The Poseidon Adventure and the World Turned Upside Down – Purity 755
Purity 755 06/11/2022 Purity 755 Podcast
Good morning,
Today’s photo of the afternoon sky over the Albany Labor
Temple, the home of Teamsters Local 294, on Third Street Extension comes to us
from yours truly as I grabbed this quick pic as I got into my car at the end of
the work week yesterday.
While I could always appreciate a view of the heavenlies,
since coming to Christ, I am definitely a “sky guy” and often find myself
marveling over what’s going on just over our heads while the world is so
concerned with the goings on down on the ground. When I look up, I get a small
idea of just how magnificent God’s creation is and it causes me to give Him thanks
and praise for His handiwork.
Yesterday, I commented more than once to the Lord about His
wonderful work in the skies throughout the day and was so distracted by it as
my workday came to an end that I forgot about my company’s policy not to return
to the garage “too early”. Whoops. And it
was only because I wasn’t rushing to leave at the end of the day that I thought
to take this photo. Sometimes you have
to stop and look around at life and enjoy the here and now and all that the Lord
has provided you.
That was the apparent theme yesterday afternoon, as after a
traffic delay caused me to arrive late at my countryside home, I made the decision
to skip an evening appointment for a new ministry opportunity to enjoy the meal
my wife had prepared me for dinner, to take my canine friend Harley for a walk
under that same but different magnificent sky, and to spend quality time with
the Mrs. for the rest of the evening.
Well its Saturday, we made it to the weekend, and it is my
prayer that all of my friends use the weekend to enjoy the here and now of what
the Lord has provided you and that you take some time to give Him thanks and
praise by walking and talking with Him.
One of the things that was said of the apostles was that they
“set the world upside down” (Acts 17:6), Undoubtedly, the people that they
encountered wondered how simple fishermen, a tax collector, a zealot, someone
who had been a Pharisee who actively sought to persecute the early church, and
others could all be united in proclaiming the same message of the death and
resurrection of Jesus Christ and how it was through faith in Him alone that one
could be saved from the wrath of God. How could these men who were scattered or
were Christ’s enemies at His arrest be changed into those who would boldly
proclaim Him as our only hope a short time later?
Well when the Lord reveals to you the truth about Christ and
His resurrection, your world gets turned upside down. When you are forgiven of your
sins and are given a new and eternal life, it’s a whole new ball game. Having a
revelation of the truth of the gospel changes things. Having an encounter with God, makes all
things new. Ask me how I know.
If you have been following the blog for any length of time,
you know that I often reflect on music lyrics or themes from movies, to try to
explain concepts regarding our Christian faith to encourage Christians to have
a closer walk with the Lord and to live out their faith authentically.
Yesterday morning, during my morning exercise, as I thought about
how the gospel has changed the world in general and how it has turned my world
upside down personally, I remembered the 1972 disaster epic film, the Poseidon
Adventure. As I reflected on the plot,
settings, and characters of the Poseidon Adventure and how it details a group
of survivors desperate attempt to survive, I realized that its themes could be
analogous of the gospel of Jesus Christ.
In the movie, a luxury cruise ship’s captain is influenced by
the owner of the cruise line company to make an unwise decision to go full
speed into the direct path of a 90 foot tsunami wave, causing the ship to be
completely turned upside down, immediately killing most of the crew and passengers. But some crew and passengers remain alive in
the air that is captured in the upside down boat. While most of the remaining passengers are
influenced by the ships purser to stay put and wait for help, in total denial
of the facts of the situation, a small group of survivors is led by an
unconventional reverend to go up in this
world turned upside down to try to find a way of escape through the bottom of
the boat.
The star studded cast that includes Gene Hackman as the Reverend,
Ernest Borgnine, Roddy McDowall, Red Buttons, and Shelly Winters does a wonderful
job of portraying the human experience of trying to band together to survive.
In the twists and turns of the journey to the end, lives are lost,
and sacrifices are made, culminating in Hackman’s Reverend Frank Scott, yelling
out to God in complaint about the groups misfortunes and lives lost, asking how
many more lives, how many more sacrifices it would take to please Him, before
he surrenders his life to save his adopted flock.
The man who cursed God one moment for “working against them”,
in the next freely gave his life to save his friends, exclaiming “Take Me!”
Before dropping to his death, the reverend turns to the downcast
survivors and makes one last encouragement: “You can make it. Keep going!”, telling
the remaining leader, Borgnine’s character to “Get them through!”
(https://youtu.be/aNOmTuwnGYg)
The film’s setting, the Poseidon turned upside down and
slowly falling apart can be seen as our world, slowly fading away and destined
to die.
The remaining passengers could represent humanity.
The captain, who knew better, and owner, who didn’t, are both
influenced by money and perish.
The purser, who before the disaster commented that he was the
“real captain of the ship”, represents earthly knowledge, expertise, and
authority. But those things don’t matter
in a world turn upside down and in light of the question of life and death is
shown to be lacking solutions. The purser
and all who trust in his knowledge, authority and expertise perish when they
refuse to follow the reverend.
The Reverend Frank Scott, an unconventional man of God who
can think outside of the box to help people regardless of the circumstances, is
shown to be the one who knows the way to life.
Only the people who follow him survive.
And in sacrificing himself, the reverend represents a type of
Christ. Although he voices a hearty complaint over the cup of suffering he
receives, after he encourages his people to keep going, he goes silent and goes
into eternity with no sign of fear.
When you know the gospel it changes everything. It turns your
world upside down and you see the truth every where you look. You see the
beauty, you see the pain. But you know the hope in the here and now and for
what lies beyond where we can’t see.
So let me encourage you, that whatever disasters you may face
in this life, “You can make it. Keep going.”
But just like in the Poseidon Adventure, the only way you
survive is to follow the man of God, Jesus Christ. He came
to earth to live and die for us. He is the truth, the way, and the life.
And when you put your faith in Him, your new life as a Christian
may seem like the world turned upside down but in Christ you will your footing
and discover the ways that the Lord has for you to walk in, and even when you
thought there was no way.
So keep walking and talking with God, where sometimes it can seem that up is down and down is up, but somehow through it all there is always peace.
______________________________________________________________
Today’s Bible verse comes to us from “The NLT Bible Promise Book
for Men”.
This morning’s meditation verse is:
1 Corinthians 13:6-7 (NLT2)
6 It does not rejoice about
injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out.
7 Love never gives up, never loses
faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance.
Today’s
Bible verses continue where we left off yesterday. My resource presents 1 Corinthians
13:4-7 all at once, but I decided to split them because there is so much about
love stated in these four verses that I didn’t want go through them too
quickly.
Love
rejoices whenever the truth wins out, not about injustice.
OOF
before coming to Christ, I rejoiced over “getting away” with things. That spirit of rebellion that encourages you
to cut corners, break rules, and take what you want regardless of circumstances
can have you revel in your successes but that selfish spirit is not love. The
spirit of “doing things my way” is the opposite of love – indifference toward
God and your fellow man. While we can
glory in the injustices that favor us, true love would favor justice and the
truth winning out.
Full
acceptance, love, has to be in the light of the truth. We can’t say we love
someone if we don’t know the truth about them. Love can’t be based on
lies.
And
as today’s verses tell us, love never gives up.
When we give up on a relationship, love is gone, love has come to an
end.
The
choice to love is the choice to hope, to have faith, and to endure. And in relationships in order for love to
survive, both parties must eventually choose to give and receive it.
With
God or man, One party can pour out all
the love they can muster toward someone else. But if that other person, doesn’t
receive and give love in return, love’s purpose isn’t realized.
Here
truth comes into play, if we say we love but don’t really love, our lies will
be found out eventually.
If
our love is a lie, it will eventually be exposed and the relationship will end,
with pain and possibly betrayal. On earth that means heartache and broken
relationships.
But
with God, who loves all men because He is love, when our love for Him is a lie,
our lie will be exposed and result in eternal separation from Him.
The
answers to the questions of life, love, and death are all the same. The answer
is God. The answers come from the Creator and we must make peace with Him through
faith in Jesus Christ to be able to know what love is.
So seek the truth, receive the love of God that is offered through Jesus Christ, and show you know what love is by sharing it with the world
As
always, I invite all to go to mt4christ.org where I always share insights from
prominent Christian theologians and counselors to assist my brothers and
sisters in Christ with their walk.
Today
we Begin sharing from Clinton E.
Arnold’s “Powers of Darkness”
As always, I share this
information for educational purposes and encourage all to purchase Clinton
Arnold’s books for your own private study and to support his
work. This resource is available on many websites for less than $20.00.
A Protective Charm
The
first text we will examine is a short recipe for a protective charm (or amulet)
to be worn like a necklace. The purpose of this amulet was to protect the
wearer from harmful or evil spirits.
While there is no need to perform a
magical rite with this charm, there are specific instructions on how the amulet
is to be fashioned: “Onto lime wood write with vermilion this name.… Enclose it
in a purple skin, hang it around your neck and wear it.”
The second part of the recipe gives a
series of magical names to be written on the charm: “epokopt kopto bai baitokarakopto karakopto chilokopto bai” (in some
of the texts that I cite below, such magical names will be summarized by
“magical names”). Although these words are transliterated from the Greek and
are unintelligible to us, they were no more intelligible to most Greek readers.
They are magical words, probably the names of the spirits who are supposed to
make this magical charm effective. Often magical names were invoked together
with the names of known gods and goddesses, such as Hekate, Artemis, Selene,
Kore, Kronos, Aphrodite and others. All of the magical texts show an incredible
amount of syncretism; that is, the mixing together of various elements from
different religious beliefs and practices. Any name thought to be laden with
supernatural power could be invoked. Hence, one will find Greek, Egyptian,
Persian, Phrygian and Roman deities all invoked in the same text.
The third part of the text contains
the command that the spirit agents are being summoned to fulfill: “Guard me
from every daimon of the air, on the earth and under the earth, and from every
angel and phantom and ghostly visitation and enchantment.” This representative
example is what is called apotropaic
magic; that is, the “warding off” of demons and harmful spirits.
In the magical papyri the Greek word daimōn did not necessarily signify an
evil or harmful spirit. Although in this magical recipe the term is plainly
used to refer to the spirits who could inflict harm, by itself the word has no
moral connotations. In the classical era before the New Testament age, the word
daimōn had been used for the gods
(such as Apollo, Dionysus and Hermes) and for supernatural beings regarded as
somewhat lower than the gods. Increasingly it was used of the supernatural
intermediaries (between the gods and humanity) and of the spirits of nature.
Many regarded the daimones (plural
form) who filled the air to be the disembodied souls of the dead, especially
heroes. Influence from the East, especially Persian and Jewish thought,
resulted in the Greek word daimōn
taking on an increasingly evil connotation in its common use. Both daimōn and the related word daimonion are consistently used to refer
to an evil spirit in the New Testament. Throughout this book the term demon will be used in reference to evil
spirits and daimōn will be used in
its neutral sense.
This magical text illustrates fear and
dread of the spirit realm felt by the general populace. This magical recipe
also illustrates the fact that people believed evil powers populated all of
creation, including the air, the earth and the underworld. Magic provided a means
for dealing with the fear of this reality.
Numerous accounts could be given to
depict the great fear of demons among people in antiquity. It was believed
these evil beings could even threaten to bring death. One ancient writer gives
an account of a certain wise man, or shaman, endowed with a knowledge of the
magical arts who could exhibit a certain measure of control over these hostile
forces. Apollonius of Tyana became a well-known wonder worker throughout the
Mediterranean world. He lived during the time of Paul, and Flavius Philostratus
chronicled his life about a century later. This work is very important for
giving us further insight into the folk belief of the time.
On one occasion Apollonius of Tyana
encountered a woman whose sixteen-year-old son had been possessed by a demon
for two years. She was aware of his possession because of her son’s altered
behavior and because the demon allegedly revealed itself to the woman using the
boy’s voice. The demon claimed to be the ghost of a dead person who hated women
and was in love with the boy. The mother, understandably anguished over her
son’s tormented condition, explained to Apollonius all the symptoms. Among
other things, she observed that “the boy does not even have his own voice, but
speaks in a deep, hollow tone, the way grown-up men do, and when he looks at
me, his eyes don’t seem to be his own.” The mother explained to Apollonius that
whenever she had tried to bring the boy to him, the demon would threaten to
throw the young man into a crevice or off of a precipice and kill him.
Apollonius confidently responded to the woman by supplying her with something
like an amulet or a magical recipe that would prevent the demon from killing
the boy.
A Love Potion
The
second text provides us with a vivid illustration of how magic involved the
direct assistance of supernatural beings to perform a given request. This
recipe, recorded on a papyrus scroll discovered in Egypt, reveals how a certain
lovesick Theodorus attempted to gain the affection of a woman named Matrona.
The intent of the recipe is stated simply: “Let Matrona love Theodorus for all
the time of her life.” This type of “love potion” is commonly called an aphrodisiac.
There is virtually no magical rite for
Theodorus to perform, but the text does presuppose that he has obtained some of
her hair. The recipe is quite expansive, however, in invoking the help of the
underworld gods and spirits. The formula continues:
I
entrust this charm to you, underworld gods, to Pluto uessemigadon ortho baubo, to Kore, Persephoneia, Ereschigal, and to
Adonis era … puonrth and to
underworld Hermias Thoth phokentazepseu
and to mighty Anubis cherichtha kanchene
… th, keeper of the keys of the gates of Hades, and to the underworld gods
and to the untimely dead, lads and lasses.
The
final phrase, “to the untimely dead, lads and lasses,” lends some insight into
a common interpretation of a segment of the spirit realm by the ancients. Many
in the Greco-Roman world believed people who were heroes or who had suffered an
untimely death became disembodied spirits after death. They would customarily
take on a rather evil disposition and could bring harm to someone if commanded
to do so through a curse.
The text goes on to invoke two
additional goddesses (Hekate and Artemis) and uses many more magical names. It
is also very clear that the conjurer expects these supernatural beings to
accomplish his stated intent to make Matrona a devoted lover of Theodorus. The
formula is quite explicit:
I
adjure all ghosts [Greek=demonas] in
this place to come to the assistance of this ghost. Raise yourself up for me
from the repose that keeps you and go out into every district and every quarter
and every house and every shop, and drive, spellbind Matrona … that she may not
have intercourse vaginal, anal, or oral with anyone else, nor be able to go
with any other man than Theodorus … and never let Matrona … be able to endure
or be healthy or find sleep night or day without Theodorus.
In
this particular case the conjurer is not exactly sure which “demon” will be
compelled to perform the task. The spell continues: “Do not turn aside from
hearing me, ghost [Greek=demon],
whoever you are, and raise yourself up for me, for I adjure you by the lady
Hekate Artemis demon damno damnolukake
damnippae damnomenia damnobathira damnobathiri damnomenia dameamone,
tail-swallower, night roamer.” Here it appears that the conjurer is threatening
a “demon” by the goddess of the underworld, Hekate Artemis, and certain magical
names. Thus, Hekate Artemis will enforce his request because she is believed to
respond to these magical names and the epithets that are ascribed to her. Other
magical texts even give instances of hymns to be sung to the deities, which
would render them more receptive to the requests of the petitioner. In this
text the implication for the “demon” is clear—there is now no choice but to
respond to the request of Theodorus. The “demon” is thus manipulated by the
conjurer.
A Spell to Inflict
Harm
The
last example is a rather horrific piece of black magic that has an elaborate
rite. It is a recipe for inflicting great harm on an enemy. The rite is to
proceed as follows:
Take a
lead lamella [thin, metal plate] and inscribe with a bronze stylus the
following names and the Figure [depicted in the papyrus text], and after
smearing it with blood from a bat, roll up the lamella in the usual fashion.
Cut open a frog and put it into its stomach. After stitching it up with Anubian
thread and a bronze needle, hang it up on a reed from your property by means of
hairs from the tip of the tail of a black ox, at the east of the property near
the rising of the sun.
Following
this is an invocation of supernatural beings and the statement of the devilish
command to the powers:
Supreme
angels, just as this frog drips with blood and dries up, so also will the body
of him [a space to insert the name of the victim] whom [a space to insert the
name of the victim’s mother] bore, because I conjure you, who are in command of
fire maskelli maskello.
It is
important to understand that the conjurer is not invoking the good “angels”
surrounding the Christian or Jewish God, Yahweh. In the Hellenistic era pagans
used the term “angel” (angelos) for
supernatural beings and messengers. Here the idea of a supernatural assistant
or servant is what is in mind.
Various parts of this magical rite
seem rather strange and nonsensical to us. Indeed, for the person who performed
the rite, a rational explanation for the details may have defied explanation,
but it was believed to work! There was, however, a somewhat rational basis for
certain aspects of the magic rite. Magic was based partly on a system of
correspondences. Animals, plants, herbs, precious stones and metals were
believed to be associated with or to symbolize various gods and demons; therefore,
they could be used to attract or repel the presence and influence of these
supernatural beings. Moreover, the use of written symbols functioned in much
the same way. The seven vowels of the Greek alphabet, for instance, were used
in magical texts to represent the seven planetary deities.
These three magical texts give us a
glimpse not only of the nature of magic, but also of some fundamental
assumptions behind magic: Gods, spirits, angels and demons do exist; they are
involved in everyday life; and, most important, they can be manipulated.
Numerous words, names and titles are
used in the magical texts to refer to the wide array of spirit beings. From all
religious traditions during the New Testament era, people seem to have used a
broad vocabulary for the spirit realm. While much of Paul’s vocabulary for the
principalities and powers can be found in the magical papyri, he was probably
drawing more specifically from the vast reservoir of terminology in the
demonology and angelology of first-century Judaism (see chapter four). Pagan
readers would have clearly understood what Paul was talking about when he
referred to principalities and powers since they shared many of the same terms
and concepts with Judaism.[1]
---------------------------more
tomorrow------------------------
Join
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Christ" series of Discipleship Classes via the mt4christ247 podcast!
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Encouragement for the Path of Christian Discipleship
[1]
Clinton E. Arnold, Powers of Darkness: Principalities &
Powers in Paul’s Letters (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic: An Imprint
of InterVarsity Press, 1992), 22–27.
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