One Third of 2026 is History

 

 

Revelation 1:7 International Children’s Bible

⁷ Look, Jesus is coming with the clouds! Everyone will see him, even those who stabbed him. And all peoples of the earth will cry loudly because of him. Yes, this will happen! Amen.

 

Today is May Day, International Labor Day, meaning one-third of the year has now passed! Today in history:

1786 — Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro premieres in Vienna

1884 — First skyscraper completed

1994 — Nelson Mandela inaugurated as South Africa’s first Black president

1889 — Thomas Edison shows his first motion picture

1953 — Watson & Crick publish the structure of DNA

1852 — Calamity Jane was born

1840 — World’s first postage stamp released in England

 

A third of 2026 is history. Sylvia and I are nearly finished editing my second book—which may become my first book!

The proposed first book is our first great adventure: Africa—with no car, no phone, no kids, and virtually no money.

Our proposed second book—the physical encounter of Abraham with his great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandfather Shem. This is a historical novel, written in Madagascar, that is intended to be as true to scripture as possible. Our sojourn in Madagascar was our latest adventure with no car, virtually no phone, no kids, and no money.

I intended to publish the first book last year. When things slowed down to a virtual stop on that new year’s resolution, we set in motion the second manuscript this year.

The apparent soon return of Christ is rushing forward with an attempted establishment of a law that may usher in the biblical time of trouble. Its proposed date is July 4, 2026—exactly 250 years after the creation of the “freest” country on earth.

 

Dear Lord, prepare us for the Great Time of Trouble and Your much-awaited return in glory.

 

 

 

Bipolar and Christ's Coming

 

[1]

Mark 13:32-37 GOD’S WORD Translation (GW)

 

³² “No one knows when that day or hour will come. Even the angels in heaven and the Son don’t know. Only the Father knows. ³³ Be careful! Watch! You don’t know the exact time. ³⁴ It is like a man who went on a trip. As he left home, he put his servants in charge. He assigned work to each one and ordered the guard to be alert.³⁵ Therefore, be alert, because you don’t know when the owner of the house will return. It could be in the evening or at midnight or at dawn or in the morning. ³⁶ Make sure he doesn’t come suddenly and find you asleep.³⁷ I’m telling everyone what I’m telling you: ‘Be alert!’”

 

Christ promised to return. He indeed left us. That was His great sign “I go and if I go I will come again.”

As a math teacher, I got involved trying to help students do mathematics. Some students do math easily and well. It is a delight to have them in the classroom. There was Amos[2] who did very well. He attended regularly and caught onto the concepts easily. It was easy to view him simply as an excellent student. He was a popular tutor and could tutor as well in one language as in a second language.

As a teacher it was easy to simply treat Amos as another student, this time a good one. But he was also a student with needs. He was deeply in love with Avis. She was a couple years older than he and working on her doctorate in psychology. Like so many psychology students, she was doing psychology because she wanted to discover what was making her problems. She had been diagnosed as bipolar, and her normal state was depression. She could consciously control this to the point that she was a successful graduate student.

Yet, her depression had a continuing effect on the couple’s romantic experience. Amos was very careful to understand and support Avis. He was always attuned to her needs. They married and bought a home in a beautiful mountain town.

We did our best to help support and encourage the young couple. We visited them whenever we could and invited them to our home and to go on trips to places like Joshua Tree National Park. They loved to go and seemed to appreciate the attention.

However, the progression of the manic-depressive disease continued to erode their relationship. Eventually they parted company. Their separation came as a surprise to me. I am certainly fairly knowledgeable about living in a relationship with someone bipolar, but I didn’t sense that their union was that fragile.

Even so, I am fully aware that Christ has promised to return. His promise warns us that His coming will be when we least expect it. It will be a marvelous event, but it does run the risk of bring infinitely more catastrophic than a divorce to us, if we do not remain prepared.

Lord, help me to be alert to more of the trials my friends and students are experiencing and to help wherever I can. And keep me alert to Your soon return

  

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[1] https://www.maxhealthcare.in/blogs/complete-guide-to-bipolar-disorder

[2] Amos and Avis were real people but I have given them these names to camouflage their identities.

Weapons to Fight in the Light

[i]

Romans 13:12

Good News Translation (GNT)

¹² The night is nearly over, day is almost here. Let us stop doing the things that belong to the dark, and let us take up weapons for fighting in the light.

When I was probably about 8 years old we had a student at Helderberg College who taught our Sabbath School class. He was very persuasive and very knowledgeable. He also had an unshakeable faith in Jesus Christ and His soon return. He looked at current world events—around 1950—and assumed that all the prophecies about Christ’s return had already been fulfilled. He stated that he guaranteed categorically that Christ would return within 5 years at the very most. It made a huge impression on me, or I certainly wouldn’t remember it all these years later.

I got much of his expressed certainty, but I do remember wondering whether it would really happen. The thought of Christ’s coming struck fear into my life rather than wondrous hope. Christ’s coming meant He would judge me, and I knew that my life and thoughts would reveal that I wasn’t ready. What it did mean to be ready? In my young life it meant that I would no longer be sinning—something that still hasn’t happened. I did not understand what the grace of Christ means to every Christian. It is this grace that makes me ready in spite of my sinful nature.

Unfortunately my teacher hadn’t put this verse into either his or my thoughts about getting ready. “Let us take up the weapons for fighting in the light.” A weapon of great consequence is the “Sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God” (Ephesians 6:17 KJV). Now close to 70 years later, it appears that we have a new tool in this Sword. Devout men and women of God are demanding that we provide Scripture to each people group in their own heart language. Furthermore they are anxious, willing, and able to step in and provide the manpower to produce these translations. Truly this is a modern outpouring of the Holy Spirit to provide the most powerful weapons “for fighting in the light!” With these weapons against him, Satan is hard pressed like never before. He is redoubling his fiendish efforts to defeat Christ and us. But we have the infinite power on our side, and we can indeed overcome by Christ’s amazing grace.

Thank You, Lord, for giving us this new and most potent weapon against the enemy of all human kind in our day.

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[i] https://www.christianitytoday.com/news/2016/march/wycliffe-associates-leaves-wga-bible-translation-son-of-god.html