behind, allowing it to glide more and expend less energy.
A team at Stanford University says that passenger airlines could likewise benefit from V-shaped convoy flight. Models suggest that if, for example, groups of three or more jets from West Coast airports flew in formation en route to East Coast destinations, taking turns in front as birds do, the aircraft could use 15 percent less fuel compared to flying alone. Not a bad savings for doing something as simple as imitating bird behavior. In 2009, the Defense Department announced plans to pay Boeing to investigate the merits of formation flight.
Meanwhile, scientists at the University of Leeds in Britain are studying the defense mechanism of the bombardier beetle to see if the insect might help them learn how to reignite stalled gas-turbine aircraft engines in mid-flight. The beetle is known for a highly efficient discharge apparatus that enables it to spray predators with a high-pressure stream of boiling fluid a distance of 200 to 300 times the length of its combustor. Its exit nozzle system— with its incredibly short mass ejection time and long range of spray—may serve as a prototype to help aircraft more accurately squirt plasma into gas turbine combustion chambers during the reignition process.
Engineers at Airbus are also making hightech, nature-inspired wing modifications. In order to smooth the flow of air over the wings of the aircraft, they are using a striated foil coating inspired by the shape and texture of sharkskin. Intriguingly, scientists have discovered that the rough texture of sharkskin actually helps channel the flow of water over its surface—reducing turbulence and thus drag. Sure enough, the same principle works with airflow. The result of their nature-inspired modifications?
Planes creating 6 percent less friction and enjoying increased fuel efficiency. The sharkskin discovery applied even more directly at the last summer Olympics in Beijing. Swimmer Michael Phelps won a record-breaking eight gold medals there. Training and aptitude were no doubt the biggest reasons for his success, but his swimsuit, fashioned with synthetic sharkskin fabric, definitely provided an edge. In fact, 89 percent of all medal winners at that competition wore sharkskin-model suits.
Similar sharkskin-type coatings are being applied to the hulls of ships as well because their bumpy, rivet-like contours inhibit the growth of barnacles, algae and other organisms that normally like to adhere themselves to boat bottoms.
Higher, Faster, Further—Cooler?
Inventors have designed fabrics that could be used to make clothing that adjusts to help keep you warmer or cooler depending on your body temperature. How? By studying the way pinecones open and close depending on humidity.
One new smart textile is constructed with a layer of thin spikes of water- absorbent material that opens up when the wearer sweats. When the layer dries out, the spikes automatically close again. A second layer underneath would protect the wearer from the rain. These fabrics promise to reduce or eliminate the need to wear multiple layers of clothing.
Keeping cool is also a challenge for building engineers, especially when you want to avoid expensive air conditioning bills. To solve this problem, some designers have turned to the humble termite.
As it turns out, termites are masters at managing the temperatures inside their termite towers. They do this by constantly opening and closing vents throughout the mound to bring in cooler air from lower levels and release hot air through chimneys.
The new high-rise Eastgate Center building in Harare was inspired by these amazing insect mounds. It collects cool air at night and lets it settle to basement levels. Then this air is used to cool the structure throughout the day. The result is a modern building that uses only 10 percent of the energy required by a typical multistory shopping mall.
When engineering solutions are not enough to keep heating and cooling costs down, super-efficient wind turbines can help. For this, the creation is offering solutions too. Ever wonder why humpback whales have odd bumpy protrusions on the front of their flippers? Despite traditional fluid dynamics that say this isn’t possible, it is because the scallops actually reduce drag and increase lift. This new science—which is actually as old as humpback whales—is revolutionizing wind turbine technology. New airfoils designed with humpback flipper-like bumps on the leading edge reduce stall angles and purportedly increase efficiency enough (almost a third) to make the wind power comparable, on a cost basis, to other, more traditional forms of power generation.
Changing to Survive
The wild Martian landscape is far from being the only challenge in space exploration. High-energy radiation bombards sensitive electronic equipment and extreme temperatures cause drastic mechanical wear and high rates of system failure. To get around these problems, scientists commonly include shielding. They hardwire spare parts, build in redundancy, and take other measures. But the drawbacks are formidable. Spare parts and insulation are heavy and costly. Plus, you can’t carry spare parts for everything, or—in the case of space travel—it might not fly. Some scientists, however, are taking a radically different approach—one also grounded in the real world of the creation. What if you could build a circuit board, a computer program or a robot that could adapt depending on conditions? Even better, since there is no post office to deliver spare parts on Jupiter, what if you could build a system that could repair itself?
That is what scientists like Adrian Stoica at jpl are working on. Consider humans. In some ways, we’re quite fragile. We are optimized to live in 70 degree climate, but we have learned to adapt to live in climates between minus- 40 degrees in arctic tundra to 104 degrees or higher in warmer climates. We adapt to our environment by wearing clothes, eating high-energy food, drinking lots of fluids, and avoiding intense sunlight. Even a child learns to put on a pair of socks when his feet are cold. This makes us much more resilient. Scientists like Stoica are developing circuits and even computer programs that adapt when they notice a change in the environment or when they fail at a task. Working for jpl and nasa, Stoica’s job was to build electronics that could perform functions in extreme environments such as volcanoes or nuclear reactors, or even outer space. As opposed to the standard approach of shielding electronics from the environment, he thought of a second possibility: When the environment changes, why not just replace the broken parts by having the electronics reconfigure themselves?
Thus Stoica designed and built flexible circuits that actually self-adapt to find optimal functionality under radiation, temperature or other environmental changes.
“The human body offers a good analogy,” say Dennis Shasha and Cathy Lazere in their book Natural Computing. “Cuts normally … heal naturally in a few days, broken arms in a few weeks. But an amputated limb requires a prosthetic. If a spacecraft could be designed so that minor failures would be repaired locally and severe failures would be repaired by replacement with a spare part, then the spacecraft [or robot] might survive for [much longer].” A spaceship that can fix itself might sound fanciful, but consider that the transportation industry is already developing products based on the same concept for use much closer to home. Self-repairing plastics for use in things like aircraft fuselages and automobiles are being tested with the hope that they can make vehicles lighter, more fuel-efficient and safer. When the hollow plastic fibers are stressed or broken, the microscopic tubes release an epoxy resin, creating a “scab” nearly as strong as the original material.
Other scientists are taking the concept of biological adaptation even further: working to produce machines that can not only mimic and adapt to change, but also make decisions and solve complex problems on their own. “[T]he future,” say Shasha and Lazere, “is a synthesis with nature.” In other words, get ready for some mind-boggling advances. are observation, experimentation and reason.
Are those tools wrong? Not at all! The error comes from rejection of revelation. For revelation is the true starting premise.” If you want truth, if you want real answers, God must be your foundation. The Bible reveals that when God saw everything He had created, “it was very good.” God designed the material world with all its physical, chemical and biological laws to work well. The more you look at creation, the more you come to understand that even our most advanced man-made technologies look primitive by comparison.
Although scientists today don’t realize it, as they look to nature for solutions to problems, they come very close to the correct scientific method. Looking to the lessons of living things—which are designed
by God, the Supergenius of cutting-edge technology—is about as close as this world comes to asking God for answers. When God’s knowledge is the foundation of a project, it is inspiring to see what can be accomplished!
Shasha and Lazere say that the future “is a synthesis with nature.” In truth, the bright future scientists are working toward will come as a result of a “synthesis” not with nature—but with the Creator of “nature”! The Bible prophesies of a time when all human endeavor will be based on the right premise, and grounded in a robust relationship with God. Under direct divine tutelage, the scientific barriers holding us back today will come tumbling down! Invention and technology will enter its true golden age!
The Correct Scientific Method
The discoveries—that is, rediscoveries— are coming faster and faster. Considering the vastness of the creation, the potential is virtually limitless.
Consider. Deep-sea sponges have inspired commercial optical fibers. Giant water-capturing fog nets in Chile and Peru were inspired by a Stenocara beetle. Batlike sonar-emitting canes help blind people locate obstructions. Superhydrophobic paint that won’t collect dirt is coming to storerooms near you—and was inspired by the lotus plant (will you ever have to wash your car again?). Sea creatures related to sea urchins, called brittle stars, have led to improved optical lens designs. The gecko has taught us how to make tape without glue.
Who knows what discoveries the yeti crab or star-nosed mole might hold? How long before we are commercializing rope based upon super-strong spider silk? Or making glass out of dissolved silicon in seawater, like microscopic phytoplankton? What other technologies will the creatures living in deep-sea underwater volcanic vents stimulate?
As scientists know, success in an endeavor requires building on a sound foundation. Often, when scientists and builders get into trouble it is because they build on a faulty foundation. If you begin with an incorrect premise, you’ll end with an incorrect answer.
Creation-based science is proving to have a terrific premise. Why is that? If we are honest, we cannot attribute the supremely developed engineering behind the natural world to random chance. It reveals a mind of stunning intelligence and creativity.

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