Devote yourself to prayer
Author: newlifenarrabri
Reflection on Isaiah 55
Scripture
“My thoughts are nothing like your thoughts,” says the Lord. “And my ways are far beyond anything you could imagine.”
Observation
If you are thirsty, come to the Lord. He has the finest drinks all at no cost. Why waste money on things that do not satisfy?
Come to the Lord with your ears wide open. He has the words of life.
His thoughts are nothing like our thoughts, and His ways are far above our ways.
Rain and snow fall from the heavens watering the ground and making the crops grow. God’s word is the same. He sends it out, and it always bears fruit. It will accomplish all that He wants it to do.
The Lord will give us joy and peace. The mountains and hills will burst into song.
Application
It is folly to think that we can work God out. His ways are much higher than our ways. When we think we have God all figured out, He throws us a curve-ball, and our plans fall apart.
This is not to decry theology. We must endeavour to understand God so that we can be faithful to Him. But we must never think that we can predict what He will do.
The Jewish people had the Messiah worked out. He was going to set Israel as a great nation, kicking out the pagan Romans. They saw the Messiah as a freedom fighter.
God’s plan was different. Jesus fought for our freedom by killing sin on the cross. He made Israel great by providing a new Israel called the church. God’s promises were fulfilled, but not in a way that people expected.
God’s ways are infinitely better than our ways.
Prayer
Lord, I thank you that you have things worked out far better than I ever could. Help me to walk in your ways even when I don’t understand them. Amen.
Jo Nova: The EV Whirlpool Gets Stronger
Jo Nova writes:
EV Hell continues: Crash victims might have to be “left to die”, Hertz dumps another 10,000 cars, Tesla sacks whole charging team
Chronicling the collapse of the Big-Government-made EV bubble
In today’s EV obituary column, Elon Musk has dropped a bombshell. Two months after Telsa chargers became the industry standard (which promised to save the other car makers) his profits fell, and he’s fired the entire EV charging team overnight. Hertz, meanwhile, has realized that dumping 20,000 electric cars in January was not enough, and it has to offload another 10,000 electric cars, which now amounts to half its EV fleet. And then comes the news that there might be a secondhand “timebomb” coming at the eight year mark when most EV battery warrantees run out and cars will become “impossible to sell”.
As if that’s not enough, this week the fire and rescue experts in NSW are warning in the politest possible way, that they might have to do a “tactical disengagement” of a car accident victim, which means leaving them to die in an EV fire if the battery looks likely to explode. They say that first responders need more training, as if this can be solved with a certificate, but the dark truth is that they’re talking about training the firemen and the truck drivers to recognize when they have to abandon the rescue.
EV crash victims could be left to die in battery fires without training for responders, inquiry told
Jennifer Dudley-Nicholson, The Driven
The NSW government’s Electric and Hybrid Vehicle Batteries Inquiry heard testimony from fire and rescue services, paramedics, the Motor Traders’ Association, and TAFE on Tuesday in its second public hearing.
In the most serious incidents, firefighters said crews could be forced to abandon rescues or crudely rescue passengers from vehicles, and were being left “flying blind” at battery fires.
VRA Rescue NSW Commissioner Brenton Charlton told the inquiry worse outcomes were also possible, including battery explosions in which a rescue operation would put emergency workers at risk.
“We need to prepare ourselves and our volunteers… for the point in time we have to do a tactical disengagement, meaning if someone’s trapped and it does high order (explode) you might not be able to do anything,” he said.
“That will be a tragic, horrible thing to take part in.”
Just like that, Elon Musk fired the whole Tesla EV charging team, throwing the industry into chaos because Tesla network is the best by far and the bedrock of the so called “transition”. Tesla had agreed to open its charging network to other EV makers only recently, and Joe Biden was delighted. Tesla is getting subsidies to expand it’s North American Charging Standard (NACS) system. But this move
Tesla layoffs shake confidence in the EV-charging future
By David Ferris, E&E News
In a single stroke, CEO Elon Musk called his company’s vaunted charging reliability into question when he laid off most or all of Tesla’s Supercharger team, the people who made Tesla the envy of the EV industry. The network they built is bigger, faster, smarter and more reliable than any other company’s — and has become the linchpin of the auto industry’s plan to persuade millions of Americans to buy EVs and turn the tide on climate change.
“It feels like the rug just got pulled out from under a lot of the industry alignment that has been built in the last 12 months,” said Matt Teske, an industry veteran and CEO of Chargeway, an EV-charging software platform. “And leaves us on shaky ground.”
In 2022, as traditional automakers finally started delivering a substantial number of EVs to the roadways, they ran into a problem. Their drivers couldn’t use Tesla’s chargers, because they were meant only for Teslas. And the public networks had an array of reliability problems.
Ford was the first automaker to hit on the solution. Last spring, it struck a deal with Tesla to use its 12,000 U.S. charging stations and committed to building Tesla’s charging technology called the North American Charging Standard, or NACS, into its future vehicles.
Other automakers followed suit in short order. By February, Tesla’s NACS had become the industry standard, with virtually every automaker planning to redesign their charging systems to meet Tesla’s specifications.
The Hertz debacle truly might become an obituary
Originally Hertz was going to buy 100,000 wonder-cars which would be cheap to fix and popular with punters. But the future fleet only reached 60,000 cars and is now reversing back to 30,000 cars which tourists apparently don’t want to rent much, and which cost twice as much to repair.
Not surprisingly, it’s a financial ruin. Hertz shares have lost three quarters of their value since 2022.
The company was an $11 billion dollar company in 2021 when it announced the mass EV purchases — it is now a $1.4 billion dollar company.
Hertz drops more EVs
RENTAL car giant Hertz, has announced that it is selling off 10,000 more EVs than it planned in January when it set out to stem the tide of massive depreciation that hit its fleet of 60,000 EVs.
Rental car companies need to be able to sell off their ex-rentals for a reasonable sum, but just as Hertz realized it couldn’t afford to repair these cars, it also realized it couldn’t sell them either:
…the program came under stress when Tesla began discounting its cars last year.
This set off a tsunami of depreciation for existing Tesla owners; including Hertz, which had the biggest exposure of anyone. In turn, other EV makers followed suit with discounts and retained values for all EVs became a race to the bottom.
And as word spreads, possibly no one else will be able to sell them either. What is an 8 year old EV with no battery warrantee worth? It’s pot luck whether it will keep going or suddenly need a £15,000 repair…
The used electric car timebomb – EVs could become impossible to sell on because battery guarantees won’t last – find out if you are affected
By TOBY WALNE, This is Money
Money Mail can today reveal a timebomb looming in the second-hand market for electric vehicles (EVs).
Our investigation found that many EVs could become almost impossible to resell because of their limited battery life.
Experts said that the average EV battery guarantee lasts just eight years. After this time, the battery may lose power more quickly and so reduce mileage between charges.
In some cases, the cost of a replacement battery is as much as £40,000. For certain EVs, the cost of replacing the battery could be ten times the value of the vehicle itself on the second-hand market.
Yet geniuses in government still want to push us all into EV’s.
With uncanny timing the Australian Albanese government is about to launch emissions standards we don’t need to force people to buy a product they don’t want, in the hope, so they say, of stopping some storms.
The insanity would be hard to fathom if EV’s weren’t also the ideal tool for spying, data collection, law enforcement, and political control. Benefits that can launch a thousand political careers…
Jesus Humbled Himself
Quote for the Day
But what distinguished Christian converts from their neighbours was their rejection of sexual practices and idolatries. Scot McKnight and Cody Matchett
Reflection on Isaiah 54
Scripture
“In that day, no weapon turned against you will succeed. You will silence every voice raised up to accuse you.”
Observation
Rejoice, childless woman, for the Lord is giving you children beyond number. Jerusalem will have to enlarge her house because she will be bursting at the seams.
You will not live in disgrace or abandonment, for the Lord of Heaven’s Armies will be your husband. Even if the mountains move and the hills disappear, His constant love will remain.
The Lord created the blacksmith who makes the weapons of destruction and the armies that destroy. But in that day, no weapon will succeed against you and every accusing voice will be silenced.
Application
Christians often face many enemies and accusers. The Lord promises that their weapons and accusations will fall short. It I not clear in this chapter whether the promises are for Israel and Jerusalem. But then, in the very last verse, the Lord says, “these benefits are enjoyed by the servants of the Lord.”
Lately some members of my church have faced some frustrations and difficulties caused by witchcraft of various forms, all emanating from one individual. We have had to persevere in prayer, but we know that God’s promise is “no weapon turned against you will succeed.”
People make accusations against christians on social media and in other places. but we can rest assured that God will silence every voice raised up to accuse us.
When we face opposition, we should remember that we are not fighting against flesh and blood, but against forces in the spirit realm. We take it all to the Lord and trust Him to vindicate us and bring victory.
Prayer
Hallelujah! Lord the victory is yours. Please help me to rest in you when the enemies arise. Amen.
Let Justice Flow
I pray for you…
Darwin’s Blunder Lives On
From Creation Evolution Headlines
David F. Coppedge writes
Darwin’s Blunder Lives On
A major journal publishes a paper
claiming that natural selection is
like human engineering
Darwin’s blunder was criticised by scientists in his own day. He likened natural selection to artificial selection: i.e., human breeding of plants and animals. The two concepts could not be farther apart. They are opposites. Now, three guys print the same blunder out in the open with shameless bravado.
Weinberg’s Law: an expert is a person who avoids the small errors while sweeping on to the grand fallacy.
What farmers and ranchers do as they try to produce better tomatoes or stronger horses has nothing to do with Darwin’s theory. Breeders have foresight. They have intentionality. They set a goal, and can gauge the success of their efforts by measurable results. Darwin’s Stuff Happens Law has none of the above.
Charley specifically denounced any role for foresight, intentionality, or purpose in the operation of natural selection (NS). NS was to be a blind, unguided mechanical process all the way down. Darwin’s own “intention” was to rid biology of any role for a Creator God or designer of any kind. And yet he repeatedly used a fallacious argument from analogy for support, claiming that natural selection is like artificial selection. He was still claiming this in 1876 in the 6th edition of Origin of Species, 17 years after the 1st edition.
Slow though the process of selection may be, if feeble man can do much by artificial selection, I can see no limit to the amount of change, to the beauty and complexity of the coadaptations between all organic beings, one with another and with their physical conditions of life, which may have been effected in the long course of time through nature’s power of selection, that is by the survival of the fittest. [Origin, 6th ed., ch. 4, p85]
Ah, the fittest. Yes, that was the purpose of the blind watchmaker: increasing an organism’s “fitness” (whatever that is). Please re-read our entry, “Fitness for Dummies” to recall that fitness is a slippery, undefinable tautological term that can mean anything the evolutionist wants it to mean. But why would a blind process even know or care about the definition of fitness? Stuff Happens; that’s fitness in a nutshell. Anyone who stuffs that idea into his skull has it in a nut shell.
Darwin never saw his own fallacy. He should have known better, having been a pigeon fancier and a friend of breeders. He should have known that the outlandish varieties produced by breeders, like poodles and dachshunds and pouter pigeons would never have arisen naturally—indeed, they could not survive in the wild. But Charley reasoned that if breeders could accentuate small variations to those extremes, couldn’t Nature accomplish much more, given millions of years? “I can see no limit,” he said. That’s because his eyes were closed, and he was daydreaming in his imagination.
Summing up, Darwin thought (illogically) that if human intelligence can accentuate variations for a purpose, why couldn’t blind nature accentuate variations for no purpose at all? He reasoned that Nature is just like a thinking, rational breeder, that purpose is just like chance, that foresight is like blindness, and that intention is like aimlessness.
He didn’t get it. In his new book Darwin’s Bluff, Robert Shedinger quotes from Darwin’s own correspondence how he persisted in this fallacy to his dying day.
Darwin’s disciples today still sweep on to the same grand fallacy. Here is a spectacular example printed by Nature yesterday.
Engineering is evolution: a perspective on design processes to engineer biology (Nature Communications, 29 April 2024). These three Darwinians (Simeon D. Castle, Michiel Stock and and Thomas E. Gorochowski) do a one-up on Darwin. Not only is evolution like breeding, they assert; it’s like engineering! Indeed, they say, engineering is evolution! The paper is open access, so go ahead: watch them sweep on to the grand fallacy.
Read the rest of the article here
Quote for the Day
Worship describes a whole life lived in devotion to the God on the throne and the Lamb who stands in the middle of that throne. If worship is one’s whole life devoted to God, then any dimension of life surrendered to anything else corrupts worship. Scot McKnight and Cody Matchett
