feast: Handwriting Is On The Wall (2019)


Richard T. Ritenbaugh
Given 13-Oct-19; Sermon #FT19-00; 46 minutes

Description: (show)

One of the latest affronts to Almighty God is transhumanism: The supposition that God's creation is replete with flaws, including superfluous body-parts which supposedly evolved incorrectly. Humanists espousing transhumanism aspire to correct the glitches of human imperfection through gene splicing, replacing inferior organs with longer- lasting synthetic knock offs, and augmenting brain activity with implanted microchips, thereby creating a synthetic brain capable of importing thoughts to electronic storage units with a view of extending life indefinitely through mechanical and electronic means. Sex reassignment surgery is one of the many aberrations which has grown out of the transhumanist movement. Transhumanist thought is a true-believer cult, forged by left-wing, anti-God, evolutionist philosophy, the manifestation of the reprobate mind Paul describes in II Timothy 3, the aim of which is to repudiate all faith in the existence or purpose of God. The culture in which we live is deteriorating into abject immorality, and consequently the handwriting is on the wall. God has weighed modern Israel in the balance and found her wanting, ready to reap the consequences of her rejection of God and His Law.




It has been a tradition over the last 25 years of Church of the Great God to begin each Feast of Tabernacles with a sermon titled, "The Handwriting Is On the Wall" and my sermon tonight is titled, "The Handwriting Is On the Wall 2019." I see no reason to discontinue this tradition as it puts us in mind, as we begin the Feast, that God's plan is not only ongoing, but it is actually coming to a climax. Things are moving. And though we may think that with this circumstance and that circumstance things have slowed down or what have you, it is not quite the right time, things are not quite as bad, there are things going on in the world that show us that God is moving. God is working in this world and He is moving toward an end that He has in sight, and things are certainly happening out there to make us aware that the close of this age is not all that far off.

So Christ's return (as Kim was talking about in his prayer), is not all that far off. It is still ahead of us, but at least in terms of the full history of mankind on this earth, it is close. We are right at the end of the allotted time for mankind, and we can already see the signs of the coming crisis at the close of the age and we have seen them for many years. We are just waiting, hopefully patiently, and enduring, because God has a timetable and He will stick to it.

Please open your Bibles, if you will, to Daniel the 5th chapter. We will read the first six verses, then jump down to verse 17 and move on from there. This passage, if you know Daniel 5, if you know your chapters, you will know this is the Belshazzar's feast chapter where Babylon falls. We also call it the mene, mene, tekel, upharsin chapter. But it is the background for this phrase, this expression we use, the handwriting is on the wall. I would like to give you a summary of what is going on here.

Daniel 5:1-4 Belshazzar the king made a great feast for a thousand of his lords, and drank wine in the presence of the thousand. While he tasted the wine, Belshazzar gave the command to bring the gold and silver vessels which his father Nebuchadnezzar had taken from the temple which had been in Jerusalem, that the king and his lords, his wives, and his concubines might drink from them. Then they brought the golden vessels that had been taken from the temple of the house of God which had been in Jerusalem; and the king and his lords, his wives, and his concubines drank from them. They drank wine, and praised the gods of gold and silver, bronze and iron, wood and stone.

Before we go any further, this was obviously a great affront to God. Here, Babylon, or the the empire of the Chaldeans, was about to end. And this great party which Belshazzar threw there for all his lords was kind of like the final straw. It showed the decadence of the Babylonian Empire, the court of Belshazzar, and how just totally anti-God it was. And so God said, "Enough is enough."

Daniel 5:5-6 In the same hour the fingers of a man's hand appeared and wrote opposite the lampstand on the plaster of the wall of the king's palace; and the king saw the part of the hand that wrote. Then the king's countenance changed, and his thoughts troubled him, so that the joints of his hips were loosened and his knees knocked against each other.

He messed his pants. He was so frightened of this hand of God, as it were, coming to write his doom. He did not know that quite yet, but he knew something was up.

Daniel 5:17-21 Then Daniel answered, and said before the king, "Let your gifts be for yourself [He had called for someone to answer the question of what was written there and Daniel had answered it and he was going to tell the king. But this is how he begins.], and give your rewards to another; yet I will read the writing to the king, and make known to him the interpretation. O king, the Most High God gave Nebuchadnezzar your father a kingdom and majesty, glory and honor. And because of the majesty that He gave him, all peoples, nations, and languages trembled and feared before him. Whomever he wished, he executed; whomever he wished, he kept alive; whomever he wished, he set up; and whomever he wished, he put down. [God gave him quite a lot of control, a lot of sovereignty.] But when his heart was lifted up, and his spirit was hardened in pride, he was deposed from his kingly throne, and they took his glory from him. Then he was driven from the sons of men, his heart was made like the beasts, and his dwelling was with the wild donkeys. They fed him with grass like oxen, and his body was wet with the dew of heaven, till he knew that the Most High God rules in the kingdom of men, and appoints over it whomever He chooses."

There was a very important lesson that he had to learn. And it is one that we have to keep in the forefront of our minds. God still rules, not just in the kingdom of men, but he rules in His church and He rules you.

Daniel 5:22-28 But you his son, Belshazzar [actually his grandson], have not humbled your heart, although you knew all this. And you have lifted yourself up against the Lord of heaven. They have brought you the vessels of His house before you, and your lords, your wives and your concubines, have drunk wine from them. And you have praised the gods of silver and gold, bronze and iron, wood and stone, which do not see or hear or know; and the God who holds your breath in His hand and owns all your ways, you have not glorified. Then the fingers of the hand were sent from Him, and this writing was written. And this is the inscription that was written: MENE, MENE, TEKEL, UPHARSIN. This is the interpretation of each word. MENE: God has numbered your kingdom and finished it [meaning that he has judged it]; TEKEL: You have been weighed in the balances, and found wanting [another metaphor of judgment there]; PERES: Your kingdom has been divided, and given to the Medes and Persians."

Daniel 5:30-31 That very night Belshazzar, king of the Chaldeans, was slain. And Darius the Mede received the kingdom, being about 62 years old.

So that was quite the end for Belshazzar, seeing this miraculous thing and being given this judgment direct from God through His prophet Daniel and it came to pass right away.

Like I said, this is the passage that is the background for the expression, the handwriting is on the wall, or the writing is on the wall. In some ways it is an idiom to those of us in a Christian nation and it is used often enough to almost be a cliche. It is used whenever an inevitable result or an imminent danger has become apparent, not just to one person, but to all. It is very clear that something bad is going to happen. Dictionary.com defines it this way, "a premonition, portent, or clear indication, especially of failure or disaster." In other words, those who are perceptive, who can tell that a thing's current condition points inescapably to its end, these people see that the handwriting is on the wall and know it could end no differently.

Just as God's judgment on Belshazzar—mene, mene, tekel, upharsin—which was merely telling the truth about the state of Babylon at that particular time, plainly indicated Babylon's demise. And so our perception of the facts about the state of the world will give us good reason to believe that it too, like Babylon was at that time, is in its final days.

Tonight we are going to peek into an area of this world's culture that many scientists are really eager to talk about. They are just all giddy and excited about it because they see it as the next frontier. In fact, they see it as the very next step in human evolution. However, some are not waiting on science because they have a quest to become something other than what God created them to be. So, my topic tonight is what is called transhumanism. It may not be one of the big signs of Christ's coming, but it is a sign, and I think you will see that as we go through these verses that I am going to go through this evening.

Let us go back to the beginning of the Book and just lay a foundation of a principle right in Genesis 1. Why do we not just read the first verse and then we will skip down to verse 26. Everybody knows the first verse.

Genesis 1:1 In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.

This is the way the Bible starts and we agree, right?

Genesis 1:26-28 Then God said, "Let Us make man in our image, according to Our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth." So God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. Then God blessed them, and God said to them, "Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it; have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth."

Genesis 2:7 And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being.

We are Christians, are we not? We are followers of Christ. We believe in a Creator God, do we not? That He made us physical, but He also made us in His image and in His likeness and He breathed into us the breath of life. And, as it says in Job 32:8, that human beings have a spirit that is from God and it gives us understanding. Unlike animals, the brute beasts, we have a special element that makes us different. So because of God's favor of us as human beings in giving us these things, we have Godlike abilities, if you will. Things like thought, reason, logic, language (many languages), imagination, creativity, planning, organization. We can do all those things and those are things animals cannot do.

We are special. We are separate. He made us very different from other things that are animal-like. We look at the human body and the mind as wonders of creation. When we really sit down and think about it, we are awesome creatures. You might want to call us, to this point, the pinnacle of God's creation. We have not done such a good job of following up on that, but for how He made us, we are amazing. Let us go to Psalm 139 and we see David here saying the same thing, just awestruck over what God has done.

Psalm 139:14 [he says] I will praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; marvelous are Your works, and that my soul knows very well.

David was one of those people that I believe meditated a lot. He thought about things. When he was a shepherd he probably had a great deal of time, but he was very young then. And I think that throughout his life that remained a habit for him—that he thought deeply about things. He would go out on his roof of the palace, and when he was not looking for young girls, he would look at the stars and see all these things up there. And he would say, "Wow! God is awesome, look what He did. And He knows them all by name. Isn't that incredible?" He thought about all the things that God has made and how they all work together. And he was just flabbergasted, astounded, at what God had done.

Then he looked at his own body and he could see the things that a human body could do. And it was just, like he said, fearful and wonderful and amazing. No machine has ever been more finely crafted than the human body. No machine is as useful or able to function under so diverse circumstances. No machine has been able to adapt to so many situations and needs as the human body.

Yet transhumanists, coming from an evolutionary perspective, see humanity as weak, flawed, and get this, outdated. They have said this publicly, "We need a human 2.0." I have a subscription to audible.com so I can listen to books back and forth to work and wherever I happen to go. And one of the ones that was on their freebie list I thought was interesting just in terms of its the advertising, so I decided to go ahead and download it. I have not listened to it yet but I read the summary. It makes me kind of wonder about this guy. His name is Nathan H. Lents. He wrote a book called, Human Errors: A panorama of our glitches from pointless bones to broken genes. The whole book is about our human imperfections, that God put too many useless bones in our wrists, that He gave us organs that we did not need, that He gave us a DNA profile with millions of things in there that have no use.

Obviously he is showing his ignorance because he is certainly not on God's level. God did not put those things in there just at random. He just thought, "They don't need this but I will throw it in there anyway." You know He did not do that. Everything has a purpose. But Lents spends the whole book talking about these imperfections and he gets around at the end, from what I understand he is saying, "Well, they are what makes us us." But I believe he is on this transhumanism kick. He sees all these imperfections in mankind and he thinks we need human 2.0, we need to be perfected. Well, he is right there, but not the way that scientists want to do it.

Let us go back to the book of Ephesians, please, to chapter 2. Now, I know in context it is about the wall of partition between Jew and Gentile being taken down by the sacrifice of Christ. But I want to pick up a few ways he describes these Gentiles before they were converted. I am mostly interested in some of these descriptions.

Ephesians 2:11-12 Therefore remember that you, once Gentiles in the flesh—who are called Uncircumcised by what is called the Circumcision made in the flesh by hands—that at that time you were without Christ [or even without God], being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world.

This is how people are before their calling. That is what the whole Gentile world is like. That is what the whole Israelite world is like unless they have been called by God. It is a society that functions totally apart from God, totally apart from the will of God. If they think about Him at all, it is a passing thought, for many. I know there are people out there that are very religious, but they do not have the truth, not totally. They do not have that extra help of the Holy Spirit to help them put things together.

So they are without God in the world, essentially. That is how they think, that is how they believe, that is how they plan, that is how they act and react—that God is not in their thoughts. You know, "the fool has said there is no God," and that is how people generally live. They live as if God does not exist and they are very willing to stretch boundaries or whatever to get for themselves. And they do not have any sense of accountability before God.

In their world, He really does not exist. And the result? Well, it is like what Paul writes here in verse 12, they have no hope. They have no positive expectation of anything. Nothing that they can count on, especially of salvation and spiritual things. No hope of any kind of real, true good or even any kind of real progress.

And they do not have any hope of what we look forward to in the resurrection of a continuation of life. It is not there in their world. So all there efforts, all their thinking is focused on right now and what we can do right now and in the immediate future to help themselves. Without God, they turn to themselves and the products of their mind apart from God, and what do they turn to? To totally human-centered solutions like transhumanism.

What is transhumanism, you are wondering? Well, I have got two fairly significant paragraphs here that will help to explain it. Here goes:

Transhumanism is a way of thinking, about the future, that is based on the premise that the human species in its current form does not represent the end of our development, but rather a comparatively early phase. Max Moore, transhumanist, said in 1990,

Transhumanism is a class of philosophies of life that seek the continuation and acceleration of the evolution of intelligent life beyond its currently human form and human limitations by means of science and technology guided by life-promoting principles and values.

And that is just the quote within the quote. I am continuing here with the main quote.

Transhumanism can be viewed as an extension of humanism from which it is partially derived. Humanists believed that humans matter. We might not be perfect, but we can make things better by promoting rational thinking, freedom, tolerance, democracy, and concern for our fellow human beings [and I just want to add here, notice the insertion of what we call left wing liberal politics]. Transhumanists agree with this but also emphasize that we have the potential to become. Just as we use rational means to improve the human condition and the external world, we can also use such means to improve ourselves, the human organism. In doing so, we are not limited to traditional humanistic methods, such as education and cultural development. We can also use technological means that will eventually enable us to move beyond what some would think of as "human."

These people want us to become better. Now, there is nothing wrong with that. The church of God wants us to become better. God wants us to come become better. But I gave those verses that I gave just a few minutes ago to show that they are coming at this from an entirely humanistic, self-centered, even narcissistic perspective, where they are going to change themselves from what God made them.

They stress that in our present state we are humans and we agree we are humans, right? We do not think that we are anything else. We are humans. We are what God created us to be. The next intermediary stage, for them as they see it, would be those people would become transhumans. And beyond that, once the evolutionary process has produced beings that are unambiguously no longer human by current standards, they become posthumans. So, we want to become posthumans according to the transhumanists, but we will have to go through the transhumanist stage before we get there. Everything is trans these days. Have you noticed that? It seems to be the prefix of the year. Maybe I should write that in to the Oxford Dictionary or whoever does those rankings.

Transhumanists, being evolutionists to the core, and also finding fault with human limitations, believe it is their solemn duty to study, work, and strive by experimentation and innovation to advance the species to a better, higher form. We are not good enough. We need to transcend ourselves and become something better that is no longer human. And they are prepared to use whatever means necessary: scientific, technological, even transcendental or alien means. And I think they would use magic, if it were available, to ensure humanity's continual evolution to bring about post-humanity.

Hardcore transhumanists, and I have seen some of them talk, they exude a true believer, religious fervor about their aims. Because this is their religion. Transhumanism is their religion. They think it is their purpose in life to move humanity beyond what we are, by whatever means.

Now, what kind of things are transhumanists working on? Well, if you have watched any science science fiction or read any, you probably know some of these things. Even watching Star Trek or whatever would probably give you a clue. On the agenda as areas to improve include natural aging, including for diehard transhumanists—this is their goal—the cessation of involuntary death. Their job is to wipe out death if they can, as well as physical, intellectual, and psychological capacities of human beings. Many of these scientists are starting with what they call augmented capacity, using implanted technology such as enhancing sight and hearing.

The front door for such changes that they are working on is a very worthwhile effort to help the blind see and the deaf to hear. That is worthwhile. Did not our Savior come and do a lot of that, help a lot of blind people to see and the deaf to hear and the mute to speak? Well, one of the technologies that is very close to being rolled out, if it has not already, is a cochlear implant, the implant that is put back behind the ear there. It goes into the auditory nerve. Anyway, there is a cochlear implant that is coming out that streams sound wirelessly from Apple's mass market devices like iPad, iPod, iPhone, directly to the recipients auditory nerve. But they have to have this cochlear implant in there and they get whatever it is, whatever you want to put it. Do you want to put a telephone call through? You want to put music through? Whatever, it goes straight into their auditory nerve.

Then there are technologies like gene therapy. Now gene therapy replaces bad genes with good genes. That does not sound so bad, does it? Then there is a similar process in which RNA interference selectively knocks out certain gene expressions. They have learned how to do all this juggling with DNA and RNA and make it work in some instances. But both of these things—both the gene therapy and the RNA interference—manipulate the genetic code, manipulate the plan, the blueprint for a person. By knocking out genes that code for certain metabolic proteins that a person may have, these doctors then have been able to make mice stay slim and svelte as mice can be no matter how much junk food they eat. So they could just gobble down Big Macs and whatever and they always stay the same weight. I do not know how they do it. Like I said, they must have some magic or something.

Lou Gehrig's disease has been cured in mice and they are really thrilled about that, because they think that we are only a few years away from curing it in human beings. It sounds great, does it not? Would you not like to be svelte like a mouse no matter what you eat? It does not build much character but, you know, they say it is safe. They always say it is safe, but they do not know the long-term effects.

This is very new cutting-edge technology and they are very afraid, and they should be very afraid, because they are sometimes, near-meddling with what are called "heritable cells," which are sexual cells. And they need to be worried because they could pass some of these things down in fertile people to the next generation. By the way, this is where a lot of the work is being done to extend human life. Remember I said they want to get rid of death. They do have the goal of within just a few generations of having indefinite lifespans. I think God has made it 70 years or maybe 80 for a good reason, but they do not think about that. And we know people in the Bible lived much longer and He had a reason for that too. But now they want to just rewrite the code and make sure that we could live forever without any help from God.

Then there is molecular nanotechnology. Molecular nanotechnology would use massive arrays of nanometer scale actuators. I know that is a lot of jargon. These actuators would be produced initially by self-replication. But what they would do, their purpose would be to manufacture macro scale, big things, macro scale products with atomic precision. So if you had these nanoparticles and you could tell them what to do and have them reproduce themselves and make whatever it is that you want them to make, then this would be a great leap. Because then they would use this technology on human beings.

The concept is known as a nano-factory. At this point, practically everything, it does not matter what it is, it could be a a boat, an airplane, a building, you name it, whatever it is, it could be some thing that a doctor could use to replace a part of your body like a bone, let us say. All of those things—the boat, the plane, the building, the bone—could be made of diamond. They just need to take some carbon and allow these nano-factories to go to work and it could make that carbon into diamond in the shape that you want it to be in. I do not know if you would want that necessarily, but they could do that with this nanotechnology.

This is where they are really thinking about it: Motors. We all like motors. We like to drive around in cars. We like to fly in planes, zip around the country, the city in a bus or a train. Did you know that if they get these nano-factories working the way they like it, they could make a motor of only a cubic centimeter, one cubic centimeter, and it would provide enough torque to propel an automobile. A one cubic centimeter motor, because of the precision of the thing. Medical nano-devices could be injected into our bodies and heal wounds. You have probably seen that on various science fiction shows and movies. Or maybe you do not watch science fiction. I am just telling you what I watch all the time. But somebody can give you a hyper-spray and in goes all the nanites and they just go and heal whatever inside you or repair organs with microsurgery.

Here is another one. Air suspended nano-devices, meaning these things are up in the air, hovering on their own, air suspended nano-devices which they call "utility fog." I wonder who comes up with these names? Anyway, this utility fog could be configured to simulate practically any desired object on demand. Can you imagine the deception that could happen there if you could just program these nanites in this utility fog to be whatever you want? One transhumanist says, "With molecular manufacturing, we could orchestrate elegant improvements to every single body component in the human body." Just take these little machines that you can hardly even see and they could change us. That is what they are hoping, to change us to these transhumans.

Here is another one. Transhumanists are also working on mind uploading. That is transferring the contents of the brain to another outside substrate, like a computer, and then be able to download it to another brain. Whether that brain is organic that they have grown in a test tube, or a cyber-brain, say, that they put in a robot. Done perfectly, it would allow for a person's mind to be both stored and transferred to a new body, which they feel is like a kind of perpetual life. Along with this, some scientists are working on artificial general intelligence. But these are AI's that display open-ended learning and similar competency levels to human beings. That is what they are shooting for. If they cannot get the human brain to go into robots, they will make AI's that are so much like us and so much able to learn and be able to do everything that we are doing, that humans become kind of unneeded. Anyway, that sounds like Skynet to me. When that happens the cyborgs take over and we have terminators everywhere.

But there is another form of transhumanism and this is where I have kind of been going the whole time. Another form of transhumanism that a small percentage of otherwise normal people are pursuing. Did you know that sex reassignment surgery, along with all the hormonal therapies that people like Bruce or "Caitlyn" Jenner must go through, is considered a transhumanist technology? All these people (actually, it is not a whole lot of people) who want to be some other sex, are actually part of this transhumanist surge.

The principle is the same. People who believe that God has made them wrong, that God has given them the wrong gender, believe that they have to do something and they will use whatever means necessary to correct His "mistake." Rather than accept the will of God on such a basic point as your own biology, which is encoded on every gene in the body, every cell in the body. But they will deny that, deny the God that made them like that, and they will do their best to change it, to override what the Creator has made.

So rather than accept the will of God on such a basic point, they rebel. That is what it is. It is sheer rebellion, it is defiance of God. Remember, we started back there in Genesis 1 about Him making us in His own image? Well, transhumanists like this are trying to remake themselves in an image of their own choosing because what God has given is not good enough. This is total rebellion. And it is thumbing the nose at God our Creator.

A lot of these ideas, a lot of these emotions, a lot of these, what would you call them, traits are the kinds of things that Paul talked about in II Timothy 3.

II Timothy 3:1-5 But know this, that in the last days perilous times will come: For men will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, unloving, unforgiving, slanderers, without self-control, brutal, despisers of good, traitors, headstrong, haughty, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having a form of godliness but denying its power. And from such people turn away!

Let us conclude in Romans the first chapter. I just want a few verses here toward the end of the chapter. I think we know this chapter pretty well. I want to start in verse 24. He is coming off of speaking to the Romans about mankind having suppressed the truth in unrighteousness. And then at that point, worshipping things other than God, other than the Creator.

Romans 1:24-25 Therefore God also gave them up to uncleanness, in the lusts of their hearts, to dishonor their bodies among themselves, who exchanged the truth of God for the lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen.

Romans 1:28-32 And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a debased mind, to do those things which are not fitting; being filled with all unrighteousness, sexual immorality, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, evil-mindedness; they are whisperers, backbiters, haters of God [I like that one. That is exactly what the transhumanists are, haters of God.], violent, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, undiscerning, untrustworthy, unloving, unforgiving, unmerciful; who, knowing the righteous judgment of God, that those who practice such things are deserving of death, not only do the same but also approve of those who practice them.

Through Paul here, God has warned us that this world will devolve into the playground of warped, debased, degenerate, and totally self-absorbed minds. That is what we have to look forward to. Is it not great?

This culture that we are living in is what they have created and the culture that we will experience going forward is also what they have created, and we are told that it is going to get worse and worse. Evil men and imposters are going to get worse and worse. They are doing and designing and implementing things which are not fitting. No person of a godly mind would ever think of doing such things. But because the God is it not in their knowledge, that God has given them over, He just kind of said, "Okay, you do your thing." they then do these things that we have talked about tonight.

So we have been warned. The handwriting is on the wall. When things like these are common news and they are becoming more common all the time, we know that this world's time is growing short. And our job, seeing this as we do from a perspective of people who love God, who believe He is our Creator, and that He has a better future for us and a better transhuman plan, if you will, than what is being thought up and actually put into a process by these people, our job, as Jesus tells us in Matthew 24:13, is to endure to the end. Those who do are the ones who will be saved.

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