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HEFNER AT HOME: THE BIRTH OF THE MODERN BACHELOR PAD

Apr 11, 2016

Hefner and his bunnies at the original Playboy Mansion, Chicago, 1966. Photograph by Burt Glinn/MagnumPhoto

“IN MY FATHER’S HOUSE ARE MANY MANSIONS”—JOHN 14:2

Editor’s note: News that the Playboy Mansion in Holmby Hills is on the block for $200 million reminded us of this essay from Man of the World No. 11, in which Steve Garbarino assesses the architectural legacy of the original swinging bachelor …

When Hugh Hefner was drafting the image of his ideal Playboy reader—a literate and liberated sort, who also enjoyed a nice set of cans—his ideas went far beyond silk bedsheets, martini shakers, and one-night stands with stewardesses, a dog-eared copy of the latest Kinsey Report laid conspicuously on the nightstand.

In fact, one of his most lasting contributions to Western culture might be in the realms of architecture and design, areas of interest that allowed him to round out his readers’ world. After inventing the Playboy bunny, he laid the floor plans for another cultural icon: the bachelor pad. Raised in Chicago amid the buildings of Mies van der Rohe and Frank Lloyd Wright, Hefner was an early champion of midcentury modern. He was also a student of human nature, having earned his bachelor’s degree in psychology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Hefner’s erudite interiors were fully automated, streamlined machines for high-end living, with doorless quarters to encourage debauchery. In contrast to today’s man caves and the musty drawing rooms of yore (where men lounged in cracked leather chairs and harrumphed into their cognac snifters), Hefner’s renderings were chockablock with gizmos and designed to seduce, with linear open plans so a man could smoke his pipe anywhere he damn well pleased.

Hefner in bed, 1966. Courtesy of Playboy.

Remote control in hand, he could also draw the curtains, open the garage door, pop open the wet bar, or click on the hooded fireplace, all from the comfort of his two-piece Eames lounge. You could say Hefner saw his reader, a sort of 007 with a license to lady kill, as the future of American manhood. His reasoning was sound: After surviving the horrors of WWII and Korea, didn’t every guy deserve a castle all his own?In the gorgeously rendered architectural and design drawings that appeared regularly in Playboy’s pages from the early fifties to 1979, the classic men’s den, a secluded habitat equal parts fantasy and function, radiated out into every room of the house.

“THE NOTION OF THE SINGLE MAN BEGAN IN THE 1950S. THE IDEA OF THE BACHELOR AS A SEPARATE LIFE WAS NEW AND OBSCURE,” HEFNER SAID.

These renderings, featuring recognizable midcentury furnishings and the entertainment console gadgets of the day, were often accompanied by profiles of the great modern minimalists. His interest in residential architecture for the upscale single male culminated in the Playboy Penthouse Apartment (designed by Chrysalis architects and featured in a 1956 issue), with its echoes of Neutra and the Eames Case Study House. But it wasn’t until May of 1962, when the magazine published its ambitious pictorial, “Posh Plans for Exciting Urban Living!” that the design world took notice.

BACHELOR PAD ESSENTIALS

The master bedroom of the Playboy Penthouse Apartment designed by Chrysalis architects, 1956. Courtesy of Playboy.

The renderings of the so-called Playboy Town House, drawn up by architect and designer R. Donald Jaye and overseen by Hefner, envisioned a three-level luxury spread, which the magazine described as a “modishly swinging manor” for an “unattached, affluent young man, happily wedded to the infinite advantages of urbia.”

HIS CHICAGO HOUSE BORE A PLAQUE ON THE FRONT DOOR THAT READ, “IF YOU DON’T SWING, DON’T RING,” IN LATIN

Amid the open-plan sprawl—paneled with enough teak to build a second Honey Fitz, and dotted with curvy furnishings by Knoll, Herman Miller, Laverne, and George Nelson—there were show-stopping amenities like an indoor swimming pool, a remote-controlled skylight, a “kitchen-less kitchen” (where drawers and panels hid any evidence of food prep), a twelve-foot upholstered wet bar (because, of course), and the pièce de résistance, a rotating bed, patented by Playboy Enterprises, for work and play. Half a century before the Internet of Things, a man could control his home’s sound and lighting, open and shut curtains, and even pop the toaster from the comfort of his circular sex bed. (Later, Hefner would equip the “Big Bunny,” his converted DC-30 jet, with a similar model, which had become something of a trademark.) “The gadgetry helped give it a James Bond mystique,” he told the Times.

The Playboy Town House predicted many common twenty-first century residential features, with its sprawling open plan and built-in hi-fi system, variously dubbed a “media wall,” “Electronic Entertainment Wall,” and “Wonder Wall.” Inspired by van der Rohe, the house concealed all its internal wiring, and anything else that might disrupt the streamlined effect. This was a place in which you didn’t trip over clutter. To paraphrase Hefner, a civilized man doesn’t leave his dirty socks scattered about.

“Wonder Wall” concept drawing by Syd Mead, 1971. Courtesy of Playboy.

Truth be told, Hefner was never all that removed from his readership. A fantasist who enjoyed vicarious thrills, he lived for a time in his own office, sleeping on a pull-out cot after his wife tossed him out, and spending most of his days in pajamas. And his own homes—both his limestone-and-brick behemoth on Chicago’s Gold Coast and the more infamous digs in Holmby Hills, California, currently the most expensive house for sale in the the United States, furniture included—were hardly the stuff of modernist dreams. A fan of dorm-style living and outré touches (his Chicago house bore a plaque on the front door that read, “If you don’t swing, don’t ring,” in Latin), Hef rarely followed his own blueprints.

But others certainly have, and still can. In 2014, the German Architecture Museum in Frankfurt featured an exhibition of all things architecture published in Playboy from 1953 to 1979. (Hefner actually donated the original mansion to the Art Institute of Chicago, in 1974; it is now luxury condos.) And in 2011, to coincide with Playboy’s fiftieth anniversary, legendary architect Frank Gehry was asked to draw up his own plans for the modern bachelor pad.

While spectacular, like most reboots, it just wasn’t the same.

written by STEVE GARBARINO

Our church FELLOWSHIP BIBLE CHURCH sponsors HIDDEN CREEK REENTRY CENTER,  Assisting incarcerated individuals with a successful transition to their community.

Hidden Creek Reentry Center added 4 new photos.

January 13 ·

So proud of these guys… They had the honor to go with Mr.Glover yesterday to a school to speak to some children.

Hidden Creek Reentry Center added 3 new photos.

August 7, 2016 · Little Rock, AR ·

Well its been a eye jerker today… great tears of joy!! I have watched these guys grow so much… I pray they continue to grow out there… next month they graduate the program!!

Hidden Creek Reentry Center added 2 new photos.

April 16, 2016 ·

In a nutshell – Its simple and uncomplicated, giving of yourself and being of service to others is one of the best ways to strengthen your own recovery. In essence, you give and you receive. Twice blessed.

Hidden Creek Reentry Center updated their cover photo.

April 13, 2016 ·

Ernest Hemingway A Clean Well-lighted Place – Complete Narration

Published on Nov 20, 2012

Complete narration by DB. Enjoy the audio and interpretation on a classic short story.

Woody Allen talks ‘Midnight in Paris’

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Letter on Racial Equality, Drugs and Alcohol and Solomon  I can’t do anything to go back and  save those who have passed on in the past, but I can do something to encourage those who have obstacles to overcome today!!!! David Plant,

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We can’t bring back those we have lost like Bobbie Arnstein but we can help those struggling now to overcome their obstacles with drugs and alcohol!!!

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Dick Gregory and Tim Boxer at the Chicago Playboy Club, 1961

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Handshake between Jerry Harkness (Loyola) and Joe Dan Gold (MSU). LOYOLA won 61-51 that day and went on to win National Championship in 1963!!!

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This picture below is the cover picture of the Facebook page for the ministry HIDDEN CREEK REENTRY CENTER, and this ministry has the purpose of assisting incarcerated individuals with a successful transition to their community. I have had the joy of giving some of my time to help these gentlemen.

Hidden Creek Reentry Center in Little Rock, Arkansas

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This picture below is the cover picture of the Facebook page for the ministry HIDDEN CREEK REENTRY CENTER, and this ministry has the purpose of assisting incarcerated individuals with a successful transition to their community. I have had the joy of giving some of my time to help these gentlemen.

Hidden Creek Reentry Center in Little Rock, Arkansas

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FILE – In this May 12, 1959, American novelist Ernest Hemingway, left, speaks with actors Alec Guinness, center, and Noel Coward in Sloppy Joe’s Bar during the making of Sir Carol Reed’s film version of “Our Man in Havana,” based on Graham Greene’s best seller, in Havana, Cuba. Sloppy Joe’s will be reopened in February 2013 by the state-owned tourism company Habaguanex, part of an ambitious revitalization project by the Havana City Historian’s Office, which since the 1990’s has transformed block after block of crumbling ruins into rehabilitated buildings along vibrant cobblestone streets, giving residents and tourists from all over the chance to belly up to the same bar that served thirsty celebrities like Rock Hudson, Babe Ruth and Ernest Hemingway. (AP Photo, File)

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Larry Joe Speaks  (August 20, 1947 to April 7, 2017)

____ April 25, 2017Hugh HefnerPlayboy Mansion16236 Charing Cross RoadLos Angeles, CA 90024

Dear Hugh,

As I have promised I am writing you over and over until I go through all 6 things that Solomon pursued to try to finding a lasting meaning in his life UNDER THE SUN in the Book of Ecclesiastes. Today we will look at LIQUOR.In this letter I am looking at three things.FIRST, I want to compliment you on your stand for racial equality.SECOND, I want to look the problem of escapism and what Solomon had to say about it concerning the path of liquor.THIRD, I want to look at a portion of the sermon WHO IS JESUS? by Adrian Rogers. (This is the sermon that my good friend Larry Speaks gave to hundreds of people during the last 20 years of his life. Larry put his faith alone in Christ in the mid 1990’s and he passed away on April 7, 2017 at age 69.)Let me start off by saying something very nice about you and that is you have always stood for racial equality. I thought about that again recently when I read the article Connecticut’s 111-Game Winning Streak Ends With Loss to Mississippi State by JERÉ LONGMAN on APRIL 1, 2017.You might wonder why that reminded me of you?I got to attend the graduation of my niece from Miss St University last May and I noticed that the banners that hung down from the ceiling showing that Miss St had won their conference in men’s basketball in 1959, 1960, 1961, 1962, and 1963 but they had only chose to attend the tournament in 1963. I wondered why. I researched out the reason and I discovered that the Miss St administration did want their white basketball team to play against basketball teams in the NCAA Basketball Tournament that had black players on the team. However, in 1963 the team quietly and secretly left town in a private airplane and flew to play in the 1963 playoffs without the administration finding out. That act of bravery by the part of the Miss St team reminded me of you the other day when I read about this huge upset the Miss St women’s basketball team  had.WHY DID I THINK OF YOU, HUGH? I have been reading  a lot about you in the last few months and I  think this article below sums up best your efforts in the area of racial equality.

Hugh Hefner Recalls His Role As An Activist For Civil Rights

May 13, 2011 11:00 PMBy Pat Harvey

“Playboy was the first mainstream club, non-black club that actually put on stage black comedians,” Hefner said. “Even in Las Vegas Black performers that performed on, including Sammy Davis, who was a very close friend of mine, would appear on stage, but they couldn’t walk through the casino. They had to walk through the back entrance.”

“When we started franchising, when they refused our members, the black members, entrance, I said, ‘you can’t do that, these are members of our club.’ And we literally bought back the franchised clubs,” he said.

Hefner was seen with a young Jesse Jackson, as he met Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

“When Dr. King came to the Playboy Mansion, he was in Chicago specifically to deal with the segregation that existed in Chicago. And that is really how I met Jesse and I was very actively involved after King’s death in the funding of PUSH and the Rainbow Coalition,” he said.

“In fact, the last published piece written by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. before his death appeared in Playboy. ‘Playboy’ magazine became the platform for freedom in a time of restriction.

“The very first interview was Miles Davis and he didn’t talk so much about music, he talked about wishes and equality,” Hefner said.Next I want to turn to a subject that is very sad indeed and it is the attempt by many today to find  their meaning in life through drugs and alcohol. Perhaps they are trying to escape the hard realities of life by taking this path. Like everyone around us, I too have many close friends and relatives who have fallen into this trap. I have a great deal of compassion for these individuals. In fact, several times this month I have taken time to drive individuals from a facility that my church sponsors to AA meetings. We want these individuals to overcome their addictions and live in victory.  I can’t do anything to go back and  save those who have passed on in the past, but I can do something to encourage those who have obstacles to overcome today!!!!

Our church FELLOWSHIP BIBLE CHURCH sponsors HIDDEN CREEK REENTRY CENTER,  Assisting incarcerated individuals with a successful transition to their community. I have had the joy of giving some of my time to help these gentlemen. In fact, I just back from volunteering  at the center tonight. These individuals have made a 6 month commitment to taking the path towards sobriety and many of them attend our church too.  Let me share some posts from their Facebook page:

Hidden Creek Reentry Center January 13 ·

So proud of these guys… They had the honor to go with Mr.Glover yesterday to a school to speak to some children.

August 7, 2016 · Little Rock, AR ·

Well its been a eye jerker today… great tears of joy!! I have watched these guys grow so much… I pray they continue to grow out there… next month they graduate the program!!April 16, 2016 ·

In a nutshell – Its simple and uncomplicated, giving of yourself and being of service to others is one of the best ways to strengthen your own recovery. In essence, you give and you receive. Twice blessed._______I have just finished the book about a man who had a tough time breaking drug addition and the it is entitled,  FEARLESS: The undaunted courage and ultimate sacrifice of Navy Seal Team Six Operator Adam Brownby Eric Blehm.This is how the book opens:

When Adam Brown woke up on March 17, 2010, he didn’t know he would die that night in the Hindu Kush mountains of Afghanistan—but he was ready….Adam Brown did understand what it meant to disappoint, to feel the shame he’d experienced on a hot, humid August afternoon years earlier when his parents had him arrested. “It’s time for you to face what you’ve done,” his father had told him in 1996, just before Adam was handcuffed and escorted to the backseat of the Garland County sheriff’s cruiser. When the deputy slammed the car door shut, Adam watched his mother’s legs buckle, and as she collapsed, his dad caught her and held her tightly against him. She began to cry, and Adam knew he had broken her heart.That vision—of his mother sobbing into his father’s chest—would haunt him for the rest of his life, but it also sparked the journey that defined who he would become. Officially known as a Chief Special Warfare Operator (SEAL), Adam Brown was one of the most respected Special Operations warriors in the U.S. Navy.______________________Recently when I read the book MR PLAYBOY by Steven Watts, I noticed that he gave a great deal of attention to the life of Bobbie Arnstein and he concluded his time on her with these words:___

William Safire in New York Times wrote:

What clear invitation to perjury can there be than such a provisional sentence. It is on thing to give a cooperative witness a break,  entirely another to threaten  to let a defendant rot in the slammer until he or she tells the story the prosecution wants. 

Samuel K. Skinner dropped the case and concluded:

No evidence of unlawful or distribution of cocaine or hard drugs by Mr. Hefner, the corporation or its employees had been adduced. 

Samuel K. Skinner in a personal letter to Hefner came close to an apology:

I am aware that the last year was not an easy one for you or your associates and I truly wish it could have been avoided. I have always felt that any investigation should be conducted without any publicity whatsoever in order to protect the individuals involved.

So Hefner was finally vindicated in a drug case that seemed to have been driven mainly by an anti-Playboy political agenda. But much damage had been done. Most disturbingly a young woman lay dead.  (Bobbie Arnstein )____Why do so many individuals today turn to drugs or liquor?  Many atheists have a hard time getting positive about the ultimate lasting meaning of our lives. Take Woody Allen and Ernest Hemingway for example.  Woody Allen has used comedy as a device of escapism while Hemingway turned to liquor but they both reached the same pessimistic conclusion that life has no lasting meaning.“Some lived in it and never felt it but he knew it all was nada y pues nada y nada y pues nada.” This quote from Hemingway’s short story A Clean Well Lighted Place shows that Ernest Hemingway embraced nihilism.The Spanish word NADA meaning NOTHING. The old man in the story tried the previous week to commit suicide but was saved by his niece, and he saw it as a temporary saving.Hemingway also wrote in his last book THE GARDEN OF EDEN, “Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.”A sensational bestseller when it appeared in 1986, The Garden of Eden is the last uncompleted novel of Ernest Hemingway, which he worked on intermittently from 1946 until his death in 1961.In you go to You Tube and watch the video Woody Allen talks ‘Midnight in Paris’ which was posted on January 27, 2017 and runs 43 minutes and 37 seconds, you will notice at the 27 minute mark that Woody Allen says:

I have never gotten to the point where I can give an optimistic view of anything. I have these ideas for stories that I hope are entertaining and I am always criticized for being pessimistic or nihilistic. To me this is just a realistic appraisal of life. There are these little Oasis’s these little distractions you get. Last night I was caught up in the Bulls and Heat basketball game on television and for the time being I was thinking about who was going to win. I wasn’t thinking about my mortality or the fact that I am finite and aging. That was not on my mind. Labron James was on my mind and the game. That is the best you can do is get a little  detraction. What I have learned over the years is that there is no other solution to it. There is no satisfying answer. There is no optimistic answer I can give anybody.

The outcome of that basketball game is no less meaningful or no more meaningful than human life if you take the long view of it. You could look at the earth and say who cares about those creatures running around there and just brush it. Ernest Hemingway in one of his stories ( A FAREWELL TO ARMS) is looking at a burning log with ants running on it. This is the kind of thinking that has over powered me over the years and slips into my stories.

Drinking was a large part of Hemingway’s life. Solomon in the Book of Ecclesiastes also takes a long look at liquor and tries to see if it will bring any satisfaction UNDER THE SUN.

In fact, Solomon  filled his home with the best wine (Eccl 2:3).

Concerning the Book of Ecclesiastes Francis Schaeffer noted: 

Solomon was searching for a meaning in the midst of the details of life. His struggle was to find the meaning of life. Not just plans in life. Anybody can find plans in life. A child can fill up his time with plans of building tomorrow’s sand castle when today’s has been washed away. There is  a difference between finding plans in life and purpose in life. Humanism since the Renaissance and onward has never found it and it has never found it. Modern man has not found it and it has always got worse and darker in a very real way.

Ecclesiastes is the only pessimistic book in the Bible and that is because of the place where Solomon limits himself. He limits himself to the question of human life, life UNDER THE SUN between birth and death and the answers this would give.

In Ecclesiastes 1:8 he drives this home when he states, “All things are wearisome; Man is not able to tell it. THE EYE IS NOT SATISFIED WITH SEEING. NOR IS THE EAR FILLED WITH HEARING.”  Solomon is stating here the fact that there is no final satisfaction because you don’t get to the end of the thing.

What do you do and the answer is to get drunk and this was not thought of in the RUBAIYAT OF OMAR KAHAYYAM:

Ecclesiastes 2:1-3

I said to myself, “Come now, I will test you with pleasure. So enjoy yourself.” And behold, it too was futility. ² I said of laughter, “It is madness,” and of pleasure, “What does it accomplish?” ³ I explored with my mind how to stimulate my body with wine while my mind was guiding me wisely, and how to take hold of folly, until I could see what good there is for the sons of men to do under heaven the few years of their lives.

The Daughter of the Vine (from the RUBAIYAT OF OMAR KAHAYYAM):

You know, my Friends, with what a brave Carouse
I made a Second Marriage in my house;
Divorced old barren Reason from my Bed,
And took the Daughter of the Vine to Spouse.

A perfectly good philosophy coming out of Islam, but Solomon is not the first man that thought of it nor the last. In light of what has been presented by Solomon is the solution just to get intoxicated and black the think out? So many people have taken to alcohol and the dope which so often follows in our day. This approach is incomplete, temporary and immature. PAPA HEMINGWAYCAN FIND THE CHAMPAGNE OF PARIS SUFFICIENT FOR A TIME, BUT ONCE HE LEFT HIS YOUTH HE NEVER FOUND IT SUFFICIENT AGAIN. HE HAD A LIFETIME SPENT LOOKING BACK TO PARIS AND THAT CHAMPAGNE AND NEVER FINDING IT ENOUGH.  It is no solution and Solomon says so too.

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Both Woody Allen and Ernest Hemingway like Solomon looked for meaning UNDER THE SUN in what I call the 6 big L words in the Book of Ecclesiastes. These areas are  learning (1:16-18), laughter, ladies,luxuries,  and liquor (2:1-3, 8, 10, 11), and labor (2:4-6, 18-20). All three men agree with the conclusion of Ecclesiastes 2:17:

¹⁷So I hated life, because what is done under the sun was grievous to me; for all is vanity and a striving after the wind

Then in last few words in the Book of Ecclesiastes Solomon looks above the sun and brings God back into the picture: “The conclusion, when all has been heard, is: Fear God and keep His commandments, because this applies to every person. For God will bring every act to judgment, everything which is hidden, whether it is good or evil.”The answer to find meaning in life is found in putting your faith and trust in Jesus Christ. The Bible is true from cover to cover and can be trusted.Now I just want to provide you with the outline of the 3rd point that Adrian Rogers makes in his sermon WHO IS JESUS? I remember discussing this sermon with Larry Speaks. He was so excited that the Bible gave us so much evidence that Christ was who he said he was.If you take the time to look up these verses you will see that Christ fulfilled the prophecies in the Old Testament that had been written hundreds of years before he even existed. Some may doubt that these scriptures were written in advance, but after the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls that interpretation is no longer feasible. Contained in the Dead Sea Scrolls and dated back to approximately 200 years before Christ we have copies of portions of manuscripts from EVERY OLD TESTAMENT BOOK IN THE BIBLE (except Esther). Plus we have a complete copy of the Book of Isaiah. With that in mind please take time to read both Old Testament prophecies and the New Testament fulfillment listed below or just google the name PETER STONER.

THE PROPHETIC WITNESS OF THE SCRIPTURES  (Acts 10:43)

1. The theme of the Old Testament is the Lord Jesus Christ.
2. Fulfilled prophecy is one of the greatest proofs that Jesus Christ is the Son of God.
3. All of the prophets speak in unanimity that Jesus is Lord.
   1. It is estimated that there are more than 300 direct Old Testament prophecies that prophesy the miracle birth and earthly life of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
   2. Micah 5:2
   3. Matthew 2:1
   4. Isaiah 7:14
   5. Isaiah 53:4-5
   6. Isaiah 53:9
   7. Matthew 27:57
   8. Matthew 27:38
   9. Zechariah 11:12
   10. Matthew 26:15
   11. Psalm 22

Thanks for your time.

Sincerely,

Everette Hatcher, everettehatcher@gmail.com, http://www.thedailyhatch.org, cell ph 501-920-5733, Box 23416, LittleRock, AR 72221

PS: I have been so blessed to be a part of a ministry such as Hidden Creek Reentry Center. When I think of the pain and suffering that alcoholism and drugs have caused it makes me think of the Christian track HAPPY HOUR that describes such a case and how Christ can turn someone around. I personally have attended a funeral of a dear friend who went to the grave prematurely. It is true that I can do nothing to bring him back, but I do something about the people who are here now who need help. 

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Francis Schaeffer has rightly noted concerning Hugh Hefner that Hefner’s goal  with the “playboy mentality is just to smash the puritanical ethnic.” I have made the comparison throughout this series of blog posts between Hefner and King Solomon (the author of the BOOK of ECCLESIASTES).  I have noticed that many preachers who have delivered sermons on Ecclesiastes have also mentioned Hefner as a modern day example of King Solomon especially because they both tried to find sexual satisfaction through the volume of women you could slept with in a lifetime.

Ecclesiastes 2:8-10 The Message (MSG)

I piled up silver and gold,
        loot from kings and kingdoms.
I gathered a chorus of singers to entertain me with song,
    and—most exquisite of all pleasures—
    voluptuous maidens for my bed.

^9-10 Oh, how I prospered! I left all my predecessors in Jerusalem far behind, left them behind in the dust. What’s more, I kept a clear head through it all. Everything I wanted I took—I never said no to myself. I gave in to every impulse, held back nothing. I sucked the marrow of pleasure out of every task—my reward to myself for a hard day’s work!

1 Kings 11:1-3 English Standard Version (ESV)

11 Now King Solomon loved many foreign women, along with the daughter of Pharaoh: Moabite, Ammonite, Edomite, Sidonian, and Hittite women, ² from the nations concerning which the Lord had said to the people of Israel, “You shall not enter into marriage with them, neither shall they with you, for surely they will turn away your heart after their gods.” Solomon clung to these in love.³ He had 700 wives, who were princesses, and 300 concubines. And his wives turned away his heart.

Francis Schaeffer observed concerning Solomon, “You can not know woman by knowing 1000 women.”

Featured artist is Jean Lamb

Contemporary Christian Art – The Rt Revd Lord Harries of Pentregarth

Published on Apr 10, 2012

Contrary to much opinion, the current scene of faith-related art is very much alive. There are new commissions for churches and cathedrals, a number of artists pursue their work on the basis of a deeply convinced faith, and other artists often resonate with traditional Christian themes, albeit in a highly untraditional way. The challenge for the artist, stated in the introduction to the course of lectures above, is still very much there: how to retain artistic integrity whilst doing justice to received themes.

This lecture is part of Lord Harries’ series on ‘Christian Faith and Modern Art’. The last century has seen changes in artistic style that have been both rapid and radical. This has presented a particular problem to artists who have wished to express Christian themes.

The transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are available from the Gresham College website:
http://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and…

Gresham College has been giving free public lectures since 1597. This tradition continues today with all of our five or so public lectures a week being made available for free download from our website.
http://www.gresham.ac.uk

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From her website:

• About
• My work
• Exhibitions

About

Info :  Born 1957 Hampstead, London.

BA Honours in Fine Art First Class Degree 1979 Reading University

Oxford Certificate in Theology 1984 St Stephens House, Oxford

MA in Fine Art 1988 Nottingham Trent University

Artist and Associate Priest living and practicing in Nottingham

Offering : Public and Private Commissions, Home Gallery, Studio Retreats, Creativity Days, Lectures, Consultancy, Framing and much more.

Studio/Gallery :    St Albans House,  4 Dale Street,  Sneinton,  Nottingham,  NG2 4JX

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Jean Lamb

Mother and Child

Jean Lamb works part time as an artist and part time as a Church of England Deacon in Nottingham. She writes that she turned away from the church when young, but rediscovered Christ in the womb of creation. With the birth of her second child she discovered Christ there and offered him back to God. This is reflected in this statue, which clearly also has echoes of Mary and the Christ child.

Crucifixion

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Related posts:

Ecclesiastes 2 — The Quest For Meaning and the failed examples of Howard Hughes and Hugh Hefner

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Ecclesiastes 2-3 Published on Sep 19, 2012 Calvary Chapel Spring Valley | Sunday Evening | September 16, 2012 | Derek Neider _____________________________ I have written on the Book of Ecclesiastes and the subject of the meaning of our lives on several occasions on this blog. In this series on Ecclesiastes I hope to show how secular […] By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Current Events | Edit | Comments (0)

FRANCIS SCHAEFFER ANALYZES ART AND CULTURE PART 162 A look at the BEATLES Breaking down the song ALL WE NEED IS LOVE Part C (Featured artist is Grace Slick)

May 4, 2017 – 1:40 am

 Is Love All You Need? Jesus v. Lennon Posted on January 19, 2011 by Jovan Payes 0 On June 25, 1967, the Beatles participated in the first worldwide TV special called “Our World”. During this special, the Beatles introduced “All You Need is Love”; one of their most famous and recognizable songs. In it, John Lennon […] By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Francis Schaeffer | Edit | Comments (0)

FRANCIS SCHAEFFER ANALYZES ART AND CULTURE Part 158 THE BEATLES (breaking down the song WHY DON’T WE DO IT IN THE ROAD?) Photographer Bob Gomel featured today!

April 6, 2017 – 12:25 am

___________________ Something happened to the Beatles in their journey through the 1960’s and although they started off wanting only to hold their girlfriend’s hand it later evolved into wanting to smash all previous sexual standards. The Beatles: Why Don’t We Do It in the Road? _______ Beatle Ringo Starr, and his girlfriend, later his wife, […] By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Current Events | Edit | Comments (0)

FRANCIS SCHAEFFER ANALYZES ART AND CULTURE PART 142 Marvin Minsky Part G (Featured artist is Red Grooms)

December 15, 2016 – 7:18 am

__________ Marvin Minsky __ I was sorry recently  to learn of the passing of one of the great scholars of our generation. I have written about Marvin Minsky several times before in this series and today I again look at a letter I wrote to him in the last couple of years. It is my […] By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Adrian Rogers, Francis Schaeffer | Edit | Comments (0)

FRANCIS SCHAEFFER ANALYZES ART AND CULTURE Part 118 THE BEATLES (Why was Tony Curtis on cover of SGT PEP?) (Feature on artist Jeffrey Gibson )

June 30, 2016 – 5:35 am

Why was Tony Curtis on the cover of SGT PEPPERS? I have no idea but if I had to hazard a guess I would say that probably it was because he was in the smash hit SOME LIKE IT HOT.  Above from the  movie SOME LIKE IT HOT __ __ Jojo was a man who […] By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Current Events | Edit | Comments (0)

FRANCIS SCHAEFFER ANALYZES ART AND CULTURE Part 101 BEATLES,(MANY CHRISTIANS ATTACKED THE BEATLES WHILE FRANCIS SCHAEFFER STUDIED THEIR MUSIC! Part B) Artist featured today is Cartoonist Gahan Wilson

March 3, 2016 – 12:21 am

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Francis Schaeffer has rightly noted concerning Hugh Hefner that Hefner’s goal  with the “playboy mentality is just to smash the puritanical ethnic.” I have made the comparison throughout this series of blog posts between Hefner and King Solomon (the author of the BOOK of ECCLESIASTES).  I have noticed that many preachers who have delivered sermons on Ecclesiastes have also mentioned Hefner as a modern day example of King Solomon especially because they both tried to find sexual satisfaction through the volume of women you could slept with in a lifetime.

Ecclesiastes 2:8-10 The Message (MSG)

I piled up silver and gold,
        loot from kings and kingdoms.
I gathered a chorus of singers to entertain me with song,
    and—most exquisite of all pleasures—
    voluptuous maidens for my bed.

^9-10 Oh, how I prospered! I left all my predecessors in Jerusalem far behind, left them behind in the dust. What’s more, I kept a clear head through it all. Everything I wanted I took—I never said no to myself. I gave in to every impulse, held back nothing. I sucked the marrow of pleasure out of every task—my reward to myself for a hard day’s work!

1 Kings 11:1-3 English Standard Version (ESV)

11 Now King Solomon loved many foreign women, along with the daughter of Pharaoh: Moabite, Ammonite, Edomite, Sidonian, and Hittite women, ² from the nations concerning which the Lord had said to the people of Israel, “You shall not enter into marriage with them, neither shall they with you, for surely they will turn away your heart after their gods.” Solomon clung to these in love.³ He had 700 wives, who were princesses, and 300 concubines. And his wives turned away his heart.

Francis Schaeffer observed concerning Solomon, “You can not know woman by knowing 1000 women.”

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Francis August Schaeffer (January 30, 1912 – May 15, 1984^[1])

building of king solomon’s temple

The Judgment of Solomon, 1617 by Peter Paul Rubens(1577–1640)

Steel mezzotint engraving by John Sartain
of the 1863 painting by Christian Schussele

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Adrian Pierce Rogers (September 12, 1931 – November 15, 2005)

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Larry Joe Speaks  (August 20, 1947 to April 7, 2017)

On April 16, 2017 is the day we celebrate Easter which is about Christ’s resurrection from the dead!!!

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Hugh Hefner and Barbi Benton at the Playboy Mansion in LA

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Will Smith, Hugh-Hefner, Karyn Parsons and Alfonso Ribeiro at the Playboy Mansion

__Hugh Hefner, Lawrence Fishburne and Dennis Hopper in 2005 at the Playboy Mansion

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__April 16, 2017Hugh HefnerPlayboy Mansion16236 Charing Cross RoadLos Angeles, CA 90024Dear Hugh,

Today is Easter and I wanted to talk to you about that especially at the end of this letter. I hope you got a chance to go to church today. What is Easter about anyway? I can assure you one thing and that it would not have been necessary for Christ to die and be raised again if we could simply EARN our way to heaven. Ironically, I wrote you today about your LABOR (your life’s work).Hugh, you built an empire on the Playboy Magazine and then you attempted to make your PLAYBOY MANSION WEST a showplace for  everything you stood for. In  fact, after touring it Peter O’Toole said, “This is the way God would have done it if he had the money.” I read Steven Watts’ book “MR PLAYBOY: Hugh Hefner and the American Dream” and on page 274 it asserts:Surrounding the mansion were six acres of land with a greenhouse, game-house, guesthouse, sweeping lawns in front and back, and the largest stand of redwoods in Southern California. Almost immediately, however, Hefner decided to extensively renovate the grounds to create a personal fantasy setting.Anthony Haden-Guest in an article for ROLLING STONE MAGAZINE in 1973 noted:“…a mullioned slab of Old Englishry, a gray gleam of ersatz granite in the Southern California sunlight. To the back the image dissolves, re-forms. Sexy vicarage metamorphoses to miniature Versailles.”I have personally visited Versailles in France and I can see from these pictures that Anthony Haden-Guest is right.3000 years ago Solomon reached the same conclusion in the Book of Ecclesiastes concerning his LABOR:I have seen everything that is done UNDER THE SUN, and behold, all is vanity and a striving after wind. (Ecclesiastes 2:14).Therefore, it just seems proper since many times in the past you have been  called a modern day Solomon to  compare you to King Solomon and look at what both you and Solomon have accomplished in the area of LABOR (or his life’s work). For Solomon that basically came down to the labor he commissioned in his building campaigns through out his kingdom plus the effort he put forth building his own palace and the temple in Jerusalem.II Chronicles 9:15-28:

¹⁵ King Solomon made 200 large shields of beaten gold; 600 shekels^[d] of beaten gold went into each shield. ¹⁶ And he made 300 shields of beaten gold; 300 shekels of gold went into each shield; and the king put them in the House of the Forest of Lebanon. ¹⁷ The king also made a great ivory throne and overlaid it with pure gold… ²⁰ All King Solomon’s drinking vessels were of gold, and all the vessels of the House of the Forest of Lebanon were of pure gold. Silver was not considered as anything in the days of Solomon.²¹ For the king’s ships went to Tarshish with the servants of Hiram. Once every three years the ships of Tarshish used to come bringing gold, silver, ivory, apes, and peacocks.

²² Thus King Solomon excelled all the kings of the earth in riches and in wisdom. ²³ And all the kings of the earth sought the presence of Solomon to hear his wisdom, which God had put into his mind. ²⁴ Every one of them brought his present, articles of silver and of gold, garments, myrrh, spices, horses, and mules, so much year by year. ²⁵ And Solomon had 4,000 stalls for horses and chariots, and 12,000 horsemen, whom he stationed in the chariot cities and with the king in Jerusalem.²⁶ And he ruled over all the kings from the Euphrates to the land of the Philistines and to the border of Egypt. ²⁷ And the king made silver as common in Jerusalem as stone, and he made cedar as plentiful as the sycamore of the Shephelah.²⁸ And horses were imported for Solomon from Egypt and from all lands.

1 Kings 7:1-9 English Standard Version (ESV)

Solomon Builds His Palace

7Solomon was building his own house thirteen years, and he finished his entire house.

² He built the House of the Forest of Lebanon….³ And it was covered with cedar above the chambers that were on the forty-five pillars, fifteen in each row. ⁴ There were window frames in three rows, and window opposite window in three tiers. ⁵ All the doorways and windows had square frames, and window was opposite window in three tiers….There was a porch in front with pillars, and a canopy in front of them.

⁷ And he made the Hall of the Throne where he was to pronounce judgment, even the Hall of Judgment. It was finished with cedar from floor to rafters.

⁸ His own house where he was to dwell, in the other court back of the hall, was of like workmanship. Solomon also made a house like this hall for Pharaoh’s daughterwhom he had taken in marriage.

⁹ All these were made of costly stones, cut according to measure, sawed with saws, back and front, even from the foundation to the coping, and from the outside to the great court. 

Ecclesiastes 2:4-11 English Standard Version (ESV)

⁴ I made great works. I built houses and planted vineyards for myself. ⁵ I made myself gardens and parks, and planted in them all kinds of fruit trees. ⁶ I made myself pools from which to water the forest of growing trees. ⁷ I bought male and female slaves, and had slaves who were born in my house. I had also great possessions of herds and flocks, more than any who had been before me in Jerusalem. ⁸ I also gathered for myself silver and gold and the treasure of kings and provinces. I got singers, both men and women, and many concubines,^[a] the delight of the sons of man.

⁹ So I became great and surpassed all who were before me in Jerusalem. Also my wisdom remained with me.¹⁰ And whatever my eyes desired I did not keep from them. I kept my heart from no pleasure, for my heart found pleasure in all my toil, and this was my reward for all my toil.¹¹ Then I considered all that my hands had done and the toil I had expended in doing it, and behold, all was vanity and a striving after wind, and there was nothing to be gained under the sun.

I have read a lot about your life and your life is the closest I can think of to the universal man that Francis Schaeffer talks about in the past. Schaeffer’s two examples are Leonardo da Vinci and Solomon. 

Below are the comments of Francis Schaeffer on Solomon and the Book of Ecclesiastes:

Leonardo da Vinci and Solomon both were universal men searching for the meaning in life. Solomon was searching for a meaning in the midst of the details of life. His struggle was to find the meaning of life. Not just plans in life. Anybody can find plans in life. A child can fill up his time with plans of building tomorrow’s sand castle when today’s has been washed away. There is  a difference between finding plans in life and purpose in life. Humanism since the Renaissance and onward has never found it and it has never found it. Modern man has not found it and it has always got worse and darker in a very real way.

We have here the declaration of Solomon’s universality:

1 Kings 4:30-34

English Standard Version (ESV)

³⁰ so that Solomon’s wisdom surpassed the wisdom of all the people of the east and all the wisdom of Egypt. ³¹ For he was wiser than all other men…and his fame was in all the surrounding nations. ³² He also spoke 3,000 proverbs, and his songs were 1,005. ³³ He spoke of trees, from the cedar that is in Lebanon to the hyssop that grows out of the wall. He spoke also of beasts, and of birds, and of reptiles, and of fish. ³⁴ And people of all nations came to hear the wisdom of Solomon, and from all the kings of the earth, who had heard of his wisdom.

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Here is the universal man and his genius. Solomon is the universal man with a empire at his disposal. Solomon had it all.

Ecclesiastes 1:3

English Standard Version (ESV)

³ What does man gain by all the toil
    at which he toils under the sun?

Solomon took a look at the meaning of life on the basis of human life standing alone between birth and death “under the sun.” This phrase UNDER THE SUN appears over and over in Ecclesiastes.

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The Christian Scholar Ravi Zacharias noted, “The key to understanding the Book of Ecclesiastes is the term UNDER THE SUN — What that literally means is you lock God out of a closed system and you are left with only this world of Time plus Chance plus matter.” 

Many have tried sexual exploits just like Solomon did, and many have thrown their efforts into  business too.Sadly Solomon also found the pursuit of great works in his labor just as empty. In Ecclesiastes 2:11 he asserted, “THEN I CONSIDERED ALL THAT MY HANDS HAD DONE AND THE TOLL I HAD EXPENDED IN DOING IT, AND BEHOLD, ALL WAS VANITY AND A STRIVING AFTER WIND, and there was nothing to be gained under the sun.”

HUGH, OF ALL PEOPLE YOU PROBABLY THINK YOU HAVE COME UP WITH SOMETHING TRULY NEW UNDER THE SUN!!!!!!

Many like you have claimed that they have pioneered something new.   But Solomon noted in Ecclesiastes 1:9, “What has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done, and there is nothing new under the sun.”

Holman Old Testament Commentary Volume 14, Ecclesiastes, Song of Solomon byDaniel Akin and David Moore:

Solomon now moves to the second way he demonstrated that life apart from God has no meaning–that there is nothing new under the sun. At first glance these words seem naive. Saying that there is nothing new seems like an overstatement. Today we have many things like computers and cars that the ancients never had. So how can Solomon make the claim that there is nothing new under the sun?

Solomon’s point is to direct our attention to the fact that things like power, status, wealth, and pleasure are the same things that people have always pursued in search of the “good life.” The “packaging” of these things is certainly different today–cars instead of chariots–but the quest is basically the same. There is no new pursuit that can give meaning and purpose to our lives apart from God.

After the 1972 Super Bowl Dewayne Thomas the star of the game was asked, “What does it feel like to win the ultimate game?” Thomas declared, “If it’s the ultimate game, why is it being played again next year?”His response captures the spirit of this passage.

Many people through history have reminded me of  Solomon because they are looking for  lasting meaning in their life and they are looking in the same  6 areas that King Solomon did in what I call the 6 big L words. He looked into  learning (1:16-18), laughter, ladies,luxuries,  and liquor (2:1-3, 8, 10, 11), and labor (2:4-6, 18-20).

Then in last few words in the Book of Ecclesiastes he looks above the sun and brings God back into the picture: “The conclusion, when all has been heard, is:Fear God and keep His commandments, because this applies to every person. For God will bring every act to judgment, everything which is hidden, whether it is good or evil.”

I started writing this series of 7 letters to you concerning Solomon and the meaning of life after the death of my good friend Larry Speaks. During the last 20 years of his life Larry would hand out CD’s of Adrian Rogers’ message WHO IS JESUS? and I wanted to share one of the points that is made in that sermon that particularly applies today since it is EASTER:

Simon Peter gave THREE LINES OF EVIDENCE, three witnesses; and we use these same three witnesses when we share Jesus today.  Let’s look at Acts chapter 10:

³⁹ And we are witnesses of all that he did both in the country of the Jews and in Jerusalem. They put him to death by hanging him on a tree, ⁴⁰ but God raised him on the third day and made him to appear, ⁴¹ not to all the people but to us who had been chosen by God as witnesses, who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead. ⁴² And he commanded us to preach to the people and to testify that he is the one appointed by God to be judge of the living and the dead. ⁴³ To him all the prophets bear witness that everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name.”

I  THE PERSONAL WITNESS OF THE SAINTS (Acts 10:39)

1. The apostles were a diverse group, yet they were united in their witness.  Among them:
   1. John was young, observant and sensitive.
   2. Peter was a rough, hard-working fisherman.
   3. Simon the Zealot was a political activist.
   4. Nathaniel and Thomas both tended to be skeptical and inquiring.
   5. Matthew was a hardened, political businessman.
   6. Andrew was gentle and compassionate.
   7. Philip was a calculating thinker.
   8. James was a straight shooter.
2. They were eyewitnesses of the virtuous life of Jesus.
   1. Acts 10:34 & 38
   2. Matthew 17:1-5
3. They were eyewitnesses of His vicarious death.
   1. Acts 10:39
   2. Deuteronomy 21:23
4. They were eyewitnesses of His victorious resurrection.
   1. Acts 10:40-41

II THE PROPHETIC WITNESS OF THE SCRIPTURES  (Acts 10:43) (We looked at this in a previous letter.)

III THE PERSUASIVE WITNESS OF THE SPIRIT  (Acts 10:44)

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Today is Easter and it is a day that Christ died NOT for his own sins because he was sinless,  but for ours (Romans 10:9) so we could receive the free gift of grace (Ephesians 2:8). Through your LABOR you can NOT earn salvation.

Romans 10:8-13 English Standard Version (ESV)

⁸ But what does it say? “The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart” (that is, the word of faith that we proclaim); ⁹ because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. ¹⁰ For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved. ¹¹ For the Scripture says, “Everyone who believes in him will not be put to shame.”¹² For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; for the same Lord is Lord of all, bestowing his riches on all who call on him. ¹³ For “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”

The answer to find meaning in life is found in putting your faith and trust in Jesus Christ. The Bible is true from cover to cover and can be trusted.

Thanks for your time.

Sincerely,

Everette Hatcher, everettehatcher@gmail.com, http://www.thedailyhatch.org, cell ph 501-920-5733, Box 23416, Little Rock, AR 72221

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Featured artist is Katrin Sigurdardóttir

Katrín Sigurdardóttir was born in 1967 in Reykjavik and lives and works in New York. With a background in filmmaking and painting, the artist now works in sculpture and installation, creating works that challenge ideas of space, memory, and perception.

Having produced miniature replicas of buildings such as her childhood home and elementary school, as well as models of real and imagined Icelandic topographies, Sigurdardóttir has long considered place as a construction of the mind. Her conceptual installations often distort scale in order to challenge perceptions of time and distance. In addition to employing traditional sculptural techniques, Sigurdardóttir also works with processes such as cartography and architectural model making

Related posts:

Ecclesiastes 2 — The Quest For Meaning and the failed examples of Howard Hughes and Hugh Hefner

June 27, 2013 – 12:49 am

Ecclesiastes 2-3 Published on Sep 19, 2012 Calvary Chapel Spring Valley | Sunday Evening | September 16, 2012 | Derek Neider _____________________________ I have written on the Book of Ecclesiastes and the subject of the meaning of our lives on several occasions on this blog. In this series on Ecclesiastes I hope to show how secular […] By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Current Events | Edit | Comments (0)

FRANCIS SCHAEFFER ANALYZES ART AND CULTURE PART 162 A look at the BEATLES Breaking down the song ALL WE NEED IS LOVE Part C (Featured artist is Grace Slick)

May 4, 2017 – 1:40 am

 Is Love All You Need? Jesus v. Lennon Posted on January 19, 2011 by Jovan Payes 0 On June 25, 1967, the Beatles participated in the first worldwide TV special called “Our World”. During this special, the Beatles introduced “All You Need is Love”; one of their most famous and recognizable songs. In it, John Lennon […] By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Francis Schaeffer | Edit | Comments (0)

FRANCIS SCHAEFFER ANALYZES ART AND CULTURE Part 158 THE BEATLES (breaking down the song WHY DON’T WE DO IT IN THE ROAD?) Photographer Bob Gomel featured today!

April 6, 2017 – 12:25 am

___________________ Something happened to the Beatles in their journey through the 1960’s and although they started off wanting only to hold their girlfriend’s hand it later evolved into wanting to smash all previous sexual standards. The Beatles: Why Don’t We Do It in the Road? _______ Beatle Ringo Starr, and his girlfriend, later his wife, […] By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Current Events | Edit | Comments (0)

FRANCIS SCHAEFFER ANALYZES ART AND CULTURE PART 142 Marvin Minsky Part G (Featured artist is Red Grooms)

December 15, 2016 – 7:18 am

__________ Marvin Minsky __ I was sorry recently  to learn of the passing of one of the great scholars of our generation. I have written about Marvin Minsky several times before in this series and today I again look at a letter I wrote to him in the last couple of years. It is my […] By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Adrian Rogers, Francis Schaeffer | Edit | Comments (0)

FRANCIS SCHAEFFER ANALYZES ART AND CULTURE Part 118 THE BEATLES (Why was Tony Curtis on cover of SGT PEP?) (Feature on artist Jeffrey Gibson )

June 30, 2016 – 5:35 am

Why was Tony Curtis on the cover of SGT PEPPERS? I have no idea but if I had to hazard a guess I would say that probably it was because he was in the smash hit SOME LIKE IT HOT.  Above from the  movie SOME LIKE IT HOT __ __ Jojo was a man who […] By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Current Events | Edit | Comments (0)

FRANCIS SCHAEFFER ANALYZES ART AND CULTURE Part 101 BEATLES,(MANY CHRISTIANS ATTACKED THE BEATLES WHILE FRANCIS SCHAEFFER STUDIED THEIR MUSIC! Part B) Artist featured today is Cartoonist Gahan Wilson

March 3, 2016 – 12:21 am

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Daniel 11 by John MacArthur verses 1-35

The Reign of Rebellion 1A Pastor John MacArthur

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in his discussion of Daniel chapter 11 John MacArthur asserted :

The details of this prophecy, particularly from verse 2 to 35, are so accurate, they are so remarkable, they are so verifiable, that it is this section of Scripture that has been the cause of all the attacks on the book of Daniel.

I have studied the Book of Daniel and come up with Six Pieces of Archaeological Evidence that Support the 6th Century View: Since Daniel was an eyewitness to 6th-century events, he could accurately record historical details. The conservative scholar Dr. Stephen R. Miller notes: “In fact, the author of Daniel exhibited a more extensive knowledge of Sixth Century events than would seem possible for a second-century writer.” R. H. Pfeiffer (who argued that the work contains errors) acknowledged that Daniel reports some amazing historical details: “We shall presumably never know how our author learned that the new Babylon was the creation of Nebuchadnezzar (4:30 [Heb. 4:27]), as the excavations have proved… and that Belshazzar, mentioned only in Babylonian records, in Daniel and Bar. 1:11, which is based on Daniel, was functioning as king when Cyrus took Babylon in 538 [Chap. 5]” (Pfeiffer, “Introduction,” pp. 758-759). Harrison comments that the author “was quite accurate in recording the change from punishment by fire under the Babylonians (Dan. 3:11) to punishment by being thrown to lions under the Persian regime (Dan. 6:7), since fire was sacred to the Zoroastrians of Persia” [R. K. Harrison, Introduction to the Old Testament, Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1979, pp. 1120- 1121; cf. A. T. Olmstead, History of the Persian Empire, Chicago: University of Chicago press, 1948, pp. 473-474] (Miller, p. 26).

It is true that there are “some amazing historical details” to be found in Daniel, but also there are some small details throughout the book that support the view that its author lived early in the Persian period. For instance, concerning Daniel 6:8, 12, 15, the conservative Dr. John Whitcomb notes, “the mention of Medes before Persians in the phrase, ‘the law of the Medes and Persians,’ is an evidence of the early date of the book; for in later years, the Persians were usually mentioned before the Medes [Esther 1:3, 14, 18, 19, though not 10:2; cf. I Macc. 6:56] (characteristically, the critics find an anachronism in the fact that Darius the Mede is under the law of the Medes and Persians. Cf. Arthur Jeffery, p. 442)” (John Whitcomb, Darius the Mede,[Grand Rapids: Baker, 1959], p. 55).

Nevertheless, the critic John Joseph Owens still claims this is a sign of later authorship. Owens asserts, “Esther 1:19 gives the proper evolution of the rank in ‘Persians and Medes’ instead of the later view as in Daniel” (p. 415). Conservative scholars point out that the evidence contradicts this assertion (Miller, p. 181, n.54; E. J. Young, The Prophecy of Daniel, [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1949], p. 127).

Daniel 6:8, 12, 15 also states that the laws made by the king could not be altered. The critic Carey Moore disputed this in his commentary on Esther (Anchor Bible, Garden city: Doubleday, 1971, pp. 10-11), but many critics will concede that Daniel was correct about this too (Hartman, p. 199; Driver, p. 7; Collins, pp. 267-268). The critic Lacocque observes: “Diodorus of Sicily (XVII, 30) in fact, reports the case of a man put to death under Darius III (336-330) even though he was known to be perfectly innocent. (Darius III) immediately repented and blamed himself for having committed such a great error, but it was impossible to have undone what had been done by royal authority” (Andre Lacocque, The Book of Daniel, Atlanta: John Knox, 1979, p. 113).

Again, Daniel was correct when he placed Susa in the province of Elam (Dan. 8:2). Dr. Gleason Archer, Jr., notes: “From the Greek and Roman historians, we learn that from Persian times Susa, or Sushan, was the capital of the province of Susiana; and Elam was restricted to the territory east of the Eulaeus River. Nevertheless, we know from cuneiform records that Sushan was part of the territory of Elam back in Chaldean times and before. It is very striking that Daniel 8:2 refers to ‘Susa in the province of Elam’­ an item of information scarcely accessible to a second-century B.C. author” (Archer, p. 19).

Daniel 4:30 quotes Nebuchadnezzar: “Is not this the great Babylon I have built as the royal residence by my mighty power and for the glory of my majesty?” Did Nebuchadnezzar actually say these words? Archaeology seems to indicate that he did make a very similar statement: “The fortifications of Esagila and Babylon I strengthened and established the name of my reign forever” (George A. Barton, Archaeology and the Bible,Philadelphia: American Sunday School Union, 1916, p. 479). Nebuchadnezzar evidently did have a habit of boasting, which indicated that he was very prideful.

How would a Maccabean author know these details? [1] Belshazzar was ruling during the last few years of the Babylonian Empire. [2] The Babylonians executed individuals by casting them into fire, but the Persians threw the condemned to the lions. [3] The practice in the 6th Century was to mention first the Medes, then the Persians. [4] Laws made by Persian kings could not be revoked. [5] In the sixth century B.C., Susa was in the province of Elam (Dan. 8:2). [6] Nebuchadnezzar had a pride problem (Dan. 4:30) and often boasted about his great building projects.

John MacArthur’s sermon below:

Daniel 11 by John MacArthur verses 1-35

Now this has happened a couple of other times, hasn’t it, in the book of Daniel, where we get the whole flow of history; and we get it again here. Only this time, rather than focusing on the Gentile powers particularly – although they will be alluded to here – it focuses on the nation of Israel and the suffering that Israel will endure. 

(FIRST VIDEO AT 8:28 mark)

Now I’m going to give you a footnote that I want you to remember. The details of this prophecy, particularly from verse 2 to 35, are so accurate, they are so remarkable, they are so verifiable, that it is this section of Scripture that has been the cause of all the attacks on the book of Daniel. There are two main books in the Old Testament that are attacked by the critics: Isaiah and Daniel. And they want to deny the prophecies that are there. And in the case of Daniel, from verses 2 through 35, Daniel prophesies specific events about the Persian and Greek Empires. 

Now mark this. We know they came to pass, because we know Persian and Greek history; there’s no question about it. We have many, many sources for that. And the critics have found that the prophecies are so absolutely accurate that they therefore have concluded that they must have been written after these events happened. Therefore they take the whole book of Daniel and they shove it up past the fulfillment, because they say it’s impossible that anyone should be so accurate. 

Now, of course, their basic supposition is that God didn’t write the Bible. And their secondary supposition is that Daniel was a liar, because Daniel said he was receiving these revelations from God before the time. So they’ve got two problems. Number one, they’ve got a God who doesn’t know the future; and number two, they’ve got a man like Daniel who has impeccable character of whom the other prophets said he was one of the three most honorable men that ever lived and they’re making him into a first-rate liar. But isn’t it interesting what the critics will do to try explain away reality? These are incredible, accurate prophecies. 

I’m going to try my best to help you to understand what they’re saying. There is so much here that, in fact, I couldn’t even figure out an outline; and usually that comes real easy. And I worked and worked, and finally it all came to me. There are five major kings mentioned, and all of their names begin with “A”. And I went into immediate paradise. I couldn’t believe it; it was so wonderful. I mean I have this alliterative problem. Why do you think our family is Matthew, Mark, Marcy, Melinda, Mom, and me; and our dog is Mutt? No. But anyway, I want to take you through this and show you the amazing, remarkable prophecy that is predicted here. 

(FIRST VIDEO AT 11:24 mark)

By the way, there are multitudinous reasons why we know this couldn’t have been written at the later date, all kinds of reasons: linguistic reasons, historical reasons; many, many reasons. Most of all, because Daniel is not a liar; he has too great a character for that; and because God can predict the future, as well as He can tell us about the past. 

All right, let’s begin, and we’ll flow through this period of history. From Daniel’s day, we’ll go up to the time of the Antichrist. Number one king: Ahasuerus. Ahasuerus. A-h-a-s-u-e-r-u-s. Ahasuerus. Verse 2: “And now will I show thee the truth.” Here comes the revelation. “Behold, there shall stand up yet three kings in Persia; and the fourth shall be far richer than they all, and by his strength through his riches he shall stir up all against the realm of Greece.” 

Now the angel says, “Look, there are going to be three kings; and then following those three there’s going to be a fourth. He’ll be stronger and richer than the others, and he is going to try to stand up against the nation of Greece.” Now the prophecy then centers on the fourth king. 

Let me just say this as a note. There were more than four kings in Persia, but the angel picks out the key right here. There were three who ruled just before a fourth, and that fourth one was the one who led a major attack on Greece. And that’s the thing we want to see. 

The first of that line of four was a man named Cambyses who was the son, by the way, of Cyrus, who was king at this time. The second, history tells us, is a man named Pseudo-Smerdis. He was, by the way, a usurper and an impostor. He looked so much like Cambyses that he claimed to be Cambyses, and through all kinds of deception he got himself into the throne. The third king was a man named Darius Hystaspes. 

And the fourth one was named Xerxes. But he had another name, and his other name was Ahasuerus. He is the king mentioned in the book of Esther. He is one of the greatest Oriental rulers of all time. He had fabulous wealth. He commanded the largest army in the Ancient World. In fact, he commanded the largest army that we know about in ancient history. And he decided that he wanted to attack Greece. The mood with the other three kings was moving that way; and in fact that third king, Hystaspes, made a sort of a small, piddly little attack on Greece. But this fourth one really stirred up all he had against the realm of Greece. By the way, he was totally and utterly in a devastating way defeated by the power of Greece. And the Greeks never forgot about it. 

After that, 150 years went by, and a lot of other little nondescript kings came along, but they never forgot what Ahasuerus did; and 150 years later, the Greeks finally got their act together and decided to retaliate based upon what this guy had done 150 years before. And they came. And when they came, they came led by another king whose name is Alexander, and he’s the second king, Alexander, verse 3. 

Of course, you know that following the Persian Empire came the Greeks: “And a mighty king shall stand up that shall rule with great dominion and do according to his will.” A mighty king, none other than Alexander the Great of Greece. All Bible commentators agree that that is who is in mind. He retaliated for what had happened earlier to Greece. He seized the entire Persian Empire. It says he had great dominion. 

I’m telling you, the man was a man who stands out in history as perhaps the most remarkable military leader ever. By the age of 33 he had conquered the world. His army wouldn’t go any further. They were literally worn out. They had conquered everything from Europe to India, and he was weeping because there were no more worlds that he could conquer. He changed the course of history more than any other ruler. He was the son of Philip of Macedon, and it says in verse 3 that he did according to his will. He was an absolute monarch, an absolute sovereign who had not only the power of personality and the power of leadership, but the power of military might. 

(FIRST VIDEO AT 16:19 mark)

And of course, both the Persian Empire and Alexander overran the nation Israel. The Persians possessed it and controlled it. The Greeks under Alexander, possessed it and controlled it. But you remember that he died at 33. And what happened? Verse 4: “And when he shall stand up, his kingdom shall be broken.” It seems no sooner does he stand up and get his kingdom, then it is shattered. And watch, “It’ll be divided toward the four winds of heaven.” 

Now remember, this is all before the man is even born. I mean this is a couple of hundred years before he’s even born. “And it will not go to his posterity, nor according to his dominion which he ruled.” In other words, “It won’t go to his children, and it won’t be to the extent that it was when he was ruling. It’ll be plucked up and given to others.” 

Now look carefully at that verse. It will not go to his posterity. Alexander had a half-brother who was mentally retarded. He had an illegitimate son, and he had a baby born posthumously. In other words, the mother of the child was already pregnant when he died, and the child was born after he died. All three, his mentally retarded illegitimate son – or rather his mentally retarded half-brother, his illegitimate son, and his new­born baby, all three were murdered, and he had no posterity. 

The angel was exactly right. The kingdom did not go to his posterity, it was thrown to the four winds. What does that mean? A great battle ensued for who was going to rule, and the battle was won by four generals, and the kingdom was divided into four parts: Cassander took Macedonia, Lysimachus took Thrace and Asia Minor, Ptolemy – remember that – took Egypt, and Seleucus took Syria. Egypt is south of Israel. Syria is where? North of Israel. Those two become the ones we focus on the remaining of the chapter, because they are the ones that are right around the nation Israel. And in Egypt, a Ptolemaic line of kings was established; and in Syria, a Seleucid dynasty was established; and through the centuries, those two dynasties warred with each other, and they fought most of their wars on the soil of Israel. So Israel became the pawn in this. From here on to the twentieth verse, we cover about 200 years when these wars waged on the borders and throughout the land of Israel. 

Now let’s find out how it went. By the way, each one had a diminished dominion, therefore what he said about it will be not according to his dominion did come to pass. Each of the four had a diminished dominion. 

All right, now we come to 5: “And the king of the south” – who would that be? That would be the Ptolemies in Egypt, because everything geographically is indicated in reference to Israel. You’ll notice down in verse 6, in the middle of the verse, “the king of the north.” That’s Syria. 

Now mark this in your mind. You’re going to see for many verses now, “the king of the south, the king of the north.” That doesn’t necessarily mean one king. We’ll go through a lot of different kings in the Seleucid dynasty, and a lot of different kings in the Ptolemaic dynasty. The point is the king of the south, the king of the north is simply whoever’s reigning in that are at the time. But I want you to watch how fabulously this unfolds. 

“And the king of the south” – that would be the Ptolemaic dynasty – “shall be strong and of his princes;” – that is of the princes of Alexander – “and he shall be strong above him and have dominion. His dominion shall be a great dominion. And in the end of years, they shall join themselves together; for the king’s daughter of the south shall come to the king of the north to make an agreement.” 

Now let me fill you in. The Seleucid dynasty is built in the north, the Ptolemaic dynasty is built in the south. The Ptolemaic dynasty starts out a little more powerful, but it doesn’t take very long until the north becomes more powerful as the expansion of the north develops. Finally the two realized the tension that’s existing, and so in verse 6 it says they’re going to make an alliance. And how do they do it? This was the old way to make an alliance: the king’s daughter of the south comes to the king of the north to make an agreement. You give your daughter to the nation you want to make a treaty with, she marries the guy, and you hope that makes the right kind of relationship. 

And that’s exactly what happened. The angel was right on. Antiochus Theos. Can you imagine taking the name Antiochus Theos? Theos means God. That’ll show you the kind of problem he had. 

Antiochus Theos who was the third king of Syria needed to make a treaty with Egypt. The king of Egypt was a man named Ptolemy Philadelphus. And so he decided that what he wanted to do was marry the daughter of the king of Egypt, or the king of the south. Unfortunately, he was already married. But that was no problem, he divorced his wife. He divorced his wife, and he married this daughter of the southern king. Well, his wife wasn’t real thrilled about it, so she murdered his new wife. She not only murdered his new wife, but she murdered all her attendants too, then she poisoned him to death. 

It says in the middle of verse 6, “She shall not retain the power of the arm; neither shall he stand, nor his arm.” In other words, the power of both of them, the whole thing fell apart. “But she shall be given up, and they that brought her, and he that begot her, and he that strengthened her in these times.” In other words, everybody involved is going to go. And that is exactly what happened. 

(FIRST VIDEO AT 22:28 mark)

Now this brought to the throne in the north, because now the Seleucid king Antiochus Theos is dead. So this brought to the throne a man named Callinicus. Look at verse 7: “But out of a branch of her roots” – that is, out of the roots of the murdered wife Berenice. There was a man named Ptolemy Euergetes, and it says – I think it’s in verse 8. No, it’s in verse 7 – that “one shall stand in his estate.” I don’t know if you’re following me too good, but stay with me. Out of the branch of the roots of the murdered wife comes a brother from the south, and he comes with an army; and he comes against Callinicus and he defeats him. And verse 8 says – this is what I want you to note: “He carried away captives into Egypt, took their gods, their princes, their precious vessels, silver, gold, and so forth and so on.” 

(FIRST VIDEO AT 23:24 mark)

Now history tells us all about this. It tells us he took 40,000 talents of silver, 2,500 idol statues, and it goes on and on. And even Callinicus died, because he fell off his horse. And there’s an interesting note there. I’m just trying to think where it is. Yeah, at the end of verse 8, it says: “The king of the south shall continue more years than the king of the north.” And that is exactly what happened. Callinicus fell off his horse, died, and the one in the south continued four more years. Now the reason I just point this out is because you need to know how accurate the Word of God is. But the point behind it all is that in the middle of this sits Israel, and all these wars are going on raging across their land. 

(SECOND VIDEO AT 2:48 mark)

Now look at verse 10. We come to another king. The third one is Antiochus the Great. We’ve seen Ahasuerus, we’ve seen Alexander, now we come to Antiochus the Great. And history again doesn’t even argue. You can read a liberal commentary or you can read a conservative commentary and they all come up with the same names, because there’s so much evidence in this area. 

Now remember that the Ptolemy of the south at this particular point in verse 10 has conquered. So he’s kind of ruling in Israel. He’s kind of got the power base. He’s defeated Callinicus in the north. Ptolemy Euergetes – if you want the name – has defeated Callinicus in the north. Callinicus fell off his horse and died. And now the north doesn’t like the south winning. 

So Callinicus has two sons, verse 10: “His sons” – plural – “shall be stirred up, and shall assemble a multitude of great forces, and one of them shall certainly come and overflow, pass through, and return and be stirred up even to the fortress.” 

One of Callinicus’ sons died, the other one became the king of the north. His name: Antiochus the Great. And he came. And it says he would come with a multitude of great forces. History tells us he had 75,000 soldiers. And he came to attack Egypt, and he stomped right through the land of Israel. 

Verse 11 says, “And the king of the south was moved with anger.” Wouldn’t you be? Somebody arrive at your border with 75,000 soldiers. “And he comes forth and he fights with the king of the north, and he shall set forth a great multitude.” And so the multitude begins a fight. 

Now the king of the south is Ptolemy also by the name of Philometor. He has 73,000 men, history tells us, 5,000 cavalry, and he also had 73 elephants. They used elephants like battering rams, and to carry things and so forth. And so this tremendous war goes on. 

Verse 12: “And when he hath taken away,” – and the “hes” and the “hims” are very difficult to figure out in here unless you know the history, and so we’ll just run by it as quick as we can. “And when he hath taken away the multitude, his heart shall be lifted up, and he shall cast down many ten thousands; but he shall not be strengthened by it.” 

The king of the south was very effective in the battle. History says that they caused the north, Antiochus the Great, to lose 10,000 footmen, 300 cavalry, and five of their elephants. This we know from the historian Polybius. But this didn’t really strengthen the king of the south, it just made the king of the north more angry. And so in verse 13, the king of the north is to return. “And he’ll come down with a multitude greater than the last multitude, and he’ll certainly come after certain years.” Amazing. It was thirteen years later that he came back, exactly as the angel had said, with a great army, and great riches; and he came back to get his revenge. 

Verse 14: “In those times there shall many stand up against the king of the south.” Boy, he had a great army, and people were joining it along the way because they hated the south so much. And look at this, “Also the robbers of thy people.” 

Who were Daniel’s people? The Jews. Who were the robbers? Well, the Hebrew term here means “sons of breaking,” “children of breaking.” And what that means is people who don’t keep their promise, covenant breakers. They are the rebels. It could be translated “men of violence who break the law.” Frankly, what they are is strong-willed, apostate Jews who are revolutionaries. They are like mercenary soldiers, and they join the cause of the king of the north, and they aid him in his attack. 

Really, most historians feel they wanted Judean independence, these mercenaries, these apostate Jewish revolutionaries. They thought that by war, if they could get in with Antiochus the Great, knock off Egypt, maybe Antiochus would give them freedom for their assistance. That’s really what they wanted. But at the end of verse 14, it says they shall fail. They didn’t get their goal. He didn’t give them what they had hoped to get. 

Verse 15: “So the king of the North comes, casts a siege mount.” And it goes on to describe how the battle takes place. And by the way, if you want to know who won, it’s very simple: the north won. The north literally routed the south, destroying them. 

And then verse 16, this is the key: “But he that cometh against him shall do according to his own will, and none shall stand before him;” – that is the king of the north, Antiochus the Great – “and he shall stand in the glorious land.” 

What is the glorious land? What land is that? That’s the land of Israel. And here again we see the same kind of thing. They didn’t get their independence; the mercenaries didn’t get what they wanted. All they got was domination by Syrian power from the north, the Seleucids. Antiochus the Great took a lasting dominion over Palestine. Now he was a smart man. Because some of them had assisted him in the battle with the south, he gave them some money, he treated them with some favor; but he was basically their captor. 

(SECOND VIDEO AT 8:29 mark)

He decides, in verse 17, to strengthen his power, and to keep Egypt on his side. So he does something that’s kind of interesting: “He sets his face to enter with the strength of his whole kingdom and upright ones with him, and he gives him the daughter of women.” Now that’s probably a term referring to somebody who is the height of femininity. He picks out some fabulously lovely person. In fact, it turned out to be his daughter who was named Cleopatra. And he gave Cleopatra to the Ptolemy king, and he said, “Here, take her and marry her as a sign of good faith.” And what he really wanted was to plant a spy in the palace. 

But you know what happened? She loved her husband more than her father, and the whole thing failed. Verse 17 says at the end, “She shall not stand on his side, nor be for him.” So it didn’t work. 

Now why does the Bible put a little thing – you’re saying, “Why does the Bible put any of this in here?” Just to show you how absolutely God knows history before it ever happens. If you for a minute think anything happens in history without God’s control, you’re wrong. He determines all the boundaries of the nations. History is, as someone said, “His story.” 

Verse 18: “After this shall he turn his face to the coastlands.” You know, once Antiochus the Great had conquered that part of the world, he decided to go to the coastlands, and that meant, if you will, the Mediterranean Islands and the borders of Greece. He was going to get Greece. Well, you know who had the power out there by this time? Rome did. And so as he turns his face to the coast and takes many, “A prince on his own behalf causes the reproach offered by him to cease; without his own reproach he shall cause it to turn upon him.” What it simply means is that it brought him into conflict with Rome, the prince, and Rome utterly routed him. In 190 B.C. he was routed by the Roman soldiers. 

Verse 19: “He shall turn his face toward the fortress of his own land, but he shall stumble and fall, and not be found.” You know what he did after Rome beat him? He was so distressed, he went back to his own land; and in a fit one time, he tried to plunder the temple in his own land and steal all the treasures in there; and the people got so mad they murdered him on the spot. He wasn’t found anymore. 

He was followed by another ruler, verse 20, this is interesting. A guy who stood up in his estate was a raiser of taxes. Now what is that supposed to mean? You know what? When Rome defeated him, they said from then on, “Syria, you will pay taxes to Rome.” And they were required to pay a thousand talents periodically to the Roman power. Therefore, the next king had to be a raiser of taxes – exactly what God said would happen happened. The detail, people, is thrilling. The Bible is accurate. 

So we meet Ahasuerus, Alexander, Antiochus the Great; fourthly, Antiochus Epiphanes. Now we’re going to really fly through this one, so hold on to your seat. Antiochus Epiphanes – and I don’t want to get all bogged down in too much detail, but I do want you to get the message. And all of this was written by God and He has a purpose for it. 

“And in his estate shall stand up a vile person,” – how would you like to have that for your epitaph, or for your introduction: a vile, contemptible, wretched, rotten person? And he will stand up in the place of Antiochus the Great – “to whom they shall not give the honor of the kingdom.” They don’t give it to him, but he comes in a sneaky way, and obtains it by flattery. 

Do you know that Antiochus Epiphanes, who is referred to here, had no right to reign? He had no legitimate claim to the throne. He had absolutely no right at all. But he gained it by intrigue, and by flattery, and by buying off certain individuals; and he got in there. 

Verse 22: “And with the arms of a flood shall they be overthrown from before him and shall be broken.” And that is the south. He literally devastated the Egyptians and the king. 

(SECOND VIDEO AT 13:05 mark)

Verse 23: “And after the league made with him, he shall work deceitfully; for he shall come up, and shall become strong with a small people.” He tried to adopt a policy of friendship with Egypt, but he violated it, and he broke it, and he did everything he could. He plotted; he worked out all kinds of things. 

It’s very interesting in verse 24 that he entered peaceably upon the fattest places of the province. Boy, when he saw there was crop or money or something to be gained, he came in all hearts and flowers and with peace, and so forth and so on; and he did what his fathers never did before. He was wily and smart, and he gained greater acceptance. And then when he got spoil, he scattered it among the people, and he let them share in it, and he made it all look so good. 

And then at the end of verse 24, “He was plotting against the strongholds.” Whenever he saw a strong village or a strong group, he would plot their destruction. So on the one hand, he looks like Robin Hood. On the other hand, anything that begins to move in his kingdom he puts it down fast. He’s building an incredible power base. 

In verse 25, he has another war with Egypt. “He stirs up his power and his courage against the king of the south with a great army; and the king of the south is stirred up to battle with a very great and mighty army; but he shall not stand, for they shall plot against him.” Another war with Egypt, this time at Pelusium, and Egypt lost. And it tells you why: because the counselors of the Egyptian king himself betrayed him. In fact, his trusted counselors turned against him. It says his own men plotted against him. 

Verse 26: “Yea, they that feed of the portion of his food shall destroy him,” – his own troops, his own soldiers – “and his army shall overflow, and many shall fall down slain.” Verse 27: “And both these kings’ hearts shall be to do mischief.” Both of them were evil. Here’s this war; Egypt has lost. So they decide to sit at a table. They want to come to the table. 

We still do that, don’t we? You see all these guys around a big table, and they’re all signing these meaningless treaties. And you know how many treaties have been broken in the history of the world? All of them. Just wanted to get that in. 

“They sit at a table. They speak lies. And their supposed talk doesn’t prosper; for yet the end shall be at the time appointed.” They made promises they never meant to keep; and God had it all in the plan anyway. 

“Then after this, he returns to his land with great riches. His heart shall be against the holy covenant, and he shall do exploits and return to his own land.” Now listen, here we are right back in Israel. After Antiochus Epiphanes has this deceitful meeting in the south, he comes back, and again he does things against the holy covenant. He comes back into the land of Israel and desecrates the land. In fact, he marched on Jerusalem after he left this meeting in Egypt. He marched on Jerusalem and he sacked the city, and he cruelly slaughtered people, and he brought about horrible suffering. Verse 29: “He returned and came toward the south, but it wasn’t as the former or as the latter.” 

Now have you ever seen a picture where the Indians and the cowboys were in a battle, and off in the distance you hear the sound of the cavalry to the rescue? That’s what happens in verse 30. 

Chittim. The ships of Chittim. That’s an ancient name for Cyprus, and probably is general reference to the Roman army, the Roman Empire, the Roman power. The ships of Chittim would be the Roman fleet. By now the Ptolemies are so sick of Antiochus Epiphanes, that they say to Rome, “Send us a fleet.” And so they do, and they come against Antiochus. He is grieved and returns, because he can’t do anything against Egypt because of the Roman navy that he fears. 

So what does he do? Verse 30, watch this: “He has indignation against the holy covenant, against the holy covenant. He even returns and has intelligence” – or special meetings, watch this – “with those who forsake the holy covenant.” He gets back with these apostate Jews. He begins to raise support from them. 

And then it happens. Then it really happens. Verse 31: “And the forces shall stand on his part, and they shall pollute the” – what? – “sanctuary, and take away the daily sacrifice, and place the abomination that maketh desolate.” He is so frustrated now by the Romans, he goes back into the place of Israel, back into Jerusalem. 

First thing he does is he puts guards all around the temple; nobody can worship. He stops the sacrifice; he halts all worship. And then on a given Sabbath, he sends his soldiers into the city, and he slaughters all the children they can find. And then he slaughters all the women. And then he makes heathen idolatry mandatory. And then he has nakedness flaunted by supposed athletes in full view of the temple ground. 

He enforces Greek culture upon the Jews. He erects a statue of the main god of the Greeks, Zeus, on the very altar in the temple. He slays a pig on the altar in the temple, and makes the priests eat the pork. This is the abomination of desolations. He abominates the temple to make it desolate; and he even had some Jews in with him. 

Verse 32: “And such as do wickedly against the covenant shall he corrupt by flatteries.” Found some apostate Jews to even agree to get involved. But the end of verse 32: “The people who do know their God shall be strong and do right, do exploits,” however you want to translate that. The people that really know God resisted. 

(SECOND VIDEO AT 19:33 mark)

Now I want to read 33 and 34: “And they that understand among the people shall instruct many; yet they shall fall by the sword and by flame, by captivity and by spoil for many days. Now when they shall fall, they shall be helped with a little help; but many shall cling to them with flatteries.” 

The angel says, “Daniel, if you think the seventy years is the end, you’ve missed it. They’ll be seventy years. And then at the end of that seventy years they’ll be an Ahasuerus who will dominate your land. And then there will be an Alexander who will dominate your land. And then there will be Antiochus the Great who will overrun your land. And then there will be an Antiochus Epiphanes.” And by the way, Epiphanes was the name he took for himself. It meant “Great One.” And they called him “Epimanes” which meant “maniac,” “mad man.” 

“There will always be this, and finally it will culminate in a desecration that is beyond your belief.” And it says in verse 33, “They’ll fall by the sword, by flame, by captivity, by spoil.” And that’s exactly what happened. 

But verse 34, when they shall fall, they’ll be helped with a little help. What was that? During this time of horrible persecution – and it was mass slaughter of the Jews in their land by Antiochus Epiphanes. In fact, he’s called the antichrist of the Old Testament because he so pictures the Antichrist. There arose a group of Jews who were known as Hasideans. 

Have you ever heard of a Hasidic Jew? That’s a term that came out of the Maccabean period. This group of Hasideans, they stood for the law. They’re talked about in the Maccabees, 1 Maccabees chapter 2. They had a leader, and their leader was Judas Maccabeus. This is a time of history that is not spoken of in the Bible; it occurred in the four hundred years between the Old and the New Testament. 

But Judas Maccabeus was able to lead a successful revolt, and he is the one who helped with a little help. It was just temporary relief from persecution. And by the way, Judas Maccabeus got all those apostate Jews and he treated them bloody severity. But like many revolutions, it says at the end of verse 34 it had a lot of folks hanging on just for what they could gain. Some people went with the revolution to gain their own ends. 

Verse 35: “And some of them of understanding shall fall, to test them, and to purge, and to make them white.” Now wait a minute. Why is all this happening? Why are You doing this, God? Here it is: to test, to purge, to make them white. What does that mean? To burn off the sin, right? To burn off the dross. 

Nothing is as effective in driving people to God as suffering. You understand that? When you stand in the face of inevitable destruction, your thoughts go straight up. 

I watched the TV this afternoon. A man was standing in a burning house out there in Bradbury where the house had burned to the ground. Tears in his eyes, the man said to him, “What did you think about when you saw this?” He said, “I’ll tell you one thing: it makes a man think a lot about dying.” That’s right. And when you think about dying, you begin to think about the inevitability of judgment. 

“To test, to purge, to make them white, until the time of the end because it is yet for a time appointed.” God gave to Daniel through this angel the most incredible layout of the suffering of the Jews through the reign of the Persians and the reign of the Greeks. And you know who came in after the Greeks? The Romans. And the Roman period is described by the last final great Roman ruler, the Antichrist, the final “A” in our five kings. And that’s for next week. But God has ordained it all: the flow, the sequence, the intimate minute tiny little details. 

Now listen to me, don’t turn me out now in these last couple of minutes. God is not finished with the purging process. You understand that? Why is it hard for Israel today? Because the purging is still going on. When the Messiah came the first time, He said to them, “You will not come to Me that you might have life.” 

“0 Jerusalem, Jerusalem,” He says, “thou that killest the prophets and stonest them that are sent unto you, how oft I would have gathered you as a hen gathereth her brood; but you would not.” In Romans 10:21, Paul speaking the words of God, “All day long have I stretched forth my hands unto a disobedient and contrary people.” They haven’t turned yet. 

But you want to know something? The suffering is a gracious suffering. You say, “Why do you say that, John?” Simply for this reason: God has every right to forget them, doesn’t He; but He doesn’t. God has every right to say, “Because of your constant harlotries, because of the incessant disobedience, I forever turn by back on you, because you have known so much, received so much, had so much. Yours are the covenants and the promises. Because you’ve had it all, and you’ve turned your back on Me, I write you off.” 

(SECOND VIDEO AT 24:15 mark)

But He never says that. He continues the purging process until the end time, the time appointed. And that time will come; and in that latter day in the future, Paul says in Romans 11, “All Israel shall be” – what? – “saved.” Isn’t that great? 

Zechariah the prophet saw that. In chapter 12, verse 10, he said, “I will pour upon the house of David and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem the spirit of grace and supplication; and they shall look upon Me whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn for Him as one mourns for his only son, and shall be in bitterness for Him as one that is in bitterness for his firstborn. And in that day there shall be a great mourning in Jerusalem.” 

The day is going to come when they weep and wail in the agony of recognition, when they see that Him whom they pierced was none other than their own God. And what’ll happen? Zechariah says, “In that day there shall be a fountain opened to the house of David and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem for sin and for uncleanness.” 

God’s going to wash them – that’s right – in that day. They’re going to come to a day of true repentance, and God’s going to give them a day of true salvation. That day is coming. Gloriously, beloved, the whole thing ends up in the kingdom for Israel, but there has to be a long time of purging. 

You know what’s wonderful to think about – and we’ll get to this when we get into Romans – that during this time of purging, Paul says in Romans chapter 11 verses 1 to 6, “There will always be a remnant.” And there’s a remnant right now, isn’t there? The nation is purged. Many of you sitting right out here are part of that remnant, aren’t you? You’re Jews, and you know and love the Lord Jesus Christ. 

Right in the middle of the passage that talks about the chastening of Israel in Romans there is this great word: “Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord, shall be” – what? – “saved.” And throughout the Persian area, the Greek, the Roman, right on out till the kingdom, there will always be that remnant from Israel, because God is a gracious God. 

And then in the end, here’s what Isaiah says will happen: “The Redeemer shall come to Zion and unto those who turn from transgression in Jacob. As for Me, this is My covenant with them,” says the Lord. “My Spirit that is upon thee and My words which I have put in thy mouth shall not depart out of thy mouth, nor out of the mouth of thy seed, nor out of the mouth of thy seed’s seed,” said the Lord. In other words, the Lord said, “I will redeem them, and that word will never change, never.” What a great promise. 

“Yes, it’s a time of chastening for them. But be encouraged; Michael’s watching over them, and I’m watching over them,” says this other angel. “And there’s going to come a day when Michael stands up for the people of God, and a day when the Spirit descends upon them, and they’re redeemed and receive their kingdom. But in the meantime, there must be a chastening. 

(SECOND VIDEO AT 25:10 mark)

Beloved, my word to you in closing is this: I hope you have a heart for the Jewish people. I hope you realize that that remnant is there and that God calls us to reach them. An old missionary hymn put it this way: “Shall we whose souls are lighted with wisdom from on high, shall we to souls benighted the lamp of life deny?” Let’s pray together. 

Father, we thank You again tonight for the study of Your Word. We know that this has been a study that demands our concentration. And we can’t remember all the individual parts; but we have this overwhelming reality in our minds that You control history, every event; that Your Word can predict the future; and when it speaks of the future, it’s absolutely accurate to the most minute detail. And we’re overwhelmed with its accuracy; and we sense that if it’s accurate about that, it’s accurate about us too, and that its spiritual truths are just as verifiable. 

And we sense, Lord, that history is marked out by divine plan. And we are reminded again that You’re chastening Your people Israel; and we can watch it just by reading the newspapers, hearing the news, watching their struggle for survival, watching the Arab world pressing in, the Russian bear hovering to the north. We’re going to see next week how that all comes to pass. 

We sense, Lord, the chastening that they’ve undergone for all these centuries. But we’ve been reminded again of Your unending promise, that You’ll redeem Your people, and that Your Word will never change. Father, in the meantime, may we be faithful to share with that remnant the message that whosoever believeth on the Lord Jesus shall be saved. May we know that You control the destiny of every man and every woman; and there are only two alternatives: an eternal hell, or an eternal heaven; the kingdom of darkness or the kingdom of Your dear Son. God, help us to make the right choice for Christ’s sake. Amen.

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After Life #1 Trailer

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After Life 2 Trailer

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On Saturday April 18, 2020 at 6pm in London and noon in Arkansas, I had a chance to ask Ricky Gervais a question on his Twitter Live broadcast which was  “Is Tony a Nihilist?” At the 20:51 mark Ricky answers my question. Below is the video:

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(Above) Tony and Anne on the bench at the graveyard where their spouses are buried.

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July 24, 2020 
Ricky Gervais 

Dear Ricky,  

This is the 98th day in a row that I have written another open letter to you to comment on some of your episodes of AFTER LIFE.

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(Tony Johnson with his dog Brandi seen below:)

In episode 2 of the second season of AFTER LIFE is the following discussion: 
Tony: I drink in times of trouble. I can’t help it the world is filled with trouble. It is a horrible place. Everyone is screwed up in someway. Everyone has worries like money or health or famine, war. We are chimps with brains the size of planets. No wonder we get drunk and try to kill each other. It is mental.

Matt: Always good to talk.

Tony: I was just explaining my new plan is to drink myself to death till I eventually implode in on my own evolution. 
Kath: Do you believe in all that? 
Tony: What? The proven fact that there is evolution? Yeah

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Ricky Gervais plays bereaved husband Tony Johnson in AFTER LIFE 

Tony and his wife Lisa who died 6 months ago of cancer

Ricky, it was interesting to me that you had Tony say, “We are chimps with brains the size of planets.“

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(Darwin wrote: But then with me the horrid doubt always arises whether the convictions of man’s mind, which has been developed from the mind of the lower animals, are of any value or at all trustworthy. Would any one trust in the convictions of a monkey’s mind…?)

Jim Al-Khalili in Origin of Life:

 In the book LIFE ON THE EDGE Jim Al-Khalili noted:

“Have we overlooked some vital spark that animates the living and is absent from the nonliving? This is not to say we will be claiming that any kind of vital force, spirit, or magic ingredient animates life. Our story is much more interesting than that” (p.27).

“No serious scientist today doubts that life can be accounted for within the sphere of science” (p.101).

David Noebel wrote:

Hear the counsel of Francis Crick:  “An honest man, armed with all the knowledge available to us now, could only state that in some sense, the origin of life appears at the moment to be almost a miracle, so many are the conditions which would have had to have been satisfied to get it going.”  

Leonard Susskind comments on Origin of Life:

Quote from Professor Susskind:

I don’t believe that the universe was designed by an intelligence. I believe the universe was designed the same way the incredible human being was designed. It certainly looks – and before Darwin it looked like some designer must have….what else could possibly account for the complexity of a human being, the human brain and so forth, and we eventually found out what it was. It was random mutation, a bunch of carbon oxygen and other stuff for that mutation to work on, and a little bit of everything evolved. Some things did better than others. Those things are more populous than the things that didn’t do well and so it was basically randomness, statistics and the laws of physics that led to our own design.

I think the same is true of the universe. oh incidentally, in the process of designing us, it also designed a hell of a lot of stuff not nearly as intelligent as we are in fact most of the stuff out there is not intelligent. And so it wasn’t that there was an upward trend that just naturally led to intelligence, there was just, everything happened. Everything that could happen happened. Some of it’s still happening.
That seems to be the way, or at least according to one version of cosmology, and it’s by now the most popular version of cosmology, is the universe is exceedingly big, just like the bush or the tree of life, it has many different environments. So many different environments that a very small fraction of them are capable of supporting life and that small fraction of them happens to be the small fraction that ‘looks’ [Susskind’s emphasis] as if it were intelligently designed. Incidentally it’s the only fraction we can exist in which to ask the question. So that’s my view of it other people have different views.

Sean carroll “Darwin undercut [Design] argument:

From the popular You Tube video ANOTHER 50 RENOWNED ACADEMICS SPEAKING ABOUT GOD (Part 2):  

Aristotle would tell you things like if you have an object and you want it to be in motion. You have to keep pushing it because if you stop, it stops. And Aristotle was right. It stopped if I stopped pushing it. 

Physicists like to make fun of Aristotle these days but he was right in the context he was talking about.  So if you believe about fundamental stuff in the world, motion only exists when something is pushing it, then you can imagine that these kinds of arguments make sense that the fact that we see things moving in the universe despite the fact the motion requires a mover makes you believe that there must be some prime mover out there behind the whole thing. Then comes along Galileo and Newton and they saw actually if you think about it carefully the natural status for objects is uniform motion. Its just because of friction dissipation and other annoying features of the world that we see things stop

At a fundamental level things want to keep moving and unless you act upon them they will remain in uniform motion.This notion conservation of momentum completely underminded the sort of metaphysical reasoning behind the arguments for the first cause and prime-mover and things like that , and you can actually see the impact on the theological literature,  once they invented Newtonian mechanics, arguments for the existence of God changed their focus from prime-movers, first cause arguments from contingency to the argument from design. They started inventing machines and they said, “It looks like a machine and maybe there is a machinist and so forth.” Then Darwin to a good extent undercut that argument and we are still living in the aftermath of that.

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(Darwin wrote: But then with me the horrid doubt always arises whether the convictions of man’s mind, which has been developed from the mind of the lower animals, are of any value or at all trustworthy. Would any one trust in the convictions of a monkey’s mind…?)

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Did you know that Charles Darwin said something similar?

Darwin, C. R. to Graham, William 3 July 1881

Nevertheless you have expressed my inward conviction, though far more vividly and clearly than I could have done, that the Universe is not the result of chance.* But then with me the horrid doubt always arises whether the convictions of man’s mind, which has been developed from the mind of the lower animals, are of any value or at all trustworthy. Would any one trust in the convictions of a monkey’s mind, if there are any convictions in such a mind?

(Francis Schaeffer below)

Francis Schaeffer observed:

Can you feel this man? He is in real agony. You can feel the whole of modern man in this tension with Darwin. My mind can’t accept that ultimate of chance, that the universe is a result of chance. He has said 3 or 4 times now that he can’t accept that it all happened by chance and then he will write someone else and say something different. How does he say this (about the mind of a monkey) and then put forth this grand theory? Wrong theory I feel but great just the same. Grand in the same way as when I look at many of the paintings today and I differ with their message but you must say the mark of the mannishness of man are one those paintings titanic-ally even though the message is wrong and this is the same with Darwin. But how can he say you can’t think, you come from a monkey’s mind, and you can’t trust a monkey’s mind, and you can’t trust a monkey’s conviction, so how can you trust me? Trust me here, but not there is what Darwin is saying. In other words it is very selective. 

Ricky in your interview with Russell Brand you asserted, “We are machines. We are machines trying to understand ourselves and that is hard. Will there one day be a computer suffering from anxiety? I reckon so. We are chimps with brains the size of the planet….I don’t understand consciousness…”

Charles Darwin also has a hard time explaining how our consciousness came about:  “This follows from the extreme difficulty or rather impossibility of conceiving this immense and wonderful universe, including man with his capacity of looking far backwards and far into futurity, as the result of blind chance or necessity.“

I’m an evangelical Christian and you are a secularist but I am sure we can both agree with the apostle Paul when he said in First Corinthians 15 that if Christ did not rise from the dead then Christians are to be most pited!!!! A few years ago I attended Easter services and this issue came up and Mark Henry asserted that there is plenty of evidence that indicates that the Bible is historically accurate. Did you know that CHARLES DARWIN thought about this very subject quite a lot?

I just finished reading the online addition of the book Darwin, Francis ed. 1892. Charles Darwin: his life told in an autobiographical chapter, and in a selected series of his published letters [abridged edition]. London: John Murray. There are several points that Charles Darwin makes in this book that were very wise, honest, logical, shocking and some that were not so wise. The Christian Philosopher Francis Schaeffer once said of Darwin’s writings, “Darwin in his autobiography and in his letters showed that all through his life he never really came to a quietness concerning the possibility that chance really explained the situation of the biological world. You will find there is much material on this [from Darwin] extended over many manufacturers years that constantly he was wrestling with this problem.”

When I read the book  Charles Darwin: his life told in an autobiographical chapter, and in a selected series of his published letters, I also read  a commentary on it by Francis Schaeffer and I wanted to both  quote some of Charles Darwin’s own words to you and then include the comments of Francis Schaeffer on those words. 

Darwin, C. R. to Doedes, N. D., 2 Apr 1873

“It is impossible to answer your question briefly; and I am not sure that I could do so, even if I wrote at some length. But I may say that the impossibility of conceiving that this grand and wondrous universe, with our conscious selves, arose through chance, seems to me the chief argument for the existence of God; but whether this is an argument of real value, I have never been able to decide…Nor can I overlook the difficulty from the immense amount of suffering through the world. I am aware that if we admit a First Cause, the mind still craves to know whence it came, and how it arose.”

Jan Constantijn Costerus and Nicolaas Dirk Doedes pictured below:

Francis Schaeffer noted:

What he is saying is if you say there is a first cause, then the mind says, “Where did this come from?” I think this is a bit old fashioned, with some of the modern thinkers, this would not have carry as much weight today as it did when Darwin expressed it. Jean Paul Sartre said it as well as anyone could possibly say it. The philosophic problem is that something is there and not nothing being there. No one has the luxury of beginning with nothing. Nobody I have ever read has put forth that everything came from nothing. I have never met such a person in all my reading,or all my discussion. If you are going to begin with nothing being there, it has to be nothing nothing, and it can’t be something nothing. When someone says they believe nothing is there, in reality they have already built in something there. The only question is do you begin with an impersonal something or a personal something. All human thought is shut up to these two possibilities. Either you begin with an impersonal and then have Darwin’s own dilemma which impersonal plus chance, now he didn’t bring in the amount of time that modern man would though. Modern man has brought in huge amounts of time into the equation as though that would make a difference because I have said many times that time can’t make a qualitative difference but only a quantitative difference. The dilemma is it is either God or chance. Now you find this intriguing thing in Darwin’s own situation, he can’t understand how chance could have produced these two great factors of the universe and its form and the mannishness of man.

From Charles Darwin, Autobiography (1876), in The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, ed. Francis Darwin, vol. 1 (London: John Murray, 1888), pp. 307 to 313.

“Another source of conviction in the existence of God, connected with the reason and not with the feelings, impresses me as having much more weight. This follows from the extreme difficulty or rather impossibility of conceiving this immense and wonderful universe, including man with his capacity of looking far backwards and far into futurity, as the result of blind chance or necessity. When thus reflecting, I feel compelled to look to a First Cause having an intelligent mind in some degree analogous to that of man; and I deserve to be called a Theist. This conclusion was strong in my mind about the time, as far as I can remember, when I wrote the Origin of Species, and it is since that time that it has very gradually, with many fluctuations, become weaker. But then arises the doubt…”

Francis Schaeffer commented:

On the basis of his reason he has to say there must be an intelligent mind, someone analogous to man. You couldn’t describe the God of the Bible better. That is man is made in God’s image  and therefore, you know a great deal about God when you know something about man. What he is really saying here is that everything in my experience tells me it must be so, and my mind demands it is so. Not just these feelings he talked about earlier but his MIND demands it is so, but now how does he counter this? How does he escape this? Here is how he does it!!!

Charles Darwin went on to observe:  “—can the mind of man, which has, as I fully believe, been developed from a mind as low as that possessed by the lowest animals, be trusted when it draws such grand conclusions?”

Francis Schaeffer asserted:

So he says my mind can only come to one conclusion, and that is there is a mind behind it all. However, the doubt comes because his mind has come from the lowest form of earthworm, so how can I trust my mind. But this is a joker isn’t it?  Then how can you trust his mind to support such a theory as this? He proved too much. The fact that Darwin found it necessary to take such an escape shows the tremendous weight of Romans 1, that the only escape he can make is to say how can I trust my mind when I come from the lowest animal the earthworm? Obviously think of the grandeur of his concept, I don’t think it is true, but the grandeur of his concept, so what you find is that Darwin is presenting something here that is wrong I feel, but it is not nothing. It is a tremendously grand concept that he has put forward. So he is accepting the dictates of his mind to put forth a grand concept which he later can’t accept in this basic area with his reason, but he rejects what he could accept with his reason on this escape. It really doesn’t make sense. This is a tremendous demonstration of the weakness of his own position.

Cambridge Biologist Patrick Bateson comments:

In the You Tube video “A Further 50 Renowned Academics Speaking About God (Part 1),” He asserted:
‎”I’m not a believer.”
Are you an agnostic or an atheist would you say?
“Well, that’s a good question, I think… Darwin’s response when he was asked whether he was an atheist was I don’t know, so I think agnostic. I think I’m actually an atheist when all is said and done, if I’m really honest about it, I really don’t believe in a God.”

Darwin also noted, “I cannot pretend to throw the least light on such abstruse problems. The mystery of the beginning of all things is insoluble by us, and I for one must be content to remain an Agnostic.”

Francis Schaeffer remarked:

What a stupid reply and I didn’t say wicked. It just seems to me that here is 2 plus 2 equals 36 at this particular place.

Darwin, C. R. to Graham, William 3 July 1881

Nevertheless you have expressed my inward conviction, though far more vividly and clearly than I could have done, that the Universe is not the result of chance.* But then with me the horrid doubt always arises whether the convictions of man’s mind, which has been developed from the mind of the lower animals, are of any value or at all trustworthy. Would any one trust in the convictions of a monkey’s mind, if there are any convictions in such a mind?

Francis Schaeffer observed:

Can you feel this man? He is in real agony. You can feel the whole of modern man in this tension with Darwin. My mind can’t accept that ultimate of chance, that the universe is a result of chance. He has said 3 or 4 times now that he can’t accept that it all happened by chance and then he will write someone else and say something different. How does he say this (about the mind of a monkey) and then put forth this grand theory? Wrong theory I feel but great just the same. Grand in the same way as when I look at many of the paintings today and I differ with their message but you must say the mark of the mannishness of man are one those paintings titanic-ally even though the message is wrong and this is the same with Darwin. But how can he say you can’t think, you come from a monkey’s mind, and you can’t trust a monkey’s mind, and you can’t trust a monkey’s conviction, so how can you trust me? Trust me here, but not there is what Darwin is saying. In other words it is very selective. 

Now we are down to the last year of Darwin’s life.

* The Duke of Argyll (Good Words, April 1885, p. 244) has recorded a few words on this subject, spoken by my father in the last year of his life. “. . . in the course of that conversation I said to Mr. Darwin, with reference to some of his own remarkable works on the Fertilisation of Orchids, and upon The Earthworms,and various other observations he made of the wonderful contrivances for certain purposes in nature—I said it was impossible to look at these without seeing that they were the effect and the expression of mind. I shall never forget Mr. Darwin’s answer. He looked at me very hard and said, ‘Well, that often comes over me with overwhelming force; but at other times,’ and he shook his head vaguely, adding, ‘it seems to go away.’”

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Duke of Argyll (1823-1900)

(Despite differing opinions, Darwin and Argyll had great respect for each other and he served as one of the pall bearers at Darwin’s funeral.)

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Francis Schaeffer summarized :

And this is the great Darwin, and it makes you cry inside. This is the great Darwin and he ends as a man in total tension.

Francis Schaeffer noted that in Darwin’s 1876 Autobiography that Darwin he is going to set forth two arguments for God in this and again you will find when he comes to the end of this that he is in tremendous tension. Darwin wrote, 

At the present day the most usual argument for the existence of an intelligent God is drawn from the deep inward conviction and feelings which are experienced by most persons.Formerly I was led by feelings such as those just referred to (although I do not think that the religious sentiment was ever strongly developed in me), to the firm conviction of the existence of God and of the immortality of the soul. In my Journal I wrote that whilst standing in the midst of the grandeur of a Brazilian forest, ‘it is not possible to give an adequate idea of the higher feelings of wonder, admiration, and devotion which fill and elevate the mind.’ I well remember my conviction that there is more in man than the mere breath of his body; but now the grandest scenes would not cause any such convictions and feelings to rise in my mind. It may be truly said that I am like a man who has become colour-blind.

Francis Schaeffer remarked:

Now Darwin says when I look back and when I look at nature I came to the conclusion that man can not be just a fly! But now Darwin has moved from being a younger man to an older man and he has allowed his presuppositions to enter in to block his logic. These things at the end of his life he had no intellectual answer for. To block them out in favor of his theory. Remember the letter of his that said he had lost all aesthetic senses when he had got older and he had become a clod himself. Now interesting he says just the same thing, but not in relation to the arts, namely music, pictures, etc, but to nature itself. Darwin said, “But now the grandest scenes would not cause any such convictions  and feelings to rise in my mind. It may be truly said that I am like a man who has become colour-blind…” So now you see that Darwin’s presuppositions have not only robbed him of the beauty of man’s creation in art, but now the universe. He can’t look at it now and see the beauty. The reason he can’t see the beauty is for a very, very , very simple reason: THE BEAUTY DRIVES HIM TO DISTRACTION. THIS IS WHERE MODERN MAN IS AND IT IS HELL. The art is hell because it reminds him of man and how great man is, and where does it fit in his system? It doesn’t. When he looks at nature and it’s beauty he is driven to the same distraction and so consequently you find what has built up inside him is a real death, not  only the beauty of the artistic but the beauty of nature. He has no answer in his logic and he is left in tension.  He dies and has become less than human because these two great things (such as any kind of art and the beauty of  nature) that would make him human  stand against his theory.

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Erasmus Alvey Darwin with Charles Darwin’s sons

DO THESE WORDS OF DARWIN APPLY TO YOU TODAY? “I am like a man who has become colour-blind.“

Martin Rees comments:

Ian Sample spoke to the astronomer royal Martin Rees on Tuesday before the announcement that he had won the Templeton Prize.

I suppose one thing I would say, from my BBC lectures, I think doing science makes me realize that even the simplest things are pretty hard to understand and that makes me suspicious of people who believe they’ve got anything more than an incomplete and metaphorical understanding of any deep aspect of reality. And also I see human beings as not the culmination, but only a stage in the marvelous unfolding of evolution, because the timeline ahead is as long as the time that has lapsed up to now. Those are respects in which my professional interests affect my response to dogmatic religion. But as I say, I participate in occasional religious services which are the customs of the society I grew up in. I’m not allergic to religion.

Theodor W. Hänsch comments:

DO YOU THINK THERE IS LIFE AFTER DEATH? ” I can’t see that for an individual.”  OR THAT THERE IS HEAVEN OR HELL? “No.” WHEN YOU SEE THE PRECISION OF THE ATOM DOES THAT RELATE TO INTELLIGENT DESIGN OR TO A RELIGIOUS APPROACH TO THE WORLD? “Naturally all things around us look like they have been designed intelligently. So the principles that led to their being of course in some ways implies some intelligence but it may not be the intelligence in a person like being, but intelligence is it’s own. In it’s own mechanism, how nature evolves.

Alan Guth

“My feeling about the word God is that I’m not sure if I know really what it means. I certainly have a big place in my philosophy for the unknown – I don’t think at this point we have any way of knowing where the laws of physics came from, we could hope that when we really understand the laws of physics that they will describe how the universe came into existence…

…I have never seen much in the idea that the universe was designed. My problem with the concept is that it always seems that the designer is more sophisticated and more complicated than the object being designed – that is certainly true with the way it works with cars, building, and trucks. So, if one needs a designer that is more complex than the thing being designed, the designer doesn’t help explain the design – it becomes an infinite regress.

So, I’ll freely admit that I have no idea why the laws of physics are what they are – and I also have no idea how to even go about approaching that question – but to me just saying that there is a designer doesn’t help at all.”

(Below is the message I first since to Anthony Flew and he wrote me back and said he enjoyed listening to it)

I have more articles posted on my blog about the last few yearsof Antony Flew’s life than any other website in the world probably. The reason is very simple. I had the opportunity to correspond with Antony Flew back in the middle 90’s and he said that he had the opportunity to listen to several of the cassette tapes that I sent him with messages from Adrian Rogers and he also responded to several of the points I put in my letters that I got from Francis Schaeffer’s materials. The ironic thing was that I purchased the sermon IS THE BIBLE TRUE? originally from the Bellevue Baptist Church Bookstore in 1992 and in the same bookstore in 2008 I bought the book THERE IS A GOD by Antony Flew. Back in 1993 I decided to contact some of the top secular thinkers of our time and I got my initial list of individuals from those scholars that were mentioned in the works of both Francis Schaeffer and Adrian Rogers. Schaeffer had quoted Flew in his book ESCAPE FROM REASON. It was my opinion after reviewing the evidence that Antony Flew was the most influential atheistic philosopher of the 20th century.

The Fine Tuning Argument for the Existence of God fromAntony Flew!

Imagine entering a hotel room on your next vacation. The CD player on the bedside table is softly playing a track from your favorite recording. The framed print over the bed is identical to the image that hangs over the fireplace at home. The room is scented with your favorite fragrance…You step over to the minibar, open the door, and stare in wonder at the contents. Your favorite beverage. Your favorite cookies and candy. Even the brand of bottled water you prefer…You notice the book on the desk: it’s the latest volume by your favorite author…

Chances are, with each new discovery about your hospitable new environment, you would be less inclined to think it has all a mere coincidence, right? You might wonder how the hotel managers acquired such detailed information about you. You might marvel at their meticulous preparation. You might even double-check what all this is going to cost you. But you would certainly be inclined to believe that someone knew you were coming.      There Is A God  (2007)  p.113-4

As a secularist you believe that it is sad indeed that millions of Christians are hoping for heaven but no heaven is waiting for them. Paul took a close look at this issue too. I Corinthians 15 asserts:

¹² But if it is preached that Christ has been raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? ¹³ If there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. ¹⁴ And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith. ¹⁵ More than that, we are then found to be false witnesses about God, for we have testified about God that he raised Christ from the dead. But he did not raise him if in fact the dead are not raised. ¹⁶ For if the dead are not raised, then Christ has not been raised either.¹⁷ And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins. ¹⁸ Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ are lost. ¹⁹ If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied.

I sent you a CD a couple of years ago that starts off with the song DUST IN THE WIND by Kerry Livgren of the group KANSAS which was a hit song in 1978 when it rose to #6 on the charts because so many people connected with the message of the song. It included these words, “All we do, crumbles to the ground though we refuse to see, Dust in the Wind, All we are is dust in the wind, Don’t hang on, Nothing lasts forever but the Earth and Sky, It slips away, And all your money won’t another minute buy.”

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Kerry Livgren himself said that he wrote the song because he saw where man was without a personal God in the picture. Solomon pointed out in the Book of Ecclesiastes that those who believe that God doesn’t exist must accept three things. FIRST, death is the end and SECOND, chance and time are the only guiding forces in this life.  FINALLY, power reigns in this life and the scales are never balanced. The Christian can  face death and also confront the world knowing that it is not determined by chance and time alone and finally there is a judge who will balance the scales.

Both Kerry Livgren and the bass player Dave Hope of Kansas became Christians eventually. Kerry Livgrenfirst tried Eastern Religions and Dave Hope had to come out of a heavy drug addiction. I was shocked and elated to see their personal testimony on The 700 Club in 1981 and that same  interview can be seen on You Tube today. Livgren lives in Topeka, Kansas today where he teaches “Diggers,” a Sunday school class at Topeka Bible Church. DAVE HOPE is the head of Worship, Evangelism and Outreach at Immanuel Anglican Church in Destin, Florida.

The answer to find meaning in life is found in putting your faith and trust in Jesus Christ. The Bible is true from cover to cover and can be trusted.

Thank you again for your time and I know how busy you are.

Sincerely,

Everette Hatcher, everettehatcher@gmail.com, http://www.thedailyhatch.org, cell ph 501-920-5733, 13900 Cottontail Lane, Alexander, AR 72002

PS: What is the meaning of life? Find it in the end of the open letter I wrote to you on April 23, 2020. 

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Below is the workforce of THE TAMBURY GAZETTE 

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Seen below is the third episode of AFTERLIFE (season 1) when Matt takes Tony to a comedy club with front row seats to cheer him up but it turns into disaster!!!

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Part 1 “Why have integrity in Godless Darwinian Universe where Might makes Right?”

Part 2 “My April 14, 2016 Letter to Ricky mentioned Book of Ecclesiastes and the Meaninglessness of Life”

Part 3 Letter about Brandon Burlsworth concerning suffering and pain and evil in the world.  “Why didn’t Jesus save her [from cancer]?” (Tony’s 10 year old nephew George in episode 2)

Part 4 Letter on Solomon on Death Tony in episode one, “It should be everyone’s moral duty to kill themselves.”

Part 5 Letter on subject of Learning in Ecclesiastes “I don’t read books of fiction but mainly science and philosophy”

Part 6 Letter on Luxuries in Ecclesiastes Part 6, The Music of AFTERLIFE (Part A)

Part 7 Letter on Labor in Ecclesiastes My Letter to Ricky on Easter in 2017 concerning Book of Ecclesiastes and the legacy of a person’s life work

Part 8 Letter on Liquor in Ecclesiastes Tony’s late wife Lisa told him, “Don’t get drunk all the time alright? It will only make you feel worse in the log run!”

Part 9 Letter on Laughter in Ecclesiastes , I said of laughter, “It is foolishness;” and of mirth, “What does it accomplish?” Ecclesiastes 2:2

Part 10 Final letter to Ricky on Ladies in Ecclesiastes “I gathered a chorus of singers to entertain me with song, and—most exquisite of all pleasures— voluptuous maidens for my bed…behold, all was vanity and a striving after wind, and there was nothing to be gained under the sun” Ecclesiastes 2:8-11.

Part 11 Letter about Daniel Stanhope and optimistic humanism  “If man has been kicked up out of that which is only impersonal by chance , then those things that make him man-hope of purpose and significance, love, motions of morality and rationality, beauty and verbal communication-are ultimately unfulfillable and thus meaningless.” (Francis Schaeffer)

Part 12 Letter on how pursuit of God is only way to get Satisfaction Dan Jarrell “[In Ecclesiastes] if one seeks satisfaction they will never find it. In fact, every pleasure will be fleeting and can not be sustained, BUT IF ONE SEEKS GOD THEN ONE FINDS SATISFACTION”

Part 13 Letter to Stephen Hawking on Solomon realizing he will die just as a dog will die “For men and animals both breathe the same air, and both die. So mankind has no real advantage over the beasts; what an absurdity!” Ecclesiastes

Part 14 Letter to Stephen Hawking on 3 conclusions of humanism and Bertrand Russell destruction of optimistic humanism. “That Man is the product of causes which had no prevision of the end they were achieving; that his origin, his growth, his hopes and fears, his loves and his beliefs, are but the outcome of accidental collocations of atoms—no philosophy which rejects them can hope to stand. Only within the scaffolding of these truths, only on the firm foundation of unyielding despair, can the soul’s habitation henceforth be safely built.”(Bertrand Russell, Free Man’s Worship)

Part 15 Letter to Stephen Hawking on Leonardo da Vinci and Solomon and Meaningless of life “I hate life. As far as I can see, what happens on earth is a bad business. It’s smoke—and spitting into the wind” Ecclesiastes Book of Ecclesiastes Part 15 “I hate life. As far as I can see, what happens on earth is a bad business. It’s smoke—and spitting into the wind” Ecclesiastes 2:17

Part 16 Letter to Stephen Hawking on Solomon’s longing for death but still fear of death and 5 conclusions of humanism on life UNDER THE SUN. Francis Schaeffer “Life is just a series of continual and unending cycles and man is stuck in the middle of the cycle. Youth, old age, Death. Does Solomon at this point embrace nihilism? Yes!!! He exclaims that the hates life (Ecclesiastes 2:17), he longs for death (4:2-3) Yet he stills has a fear of death (2:14-16)”

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Mandeep Dhillon as Sandy on her first assignment in ‘After Life’. (Twitter)

A still from ‘After Life’ that captures the vibe of the Tambury Gazette. (Twitter)

Michael Scott of THE OFFICE (USA) with Ricky Gervais 

After Life on Netflix stars Ricky Gervais as a bereaved husband (Image: Netflix)

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Psychiatrist played by Paul Kaye seen below.

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Tony Johnson with his dog Brandi seen below:

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If Death is the end then what is the point Kath asks below:

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Kath: You are an atheist?

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Francis Schaeffer THE AGE of FRAGMENTATION

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