3000 B.C.: Can A Mother's Womb Speak Prophecy?
I was convinced of Jesus by a good number of helpers, all of whom I thank. As a child I was raised in a Catholic family, but I fell away from going to church, and became nothing too good. I was even a doubter of Christianity, of which I am ashamed now. But, then at a later age I missed God badly, not knowing exactly what it was I missed, but knowing I missed something.
I was in the Navy as a 30 year old, and I chewed Tobacco. Sometimes I really wanted to quit, but always failed. I set the age of 30 as my 'drop dead date' to finally quit. But when I was 30, almost 31, I found myself trying to dig out a can of tobacco from the garbage late at night from a garbage can in our ship's lounge where I had thrown it away earlier in the day (I had vowed to quit once again.)
I found the dirty can, opened it up, and with great relief but equally great self disgust I 'took a chew.' I was disgusted not because I chewed, or even because I had dug it back out of the garbage, but because I saw that it essentially owned me. I was a drug slave, even if the drug was nicotine, which is more socially acceptable than many others.
When I went back to my bunk I saw nobody seemed to be around, or at least not awake, so I knelt and said a prayer to God. That's something I'd been doing precious little of. I prayed that God would take away the desire I had for tobacco, or Nicotine, as I seemed to have too weak of a will to beat my addiction.
I was a few hours into the start of the next day when I saw someone take a chew of tobacco. It dawned on me that I hadn't had one, which was odd. It was usually a 'first thing in the morning' ritual. I remembered the prayer of course. I also thought about it, and realized I had no urge for a chew. But I kept the can in my pocket anyway.
A few days later I threw away the can, having had no further urge. I realized that somehow God had picked my prayer, the prayer of a pretty worthless guy, to answer. I had received a personal sort of miracle. I've never had any urge what so ever to chew tobacco or smoke it, every since. I still like the smell of chewing tobacco, but when I smell it, even strongly, there is neither repulsion nor attraction to use it. It's just a smell that I like. I will never use it again, and I thank God.
I had a renewed understanding that God was real. But somehow I didn't think much about it all beyond that. My soul and spirit didn't wake up all the way, I guess.
I got out of the Navy, and soon enough had a job at a power plant. There were a number of crews that operated it, each in turn. I was assigned to one of the crews. They would be the particular group of guys I worked with most often, for about the first year, I guess. Sometimes they would shuffle the crews around, so that people didn't get too set in their ways. But only every couple of years.
So, this crew of guys turned out to be almost all Christian guys. These days I'm pretty sure that God wanted me on that crew, because they did a lot for my faith in Jesus. But one of the most important things they did was to start loaning me Chuck Missler tapes. I doubt anyone else doing ministry then or now could have brought my particular personality to a state of full belief in the Bible in so short of a time. I really thank that guy in my heart. He's somewhat well known, but if you've never heard of him, go look at Koinonia House on the internet. Buy some of his tapes. Listen to some of the free stuff on his website.
I've never formally met him, but I went and heard him speak one time. Great stuff for the scientist, engineer, etc.; he uses a lot of science's discoveries, engineering fundamentals, and physics concepts to convince you that Jesus is who He said He was. That really worked in my case. Everyone's different. Now I love the Bible as the greatest teacher, but back then it was Chuck Missler, fellowship with Christians, and going to church that really helped me. And an amazing person that I met.
Any way, there was one little story that Mr. Missler repeated, having heard it from someone else, he said, and which I've since then heard elsewhere as well. I don't speak Hebrew, so I have to take it partially on faith.
This peculiar thing has always stuck in my mind as a truly amazing deed of God, but it is also a testimony to how God has all the time in the world to make His plans unfold, and yet they unfold surely and perfectly. I'll share it here in case anyone else will be as struck by it as I was:
Everyone should read Genesis. Read all the Bible, but if you are not likely to, if you are going to only read one or two things in the Old Testament, I might suggest Genesis and Proverbs for many people. If a young child was to become very familiar with Proverbs, and took those wise sayings and good advice to heart, I believe they would avoid nearly all serious sin in their lives. But as for Genesis, well, I just love that Book of the Bible. It explains so much about how our world is today, politically, racially, spiritually, even geographically! It is a true and trustworthy book, but a wise old book also. And I am growing more and more to realize just how much it hides at first, but then reveals a little bit each time you re-read it.
It is in Genesis that we learn about Creation, and the first man: Adam. We all have one Creator in common, and that is God, the Father Almighty, though Jesus was there to see us all be formed to emerge in our given time. And we all have 19 but more probably 20 human ancestors in common: Genesis tells us that Adam and Eve are our earlist fleshly progenitors, of course.
We are also informed in Genesis of the progression of father to son to son all of the way from Adam to Noah. There, nine generations after Adam, the entirety of subsequent humanity was squeezed through the line of Noah, and most likely through his wife as well. Since we are dealing with three sons of Noah, it is possible that Noah had more than one wife, and so all of his son's might not have the same mother. It is possible, but since it's not mentioned in the scripture, it's more likely that Shem, Japheth, and Ham all had the same mother, who was Noah's wife. So, if Noah had only one wife, and all three of his sons were from that wife, we all have 20 ancestors in common. If not, then I guess we have 19.
So there are 8 men in a direct line of descendency between Adam and Noah, all of their names are recorded, father to son to son, so we know the family line of Noah clear back to Adam. This is listed in the New Testament as well. So, all of humanity has 19, but probably 20, ancestors in common. We know the names of 11 of those 19 (but probably 20) from the Bible - of the wives, we only know the name of Eve for certain.
In Hebrew, names had meanings. And in the language which preceded Hebrew (assuming Hebrew isn't the original language) names had meanings also. Sometimes the ancient names in the Bible have names that are clearly known. Sometimes the name can have more than one meaning, because it's a word, and in nearly all languages, some words can have two meanings. Take 'paint', in the English language, for instance: it can mean the act of applying a coating to something, or it can be a type of horse. Etc., etc., etc. And sometimes the names can have a very obscure meaning that you have to dig to find - such as when words have fallen out of usage over time.
But here follows, so certain of these Christian teachers have said, the meanings of the names of the men from Adam to Noah, inclusive:
Adam: Red Earth or Man
Seth: Appointed
Enosh: Mortal
Keenan: Sorrow
Mahalalel: The Blessed God
Jared: Shall Come Down
Enoch: Teach, Teacher, Teaching
Methuselah: His Death Shall Bring
Lamech: Despairing
Noah: Hope, Rest
Those are the names of Noah and the fore-fathers of Noah going back to Adam, as well as the meaning or meanings of their names. Again, some names have multiple possible meanings, and some have a common meaning, but an obscure one also.
Here is one possible sentence that you can make if you place the listed meanings of the names of the 10 men in a sequence, per their birth order:
Man - appointed - mortal - sorrow. The Blessed God - shall come down - teaching. His death shall bring - (the) despairing - hope.
That is a pretty amazing sentence, as it pretty well sums up the whole of history up to and including Jesus's earthly ministry. We sinned in the Garden of Eden, and were appointed mortal sorrow. Jesus came down from heaven and was born as a man, experiencing the same sort of temptations as us, yet not succumbing to them. When old enough, He taught men the words that the Holy Father gave Him to say. When He died, we were granted a path to salvation through His atoning blood. The Father placed all authority for judging men into the hands of Jesus, and He can be merciful if our hearts are right towards Him.
Cool, huh? And as first Eve, then her daughter-in-law, then her daughter-in-law, etc., gave birth, one mother after another, somehow God engineered human thought and circumstance such that each baby boy, over the course of about 1650 years, was named in such a way that it could form such a prophetic sentence. Just remarkable.
Our God is beyond human comprehension. Sometimes He sits out there watching us so quietly that we could forget that He's even there. But He's not missing a thing, and that's a scary thought, or a nice one, depending on whether we please Him or not. And we're better off not being too presumptuous concerning God's good opinion of us. All men fall short of the glory of God. All men. How much time have you actually spent trying to get right with God and Jesus? It's not too late, but don't be slow! For each of us, in our God ordained time, the door to salvation closes forever. We have to hope and pray that we're on the right side of that door when it closes that final time.