Life Matters - October 8, 2025

One healthy, albeit balance-challenged, elder gentleman going to the carwash to wash half a dozen slatted (properly called venetian by proper people) blinds. What could go wrong; right? Oh sure, Sadie had that dubious look on her face when I told her ‘‘Oh no problem, I’ll take them to a carwash.” Perhaps the apartment cleaning, after a certain messy tenant left it in sore need of cleansing, had us both opting for wishful thinking over the probable. Whatever. I soon discovered that what could go wrong was approximately equivalent to the number of slats on said blinds. It was like the blinds leading the blind… 

The first indicator that all was not well in elderville was an awkward attempt to stretch out the blinds which, for all you aspiring elders out there, takes a minimum of three hands. One to hold the top, two to hold the bottom so the slats can be pulled from a sandwich position to open for pressure washing. Yeah, pressure washing… I’ll leave the rest to all vivid imaginations… Suffice it to say that I was your guinea pig so you can spare yourself the twisting of your body into variegated shapes of a pretzel in a valiant attempt to win the battle over flimsy slats, which, despite their flimsy makeup could seem to have a mind of their own as they flip this way and that. 

Flipping this way and that seems to be a people problem as well. Which cannot be called a problem if we flip from the wrong way to the right way and then stay on that right way of repentance long enough to be, and stay, cleansed. I think though, if we could see all the flipping going on, as if from outer space, we would marvel afresh at God’s patience with fickle humankind. 

God’s wrath will, His Word warns us, eventually bring His vengeance upon those who persist in open or hidden sins of the flesh, in an unrepentant state of rebellion, or simply in unbelief of His correcting Law and of His Answer to our need for His mercy, Jesus Christ, being God’s Word manifest in the flesh, seen of angels, caught up into glory. 

‘’You will be as gods, knowing good and evil.” So said the devil to our first parents, Adam and Eve in Eden of old. Is it not evident that the devil is whispering that alluring deception into the spirit-ears of deceived humanity to this day? One more step, one more obstacle to overcome, and then…words unspoken…still…is that not the push? The drive. To be as gods. Man to decide for himself what is good. And what is evil. And so to replace God? To make God irrelevant? 

Fallen humanity has always wished to have its own way. Until reality stares one in the face and repentance is wrought in that face to face encounter with Truth. Reality. Facing things, humanity, this world with its inventions, and our own selves, as they, and we, really actually are. Not as wishful thinkers, but being reality seekers. We are all so naturally self-deceptive that it takes a concerted, a consistent effort, to seek out and to know the Truth. 

The devil cannot create anything. All he is capable of is to take of God’s creation and twist it into a deformed aberration of its original intent. A distorted caricature. What God means for good, satan, the devil, means for evil. And satan cannot use any of it until, and if, such a time comes that God Himself allows it. (see the book of Job) 

This invention coming down the pike these days, through the discovery of created components vital to its function, is being referred to as artificial intelligence. (AI) I say ‘referred to’ because nothing is, at its core, artificial. Knowledge, intelligence itself, exudes, and comes out of, God. He retains or releases it at will. Knowledge, intelligence itself, can be employed to good causes or to evil. 

Will AI facilitate mankind to being more like God or like the devil? I think all of us innately know the answer to that question. Satan, also called the dragon, was cast out of heaven for his pride and in his pride attempted to lift himself up above God Himself. A created being attempting to replace the Creator. God would have none of it, and by His steadfast casting out of satan, He avoided the implosion, or explosion, of all things as all is held together by His intelligent power. 

 Revelation 13 records for all of us, the final, complete and everlasting defeat of the dragon through the life, death, resurrection and ascension of Jesus Christ our Lord and only Savior. With God is no variableness neither shadow of turning.  (James 1:17) 

Life Matters!