There are moments when God does not speak in sentences but in pictures. Recently, I saw one of those pictures: humanity like fish in a dirty fishbowl, swimming in water that has never been changed. The fish were not the problem; the water was. That image immediately brought Scripture into sharp focus, revealing the world system exactly as the Bible describes it. The environment itself is contaminated, and the creatures inside it have adapted to the pollution without realizing it is killing them spiritually.
Scripture says plainly, “The whole world lies in wickedness” (1 John 5:19). This is the fishbowl. It is a closed environment filled with spiritual toxins, and the people inside breathe it, absorb it, and normalize it. Jesus never told His followers to fix the world system. Instead, He said, “You are not of this world” (John 17:16). Paul echoed this when he wrote, “Do not be conformed to this world but be transformed by a renewing of your mind” (Romans 12:2). These commands are not about rejecting people; they are about recognizing the environment we live in and refusing to absorb its contamination.
This is why God’s message to me in 2023 was so clear: “The Line is Drawn.” The line is not between political groups, denominations, or personalities. It is the line between truth and deception, light and darkness, clean water and polluted water, the Kingdom of God and the world system. Jesus said, “My sheep hear My voice” (John 10:27). Hearing His voice is the separation. Truth draws the line, and once you stand on the side of truth, you begin to see the dirty fishbowl from the outside.
One of God’s last words in 2023 was that “Fornication is a Sin,” and Scripture consistently describes sexual immorality using environmental language: defilement, uncleanness, and corruption. Paul writes, “Flee fornication… he that commits fornication sins against his own body” (1 Corinthians 6:18). This is not about shame; it is about contamination. Sexual immorality is one of the pollutants in the water. It clouds the mind, dulls the spirit, blinds the heart, and keeps people spiritually asleep. Scripture warns, “For this is the will of God… that you abstain from fornication” (1 Thessalonians 4:3). God is not restrictive; He is protective. He wants His people in clean water.
The world system lulls people into spiritual sleep: See “Awaken from Your Sleep.” Paul addresses this directly: “Awake, you who sleep, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give you light” (Ephesians 5:14). Sleep is the condition of the fish in the dirty bowl. They do not know the water is dirty. They do not know the environment is killing them. They do not know they are blind. Truth wakes you up. Light wakes you up. Christ wakes you up. Once you wake up, you cannot go back into the dirty bowl. “And ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free.” John 8:32
This urgency is echoed in one of the most sobering passages in Scripture, where Solomon describes the moment life collapses and the system that holds it together breaks apart. He writes, “Or ever the silver cord be loosed, or the golden bowl be broken, or the pitcher be broken at the fountain, or the wheel broken at the cistern. Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was: and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it.” (Ecclesiastes 12:6-7). This imagery is not random. It is the language of vessels, containers, bowls, and cisterns — all things that hold water, all breaking. It is the moment the structure that holds the water fails. It is the moment the old system collapses. It is the moment the bowl shatters. This is the same truth the dirty fishbowl vision revealed to me: the environment humanity lives in is not only polluted — it is temporary, fragile, and destined to break.
Ecclesiastes 12:6 and the fishbowl vision speak the same message: wake up before the cord snaps, before the bowl breaks, before the water drains, before the system collapses. Life is short, the cord is fragile, and the bowl is temporary. We are called to wake up before the cord breaks, before the water we swim in becomes the water we drown in, and before the environment we absorb becomes the environment we die in.
This brings us to the heart of Jesus’s command to love. Jesus does not tell us to love because people are perfect. He tells us to love because people are trapped in the dirty bowl. They are breathing dirty water, shaped by a system they did not create, and blinded by an environment they cannot see. Jesus says, “Love your enemies” (Matthew 5:44), not because they are righteous but because they are drowning. He says, “We are one in Christ” (Colossians 3:11), not because we agree on everything but because we share a new environment: the Kingdom. And He says, “A new commandment I give you: that you love one another” (John 13:34), because love is the evidence that you have left the dirty fishbowl behind.
This is why Scripture teaches, “Let love be without hypocrisy. Abhor what is evil; cling to what is good” (Romans 12:9). The balance is simple: “Love People, Hate Evil.” Love the fish and hate the dirty water. Love the person and hate the system that blinds them. Love the soul and hate the corruption that destroys it. Jesus’s commands are not sentimental; they are strategic. Love pulls people out of the dirty bowl. Truth shows them that the water is dirty. Light reveals the path of the line that has been drawn.
The message is simple and urgent. The bowl is real. The water is contaminated. The line is drawn. The time is short. The call is love. The command is purity. The invitation is awakening. The door is Christ. Scripture says, “Set your mind on things above, not on things on the earth” (Colossians 3:2). That is the new environment. That is the clean water. That is the Kingdom. Wake up. Come out of the dirty fishbowl. Walk in the light. Love people. Hate evil. And cling to Christ before the silver cord is cut and the golden bowl breaks.
Jesus is the clean water that never becomes polluted, the only source of life that cannot be corrupted by the world’s broken systems. Scripture says He came “by water and by blood” (1 John 5:6), testifying that His purity and His sacrifice are both incorruptible. Every bowl in Scripture eventually breaks, every cistern eventually leaks, and every environment shaped by human hands eventually becomes contaminated, but Christ Himself remains the fountain of living water that never runs dry and never becomes defiled (John 4:14). He is the only environment that cannot decay, the only life that cannot be tainted, and the only place where the water is eternally clean. When the golden bowl breaks and the pitcher shatters at the fountain (Ecclesiastes 12:6), when the systems of this world collapse and the old creation passes away, the only safe place left is the One whose water is eternal, unpolluted, and untouched by the corruption of the world.