When the candles on the birthday cake number 90, the stories they illuminate are rich with the wisdom of years and the patina of history. Our latest episode features Harlow Johnson, a nonagenarian from Vernon, BC, who shares his life's reflections during a heartfelt birthday tribute. Harlow offers candid insights on the era he's lived through, including his traditional beliefs and values, which sometimes clash with today's societal norms, particularly regarding LGBTQ+ rights. It's a poignant conversation that not only celebrates Harlow's milestone but also delves into the complexities of reconciling deep-seated faith with the love for one's family and the shifts in cultural perceptions.
Consider for a moment the vast tapestry of human existence, woven with the lives of over 100 billion souls who have graced this Earth. In our episode, we ponder this immense number and the divine criteria that might govern the celestial reckoning of such lives. Harlow muses on the nature of good, evil, and the incomprehensible aspects of a divine being, all while expressing gratitude for the simplicity and routine of daily existence. Join us as we navigate these philosophical waters and extend an open-hearted invitation to reflect, appreciate, and partake in the blessings we share with our listeners.
When the candles on the birthday cake number 90, the stories they illuminate are rich with the wisdom of years and the patina of history. Our latest episode features Harlow Johnson, a nonagenarian from Vernon, BC, who shares his life's reflections during a heartfelt birthday tribute. Harlow offers candid insights on the era he's lived through, including his traditional beliefs and values, which sometimes clash with today's societal norms, particularly regarding LGBTQ+ rights. It's a poignant conversation that not only celebrates Harlow's milestone but also delves into the complexities of reconciling deep-seated faith with the love for one's family and the shifts in cultural perceptions.
Consider for a moment the vast tapestry of human existence, woven with the lives of over 100 billion souls who have graced this Earth. In our episode, we ponder this immense number and the divine criteria that might govern the celestial reckoning of such lives. Harlow muses on the nature of good, evil, and the incomprehensible aspects of a divine being, all while expressing gratitude for the simplicity and routine of daily existence. Join us as we navigate these philosophical waters and extend an open-hearted invitation to reflect, appreciate, and partake in the blessings we share with our listeners.
Well, good evening. It's Harlow Johnson from Vernon, bc. On April the 25th at 9.30 pm. Spring is here. It's starting to warm up a little bit not too much yet, but it's nice to see the spring is here, the leaves are coming out, things are turning. It's nice to see the spring is here, the leaves are coming out and things are turning. I was going to mention a little bit about the last few days days.
Speaker 1:
April 25th my birthday was on April 22nd. I turned 90 on Monday, april 22nd and I don't know birthday business started like on the 21st on Sunday cakes and stuff and whatever from some people on my birthday actual birthday I didn't really. Oh, yes, sunday, the day before my birthday, my sister arranged for cousins and my son and his girlfriend and I guess that's about it Four or five people come over here to the Vernon Rest Home, brought a cake and cards and stuff and whatever. Well, which was nice, I guess. Then actually on oh, I forget what day it was, but the rest home here had a deal for people with birthdays and got cards and stuff there. Then I think it was on 23rd, oh, yes, 23rd Then went out to Desert Cove and big cake and stuff out there and people you know wishing well. I'd drive down the street and people would run out to the street and waving at me and saying happy birthday our own residents, you know. And walking through the main hall, people were waving at me. I thought how the heck do they know it was my birthday? But what it is is. I guess it's a bit of a milestone. You know, I should have never planned, I didn't think of myself being 90 years old and it, you know, just crept up on me. I'm now yet 90 years old and out of style To the world. Well, I can't help that.
Speaker 1:
There's things that have affected me quite a bit on the not good side, due to the fact that I've grown up with certain beliefs and whatever, and one of them had to do with growing up with certain beliefs and whatever, and one of them had to do with with what I was taught and all the things I went to catechism and Sunday school and church and whatever for 60 years, and what I've studied church and whatever for 60 years and what I've studied since and whatever else. One of the things that has happened in this world is that homosexual has become more prevalent. It's been around for a long time been around, I don't know, throughout history, and it's a thing that is very, very, what would you say, abhorrent to the creator of the universe, god and Jesus. And they basically creator of the universe, god and Jesus, and they basically included in the list of things that keep people out of the city of God, or the book of life of Jesus Christ, along with many other things, along with many other things. But it was bad enough that God actually destroyed two cities and just destroyed them forever, and I've always kind of, you know, I have not liked the idea of that.
Speaker 1:
And then for people to say, well, it's their choice, you know, well, of course it's their choice, but it doesn't make it right. The thing is, it seems to me so devilish that it promotes a lie. You know, gay, is it a gay lifestyle? Gay, that's not what I thought gay meant when I grew up, and the gay lifestyle is couched in all kinds of love and this and that. That is another lie.
Speaker 1:
People, they try to pretend to get married man with man and woman with woman. That doesn't work out. You see all the flashy things they do and pretend that this man is not my wife and you know, that just grates me. I know that that's a lie. Why should you promote and want to promote a lie? And the thing that bothers me is that if people support and encourage gay lifestyles and whatever, I think they're going to be classed in the same boat as an homosexual and God is going to say I don't know, you, don't go to come around me, and why would I want that to happen to somebody that is, you know nothing worse than that you can. You know you don't want that to happen to somebody. Now people get mad at you because you don't want it to happen. You're supposed to accept it. That's wrong. You can't accept something like that. It's not that there are not other things that are just as bad and God abhors. I know that. But why pick on one and try to glorify it? And that's what they do. They don't try to glorify people getting drunk. They don't try to glorify, you know, all kinds of things murder and robbery and killing and whatever. Well, they do in some cases, but not like that. They don't try to glorify it.
Speaker 1:
I'd say that, you know, take the rainbow colors and use them as their symbol. The rainbow colors were given by God as a promise to the world. So that's caused problems. I've had to live with that. Now I've been ostracized over that with my own family. They don't want to talk to me anymore because they figure I'm biased and whatever. That's too bad. I hate it because I know it's wrong to do that.
Speaker 1:
And the thing is I didn't change. They changed, not me. You know you don't live 90 years and see everything that's going on in 90 years. You know it's a fair amount of time and realize that in like in the last 10, 15 years between abortion and homosexual and gay and whatever, I mean that's been the big push. Now it's transgender and this, and that All perverted stuff perverted the natural human beings, and they glorify that. What it amounts to is and I've said this quite a few times is it's a prediction that Isaiah made and that was who knows how long that was. That's thousands of years ago. But anyway, he wrote in the book of Isaiah. It's in the book that when good is evil and evil is good, you know you are living in the last days. Well, that's exactly where we are now. Only a lot of people overlook it, plain overlook it and say it's all just, you know modern times and ha ha ha, isn't that Boy? That's bad. That is so bad.
Speaker 1:
Why in the world would a person or people willingly and I say willingly put themselves in a situation where they're going to be barred from a second, wonderful, perfect life forever? This life's earth deal cycle that we're born into actually makes us great cosmic travelers. I'm going to figure out how many miles I've traveled since April 22, 1934. And I'm going to have to sit down and figure it out because I know that I'm revolving, the Earth is revolving, which I'm on, and we're at about, most likely, 1,000 miles per hour. It's 1,200 at the equator, but we're quite a ways from the equator, so we're going a little slower on the curve. Now that's 1,000 miles an hour and I'm traveling around the sun through space at 68,000 miles per hour. Now I don't know exactly how many miles it is around the sun. One year trip. I'm doing that for 90 years and that makes a lot of mileage. That's what you call high mileage. Yeah, I guess, instead of somebody who lives a long time, I could say that well, they're high mileage, which would be true.
Speaker 1:
We are born into this world, created Bang like that Between a male egg and a female, a male sperm and a female egg Boom. We're created A mystery of mysteries of how it all works and it all happens in an instant, everything that's going to require that life to take place, life to take place. Now that that comes with only one thing that survives that, and that is the spirit that God puts in you when you are conceived and it leaves you when you die and goes back to God who gave it, leaves you when you die and goes back to God who gave it to you. It most likely carries a full record of everything you've ever done and I think that's what it's there for. You are created, put together cell by cell, boom, boom, boom, boom, flying together at high speed. In fact, most likely, you know thousands of cells an hour being produced and going here and going there, and then to end up like, like I am, 90 years later, still going, the body is still producing itself stuff and looking after, healing itself and replacing itself.
Speaker 1:
Now the thing is and I knew this well, I knew this and it came to me like I don't know why, but it came to me like. I don't know why, but it came to me like when I was 15 years old. I remember I don't know what day it was. But I remember that I had this thought that came over me that what was I doing here on this planet? And I realized that I was here to make a decision, and so was everyone else, because I realized then that people lived and died and whatever, and didn't stay here forever.
Speaker 1:
So what it belongs, what it ends up being, is that we are given a life. We didn't buy it, we didn't get it from Walmart or the hardware store. We were given a life, we were given a vehicle, a body to live in. It's not ours, we didn't produce it, we didn't create it.
Speaker 1:
And all of a sudden, about nine months later, we come out of this womb that the woman carries and we pop open her eyes and take a look and say what is this? And we see people looking at us. This you know. And we see people looking at us and we don't know who they are and we don't know anything. Basically, maybe there might be some sort of slight instincts to know. I mean, we know that we have to suckle and have food and we know what we have to eat and if we don't eat, we'll bawl and holler and cry to get it. You know things like that, survival things but we have to learn everything and you know we're kind of slow learners. It takes us a while to. It takes us a year or so to even learn how to walk. Now the thing is there's people dying. I think there's two people every every I don't know. One person dies every two seconds or something like that. That in the world, and that's around the clock, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, all the time.
Speaker 1:
Now, we came in this world as a gift. We were given a body and a life. We were given a body and a life and we were here to make a decision about who did this for us and why. We should be grateful. Some do, some don't. Now, when we leave, we leave with the same amount as we came with Nothing. In fact, we don't even have a. Our spirit has gone back to God and we're just a shell, just a wet spot on the rug.
Speaker 1:
But anyway, you know, that's a fact. You can't argue that, nobody can argue that. You can argue and win, because that is exactly what happens to everyone. We come and we leave, and the only thing we are capable of doing is acknowledging that God created us and that he sent his son to save us because we couldn't keep his law and that was God's plan. In the long run, that was his plan. The only way he could create sons was for someone else to take the fall for them, because they couldn't quite do it. And being there, made in the image of God, and God fine-tunes the rest later, god fine-tunes the rest later, because you know to cultivate somebody to be your son forever and to think like you and do like you and have the mind of God and whatever, hopefully.
Speaker 1:
Now, I think the worst possible thing is that people want to believe that there's nothing or whatever, and they do it in full realization that there's no hope for them, none Zero. And I think about that so much. I think that how, what a total waste for a person to live on this planet for 50 to 100 years, or whatever it is, and just plain fail, fail to do one simple thing that God wanted acknowledgement, thatcknowledgement that he had made arrangements to save you. Now human beings are in such a class that we're most likely we were rated way higher than we realized by God Almighty. It's because he created us in his own image and from a little bit of bits and pieces here and there. It appears to me that the angels in heaven and spiritual beings are in basically not jealous but in awe of human beings, because they are a spark of the eternal God. They are created in the image and everything of God. Nobody else is created in the image of God.
Speaker 1:
That God created and to arrange the universe in such a way that was compatible for life on Earth for his children, and to change the universe around afterwards to create an eternal kingdom where his children would reside with him. Which means he said he's going to create a new heaven and a new earth, new heavens that's a lot to change and a new earth. This earth is going to be dissolved and redone, and I mentioned this before. The city of God that God is creating, or Jesus is creating. Jesus said I'm going to prepare a place for you. So it's obviously he's the builder and it's so large that it won't fit on this planet. He has to create a new heaven and a new earth and a new earth, and this earth is going to be so big like 366 times larger in volume than it is now for the city of God to be able to be here. The city of God that he's planning is bigger than the continental United States. Planning is bigger than the continental United States. Its width or dimension is bigger than the border of Canada, united States and the Gulf of Mexico. One side is what would be hanging up in the Gulf and then going the other way and then going up 1,500 miles. That's a huge city.
Speaker 1:
Mind you, I have no way of actually being able to figure this out. I have no way of actually being able to figure this out. But I've sort of tried to think about how many people have been born and lived on this planet to date. And, you know, maybe for the next 5, 10, 20 years too, who knows? But I'm sure that it's going to be over 100 billion, that it's going to be over 100 billion. So out of that amount of people, how many is God going to keep? And it's not going to be.
Speaker 1:
You know God is not a sentimental person or something. You know everything is absolutely right and wrong, and between right and wrong, true and false, and everything. There is no in-between and he is all-powerful, all-knowledgeable and we can't figure out actually how to handle that because we can't fathom it. So we may as well admit it and I think it's sure a good thing that God is who he is. We're very fortunate.
Speaker 1:
Anyway, that's enough of getting old. You know, it's a goal that a lot of people have, I guess, but in my case it's just goal that a lot of people have, I guess, but in my case it's just a matter of I'm not in charge. I'll get up, have breakfast, dinner and supper, as long as it's a deal, as long as I'm supposed to, and be thankful for it. So that's all for tonight. I would like, if you subscribe but I always wait till the end to say that when nobody's listening, I know I'll bet you a dollar, very few, very few. But thank you and I wish you the best and I would ask God to bless you. Thank you.