Hal Jordan Sucks

Hal Jordan sucks. Yes, you read that twice. He blows. He's boring. Ryan Reynolds should not have played him. He should've been Kyle Rayner. Somebody ho-hum, like Josh Brolin, should've played Hal.

Hal was always sort of bland. His comic was good because  Gil Kane and Neal Adams drew it, and not to mention Green Arrow showed up for a while. Quite a dynamic there! All the cool Green Lanterns were there too: Guy Gardner, John freakin' Stewart, Kyle. They were definitely better than death-dealer Hal Jordan.

Neal Adams art

Forgot about that didn't you? Hal's little "issue". Let me recap:

"Hi, I'm Hal Jordan, well respected super hero. I'm sad because my home city got wiped out by a mega-powerful villain with a bad name (Mongul). So what I'm gonna do, what I am going to do is KILL all my friends and steal their rings so I can undo the deaths of millions of Coast City residents, including my girlfriend. That's right, KILL.

"See ya, Kilowog. Then I'm going to go crazy:

"Yes, loony, and become arch-villain #1 (Parallax). I will lose to Oliver Queen, who puts an arrow in my mighty chest, and disappear for awhile before I return to tackle a big black star-eating cloud (Sun-Eater). I have redeemed myself by dying! And then I become The Spectre, you know, the living embodiment of GOD'S Wrath.

"Later, I will return to life as good ol' Hal, and everyone will love me again! Even Kilowog. See, it wasn't really me, it was the one-armed man. Oops, wrong guy! It was the real Parallax, that evil yellow entity. It possessed me and made me do bad stuff."

Yeah, good one, DC. That's why nobody reads comics, because they're stupid.

Anyway, Hal is still boring in my mind. I haven't read the new 52, for the above reason. But come on, Hal should have stayed evil or dead. This "ret-con" junk is a dumb word for a dumb idea.

Bye Hal. I never liked you.

Give me John Stewart instead.

 

God Sends Good And Bad

Reading through the book of Job is an interesting enterprise. Bad stuff happens, more bad stuff happens, people complain, people accuse, God shows up. God doesn't explain his actions, but does give a monologue about how awesome He is.
Only God can brag.

It appears as though God manipulates Satan into attacking Job. Maybe God wanted to show the spirit world that there were a few humans who would not curse Him even when life falls apart. That there were indeed a few people with integrity.
Unlike Satan, who fell into apostasy because he couldn't be as big as God.

Check out Job chapter 2. Yeah, go ahead. Satan says Job will curse God if Job gets sick. God takes that challenge, after taunting the Devil with Job's great character ("Look at my man Job! He didn't lose faith even when you killed his kids and destroyed his livelihood!").
Satan inflicts Job with nasty boils over his entire body, as drawn by John Totleben above.

This was a bad week for our pal Job.

But listen to this:
'Then his wife said to him: "Do you still hold fast to your integrity? Curse God and die!"'

Can you hear the venom spewing from her lips?

Now in her defense, her ten children had just died in a storm, and all her wealth had been destroyed. So she was grieved. But...

Job says: "You speak as one of the foolish women speak. Shall we indeed accept good from God and not accept adversity?"

Think on that for a moment.

We think all good stuff comes from God, and bad stuff from Satan or the world. Job knows better. He knows it all comes from God. He didn't get mad about it either. He did lament the day of his birth, though. But God never called him out on it. In fact, He still said Job was blameless.

In his pain, Job wished he had never been born. His friends showed up too, and after being silent for a week, decided to give him their opinions about why his life fell apart.
It was his fault, they said!
He must have had some secret sin that had offended God. These things couldn't possibly happen to a righteous man!

But they do, don't they? God hands out adversity like free tickets to a baseball game. But you can't refuse these...

In the end, Job saw God's power and forgot about himself. God then told the three friends that He wasn't pleased with their speeches. They had not spoken well of God, as Job had. There is a lesson here. God didn't come to Job's aid because his friends were accusing him, He came to his aid because Job was speaking right about God. Job hadn't cursed God. He knew Him well enough not to do that. His friends thought they knew Him, but were merely superstitious. Job understood that God hands out trouble and doesn't owe anyone an explanation for it.

I'm sure this baffled Satan. What happens when you think you know better than God?
You fall.

Job also understood that his Redeemer was coming, and that he would see Him face to face. That always puts our lives in perspective, doesn't it?
His theology was in good order!

Job now had to pray for his friends, which he did. They offered their sacrifices, and Job prayed for them. What a good friend! See, God listened to Job because he was blameless. Not sinless, but blameless. Nobody could say anything bad about him.

Fortunately, it all ends well. Job's wealth is returned to him two-fold. Double the donkeys, double the camels, etc. He even has ten more kids, evidently with the same misinformed wife. He lived another 140 years as well, probably living to 210.
God took care of him.

Here is what we don't like about God: that He gives trouble. We ask 'Why?' and don't get a reply. But God can do whatever he wants with his clay. He uses adversity, sends adversity, to mold His people into a beautiful piece of pottery. He is preparing us for Heaven, where there is no pride or lust. Adversity has a way of stripping all that away.
As Christians, we no longer are our own, but we now belong to Christ. He bought us. He can do what He wants with us. His ways are good, though, so don't forget that.

Job knew this, and was well spoken of because of it.

 

Unholy-Days

Halloween, Christmas, Easter. "Holidays" that really exist in a fantasy-land. You'll notice two of those days are in a different color. That's because they link to two other posts of mine which are freakin' fantastic pieces of fine literature.
Really.

Halloween just passed. What did you do? Did you dress up the kids and march around your neighborhood collecting candy? Why? Because that's what we did as kids? Why did we do that?

Some would say because it's fun. And it is. But have you ever noticed how you feel when the trick-or-treating is over, or when you're done unwrapping the presents, or finished finding the eggs? You might feel empty, like a dream just ended.
That's because it did. I think we enter a fantasy world three times a year, and when the day is over, the bubble bursts. The next is back to normal, like nothing happened. The festivities are forgotten and the "holiday spirit" has evaporated.
We spent all that time preparing for...what exactly?

We celebrate something at Christmas, but I'm not sure what. For Christians, it is supposed to be about Christ's birth (Christmas), but it kind of isn't. Sure, we have the holiday services, but that's for an hour, which can't compete with the two months of time leading up to the Big Day. It's really about the lights, the spectacle, the gifts. And when the 26th comes, the fantasy is over. The jolly elf is gone, nowhere to be found. We must then wipe away the evidence by putting away the presents and taking down the decorations. A lot of people try to hold on to that mystical feeling by leaving the tree up for another week or more, but it all fizzled out upon waking up the Day After.

Easter is another one. Some say it's pagan, some say it's Christian, some it's both. But really it's something else: A cartoon! Bunnies? Eggs? One big bunny who delivers them all? Sounds like a cartoon to me.

He doesn't like the pastels either.

We tell kids about fake entities and then tell them later that they don't exist. How stupid is that? We are perpetuating a myth...

Modern Christmas was invented by a few well-intentioned men who wanted to create an American family holiday. It worked! (I guess Thanksgiving wasn't good enough. You know, the holiday where we give thanks to God while gathered together as a family). Modern Easter took root in Germany around the 1500 and 1600's, then spread to America. How it got merged with The Resurrection I don't know, but perhaps the Roman Catholic Church had something to do with it.
Or Hallmark.

So basically we are celebrating ancient pagan traditions through the lens of commercialism. Exploit those religions!

Gotta keep it going. It's the money, honey. Holiday movies, music, toys, decorations. "The Christmas Spirit" and all that.
In other words, a fantasy.

So what do we do? Do we celebrate the pagan side, or the Christian side? Or just have fun living out the fantasy? Or not celebrate at all?
(If you decide to not tell your kids about Santa, or the Bunny, or even the Tooth Fairy, you will be ostracized, at least a little. After all, everyone does it and so should you!)

In any event, It's still sort of a free country, so you can celebrate any way you want. Just ask yourself: What am I doing and why am I doing it?

 

The Bloody Substitute

Why is there so much blood in the Bible? It's all over the place, like a Jackson Pollock painting. From Genesis to Revelation there's mention of blood: shed it, don't shed it, don't drink it, don't spill it, Jesus shed it. Blood, blood, blood.

But really. Why all the talk? And why did animals have to die? Why did people the world over sacrifice beasts, and even men?

Because "the life is in the blood". If you bleed too much, you die. Not enough blood equals death. Poisoned blood means death too. Blood is precious, both literally and figuratively. Life is precious to God. He made that clear when Noah got off the Ark. "If any man shed's another man's blood, by man must his blood be shed." (Death penalty)
Blood is important.

 Then, why sacrifice animals if blood is so precious? Why is it that people all over the globe from many different cultures felt the need to sacrifice to their gods?
Because they knew they offended them. They knew in their hearts that the gods were offended and wanted to offer up a substitute in their place. See, something has to die for our sin, for our offenses. So animals were used. And when the sin was grievous enough, humans were sacrificed, because a human is more valuable than a goat. This better sacrifice would placate the local god, for the good of the society.

Sacrificing did not originate in Babylon or Sumer, but in the Garden of Eden. Something died to cover up the first two real people. From then on, men sacrificed to Yawheh as a reminder that their sin offended Him. Sin is like an opposite of God: it's imperfect, unholy, perverse. Haven't you ever been utterly offended by some crime, or harmful words? Imagine that multiplied billions of times over and the understand how God feels...

Sin is awful, and something must die for it. The blood of an animal served as a reminder that we are sinners, and in ancient Israel, that shed blood covered over the sin of both the priest and the people. It didn't really remove sin, because the blood of an animal can't remove the sin from a human. Only the blood of a human can remove the sin from another human.
Who wants that job?

But a sinful man's blood can't take away the sin of another sinner. That's like paying bail with counterfeit money!

The only blood that can remove sin is the blood of a perfect man. And the only blood that can remove all sin for all time is the blood from a perfect, eternal man. The blood of a goat or bull could cover the sin temporarily, but the next time you sinned that blood became useless. Another sacrifice had to be made.
And another.

So an Eternal Man had to give up his life to set free an entire race. He would be the substitute for everyone who would believe. This was the Son of God Most High, the real God, the Creator of all, the one all those indigenous pagans had lost contact with after Babel. They tried to worship Him, but failed.

Sacrificing wasn't a step in evolution, it was people trying to reach God. But He reached down to us, and sent His Sacrifice so that we could be reunited again.

And so Jesus Christ, the one foretold of for millennia, came here and tore down that curtain that separates man from God. He paved the way, He bridged the gap. He fulfilled all Old Testament laws. His blood is the most important of all. He fulfilled all legal requirements. He beat the devil at the cross. He has no equal. He spoke the universe into existence. He died in our place to satisfy God's justice. He is our advocate, our guardian, our Lord, our King, and our Savior.

There is none like Him!

 

The Priest Who Does Not Die

Melchizedek. Say it with me. Mel-kee-zuh-dek.
Who?
Melchizedek, great  High Priest of God most High. A mysterious man who pops up in Genesis 14:18. He's in two verses and the disappears. He brought bread and wine to Abraham, blessed him, and received a tithe of all his plunder. In his bag were the severed heads of five Sodomites and a Gomorrahn's leg bone. He wielded a rusty scimitar and had ears-

Okay, maybe not. Wrong book. But he did show up to bless Abraham in the name of Yawheh, the God of gods and Creator of the universe (Jesus' father). This happened as The King of Sodom was about to reward Abraham for rescuing his people. Abe didn't take a thing, by the way. He didn't want anything to do with him, sicko that he was.

Melchizedek would later be seen as a 'type' of Christ in the book of Hebrews. He is "without father, without mother, having no genealogy, no beginning or ending".
Whoa!
That's like Supreme-Being-sounding!
Well, He wasn't divine. What the unnamed author's point was that Melchizedek had no record of parents, birth, or death. His priesthood had nothing to do with lineage or birthright.

He had been appointed by God Himself.
Much like Jesus, who was appointed as Great High Priest because of His indestructible life. Him being from the wrong tribe didn't matter. Since He fulfilled the old Law, he was no longer bound by it after He ascended to heaven.

Which means that since He is the High Priest, we as Christians can go straight to Him without the rituals of confessing to a priest. It isn't necessary to do that. Where once it was the rule to take your sacrifice to the priest so he could offer it up for you, we can now take our sin directly to the Priest, who has already made a one-time sacrifice for us all.

There is no middle man!

 

WOLVES

There are wolves in our midst. They're on TV, in the bookstores, and on the radio. They are pretty, and well admired. They claim to be shepherds of the people.
But are they good shepherds?

Sure, they make you feel good. Focus on the positive! Turn that frown upside down! And while that's fine if you're a motivational speaker, it's not fine if you're a Bible teacher or a pastor.

Pastors are supposed to feed the flock, feed them real food, not Fruit Loops. Joel here doesn't tell people that their sin separates them from God, feeling that most folk already feel beat up. So he skirts the whole issue and instead wants to make you feel good. That's okay for a self-help guru, but not if you're a pastor!

I think Joel's problem is he's too nice. He can't say what needs to be said. Is that a carefully coordinated plan? A plan to make a big happy church and get rich from selling millions of books? Or is he really just a nice guy who doesn't want to ruffle any fathers?

Be careful, Mr. Osteen. God knows why you do the things you do!

Now here's a wolf! The beloved Joyce Meyer. Looking like an angry Joker these days, she is a Bible teacher and conference speaker. Why anyone would bother to listen to her after she spent $23,000 on a toilet is beyond me. You go to her conference, pay good money to learn about the Bible and it's life application, and she buys a gold toilet with the money.
Something wrong there.
Anyway, aside from her spending habits, she tells people this:

"There is no hope of anyone going to Heaven unless they believe this truth I am presenting. You cannot go to Heaven unless you believe with all your heart that Jesus took your place in Hell."

Say what? Where's that in the Bible? She just altered the gospel, folks. She changed Jesus. She's presenting a subtly different Christ to her listeners.

In other words, she's a wolf. A false teacher. You can't change the fundamental work of Christ without becoming a heretic! Jesus died on the cross and made atonement for our sins there. He did not suffer in Hell! Joyce made it up. When Jesus said 'It is finished', that meant His sacrifice was accomplished. Joyce teaches that He then went to Hell and was tormented by demons there, until God said 'that's enough'. And she teaches that you have to believe that in order to go to Heaven.

But Jesus said to believe in Him. He's the answer, not Joyce's fiction.
So much for being a Bible teacher...

People love Joel and Joyce for their practical help. And like I said, that's great if they were motivational speakers. But they are not. Anything that changes what Jesus did or who He was is heresy. It says Jesus lied. Jesus is the Son of God, He died on the cross to remove the eternal penalty for our sin, and He rose again. That's it. And if you believe and follow Him, you will be saved.

T.D. Jakes used to teach a heretical doctrine called "modalism", which says that God was the Father, then became the Son, then became The Holy Spirit. One person, three manifestations. The gospels, however, say the opposite. When Jesus was baptized, the Father spoke from heaven and the Spirit descended on Jesus.
That ends the modalism discussion as far as I'm concerned. And apparently it was good enough for Jakes, who has a more Trinitarian belief now.

As far as his other teachings, that's another story...

These days, people want their ears tickled. They want "Christian" teachers who will tell them what they want to hear. They don't want to be told how to live or what to believe. So they go to the nice guys, and the prosperity teachers. Thus, they have huge churches and a wide reach.
And the lies continue, leading to a false Jesus and a lot of doomed souls.

"Therefore we must give all the more careful attention to what we have heard, lest we drift away."

Watch out for the wolves.

 

Where the Hell is Satan?

A common belief is that Satan lives in Hell. Where this idea originates, I don't know. Not from the Bible, but maybe from Milton. In the Bible, the Devil walks among us causing trouble. He's not in jail yet! That's what Hell is: jail. An eternal prison with no warden.
But that's another post.

So if he's not in Hell, where is he? New York maybe. Or London. South Florida. Moscow. Groom Lake. He could be next to you. Nobody knows! What the Bible tells us is that he walks to and fro in the earth. Read Job chapter 1. He's also called "the prince of the power of the air", so maybe he has a sky fortress. The point is, he's free to act in our world!

(A little Viggo for you. Satan isn't always ugly.) I'm sure Satan doesn't waste time with peons like you and I. That's what he has an army of demons for. He's working on the big stuff, like bringing down governments and enticing people through television. Big lies, mass delusions, pervasive mind control. All that good stuff. Every once and awhile I bet he makes a personal appearance to someone who loves their Lord more than anything else in the world. Someone who pushes back the darkness through prayer and declaring God's truths.
A true servant of God.

Yes, she looks a little out of place in this blog. But that's where the brightest lights are; in the deepest night. In other words, true servants are a target for Satan and his hordes. He hates children, Christians, and Jews. And everyone else, too. His aim is to turn every heart away from God.
Haven't you noticed? The West is abandoning its faith at an alarming rate, playing right into the Enemy's hands. He's not in Hell, planning the downfall of humanity. He's at church, on Main Street, at the theater, in the schools, the prisons, the government, your heart. "The prince of the power of the air" is allowed to rule this world invisibly for the time being. He's looking for people to devour.

The solution? Repent and believe that Jesus is Lord, and never let Him go. Make Him your Master instead of Satan.
The Devil is going to lose in the end, and then go to Hell.
So why ally yourself with him?

 

Was Jesus Crazy?

Well, was He? Was he a lunatic? Aside from Christians, people generally see Jesus as a 'great moral teacher'. But would a great moral teacher walk around saying that He's the Son of God? No, a nutjob says that. Does a great moral teacher say to people that he is "the way, the truth, and the life, and none can come to the Father except by me?" I think only an egotistical maniac would say that.
So I guess Jesus was crazy.

Unless of course, He was telling the truth. If He was telling it straight up, then He really is the Messiah, the Savior, the Son of God. Otherwise, He was a kook and not very moral. The Sermon on The Mount was absolutely worthless if He wasn't The Christ!  His words were pointless without Him being God's only Son. His whole message of forgiveness is based on Him being able to take away man's sin! If what He said was false, then He wasn't moral, He was crazy. And no one should listen to Him.

So drop the inaccurate tag of 'great moral teacher' and either say He was a fruitcake, or believe He actually was who He says He was. There is no middle ground.

Would a simple 'great teacher' do this:

Something to think about...


 

The Warhammer Drug

Warhammer is like crack. One hit and you're hooked. One fig and you are snagged. One little box of Citadel miniatures just isn't enough! If you buy one Rhino, then you need a Land Raider. A box of Savage Orcs leads to an Arachnarok, then a whole army. What starts out as a passing interest in Skaven turns into a need to own three different armies over two different games.
There's so much cool stuff it sucks you in and traps you like a hobbit in Mirkwood!

That's a Tyranid Trygon. It's beyond cool. Nobody makes stuff like GW. But... you buy one of these for 57 bucks and you're hooked. It's not enough. What starts as a $30 box of Empire Flagellant War Band becomes $300 of whatever floats your boat.

Like this:

The Glottkin. Nasty goodness, right there. Games Workshop has really improved their product over the years, not that they were ever bad. With great quality comes great prices, however. The above model is $109. See, these models aren't like buying a Tamiya tank kit, where you buy one, build it, paint it, and you're done. No, Games Workshop is a culture, and you're either in or you're not. There's almost no casual buyers here. I mean, how do you stop with just one Ogre Stonehorn?

You can't! Ha ha, that's just it. Warhammer envelopes you, seduces you, pulls you in...

For those of you who don't know what I'm babbling about, Games Workshop Is a company out of England that produces two miniature war games: Warhammer Fantasy Battles and Warhammer 40K (as in 40,000 or 41rst millennium). They also do The Hobbit, but who cares. Both Fantasy and 40K have role playing games, but GW doesn't make 'em. We'll stick with the war games.
They are the crack of which I speak.

Games Workshop has been around since the early 80's. They keep getting better and better. Now you could play other games, like War Machine, or Hordes, or Kings of War, Dropzone Commander, but why? They don't have Gutrot Spume, man.

Nurgle Chaos Lord. Full of disease and blight. The one thing GW has that nobody else has is fluff. That's right, fluff. That means story. GW puts out novels, and their rule books have stories and histories in them. Fluff! All the more to drag you in with.
Hey wait, cool art here:

Gutrot Spume, in a fluff piece. No, he's not holding that standard in his left hand. He doesn't have a left hand! Anyway, let's look at a comparison of ogres. First, Mantic Games ogre:

Now, GW:

Mantic's isn't bad. It just isn't as good as GW. See where I'm going? I'm going broke, that's where. These guys know what they're doing, that's for sure.
So, where should you start? High Elves? They're gay. Bretonnia? I like those peasants. Lizardmen? Go for it. Look at that detail! Ogres? Without question.
How 'bout 40K? Chaos? If you can handle it. Dark Eldar? Bunch of hedonistic, murderous pirates. Tau? Sure, why not? Space Wolves? Eldar? Tyranids?

Or whatever looks cool.

Khorne, Lord of Skulls. As you can tell, I lean towards fantasy. 40K is great, but Fantasy is more like home.

Now that you're contemplating buying a model, don't forget the paint. And the brushes! You are screwed now...

Here's one last picture to whet your unholy appetite. It's called a Necrosphinx, from the Tomb Kings faction. Can't you feel those curves under your fingertips? It's calling you...

 

Super Powers in The Bible

Who wants a super power? If you could pick one, which one would it be? Flight? Super strength? Invulnerability? Acid vomit? How about energy projection, or rapid healing?

It's fun to pretend. But there were some instances in history of super-abilities, namely, in the Bible. We'll leave out Moses, who was covered somewhat in an earlier post, Satanic Miracles.
First off:

Samson. The man had super strength. Super-stamina, too. He killed a thousand Philistines at one time with a donkey's jawbone. He ripped up the city's gates and carried them 30 miles away, depositing them on a hill.

He killed 30 men and stole their clothes to give as a reward to a group of dudes who figured out his riddle. He killed a lion bare-handed. And of course, he pushed over the pillars that held up the Temple of Dagon, killing himself and 3,000 other people.

Take that!
So, how did he get all that power? Magic pill? Radioactive camel? Nope.
From The Holy Spirit.
The Holy Spirit, man!
 Whenever the Spirit came upon Samson, he gained massive strength and stamina. God wanted a warrior who could free His people from the Philistine oppression. So He gave Samson power to do so.

As a side note, several other men in the Old Testament were hardy warriors, like David who killed 200 of those Philistines, Shamgar killed 600 men with an ox goad, and Abishai who killed 300 men with a spear.
God gives you what you need, when you need it.

Next up, Jesus. He healed people, raised the dead, and multiplied food. He also knew things that that others did not. Like seeing Nathanael under the tree when He couldn't actually see him. Where did His power come from? Again, the Holy Spirit. When He became human, He allowed The Spirit to give Him power, rather than using His own divinity.
But here's an interesting power: When Jesus was resurrected, He displayed a strange ability to appear, disappear, and reappear wherever He wanted. After he spoke with the two disciples on the road to Emmaus, he vanished. And most famously, he appeared to the apostles in a locked room. The text does not say he walked through the door, but that He simply appeared there.
Sounds like He teleported.

Yup, Jesus could teleport. And He wasn't the only one...

Move over, Nightcrawler and Vanisher, Philip is here! Philip, a disciple of Christ after Jesus ascended, went and preached to a eunuch from Ethiopia. He was an important man, and was reading the scroll of Isaiah when Philip hopped into his chariot. (super speed?) He explained that Isaiah was talking about Jesus, and the eunuch got saved. He then wanted to get baptized right then and there! Philip did so, and when they popped back up out of the water, Philip was gone. He had been "carried away" by the Spirit, somewhere miles away. Once again, the Holy Spirit was doing some crazy stuff.

Honorable mention: the Two Witnesses in Revelation who breathe fire.

How do you like that? Super powers in the Bible. As stupid as comic books can be, maybe they were on to something. Makes me wonder if Siegel and Shuster got their idea for Superman from their Torah...