GALACTUS!

Deep in the primordial past, before our universe began, lived a man named Galen. He dwelled in a place called Taa, one of the last planets left in the shrinking universe. Galen had a plan to survive the Big Crunch, which he implemented with success. He flew through the implosion of his universe and out into our own Big Bang. He incubated for a billion years and became the most feared being in the Marvel Universe:
GALACTUS!

Man, I love Galactus. When I was a kid, I first read about him in the Official Handbook of The Marvel Universe, under the entry for Silver Surfer. This was the 'S' volume, so there were no pictures of him. I just imagined some gigantic being who had a mouth big enough to eat planets! Being the World-Eater and all. Some time later I picked up Fantastic Four #262, the one where Reed Richards was on trial for saving Galactus's life. There I saw his big purple and blue self, and found a new character to adore. Anybody remember that story?

This was after Reed couldn't let Big G die from hunger. Reed saved him, but Galactus went on to devour the Skrull's Throneworld. They weren't happy about that. . .

Next I saw Galactus in Rom, where Rom tricked Galactus into leaving Galador and going after the Dire Wraiths world. It didn't work out. The Wraiths were some sick freaks.

Stan Lee and Jack Kirby came up with the idea of a God-like being and his fallen angel-like emissary, the Silver Surfer. Galactus needed to devour the life energies from planets to survive. He first encountered the Fantastic Four, naturally, and was driven away by something called the Ultimate Nullifier. You know you're cool when something named the Ultimate Nullifier is used against you!
Bam!

Next came Secret Wars. 1984, that is. The first one. All the villains are gathered together, waiting for the Beyonder. Well, Ultron was there, and he was a egotistical psycho. He bumped into Galactus and got all uppity. Not good. Ultron is powerful, but. . . take a look.

And then:

Snuffed him like a candle! So much for the clown who's going to give the Avengers so much trouble in a few months. Big G only had to lift a finger.
Some time before this, Galactus was searched out by Reed Richards to help battle the Sphinx, a powerful being who had the Ka Stone. The what? Yeah, I forgot about him, too. Galactus got in a hand-to-hand fight, which is the real reason people read super hero comics:

Galactus smacked him down, too, and broke his Ka Stone. There is just something cool about cosmic beings, isn't there? Eternity, The Living Tribunal, the In-betweener, Celestials. . .but Galactus is coolest of all. The Devourer of Worlds and master of the Silver Surfer. And Tyrant. And Morg. And Nova, Firelord, Air Walker, and Terrax the Tamer.
Yeah, good stuff.

Galactus withstood Darkseid's Omega Beams once. Took 'em full blast and didn't blink. Faded, maybe, but didn't flinch. Then Galactus blasted him:

This was a good one. I bought two. Galactus tried to eat Apokolips, but to his surprise he couldn't. Darkseid laughed in his face and told him it was a dead planet. Galactus should've stepped on him, but he just left. Even he couldn't believe Darkseid would let his people live like that!

I'm sure Galactus has ben beat by lots of people since I last read about him, much like how Spiderman gets killed in every What If? comic. Or beat up, or crucified (Kulan Gath, anyone?). But in my youth, Galactus was a treat to look forward to, an unbeatable force of nature that made any comic a whole lot better. I leave you with a cool image from my Pinterest page, by a guy I've never heard of. I'm too lazy to look him up, so you do it for me:

Cool, huh?

 

Why, God, Why?

Why does God allow good people to suffer? Well, why not? He is not our genie that we can pull out of a bottle any time we want. We answer to Him, not the other way around. But still, why? Why doesn't He step in and save abused children, or free slaves, or stop wars? Or for that matter, heal diseases, raise the dead, fix the economy, win me the lotto, make my bed, feed me?
Why doesn't He do what we tell Him to?

Because He's God, and we're not.
I know, that doesn't answer the question. I will try to answer it here, to the best of my layman's ability. I think it has to do with dominion and free will. Free will says we can do what we want, even if others suffer for it. You, me, the other guy, we can do whatever we want. Rape, murder, lies, theft, negligence, etc. Dominion has to do with our responsibility over the earth.
Let me explain.

God gave Adam, and therefore all mankind, dominion over the earth. We rule. We rule over the land, the sea, and the sky and everything in it. Thus, we are responsible for it. As a race, we are collectively held accountable for what goes on here. When Adam sinned, he passed that propensity on to us. We now sin too. So, as collective sinners, we reap what we sow collectively. The world is cursed because of our sin.

We left the Garden long ago. "The wages of sin is death", and that goes for babies, children, and adults, good or bad. We can't look at child slavery and hang that in God's closet as if He did it. The evil offender did. And God lets him sin just as much as He lets you sin. And we can't blame God for the disaster that kills innocent people. We are to blame.

"But, we didn't cause the earthquake!" No, but our collective sin did. So we pay the price as a group. One man's sin is another man's death.
Look, God does help people all the time. Ever escape death by a millisecond? Or somebody gave you money just when you needed it? A kidnapping got foiled? Yes, He is there. But some people get it bad, don't they? Why? I don't know. Trust the He knows what He's doing. He is indeed wiser than us.

My youngest daughter died almost fifteen years ago. I could have raged against God and blamed Him for not saving her. But I didn't. I couldn't. I trust Him. It's the way of the cursed world. Good did come out of the bad, which He promises to do for those who love Him.
I'd love it if some angels showed up and killed human traffickers. Or if a plague melted them where they stood. But God left it up to us to find them and put them away. To punish the men who do it and their customers. It's our world and it's our responsibility to govern it. In the end, we will all be judged and get what's coming to us!

Sin is that hated word that's attributed to Inquisitors and Bible-thumpers. But it is what makes the world go around. This story has to play itself out in God's time, for God's reasons. I don't understand it much, but I trust Him. I would like to believe that we will have a better world, like in Star Trek, but my Bible tells me different. Do you really think we can make a better world? It's only getting worse as the population rises. More people, more sin! And more suffering to go along with it.

God could feed starving people. But so can we. He gave some people the means to alleviate others suffering. Is it His duty to make everyone do what they're supposed to? I don't think so. Remember, we were given dominion here, and we are to exercise it wisely. Somebody go feed that kid!

So I urge you all, to trust God today and believe He is good, despite what you see. That, my friends, is called faith. And faith is what pleases God.



 

Satan Answers Prayers

When we pray to God, it is said that He answers with a "yes", a "no", or "not now". But what if He doesn't answer at all, and Satan does? Can he do that?
I don't see why not. As we saw in the post 'Satanic Miracles', Satan does have power here on earth. I do believe he can answer a prayer. He can intercept them, too. Look at Daniel 10:13. The angel Gabriel tells Daniel he was delayed for 21 days by the Prince of Persia, which evidently was a powerful evil spirit.  Daniel had to wait 3 weeks for an answer to prayer because of demonic intervention! If Satan and his angels can delay a prayer, surely they can answer one.

Especially if you set yourself up for it. I once prayed that God would show me if He wanted me to go to school and get a new job, or stay where I was at. I already believed that He wanted me to stay, but I wanted to leave. So I prayed, and within a minute, a friend called and told me that AT&T was looking for people.
An answer to prayer!

(Oh look, a normal picture. No fangs or scales on this guy.) But this answer didn't feel right. It contradicted what I already believed. I didn't feel it was time to leave my job, but see, I wanted to. And because I wanted my own will, it gave Satan permission to answer my prayer.

I tried to get a job at AT&T, but it didn't happen. I guess I wasn't supposed to get it, despite that prayer! I just interpreted that quick answer as a message from God. I mean, who else would answer? This is one reason there is so much flakiness in the church today. People thinking they heard from God when in fact He said nothing at all.



(Atheists are shaking their heads right now, especially after seeing GC up there. I've got more fodder for you, hold on. . .)
So does Satan answer prayers all the time? I don't know. It would be interesting to hear what a Satanist has to say. One time, though, is enough to set you on the wrong path. Satan enjoys deceiving; it's what he does. He will try his hardest to keep us from God. He hates us, and hates God. He invented every form of lie known to man. He can and will answer prayers and make you think it was God.
This is what he does best.

Read 1 Kings 22. This doesn't specifically say that Satan answers prayers, but it does say God will send lying spirits to deceive those who are rebelling against Him! Israel was an apostate nation at that time, and God asked a group of spirits if any of them would "go forth and persuade Ahab to go up, that he may fall at Ramoth Gilead". (Go to war and be killed.) One spirit stepped forward. God asked him how he would do it, and he said he would be "a lying spirit in the mouths of the prophets". God agreed and told him to go. Well, Ahab believed the lie, and died. The king and the people had opened themselves up to deception, and this is what they got:

The Bible says that God will give people over to deception because they would not believe the truth. They will want the lie, and He will give it to them. Read 2 Thessalonians 2:9-12 for yourself. This goes hand in hand with Satan's miracle-working.
Here is the point: Satan will answer prayers, perform miracles, give signs, anything to move us away from God. Be alert, then, and listen to His Holy Spirit. Be humble, and desire Christ more than your own ways. Cultivate that relationship with God like Moses and the prophets of old did. When you know the voice of the Shepherd, you won't believe the lies of The Enemy.
It's only going to get worse.