What I Find So Amazing...

I can think of twelve people considered to be the most fortunate in the whole of human history. I even have their names: Peter, James, John, Andrew, Bartholomew, Thomas, Matthew, Philip, Thaddaeus, Simon, James, Judas. To any reader, whether he is a Christian or not, these twelve names should immediately strike a sense of familiarity about them. They were the twelve apostles of Jesus Christ, who had the unique privilege of spending three years of their lives in the presence of the Son of God, the incarnation of the Second Person of the Holy Trinity. A privilege the rest of mankind had never experienced.

Even among them, Jesus had his three favourites: Peter, James and John. As James and John were brothers, both sons of Zebedee, so Peter and Andrew were also brothers, sons of Jonas. Yet Andrew was the only one of the four brothers who was not selected to ascend the mountain to witness the Transformation. I wonder how Andrew would have felt as what might be taken as excluded from a specific clique, especially involving his own brother Peter. After all, he was just a fisherman too, along with James and John. Nothing special. However, he didn't have long to ponder, because as the remaining nine were milling around at the foot of the hill, along comes this stranger whose son was demon possessed. Having witnessed a number of successful cases of deliverance by Jesus, these nine attempted to give this one a go, but without any success. Stumped, and most likely downcast at the spirit's stubbornness to shift, how fortunate it was for the Lord himself to appear at the right moment with his three friends.

Rivalry between these men was never too far below the surface. On a couple of occasions a quarrel would arise on who was the greatest. The Lord's answer to their dispute was that anyone who wants to be the greatest must be the servant and humble as a young child. Then according to Matthew 20:20-27, the mother of James and John approached Jesus with a request that her two sons would sit on the most privileged thrones in the Kingdom. These two had already witnessed the Transformation, therefore it was no big surprise that the other ten were indignant, including Peter, the only other who was also up on that mountain. Again Jesus rebuked them with the same answer of servitude. I guess that the quest for personal status was not that much different to what it is today. Yet Peter, James and John were fishermen, not unlike any commercial fishermen with us at present. Among the remaining nine who were left behind included a Zealot, a taxman, and also the group's treasurer.

Which surprises me in a way, why Matthew was not the treasurer. After all, as the tax collector, he had quite an experience with handling money. Instead, the role went to Judas Iscariot, whose background I know virtually nothing about, except that he found delight in dipping into the funds for his own pleasure. However, according to some sources, Iscariot might have been a scholar himself, perhaps some form of philosopher. In Franco Zeffirelli's film Jesus of Nazareth, Judas Iscariot presents himself as a scholar to Jesus, not like those scummy fishermen whom the Lord seem to favour. Instead, he encourages Jesus to behold, the scholar. The Lord takes him in, a contrast to being initially called as was the case with the others. And whatever his scholarship might have been, he was entrusted with the funds, rather than Matthew. 

"Behold, the scholar!" Judas in Jesus of Nazareth.

And what a tragic end for the scholar! As a result of the guilt he felt after betraying Jesus to the Sanhedrin, he hanged himself and departed from this planet into a lost eternity, the only one of the Twelve who was shut out from Heaven. I suppose money had everything to do with his downfall. At first he most likely persuaded Jesus to allow himself to take care of the money bag instead of Matthew having to do it, using his scholarship as a vantage point. Then he helped himself whenever no one was looking. Then he bartered with the Sanhedrin and with the Pharisees to hand Jesus to them for thirty pieces of silver. That is a large amount of money, considered to be a nest-egg he can retire upon and live the rest of his life in luxury. 

I suppose that in all cultures, both past and present, there has always been something grand about a scholar. Someone to look up to, an icon for respect, maybe even a god to worship. In ancient Greece, there was a whole pantheon of bickering divinities, whether they stole each other's wives or performed some other unseemly acts, nevertheless a temple was always found in a city which was dedicated to each one of them. Could these divinities stem from some very human heroes or from men of outstanding learning? That said, great scholars such as Solon, Pythagoras, Eratosthenes, Hippocrates, Plato, Aristotle, and many more, none had ever made it into the realm of the pantheon, although their names remain familiar to this day. Therefore I tend to believe that all those within the realm of the ancient Egyptian, Assyrian, Babylonian, Persian, Greek and Roman pantheons were antediluvian "heroic men of renown" - offspring between fallen angels and pre-Flood human women, according to Genesis 6:1-4, with tremendous mental and intellectual powers and physical prowess.

I am so glad that such sexual intimacy between fallen angels and the daughters of men had ended with the Deluge. I dread what our world would be like if these guys were around at present! Worse than that, chances that if the Flood wasn't sent during Noah's day, such continuous interbreeding would have eventually choked the Messianic Line. With such Nephilim existing within the line of Shem, Abraham and David, the incarnation of the Son of God would never have occurred, due to the impairment of the genome. Instead, according to 2 Peter 2:4, all the angels who had sinned, with the exception of Lucifer, are now confined to Tartarus, a subterranean prison of gloom and darkness, awaiting Judgement, whilst every demon most likely is a Nephilim disembodied by the Flood, and according to Ephesians 6:12, even right up to the present, roaming the air in want of a body, and is fully aware of its own defeat by the death and Resurrection of Jesus Christ. The angelic confinement to Tartarus, I believe, is to prevent the interbreeding between those supernatural beings and human women from reoccurring, therefore preserving the Messianic Line and fulfilling the Promise of Genesis 3:15. One way of putting it, the Flood of Noah was also an act of mercy towards the redemption of mankind as well as a punishment for the wicked and the nonredeemable.

And so as the ancestors deified these Nephilim to divinity and built pagan temples in dedication to them, so it looks to be normal human nature to exalt the great among us to this day. And that includes church life where roving guest speakers are assigned greater honour than the regular preacher or church pastor. The snag with that is heresy can be passed onto his listeners in a very subtle way which seems so orthodox, so Biblical. The worst case scenario is when someone comes along, who claim to be Oxford- or Cambridge-educated, and then publicly preach his denial of Eternal Security of the believer, such content denying the Omniscience of God and weakening the effect of the Atonement. And as I have so recently written already, this has happened. Rather than edify, the sermon caused a near-riot at a theatre where the preaching took place, and counselling sessions were needed afterwards. But after all that, whenever I advocated Eternal Security, someone would look me straight in my eyes and tell me off for daring to cross such a well-educated individual!

With the highly educated held in such reverential respect, I could not help let out a loud groan whilst still in bed. For the morning bulletin on the radio announced the death of one of the nation's top scientists, Professor Stephen Hawking. My heart was sad, very sad for him. This was because Dr. Hawking declared himself to be an atheist. Indeed, my skin always crawl whenever I hear of the death of a known atheist.

Am I being arrogant? After all, who am I to determine the eternal state of someone who has just died? No, in myself I have no right whatsoever to say whether this particular person is now in Hell or not. The case of Ananias and Sapphira is good case point here. Luke does not state their eternal destiny following their deaths as a result of deceitfulness and lying to the Holy Spirit (Acts 5:1-11). This particular couple was seeking glory and honour within the church without deserving it. So they sold a field and gave some of their money to the apostles, but lied when they said that their money was all they had. They kept part of it for themselves and paid the ultimate price. But we are not told where they are spending eternity. And so theologians can be locked in a debate over this issue, without the Bible's blessing.

By contrast, Stephen Hawking had no intention of being deliberately deceitful. He was a man fascinated with science. He admitted his admiration for the Universe, and especially with Black Holes - how were they created, how powerful their energy, and what would be the consequence if our planet was sucked into one, and how long do they last before finally expiring. This with his study of the Universe and how it all began - without acknowledging the Creator. He genuinely believed, without malicious intent, that the complexity of the Universe, our Earth with all its life, and Evolution and the vast time spans needed for such to happen, all ruled out the need of a Creator, who is now confined to ignorance on scientific origins of our Universe. Indeed, according to Hawking, science has replaced for the need to believe in God.

Dr. Hawking was well known for his motor neurone disease which weakened his muscles to the point of paralysis, confining him to a wheelchair. With marvellous technology, he was able to make his thoughts known by a monotone voice emitting from a computer fixed in front of him. Of all the disabled he was one of the more fortunate ones. Up to the age of twenty he was able-bodied, and his brilliant mind and advanced academic progress has already earned him a place at Cambridge. Had he been born already disabled, chances that he would never had become a modern-day Albert Einstein. Instead, his middle-class upbringing gave him such advantage before his health folded in on itself. Indeed, there is that tendency within society to look upon a physically disabled person born that way as if he is also simple-minded as well, and incapable of high-level learning. Dr. Hawking was fortunate indeed.

The late Stephen Hawking.

But what I know of him, little as it might be, I wasn't able to see any misdeed or anything unseemly about him. He was for the well-being of humanity, even if that means remaining in the EU. A complete opposite to the far-right who promotes violence, even murder, towards the ethnically diverse and those who tends to be more internationally minded. Rather like the Britain First leaders and their members who were willing to beat Muslims to bloody pulp in the name of Christianity and patriotism. Dr. Hawking had none of any of that in him.

Hawking loved science, he wanted to do good to the rest of mankind, he wanted to educate, but he was also an atheist. But I still refuse to say where he is now. It is not up to me to judge, for that belongs to God alone. Yet I mourn for him. If only -if only - he knew Jesus Christ as his Saviour. Would knowing Christ impair his knowledge? Rather, his knowledge would have been enriched. He would have still studied the Universe and glory in its complexity, then give thanks to God for his magnificent creation, opening the door for praise and worship whilst wondering in awe and admiration.

Such a brilliant mind. Such a sky-high intelligence quotient. But he never knew God his Creator. 

And that is what I find so amazing.

What Aliens Would See...

There has been a stir of excitement across the media lately! What I find incredible is the sense of optimism that we may not be alone in the Universe after all. And this is not from a group of pseudoscience crackpots who are devotees of author Erich von Daniken, but instead, this sense of optimism has arisen from a team of accredited academics - four I can think of straight away, because their names appeared in the Press in direct association and support for this latest phenomenon - a passing meteor, comet or asteroid resembling a spaceship. Not that this alien space-travellers belief is just a passing fancy, or a momentary fad. Rather, I had already observed as far back in 1997, that just about every other shop at Santa Barbara in California displayed these inflatable alien dolls for sale, with their characteristic large heads, large featureless eyes, a small nose and a tiny mouth, all held by a long thin neck joining the head to a slender and rather puny torso, with flailing arms and legs. In short, these creatures sporting a rather large cranium had evolved into super-intelligent beings whose bodies had gradually allowed their alimentary canal to degrade until all but obsolete - hence no longer the need to eat and drink for daily sustenance.

  

And these scientists had to contain their excitement until hard evidence for extraterrestrial life contained in this passing object is verified. These four scientists were the most prominent among others who held an optimistic view over the likelihood of the existence of alien spacemen. They are Stephen Hawking CH CBE FRS FRSA, English Theoretical Physicist and Cosmologist of Cambridge University, Professor Avi Loeb, an Astrophysicist at Harvard University, Dr. Andrew Siemion of SETI, California, and Dr. Jason Wright of Penn State University who, in all seriousness, believes that the spaceship - which recently passed so close to our planet and caused such widespread excitement - has broken down engines, hence causing it to tumble through space at 196,000 miles an hour. And so this four hundred metre-long cigar-shaped structure pays a visit to our Solar system, its course gets deflected by the gravity force of our Sun, and skims past the Earth before spiralling away towards outer space. This object, because of its unusual shape, conforms to intelligent design and engineering specifically to travel through outer space with the minimal risk of strikes by meteorites and space dust, hence their belief in it's artificial origin. By contrast, it was always observed that any other natural space rock is normally spheroid, including potato-shaped.

The object was given an affectionate name Oumuamua, an Hawaiian name to mean A messenger from afar arriving first. So here, assuming that it is a spaceship manned by rather handsome-looking humanoids with enormous heads in relation with their slim, rather weak and emaciated-looking bodies, I'll make a daring assumption on the conversation which took place among the crew as the ship passes over our planet, translated from silent telepathy into verbal English.

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Captain Ziglad stood, looking at the large crystal in front of him. The crystal itself, being nearly a metre in diameter, was quite an imposing piece of alien equipment. Then by telepathic will, he was able to zoom in on the image to see a city bustling with people, with streets crammed with slow-moving vehicles. What appears to be a river cutting through the middle of the metropolis, making it into two distinct halves, yet still connected to each other by a series of road bridges. The captain sighed, shaking his head.

His Lieutenant asked, "What's the problem, sir?"

"These primitive-looking tribes inhabiting this planet! They actually use fuel-consuming motors to propel their mode of transport. No surprise that their atmospheric consistence doesn't look very good. And furthermore, there looks to be a huge maggot crawling along - several of them, in fact."

The Lieutenant looked closely. "Third rock from its star?"

"Yes, that's right." The captain answered, just as the Lieutenant's young son runs into the large cockpit chamber from another part of the ship. "I'm focusing on what looks to be an odd-shaped island just off a huge continent to the south of it. The island is located off the far north west of the continent by a narrow strip of ocean, and looks to be heavily populated."

A third crew member, Jor-El, who was also looking closely at the crystal, chipped in. "You mention several large maggots? I believe that they are not giant insect larvae, in fact, they aren't even organic, but instead they are a form of public transportation. It does look as though they run on distinct tracks, separate from the smaller vehicles."

"Well," the captain concluded. "This planet was first visited by our sister ship The Nostromo, some time ago."

"When?" the boy asked rather excitedly.

"Well, going by our calculations, it's only a few months back." Jor-El answered. "But according to their calculations, it was more than two thousand solar years ago."

"Solar years? What's that, sir?"

The Lieutenant chipped in, "Ziggy, every planet travels on a path circling its star. This is known as an orbit. When the planet completes its orbit, that is, finishing at the same point where it started, we call that a complete "year". Since we call this particular star Solaris, we say one solar year. The Nostromo hovered over this planet just over two thousand solar years ago. To the inhabitants of this planet, the Nostromo shone for a while as a very bright star hovering in the sky."

"Wow!" Ziggy exclaimed.

"And furthermore - " Jor-El contributed, "Our unusual star was shining down on this planet about two thousand solar years after The Nostromo was launched from our home site. And according to what my instincts seems to be telling me, the timing of the launch itself seems to indicate some kind of promise our God Yahweh had made to them. Hmm, could it be that God had actually visited these inhabitants in person at a time coinciding with our Nostromo's visit? A very interesting speculation indeed! Especially when considering no divine visits were ever made to us." Jor-El was speaking more to himself than to Ziggy or to the other two in the cockpit.

"Surely these inhabitants cannot know the same God who created us!" Ziggy exclaimed, shocked with surprise.

"And why not?" Jor-El asked. "There is only one God, and if he had created us, he must have created these inhabitants as well. And fairly recently, as with us. Furthermore, I venture to say that his divine name Yahweh is known by these people too."

Both the Captain and his Lieutenant studied the live image within the crystal with single concentration. It was Jor-El, apparently the most outspoken member of the crew, who remarked, "This is rather like one of our scientists examining microbes swarming within a single drop of water. In God's name, every vehicle, every ship, even their airships, are all powered by fuel-burning engines!"

Then the Captain added, "How very much unlike the rather large telepathy-monitored crystal located within the rear of our ship Oumuamua, with no need for any fuel whatsoever, yet capable of powering our spaceship up to close to the speed of light. And furthermore, its velocity remains in full control of my own will. No doubt, down there they must have some physical, hand-controlled gadget, or even a set of gadgets, to monitor their mode of travel."

Then by zooming further into the image, again it was Jor-El who remarked, "The anatomy of these people consisting of a smaller head in relation to body size. Not only does this indicate almost an entire lack of telepathic powers and the possibility of lower intelligence, but their stronger, more muscly torso, legs and arms indicates the use of heavy labour as a daily necessity."

"But it's their behaviour which bothers me." the Lieutenant responded. "They all seem to be rushing about, without real peace within themselves, and looks to be prone to committing violence against each other. Furthermore, they are all clothed, and not naked as we all are. Do you think this matter of clothing might had something to do with their relationship with their divine Creator?"

"A strong possibility!" Both Captain Ziglad and Jor-El answered in unison. Jor-El continued, "Chances that sometime in their history they, or their ancestor, had disobeyed God. Considering that all the other creatures we had seen inhabiting this planet are not clothed yet able to survive well, indicates that clothing has to do with their standing with God rather than coping with the cold."

"I doubt whether their clothing has much to do with mere atmospheric conditions." Captain Ziglad agreed. "A little earlier I took a look at the planet's equatorial area and I saw several cities in that region with everyone wearing clothes. Lighter dressed, as this region is considerably warmer than where we have been observing, but still the need for clothing. This shows that it's little to do with the climate. Rather it has a much deeper meaning."

Just then Amor-El, the Lieutenant's wife and Ziggy's mother, walks into the cockpit. "It's time for your protein pills." she announced. Everyone present held out his hand to receive from her a small and easy-to-swallow pill which suited their tiny mouths. They all knew that this pill is enough to sustain them for a long while. And there were plenty more in stock.

After this the party withdrew from the crystal to sit at a lounge adjoining the cockpit chamber. Captain Ziglad waved his weak arms as if to indicate a conclusion to the whole matter. "We believe that these inhabitants were created by God to enjoy his love and friendship, just as we were. But unlike us, somewhere along the line, they disobeyed some command God had given them, and therefore in need of reconciliation. How that was accomplished I cannot say, but I believe that it involves at least two, if not three stages. The first is the need for them to cover their nakedness, the second is a visitation from God himself, perhaps in the form of an incarnation - for God to become one of them and to identify himself with them, and thirdly to atone on their behalf, one way or another, for we don't know how. This is only a speculation, for all this is mysterious to us."

Ziggy then piped in. "But if God became one of them, then who would take care of heaven? His angels?"

Jor-El answered, "The knowledge of our Creator God is a mystery to us, but somehow I don't believe heaven was vacated. There is a connection between all this and God's omnipresence."

The captain then announced, "We shall inform the rest of the crew on this ship, all seventy of them, that we have accomplished our mission, and we shall divert this ship for the course home."

The actual course of  Oumuamua, was deflected by the Sun.

"But were we originally meant to land on this planet of Solaris?" Jor-El asked.

"This was considered," the Captain answered. "But there were two issues which came up on the crystal. The first was the question of whether our compatibility with its atmosphere would have sustained us, or whether our incompatibility would have killed us from asphyxiation. And that would be the very first death among our species. As I studied the crystal image, it was not difficult for me to analyse the atmosphere, and I was able to conclude that we would have survived only for a short while before passing out."

"That sounds serious!" Jor-El gasped.

"Yes it is." Ziglad agreed. "But had we landed, we would have been a shock to the population, and going by the crystal images, they have a quarantine system, which means we would have been in custody for heaven knows how long for."

"So you, Lieutenant, and you too, Jor-El, back to your posts. We are setting our ship home bound."

Having crossed the orbit of Mars, the spaceship Oumuamua began to accelerate rapidly without a sound as it sped towards the outer Solar system towards home.

Stephen Hawking Praises Human Effort

As with the opening ceremony of the Olympics, Alex and I watched the opening of the Paralympics, another thrilling party held at the same London 2012 stadium. The guest star of this ceremony was (now retired) Professor Stephen Hawking, of Cambridge University. Here is one brilliant mind imprisoned in a body paralysed by Amyotrophic Lateral Disease, a form of Motor Neurone Disease, first diagnosed in 1964 when he was only 22 years old, and while studying for a doctorate degree at Cambridge.

Professor Stephen Hawking

During the Paralympics, Hawking gave a speech which fitted perfectly the tremendous effort and training put in by the athletes, all with some kind of disability, whether it was an amputated limb, a birth impairment or mental disability. The professor likened the determination of the athlete to the same determination the academic had contributed to the rise and advance of scientific knowledge, with Britain itself being the chief founding nation, hence the speech delivered while the games were hosted here, making his speech so appropriate.

Britain has a lot to be proud about with its academic achievements. For example, the invention of the steam engine, leading to the mobility of the "horseless chariot" - resulting of the rise of the railways, the industrial revolution and the advance of medicine all having taken place here. Even the Internet has its origins here in the UK, as featured in the opening of the Olympics. And not forgetting two prominent scientists and authors who were to revolutionise our understanding of our origins and that of our planet itself. The first of these two was Scottish Geologist Charles Lyell, author of his book, Principles of Geology. In it, Lyell proposed a theory known as Uniformitarianism, an idea rising from his observation of the stratified rock layers, each layer laid by water over a long period of time, and the type of fossils each rock layer contained determining the age of the rock. As such, from these rock layers, the Geological Time Scale was worked out, with the earliest signs of life appearing some 2,000,000,000 years ago.

The other great scientist who was born and grew up here was none other than Charles Darwin, author of On the Origin of Species. He was the more famous of the two, and unlike that of Lyell, Darwin's name is spoken in every household, and he is upheld as Messiah of Evolution by such atheists as Richard Dawkins. Darwin based much of his research on Lyell's book, and the Theory of Evolution began to take its place in the academic world. Through these two Charlies, Britain was to play a leading role in turning people away from the truth of the Bible and the credibility of the Christian faith.

Basing his speech on our academic achievement, Hawking encouraged us to reach for the stars, so to speak, in human endeavour and effort, and never give up. Neither let any bias or prejudice from the ignorant discourage us. Primarily, his exhortation was addressed to the athletes, encouraging then never to let their disabilities hamper or to get in the way of their determination and progress. And this can be applied to all of us, particularly in schooling and higher education. If possible, why not go for the doctorate degree, like he did despite his degrading health, and reach for the stars? After all, his discipline, alongside mathematics, is on how the Universe originated, without the need for a God to get in the way of its evolution.

In short, reaching for the stars and reaching for Heaven is basically one and the same thing - by human endeavour and something to be proud of. After all, like Richard Dawkins, Stephen Hawking is an atheist who has dismissed any possibility of an afterlife, but without Dawkins' aggressive take on this issue.

Reaching for the stars, or as in this case, the moon.

What a contrast all this is to the Gospel of salvation through faith in Jesus Christ! The very word "salvation" itself depicts a rescue of someone by another. Sure, Hawking does have a point about academic achievement and endeavouring to train hard to win a Paralympic gold. But winning a gold medal through human effort is one thing, trying to pull himself out from the bottom of a deep pit by clutching his own hair is quite another!

Our nation, and England in particular, as I was born and grew up in England, relish on the pride of its own achievements. Being of Italian parents, therefore Italian through and through, together with a mild mental retardation as a boy, complete with an odd accent to my speech, had made it difficult for me to blend in with my fellow countrymen. Not only did I fail at school to near disaster level but I had to endure classroom and playground bullying. If I tried reporting this to the staff, the one-size-fits-all response was, "Don't tell tales!" Little wonder I had to keep all my sorrows bottled up. Bullying, mostly verbal, continued during my first years at work until I was about twenty, when I found another job as a poolside lifeguard in 1973.

The verbal abuse mainly centred around my nationality. The times my accent was mimicked, and even nicknamed "Spaghetti" or "Spaghetti face" are too numerous to count, as being called a dimwit for failing at school and "puny" for not performing at team sports. I believe that any ambition I might have had was all but destroyed.

I had, in my twenties, become antagonistic against the British social class system, which I believe, lay behind the abuse. As explained in one of my blogs, Alan Sugar at the Kerith? - even as a Christian adult, I felt an air of prejudice. And this is felt to this day. At Ascot, back in 1997, I gave a short talk touching on the Second Advent of Christ. After the service, I was told by one listener that during the discourse, a couple sitting behind was muttering on how could I know anything, I'm just a window cleaner after all. (For readers outside the UK, domestic window cleaning is a well established British trade, where the need for the ladder is off-putting to many residents, hence they are happy for someone to clean their windows for a payment, the source of income.)

At present, the son of a London professor has blocked me on Facebook, because I asked him to connect to my profile, after watching this young lad grow up, then leave our church to attend University. The reason given for the blocking, was that I disregarded Englishness in its true form and "he was uncomfortable," meaning that I showed too much affectionate emotion during his youth. I was aghast in discovering his website, that he had posted videos pertaining to the occult. With such attitudes, and there are quite a few among unbelievers displaying exactly the same attitude towards me to this day, little wonder I have a degree of delusion over our culture which is full of praise for the strong, the well-schooled, the academic, the wealthy, the sporting celebrity and the successful, yet also have a disdain towards those, like me with no deliberate fault of my own, who don't quite fit in.

Just as with the case of blind former Health Secretary David Blunkett. After reserving his seat at the Opening Ceremony of the Paralympics, he was refused admission by "a jobsworth" because of his guide dog, Corby. Another seat, at a wind-swept area next to a gantry, was instead assigned to him and his dog. This was almost as bad as forty years earlier, when a pub landlord refused his admission to his bar because of the presence of his guide dog Ruby, an incident which caused sensation among newspapers the next day.

But in this blog, am I asking for pity? No, by no means! Because, the whole of this article is not about "poor little me," but how great is the love of God.

As a one-time evolutionist and a highly-strung young individual, God knew me from eternity past, long before I was even born. So my Heavenly Father knew that way back in 1973, I put faith in Jesus Christ. I have written enough here that in this world, I am a nobody, but in the eyes of God, I am a trophy of grace. All I had to do was believe the Gospel of Jesus Christ and I was welcomed into his family. And not an ounce of self effort, not a single penny paid towards the cost of the gift. Jesus Christ paid for my salvation, all I had to do was take it. Absolutely free. None of me, all of Jesus Christ, who loved me enough to die on the cross for me. And dare to say, that throughout my difficult first twenty years of life, God was with me all the time, from the moment of conception, waiting for me to turn to his beloved Son.

Stephen Hawking was absolutely right. The disabled athletes deserves heaps of praise for their outstanding endeavour and self effort, commitment to their training with absolute determination to overcome their disabilities. Their winning medals are well deserved and worthy of praise and my admiration.  But as for salvation, there is nothing I can do about it, but believe. God alone can rescue.

How I wish for God to rescue Stephen Hawking!