The Crispr technologies in use today are taking us right back to the days of Noah. Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeat (CRISPR), or Crispr for short, is an RNA-guided, gene-editing platform that can literally, at a basic DNA and germ-line level, alter humanity and “speed up the evolutionary process.”

Researchers the world over are already using Crispr technologies to tinker with the genomes of humans, animals, plants, germs and bacteria, something expressly forbidden by implication in Genesis 1:24,

“And God said, ‘Let the land produce living creatures according to their kinds: the livestock, the creatures that move along the ground, and the wild animals, each according to its kind.’ And it was so.”

This cross-species tinkering and altering has been going on for years in labs all over the world. What makes Crispr different is that this technology is now going mainstream. Crispr, through gene-editing live subjects, can target and modify DNA with groundbreaking accuracy. This makes it both the newest darling and the newest villain of genetics research. A relatively recent invention, it was initially developed in 2012 by scientists at the University of California, Berkley.

It aims to repair or eliminate mutations that cause disease; and there are significant and legitimate valuable potential outcomes attached to this new gene-editing technology. Crispr has the potential to eradicate specific diseases like HIV, Huntington’s, Alzheimer’s, hemophilia, sickle-cell anemia and several forms of cancer. It could also be used to prevent children from being born mentally impaired.

Crispr could also be used for more nefarious reasons: to create designer babies, prevent premature aging, or to stimulate muscle growth and so create super-humans. There is a very real danger, increasing with each passing month, that technologies like Crispr will be exploited for non-therapeutic modifications by unregulated scientists working in any number of off-the-grid, beyond oversight labs currently operating around the world.

The US military is exceptionally interested in Crispr. They want to create the first super-soldier. They want to engineer a man who can run further and faster, carry more weight, make better decisions under pressure, stay awake longer, endure more physical pain and hardship and act without a sense of guilt or moral consideration to hinder them. They want a soldier who is unaffected by the emotional baggage of combat, someone who would kill on command, without question or any remorse. A near perfect super-soldier.

Though this type of technology has been widely used in professional laboratories for a number of years, Crispr is now taking gene editing to the general public. This is what makes Crispr so dangerous, revolutionary and increasingly prophetically significant. As a private citizen, with no scientific knowledge or training, you can now buy your own Crispr gene-editing kit for about $400.

You can get Crispr over the internet. This means that, with almost no training or expertise, you can potentially edit your own DNA and genes in the privacy of your own home, regardless of the consequences.

And there are consequences, of that there can be absolutely no doubt. What makes Crispr technology so exceptionally dangerous is that, with it, it becomes possible to alter DNA at a germline level which is at the basic level of semen or ovum. This is terrifying because altering DNA at the germline level (semen/ovum) means that any genetic change or mutation made to a hosts’ DNA in the privacy of their own home would be passed on through semen/ovum to all future offspring for as long as that individual line lasts into the future. An individual could potentially change, even in their own homes, what it actually means to be human, both for themselves and all their future progeny.

Altering the human germline will result in heritable human genetic modifications, and this poses a huge risk to the future of humanity. These changes are permanent and cannot be reversed. The effects on all future offspring, for all time, would be permanent and could not be reversed. Not ever.

This is such a significant risk that, even within the experimental scientific community, attempts to push the envelope of acceptability further and further are frowned upon. Even here, in a community known for regularly “pushing the envelope,” there is widespread and grave concern over the ethical and safety implications attached to Crispr technologies.

But Crispr is out of the box now, and we cannot put it back in even if we wanted too. It will increasingly change the human race, subtly at first, but we are currently only at the beginning of this process. Many scientists attached to this field even believe that sooner rather than later it is going to become necessary to redefine the very boundaries of what it actually means to be a “human being,” so significant will its impact be.

In 2018, you can’t even buy a secondhand beat-up car for $400 dollars, but you can change your own DNA and those of all your future offspring, forever.

Jesus Christ revealed that the time of his return would be as the days of Noah:

“As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man” (Matthew 24:37).

Jesus emphasised a direct connection between the days of Noah and the time of his return to this earth. During the days of Noah, people were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, right up until the very moment the flood waters came and washed them away. The people of Noah’s day were totally unaware of the judgment hanging directly over their heads.

Much like our world today, they were totally oblivious.

Those days were also characterised by two other things: extreme violence and extreme rebellion. One was a symptom of the other. It was the extreme forms of rebellion that facilitated the extreme rise of violence on the earth. Man’s thoughts and imaginations had become continually evil.

This rebellion detailed in Genesis 6 and thereafter is one of the most pivotal events in all human history. The scale of the rebellion is staggering in its implications; and without a good understanding of it, it is impossible for any Christian to fully grasp later events in the Old Testament. This chapter is that important. It is foundational to the rest of the Old Testament.

In Genesis 6 we are told how “…the sons of God saw the daughters of men, that they were beautiful; and they took wives for themselves of all whom they chose” (Genesis 6:2).

In all scriptural interpretations that remain faithful to the biblical text of Genesis 6 and elsewhere in the Bible, this word “sons of God” is a translation of the Hebrew “bənê ĕlōhîm,” which literally means “sons of Elohiym” or “sons of God.”

This phrase is used only four times in the whole of scripture: here in Genesis 6:2, Job 1:6, Job 38:7 and Psalms 29:1. In every scriptural example, this term clearly refers to heavenly beings or angelic beings. This term is used in each case as an example of a direct creation of God, a literal “son of God.”

Genesis 6 describes a time when some of the most powerful “bənê ĕlōhîm” descended from Heaven, and seeing human women, subsequently lusted after them. Ultimately, they began to take whichever they wanted for themselves as wives, a direct contravention of God’s ordained boundaries for his own creation:

“And God said, ‘Let the land produce living creatures according to their kinds: the livestock, the creatures that move along the ground, and the wild animals, each according to its kind.’ And it was so.” (Genesis 1:24).

God ordained plants, animals and all things to reproduce after their own kind, with no interbreeding between species.

Jude in the New Testament talks of this time when he explains,

“And the angels who did not keep their positions of authority but abandoned their proper dwelling—these he has kept in darkness, bound with everlasting chains for judgment on the great Day” (Jude 1:6).

A literal reading of the Bible can only lead one to conclude that, in the distant past, powerful angels descended from Heaven, abandoned their proper positions and produced hybrid offspring with human women.

The result of this conduct was outrage from God. The angels involved were consigned by God to the Abyss (1 Pet. 3:19-20; 2 Pet. 2:4-10; Jude 1:5-7). That terrifying prospect seems to have allayed all such behavior since (at least as far as the biblical record is concerned: Lk. 8:31; cf. Jude 6; Rev. 9:1-11, 9:13-16, 20:1-3, 20:7).

These unholy and entirely unsanctioned unions resulted in the Nephilim, angel-human hybrids. These children were not fully human, and they grew enormous in stature and intellects; they were an utter abhorrence to God.

“The Nephilim were on the earth in those days—and also afterward—when the sons of God went to the daughters of humans and had children by them. They were the heroes of old, men of renown…” (Genesis 6:4).

Today, scientists might interpret this incursion by the bənê ĕlōhîm as an attempt to alter the human DNA gene pool. They were successful because the DNA of man was changed by these unions.

When one also examines in depth the reasons for Noah’s deliverance, it becomes clear that he was selected in order to preserve mankind. Noah is described as being “perfect in his generations.”

“These are the generations of Noah: Noah was a just man and perfect in his generations, and Noah walked with God” (Genesis 6:9).

Noah wasn’t delivered simply because he was a good man, a “preacher of righteousness.” The word “generations” referenced here is more accurately translated as “descendants.” In context, this phrase, “perfect in his generations,” literally means he was “without blemish” in his generation, and “without blemish” amongst his descendants.

Noah and his family likely represented the only true and completely uncorrupted human seed left on the earth at that time, and God used the flood to save mankind. Everything was genetically corrupted by this angelic incursion. Plants, animals and human beings had become tainted and corrupted by it.

Except for Noah and his family.

This very day, mankind is embarking on the same path of rebellion that the bənê ĕlōhîm walked all those years ago. Crispr is a highly significant technological development, and it clearly signposts where we are on God’s prophetic calendar.

God judged and destroyed the whole world for this type of aberrant behavior once before; and ominously, the Bible tells us over and over that God does not change.

God is consistent and faithful to His word, so judgment is coming. He is also longsuffering and patient, but that patience will one day come to an end. Like Noah who was delivered by the Ark, which is a clear prophetic picture of Jesus Christ, we also who cling to the name of Jesus will soon be delivered. When that day comes, it will be sudden, miraculous, and it will be in the blink of an eye!

“Go, my people, enter your rooms and shut the doors behind you; hide yourselves for a little while until his wrath has passed by” (Isaiah 26:20).

wardmatt1977@gmail.com

 

Relations between Israel and Russia are on a knife edge. Events in the Middle East are moving at a very fast pace. With the downing of a Russian IL-20 reconnaissance plane on September 17^th, it would seem that Russia, sensing an opportunity, is trying to both reset relations with Israel as well as redraw the operational limits of their own involvement in Syria and the Middle Eastern theatre. They are doing this whilst at the same time drastically curtailing Israel’s ability to act against her ever-more-entrenched regional enemies in Syria, Iran and Hezbollah.

Events began on September 17^th with an Israeli Defense Force attack on a Syrian military facility located in Latakia. It was believed by Israel to be housing a lethal, high precision weapons systems bound for use by Hezbollah in Lebanon, something that has always been a very clear red line for the Jewish State.

After the successful airstrikes, the Israeli F-16 warplanes were engaged by Syrian air defenses. As a direct consequence of Syria’s wide-ranging and highly imprecise anti-air fire, a Russian IL-20 military plane with 15 Russian servicemen on board was shot down over the Mediterranean. All Russian servicemen died. This has created a firestorm for Israel, one which has the potential to severely impede her operational capabilities, not only in Syria but also in her ability to successfully defend her own homeland.

Immediately following the downing of the Russian IL-20 plane, Israel dispatched senior IDF commanders to Russia with the aim of clarifying that the responsibility for this unforeseen tragedy lay squarely at the door of the Syrian government. To that end, Major General Amikam Nurkin travelled to Moscow to brief senior Russia officers personally, presenting them with the data and findings from the IDF’s own investigation.

To be blunt, the IDF’s conclusions were rebuffed. That is an understatement. After concluding its own investigation, the Russian military came to the conclusion that it was in fact Israel that was solely to blame for the downing of the Russian IL-20, not Syria, and that Israel was exclusively to blame for the loss of the 15 Russian servicemen.

This accusation has rocked the IDF, and the shock felt within the Israeli military has been exacerbated by the increasingly bellicose accusations and charges laid against the IDF from the Russian military and its Defense Ministry.

On Sunday, 23^rd September, the Russian Defense Ministry publically gave its own account of what happened on September 17^th. The Russian Defence Ministry lays the entire blame for the incident squarely with the IDF. Worse still, Russian Major General Igor Konashenkov has openly claimed that the IDF has actively misled Russia about the location of its planned airstrikes in Syria, and that because of this the Russian IL-20 was prevented from being moved to a safe zone. Russia is declaring this as a direct breach of the 2015 Russian-Israeli agreements made to try to prevent clashes in Syria between Russian armed forces and Israel’s.

But Major General Igor Konashenkov wasn’t finished there. He went further. General Konashenkov continued by asserting that Israeli F-16 fighter jets had used the IL-20 as a “shield” against Syrian air defense systems, thereby purposely endangering the aircraft and all the Russian personnel on board. In so declaring, he has directly contradicted the IDF’s claim that the Israeli F-16’s were already home in Israeli airspace when the IL-20 was hit and shot down. He is publically asserting that Israel lied to them.

The Russian briefing concluded ominously by claiming that Israeli military personnel have acted with “criminal negligence,” and that they are exclusively to blame for the loss of Russian life.

The Russians, as a consequence, have now declared electronic war on Israel over the skies of both Syria and the Eastern Mediterranean. In quick time, the Russian military has armed Syria with the S-300 air defense system and will also immediately start jamming all “enemy” navigation in the Eastern Mediterranean.

According to Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, the Syrian electronic air defense capabilities will now be increased to the same levels as the Russian forces currently operating within Syria.

Shoigu continued, “Russia will jam satellite navigation, on-board radars and communications systems of combat aircraft which attack targets in the Syrian territory, in the regions over the Mediterranean Sea bordering with Syria.”

Shoigu then concluded with a thinly veiled threat to Israel, stating that if these new measures “fail to cool hotheads, we will have to respond in line with the current situation.”

This is certainly a huge blow to Israel and will severely impede Israel’s ability to act within the Syrian theatre. The temperature in the Middle East has just shot up a number of notches. This is the first time in history that one nation has openly declared electronic warfare against another nation-state.

To this end, the first deliveries of Russian Krasukha-4 electronic warfare units have now been delivered to Syria. As well as neutralizing ground and airborne radars, these units can also jam and severely disrupt spy satellites. This system can jam all forms of communications systems, disable guided missiles, aircraft and radars, and be used as a platform to attack enemy electronic warfare capable units. These combined Russian measures will have the result of significantly hampering Israel’s ability to operate successfully within Syria, or even to monitor at least to the same degree, what is actually going on there “on the ground.”

Netanyahu has declared that, irrelevant of these new measures, Israel will continue to take the action necessary to prevent the embedding of Iran and Hezbollah in Syria. Such grand statements are meaningless though as even Netanyahu himself, speaking on the sidelines of the recent UN summit, openly acknowledged that this “accident with the IL-20 may have serious consequences” – many of which may be as yet unforeseen. Netanyahu’s comments are an explicit acknowledgement that the dynamic in Syria may have changed significantly.

The delivery of these new S-300 missiles, whilst not the most cutting edge weaponry available, will certainly complicate Israel’s ability to act unimpeded in Syria. As Israeli journalist Barak Ravid observed, the move “could limit the Israeli air force’s freedom of operation in Syria.” (1).

The delivery of these missiles and Russia’s declaration that they will interfere electronically with Israeli electronic warfare capabilities matter. They matter because, short of the obvious military impediment Israel now faces, the move also threatens to unravel a military and political alliance between Israel and Russia that has thus far kept them, and more importantly the other major world powers, backing up both sides from coming into direct conflict in Syria.

Israel will now have to be exceptionally careful and will need to calculate each and every potential intervention against Iran and Hezbollah in Syria in a way it has not had to before. Given that Israel has already conducted hundreds of operations in Syria and will likely continue to do so in the future, the likelihood of an Israeli jet being shot down by enhanced Syrian air defense systems has now significantly risen. If such an eventuality does arise and Israeli planes are shot down, or pilots injured or captured, then the likelihood that this may in turn provoke a wider regional flare-up increases dramatically. Israel, Iran, Syria, Russia and the United States could all be dragged into open and direct confrontation.

The bottom line for how this crisis concludes rests with Putin, although at this stage it appears that the outcome will be a severe restriction of Israel’s freedom of action over Syria. Amongst all the uncertainty though, one thing does however remain unchanged; Iran is still, without question, absolutely determined to continue transferring arms to Hezbollah.

The real test will be when Israeli intelligence, at some point in the near future, suggests that Iran is once again attempting to smuggle sophisticated arms and weaponry into Lebanon. What happens then, when Israel feels absolutely obliged to act? Will they? And if they do, what will Russia do? And will this be containable?

Only time will tell.

1. https://www.axios.com/russia-supply-syria-syria-missiles-rebuke-israel-d2603edf-c35a-48b1-a61a-ad8d647c52f8.html

wardmatt1977@gmail.com