Have you ever wondered about the complexities of our beliefs, their origins, and how they shape the world we live in? Well, you're in for a treat! In a heartwarming exchange with the delightful 90-year-old Arlo Johnson, we traverse through the memories of his recent cruise journey and the melancholic recognition of his twilight traveling years. But the conversation isn't limited to travel tales. Arlo takes us on an intellectual journey, questioning the concept of the rapture and its discord with his understanding of Jesus and God's teachings. I encourage you, dear listener, to examine these beliefs and tread cautiously around doctrines that might lead you astray.
Switching lanes, we steer towards the cheery vibes of the upcoming holiday season and our plans for Christmas. With a hint of nostalgia and a dash of apprehension, we contemplate the changes in our family dynamics and how it used to be the anchoring point in our lives. As we head into 2023, there's a sense of anticipation and curiosity about what the future holds. We also touch on the impact of secular governments' beliefs on our world, a topic that's bound to provoke thought. Wrapping up our insightful conversation, we extend a message of hope and positivity to all our listeners about their own holiday plans and family gatherings. Engage with us, reflect, and let's embark on this inspiring journey together.
Have you ever wondered about the complexities of our beliefs, their origins, and how they shape the world we live in? Well, you're in for a treat! In a heartwarming exchange with the delightful 90-year-old Arlo Johnson, we traverse through the memories of his recent cruise journey and the melancholic recognition of his twilight traveling years. But the conversation isn't limited to travel tales. Arlo takes us on an intellectual journey, questioning the concept of the rapture and its discord with his understanding of Jesus and God's teachings. I encourage you, dear listener, to examine these beliefs and tread cautiously around doctrines that might lead you astray.
Switching lanes, we steer towards the cheery vibes of the upcoming holiday season and our plans for Christmas. With a hint of nostalgia and a dash of apprehension, we contemplate the changes in our family dynamics and how it used to be the anchoring point in our lives. As we head into 2023, there's a sense of anticipation and curiosity about what the future holds. We also touch on the impact of secular governments' beliefs on our world, a topic that's bound to provoke thought. Wrapping up our insightful conversation, we extend a message of hope and positivity to all our listeners about their own holiday plans and family gatherings. Engage with us, reflect, and let's embark on this inspiring journey together.
Good afternoon. This is Arlo Johnson calling from Vernon, bc, on the Avalon. 18th of December, so in the afternoon two o'clock to fit home three o'clock. Just got back from a cruise down to Manzolino and back to Porta Villarta and set for an ancestral all the way back up to the sea of Cortez and to La Paz and Loretto and turn around and Go back on the sea of Cortez and come back to San Diego 11 days. Fifth to the 16th Was pretty good cruise.
Speaker 1:
It was on the Konings Dam ship, all in America. Very good ship, can't knock it at all. Everything works. I had a big, nice room, big room, big bathroom, jetted tub, then a second room with a wall fold down bed, if you want to do in the desk, and then a big bedroom with huge King-sized bed and then a full big balcony. It was very good. Yeah, that's the first time I actually had something like that and I appreciated it was. It was worth it. So so much for that.
Speaker 1:
I think that my traveling days are over. I had to have wheelchairs to go through the the airports and I had ranged for it and they were there and they did it and it worked good. I mean, actually worked pretty good. Other places. Where I had trouble was, you know, we're actually getting on the ship. Long line ups outside of Tarmac there waiting and going and that, but anyway, finally made it on, and I'm I'm thinking that, you know, in a couple months I would be 90 and I'm quite sure that this is most likely the end of my traveling days like that, but I've had quite a few. They awarded me a three star Mariner button, which means I've cruised about 75 days, which I suppose is enough, so that part of my life most likely is over.
Speaker 1:
I Recommend it. It's a, it's a good, you know, it's quite a good thing. You can't hardly beat cruising for a, I think, for value and for, you know, being able to see the world and, in my view, being able to travel on the ocean, the ocean being this huge, huge body of water that is on this planet. How it got here? I had no idea, and I'll bet you don't either. Up to 17 miles deep in places Can take three different forms solid, gas and liquid, and we're made about 65 to 70% out of that. I Told people. I said when, when it all is over, the most likely gonna just be a wet spot on the rug? Who knows? I Guess not. But one thing I'm gonna bring up and it's a bugbear thing is I.
Speaker 1:
You know I've mentioned this before and I think it's the danger of people being led to believe that there is a rapture, that they are gonna be I Railroad is or Blasted out of this planet and they're going to avoid any trouble. They're gonna go before the trouble starts and that is an escapism Deep which is attractive to people. They want that, but I don't think it's real. You know, I started going to church for our sake, I suppose in 1940, something I forget. I was young, I Robe, buggy, a horse and buggy Just to Sunday school every Sunday by myself. Everybody figured I had to go, so they've been sure that I went. I never could figure that out later, but anyway I went to church for a long time and all those years I'll be 90 years, a couple of months and in all those years I never heard a word about the rapture, until about Ten years ago or something like that. I don't know about that, maybe, maybe it was more, I don't know. But you can't tell me that during all that period of time I would have not heard about the rapture now Anything I've ever read that Jesus Christ discussed on this planet, or God is discussed in the Old Testament through his prophets, never discussed that, never pointed that out, and I would think that it's something that is.
Speaker 1:
They're saying it. It's so important that You've got to believe this because you're going to be left behind. Well, what about what God says is that you're not supposed to change anything that's in the book, or take away or add. Now are you going to be guilty of that? But he says, if they are, then the playing, so this book will be added to them Now.
Speaker 1:
It may be that God overlooks this, but I am not. I can't be sure about that. And Because that means that they're not, they're not, they don't believe his son, because his son never said anything about that. And if you want a cherry pick out of the by the little spots here and there to try to prove something that isn't there, that is not good and I don't think God will look. Look very kindly on that. That's his word and it's not to be monkey with.
Speaker 1:
So the the thing is that's. That's the thing I. I wish people would really think that over and Give it a second thought and not be be led into that. It may be a very bad thing for them to believe in them. Not all that, the dangers of it. It may be maybe God's gonna look at that as a rebellion against him. I don't know, and I know these people were very fierce about this, but I I Can't agree with it because as simple as that and I've never been in a church that agreed with that or even brought it up. That's a long time. That's a period over like 80 something, 85, 85 years, something like that. So I Guess you want to take it, you like to deal with it yourself, whatever, whatever way you think, but remember, if you look and read what Jesus has said, you won't find it there and I believe what Jesus said is the truth and the only truth you can go by, not what other people come dreaming up. That's not the truth. That's their own ideas brought on by who knows what. Yeah, well, so much for that.
Speaker 1:
The winter had started. We're getting close to Christmas another Mishmash of a thing. I mean. I'm guilty, as anyone else, as having Christmas for all my kids when they were growing up and you know big Christmas is, I mean, I grew up with a big Christmas oh, that was a huge holiday, biggest of the year. Remember my grandfather sitting in a corner of his living room with, I think, around close to 30 grandchildren and Sitting there and they all had, we all had to go up and say a little verse or sing a little song or something before we got the package. Yeah, and I used to have my uncle used to Wake up horses with bells on them and when the time come they'd say, yeah, I think I can hear Saddam and Everybody with eyes would be biggest saucers in the window looking out in the dark winter night, and it was dark, quiet, black, and we could hear this thing, thing, thing, thing coming down the road and we could hear coming into the yard and In just kind of the dark we could see Something there and all of a sudden, this big red-suited guy with a big sack on Coming up towards the house in the dark. Oh, you know, I'll never forget that I think we were buying was about eight or nine years old, eight years old, and I and I can remember how excited we were and all the grandchildren were just besides themselves. Of course they all had to sit on Santa's knee and tell him oh yeah, I'm in a good boy, blah, blah, blah.
Speaker 1:
And the food, oh man, we used to have Christmas suppers. Those were, ah, it was a lot of, like you know, swedish food. I do, like you know, palt and I don't know. They all said codfish, lootfish and that every kind of thing. I mean just piles of stuff and I don't know how that many people could get into that farmhouse.
Speaker 1:
I used to think that was a huge farmhouse. It wasn't that greatly big. I mean, it was a huge big kitchen and a living room. That was everything downstairs. It was a big kitchen and a living room. Everything else went upstairs and, oh, pardon me, there was two bedrooms downstairs also and it had a big porch covered in right across the front and which was good, because you know weather and snow stayed away from the front door and it was always awake and ah, yeah, such memories, the ah, oh hi.
Speaker 1:
You know I'm living with memories now, like the cruise memory. That's a memory, it's all over. It was great while I was there and it is great when you're left. Now, just a memory, that's all. You can't live that anymore. You can't go to the little, you can't go to the showroom or anything. You can't go on the balcony and look at the ocean and the ships and whatever, and all that you can't do, that it's all over.
Speaker 1:
In some ways it reminds me of a person's life. You know there comes a time when it's going to be over and ah, you know you're not supposed to fall in love with this life. You're supposed to realize that God has given you this life to make a decision. I realized that when I was 15 years old I knew that I used to stop and think about that by myself that I was here to make a decision for something I didn't even know what it was yet. And I mean I have.
Speaker 1:
The only thing I trust now is Jesus Christ and what he said in the New Testament, all his and the test of Bible. I got here a while ago, so I'll read a letter of Bible. I don't read it too much, yes, but and through all the prophets in the Old Testament that God used and he did use them. I mean, how can you argue with the fact that Moses wrote about the beginning of the world and all this stuff and where it was in the water and out of the water, and blah, blah, blah? He wasn't there. He had to be inspired and wrote, you know, driven, I don't know, inspired by God to write this. It had to be a thing and that's what he did. You know, they've never been able to disprove anything in Genesis. When God writes something, it is precise, nothing missing and nothing added. It's just amazing how precise it is.
Speaker 1:
I would encourage anyone who wants to kind of find out about things, or whatever is, to read the book of Revelation. You know, I didn't read that book for most of my life. All of a sudden I realized that I should read the book of Revelation, and that is the last whatever you call it from Jesus Christ to the world, the last message, and it is full of everything. I mean, it's full of all kinds of prophecies, predictions and things that are going to happen. For instance, the size of the city of God that is being created or hasn't been created or is being created Do you agree about that? Yeah, so huge that it wouldn't fit in the United States, either Believe it or not, from the border of Canada to the Gulf of Mexico is not quite big enough for it. It's a bit short, a few miles short, because each side is 1500 miles long and 1500 miles high. I finally realized well, I didn't realize that.
Speaker 1:
I read where these people realized that it wouldn't fit on this planet At all. The curvature of the Earth wouldn't allow it. It'd be sitting on a ball sticking out on the ends. And they said that the Earth would have to increase many, many, many times over 300 times bigger. And God said I am going to create a new heaven and a new Earth. That's all he said. That's another example. Well, he does not. He's precise. He's not saying well, I've got to build a new, bigger heaven, a bigger heaven and an Earth to accommodate my great city, because I'm going to have a permanent city in the universe and it's going to be the largest one in the universe and that's going to be my headquarters. And he's making an invitation to you and to me how do you like that? How many people actually stop and think about that? It is really something that is an opportunity, that this is a magnificent opportunity, and I hope that many of you during this season and whatever, they talk about all kinds of things.
Speaker 1:
But Christmas is not a holiday you should be celebrating. I know I did all the time, but it's not. God has never declared that to be a holiday. Jesus never said to celebrate my birth. The other time he said he said when you have a glass of wine and think about me, he said remember me and the wine was his blood and the bread was his body and that's how you remember me. These things are very strange to humans because we just sometimes understand that at all. That is out of our realm. It's from a different set of values that people like the Creator has. People like the Creator thought it was so great. We can't imagine how great it is. But anyway, he's there, we're here, we'll pass through our life whatever it is, and we leave it up to him if he accepts us and brings us back to life in a resurrection to live forever. That's a big promise. That's a big, big promise and you should wish that for everybody, not just for yourself, for everybody.
Speaker 1:
So I would say that's my most likely my Christmas message pre-message and I hope you're all well. I hope that you're planning for a bit of a holiday anyway, a winter holiday, christmas and getting together with people. I'm going to get together with my family a bit, not much, but a little bit, and I don't know, I may plan on something else. I'm not sure my traveling days are going to be tough. From now on, I'm most likely going to have to really think hard before I fly anywhere again. I know how to do it get through the airport now. Oh man, we're coming to the end of that 2023. Next year, if a person is alive and around, it's going to be a very interesting year. Things are going to happen and I think things are going to speed up, whether we like it or not.
Speaker 1:
Remember the governments and people who, basically, are eighth at Audi. Well, they're secularists. They believe they're going to save the planet and they're going to save it even if it kills you, because they don't believe that God has a plan for the end of this age. They don't believe that. Well, they don't. I don't think it's going to affect God's plan one bit, but anyway, I hope your plans work out. It's a good if plans work out, hopes and plans work out and family stuff. Family is disappeared now. It's not like it used to be. When I grew up, family was everything. That's what it was, and it was good. That's the thing. It wasn't just something you did, it was really good. So, anyway, good you that's some Swedish, good you called you and happy new year and all that stuff I'm not on before.