Out of Control

Misinterpreting the patience of God

2010-12-24T17:05:00.001-07:00

Jeremiah 44:16-23 "As for the word that you have spoken to us in the name of the LORD, we will not listen to you! 17 But we will certainly do whatever has gone out of our own mouth, to burn incense to the queen of heaven and pour out drink offerings to her, as we have done, we and our fathers, our kings and our princes, in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem. For then we had plenty of food, were well-off, and saw no trouble. 18 But since we stopped burning incense to the queen of heaven and pouring out drink offerings to her, we have lacked everything and have been consumed by the sword and by famine." 19 The women also said, "And when we burned incense to the queen of heaven and poured out drink offerings to her, did we make cakes for her, to worship her, and pour out drink offerings to her without our husbands' permission?" 20 Then Jeremiah spoke to all the people—the men, the women, and all the people who had given him that answer—saying: 21 "The incense that you burned in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem, you and your fathers, your kings and your princes, and the people of the land, did not the LORD remember them, and did it not come into His mind? 22 So the LORD could no longer bear it, because of the evil of your doings and because of the abominations which you committed. Therefore your land is a desolation, an astonishment, a curse, and without an inhabitant, as it is this day. 23 Because you have burned incense and because you have sinned against the LORD, and have not obeyed the voice of the LORD or walked in His law, in His statutes or in His testimonies, therefore this calamity has happened to you, as at this day."(NKJV)

Jeremiah had many conversations with various people in his books. This passage above from Jeremiah 44 really jumped out as one that could have occurred today. The people of the land complain to Jeremiah that they had plenty of food, water, and everything else when they worshiped the “queen of heaven.” It was better when they spread the worship around. They even misplaced the cause of their judgment; it wasn’t because they forgot to worship the Lord that they were being judged, it was because they had stopped praying to their own gods. To them, the simple proximity of time between the various actions gave the cause and effect. It couldn’t possibly have been because of neglecting the worship of Jehovah that they were suffering; they’d stopped doing that too long ago for that to be the cause! They did not know God, nor His word well enough to understand God’s attributes.

Because of the patience of God, sinful men become even more set in their sinful ways. They believe that if they aren’t judged right that second for their sin, that God must be looking the other way—that he must be ok with whatever they are doing, or perhaps He doesn’t exist. In a sense, even this expectation is a form of idolatry. To the unbeliever, whatever he or she is doing is at the center of the universe; God should interrupt His plan of history to make sure that each sin is punished immediately. God should march to their beat and dance to their desires. If He doesn’t, then He doesn’t exist, or He isn’t relevant they will assert. This is the same thing that the atheist does in arguing against God’s existence. “God has to reveal Himself to me in some supernatural way before I will believe” says the atheist. “I’m so important, that I cannot read the words you’ve spoken God, I have to have my own special revelation to believe.”

This may come as a shock to a lot of people, but the Bible isn’t a religious buffet. One doesn’t get to choose this piece or that piece of what God has said to believe, and then choose other pieces that are to be rejected. Either you are going to worship the God who has spoken through the Bible, or you are going to worship an idol. You might think you’re something special if you construct an extra specially complicated idol with some unique features, or you might think yourself special if you adopt the idol of some famous person. You might comfort yourself with the idea that so-and-so also worshiped this or that god and they were a “good” person, but ultimately it is still an idol. The judgment at the end of the age isn’t going to be based on how creatively you adorned the idol you created, it is going to be based on whether or not you know the God who is there. Woe to those whom Christ tells at the end of the age says “I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!” (Matthew 7:23).

The Lie Told By God-Hating Humanists

2009-04-23T07:21:00.001-07:00

This story from ABC News is saddening to me. Without even really commenting on the pill itself (that's really just another facet of the abortion debate), I'd like to point out one of the most outrageous comments in the article:

Nancy Northup, president of the Center for Reproductive Rights, further noted in a statement released Wednesday that the development is a victory for science.
"We are pleased that the FDA is taking the necessary steps to comply with the court's order. It's a good indication that the agency will move expeditiously to ensure its policy on Plan B is based solely on science," Northup's statement reads. "It's time the FDA restores confidence in its ability to safeguard the public health and put medical science first."

The part of the quote that is just ludicrous is "to ensure its policy on Plan B is based solely on science." This lady's comments shouldn't even be reported by a news agency because they are an outright lie. Science can never answer moral questions. Science can answer "could" questions, but not "should" questions. Science can tell you what the pill is going to do, how it's going to work, the side effects and many other things, but it most definitely CANNOT tell you if minors or anyone else for that matter should have access to it. That is a moral question to which science cannot speak. This is not a victory for "science," it's a victory for God-hating humanists. Of course if she told the truth, then her statement looses much of its high sounding authority. Let me say it again, this is not about science in any fashion, it is about one group's religious agenda. Christianity will not have problems standing up in the marketplace of ideas; it'll stand up to Nancy Northup's brand of humanism any day, but she needs to be called out for her agenda. It's not a scientific agenda, it's an anti-Christian one. At least her opponents are honest and understand that it's not about science on this question.
This isn't much different than the story presented in Genesis 3. As far as science was concerned, Adam and Eve could eat of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. There was nothing special about the tree as far as science could say; the fruit was good for eating, there was nothing physically preventing them from reaching out and taking the fruit, but no matter what science said about the tree, that didn't answer the question "should they eat of that tree?" To answer that question, they needed to look to their Creator.

Illustrating Worldviews

2009-03-09T08:13:00.002-07:00

Many times movies do a good job of illustrating different world views. In fact, you won't find any kind of media that doesn't come from some sort of worldview. One of the biggest contrasts to me has always been between a couple of movies that deal with women in stressful marriages and how they react to that. These two movies are "The Hours" and "A Beautiful Mind." A full plot summary is not for this post, but I'll give enough so the quotes are understandable. For "The Hours," Laura is a housewife during the 1950s. She's not happy in her very traditional marriage and has contemplated suicide several times. She eventually leaves her husband and children. At the end of the movie though, she returns many, many years later and makes this statement:

From "The Hours:"

Laura Brown: It would be wonderful to say you regretted it. It would be easy. But what does it mean? What does it mean to regret when you have no choice? It's what you can bear. There it is. No one's going to forgive me. It was death. I chose life.

In contrast to this, consider the following situation from "A Beautiful Mind." Alicia is married to a brilliant and rather eccentric mathematician who sees imaginary people. When the fact that he's seeing things is discovered, it creates a situation where she struggles about whether to stay in the marriage or not. At different points in the movie, she gives these quotes:

From "A Beautiful Mind:"

Alicia Nash: Often what I feel is obligation or guilt over wanting to leave, or rage against John, against God. But then I look at him and I force myself to see the man I married. And he becomes that man. He's transformed into someone I love. And then I'm transformed into someone who loves him. It's not all the time. But it's enough.
...
John Nash: And then, on the way home, Charles was there again. Sometimes I miss talking to him. Maybe Rosen is right. Maybe I have to think about going back to the hospital.
Alicia Nash: Maybe try again tomorrow.

These quotes illustrate in stunning clarity to me the difference between a modern-day worldview (specifically that of marriage) and a Christian worldview. Both sounds high minded, and one specifically tries to justify itself. Proverbs 26:16 says "The sluggard is wiser in his own conceit than seven men that can render a reason." This would also seem to apply to people that wish to abrogate their responsibility. It's easy to come up with reasons to just give up when the right thing to do is so difficult, and if you are a good speaker or writer you can even make it sound good when you give the excuses. These excuses will always be centered on yourself, and all the difficulty it will cause you to fulfill your obligations. They usually won't mention the disaster that will be left for other people to pick up: the financial devastation that will come upon a family, the questions from the children regarding why, and the emotional and other stress that will come to the remaining spouse because of the extra responsibilities. Of course the list of problems it would have caused to simply be responsible will make this list look small. That's exactly what Proverbs is getting at though.

Taking responsibility is not going to be easy. Dispatching the lion from the street is not a simple task, but the consequences of this choice are drastically different. As the sermon this week spoke about, trials don't ever make people faithful. They don't create gold out of iron or anything similar. Trials do however reveal and refine the true faith people already have. They make people patient and stronger overall. That doesn't mean everything will be happily ever after every time. That's what's great about Alicia's quotes in the movie: she doesn't gloss over real problems. It's not about flowery beds of ease. There are real, difficult, emotional problems to be addressed. The damage is mitigated though; the tide stemmed.

Re: Global Warming and Abortion

2009-02-03T08:21:00.001-07:00

A great followup commentary on the article I posted the day before.

The only way to understand how such a mainstream scientist could fall into the clutches of such unscientific ideology, is to consider the nihilistic philosophy of life prevalent among many of the cultural elite of Western Europe and to some degree of America too. They have not only rejected the sacredness of human life by denying the Sacred; they have emptied human life of all transcendent purpose. They have replaced man’s natural search for inter-personal righteousness with a new and easy godless ethic of “Green,” where the earth is the victim of human existence, and humans, ironically, are the only ones who can save it.

Yes, the tale of the new Green superhero–the one we are creating today by accepting the prophets of environmental doom–can only end with a man standing naked on the edge of a cliff, having freed the earth of every other human aggressor, and every other evil product of his making, and having the great courage to jump into oblivion.

Global Warming and Abortion

2009-02-02T14:20:00.001-07:00

This is an interesting marriage of ideas--if I do say.

Jonathon Porritt, who chairs the government's Sustainable Development Commission, says curbing population growth through contraception and abortion must be at the heart of policies to fight global warming.

Unity and Scripture Alone

2008-11-12T08:25:00.002-07:00

In studying the attributes of God, one realization I've had is just how interconnected they all are. You can't speak about God's knowledge without mentioning His power and decree and His other attributes as well. You can't speak about God's immutability without also mentioning His wisdom and His will. This shows the unity of God.

This unity in God's being is also reflected in the life of a Christian as well--especially with regard to who we are to trust and worship. After a person is regenerated by the Holy Spirit, they begin a process of sanctification. They begin with earnest desire to live "not only according to some, but according to all the commandments of God." (Heidelberg Catechism Q.114) Here Christians begin to bring all aspects of their life into accordance with the law of God. Indeed they have been predestined to this very thing. This in a dim manner illustrates God's unity as well. Christians are not to be divided in their worship, but they are to solely trust in the Lord.

One of the signs of perilous times ahead is when people are "always learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth." (2 Timothy 3:7) This implies that they have never really accepted the scriptures as truth because then they would then have come to the truth. In fact, Paul's council to Timothy after this description of these wicked people is to "...continue in the things which you have learned and been assured of, knowing from whom you have learned them, and that from childhood you have known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus." (2 Timothy 3:14-15) By rejecting the scriptures, they've also rejected any hope of true unity within themselves or with other Christians for that matter. Scarier still, they no longer worship the God who is.

I find it strange that these people still desire to hold onto the Christian label at all though, but they do. They then parade around as "Christians" who have been enlightened to see that the Bible is really just like any other book: full of man's opinions. And they really do believe this is enlightened. They present it as if they've attained a higher form of knowledge; they pity the poor people still ignorantly believing the Bible is actually completely true. They then pick and choose what is "truth" based on their own arbitrary standard. Some "truths" are to be accepted, some are to be rejected. By ripping ideas out of context or flat out denying other parts, they make it sound like the Bible says something completely opposite of what it really says. Once this cat is out of the bag there is little hope for unity or for truth. I believe these statements of the Bible, and you believe these other statements of the Bible; really we're both just elevating our own ideas and then finding some proof text within scripture that seems to support what we already want to believe.

This is not worshipping the God who is. This is having another God. Deuteronomy 5: 9-10 "you shall not bow down to them nor serve them. For I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate Me, but showing mercy to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My commandments." I wish these would stop using the name Christian to identify something that is obviously not Christian.

Conservativism's Obituary?

2008-11-11T12:10:00.001-07:00

The Wall Street Journal has a good op-ed on the election. From the same:

In the coming days you will hear many a pundit read the conservative movement's obituary. But voters have not rejected conservative ideals; they are disgusted with Republican politicians who govern like liberals.

This seems to match up to what I see as well. How do you explain the electing of a very liberal president while at the same time California (which we all know is the nation's great bastion of conservativism) votes to ban gay marriage? People are rightly fed up with politicians that promise small government that then increase the size of government. Unfortunately, I fear we will end up with even more government because of Obama.

Uneasy Election Years

2008-10-27T13:48:00.001-07:00

Election years are a decidedly uneasy time for a lot of people. Anyone who feels passionate about anything is likely to be concerned about which candidates get into office or which party gets control of what aspect of government. This is especially true during worrisome economic times as the public looks to the candidates for what they will do to help out the average family.

Christians have a duty to participate in these things as well. In calling us salt and light, Christ has indicated that we are to be out in the world flavoring it so to speak. Our Christian worldview should permeate our entire lives leaving nothing which is unaffected by it. We do not participate in these activities with an attitude of hoping beyond hope that chance might seem to favor our cause; we do it knowing that our heavenly Father is ultimately in charge of everything that happens. Ultimately everything works out for good unto those who love the Lord as Paul says in Romans. Don't be mistaken though; everything does not work out well for everyone. As the wrath of God abides on the wicked, so it will be ill with the unrighteous.

Isaiah 3:10 “ Say to the righteous that it shall be well with them, For they shall eat the fruit of their doings. 11 Woe to the wicked! It shall be ill with him, For the reward of his hands shall be given him.

One of the most basic truths of Christianity is that God reigns supremely. The popular ideas today that portray God as just fervently hoping and wishing in heaven that things will go His way on the earth just don't correspond with reality. These ideas rob God of His power (in our minds) and consequently His people of a great comfort. Nebuchadnezzar thought that way once. As the King of one of the most powerful empires of that time, who, from an earthly prospective, could have suggested otherwise?

Daniel 4:28 All this came upon King Nebuchadnezzar. 29 At the end of the twelve months he was walking about the royal palace of Babylon. 30 The king spoke, saying, “Is not this great Babylon, that I have built for a royal dwelling by my mighty power and for the honor of my majesty?”

God rendered judgment on this idea:

Daniel 4:31 While the word was still in the king’s mouth, a voice fell from heaven: “King Nebuchadnezzar, to you it is spoken: the kingdom has departed from you! 32 And they shall drive you from men, and your dwelling shall be with the beasts of the field. They shall make you eat grass like oxen; and seven times shall pass over you, until you know that the Most High rules in the kingdom of men, and gives it to whomever He chooses.”

This judgment is not unique to Nebuchadnezzar either. Consider

Psalm 2:10 Now therefore, be wise, O kings; Be instructed, you judges of the earth. 11 Serve the LORD with fear, And rejoice with trembling. 12 Kiss the Son, lest He be angry, And you perish in the way, When His wrath is kindled but a little. Blessed are all those who put their trust in Him.

and

Romans 9:16 So then it is not of him who wills, nor of him who runs, but of God who shows mercy. 17 For the Scripture says to the Pharaoh, “For this very purpose I have raised you up, that I may show My power in you, and that My name may be declared in all the earth.” 18 Therefore He has mercy on whom He wills, and whom He wills He hardens.

This doctrine rightly generates both fear and comfort. To those who rule harshly and oppress the people of God, it is an extreme horror. "He who keeps Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep." When their allotted time (and make no mistake, it is limited) is over, they will have to give an account to their King, the Son of God. So as this election season comes and goes and the news in the paper and on TV never seems good, remember, your heavenly Father still sits on the throne. That is the appropriate focus for our hope.

Isaiah 40:10 Behold, the Lord GOD shall come with a strong hand, And His arm shall rule for Him; Behold, His reward is with Him, And His work before Him. 11 He will feed His flock like a shepherd; He will gather the lambs with His arm, And carry them in His bosom, And gently lead those who are with young.

Redistribution of Wealth

2008-10-27T11:32:00.001-07:00

Pastor has commented multiple times about the danger of reading the Bible only once. Here's a comment that exemplifies that:

Jesus took 5 fish and 5 loaves of bread and ‘redistributed it’. I am proud to have Jesus amongst us liberals.

So called "Christians"

2008-09-22T15:19:00.001-07:00

http://foxforum.blogs.foxnews.com/2008/09/22/frj_0922/#comment-52752

Comment by Austinite
September 22nd, 2008 at 5:12 pm
I for one am still undecided on who it is that I will vote for, but I must admit - some of these comments make me lean towards Obama! The fact that you, Father Morris, have supporters who state things like “Anyone who is an Obama backer IS NOT a Christian! ” give me pause. As a Christian, I am offended that there are still so many people out there who state such absolutes - as if they know with unabashed certainty the entirety of a human being’s faith based on that person’s statement of support for one political candidate. Last time I read my Bible, I read passages like “The person who does not love does not know God, because God is love (1 Jo 4:8), and “Do not judge, and you will not be judged; do not condemn, and you will not be condemned; forgive, and you will be forgiven” (Luke 6:37).

How can any of us know what God thinks of someone else? Maybe we can turn all of this negativity into real work that will succeed in reducing the number of unwanted pregnancies in this country. Then we will be TOGETHER doing God’s will.

The above is a comment off of a Foxnews blog. Unfortunately, this is the attitude of many so called "Christians" these days. Especially revealing is the statement: "As a Christian, I am offended that there are still so many people out there who state such absolutes..." This person actually believes that the ideal of Christianity is that there are no absolutes and no distinctions to be made. Of course they have their token Bible verses about love and judging others; as my Pastor is fond of saying, most scoundrels know those ones. This of course assumes that all of the Bible can be summed up in these two verses along with the idea that we are going to apply whatever meaning we see fit to the word "love."

With the idea that love is only an emotional, fuzzy feeling and tolerance is the highest virtue, how do these "Christians" understand Isaiah 61:8 or Psalm 33:5 or Luke 11:32 et al? God is not the fuzzy, wish granting teddy bear in the sky you think He is; "for the LORD loveth judgment." This implies that God loves justice and He loves making distinctions. These are the distinctions between His people and the reprobate; these are the distinctions between something in line with His word and something not in line with it. These are the distinctions between ideas that are right and ideas that are wrong.

Romans 1 describes perhaps the most basic of all distinctions to be made: between God and His creation. Those who fail to make this distinction will find it ever harder to make other distinctions because God judges those who fail to make that one. The judgment itself will be that they will be unable to make any real distinctions at all. "Professing to be wise, they became fools." The commenter "Austinite" has fallen into this pit.

Guns...check; Knives...check, Next?

2008-07-25T09:17:00.002-07:00

Fox news article

Furious anti-knife crime campaigners called last night for the judge to be fired.
…
“Enough is enough – we need to get tough on knives in this country and our judges should be handing out tough sentences, not brandishing their own.”

This stands out for some reason to me. I suppose when guns are banned and people still murder each other, we need to find something else to ban. This is to be expected when we reject the Biblical view that people are totally depraved, and instead focus on the external tools.

Here's a hint to world leaders out there: you'll never make a perfectly safe, perfectly peaceful society because you aren't dealing with perfect people. You might be able to remove liberty and oppress your people as you try though.

Resolve against Terror

2008-03-25T14:17:00.000-07:00

This Fox News Article has a great couple of paragraphs.

I hope Americans still have this kind of resolve left...

An Iraqi officer near Sinjar told me that recently a group of perhaps 20 "jihadists," many of them foreign, descended on a Nineveh village. The Iraqi officer said the terrorists killed some adults and two babies. One baby they murdered was 15 days old.

Until recently, such terror attacks inside Iraq could have coerced the village into sheltering Al Qaeda. Yet this time, the "jihadists" got an unexpected reception. Local men grabbed their rifles and poured fire on the demons, slaughtering them.

Uncovered Aspect of Mall Shooting

2007-12-06T12:19:00.000-07:00

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,315563,00.html

It's interesting that these shootings all seem to happen in gun free zones. Maybe taking away everyone's gun isn't such a great idea.... lol.

This article also covers the story. I find one of the killer's friend's comments rather unsettling:

"I can't believe he would go this far. He was a good-hearted kid. He was just going through some rough times."

Why can't people just accept that there are evil people in the world? I guess when there's no absolute truth there's no real evil and no real good either.

Save the trees, kill the children!

2007-10-26T06:54:00.000-07:00

Sometimes I am just utterly amazed when I read the headlines on the news sites. Today we have some crazy woman accosting Condoleezza Rice with "blood" on her hand. She's protesting the war because obviously we're killing so many Iraqis now-a-days. No doubt aspects of the war in Iraq deserve some criticism. How are we going to pay for it? What's the plan to stabilize the region? Etc. But really, protesting their blood on our hands? How many Kurds did Saddam kill before we removed him from power? Where's your bleeding heart for them? It's like what is the current situation is the absolute worse possible. It doesn't matter if it's better than it was; right now is horrible! Then this inevitably leads to some 'impeach Bush' chant as if that's what impeachment was for. I guess whatever the Constitution says (i.e. the law of the land) is really irrelevant. Don't like em, impeach em!

Then we have more increases in taxes and increasing minimum wage. It doesn't take more than a high school level economics course to understand what minimum wage does. What happens when a price is artificially raised above equilibrium? There's less demand for that product/service. This is common sense. I guess the un-commonsense part of it is that in the employment area, this means less people employed. So let me try to wrap my head around this. Democrats, those supposed advocates for the poor, want this increased, yet it is going to put more of these unskilled workers out of a job. How is that really helping them? Putting them out of a job for a high sounding political statement is good? Really the motto should be: "more money for some, no jobs for others." LOL. I want to cry and laugh at the same time.

The last thing is all this talk about justice--bleeding heart liberals talking about justice. Casting crowns summarizes modern thinking well: "save the trees and kill the children." This is justice my friends: being zealous for a cause, while turning a blind eye to a much more reprehensible practice at the same time. Let's make sure we remove the death penalty for murderers, rapists, and the like too because that's morally reprehensible, and yet using government money to provide easy access to abortion clinics because that's a fundamental right. I hope the irony is obvious here. The lives of murderers, rapists--extremely violent criminals--are worth more than the lives of unborn children.

Just the talk about justice and morality by the American left sickens me these days. My question is simply, on what basis do you decide what's right and wrong when you're all raving humanists? If one thinks providing government welfare to the poor is more important than global warming, how is that conflict resolved? There's no standard, no basis for their "morality." I guess in the end that's why they have to be so loud about it. It is really just a shouting match. One opinion verses the other. If they don't already, one day they will all realize that their high sounding causes were just their opinions. Pontius Pilot had similar ideas: 'Pilate said to Him, "What is truth?" And when he had said this, he went out again to the Jews, and said to them, "I find no fault in Him at all."' I guess I prefer to be in touch with reality.

Guns and Peace

2007-10-11T14:57:00.000-07:00

Here's a couple of articles I found interesting today.

Gun Control

This makes it very interesting why liberals in general want more and more gun control. This article makes that idea foolish because it would increase violent crime overall, not decrease it.

Christians and Muslims

Satan's attack on Christianity seems to come on all fronts. With one part of the Muslim world, he wants all Christians to pay tax or die under Islamic government. On the other part of the attack, he wants Christians to dilute the truths about Christianity so that everyone can live at peace.

I am thankful that we already know the outcome of this conflict.

11 Now I saw heaven opened, and behold, a white horse. And He who sat on him was called Faithful and True, and in righteousness He judges and makes war. 12 His eyes were like a flame of fire, and on His head were many crowns. He had a name written that no one knew except Himself. 13 He was clothed with a robe dipped in blood, and His name is called The Word of God. 14 And the armies in heaven, clothed in fine linen, white and clean, followed Him on white horses. 15 Now out of His mouth goes a sharp sword, that with it He should strike the nations. And He Himself will rule them with a rod of iron. He Himself treads the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God. 16 And He has on His robe and on His thigh a name written:

KING OF KINGS AND LORD OF LORDS.(NKJV)

Modern Spiritual Commitment

2007-10-09T08:55:00.000-07:00

From FoxNews:

LOS ANGELES — “If” anything, time has taught Janet Jackson that matrimony is messy and sensuality is much simpler without a signature.

After two marriages and two divorces, the 41-year-old longtime lover of record producer and rapper Jermaine Dupri doesn’t desire another diamond.

“In this day and age, I feel we don’t need that piece of paper. For myself I don’t need that to validate what I have with someone,” Janet told FOX at the premiere of her new movie “Why Did I Get Married?” last Thursday. “It’s about a spiritual commitment and finding your soul mate and really exchanging vows with one another, and I think that’s enough for me at least.”

This kind of attitude just seems to define our modern age. No one commits to anything; they don't want to sued or have any sort of binding ties to anyone or anything. People are "spiritual" no doubt, but this is just a fancy way of saying "I want to follow the idol of myself." Of course this isn't new. Satan said the same thing to Eve in the Garden. It is interesting how it is glorified so much now-a-days though. What in the world does "really exchanging vows" mean when everything is "simpler without a signature?"

I suppose having a piece of paper doesn't mean much these days anyway, as the lawyers can twist and distort the words to no end. This attitude is absolutely anti-Christian to it's very core. Sure it tries to hide this with high sounding words about "spiritual commitment" and such, but that's a thin veil for something much more grotesque—humanism and worship of self. The God of the Bible was not afraid to write things down. He put His promises into real words that could be understood. His commitments are recorded on the pages of scripture for all to read. This is what real spiritual commitment is lest we should be deceived by "new" ideas.

Peter Pace Again

2007-09-27T07:39:00.000-07:00

Peter Pace has my respect for standing up to the ever morally declining standards. I wish he'd made an even stronger statement, something like "this is wrong" rather than "according to my upbringing this is wrong," but it's a start.

A few thousand survivors

2007-07-10T10:07:00.000-07:00

This article has an interesting statement:

Some scientists, supported by DNA evidence, think an environmental catastrophe resulted and influenced the course of human history, with the few thousand survivors becoming the ancestors of all almost people alive today.

I guess instead of this grand diversity promised by evolution there is a remarkably few "ancestors" for all modern humans. Earlier in the article, they said this blast happened about 75,000 years ago. In evolutionary time, this is a very, very short time ago, and with regard to creation it's less than an order of magnitude from the 10,000 years figure. Perhaps I just see what I want to see, but this sure seems to reek of a common ancestor such as the Biblical account of creation and flood would demand; perhaps even Noah and his family???

Temporary Marriage

2007-06-04T15:13:00.001-07:00

Temporary Marriage
"Temporary marriage is God's rule. We must aggressively encourage that"
I find this interesting. Prostitution is illegal, but temporary marriages of a few hours are not? No doubt the standard morality in the West is no better, but Christians aren't authorizing such things. God's holy law isn't watered down to make sure everyone can follow it; no, the standard is firm and shows us our sin and our inability to live up to the real standard.

Within Christianity there is real sin and real forgiveness of sin; is either concept really found anywhere else?

The fire that came from heaven

2007-03-29T11:52:00.000-07:00

Leviticus 9:23-10:3

23 And Moses and Aaron went into the tabernacle of meeting, and came out and blessed the people. Then the glory of the LORD appeared to all the people, 24 and fire came out from before the LORD and consumed the burnt offering and the fat on the altar. When all the people saw it, they shouted and fell on their faces.

1 Then Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, each took his censer and put fire in it, put incense on it, and offered profane fire before the LORD, which He had not commanded them. 2 So fire went out from the LORD and devoured them, and they died before the LORD. 3 And Moses said to Aaron, “This is what the LORD spoke, saying:

‘By those who come near Me

I must be regarded as holy;

And before all the people

I must be glorified.’”

So Aaron held his peace. (NKJV)

The story of Nadab and Abihu is always an amazing one to me. By modern standards it almost seems whimsical that they were killed for such a seemly harmless mistake. Although some comments on the story have suggested that they were drunk or something like that, it seems that the only problem with their incense mentioned in the text is the profane or strange fire they offered. In Leviticus 6, it was specifically commanded the priests that they were to keep the fire on the altar burning continually.

Leviticus 6:12-13

12 And the fire on the altar shall be kept burning on it; it shall not be put out. And the priest shall burn wood on it every morning, and lay the burnt offering in order on it; and he shall burn on it the fat of the peace offerings. 13 A fire shall always be burning on the altar; it shall never go out.

They were not to take any fire from anywhere else other than the one burning on the altar. The reason for this is related to another topic that is put forth in more clarity in the New Testament: the priests (and we as priests in the New Testament) are only to offer to God what he has begun in us. The sacrifices of the Old Testament foreshadowed the sacrifice of Christ in the New Testament, so it makes sense that the themes developed would be found in both.

God does not accept our works because after the fall, everything we do is tainted by sin. Even our best works are unacceptable in his sight. Because of this, the only acceptable thing we have to offer to God is something He does in us. The righteousness we have does not originate in us--it originates in God, just as the original fire came from heaven. Nadab and Abihu show what God thinks of works that originates in us. This is connected to the passage in Hebrews 4 that talks about entering into God's rest. We are to cease from our own works and instead strive by faith to enter into His rest. The faith by which we grab hold of Jesus Christ is God's own work as much as Christ's sacrifice on the cross is God's work. When we believe in him, we are simply offering God back what he has already done in us; this is just like the fire on the altar that was sent by God from heaven being used to offer the sacrifices. It did not originate with the Israelites striking a match; it came directly from God.

If even our faith does not originate in us and we can't claim to have created it, then how much more should we not be making up new ways to worship God. We need to worship God in the way He has proscribed because Nadab and Abihu show how God views even our best works when we try to do it our own way.

"...being confident of this very thing, that He who has begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ."

Baby Polar Bear

2007-03-21T11:56:00.000-07:00

Fox News has a cute story about a baby polar bear cub that was rescued by the zoo and raised. An animal rights activist is up in arms about the bear because he say it should be killed because the mother rejected the young bear. Yes, that's right, the bear should be killed. Of course this prompted a negative reaction from other animal rights activists and people who just generally think the bear is cute. Now myself, I really don't care one way or the other. The bear is cute, but it's an animal. One interesting quote caught my attention though.

He explained that though he thought it was wrong of the zoo to have saved the cub's life, now that the bear can live on his own, it would be equally wrong to kill him.

"If a polar bear mother rejected the baby, then I believe the zoo must follow the instincts of nature," Albrecht said. "In the wild, it would have been left to die."

What's interesting about this comment is that it shows a morality that's based on the idea that "what is, is right." Nature is exalted to a moral law giving status. I guess when you reject Christianity, this is what you're left with. What is, must be what's right. Of course everything in your being is going to cry out against this. I don't think anyone is able to totally erase the image of God in themselves--although many try.

Christianity just makes more sense out of reality than anything else. As a Christian I can firmly say that when Adam's sin brought the curse upon the whole world, there are now things wrong with the world. Christians aren't enslaved to this idea that somehow nature must always be right; we can in good conscience use modern medicine to help save prematurely born babies. We can also in good conscience do lesser things like hand feed a baby polar bear that its mother rejected.

Elihu's response to Job

2007-03-14T14:27:00.000-07:00

I was contemplating Elihu's response to Job for the past few nights. Elihu seems to be the only one of the men that answer's Job that is not rebuked for his answer. The other three friends of Job are rebuked in the end for their responses, probably because they kept telling Job he must have sinned and that is the reason these things befell him. Elihu's answer is different though; he rebukes Job not for some mysterious sin he committed in the past that brought this judgment upon him, but instead he rebukes him for justifying himself instead of God. This is really where the heart of the matter always is though: who's going to be god, you or the Lord.

One of the attributes that Elihu extols though is justice and making judgments between good and evil. Consider Job 34:3-4:

3 For the ear tests words

As the palate tastes food.

4 Let us choose justice for ourselves;

Let us know among ourselves what is good

Notice how making judgments is compared to tasting food. It's something that has to be considered and thought upon--chewed upon a little if you will. We need to be meditating on the Word so that we can accurately identify what is good. Our ears need to be trained to test the words that are constantly brought to their attention--whether they are just or no, and whether they are good or not.

The modern world does not seem to follow anything close to this. Compare the commandment to the recent outcry against the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Peter Pace's comment about Homosexuality being "Immoral." If ever the left's agenda about redefining right and wrong was evident here it is. This was the most tame statement possible about homosexuality. In fact, the general even said he supports the U.S. policy of "don't ask, don't tell" which allows gays to serve in the military as long as they don't do so openly. He wasn't advocating rounding them up, removing them from the military, or otherwise using any kind of graphic "hate-speech." He simply said: "I do not believe the United States is well served by a policy that says it is OK to be immoral in any way," and "I believe homosexual acts between two individuals are immoral and that we should not condone immoral acts." The simplicity of these statements is astounding. That's probably why the press and activists groups hated it so much; someone in power actually making a clear, understandable statement without a whole bunch of exceptions? For goodness sake, it's 2007, haven't all such things been banned yet?

Now, I don't know General Pace's religious convictions, but he's making a decidedly Christian statement in this. God delights in calling evil, evil and good, good. Or as Elihu put it, "Let us know among ourselves what is good." The foolish and wicked delight in doing the opposite. They prefer to call evil, good and good, evil. Some gay advocacy groups are calling "for a full apology from Gen. Pace, 'not his lame statement of 'regret' -- and if he fails to do that, his prompt dismissal.'" (From here) This almost makes me laugh. For them the highest offense is calling their pet sin immoral; heads need to roll if someone actually does that. These individuals are so drunk upon modern relativism that they despise even a hint of truth. They realize deep down that if it is immoral, then they will have to give an account of themselves and their opposition to the truth to the divine judge. Perhaps if they yell loud enough, though, truth will cease to be truth.

Getting married

2007-01-22T15:27:00.001-07:00

As I enter my second week back from the honeymoon, I figure I should recap some of my life lately. This past year has been quite the rush and my head is still spinning from it. At the end of December last year I finally got married. I say finally because it was a long struggle with immigration visas and the like. Waiting months on end for the government to do something with your paperwork is not my idea of fun. The main problem with it is you can't really see any progress. It kind of goes into a black hole and then magically appears at the other side at some random time. It is just the nature of bureaucracy in general, but it's still frustrating when you have to endure it.
Nancy has finally moved in and we are settling in to married life. Of course we still have to wait on more bureaucracy, but at least we'll be together while we wait this time. Getting the house into a livable state will probably take a bit of time as merging two people's stuff together has been time consuming and somewhat boring.
We definitely had an enjoyable time in Hawaii; the temperature varied from about 74 F to 84 F. The only part I didn't like was the humidity, but it wasn't hot enough to make it unbearable. We spent 4 days on Oahu and 7 on Kauai. Honolulu has the atmosphere similar to most big cities I've been in, but it was good to see the touristy stuff there like the USS Arizona memorial. Kauai was much more laid back. Life is pretty slow there and beaches and small shops abound.
The wedding went over quite well despite the snow storm. Unfortunately a lot of people weren't able to make it because of that, but we had an enjoyable time anyway. It was great that Nancy's family was able to get in during the lull between the two major snow storms. I'm sure they will each visit again, but that might have been the only time that they were all here at once.
I look forward to life settling down a bit now that all the big events are over with for a bit. Ah real life...

A couple of articles

2006-11-10T15:39:00.000-07:00

Here's a couple of articles I enjoyed about the Democratic victory in the House and the Senate:

From the National Review

and

http://www.melaniephillips.com/diary/?p=1382

Although the liberal Europeans are rejoicing it seems, Americans were just fed up with the scandals and such of the GOP. I do pray America begins to realize that this war on terror takes a backbone. Too much liberalism and Islam will have a lot of victories... (note, they won't ever have the final victory though)

Wolves in Sheep's Clothing

2006-11-08T14:18:00.000-07:00

From here

Meanwhile, in Leawood, Kans., a suburb near the Missouri border, a 42-year-old evangelical pastor named Adam Hamilton was preaching an entirely different message. He was helping his 14,000 members parse the parables in Matthew 13—the wheat and the weeds, the good fish and bad. "Our task is not to go around judging people—Jesus didn't do that," he tells NEWSWEEK.
...
The religious right has "gone too far," says Hamilton. "They've lost their focus on the spirit of Jesus and have separated the world into black and white, when the world is much more gray." He adds: "I can't see Jesus standing with signs at an anti-gay rally. It's hard to picture that."

Its really interesting how divorced this "Jesus" about which modern evangelicals speak all the time is from the Biblical Jesus. The parables about the wheat and the tares and the gospel net bringing in all kinds of fish are about the church. We don't know who is elected and who is not, so hence we aren't to go around making every effort to root out the tares from the church. Of course if people show themselves to be reprobate, we declare that as such, but that's a finer grained issue.

The God of the Bible loves justice and righteousness. Unfortunately for a lot of people, He is not a fluffy teddy bear that overlooks sin. The cross of Jesus Christ shows us exactly what God thinks of sin, and in it the justice of God and the mercy of God are both shown forth in shining brilliance. This doesn't mean we overlook sin or just get over it. This pastor suggests that Jesus wouldn't be standing with anti-gay rally signs, yet this Jesus took a whip of sorts and drove the money changers out of the temple. This Jesus told the Pharisees that they were NOT His sheep and that's why they didn't believe. Jesus and John the Baptist who went before Christ called the Pharisees a "brood of vipers." He told the people who demanded a sign that an "evil and adulterous generation seeks after a sign."

Christ was merciful and compassionate, no doubt, to those who came to him in repentance. Those who were truly sorry for their wicked ways. He isn't so compassionate with those who stubbornly persist in their sin. I'm not sure Christ would be seen at a rally holding a sign either, but He definitely would be calling them to repentance. This image of Jesus just accepting people in their wicked lifestyle without calling them to repent and believe is just ludicrous.

I wish people would read their Bible more before they give quotes on TV. At least make a half-hearted attempt to understand Christ's words before spouting off about what Jesus would do. This is just the same wicked agenda that the humanists proclaim clothed in religious terminology. These are wolves in sheep's clothing.

The obvious solution...

2006-10-03T12:54:00.000-07:00

Hijacked Plane Lands in Italy With Message to Pope

"Many Muslims were angered by the pope's speech at a German university last month, saying it was an attempt to portray their religion as innately violent."

Of course, why didn't I think of this? The obvious way to get the world to think that your religion is not innately violent is to hijack an aircraft and then demand to give a message to the pope. What better way could there be to show that Islam is really a religion of peace?

I sure hope the West wakes up in time to realize what Islam really is...

At least this group decided not to crash the plane; that would have made the contrast even more stark though.

Calling evil good and good evil

2006-09-19T07:35:00.000-07:00

"Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil; Who put darkness for light, and light for darkness; Who put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!" (NKJV)

I remain continually baffled at world leaders these days. From
here: Jacques Chirac said "We must avoid any confusion between Islam, which is of course a respected and upright religion, and radical Islamism, which is a totally different form of behavior that is political in nature." WAKE UP Mr. Chirac, Islam is not a peaceful religion. It never has been. As the Pope has recently said (albeit if it is a bit out of context), Prophet Muhammad brought "things only evil and inhuman." Christians are slandered all the time; do we thence start to riot in the streets burning whoever it was that made the comment in effigy? The Christian gospel is spread by the preaching of the Word; Islam is spread by the sword. Christianity sets people free; Islam brings people into bondage. What more blatant contrast could there be?

I long for the day when evil is called evil and people stop making excuses for Islam.

Calling a defeat a victory

2006-08-15T10:58:00.000-07:00

Iran's president has a few screws loose to say the least...

From here

"God's promises have come true," Ahmadinejad told a huge crowd in Arbadil in northwestern Iran. "On one side, it's corrupt powers of the criminal U.S. and Britain and the Zionists ... with modern bombs and planes. And on the other side is a group of pious youth relying on God."

Hmm, these are the same people that were whining to the U.N. to speed up a cease-fire resolution?

"A group of pious youth relying on God"--that like to launch rockets at civilian centers in Israel. Why is Hezbollah never taken to task by the media for TARGETING civilians??? At least the Israelis try to minimize civilian casualties... Forgive me but "pious" is about the last word that describes these "youth." "Malicious" would be more correct.

Rumors

2006-06-09T08:23:00.000-07:00

I read in our church's weekly newsletter that I gave a big rock to some Canadian ;-). Well the rumor is true, I'm engaged to Nancy now :-D

Various thoughts on the covenant(s)

2006-05-18T06:51:00.000-07:00

In general, Reformed people view tend to view covenants as a major structuring grid which encompasses the whole Bible. Although this narrows down the potential viewpoints quite a bit (all forms of Dispensationalism are thrown out at least), there remains quite a few issues in regard to the covenants. I've heard people talk about 3 covenants (1 between the Trinity in eternity to redeem mankind, 1 of works, and 1 of grace), I've heard talk about 2 basic covenants (either 1 of works and one of grace or 1 between the Trinity in eternity and 1 of grace) and I've heard of 1 basic Covenant of Grace. Now assuming that those who don't mention a covenant between the members of the Trinity take that one for granted or perhaps don't call it a covenant, then there are two basic positions with many sub-positions within those groups. The argument seems to come down to 1 covenant or 2. I've probably over simplified things, but some of these positions seem to split hairs to me.

It also seems that generally Reformed people hold to two covenants (a Covenant of Works and a Covenant of Grace) it just varies as to how they see these covenants progressing throughout redemptive history. For instance consider the Westminster Confession article 7 (from the OPC's website)

1. The distance between God and the creature is so great, that although reasonable creatures do owe obedience unto him as their Creator, yet they could never have any fruition of him as their blessedness and reward, but by some voluntary condescension on God's part, which he hath been pleased to express by way of covenant.

2. The first covenant made with man was a Covenant of Works, wherein life was promised to Adam; and in him to his posterity, upon condition of perfect and personal obedience.

3. Man, by his fall, having made himself incapable of life by that covenant, the Lord was pleased to make a second, commonly called the Covenant of Grace; wherein he freely offereth unto sinners life and salvation by Jesus Christ; requiring of them faith in him, that they may be saved, and promising to give unto all those that are ordained unto eternal life his Holy Spirit, to make them willing, and able to believe.

4. This Covenant of Grace is frequently set forth in Scripture by the name of a testament, in reference to the death of Jesus Christ the Testator, and to the everlasting inheritance, with all things belonging to it, therein bequeathed.

5. This covenant was differently administered in the time of the law, and in the time of the gospel: under the law, it was administered by promises, prophecies, sacrifices, circumcision, the paschal lamb, and other types and ordinances delivered to the people of the Jews, all foresignifying Christ to come; which were, for that time, sufficient and efficacious, through the operation of the Spirit, to instruct and build up the elect in faith in the promised Messiah, by whom they had full remission of sins, and eternal salvation; and is called the old testament.

6. Under the gospel, when Christ, the substance, was exhibited, the ordinances in which this covenant is dispensed are the preaching of the Word, and the administration of the sacraments of baptism and the Lord's Supper: which, though fewer in number, and administered with more simplicity, and less outward glory, yet, in them, it is held forth in more fullness, evidence and spiritual efficacy, to all nations, both Jews and Gentiles; and is called the new testament. There are not therefore two covenants of grace, differing in substance, but one and the same, under various dispensations.

From the Westminster Confession, it would seem that the Covenant of Works has not manifested itself at really anytime beyond the pre-fall era with Adam. This makes a lot of sense as the revelation of Christ does seem to become clearer and clearer as Biblical history goes along.

The Covenant of Grace is commonly considered to be an unconditional covenant. This comes from the fact that when Abraham was witness to the initial covenant making only God (as represented by the burning lantern in Genesis 15) passed through the split animals. Normally both parties would pass through signifying that "may what happened to these animals happen to us if we break our part of the covenant." But only God passed through, so He was taking on himself all of the obligations to keep this covenant. This idea presents a little bit of an issue with saying all other covenants are progressively revealing Christ because it seems that at least some aspects of the Mosaic Covenant are conditional and bringing about bondage. This seems to be something that Paul says in Galatians 4 as well:

Galatians 4:
21 Tell me, you who desire to be under the law, do you not hear the law? 22 For it is written that Abraham had two sons: the one by a bondwoman, the other by a freewoman. 23 But he who was of the bondwoman was born according to the flesh, and he of the freewoman through promise, 24 which things are symbolic. For these are the two covenants: the one from Mount Sinai which gives birth to bondage, which is Hagar— 25 for this Hagar is Mount Sinai in Arabia, and corresponds to Jerusalem which now is, and is in bondage with her children— 26 but the Jerusalem above is free, which is the mother of us all. 27 For it is written:

“ Rejoice, O barren,
You who do not bear!
Break forth and shout,
You who are not in labor!
For the desolate has many more children
Than she who has a husband.”

28 Now we, brethren, as Isaac was, are children of promise. 29 But, as he who was born according to the flesh then persecuted him who was born according to the Spirit, even so it is now. 30 Nevertheless what does the Scripture say? “Cast out the bondwoman and her son, for the son of the bondwoman shall not be heir with the son of the freewoman.” 31 So then, brethren, we are not children of the bondwoman but of the free.(NKJV)

For Paul to say that to "cast out the bondwoman and her son" after saying that the bondwoman correlated to the covenant on Mount Sinai seems to be a stronger rejection than simply a progressive administration of the Covenant of Grace. Jeremiah 31 also seems to support a strong rejection of the Mosaic covenant:

1 “Behold, the days are coming, says the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah— 32 not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt, My covenant which they broke, though I was a husband to them, says the LORD. 33 But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the LORD: I will put My law in their minds, and write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. 34 No more shall every man teach his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, ‘Know the LORD,’ for they all shall know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them, says the LORD. For I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more.” (NKJV)

On the other hand, virtually no one that I've read suggests that the Davidic Covenant has is anything but a further progression the Covenant of Grace. The promise to David that one of his descendants would sit on the throne forever can only be understood as pointing to Christ. The issue here for me is that David is a king of Israel ruled by all the various laws that Moses gave. The Davidic Covenant really doesn't make sense without the Mosaic.

Also, many, many elements of the Mosaic Covenant itself point directly to Christ; as the author of Hebrews argues, all the various aspects of the tabernacle and temple were "copies" of the heavenly things.

Hebrews 9:23 Therefore it was necessary that the copies of the things in the heavens should be purified with these, but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these. 24 For Christ has not entered the holy places made with hands, which are copies of the true, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us; (NKJV)

So in a very real sense the Mosaic Covenant does further reveal Christ as our Savior (in comparison with the covenants beforehand).

Perhaps the Mosaic Covenant truly does have aspects of both the Covenant of Grace and the Covenant of Works. I'm not sure what consequences this would have in general though...

As an anchor of the soul

2006-05-08T14:46:00.000-07:00

Constantly updating your own "personal" morality seems to almost be a fad these days. To even consider being bound by the ethics of 30 years ago is preposterous sounding and totally out of date. Obviously the morality that our fathers and mothers lived by can't possibly be applicable to us today. No they say, times have changed and our morals must update with them. The morals of people change nearly as quickly as the technology changes. After all, science has become a god to some of the more educated unbelievers of the world. I say it has become a god because it determines truth to them. If the great god science can not prove something, then it is not to be believed.

Christianity on the other hand does not advocate a constantly changing truth (or even a "personal" true at all). We have certain things spoken by God that are unchanging and aren't open to updating. This doesn't mean we aren't constantly at work applying these principles to the new problems and technologies science provides. It is good and right that we should apply the unchanging truth about stealing to downloading music over the Internet without permission, stem cell research and such things.. These are good and right applications, but our truth is not changing.

I was reading in Hebrews the other day and 6:19-20 jumped out at me.

This hope we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and steadfast, and which enters the Presence behind the veil, where the forerunner has entered for us, even Jesus, having become High Priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek. (NKJV).

The truth of Jesus Christ (this hope) acts like an anchor to our souls. The idea is of a ship being held securely in place by its anchor. As the wind blows around, the ship stays more or less in the same place. This is of course the same kind of idea presented in Ephesians 4 where we are instructed not to be like children--blown about by every wind of doctrine.

Another metaphor the scriptures use of this idea is the planted tree verses the chaff blowing about--Psalm 1:3-4

He shall be like a tree
Planted by the rivers of water,
That brings forth its fruit in its season,
Whose leaf also shall not wither;
And whatever he does shall prosper.

The ungodly are not so,
But are like the chaff which the wind drives away.(NKJV)

There is nothing commendable about having a constantly changing ethic. Christians need to be ever in study of God's word, for this is the rock on which we must build.

One last note: Christians are not against science as science. We just don't make it into our god. Christians see science as exploring and learning about God's creation. How it works, what laws God has set in motion, as well as how to benefit people with it (technology really as applied science). We are not about taking things back to the age of bronze. This is all a part of God's original commandment to Adam to have dominion over the earth and subdue it. We are commanded to make advancements in all areas, but we must also be careful to adhere to morality and do things righteously. We don't make advancements at the expense of thousands of babies or by stealing. Christians are about being righteous as well as educated, about being conformed to the image of God as well as discovering new things about God's creation, about using medical advances to help save people's lives as well as studying what God has said. Ideally, Christian should be the most well rounded people on earth as they should consider all aspects of a thing rightly with regard to our creator.

A little bit of drama

2006-05-04T12:58:00.000-07:00

I like a little bit of drama sometimes...

From SFGate.com about the Moussaui trail (he assisted the hijackers of the 9/11 planes)...

Brinkema firmly refused to be interrupted by the 37-year-old defendant as she disputed his declaration from a day earlier: "America, you lost. ... I won."

"Mr. Moussaoui, when this proceeding is over, everyone else in this room will leave to see the sun ... hear the birds ... and they can associate with whomever they want," she said.

She went on: "You will spend the rest of your life in a supermax prison. It's absolutely clear who won."

And she said it was proper he will be kept away from outsiders, unable to speak publicly again.

"Mr. Moussaoui, you came here to be a martyr in a great big bang of glory," she said, "but to paraphrase the poet T.S. Eliot, instead you will die with a whimper."

At that point, Moussaoui tried again to interrupt her, but she raised her voice and spoke over him.

"You will never get a chance to speak again and that's an appropriate ending."

The dangers of being a credobaptist

2006-04-11T20:03:00.000-07:00

It's no secret that I've not always been Reformed. I was actually raised in a Baptist church and slowly became reformed, but that is a whole story itself. Needless to say though the last major obstacle I had to joining the RCUS was infant baptism. I could readily see Calvinism in the scriptures, but for a long time I didn't understand why they insisted on baptizing their babies. It wasn't until I understood the covenant of grace that this made sense--had to get rid of that whole thinking that the Old Testament is totally irrelevant today.

Either way, I don't wish to make a full argument for paedobaptism right now--let's leave that to those more experienced. I want to suggest there are some dangers about being a credobaptist and not baptizing your children. My basis for this is found in Genesis when circumcision was instituted:

You shall be circumcised in the flesh of your foreskins, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and you. He who is eight days old among you shall be circumcised. Every male throughout your generations, whether born in your house or bought with your money from any foreigner who is not of your offspring, both he who is born in your house and he who is bought with your money, shall surely be circumcised. So shall my covenant be in your flesh an everlasting covenant. Any uncircumcised male who is not circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin shall be cut off from his people; he has broken my covenant."
(Gen 17:11-14 ESV)

Baptism and circumcision both point to the same reality--the washing away or the cutting away of sin (see Colossians 2:11-12). Both also signify the entrance into the visible church in their respective testaments. This being said, it is a very scary thought when you read this passage. God is saying that those who reject the sign of the covenant are rejecting what the sign points to. The true Jew knew that circumcision does not save a person; just as the true Christian today knows that baptism does not save a person. And yet, a rejection of the sign was a rejection of the covenant itself.

Now, as Peter said at Pentecost, the New Testament promise is to us, our children, and all who are afar off. Note that the change in the formula is not a removal of our children from the promise, but an addition of the Gentiles. This would indicate that the children of Christian parents are still heirs of the promise just as the Jewish children were in Israel's time. It would not make any sense for Peter to be saying that the promise (i.e. the covenant) was still unto the children of believers and yet not have the sign of the covenant applied to them.

Here's where the danger comes in; if it was considered a rejection of the covenant by those who refused circumcision to their children in the Old Testament, how much more dangerous is it for those who refuse to baptize their children in the New Testament when the revelation is so much clearer. After all, the author of Hebrews councils us to pay closer attention to the things of the New Covenant because if the things spoken by angels (the Old Covenant) proved steadfast, then how much more attention should we pay to the things spoken by the Son of God Himself? This would seem to make it an extremely foolish act to not baptize covenant children--if you are a believer. God does not take the rejection of his sign lightly.

On How I Met Nancy

2006-04-09T17:15:00.000-07:00

Searching for a truly reformed single lady has been quite a challenge. The reformed churches in the United States (the RCUS as well as fraternally related denominations) tend to be small and very spread out. I wrote a while ago about how there were relatively few truly conservative reformed women. Sure, there are some large PCA churches in the area--some of those are conservative, but a lot are quite modern too. Perhaps this is just generally true of large churches--there will be a mixture. As a side note, what always worried me about the large PCA churches is that the people in them really weren't Presbyterians. I had a friend who grew up in a large PCA church here in town and yet after 20 years or so I asked him what the five points of Calvinism were--the response I got was a blank stare. I suppose I desired a wife that would be more educated and truly Reformed or Presbyterian.

With this situation, my friends and I always joked that we'd either have to search somewhere else where there were more options (I'd even heard rumors of visiting California or Nebraska for this very purpose) or attempt to "convert" one of these more liberal women to a truly reformed faith. Now I suppose slowly teaching a young Christian the ways of the Reformed faith wouldn't be a bad thing, but I preferred trying to find a potential wife that was Reformed of her own before she met me. I guess I'd heard too many stories of people pretending to be interested in something just for the purpose of getting a person and then later on showing their more true colors.

This left the option of looking in other places for truly reformed women. I'd always been too prideful to try the online dating sites--even though I'm an avid Internet user. There was just something that seemed very desperate about doing this. After about a year or so of resisting this idea, my mom finally convinced me to try it out. The stipulation I put on this was that I wanted to try to meeting truly Reformed people and not just any old so called "Christian." In several Internet searches, I was amazed to actually find a site that claimed to be for only Reformed Singles. This was quite exciting; evidently other people had the same problem as I and they were using some new technology to help solve it. By the way, the site is Sovereign Grace Singles, and I would suggest it for anyone brave enough with technology and who sees the same problem.

After several months of being on that site, I was contacted by someone I now adore very much. I spoke with her on the phone and online for a couple of months before we met in person. Over New Years I journeyed to Canada (first time I'd been there in ages too) to visit Nancy. Things simply went really really well with her; honestly, I'd kind of feared that we wouldn't have gotten along in person as well as we did over the phone, but this was not true with her. She proved to be exactly the kind of conservative Reformed Christian I was looking for. Given that she was so conservative--she comes from a Dutch Reformed background--I thought it would probably be prudent to ask her parents' permission to date her. This was actually quite an interesting discussion as her sister ended up coming into the room while I was talking to her parents. Nothing quite like asking a rather nerve racking question with extra people listening; I'm not really sure her sister knew what to think of the whole thing and frankly neither did I.

Either way, they did give their consent, so I started a long distance relationship with Nancy that day (January 1st--don't you love easy dates to remember??? :-) ).

I'm really excited to see how things go; they have gone very well so far. One thing I've realized about long distance relationships is that in one way it's better: you get to know people by their words. On the other hand, some problems that would best be solved with a simple hug have to be talked about for much longer than normal. I'm glad there is an end in sight though; I hear rumors that we might be engaged soon, so that is something I, at least, will definitely look forward to. Perhaps later on I'll write on some suggestions and pitfalls I've seen with my own long distance relationships, but for now I'm just enjoying getting to talk to a woman I love. Oh how did people ever live without phones??? lol

God shall wipe away all tears

2006-04-04T20:26:00.000-07:00

I've been pondering death lately. My grandfather recently died--the first of my grandparents to do so.

Nothing seems to quite sober a person up like the recognition that we all die. It leads me to consider the most important things in life. It also tends to remind me that my time on earth is limited. Being a young person, I'm sometimes liable to believe that there is unlimited time in life with which to do things, but this is not so. As Hebrews tells us, it is appointed unto men once to die and after this the judgment. This is one appointment I cannot escape, so instead I must be wise and prudent in my dealings here because they will one day be called into account by the Lord.

These times also call me to consider the words of God on the subject. I'm reminded of Andy McIntyre's comment about the song "It Is Well With My Soul": "But, even that, even the inevitable end of all men, even the grave whose gluttonous mouth is never full, never satisfied, caused him no fear or trepidation, for he had learned from His Lord that it is the welfare of the soul which holds the key to the meaning of life and its ultimate fulfillment." You can always tell those who are good with words because their phrases stick in your mind. That's how it is with that phrase "the grave whose gluttonous mouth is never full" is for me. What a great personification and yet so true at the same time. My mind immediately wanders to the consideration of what the serpent said to Eve: "Ye shall not surely die." and how wrong he was. What greater testimony that the words of God are true but thousands of years of people never escaping death? My grandfather died, my dad will die, and eventually I will die too. What a great backdrop of hopelessness this provides; there is no escaping death.

It is only against such a great blackness that the redemption of Christ can shine so brightly. The statement in Revelation now brings much joy to an otherwise dark situation: "God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away." That gluttonous mouth that was never satisfied will finally be closed! That final enemy will at last be crushed, and we will rein with Christ forevermore. This is the great hope of the Christian.

I will miss my grandpa. I thank God for the spiritual heritage he left me through my mom--that faith that God will eventually wipe away all tears from our eyes. That faith that allows me to loudly proclaim with Paul:

"O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?"

An obvious lie

2006-03-27T08:11:00.000-07:00

"Abdur Rahman, 40, was detained this month for rejecting Islam and converting to Christianity. Death is the punishment stipulated by sharia, or Islamic law, for apostasy -- abandonment of the faith."

How long will politicians continue the obvious lie that Islam is a religion of peace???

Random thoughts on bearing long and patience

2006-03-09T14:54:00.000-07:00

Bearing with one another's faults and granting forgiveness seems to have gone out of style these days. I wonder if this isn't the reason so many people bury themselves in their work; why go home when there are annoying people living there? It is always very easy to see the annoying things that people around you are doing; it's quite different to be able to see them in yourself. Oh how easy it is to keep a detailed record of everything someone else has done against you. I can testify that sometimes it frustrates me to no end simply having to pick up dishes after my current roommate; my anger at this is no where near in proportion to the offense--maybe it is annoying and shows lack of respect on the roommate's part, but that doesn't justify my own reaction.

Given that I'm not married, I wonder if this type of thing will only be magnified in that sort of relationship. Will all such little habits become even more annoying when they are from a person you are committed to for life?

I suppose this is why Paul describes love as being patient and not keeping a record of wrongs. Not that big sins should be overlooked, but it seems that life in general would be happier and more fulfilling if annoying little things were overlooked and not recorded. Patience would have us bear long with one another's faults--not quickly lash out at them. The scripture seems to be full of such admonitions to bearing one another's burdens and forgiving our neighbors. Christ mentions this in the Lord's Prayer "Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors," Paul councils us to bear with one another in Ephesians 4:2 and Colossians 3:

12 Therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, put on tender mercies, kindness, humility, meekness, longsuffering; 13 bearing with one another, and forgiving one another, if anyone has a complaint against another; even as Christ forgave you, so you also must do. 14 But above all these things put on love, which is the bond of perfection. 15 And let the peace of God rule in your hearts, to which also you were called in one body; and be thankful. 16 Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord. 17 And whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him. (NKJV)

This of course is addressed to the church, but it's no coincidence that Paul then goes on in verse 18 to speak about husbands and wives. Living at peace with all men has to start at home.

James tells us to be swift to listen, but slow to speak and slow to become angry. (James 1:19). One of the qualities of a righteous man is *not* that he gets angry at the drop of a pin. The image of a mature Christian is not a person walking around angry and swearing at everything that happens.

Christ tells us that we are to forgive our neighbor 70 times 7 in a day; this is definitely bearing with an offense quite a long time. In general, it just seems that Christians are to be people that are pretty easy to get along with. They will be adamant about the gospel, but forgiving of people and loving towards them.

My pastor made a comment in a sermon last week on second chapter of Judges; it was about how when the true God is worshipped there is peace in the land. While Israel worshipped God during the life of the judge, they had peace. This is probably generally true at home too; it's hard to truly worship God and yet have constant bitterness and strife with others in your home.

One simply practical thing would be to continually remember that you are a forgiven sinner yourself. There are plenty of things that the other person probably finds annoying about you too ;-)

Article on new 'Jurassic beaver'

2006-02-23T15:04:00.000-07:00

Article on new 'Jurassic beaver' find

I point out this article because as a creationist this makes perfect sense to me. It goes without saying that if God really created all "kinds" of animals in six days then mammals of all kinds would be living with the dinosaurs. They would look largely like their modern day counter parts. Animals several thousand years ago probably had some minor differences (think in terms of differences between different breeds of dogs today), but they would be readily identifiable still.

Of course even though this doesn't fit the evolutionary theory, one mammal dating back to that time isn't going to convince evolutionists to be creationists. After all, that is their religion and they hold to it stringently.

"He did not design me – He loves me"

2006-02-20T14:35:00.000-07:00

Article on an official denunciation of "anti-evolution" legislation

"A leading Catholic scientist, George Coyne, director of the Vatican Observatory, took the opportunity to attack creationism. “The ID movement belittles God, making him seem too small and paltry,” he said. “God is not an engineer who designed the universe. He did not design me – He loves me.”"

WOW, this is quite a reversal. Now God is small if he doesn't use evolution to create the universe. So what can this statement actually mean?? I'm very intrigued by the last part actually: "He did not design me - He loves me." The only way this statement makes any sense at all is if the word "god" in this instance has been emptied of all meaning. God is really just like your best friend down the street. He didn't make you, He doesn't sustain all things--no, God just loves you. (awwww...now all problems go away right??? This sounds so pious and heart warming, but alas, simply denying that God made you doesn't then make it so.)

I'm sorry, but there is no reason for me to respect or care about a god like this. These people would be more honest if they just stripped away talk of god altogether and simply stated they wanted to worship themselves. The desire to be your own god is not a new one--these things are simply excuses to make people feel less guilty about doing just that.

Prov 21:2 "Every way of a man is right in his own eyes, But the LORD weighs the hearts." (NKJV)

Cartoons and making distinctions

2006-02-02T12:36:00.000-07:00

This cartoon issue with the Islamic world is getting more and more interesting all the time. I for one hope that it gives Europe and some of the left in the US a wake up call as to what kind of people we are really dealing with here. These people do not love freedom, they love hatred and violence.

There are a couple of things that rather disturb me about this whole thing--or at least I find ironic. The Palestinian Authority (which Hamas is now in control of) receives almost all of it's funding from the West (Europe gives about $600 million a year, and the US around $324 million. (from here)) These are the SAME people that are burning the flags of Denmark (and I'm sure France now that they've republished these cartoons) in the streets of Gaza. Can anyone say biting the hand that feeds you??? On the one hand, they are crying out for terrorist acts against Europe and at the same time receiving aid from Europe. Maybe we should stop funding our enemies.

Also, the US's former president Bill Clinton has joined the fray against these cartoons. "So now what are we going to do? ... Replace the anti-Semitic prejudice with anti-Islamic prejudice?" he says. I'm not even sure what to say to this except "WOW." I don't ever remember Clinton standing up about cartoons published against Christianity. LOL, I suppose that is because Christians don't immediately take to the streets and start rioting and calling for acts of terrorism when that happens. Is it really possible that someone can not see the difference between a drawing a religious cartoon and murdering people? I guess some people never got the gift of making distinctions.

On a positive note though, my opinion of the French went up a bit as some of them have the backbone to print something they knew would infuriate the Arab world.

Cartoons

2006-01-31T08:27:00.000-07:00

Cartoon of Islam

I searched for the actual pictures and found at least some of them here.

I find this rather funny because everyone is still trying to say that Islam is a fundamentally peace loving religion, and yet their first reaction is to call for acts of terrorism against Denmark and Norway. What conclusion would this lead to about Islam???

Evolutionary dogmatism

2005-12-22T12:48:00.000-07:00

USA today op-ed on the recent Intelligent Design decision

"Evolutionists used to style themselves the champions of free speech and academic freedom against unthinking dogmatism. But increasingly, they have become the new dogmatists, demanding judicially-imposed censorship of dissent."

How ironic this is. Rather than the scientists using "science" to prove evolution they have not decided it is better to use the courts to prove it. Forgive me if I find this laughable. Should I perhaps get myself an old copy of "The Origin Of Species" and begin to worship it? Maybe then I would fit in with modern thinking.

"But our God is in heaven; He does whatever He pleases."

Selfishness

2005-12-05T19:38:00.000-07:00

Selfishness is something we are born with. Some people never even attempt to grow out of it, while other learn to mask it behind pious actions. White washed tombs are at least pretty on the outside. The trouble with this is that God sees the heart; He doesn't look on outward appearances as men do. It is those times I don't get something I really want where I learn exactly how selfish I am. Oh I've moved on from loudly demanding the candy bar while standing in line at the grocery store, but that fundamental self desire is still there. It has just progressed to larger things.

Someone gave my new car a door ding the other day. As selfish and inconsiderate as that was, my reaction was really no better. I didn't yell and scream--no, I've white washed that part of my life. But inside I had a monstrous desire for revenge. I craved to dent his car 10 fold for that small scratch. Nothing would have delighted me more than to take a hammer to that person's car. You see, there still lurks in me that old man. He delights in revenge because he is the most important person. Does it really matter if I leave a trail of broken people as I go through life? In my more cynical moments, I might actually believe it. If ever there was hope that this corrupt nature could be put away by natural means, it ought to be gone by now. The fact that a single scratch can bring back those feelings just testifies to how strongly that nature still clings to me.

Anyone who says that living in accordance with God's law is easy has simply failed to understand what His law really says. The Heidelberg Catechism explains the sixth commandment like this:

Does this Commandment speak only of killing?
No, but in forbidding murder, God teaches us that He abhors its very root, namely: envy, hatred, anger, and desire of revenge; and that in his sight all these are hidden murder.

You see the law of God goes to core; it discerns the thoughts and intentions of the heart. It acts somewhat like a magnifying glass and a mirror. In it, there is a standard where it is much harder to deceive yourself about how good you really are. It is good that we gaze in this mirror every once in a while. It is good to see how far short we come lest we truly start to believe that me, myself, and I are the most important people in the world. Fortunately, God is still about His work of conforming His people to the image of Jesus Christ, but it is a long and sometimes painful process.

Eph 4:22 "That ye put off concerning the former conversation the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts;"

Old doctrines

2005-11-22T15:46:00.000-07:00

Sometimes I just need to sit back and marvel at the old doctrines. Although they are old doctrines, and modern people tend to find them boring and outdated, they are the furthest thing from a dead orthodoxy to those who can see them. Romans 8:1 expresses one of those old truths: "There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit." Those who have no content to their religion are not going to understand why this makes any sense. If God is not really just, and he really doesn't hold the wicked in derision then there never was any condemnation for anyone. Paul is then simply speaking about guilt feelings or something along that line, and it is quite possible that you can be rid of your guilt in some other way. There is a sense of irony here. By refusing to see that a real problem exists, people have destroyed any hope of a solution. The problem doesn't cease to exist simply because you don't believe it; the God of the Heavens is not dethroned simply because you don't bow a knee to him. The curse on Adam still rests on men.

To those who know there is a real curse, this doctrine affords an unspeakable comfort. It isn't a dry doctrine meant only for theologians or pastors only. This is a truth that effects the whole man; he reads the words, comprehends the meaning in his mind, and then it penetrates into his heart. Can the pronouncement that guilt is gone NOT effect the emotions of people? Can it not make the whole man rejoice? Christ doesn't just redeem intellects, or just emotions, or just bodies--he saves the entire person! Every part of a person is to be brought under the authority of Jesus Christ.

This rejoicing isn't going to be one that is left at church every Sunday when all the emotional frenzy is over--no, this has content. This is a thought that will affect someone 24 hours a day 7 days a week. It will pervade your entire being to the point of overflowing. Rejoice and be exceedingly glad because there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

Intelligent Design debate

2005-10-19T13:21:00.000-07:00

NY Times article about Michael Behe testifying for Intelligent Design. His book, Darwin's Black Box is quite good. I found it very useful during my years in public high school.

One thing I want to comment on is how interesting the Liberal's statements are on this matter. It simply isn't good enough for Darwin to be taught in the school--he must be taught to the exclusion of everything else. This is interesting because on everything else they want people to keep an open mind: Islam and Christianity really worship the same God. It is all the same there, but when a diverse point of view is suggested that goes to the core of their Humanism, well, now that is different. Really, it is the government's job to turn all children into little Humanists isn't it?

This rhetoric about separation of church and state is becoming comical to me lately. Not because they really mean it, but simply because it is a code word for "my way or the highway." Ironic isn't it that those who tout being so open-minded really could care less about being open minded? You see, if they really were open-minded, they would want their children introduced to as many different ideas as possible. No, all they want is their Humanism taught; that way there will never be any challenge to it. I would like to see a lawsuit that asks the school systems to remove this religion/philosophy of Humanism from our schools, but I have a feeling Liberals wouldn't even understand what I was talking about.

Supposed normalcy and conforming to the image of Jesus Christ

2005-10-06T08:59:00.000-07:00

Sometimes I wonder what how much less stress life would contain if we really took to heart what Paul says about all things working together for the good of them that love God and are called according to His purpose. I’m sure we would still feel pain—even the writer of Hebrews acknowledges that no discipline is joyful in the present. This is because God’s purpose in our lives is to conform us to the image of Jesus Christ. God seems to delight in giving every one of His children a different path to that end.

I wonder sometimes why I was given the specific past that I was. Wouldn’t it have been easier to have a Christian family—one that valued church and really considered the savior Jesus Christ? Then at least I could have learned the fear of God from my father. What a great heritage for those who actually experience that! To be able to look back and say “You know, Dad wasn’t perfect, but he loved my mom and he loved Jesus Christ.” It would be so awesome to have many generations of Christians in the family—as far back as one could see even!

I quoted in a pervious post about white fences and normalcy: "Ever wonder why people are so determined to reach for white picket fences, supposed normalcy, a nuclear family? Well, try growing up without one." Broken families are not joyful. I’m sure the statistics will show that kids that come from broken families are more likely to be delinquent, and have broken families themselves. Perhaps such things can work out in the other way too. Kids that grew up without a nuclear family can be all the more determined to make sure that doesn’t happen to their kids—Lord willing I guess.

One of my best friend’s grandfathers died recently. I’d met him a few times, but I didn’t know him well. It was said of him, though, that he was a dependable person; this ought to be the characteristic of the people of God. Consider what Psalm 1 says:

1 Blessed is the man
Who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly,
Nor stands in the path of sinners,
Nor sits in the seat of the scornful;
2 But his delight is in the law of the LORD,
And in His law he meditates day and night.
3 He shall be like a tree
Planted by the rivers of water,
That brings forth its fruit in its season,
Whose leaf also shall not wither;
And whatever he does shall prosper.

4 The ungodly are not so,
But are like the chaff which the wind drives away.
5 Therefore the ungodly shall not stand in the judgment,
Nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous.

6 For the LORD knows the way of the righteous,
But the way of the ungodly shall perish. (NKJV) (emphasis mine)

Notice the stark contrast: the wicked are blown around like chaff, but the righteous are like a solid tree! It reminds me of the tumble weeds out in eastern Colorado. They are never quite settled in; maybe they get stuck on a fence every once in a while, but normally they are blowing all over the road providing nice obstacles for drivers to dodge. The big trees downtown aren’t like that. They’ve been in the same place for a hundred years; people know where they are and they don’t present an obstacle.

A dependable parent is a great blessing to a child. I think part of conforming us to the image of Jesus Christ is making us more dependable. After all, isn’t a fruit of the Spirit to be longsuffering—to be enduring and steadfast? Perhaps this is some of what we learn in adversity: to be patient in tribulation. I suppose that is hard to learn if one never experiences tribulations.

Abortion associated with immorality?!?

2005-09-26T08:39:00.000-07:00

Fox News Article on how the Democratic Party needs to "regain the faith" of religious voters. I found the following sentences rather amusing:

Democrats believe in God and lead moral lives every bit as much as Republicans do. To suggest the contrary is simply a lie.

But somehow, Republicans have equated any support for gay rights and a woman’s right to choose an abortion with immorality. Democrats have varying views on these subjects, with many Democrats supporting parental notification for an abortion and opposing gay marriage. But often that gets lost in the noise from the extreme right.

My initial reaction to this (in my younger-generation vernacular of course) is simply "are you for real?!?" There is no doubt in my mind that both party's members have some scandalous life styles, but ideologically, there is no comparison. Of course gay rights and abortion rights are moral issues! (I'm not saying there aren't other arguments against them as well, but the primary ones are about the morality of such things.) Can someone really believe that these aren't moral issues? Is that really possible today? I'm amazed that we've divorced ethics from morality (as if this could really be done) in such a way that people can really view killing unborn babies as an a-moral issue. Can this really be any simpler? Those who believe the Bible will tend to believe that killing babies is wrong; henceforth, they will see it as immoral to support the right to kill a baby. It doesn't seem too outrageous to me that a woman's right to choose an abortion is equated with immorality, but then again, I'm probably just part of the irrelevant noise from the extreme right. Reconnecting with the religious voters is going to be difficult when you don't understand how abortion is associated with immorality…

Random quote

2005-09-16T08:02:00.000-07:00

I found this quote the other day. It makes a lot of sense to me.

"Ever wonder why people are so determined to reach for white picket fences, supposed normalcy, a nuclear family? Well, try growing up without one."
-Chuck Eddy, The Village Voice, 1/03

Out, out brief candle

2005-09-16T05:59:00.000-07:00

I'm amazed sometimes at the astounding ability of great authors to capture emotion with words.

To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day
To the last syllable of recorded time,
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more: it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.

-Macbeth

Making distinctions and Harry Potter

2005-09-15T14:27:00.000-07:00

I recently read all of the Harry Potter books (yes, I realize this makes me way behind the times). I enjoyed the story and now I look forward to the last book coming out that actually resolves the conflict. What I wish to comment on here, though, is all the loud hype about these books promoting witchcraft so that children should not be reading them. Dare I say that is just simply ludicrous? It is my assertion that if your children are unable to tell the difference between the magical world in a fictitious novel and real Biblical Christianity, you've failed to teach them how to make real distinctions. Perhaps they shouldn't be reading any fiction at all then because they might be tempted to confuse reality and make-believe!

Everything I've read in criticism of the books talk about things such as promoting witchcraft and blurring right and wrong distinctions. The witchcraft association is simply unfounded. No doubt the world is filled with magic, but that is the basis of the fantasy world. This is no different than The Lord of the Rings--this fantasy world is fundamentally different from the real world in that it has magic all around. This is a far cry from pagan and Wicca practices today which is no where near as widespread. From Focus on the Family, I found this "conclusion:"

Rowling has stated that she believes in God and that accusations of Harry Potter books leading kids into sorcery are rubbish. (Though evidence suggests a heightened interest in the subject among children.) How sad that such an imaginative, gifted writer lacks the spiritual insight to give Harry, Luna and a legion of Potter fans the simple, illuminating truth about death—and life—found in Scripture. What readers are left with is a saga steeped in witchcraft that, because of skillful storytelling and pro-social morals, has many families ignoring its spiritual counterfeits.

Perhaps this is going to be a wake up call for some people, but if you base your life on any other book besides the Bible, you WILL HAVE A SPIRITUAL COUNTERFEIT! If you expect Harry Potter to teach you or your children about God, then you will be led astray. But then of what other book is this not true? I'm flatly amazed that this is even suggested--who is getting their spirituality from Harry Potter books??? If you think the Lord of the Rings will teach you how to get to heaven, well, you'll be disappointed there too. Of course, this takes nothing away from either LOTR or Harry Potter as good stories--they are just that, good stories. Enjoy them! Praise God that he has given such gifts to people that they can write entertaining stories that might encourage your children (or you) to practice reading.

The other assertion about the book mentioned frequently was "blurring right and wrong distinctions." This one might hold a bit more water in my reckoning, but only if the child lives in a bubble. Who's good and who's bad definitely gets a little bit fuzzy sometimes, and some of Harry's choices commonly aren't easy to make. Things even seem to work out all right sometimes when he makes bad choices, but I fail to see how this makes the book into something horrible. Are Christian morals taught in it? Some are and some aren't, but like I said before, if you are trying to get your religion out of Harry Potter books, maybe you should seek help... The book is no more offensive than the daily newspaper in terms of the morality it presents, and I would even argue that the virtues it extols are sometimes much better than the newspaper's.

Being an engineer, I'm not nearly as imaginative as some people, but I can still see creativity if it is staring me in the face (well most of the time). Just as Paul told that Corinthians that idols are nothing in the world, so the same idea applies here. Christians can give thanks to God for such gifted writers as Rowling, even if the writer herself doesn't acknowledge the true God. You can enjoy reading (just as the Corinthians were free to enjoy the meat) whether the book's author was a Christian or not (or the meat was sacrificed to an idol or not). Praise God for the great gifts he has given to men!

Piles of stones

2005-09-09T12:40:00.000-07:00

I've always kind of found the story in Joshua 4 to be interesting.

4 Then Joshua called the twelve men whom he had appointed from the children of Israel, one man from every tribe; 5 and Joshua said to them: “Cross over before the ark of the LORD your God into the midst of the Jordan, and each one of you take up a stone on his shoulder, according to the number of the tribes of the children of Israel, 6 that this may be a sign among you when your children ask in time to come, saying, ‘What do these stones mean to you?’ 7 Then you shall answer them that the waters of the Jordan were cut off before the ark of the covenant of the LORD; when it crossed over the Jordan, the waters of the Jordan were cut off. And these stones shall be for a memorial to the children of Israel forever.” (NKJV)

Joshua knew there would come a time when the miraculous signs that brought Israel out of Egypt would cease. Moses had warned them years earlier not to forget the Lord (Deuteronomy 4) after they had children and grandchildren. It is not that God wouldn't be with them, or that he wouldn't be actively involved in their lives, but that he wouldn't be doing the miraculous signs and wonders as he had before. It is in those times that they would be most likely to forget the Lord their God, so to remind them, Joshua erected a pile of stones. He then goes onto assume that their children would ask them "What do these stones mean?" This was to serve as a reminder to tell their kids the glorious deeds of the Lord. Strangely, this is the same thing we should be doing today: telling our children, and all who will hear about the glorious deeds of the Lord.

A visit to the ER

2005-08-24T09:16:00.000-07:00

Well, I had a nice trip to the ER last night. Must say that it was a more enjoyable experience than I originally thought; it has been over 15 years since the last time I was in the ER. Well, for some reason I find these stories quite funny. I was helping one of our church member’s move, and I slid my hand along a box that had reinforced metal corners. The one corner served as quite a nice knife. When I realized what had happened, I looked down at my hand trying to evaluate the situation. Helping people move, you end up getting cuts all the time, so I figured I would just need a band aid. Not so, not so. As I stood at the edge of this moving truck, I begin to watch as my blood was pouring out onto the street. Against all my natural instincts, I figured it was time to ask for some help.

“Yeah….I could probably use some help here,” I said in my usual calm, quiet voice. Tom and Jim got me some of the napkins we had from the pizza dinner, and I attempted to stop the bleeding. That didn’t work so well, and I bled through those first napkins pretty well. After this though, I climbed down out of the truck and went into the house. I figured I would wash it out and then probably call it quits on the moving for that day, but Ben, in his great wisdom, was like, “You should probably go to the ER, Josh.” I’m not a big fan of going to the doctor in general, so I protested. Of course, this lead to more investigation being needed; after pulling back the cut and seeing the fatty tissue, I reluctantly agreed. I could see more than just my skin, so I agreed I should probably go; also, I’m not a big fan of infections.

Now, the decision had to be made how I was going to get there. I probably could have driven myself, but I would have bled all over my car. This led to another interesting conversation, as Brian and Ben debated who got to drive my car home! I quickly told them, that I had driven my OLD car, so this debate was unnecessary. If it had been my new car, I would have driven myself! ;-) I’ve got red seats you know, so blood wouldn’t stain too bad! Ben decided that his wife would drive me to the Emergicare because that would be a much faster in-and-out than the hospital. Brian quickly added that if I went to the actual ER, I would probably be there until 11 tonight.

The ride to the Emergicare was rather uneventful as I tried to keep from bleeding all over Ben’s car. I’m sure he’ll appreciate that in the long run! Emergicare was an interesting place. I was immediately informed that they didn’t take my insurance, and that I would be paying the full 345 dollars for the visit. I choked on this and asked Alicia if she would just drive me to the hospital instead. I would rather wait many hours than fork over 345 bucks when I have insurance! I guess I am cheap sometimes.

Penrose was actually much quicker than I thought. I had to sit and give the receptionist my information, and attempt to sign the co-pay receipt without bleeding on the paperwork, but it was all good. I was quite surprised when the receptionist asked me “my religious preference” after asking for my address. Don’t we live in a society that separates church and state with a 10 foot brick wall? I asked about this, and the receptionist told me that Penrose was a Catholic organization, so if I was dying, they needed to know what kind of priest to call for me. I laughed and told her I was a Protestant. She then directed me to the After Hours Clinic because that would be much quicker than the ER; this was good.

After I walked down to the After Hours Clinic, Ben calls me up. He found it amusing that my radio was tuned to 106.3 and it was playing Delilah. Mind you, I don’t listen to Delilah, as that show comes on later in the evening, but I do enjoy the soft-rock of 106.3 during the day sometimes. I guess he even called Brian over to hear what was playing on my radio, so now I’m sure I’ll get some grief about that. Oh well, I don’t mind, people usually get a kick out of my random weirdness.

I was called into the actual doctor’s office about 15 minutes later; he gave me some Novocain before stitching me up. While I was waiting for the Novocain to take full effect, I watched a young mother bring her daughter into the clinic. Her daughter had fallen and didn’t get up quickly enough for mother’s satisfaction. I thought for a while that perhaps she was just a bit obsessed as a parent for bring her daughter in to the ER when she just was favoring her arm a bit, but then maybe mothers should be very concerned about their children; it is much better than not caring at all.

After a few minutes of Novocain, the doctor came back and stitched me up. It was relatively painless process as I couldn’t feel that part of my hand. Even though it was my own hand, I found it interesting to watch how skilled he was at tying a knot in that incredibly fine thread. Putting that special stitching needle into my flesh and sewing on my hand should have hurt, I thought, but there was just numbness.

Tom and Ben were anxiously awaiting my presence in waiting room--it was flattering. I must indeed be blessed to have friends that would wait for me there when all I’ve done is just cut my hand.

Planned Parenthood

2005-08-23T15:06:00.000-07:00

You know, my pastor is right when he suggests the things in the news tend to agitate us. I’m not sure how I ended up reading Planned Parenthood’s mission statement, but I did. This part of the statement absolutely infuriates me.

"Reproductive freedom—the fundamental right of every individual to decide freely and responsibly when and whether to have a child—is a reaffirmation of the principle of individual liberty cherished by most people worldwide. It helps ensure that children will be wanted and loved, that families will be strong and secure, and that choice rather than chance will guide the future of humanity."

I guess I shouldn’t really even be surprised anymore when humanism as a religion is so prevalent in our culture. And I’m sorry, but anyone who denies that humanism IS a religion has simply missed the boat. Dictionary.com’s 4th definition of religion is “A cause, principle, or activity pursued with zeal or conscientious devotion.” Humanism is definitely a cause; their cause is themselves, and they most definitely pursue it with zeal (at least some of them, but any religion has more and less dedicated adherents). This dialog they spew forth about not being a worldview and being inclusive is a lie. They aren’t after tolerance, or inclusiveness, all they are after is having their worldview exalted to the position of being a state sponsored religion.

The reason for seeing humanism in Planned Parenthood’s mission statement is simple. The statement about “choice rather than chance” guiding our future presupposes that humanism, and even more specifically, Darwinism is true. If humans don’t bring order to our world, then everything is just chance. The presuppositions have already determined the answer to the question. Planned Parenthood has presupposed that Christianity is not true, and henceforth it can have nothing to say about abortion. The ironic and rather interesting thing about this is that they then need Christianity to define all their high-sounding terms in the rest of the statement. May I ask what love means to Planned Parenthood? It can’t be the Christian’s definition of love because that has already been presupposed to be false. Humanism isn’t going to help it much either as it can’t even figure out why man exists in the first place much less what love between humans should mean. So essentially, we have a rather pious sounding statement about all children being wanted and loved that has no meaning. And what is “the principle of individual liberty cherished by most people worldwide?” Our founding fathers, coming from a Christian background, could talk about real liberty because they had a God who was higher and had revealed laws that gave man liberty without reducing society to anarchy. Do the Chinese have a concept of individual liberty that is cherished, or how about Sadaam? It seems that they really want to borrow from Christianity again. Lastly, why should we care about having families that are strong and secure? This is blatantly a Christian idea again. Christians desire strong and secure families because they provide protection from so much and they are a God-given means to raise up the next generation.

I propose that Planned Parenthood’s mission statement be rewritten as the following:

Reproductive freedom—our deep felt desire that we be able to live irresponsibly, outside of our means, and without consequences for our choices—is a reaffirmation of the pleasure seeking life so desired by most people worldwide. It helps ensure that all children will be born when it is most convenient for us, and we irrationally hope that our choices won’t land the human race in ruin.

Doesn’t have the same high sounding effect does it?

The hatred of responsibility

2005-08-22T10:36:00.000-07:00

One of the classes I had in high school was an American History class. Because I was graduating in 2000, there was a lot of focus on the last 100 years or the last 1000 years, so we were required to compile a list the most influential events of the past 100 years for this class. Each student was then required to present their top ten list. I still remember how shocked I was when one girl’s most influential event of the 20th century was Woodstock. Although I wasn’t alive at the time of Woodstock, I just couldn’t believe that a three day, hippy music festival could possibly be the most influential event of the 1900s. I’m by no means an expert on what this event meant to people, but I imagine it is safe to say that it was not a shining light of responsible behavior.

It is a sad testimony to our culture that much of what this concert seems to represent is still present in our culture. We still hold to the motto of “make love, not war.” Although, what is really meant by this is that want pleasure now and not responsibility. We have chosen the opposite of what Moses chose.

Hebrews 11:24-26 By faith Moses, when he became of age, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter, choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God than to enjoy the passing pleasures of sin, esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures in Egypt; for he looked to the reward. (NKJV)

You see, looking to the short term is much easier than seeing the end result. The examples of this in our society are unmistakable. We have abortion on demand. Rather than seeing the value of that life, people prefer to enjoy the passing pleasures of sin. Only later do they learn how much this hurts them. People refuse to join themselves to the church and submit to its discipline; rather, they prefer to jump from church to church seeking an emotional high. The consequences of this are that people never really get any of the meat of Christianity. Couples are committing to marriages where the vows are in terms of “as long as I love you.” Whatever is most convenient--that is the best.

One of the most sickening things about all this is that Christians seem to be no different. Surveys about divorce show that Christians are just as likely to get divorced as are non-Christians. So much for the idea of being salt and light in a dark world…

I wonder if much of the Christian problem here is a misinterpretation of Matthew 18:2-4 and similar passages.

Then Jesus called a little child to Him, set him in the midst of them, and said, “Assuredly, I say to you, unless you are converted and become as little children, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven. Therefore whoever humbles himself as this little child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.” (NKJV)

This teaching does not idolize everything about children! It only tells us that we must be humble like little children; little children don’t think that they know it all and neither should Christians, but if you begin to believe that all of the Christian life is represented as being a little child, then you will not be inclined to take on responsibility. In fact, you’ll probably eschew it. I guess people miss Christ’s teaching when he doesn’t commend the behavior and attitude of children.

Matthew 11:16-17 “But to what shall I liken this generation? It is like children sitting in the marketplaces and calling to their companions, and saying:
‘ We played the flute for you,
And you did not dance;
We mourned to you,
And you did not lament.’(NKJV)

This characteristic of children, the inability to make up their mind, is not commended. Don’t be like little children in this way. Be humble like little children, but don’t be irresponsible like them.

The author of Hebrews said something related.

Hebrews 5:12-14 For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the first principles of the oracles of God; and you have come to need milk and not solid food. For everyone who partakes only of milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, for he is a babe. But solid food belongs to those who are of full age, that is, those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil. (NKJV)

Christians are to grow up and take on adult responsibilities. We all start out as babes, but we should not stay there. This is fool hearty and destructive to our society. Our churches need men and women of integrity and stability who have trained their senses to make judgments. I pray that the church begins to grow up and ditches this current hatred of responsibility that we seem to have acquired from the culture at large.

Check out Matt Powell’s sermon on Genesis 49; he talks some about this idea in there.

The consequence of obedience

2005-08-13T14:05:00.000-07:00

I’ve heard it a thousand times. A man reaps what he sows. Paul’s statement in Galatians does not go unnoticed.

Galatians 6:7-9 Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. For he that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption; but he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting. And let us not be weary in well doing: for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not.

We know exactly how this is to be applied too! Those unbelievers who walk in the flesh will reap judgment from God. Our God is not mocked; the disobedient will get what is coming to them.

Too often though, we overlook the other part. Those who sow to the Spirit will reap life everlasting. There is a consequence for those who seek after Godliness—for those who obey Christ’s commands. What did Christ say to the disciples in Mark 10 when they asked about themselves?

Mark 10:28-31 Then Peter began to say unto him, Lo, we have left all, and have followed thee. And Jesus answered and said, Verily I say unto you, There is no man that hath left house, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands, for my sake, and the gospel's, But he shall receive an hundredfold now in this time, houses, and brethren, and sisters, and mothers, and children, and lands, with persecutions; and in the world to come eternal life. But many that are first shall be last; and the last first.

I’m pretty sure this doesn’t mean what the modern “name it claim it” types want it to mean. You probably will not get a hundred dollar return on every dollar you give to a charity. No, I think Christ is saying that the things you do have will be more enjoyable, and you will actually get to enjoy them!

I wonder if anyone else has ever noticed that when you are faithful in tithing and giving that you don’t spend much time worrying about money anymore. It isn’t that you have a ten fold increase in your income, or that you win the lottery, or some other “miracle” occurrence, but there seems to be enough to pay the bills still. Kind of like the widow of Sidon that gave Elijah to eat of her last bit of oil and meal; she never abounded in food, never had a huge nest egg stored up, but she had food for many days. And you know what, the things you buy with your money seem to be more enjoyable as well. God delights in providing for his people as they obey his command.

Ecclesiastes 5:12 tells us that “Sweet is the sleep of a laborer, whether he eats little or much, but the full stomach of the rich will not let him sleep.” We often fail to realize that a calm and restful night’s sleep is as much a gift of God as great riches. And, I would almost say a better gift! What good are millions of dollars if my entire life is then consumed with worry about how to preserve my fortune? No, those who obey Christ may not be reward in ways everyone can see, but they are rewarded—and oh is the reward sweet!

The problem people have with this is that the cost is high initially. We live in a culture that wants it now, or they don’t want it at all. Even in business, people are always looking for the “low hanging fruit.” It is a common saying, but “nothing worth doing is ever easy.” There is a lot of discipline involved in putting the old man to death. People who believe this is an easy task have obviously never really tried. What I want to suggest here though is that the reward for doing this is very great. Those who give liberally to the church are probably going to worry less about money. Those who respect God’s law about sex outside of marriage are probably going to have a more fulfilling marriage. Those who don’t steal to make money will enjoy that nice steak dinner with a guilt free conscience. Those who aren’t always coveting their neighbors’ possessions will be more content with what they have. Of course, all these require first submitting yourself to the law of God, and acknowledging that his way is best—not the instant gratification way.

Malachi 3:10
Bring all the tithes into the storehouse,
That there may be food in My house,
And try Me now in this,”
Says the LORD of hosts,

“If I will not open for you the windows of heaven
And pour out for you such blessing
That there will not be room enough to receive it.

Just don’t look for the blessing in the lottery ticket; look for it in something with a bit more real value!

Ah home

2005-08-12T08:52:00.000-07:00

I’ve been on a series of business trips and vacations for the past four weeks now, and I have to say I miss home. As much fun as it is to see new places and visit new people, there is something special about home. A person can be comfortable there; they can relax and talk with the people closest to them. They know what to expect. This should be the place you can retreat to when you’ve had a bad day at work.

You know, I wonder if this isn’t the reason people are more stressed today. People don’t want to go home anymore it seems because home isn’t a comfortable place to rest after a stressful day—it is a place that causes more stress. In fact with so many broken homes, it is no wonder people work later, spend more time at bars and other places like that. If home isn’t a place you look forward to returning to, then you’ll find an excuse to not return. My question is where will you find relief from the stress of the day if it isn’t at home? The bar can’t provide that kind of rest, and neither can work, so where do people go? I’m sure the gym can provide some, but that is really just a different kind of work.

Even the church doesn’t provide substitute enough for the home. I would even suggest that the church is built with family units—it is built with homes. How can we expect the church to flourish in a land with so many broken homes? We live with our families seven days a week, not one day a week. If strong families are built, it would seem that strong churches could then be built.

Sorry, no answers today as I look forward to finally getting to enjoy home...only questions.

The beginning of wisdom

2005-08-10T16:26:00.000-07:00

Proverbs tells us that the beginning of wisdom is to fear God. This god isn’t some abstract concept that you make up in your mind; no, this is to fear the one true God. This is the God who has spoken in the Bible. I think a corollary of the fear of God is the simple recognition that I don’t know everything. This makes sense of course because a wise man is one who accepts instruction—he is able to learn from a rebuke. Proverbs 9 teaches this very clearly.

This would seem to indicate that the first step for a Christian who seeks wisdom is to acknowledge that there is a God, and that I’m not him. This sounds so simple to say, but I can’t count the number of times that I’ve said this with my lips and then promptly retreated to the recess of my own mind to try to understand something.

Lately, I’ve begun to see how well this idea fits into so much of what Jesus taught about righteousness. He blatantly told the Pharisees that he had not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance. Of course if they had realized who exactly it was that they were talking to, they would have also recognized how sinful and unwise they were. Notice the subtlety to what Christ says in John 9.

Jesus said, "For judgment I came into this world, that those who do not see may see, and those who see may become blind." Some of the Pharisees near him heard these things, and said to him, "Are we also blind?" Jesus said to them, "If you were blind, you would have no guilt; but now that you say, 'We see,' your guilt remains.
(John 9:39-41)

If they had recognized their own blindness, they would have fled to Christ for forgiveness of sins, but instead, they claimed to already be both righteous and wise. Christ does not say that they weren’t blind, but simply that they said “We see.” They were unwilling to recognize their own blindness. Let’s remember that that wisdom is not hidden in ourselves or out there in the world somewhere—wisdom is hidden in Christ and his words.

Covenant children and camp

2005-08-01T08:00:00.000-07:00

This past week I attended my first Heidelberg Youth Camp. Other than the fact that I was consistently loosing sleep, it was a great time. The teaching was excellent and I enjoyed meeting a broad range of people from the RCUS. I say this was my first HYC, but I have been to Christian camps before. Being raised in a Southern Baptist church, I attended my share of camps. There was one glaringly obvious difference with this one though, and that is what I want to comment on here.

The difference was in how the children were addressed. They were taught as part of the church--holy children of believing parents. In fact, the theme of the camp, “Set Apart,” was even about this. They were told over and over again that the promises are committed to them as much as to their parents and that is the reason they should live Godly lives. This fits perfectly with Paul’s teaching in 1 Corinthians 7:14: “For the unbelieving husband is sanctified by the wife, and the unbelieving wife is sanctified by the husband; otherwise your children would be unclean, but now they are holy.” The children are holy by reason of their baptism and their believing parents. Of course, this doesn’t mean that they are saved. Salvation is by grace alone through faith alone, but just as the children of Jews were set apart, so believers’ children are set apart from the world. They are different!! What a comfort it must be to Godly parents (I am not one yet, so I can only speculate) that to them as well as to their children the oracles and promises of God are committed. God takes such an interest believers that he even in a special way cares about their children! The Heidelberg says it well.

74. Are infants also to be baptized?

Yes. For since they, as well as their parents, belong to the covenant and people of God, and both redemption from sin and the Holy Ghost, who works faith, are through the blood of Christ promised to them no less than to their parents: they are also by Baptism, as a sign of the covenant, to be ingrafted into the Christian Church, and distinguished from the children of unbelievers, as was done in the Old Testament by Circumcision, in place of which in the New Testament Baptism is appointed.

This was not the case with the Baptists. Now I know a lot of them are much better in practice than their doctrine should allow, but on this issue, they are pretty consistent to their own teaching. The focus of those camps was always to get as many of them “saved” as possible. Altar calls were given every night and success was measured by how many responded. The children were treated as if they were outside the covenant, outside the church, and without hope. They treated their children no differently than if they were simply unbelieving pagans living in their home and under their supervision!

Praise be to God that “the promise is to you and to your children, and to all who are afar off, as many as the Lord our God will call.”

Anti-intellectual worship

2005-07-19T21:46:00.000-07:00

I know it has been said before, but the modern church is very anti-intellectual in its thinking. Anything that might actually engage the mind is strictly forbidden. Everything about the church service is designed to steer the worshipper clear of that because what church goers today really want is an emotional experience. There is little, if any, sermon given, and the “praise and worship” time is drawn out to extraordinarily long proportions.

One of the most obvious ways this is shown is in the content of the songs being sung. Let’s give a little comparison between modern and not so modern…

Let the Peace of God Reign

Father of life draw me closer
Lord, my heart is set on You
Let me run the race of time
With Your life enfolding mine
And let the peace of God
Let it reign

Oh Holy Spirit, You're my comfort
Strengthen me, hold my head up high
And I stand upon Your truth
Bringing glory unto You
And let the peace of God
Let it reign

Oh Lord I hunger for more of You
Rise up within me let me know Your truth
Oh Holy Spirit saturate my soul
And let the life of God fill me now
Let Your healing power breathe life and
Make me whole
And let the peace of God let it reign

Charles Wesley’s “Arise, My Soul, Arise”

Arise, my soul, arise; shake off thy guilty fears;
The bleeding sacrifice in my behalf appears:
Before the throne my surety stands,
Before the throne my surety stands,
My name is written on His hands.

He ever lives above, for me to intercede;
His all redeeming love, His precious blood, to plead:
His blood atoned for all our race,
His blood atoned for all our race,
And sprinkles now the throne of grace.

Five bleeding wounds He bears; received on Calvary;
They pour effectual prayers; they strongly plead for me:
“Forgive him, O forgive,” they cry,
“Forgive him, O forgive,” they cry,
“Nor let that ransomed sinner die!”

The Father hears Him pray, His dear anointed One;
He cannot turn away, the presence of His Son;
His Spirit answers to the blood,
His Spirit answers to the blood,
And tells me I am born of God.

My God is reconciled; His pardoning voice I hear;
He owns me for His child; I can no longer fear:
With confidence I now draw nigh,
With confidence I now draw nigh,
And “Father, Abba, Father,” cry.

Note the subtle, yet evident shift in focus. One speaks about the cross of Christ and how it saves men from their sins; the other speaks simply about a healing power. Now, if you were to fill in the meaning of the healing power, that it is really be the blood of the everlasting covenant, then the modern song isn’t bad. The problem is that this is one of the better songs. Most of the rest are simply a chorus that is sung over and over again. When you understand the overall philosophy of the church these days, this makes sense of course. The songs are designed to use only enough content to evoke an emotional response; really, you can put whatever meaning you want behind the healing power of God--as long as it gets you emotionally high.

Wesley’s song on the other hand is filled with Biblical references and concentrates heavily on the one sacrifice of Christ on the cross. His references to history “five bleeding wounds He bears; received on Calvary” can’t just be given whatever content you feel like. Calvary was a real place. Christ really did receive five major wounds. These references keep the worshipper’s mind engaged on what God has said and done without having to just imagine some meaning for phrases. Emotions are by no means avoided, but neither is the mind.

The Christian religion is not simply an emotional experience. To deprive it of its intellectual content is to rob it of its life changing power. It is the Jesus of the Bible that saves--the Jesus that spoke with such authority it astonished the people, the Jesus that made fools out of the Pharisees when they tried to trap him in his words. You are not called to worship the Jesus of your own imagination. You are called to worship the Jesus of the Bible, so it would probably behoove you to learn what he says.

Paul tells us in Ephesians that “we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.” This isn’t a battle that is fought by working yourself into an emotional frenzy; this is a battle with ideas, with words, with behaviors.

2 Corinthians 10:4-6 For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds, casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ, and being ready to punish all disobedience when your obedience is fulfilled. (NKJV)

The offensive gospel

2005-07-07T07:25:00.000-07:00

In an effort to fill churches, modern Christianity has lost much of the offense of the gospel. You see, it is much easier to tell people that Jesus is the answer to all their questions than to tell them to them to take up their cross and follow him. Taking up your cross involves work, sacrifice, and perhaps even some study--*gasp*. We must never dumb down what Christ has said in the interest of making it more appealing to the masses because the very thing that is offensive to the world is what gives hope to the people of God.

Contrary to modern evangelists, it seems that Christ sometimes presented things in the absolutely most offensive way possible.

Luke 4:23-27 He said to them, "You will surely say this proverb to Me, "Physician, heal yourself! Whatever we have heard done in Capernaum, do also here in Your country."' Then He said, "Assuredly, I say to you, no prophet is accepted in his own country. But I tell you truly, many widows were in Israel in the days of Elijah, when the heaven was shut up three years and six months, and there was a great famine throughout all the land; but to none of them was Elijah sent except to Zarephath, in the region of Sidon, to a woman who was a widow. And many lepers were in Israel in the time of Elisha the prophet, and none of them was cleansed except Naaman the Syrian."(NKJV)

For the time, this was quite possibly the most offensive thing Christ could say to the Jews. They thought they were the special people of God, and they thought this was because they were somehow better than all the people around them. Christ had a way of bring out how prideful they were in just a few words. There is no doubt it got their attention as well; they were immediately filled with wrath and tried to kill Christ.

John 6:48-54 I am the bread of life. Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and are dead. This is the bread which comes down from heaven, that one may eat of it and not die. I am the living bread which came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever; and the bread that I shall give is My flesh, which I shall give for the life of the world."

The Jews therefore quarreled among themselves, saying, "How can this Man give us His flesh to eat?"

Then Jesus said to them, "Most assuredly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in you. Whoever eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day.(NKJV)

I am amazed every time I read this passage for it is a great illustration of an aroma of death leading to death and life leading to life. Notice how Christ doesn’t back off his words, or dumb them down, or really do anything else to make his words more appealing. No, he even makes the words more offensive as he goes along! “Unless you eat the flesh of the Son and Man and drink His blood, you have no life in you.” Those to whom the gospel is an aroma of life unto life spiritually feast on the flesh and blood of Christ because they know that his words are spirit and they are life. Those to whom the gospel is an aroma of death don’t hang around. They leave to look for a teacher that more suits their fancy.

John 8:51-58 "Most assuredly, I say to you, if anyone keeps My word he shall never see death."

Then the Jews said to Him, "Now we know that You have a demon! Abraham is dead, and the prophets; and You say, "If anyone keeps My word he shall never taste death.' Are You greater than our father Abraham, who is dead? And the prophets are dead. Who do You make Yourself out to be?"

Jesus answered, "If I honor Myself, My honor is nothing. It is My Father who honors Me, of whom you say that He is your God. Yet you have not known Him, but I know Him. And if I say, "I do not know Him,' I shall be a liar like you; but I do know Him and keep His word. Your father Abraham rejoiced to see My day, and he saw it and was glad."

Then the Jews said to Him, "You are not yet fifty years old, and have You seen Abraham?"

Jesus said to them, "Most assuredly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I AM."(NKJV)

This is perhaps the most offensive part about the gospel: the idea that God was among them--standing there clothed in flesh and blood. They could not accept this because if it were true, that would mean they owed him worship. The way Christ speaks with them is also just blatantly offensive. First He calls them liars, and then He tells them that the greatest of their fathers rejoiced to see His day. Finally, to make it even worse, He gives himself the very name God used in Exodus 3:14. The Jews understood all too well what this meant, and they immediately tried to stone him.

In case you are inclined to think that Jesus was the only one that spoke in such offensive ways, I suggest a closer look at Galatians 5. Let me make it clear that I’m not suggesting we look for extra ways to make the gospel more offensive. The gospel is offensive as it is! Let’s just not try to water it down in the interest of attracting more people to our churches. The Word of God will make distinctions--even between people. The aroma of life will attract God’s people.

Slander to science

2005-07-06T15:16:00.000-07:00

Here is an interesting story on Answers in Genesis’ new Creation Museum from FoxNews. There are a couple of quotes of interest.

Critics such as the Rev. Mendle Adams, pastor of St. Peter's United Church of Christ in nearby Cincinnati, say museum leaders are twisting Bible verses to support an agenda.

"It's silly. It's a silly, silly argument," said Adams. "They use what I consider to be a flawed analysis of Scripture."

I guess by “flawed analysis of Scripture” he really means that they take the Bible at what it says when it is relating history. Or maybe he means that certain parts of the Bible just need to be superseded by science now.

"They're pretty much saying that scientists around the world have colluded to pretty much lie to people," said Dr. William Anyonge, a paleontologist and assistant professor of biology at Xavier University in Cincinnati. "I think that is really a slander to science."

“A slander to science.” If ever you doubted that science has been elevated to the status of God in our society, doubt no more! Maybe we should start capitalizing it when we speak of that which can never be wrong.

Calvin funny??

2005-07-05T10:18:00.000-07:00

You know, I usually don’t find Calvin’s writing that humorous, but I was rereading some of his Institutes regarding infant baptism the other night. In refuting the idea that baptism is only for believing adults, Calvin says:

But I will make their fallacies palpable even to the blind, by a very plain similitude. Should any one insist that infants are to be deprived of food, on the pretence that the apostle permits none to eat but those who labour, (2 Thess. 3: 10,) would he not deserve to be scouted by all?

This example is just so far fetched it is funny to me. Who would even consider not feeding their baby because Paul said that all who don’t work are not supposed to eat? I guess sometimes the conditions are different for infants and adults--perhaps they are for baptism.

Organized Religion

2005-06-28T13:25:00.000-07:00

It seems to be a modern trend to want no organized religion. “We just want Christ” they say! Some have become so weary of the politics that dominate the church that they just want nothing to do with it. As bad as these things might be in the church, this is not a sufficient reason to abandon it. Those who choose to hold the view that we are to abandon all organized and disciplined religion for a more free-style, ad-hoc sort of worship are going to have to reject a good bit of scripture in doing so.

Consider the big picture. A good portion of the New Testament is addressed to specific churches in specific cities: “To the church of God which is at Corinth…”, “To the churches of Galatia”, “To the saints who are in Ephesus”, etc. I’m sure you can look up all the greetings Paul gives to the various churches. These weren’t just individual Christians out doing their own thing; they were organized into actual churches in their cities. The simple fact that Paul could address a letter to a church and have it reach the intended audience should show that there was an organized church in that city.

Secondly, consider 1 Corinthians 14:26-40 which culminates with the following statement: “Let all things be done decently and in order.” Our church services aren’t supposed to be wildly chaotic events. They should be done with order and without confusion. It is a good thing to meet at the same time every Sunday--that way people will know when the service is and they can make plans to be there. Even within the service there should be order. Paul tells us that at most two or three prophets should speak, and that the others should judge. People should be listening to the sermon and evaluating it according to what the scriptures say. The issue of tongues probably deserves its own discussion, but suffice it to say for now that things are to be done orderly. The idea that people should be doing as they please with regard to the church services is simply foreign to the Bible.

Hebrews 10: 23Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful. 24And let us consider one another in order to stir up love and good works, 25not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as is the manner of some, but exhorting one another, and so much the more as you see the Day approaching.(NKJV)

The writer of Hebrews specifically warns his readers about abandoning the church for a more individualistic Christianity. Perhaps I’m wrong in calling it a modern idea in this respect because obviously some people had the same idea even then. Calvin’s commentary on this passage is worthy of consideration.

It is an evil which prevails everywhere among mankind, that every one sets himself above others, and especially that those who seem in anything to excel cannot well endure their inferiors to be on an equality with themselves. And then there is so much morosity almost in all, that individuals would gladly make churches for themselves if they could; for they find it so difficult to accommodate themselves to the ways and habits of others. The rich envy one another; and hardly one in a hundred can be found among the rich, who allows to the poor the name and rank of brethren. Unless similarity of habits or some allurements or advantages draw us together, it is very difficult even to maintain a continual concord among ourselves. Extremely needed, therefore, by us all is the admonition to be stimulated to love and not to envy, and not to separate from those whom God has joined to us, but to embrace with brotherly kindness all those who are united to us in faith. And surely it behaves us the more earnestly to cultivate unity, as the more eagerly watchful Satan is, either to tear us by any means from the Church, or stealthily to seduce us from it.

Part of the reason that Satan hates the Church is because it provides a good deal of certainty in confessions. It is much harder to go to church and still nurture your own little strange heresy--whatever that heresy might be. Paul exhorts us in Ephesians 4:14 that we shouldn’t be like little children anymore carried around by every wind of doctrine. In a sense, the church provides a solid foundation in which to take refuge from those winds. For more on why confessions are a good thing, consider my pastor’s article on “No Creed but Christ.”

The Belgic confession expresses a nice summary of these ideas:

Article XXVIII
Every One Is Bound to Join Himself to the True Church
We believe, since this holy congregation is an assembly of those who are saved, and outside of it there is no salvation, that no person of whatsoever state or condition he may be, ought to withdraw from it, content to be by himself; but that all men are in duty bound to join and unite themselves with it; maintaining the unity of the Church; submitting themselves to the doctrine and discipline thereof; bowing their necks under the yoke of Jesus Christ; and as mutual members of the same body, serving to the edification of the brethren, according to the talents God has given them.

And that this may be the more effectually observed, it is the duty of all believers, according to the Word of God, to separate themselves from all those who do not belong to the Church, and to join themselves to this congregation, wheresoever God has established it, even though the magistrates and edicts of princes were against it, yea, though they should suffer death or any other corporal punishment. Therefore all those who separate themselves from the same or do not join themselves to it act contrary to the ordinance of God.

And he died

2005-06-27T09:23:00.000-07:00

The Sunday school lessons in my church lately have been in Genesis. They are written and edited by Synod and passed down to the congregations. Most of the lessons are very good, and they come in all different grade levels. Well, this last week I noticed that the lessons skipped Genesis 5 for some reason. I guess I really do know the reason they skipped it; I’m sure it is hard to make an entire lesson from the “Adam begat Seth, Seth begat Enosh” type stuff. This tends to bore little kids. Thousands of years can be glossed over in one chapter this way with nothing really interesting occurring from our prospective--at least nothing that God has chosen to tell us about.

There is one thing that really stood out to me in Genesis 5 though, but first I want to set the stage by quoting some of Genesis 3.

1Now the serpent was more cunning than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made. And he said to the woman, "Has God indeed said, "You shall not eat of every tree of the garden'?"
2And the woman said to the serpent, "We may eat the fruit of the trees of the garden; 3but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God has said, "You shall not eat it, nor shall you touch it, lest you die."'
4Then the serpent said to the woman, "You will not surely die. 5For God knows that in the day you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil." (NKJV)

Christ said that the devil is a liar and the father of lies. He does not abide in the truth because there is no truth in him. One of the most horrible parts of his lie to Eve was “you will not surely die.” Because of Adam and Eve’s sin, we all die. We are born into this world spiritually dead, and we will one day die physically.

I think this is a large part of the truth that Genesis 5 is trying to teach. The phrase “and he died” occurs eight times in the chapter. It is almost as if God is saying “Let’s see who was telling the truth.” So we have about eight generations or so from the Godly line of Seth that all died. (The fact that Enoch did not die is definitely worth noting, but knowing that only two people in the history of the world--Enoch and Elijah--have not seen death makes my point even clearer.) The chapter is depressing to read. The pattern is repeated over and over again:

6Seth lived one hundred and five years, and begot Enosh. 7After he begot Enosh, Seth lived eight hundred and seven years, and had sons and daughters. 8So all the days of Seth were nine hundred and twelve years; and he died.

9Enosh lived ninety years, and begot Cainan. 10After he begot Cainan, Enosh lived eight hundred and fifteen years, and had sons and daughters. 11So all the days of Enosh were nine hundred and five years; and he died.

12Cainan lived seventy years, and begot Mahalalel. 13After he begot Mahalalel, Cainan lived eight hundred and forty years, and had sons and daughters. 14So all the days of Cainan were nine hundred and ten years; and he died.(NKJV)

God’s word proved to be true. I will remember that the next time I’m tempted to doubt the promises of God.

The covenant with David and Infant baptism

2005-06-23T10:47:00.000-07:00

In my study of the covenants, I usually end up focusing on the one made with Abraham, the one made with Moses, and then the new covenant in the New Testament. These seem to be the big ones to be considered. I’ve always understood that the covenant with David was a natural extension on the other ones, but I didn’t think it was of as much importance until now. The thing is though, that Peter makes a huge deal of it at Pentecost. In my debating with various Baptists on infant baptism, the later part of the passage always comes up, but let me quote it here in more of its context:

Acts 2 29"Men and brethren, let me speak freely to you of the patriarch David, that he is both dead and buried, and his tomb is with us to this day. 30Therefore, being a prophet, and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him that of the fruit of his body, according to the flesh, He would raise up the Christ to sit on his throne, 31he, foreseeing this, spoke concerning the resurrection of the Christ, that His soul was not left in Hades, nor did His flesh see corruption. 32This Jesus God has raised up, of which we are all witnesses. 33Therefore being exalted to the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, He poured out this which you now see and hear.

34"For David did not ascend into the heavens, but he says himself:
"The LORD said to my Lord,
"Sit at My right hand,
35Till I make Your enemies Your footstool."'

36"Therefore let all the house of Israel know assuredly that God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Christ."

37Now when they heard this, they were cut to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, "Men and brethren, what shall we do?"

38Then Peter said to them, "Repent, and let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. 39For the promise is to you and to your children, and to all who are afar off, as many as the Lord our God will call."(NKJV)

You see the covenant with David was built upon the previous ones with Abraham and Moses. Male infants were circumcised on the 8th day according to the law under the Davidic covenant. The main promise of the Davidic covenant is found in 2 Samuel 7:

12"When your days are fulfilled and you rest with your fathers, I will set up your seed after you, who will come from your body, and I will establish his kingdom. 13He shall build a house for My name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. 14I will be his Father, and he shall be My son. If he commits iniquity, I will chasten him with the rod of men and with the blows of the sons of men. 15But My mercy shall not depart from him, as I took it from Saul, whom I removed from before you. 16And your house and your kingdom shall be established forever before you. Your throne shall be established forever."(NKJV)

Peter tells us in the Acts 2 passage that this promise is fulfilled in Jesus because Christ sits on the throne that David’s throne only pointed to. Christ sits on the throne in Heaven at the right hand of God the Father--the real throne.

Now right after Peter had finished explaining to these mainly Jewish men how Christ was the seed of David that would sit on the throne forever, they asked him what shall we do? The implied last part of the phrase is “to be saved.” Now that we know who Christ is, and we know that we are guilty of crucifying him, what shall we do? Peter’s answer is that they need to repent and be baptized. They need to turn from their previous ways and turn to the living God, for he will abundantly pardon. This is by no means a completely new idea. Consider Ezekiel 33:11 “Say to them: "As I live,' says the Lord GOD, "I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live. Turn, turn from your evil ways! For why should you die, O house of Israel?'” Even the baptism part isn’t really new. The Jews knew much about washings with water, but instead of saying be circumcised, he said be baptized. In my more systematic thinking, this was probably because the bloody ordinances, the sacrifices of the law, were all going away.

Repentance was always part of what God required of his people. This was not something new! Then he goes onto say that “the promise is to you and to your children, and to all who are afar off, as many as the Lord our God will call." (I’m skipping over the part about being baptized for the remission of sins in the interest of space ;-p). This has both new elements and old elements. This is definitely an expansion from what Israel had commonly thought. They believed they were special, and in a sense they were. To them the oracles and promises of God had been committed, but it wasn’t because they were a righteous people or more deserving of praise. As Paul said in Acts 17:30 “Truly, these times of ignorance God overlooked, but now commands all men everywhere to repent.” God overlooked the gentiles at large before, but now the promise to Abraham that in his seed all the world should be blessed was going to be fulfilled.

And then, with all this background of the Davidic covenant, Peter says the promise is unto your children. This probably wasn’t even that significant to the Jews listening. Their children had been in the covenant for thousands of years already, and now the group to whom the promise was given was becoming even broader. It would be absolutely unthinkable for them to believe that baptism was not for their children--which included their infants. Of course this means that it is to their descendants as well; God has always dealt with families. As I wrote prior, God is merciful to a thousand generations of those who love him and keep his commandments!

Those who wish to argue that infants are not to be baptized have a very tough job. Peter relates the Davidic covenant to Christ in such a way that it is impossible to separate the promises to him from the promises of the New Covenant. The approximately 4000 years of Jewish history from Abraham to Christ speaks so loudly about the case for children being included in the covenant, that the fact the New Testament doesn’t abrogate the practice should be enough to settle the argument forever.

A Jealous God

2005-06-22T13:25:00.000-07:00

The God of the Bible is a jealous God. He will not give his glory to another, nor will he share it with the sons of men. He alone is to be worshiped, and to worship any other is simply idolatry. The KJV uses a great phrase for this in Isaiah 45 and 46: none else. “Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth: for I am God, and there is none else.” Those chapters are filled with phrases like that; Jehovah is God and there is none else. There is no one else who can save you from the trial; there is no one else that can protect you from your enemies, and there is no one else that you are to give glory and worship to. All things come to us by his hand: “herbs and grass, rain and drought, fruitful and barren years, meat and drink, health and sickness, riches and poverty” all come by his hand alone.

The fact that God is a jealous god has certain consequences in the real world. Sins against him are of worthy of unimaginable punishment. In our modern American society, we have an idea that very little comes to us because of our parents. Of course, we acknowledge that our genes are from our parents because we hold science in such high esteem, but there are so many other things that come to us by our parents as well. In the second commandment, God spoke about blessing and cursing that would come upon the children of those who believe and those who do not.

Exodus 20:4-6: You shall not make for yourself a carved image--any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; you shall not bow down to them nor serve them. For I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate Me, but showing mercy to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My commandments.

God visits the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generations? My instantaneous reaction to this is that it is simply not fair. How can God judge me for what my father did or did not do? I’m not him; I’m not even like him! This is a problem when my political and secular views start to creep into my ideas about God. He has always dealt with families, and more specifically, with covenant heads of household.

The greatest example of this is Adam himself. As a covenant head of the whole human race, the curse he brought upon himself and his seed is with us to this day. We still labor against thorns and weeds, and women most definitely still have pain during childbirth. “Therefore, as through one man's offense judgment came to all men, resulting in condemnation…”

Christ himself is also a covenant head of household. He is the head of the household of all the people of God, and as the covenant head, he has redeemed us from the curse of the first Adam and given us the covenantal blessings that were lost. As Paul tells us in Galatians: “Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us (for it is written, "Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree"), that the blessing of Abraham might come upon the Gentiles in Christ Jesus, that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith.”

These blessings and cursing because of a father’s sin have far reaching consequences. An unwise father can leave his family in poverty for many generations, or he can leave them with wealth for many generations. Note though, that this doesn’t mean God doesn’t redeem people from sinful heritages, nor does he automatically redeem people from Godly heritages. The best example I can think of for this is Hezekiah. The Bible says: “And he did what was right in the sight of the LORD, according to all that his father David had done.” And yet, about his son: “And he did evil in the sight of the LORD, according to the abominations of the nations whom the LORD had cast out before the children of Israel. For he rebuilt the high places which Hezekiah his father had destroyed;”

I think a lot of the time these blessings and curses come in material ways. God may well choose to redeem people from an especially sinful heritage, but they will still struggle with having an unbelieving family, and perhaps with poverty and such. God may also choose to leave some from a Godly heritage unredeemed and yet they will enjoy the blessings of such a heritage. They will have the Biblical categories to think in and they will have a Godly family to support them. Those are not trivial blessings, but neither are they salvation. God does visit the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate Him, but show mercy to thousands, to those who love Him and keep His commandments!

Waiting on the Lord

2005-06-17T22:55:00.000-07:00

You know, the phrase “wait on the LORD” occurs five times in the New King James Version of the Bible according to Bible Gateway.

Psalm 27:14
Wait on the LORD; Be of good courage, And He shall strengthen your heart; Wait, I say, on the LORD!

Psalm 37:9
For evildoers shall be cut off; But those who wait on the LORD, They shall inherit the earth.

Psalm 37:34
Wait on the LORD, And keep His way, And He shall exalt you to inherit the land; When the wicked are cut off, you shall see it.

Isaiah 8:17
And I will wait on the LORD, Who hides His face from the house of Jacob; And I will hope in Him.

Isaiah 40:31
But those who wait on the LORD Shall renew their strength; They shall mount up with wings like eagles, They shall run and not be weary, They shall walk and not faint.

Tomorrow is my 23rd birthday. You know, when I thought about how my life would go, I always imagined I would be married by 23, have a nice house, a nice job, and be beginning the work of raising a family to the glory of God. The thing is, I’m not married, I have a decent job, I own my own place now, and my life seems to be on hold. For once in my life, I have no idea where I am going in life. You see I’m the kind of person that knew what I wanted to major in when I was a junior in high school. I progressed rapidly through college thinking that when I got out, I could be married and get on with real life. The Lord evidently has other plans.

All of these verses made me think about waiting on the Lord. Look at the great promises associated with waiting on the Lord! He shall strengthen your heart, you shall inherit the land, you shall run and not grow weary—what wonderful promises! When I compare this attitude to mine of bitterness and anger at God for not having a wife, I see an utter disconnect. I should have suspected that the Word of God would have this effect though; it is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. I should be joyful and thankful for all that I do have! There are plenty of people in the world who have it no where near as good as I do, and I’m here complaining about no wife.

For some reason, while I was going to spend some time in the restroom :-p, I decided to pick up Joshua Harris’s book “Boy meets Girl” and reread some section. I randomly flipped to the following section:

“David talked to his pastor, Kenneth, who listened patiently as he vented his frustration. ‘Dave, I think you’ve made an idol out of marriage,’ Kenneth told him.
‘No, no I’m past that!’ David protested. ‘I prayed about it. I evaluated my heart. I was content being single before I approached her.’
‘That’s good,’ Kenneth said. ‘But look at your response to her lack of interest: you grew bitter; you got angry. That leads me to think that you want marriage too much. It’s become a little substitute god in your life, and when you didn’t get it, you reacted sinfully.’
John Calvin wrote, ‘The evil in our desire typically does not lie in what we want, but in that we want it too much.’”

Instantly, I was reminded of my many conversations/arguments with the German about this very subject. As much as I wanted to say I wasn’t basing my happiness on this, my actions testified to something else. Look what I did after the latest rejection: I took 5 shots of 151, and started telling people it really wouldn’t matter if they came home to find me dead in my house. How utterly foolish could I be?!?! I knew people would care, but in my bitterness I didn’t want them to. I wanted to believe that nothing really mattered and that nothing I did to myself would really affect anyone else. Well Mr. German, I think you are and were right. I have made marriage into an idol. How to depose it I don’t know, but I do know it is there now.

Well as cheesy as it sounds, to those dear friends that saw me hit that valley in life, you will probably never know how much your words and friendship have meant to me. God has richly blessed me with Godly Christian friends who go deeper than just was meets the eye. I pray that God will reward you for your good deeds in unimaginable, amazing ways, in this life or the next.

Hezekiah’s prayer

2005-06-17T07:57:00.000-07:00

There are many good prayers in the Bible, but for me, Hezekiah’s prayer in 2 Kings 19 is one of the best. It comes at a time when Judah is threatened by Sennacherib, the king of Assyria. Sennacherib has sent messengers to tell Jerusalem that it would be conquered and given into the hands of the Assyrians.

15Then Hezekiah prayed before the LORD, and said: "O LORD God of Israel, the One who dwells between the cherubim, You are God, You alone, of all the kingdoms of the earth. You have made heaven and earth. 16Incline Your ear, O LORD, and hear; open Your eyes, O LORD, and see; and hear the words of Sennacherib, which he has sent to reproach the living God. 17Truly, LORD, the kings of Assyria have laid waste the nations and their lands, 18and have cast their gods into the fire; for they were not gods, but the work of men's hands--wood and stone. Therefore they destroyed them. 19Now therefore, O LORD our God, I pray, save us from his hand, that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that You are the LORD God, You alone."(NKJV)

This prayer is packed with emotion as well as faith in the Lord, but this emotion and faith are not in just any random thing—they are in the promises and covenants of God which he made long ago. One of the phrases that really sticks out to me is “the One who dwells between the cherubim.” This is a meaning packed statement. I believe there are at least two meanings in this phrase. The first one is that God dwells in heaven between the cherubim there. Just as in the Lord’s prayer, “Our Father who art in heaven,” we should have no earthly conception of God. God is in heaven and we are on earth.

The other meaning is that he is the God of Israel who dwells in the Holy of Holies. Remember the Ark of the Covenant had two golden cherubim on it, so referring to the one who dwells between the cherubim would be referencing the God who had promised the redeemer to Israel. This would bring to mind all of the covenantal promises to the mind of the Jew. This was the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob--the God who had done all the great wonders and brought his people Israel out from the land of Egypt.

Hezekiah then goes on to acknowledge that God alone is the only living God. As my pastor always says, “It is a good prayer to pray for the glory of God.” He doesn’t deny what the Assyrians have done; they have indeed laid waste to all those other kingdoms, but Hezekiah realizes that even that is in the hands of God. God has ordained this from times past! This is comforting to know that God is in control; that not a hair can fall from our heads without his will. May we always remember that in our deepest, darkest trials.

True happiness in the real world

2005-06-10T08:58:00.000-07:00

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

Thomas Jefferson believed that one of the fundamental rights of man was the pursuit of happiness. Now, this is probably not true in the ultimate sense of God’s decree. God does what he pleases—we are not autonomous from him. In terms of human governments though, Jefferson is right.

The question I wish to ask and suggest an answer for is: what is the proper way to pursue it? Where can you find real happiness?

Isaiah 55:1-3
Ho! Everyone who thirsts,
Come to the waters;
And you who have no money,
Come, buy and eat.
Yes, come, buy wine and milk
Without money and without price.
2Why do you spend money for what is not bread,
And your wages for what does not satisfy?
Listen carefully to Me, and eat what is good,
And let your soul delight itself in abundance.
3Incline your ear, and come to Me.
Hear, and your soul shall live;
And I will make an everlasting covenant with you--
The sure mercies of David.(NKJV)

First, I believe it is a good observation that the waters, wine, milk, and bread in this passage are not physical wine, bread, etc. This is shown by the fact that we are told to come and buy it without money and without price. No, this is spiritual food that is from the hand of God himself. Calvin has a good comment on verse 3:

This assemblage of words makes still more evident what I slightly mentioned a little before, that God leaves nothing undone which is fitted to correct and arouse our tardiness. Yet there is an implied reproof; for they must be excessively stupid who, when they are so gently called, do not instantly obey. This is a remarkable passage, from which we see that our whole happiness lies in obeying the word of God. When God speaks in this manner, the object which he has in view is to lead us to life; and therefore the blame lies wholly with ourselves, because we disregard this saving and life‑giving word.

“Our whole happiness lies in obeying the word of God.” Man, that is a statement if I ever saw one. Our real happiness lies in obeying our Creator. “And let your soul delight itself in abundance.” This abundance we are to feast on is the Word of God. It is so liberating to mediate on the Word when everything around you is trying to destroy your happiness. I need to stop worrying about all the things happening around me and concentrate on inclining my ear to God. It is only then that those other things come into their proper prospective.

In last week’s sermon, my pastor talked about the Bible keeping us connected to reality—keeping us “connected to the world as it really is.” The text was Psalm 115, which makes a contrast between the God who lives and the vain idols of men.

Psalm 115:3-8
3But our God is in heaven;
He does whatever He pleases.
4Their idols are silver and gold,
The work of men's hands.
5They have mouths, but they do not speak;
Eyes they have, but they do not see;
6They have ears, but they do not hear;
Noses they have, but they do not smell;
7They have hands, but they do not handle;
Feet they have, but they do not walk;
Nor do they mutter through their throat.
8Those who make them are like them;
So is everyone who trusts in them.(NKJV)

The phrases that stuck with me the most about the sermon was the utter contrast Pastor made between these idols and the living God. Look at the irony: these idols have noses, ears, mouths, etc, and yet they can’t smell, hear, speak, see or anything, and YET the God who is in heaven, who does not have eyes, ears, a nose or mouth sees, hears, smells and speaks. People become like the God they serve, so for us to really see and really hear we must serve the God who is not of the earth. Check out the sermon here if you want. It is the June 5, 2005 one.

We must serve the true God if we are ever to have real happiness in the real world.

The consequence of ideas

2005-05-31T15:10:00.000-07:00

Last night I saw the movie “Luther” for the first time. I was very surprised at how good it was. From what I could tell, the movie was pretty true to history. I’m sure the real Luther buffs will be able to point out where it went wrong, but beyond expecting long quotations from Galatians in his sermons it was what I would expect Luther really was like. In the movie, Luther is portrayed as being afflicted and depressed in mind, by whom he thinks is Satan, constantly. In the grand scheme of things, it would seem arrogant to think that Satan himself was concerned with a single man, but perhaps history can argue differently. Luther’s ideas had far reaching consequences. He brought the Bible to the common people. The idea of absolute truth from God himself is the foundation of liberty without chaos. The majority opinion can rule until it comes into conflict with the absolute truth. This brings us societies with real laws and yet not tyranny. I can see the argument that Satan would personally torment the one whom God had chosen to bring these ideas to light though.

There were two scenes that really showed the good consequences of ideas (there were some that showed the bad too, but I won’t comment on them here). Both scenes involve a mother and her handicapped daughter. Under the previous Catholic priest, she had to hide her daughter because it was unacceptable and shameful in the priest’s eyes. Right before Luther is called to renounce his writings the first time, there is a scene with the young girl trying to walk with crutches right outside the church. Luther tries to encourage her to keep trying to walk. Watching the movie, I couldn’t help but think that the liberating gospel truths Luther preached were having real effect. Life was valued now because it is a gift of God. Life is not valued by how useful a person is to anyone, but simply because it is valued in God. Ideas do have consequences. The second scene was with the same mother, and she is showing Luther the indulgence she has purchased from Tetzel. You can see in her eyes that she believes this money spent “on her daughter” is worth it. Luther quietly tells her it is nothing but a piece of paper and that she should save her money to buy food for her daughter. He then hands her a coin to make up for what she lost. Not only did he point her to the one who actually saves, but he backed it up with real physical goods. Ideals really do have consequences.

“Here I stand. I can do no other!”

In my most bitter moments

2005-05-27T09:46:00.000-07:00

In my most bitter moments, I end up reading Nietzsche. This is because of all the philosophers, Nietzsche has the most direct attack on God. Deep down I know that it is always with God I must deal. He brings frustration to my life and he takes it away. Shall we indeed accept good from God, and shall we not accept adversity? I’m sure it doesn’t come through in the text, but those are very hard words to write right now. Every fiber of my flesh wants to agree with Nietzsche and say God is dead and he doesn’t hear anymore. I want to raise my fist and curse God and say “Why have you brought this upon me?!?!” Then I read Lamentations 3 and I can’t help but be touched. “Through the LORD's mercies we are not consumed, Because His compassions fail not. They are new every morning; Great is Your faithfulness.”

Compare the two views below:

Friedrich Nietzsche:

"And what is the saint doing in the forest?" asked Zarathustra.
The saint answered: "I make songs and sing them; and when I make songs, I laugh, cry, and hum: thus I praise God. With singing, crying, laughing, and humming, I praise the god who is my god. But what do you bring us as a gift?"
When Zarathustra had heard these words he bade the saint farewell and said: "What could I have to give you? But let me go quickly lest I take something from you!" And thus they separated, the old one and the man, laughing as two boys laugh.
But when Zarathustra was alone he spoke thus to his heart: "Could it be possible? This old saint in the forest has not yet heard anything of this, that God is dead!"

Jeramiah:

1I am the man who has seen affliction by the rod of His wrath.
2He has led me and made me walk
In darkness and not in light.
3Surely He has turned His hand against me
Time and time again throughout the day.
4He has aged my flesh and my skin,
And broken my bones.
5He has besieged me
And surrounded me with bitterness and woe.
6He has set me in dark places
Like the dead of long ago.
7He has hedged me in so that I cannot get out;
He has made my chain heavy.
8Even when I cry and shout,
He shuts out my prayer.
9He has blocked my ways with hewn stone;
He has made my paths crooked.
10He has been to me a bear lying in wait,
Like a lion in ambush.
11He has turned aside my ways and torn me in pieces;
He has made me desolate.
12He has bent His bow
And set me up as a target for the arrow.
13He has caused the arrows of His quiver
To pierce my loins.
14I have become the ridicule of all my people--
Their taunting song all the day.
15He has filled me with bitterness,
He has made me drink wormwood.
16He has also broken my teeth with gravel,
And covered me with ashes.
17You have moved my soul far from peace;
I have forgotten prosperity.
18And I said, "My strength and my hope
Have perished from the LORD."
19Remember my affliction and roaming,
The wormwood and the gall.
20My soul still remembers
And sinks within me.
21This I recall to my mind,
Therefore I have hope.
22Through the LORD's mercies we are not consumed,
Because His compassions fail not.
23They are new every morning;
Great is Your faithfulness.
24"The LORD is my portion," says my soul,
"Therefore I hope in Him!"
25The LORD is good to those who wait for Him,
To the soul who seeks Him.
26It is good that one should hope and wait quietly
For the salvation of the LORD.
27It is good for a man to bear
The yoke in his youth.
28Let him sit alone and keep silent,
Because God has laid it on him;
29Let him put his mouth in the dust--
There may yet be hope.
30Let him give his cheek to the one who strikes him,
And be full of reproach.
31For the Lord will not cast off forever.
32Though He causes grief,
Yet He will show compassion
According to the multitude of His mercies.
33For He does not afflict willingly,
Nor grieve the children of men.
34To crush under one's feet
All the prisoners of the earth,
35To turn aside the justice due a man
Before the face of the Most High,
36Or subvert a man in his cause--
The Lord does not approve.(NKJV)

Son of David, have mercy on me!

2005-05-26T11:53:00.000-07:00

Those who trust in the Lord are commonly called to suffer in this world. They are not the ones that sit in the King’s palace or have so much money they don’t know what to do with it. No, you will find those who trust in the Lord in much lowlier places. They might not be living under a bridge, but their life is probably going to be rather dull. They get up and go to work every day, and then at night they come home and tend to their families. On Sundays, you’ll usually find them sitting in a rather uncomfortable pew listening to one man speak from a very old and outdated book. They probably don’t live a super exciting life, and almost all abnormal things are going to be some trial for them.

When trials come upon us, we ought to earnestly and without ceasing cry out to the Lord. This of course will never be easy. It is when things look the most hopeless that we should cry the loudest to the one who is able to help. The highest expression of faith is to be able to say with Job: “Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him.” Daniel’s friends had this type of attitude when faced with execution.

Daniel 3:16-18 Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-Nego answered and said to the king, "O Nebuchadnezzar, we have no need to answer you in this matter. If that is the case, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and He will deliver us from your hand, O king. But if not, let it be known to you, O king, that we do not serve your gods, nor will we worship the gold image which you have set up."

Although we know that they were saved from the fire, many Christians throughout history were not. They testified with their blood to the truth. To these martyrs, we owe a great debt of respect for they were not willing to exchange the truth of God for a lie. I am thankful that I don’t live in a country were I am constantly in danger of having to testify to the truth this way.

Even so, there are a great many things to beseech God for today. Perhaps it is for a job, or sick loved one, or a wife, or a place of worship. God delights in his children asking for things in faith. If God is merciful to the Canannite woman and the blind man, how much more so will he be merciful if we beseech him with our requests?

Matthew 15:21-28 Then Jesus went out from there and departed to the region of Tyre and Sidon. And behold, a woman of Canaan came from that region and cried out to Him, saying, "Have mercy on me, O Lord, Son of David! My daughter is severely demon-possessed." But He answered her not a word. And His disciples came and urged Him, saying, "Send her away, for she cries out after us." But He answered and said, "I was not sent except to the lost sheep of the house of Israel." Then she came and worshiped Him, saying, "Lord, help me!" But He answered and said, "It is not good to take the children's bread and throw it to the little dogs." And she said, "Yes, Lord, yet even the little dogs eat the crumbs which fall from their masters' table." Then Jesus answered and said to her, "O woman, great is your faith! Let it be to you as you desire." And her daughter was healed from that very hour.

Luke 18:35-43 Then it happened, as He was coming near Jericho, that a certain blind man sat by the road begging. And hearing a multitude passing by, he asked what it meant. So they told him that Jesus of Nazareth was passing by. And he cried out, saying, "Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!" Then those who went before warned him that he should be quiet; but he cried out all the more, "Son of David, have mercy on me!" So Jesus stood still and commanded him to be brought to Him. And when he had come near, He asked him, saying, "What do you want Me to do for you?" He said, "Lord, that I may receive my sight." Then Jesus said to him, "Receive your sight; your faith has made you well." And immediately he received his sight, and followed Him, glorifying God. And all the people, when they saw it, gave praise to God.

These two beseeched Christ with faith. They didn’t let the initial road block stop them either. They continued to cry out to the Son of David. We should do the same today; come to God consistently in prayer for what we seek. Has not Christ said that those who ask shall receive?

Matthew 7:7-11 "Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened. Or what man is there among you who, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will he give him a serpent? If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask Him!

If earthly fathers give good gifts to their children, how much more so our Heavenly Father? Let us bring our petitions before God, as the only one who is able to work all things to our good.

The cattle on a thousand hills

2005-05-24T09:44:00.000-07:00

Men need to worship something greater than themselves. This is because man is made in the image of God and yet he is not autonomous—he isn’t self-existent. In this, Biblical Christianity stands staunchly against Descartes’ “cogito ergo sum” (“I think, therefore I am”). And yet, a good deal of the world begins the same way Descartes did; they begin with themselves. Man would try to pull himself up by his own bootstraps and elevate himself to the status of God. Of course, if he has any brains at all, he’ll eventually realize that he doesn’t have absolute control over everything that happens. His flesh is weak and he can be killed by a myriad of diseases and other men. Timothy McVeigh expressed this well in his last words from the English poet William Ernest Henley:

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul

In the fell clutch of circumstances
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of change
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the year
Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.

Make no mistake Christian brothers and sisters, as my Pastor once wrote this poem “is packed with arrogance and blasphemy.” This is not a free soul, but one that is in bondage to sin. Paul tells us: “For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but according to their own desires, because they have itching ears, they will heap up for themselves teachers; and they will turn their ears away from the truth, and be turned aside to fables.” Only the truth sets people free, but these people are looking for a different kind of freedom. They want the freedom to be the master of their own fate, to be the captain of their own soul. This is freedom in the absolute sense; freedom without bounds. Only God has this kind of freedom, as creatures we never will. The sooner we get over this the better. As the creations of God we can enjoy real freedom, but it is not absolute. There is real liberty—it isn’t not total because the liberty to swing ends when it hits another’s face.

Christians on the other hand are called to worship the true and living God who has absolute freedom. We are not the captain of even our own soul; we are not the masters of our own fate—but we know who is! Psalm 50 expresses what the living God requires of us in worship quite well.

9I will not take a bull from your house,
Nor goats out of your folds.
10For every beast of the forest is Mine,
And the cattle on a thousand hills.
11I know all the birds of the mountains,
And the wild beasts of the field are Mine.
12"If I were hungry, I would not tell you;
For the world is Mine, and all its fullness.
13Will I eat the flesh of bulls,
Or drink the blood of goats?
14Offer to God thanksgiving,
And pay your vows to the Most High.
15Call upon Me in the day of trouble;
I will deliver you, and you shall glorify Me."

As creatures made in the image of God, we are capable and required to give God the worship due to him. This is not an irrational, confusing thing though. We are to be thankful to God in prayer and pay our vows to the Most High. In the next Psalm, we are told that “the sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, a broken and a contrite heart.” These are things that the animals who are not made in the image of God can never do. We must use our real liberty to worship the true God—not raise our fists against one who owns a cattle on a thousand hills.

With Joshua, I suggest that we worship the living God rather than ourselves. “And if it seems evil to you to serve the LORD, choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the River, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you dwell. But as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD.”

The one with whom we have to do

2005-05-18T13:54:00.000-07:00

Hebrews 4:13 tells us this: “Neither is there any creature that is not manifest in his sight: but all things are naked and opened unto the eyes of him with whom we have to do.” You see, ultimately it is always with God that we must deal. The reason for this is simple; all things come to use by his hand. “Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing? and one of them shall not fall on the ground without your Father. But the very hairs of your head are all numbered.” If God himself watches over the least sparrow in the land, how much more so the creatures made in his very image?

Heidelberg question 27: What do you understand by the providence of God?

The almighty, everywhere-present power of God, whereby, as it were by His hand, He still upholds heaven and earth with all creatures, and so governs them that herbs and grass, rain and drought, fruitful and barren years, meat and drink, health and sickness, riches and poverty, indeed, all things come not by chance, but by His fatherly hand.

If this is true, then I owe a great debt of thankfulness to this God. The very fist I would use to shake at God when things don’t go my way is in his hands. What right have I to be bitter and complain against the Ancient of Days? Without his great gifts, I wouldn’t even be able to raise my voice against him. This would make sin the ultimate irrationality for sin takes God’s own gifts and uses them against him. It corrupts and distorts the good use of them. When the judgment of God then comes, what shall I say about such actions? Nebuchadnezzar had such an experience; his words are instructional in this too!

Daniel 4:34-37 And at the end of the days I Nebuchadnezzar lifted up mine eyes unto heaven, and mine understanding returned unto me, and I blessed the most High, and I praised and honoured him that liveth for ever, whose dominion is an everlasting dominion, and his kingdom is from generation to generation: And all the inhabitants of the earth are reputed as nothing: and he doeth according to his will in the army of heaven, and among the inhabitants of the earth: and none can stay his hand, or say unto him, What doest thou? At the same time my reason returned unto me; and for the glory of my kingdom, mine honour and brightness returned unto me; and my counsellors and my lords sought unto me; and I was established in my kingdom, and excellent majesty was added unto me. Now I Nebuchadnezzar praise and extol and honour the King of heaven, all whose works are truth, and his ways judgment: and those that walk in pride he is able to abase.

And none can say to unto him “What doest thou?” None can bring the actions of God into question and propose a better course of action. This is simply beyond our power as creatures. We must be content with the simple promise that He will work all thing out for the good of those who love Him.

Job too had an encounter with the Living God. In all of God’s answer to Job, he did not explain why Job was suffering. Think about that as you read part of God’s response.

Job 38:1 Then the LORD answered Job out of the whirlwind, and said:
2"Who is this who darkens counsel
By words without knowledge?
3Now prepare yourself like a man;
I will question you, and you shall answer Me.
4"Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth?
Tell Me, if you have understanding.
5Who determined its measurements?
Surely you know!
Or who stretched the line upon it?
6To what were its foundations fastened?
Or who laid its cornerstone,
7When the morning stars sang together,
And all the sons of God shouted for joy?
8"Or who shut in the sea with doors,
When it burst forth and issued from the womb;
9When I made the clouds its garment,
And thick darkness its swaddling band;
10When I fixed My limit for it,
And set bars and doors;
11When I said,
"This far you may come, but no farther,
And here your proud waves must stop!'
12"Have you commanded the morning since your days began,
And caused the dawn to know its place,
13That it might take hold of the ends of the earth,
And the wicked be shaken out of it?

The full answer of God is several chapters long. But it is basically a long line of rhetorical questions that show how little Job understands about the Most High. Job’s response should also be noted because it shows his repentance.

Job 42:1Then Job answered the LORD and said:
2"I know that You can do everything,
And that no purpose of Yours can be withheld from You.
3You asked, "Who is this who hides counsel without knowledge?'
Therefore I have uttered what I did not understand,
Things too wonderful for me, which I did not know.
4Listen, please, and let me speak;
You said, "I will question you, and you shall answer Me.'
5"I have heard of You by the hearing of the ear,
But now my eye sees You.
6Therefore I abhor myself,
And repent in dust and ashes."

This is the proper response to a meeting with God. Even the most holy men had to be peeled off the floor when the encountered the presence of God. Jonathan Edwards spoke of it in this way in his famous sermon “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.”

The God that holds you over the pit of hell, much as one holds a spider, or some loathsome insect over the fire, abhors you, and is dreadfully provoked: his wrath towards you burns like fire; he looks upon you as worthy of nothing else, but to be cast into the fire; he is of purer eyes than to bear to have you in his sight; you are ten thousand times more abominable in his eyes, than the most hateful venomous serpent is in ours. You have offended him infinitely more than ever a stubborn rebel did his prince; and yet it is nothing but his hand that holds you from falling into the fire every moment. It is to be ascribed to nothing else, that you did not go to hell the last night; that you was suffered to awake again in this world, after you closed your eyes to sleep. And there is no other reason to be given, why you have not dropped into hell since you arose in the morning, but that God's hand has held you up. There is no other reason to be given why you have not gone to hell, since you have sat here in the house of God, provoking his pure eyes by your sinful wicked manner of attending his solemn worship. Yea, there is nothing else that is to be given as a reason why you do not this very moment drop down into hell.

As a side note, we should not end with Edwards’ speech because it does not tell the whole story. It all is all true no doubt, God is dreadfully provoked against sinners, but this wrath has been taken away.

1 Thessalonians 5: 8-10 But let us, who are of the day, be sober, putting on the breastplate of faith and love; and for an helmet, the hope of salvation. For God hath not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ, Who died for us, that, whether we wake or sleep, we should live together with him.

“God has spoken once, Twice I have heard this: That power belongs to God.”

A hope deferred part 2 or contrasting conjunctions and adverbs?

2005-05-17T07:24:00.000-07:00

You know, I really want to write about meaninglessness today. I want to quote Ecclesiastes at length and firmly agree with Solomon that “Vanity of vanities, all is vanity.” I really want to hate life: “Therefore I hated life because the work that was done under the sun was distressing to me, for all is vanity and grasping for the wind.” “For who knows what is good for man in life, all the days of his vain life which he passes like a shadow?” “I have seen servants on horses, While princes walk on the ground like servants.” I yearn to cry out that this life is a vain toil; man will return to the dust whether he is righteous or wicked! The wise man and the fool go to the same place; they have the same end. What is the value in righteousness? The wicked accumulate wealth and are satisfied. Asaph said it well in Psalm 73.

1 Truly God is good to Israel,
To such as are pure in heart.
2But as for me, my feet had almost stumbled;
My steps had nearly slipped.
3For I was envious of the boastful,
When I saw the prosperity of the wicked.
4For there are no pangs in their death,
But their strength is firm.
5They are not in trouble as other men,
Nor are they plagued like other men.
6Therefore pride serves as their necklace;
Violence covers them like a garment.
7Their eyes bulge with abundance;
They have more than heart could wish.
8They scoff and speak wickedly concerning oppression;
They speak loftily.
9They set their mouth against the heavens,
And their tongue walks through the earth.
10Therefore his people return here,
And waters of a full cup are drained by them.
11And they say, "How does God know?
And is there knowledge in the Most High?"
12Behold, these are the ungodly,
Who are always at ease;
They increase in riches.
13Surely I have cleansed my heart in vain,
And washed my hands in innocence.
14For all day long I have been plagued,
And chastened every morning
15If I had said, "I will speak thus,"
Behold, I would have been untrue to the generation of Your children.
16When I thought how to understand this,
It was too painful for me-- (NKJV)

Nevertheless, I cannot end there. For some reason, I can’t seem to get 2 Timothy 2:12 out of my head. It is like when you just want to be in the dark and ponder the vanity of your own situation and someone turns on a blindly bright light that illuminates the area. The light is so bright that it takes your eyes a few minutes to adjust to it, but once they adjust you can’t help but see the truth. As much as you wanted to hide from it, the light is inescapable.

For this reason I also suffer these things; nevertheless I am not ashamed, for I know whom I have believed and am persuaded that He is able to keep what I have committed to Him until that Day.

The keyword here for me is ‘nevertheless.’ I’m amazed that such a small word has such a big effect. The effect is something along the lines of this. It reaches into my very soul and picks my heart up off the floor and says “those things are all true,” and then it screams “NEVERTHELESS that is not all!!” This wouldn’t mean very much coming from someone sitting in luxury somewhere, but this was written by the apostle Paul while he was waiting in prison for his execution. In the face of his pending execution and his much suffering, he could say that he was persuaded that Christ was able to keep him. Looking death right in the eye, Paul still had hope because his hope was not founded on anything that existed in this life. This reminds me of a quote from Luther as well.

Now, the highest degree of faith is to believe that He is merciful, though He saves so few and damns so many; to believe that He is just, though of His own will He makes us perforce proper subjects for damnation, and seems (in Erasmus’ words) ‘to delight in the torments of poor wretches and to be a fitter object for hate than for love.’ If I could by any means understand how this same God, who makes such a show of wrath and unrighteousness, can yet be merciful and just, there would be no need for faith.

Paul and Luther were men of whom the world was not worthy.

Hebrews 11:35bOthers were tortured, not accepting deliverance, that they might obtain a better resurrection. 36Still others had trial of mockings and scourgings, yes, and of chains and imprisonment. 37They were stoned, they were sawn in two, were tempted, were slain with the sword. They wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins, being destitute, afflicted, tormented-- 38of whom the world was not worthy. They wandered in deserts and mountains, in dens and caves of the earth.
39And all these, having obtained a good testimony through faith, did not receive the promise, 40God having provided something better for us, that they should not be made perfect apart from us.(NKJV)

The verse from Proverbs that I stole part of my title from should actually be considered too. The last time I quoted it, I only quoted the first part. That verse too has a word that serves a similar function to the ‘nevertheless’ in the previous verse.

Proverbs 13:12Hope deferred makes the heart sick, But when the desire comes, it is a tree of life.

This time it is a conjunction instead of an adverb, but it provides a contrast nonetheless. “But when the desire comes, it is a tree of life.” WOW! Perhaps patience is of some value. Perhaps good things are worth waiting for and working hard to get. Perhaps they are even worth all the heartbreak and sleepless nights they cause. Perhaps priceless prizes are worth enduring these things. Romans 8:24For we were saved in this hope, but hope that is seen is not hope; for why does one still hope for what he sees?

A rest for the people of God

2005-05-16T14:55:00.000-07:00

Man was not made for the Sabbath day, but the Sabbath day was made for man. It is a good thing that we need not work 7 days a week to feed ourselves and our families. It seems to me, that the Sabbath day was a very practical thing as well as a foreshadowing of things to come. It remains that same thing today with some of the shadow removed.

Hebrews 4:9There remains therefore a rest for the people of God. 10For he who has entered His rest has himself also ceased from his works as God did from His.

Hebrews has a lot to say about entering into the rest of God. The author goes to great length to argue that Caanan was not the promised rest of God and that keeping the Sabbath on Saturday is not what the promised rest was all about. Those things merely pointed to the real rest. Hebrews 4:9 is the culmination of that argument; there remains a rest for the people of God. Joshua did not give it to them, and neither did Moses. Not even David gave Israel the real rest. Caanan pointed to the real rest with God--when Christ would come and the elect would be justified and eventually glorified. Calvin seems to say the same thing:

“for it is certain that [the Jews] looked higher than to that land; nay, the land of Canaan was not otherwise so much valued except for this reason, because it was an image and a symbol of the spiritual inheritance. When, therefore, they obtained possession of it, they ought not to have rested as though they had attained to the summit of their wishes, but on the contrary to meditate on what was spiritual as by it suggested. They to whom David addressed the Psalm were in possession of that land, but they were reminded of the duty of seeking a better rest.”

The next verse in Hebrews presents an interesting consideration. “11Let us therefore be diligent to enter that rest, lest anyone fall according to the same example of disobedience.” This seems counter-intuitive to me. How can I labor to enter into a rest? I believe that is because this is a different kind of rest. This rest is from our own works and for the purpose doing the works of God. When we stop doing our own works and believe God, then we enter the rest of God. Perhaps “stop doing our own works” deserves some qualification though; we need to stop trying to earn our salvation by keeping the law. The law condemns people it; can’t justify them. We need to stop trusting our own works for salvation and lean on Christ for only he saves. This is the Christian’s rest!

On the signs and seals

2005-05-12T20:27:00.000-07:00

After a nice long discussion with a Lutheran friend, I find it needful to write on the error of making too much of the signs and seals of Christ. The signs and seals of the new covenant are definitely meant to assure us in our faith. As physical signs they point to spiritual realities. It is absolutely imperative though that we don't mistake the signs themselves for Christ because that will bring Christ down out of Heaven. Those who would subscribe to something more than that (i.e. the Lutherans and Catholics) would appeal to some of the following verses in defense.

John 6:53-58 Then Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you. Whoso eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day. For my flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed. He that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, dwelleth in me, and I in him. As the living Father hath sent me, and I live by the Father: so he that eateth me, even he shall live by me. This is that bread which came down from heaven: not as your fathers did eat manna, and are dead: he that eateth of this bread shall live for ever.

Well, it is settled then right? Christ has said that we are to physically eat of his flesh and drink of his blood. Since we aren't cannibals we should therefore interpret this in light of the Lord's supper right? The Lord's supper must really be the body and blood of Christ that we physically feast on. Unfortunately (or fortunately depending on what side you're on) the scriptures interpret themselves and they clarify this right afterword.

John 6:60-66 Many therefore of his disciples, when they had heard this, said, This is an hard saying; who can hear it? When Jesus knew in himself that his disciples murmured at it, he said unto them, Doth this offend you? What and if ye shall see the Son of man ascend up where he was before? It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life. But there are some of you that believe not. For Jesus knew from the beginning who they were that believed not, and who should betray him. And he said, Therefore said I unto you, that no man can come unto me, except it were given unto him of my Father. From that time many of his disciples went back, and walked no more with him.

This is a hard saying, they said. They thought he was speaking to them about physical realities; not so says Christ. His words are *spirit*; the flesh doesn't profit us anything! To eat the broken body and shed blood of Christ is to believe on him. It is a spiritual feeding of our souls—not of our bodies. Those who say that Christ is in, around, under, and through the elements make the same error that Jesus' disciples did here, but they don't take his correction! Consider the Heidelberg's questions on the subject—they are VERY good.

78. Do then the bread and wine become the real body and blood of Christ?

No: but as the water, in Baptism, is not changed into the blood of Christ, nor becomes the washing away of sins itself, being only the divine token and assurance thereof, so also, in the Lord's Supper, the sacred bread does not become the body of Christ itself, though agreeably to the nature and usage of sacraments it is called the body of Christ.

79. Why then doth Christ call the bread His body, and the cup His blood, or the New Testament in His blood; and St. Paul, the communion of the body and blood of Christ?

Christ speaks thus not without great cause: namely, not only to teach us thereby, that, like as the bread and wine sustain this temporal life, so also His crucified body and shed blood are the true meat and drink of our souls unto life eternal; but much more, by this visible sign and pledge to assure us, that we are as really partakers of His true body and blood, through the working of the Holy Ghost, as we receive by the mouth of the body these holy tokens in remembrance of Him; and that all His sufferings and obedience are as certainly our own, as if we had ourselves suffered and done all in our own person.

I stand in awe of the wisdom of the Reformed fathers. They understood the temptation to become obsessed with physical ceremonies.

The argument against baptism actually being the washing away of sins itself is pretty much the same. Consider what John the Baptist said:

Matthew 3:11-12 I indeed baptize you with water unto repentance: but he that cometh after me is mightier than I, whose shoes I am not worthy to bear: he shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost, and with fire: Whose fan is in his hand, and he will throughly purge his floor, and gather his wheat into the garner; but he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.

Christ baptizes with the Holy Spirit; baptism with water definitely signify this and it points to it, BUT it is not the baptism of the Holy Spirit ITSELF. Those who say that it is the baptism of the Holy Spirit itself have made to much of it and are dangerously close to idolatry in confusing the ceremony with the Creator himself. On the other hand, those that say it has no significance at all, that it doesn't even point to Christ, have made too little of it. Truth very often has errors on both sides that should be avoided. I hope the different ditches on the sides of the sacraments are a little more clear now. I'll end with the Heidelberg again:

72. Is then the outward washing with water itself the washing away of sins?

No; for only the blood of Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit cleanse us from all sin.

73. Why, then, doth the Holy Ghost call Baptism the washing of regeneration, and the washing away of sins?

God speaks thus not without great cause: namely, not only to teach us thereby that like as the filthiness of the body is taken away by water, so our sins also are taken away by the blood and Spirit of Christ; but much more, that by this divine pledge and token He may assure us, that we are as really washed from our sins spiritually, as our bodies are washed with water.

A garden and a city

2005-05-11T06:02:00.000-07:00

I think it is significant in the scriptures that man starts out in a garden but he ends in a city. I'm sure Eden was a beautiful place. The Tree of Life was there as well as the infamous Tree of knowledge of Good and Evil. Here man could live or he could fall. We all know the story; Adam chose the fall. But where the first Adam failed, the second Adam has redeemed us from the fall. What is interesting though, is that we aren't going back to the garden. No, something much better is in store for us!

Rev 21:9-11 And there came unto me one of the seven angels which had the seven vials full of the seven last plagues, and talked with me, saying, Come hither, I will shew thee the bride, the Lamb's wife. And he carried me away in the spirit to a great and high mountain, and shewed me that great city, the holy Jerusalem, descending out of heaven from God, Having the glory of God: and her light was like unto a stone most precious, even like a jasper stone, clear as crystal;

I don't really mean to make an application of this because I don't know that I fully understand it. Maybe it is meant to be that way too though, for Heaven will be much greater than our wildest imaginations. What I want to notice is that many of the things present in the garden are present in the New Jerusalem, but in greater, more perfect form.

Genesis 3 tells us that God was walking in the Garden with Adam and Eve. No doubt, this was probably a frequent thing. God's presence would have been a great blessing and the way the Abrahamic covenant has the promise of God himself being the exceedingly great reward, I would guess he was present a lot in the Garden. Take note then of Revelation 21:22-23: “And I saw no temple therein: for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are the temple of it. And the city had no need of the sun, neither of the moon, to shine in it: for the glory of God did lighten it, and the Lamb is the light thereof.” God himself is in the New Jerusalem. And his presence seems to be there in much greater glory because he lights the place with nothing but his own glory.

Notice also that the Tree of Life is again in the New Jerusalem. The description of it gives you the impression that it is larger though. It bears fruit every month and the tree is on either side of the river proceeding from the throne of God. It is also relevant to notice that there is no Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. God himself will preserve his chosen people there. There will be no more curse and no more sin! Oh, I do long for that day.

One last observation: there is no night in the New Jerusalem. In the garden there was both night and day in its usual cycle. My guess is that night symbolizes darkness of understanding or spiritual wickedness or something of that sort. Either way, night is considered worse than the day because those who do evil do it at night and they are unwilling to come into the light. The fact that there is no night in the New Jerusalem would seem to show that there is no wickedness nor even an opportunity for it. There is also a much better understanding of God's Word there as well.

I'm floored when I read those passages together. It gives me hope that believers will end in a great city that God has prepared for them. “Even so, come, Lord Jesus!”

A complaint against the church

2005-05-06T07:46:00.000-07:00

I have a complaint against the church. It isn’t one for which I would be excommunicated (at least I hope not LOL) because it really isn’t a core doctrine or practice. I’m not taking issue with anything in the creeds or confessions or constitutions. My complaint is how the church deals with single people. Being in a covenantal church, people see the marriage state as being really better in almost everything than the single state. This is usually an unwritten assumption, but I believe it shows forth in their practice all the time. We have sermons about loving your wife as Christ loved the church; about how we ought to raise our children, and about how our spouses are not perfect and are no substitute for Christ himself in our lives.

In my more bitter moments, I ask how this could possibly apply to me? You kind of have to be married before you have children to raise, and you have to have a spouse to have a problem with too much focus on them. How am I supposed to related to loving my wife as Christ loved the church without being married? I’m not saying these are wrong to teach these, but something needs to be said to those who can’t relate to this. It is almost like they are saying “Well, you don’t understand now, but hopefully one day you will. Until then, just try to pay attention and maybe you’ll remember this when it really is applicable to you.”

All in all, I think I agree with this basic assumption. Paul’s comments in 1 Corinthians seem to be generally more directed towards those who would endure persecutions. Of course it would be better to be unmarried during a time when Christians were being thrown to lions, burned, and all other such manners of persecution for the faith. Christians aren’t being hunted down in modern America today, so this seems to be a lesser concern. My other reason for agreeing with the assumption that marriage is better is that there seem to be two good things that were instituted before the fall that continue to this day. One institution is a person’s vocation/job (Genesis 2:15 Then the LORD God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to tend and keep it.), and the other is marriage (Genesis 2:18 And the LORD God said, "It is not good that man should be alone; I will make him a helper comparable to him." And Genesis 2:24 Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.). Marriage is indeed honorable among all.

Now given the knowledge that people are not born married, this means that for the first part of our lives (and it might very well be the most important part because that is when our beliefs and thought patterns are formed) a person will be single. They will then somehow magically transition to the marriage state. For some people this will no doubt be easy, they have their childhood sweetheart that they’ve known since 5th grade and it has been known since about the 8th grade that they will be married. Then there are those that went to college to get what I’ve affectionately heard people call their “MRS” degree. (I’m not trying to say this is wrong, I’m sure there are many good schools in which you can get a good education and still get your “MRS” degree) What about the people that went to school to get an education (*gasp*) and focused on that instead of other things? Now they come back to the small churches that teach the truth and are silently informed that pretty much anyone of any value already got married during college. Or to put it another way, how many opportunities are there when the church has 50 members and 40 of those are couples and most of the rest are recently confirmed children?

The larger, mega-churches solve this problem by creating singles-groups and such things. There is no doubt this works in some cases, but for some reason I think there is a better solution. The problem with these is that usually this separates the single people out so much from the rest of the congregation that they loose a lot of good examples in the married couples. The uninstructed need good examples of Godly marriages to pattern theirs after; instruction with words is good, but examples fill in the missing pieces.

I don’t have a solution to this problem; I hope someone wiser than I does though because I don’t like the current situation.

For His mercy endures forever

2005-05-04T14:18:00.000-07:00

Psalms 136 uses this constant refrain: “For His mercy endures forever.” The passage is a set of reasons that God’s mercy lasts forever followed by that refrain. God is praised for creating the world, for creating the stars in the heavens, and for simply being the King of Kings. It is good and right that we should praise the Lord for these things for all things come to us by his hand.

But then we get to some things that aren’t going to set so well in the minds of modern people. 10To Him who struck Egypt in their firstborn, For His mercy endures forever; and 17To Him who struck down great kings, For His mercy endures forever; 18And slew famous kings, For His mercy endures forever—(NKJV). God has a special people that he watches over, and he brought terrible judgment onto Egypt when they tried to stop Israel from leaving. This is the same God that watches his Church today. He is long suffering and patient with people, but he will judge. Deuteronomy 32:35 “Vengeance is Mine, and recompense; Their foot shall slip in due time; For the day of their calamity is at hand, And the things to come hasten upon them.” Christians can praise God even for this: when he brings down tyrants and strikes down wicked kings. The God of the Bible is not a like modern people would want him to be. He is a God of both justice and mercy; his is both holy and patient. Of course, this may be too much for those who preach a “gospel of tolerance.”

The Christian worldview and its consequences

2005-05-02T15:51:00.000-07:00

The Christian worldview produces some unexpected results sometime--at least in the world’s eyes. Humanism tries to bring man to the top; man is the most important they say! We will be great because we love men. With no absolute reference point to give value to man, Humanism ends up bringing man low. He is really no different than the animals. Some animals kill their babies so why shouldn’t humans? Elderly animals are killed in nature by predators and such means, why do we need our elderly? All these ideas about making man great end up making him small. In the end, he is nothing more than a smart animal.

Christianity, on the other hand, starts somewhere else. Christianity says that man is not God; he is not supreme; he is not the top. Ironically, this leads to man being great. He is not like the animals because he is made in the image of God. With God as the absolute reference point, man has real value. Let me say that again: because of God, people’s lives have real value. Man is made in the image of God for the purpose of worshipping his creator. This is a high and noble purpose. We aren’t to kill our babies because they are made in the image of God and they have a real purpose in life. We aren’t to kill our elderly because they too should worship the true and living God. So, in the end, Christianity gives value and dignity to man--the very end humanism sought and was unable to attain.

The very same thing could be said about the status of women. Humanism and feminism try to exalt her status above God. In the end, this leads to women being viewed as glorified property. How horrible! Christianity starts with the basis that she is to be a suitable helpmate to her husband; he is to have authority over her, but they are of equal essence both being in the image of God (Eve was taken from Adam’s rib, not his foot, and not his head). Those who reject Christianity are left with trying to raise women up to a high plane from nothing; very little is left after this process. Isn’t it interesting that only in the places that Christianity has been rooted for many years are women viewed as more than just property? The pagan lands in African certainly don’t hold a high view of women.

The Biblical foundation is a strong one. When its principles are allowed to permeate a culture, that culture begins to show forth some of the holiness of God. In this, it is very good.

Contentment

2005-05-02T07:20:00.000-07:00

I’m not sure if the sermons have just been really good lately, or I’ve been paying attention more, but they really hit home. The sermon this week was from Jeremiah 31. The object lesson of the Israelites really goes to the core of contentment. Here was Jeremiah prophesying about the return to Jerusalem and the rebuilding of the temple before it was even destroyed. Pastor pointed out something that is very obvious, but not recognized very often. The people who heard this prophecy (and Jeremiah himself) would probably never see the temple rebuilt. They were to spend 70 years in Babylon, so maybe some of the really young people would see Jerusalem again in their lifetime, but most of them would not. And yet, God tells them to sing for gladness.

I know what my response would tend to be to this: Since I’m never going to see the rebuilding of Jerusalem, why should I sing for gladness? It will be almost three generations before the temple is rebuilt! It is amazing what happens when the rubber meets the road. I profess to be a pilgrim and a stranger in this world, and yet when it comes right down to it, I would probably be despairing in such a situation. Not so the great men and women of faith. Consider what Hebrews says of such people.

Hebrews 11:13-16 These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off were assured of them, embraced them and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth. For those who say such things declare plainly that they seek a homeland. And truly if they had called to mind that country from which they had come out, they would have had opportunity to return. But now they desire a better, that is, a heavenly country. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for He has prepared a city for them.

These great men and women DID NOT receive the promises made to them. Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob didn’t take possession of the land of Caanan. Even the great man Moses, who God spoke with face to face, never entered into the land of promise. Suddenly, my personal problems seem to fade away when I consider this. These men lived their entire lives on nothing more than the promises and word of God. In doing this, they declared with a single loud voice that they were seeking a different kind of homeland, and God has prepared such a city for them!

Oh to be like these men, who saw such a dim light and yet believed so strongly. The light of the gospel is so much brighter now, and a lot of the shadows and figures have been removed. Should we not be believing all the more? I pray that we would be all the more like these great men and women of faith; that we would be counted among those “of whom the world was not worthy.”

The mountain we are come to

2005-04-29T08:15:00.000-07:00

Hebrews 12:18-24
“18For you have not come to the mountain that may be touched and that burned with fire, and to blackness and darkness and tempest, 19and the sound of a trumpet and the voice of words, so that those who heard it begged that the word should not be spoken to them anymore. 20(For they could not endure what was commanded: "And if so much as a beast touches the mountain, it shall be stoned or shot with an arrow." 21And so terrifying was the sight that Moses said, "I am exceedingly afraid and trembling.")
22But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, to an innumerable company of angels, 23to the general assembly and church of the firstborn who are registered in heaven, to God the Judge of all, to the spirits of just men made perfect, 24to Jesus the Mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling that speaks better things than that of Abel.”

Whenever the apostles or prophets introduced something by speaking negatively about something else, it always gets my attention. This is usually because the positive that will follow is something great. Here, the writer of Hebrews is contrasting the old covenant with the new covenant. This makes sense of course because a good portion of Hebrews is about how gloriously bright the new is compared to the old.

The imagery is meant to draw out this contrast. The old mountain is black and dark, and the words spoken from it are very hard to endure. So hard to endure, that when God spoke to Israel out of the fire that they told Moses “You speak with us, and we will hear; but let not God speak with us, lest we die.” If we are honest with ourselves, we probably want things this way too. Those few men that actually stood in the presence of God never had a super-fun experience (see for instance Isaiah 6, Ezekiel 1, and Revelation 4). They had God speak to them in great thunderings and lightning flashes; it is a terrifying thought to stand in the presence of a Holy God who calls himself a consuming fire. Not only this, but the content of the message was impossible to keep. All it did was amply demonstrate the complete and utter hopelessness they had in themselves (and if we are honest about it today--ourselves).

Thankfully, that is not all. We are not come to such a mountain. The imagery here is much brighter. Mount Zion is not a mountain of darkness and blackness, nor are those who approach to be stoned. Mount Zion is the city of the living God. It is not a city of death and destruction, it is a city of life. Instead of a voice that cannot be endured, we have the spirits of just men made perfect; these men were not able to keep the law themselves, instead, they trust in the Mediator of the new covenant. And this mediator, he is not like Moses who was exceedingly afraid to approach, “but with His own blood He entered the Most Holy Place once for all, having obtained eternal redemption.” This mediator’s blood speaks much more than the blood of Abel. The blood of Abel cried to the Lord after Cain had murdered him, but Christ’s blood cries all the louder. Christ’s blood cries out that the sinner has been forgiven. I don’t think I could say it any better than Charles Wesley did:

Five bleeding wounds he bears, received on Calvary
They pour effectual prayer, they strongly plead for me
"Forgive him, oh forgive!" they cry,
"Forgive him, oh forgive!" they cry,
"Don’t let the ransomed sinner die!"

Proverbs 31

2005-04-27T12:13:00.000-07:00

First off, I must preface this with a few warnings. One, I’ve gotten myself into many a pickle in commenting on this passage in conversations. Second, I’m not an expert on wives by any means since I don’t have one. Lastly, I’m sure there is room for multiple positions on this matter; I don’t claim my position is the only one (or even the only Biblical one).

What is modern-American men’s obsession with looks? These definitions change with each culture and time. The Victorian age’s definition of physical beauty isn’t what we look for today. Physical beauty is not unmentioned in the Bible either. Sarai was beautiful and so was Rachel we are told. We are also told that “Leah's eyes were delicate, but Rachel was beautiful of form and appearance.” So we even have details down to the level that Leah had gorgeous eyes, but Rachel was all around beautiful; “in all the land were found no women so beautiful as the daughters of Job.” BUT, there is no exhortation to seek out a physically beautiful wife. It seems that God in his infinite wisdom figured men really wouldn’t have trouble with that aspect.

On the other hand, there *is* an exhortation to find a virtuous wife. Proverbs 31:10 “Who can find a virtuous wife? For her worth is far above rubies.” In my thinking, this means that I ought to value virtue quite a bit above looks. The passage goes onto describe a woman that is clothed with strength and honor. She is a wise woman who knows how to manage a business well. She is also one that speaks with both wisdom and kindness. Then, as if the speaking on virtue wasn’t enough, the author goes onto say “charm is deceitful and beauty is passing, but a woman who fears the LORD, she shall be praised.” Beauty is passing. This should be a sobering phrase. You are going to have to live with your wife long after she is not the 20-year-old hottie anymore. Consider that now! Are the few years of having a trophy wife going to be worth the many more years of having a quarrelsome wife? I think not. When you are old, you won’t be saying “Man, I wish I had a cute wife when I was younger,” you’ll be saying “Man, I wish I would have had more peace in my house.” Of course, this assumes you have a life long commitment idea about marriage.

If you manage to find a virtuous wife that is drop dead gorgeous--more power to you. It just seems to me that as in Jesus’ age, the gospel was hidden from the wise and prudent as seemed good in the sight of the father, that in our day and age these things have been hidden from the beautiful.

In the days of thy youth

2005-04-26T13:32:00.000-07:00

Ecc. 12:1 “Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth, while the evil days come not, nor the years draw nigh, when thou shalt say, I have no pleasure in them;”

It is an interesting thing that Solomon told youth to remember their Creator. Why is this? Moses was constantly reminding the Israelites not to forget the Lord,

Deuteronomy 4: 23-25 Take heed unto yourselves, lest ye forget the covenant of the LORD your God, which he made with you, and make you a graven image, or the likeness of any thing, which the LORD thy God hath forbidden thee.
For the LORD thy God is a consuming fire, even a jealous God.
When thou shalt beget children, and children's children, and ye shall have remained long in the land, and shall corrupt yourselves, and make a graven image, or the likeness of any thing, and shall do evil in the sight of the LORD thy God, to provoke him to anger

but it usually is in regard to the parents teaching the children.

The young usually think they are invincible. They can get up faster from a fall, and it doesn’t take them as long to heal. Some of these things are no doubt true, but we should not translate that into living in sin while we are young and only worshipping the true God later on in life. We ought to be living soberly and Godly lives now. Matthew Henry’s comment on this passage is worth ending on.

It is the greatest absurdity and ingratitude imaginable to give the cream and flower of our days to the devil, and reserve the bran, and refuse, and dregs of them for God; this is offering the torn, and the lame, and the sick for sacrifice; and, besides, old age being thus clogged with infirmities, it is the greatest folly imaginable to put off that needful work till then, which requires the best of our strength, when our faculties are in their prime, and especially to make the work more difficult by a longer continuance in sin, and, laying up treasures of guilt in the conscience, to add to the burdens of age and make them much heavier.

Falling down the stairs

2005-04-26T13:11:00.000-07:00

I was told that my recent falling down the stairs was funny. I didn’t really think so at the time, but I’ll record it here for posterity.

The last section of stairs in my house is wood without carpet. We were watching my Dad’s dog Q at the time, so I was going downstairs to see why Q was whining in his crate. With cereal in hand, my heal slipped off of one of the first stairs and I came crashing down on my back. After sliding down the stairs, I crumpled over onto my stomach at the bottom. At this point, I could not breath, so I figured I would just lie down in the splattered milk and raisin bran until I could breath again. As I look back now, I’m sure this was a pretty funny sight. Here I was in my nice work clothes lying on the floor in a puddle of milk and raisin bran. You know when you can’t breath time goes by very slowly too. I distinctly remember thinking “Sooo, this is how it ends.” Given that I couldn’t yell, and the fact that my housemates are unlikely to get out of bed unless there is an earthquake, sitting there was pretty much my only option.

Slowly I began to breath again, so I pulled myself up and cleaned up the mess. I guess raisin bran is not poisonous to fish because they didn’t seem to die from the little bit that spilled into their tank. I later asked by sister and cousin if they had heard anything that morning. My cousin heard nothing, but my sister just decided not to get up. That is comforting.

Suing over what?

2005-04-25T09:51:00.000-07:00

An interesting article on an abortion that failed. She is suing the hospital that performed the procedure because they only “terminated” one of the babies (who were twins) instead of both.

The author’s comment is great:

Dow is basically suing because her three-year-old little girl is not dead.

Absurd. But I'm guessing the hospital will wind up paying something.

Patience is a hard thing

2005-04-24T21:03:00.000-07:00

Patience never seems to accompany youth. Young people are always eager for action; sometimes this is good, but not always. This problem is only accentuated by the modern-American “fast food” culture. “We want it now” could be the motto of my generation. What is the sense is waiting for something when you can have it now. Premarital sex runs rampant in our culture because of this. Who cares about the marriage bond? Who cares about fidelity? We want it now! Instant gratification. I suppose the TV caters to this idea as well. Most shows are only 30 minutes long so no one develops a decent attention span. Modern Christianity bows to this too. We can't be expected to sit through a sermon—15 minutes might be pushing it. We need to be up “worshiping” and dancing around to some praise song's chorus sung over and over again. There is no time for real substance to our worship; we want to feel God now.

I'm the sort of person that likes desert last. When I was a child, I could never understand the kids around me that wanted their cookie before the meal. I always wanted to save the best for last, and since the desert was the best part, I would prefer that last. If I could carry this attitude over into other parts of life, I suppose I would be much more content. It is so easy in the trivial things, why is it so hard in the important things?

In the sermon this week, the pastor read a good portion of Psalm 62. It seems that patience didn't really come naturally to the Psalmist either. Psalm 62:5 “My soul, wait thou only upon God; for my expectation is from him.” Strong's definition of expectation includes the idea of “the thing that I long for.” As I considered the Psalmist's words, I couldn't help but think how hard this was to do. Think about it; this means that the thing I long for most is from him. It isn't from me; I can't make it happen in my own power. I have to wait on God's time. Everything in my flesh recoils at this idea. I want to go my own way; to pull myself up. Why do I need to wait on God?

The other verse that really struck me was Psalm 62:11: God hath spoken once; twice have I heard this; that power belongeth unto God. For some reason this verse stood out to me in the passage. This makes sense of course because we want to wait on the God who has the power to bring about our most longed for desires, but why is the phrase emphasized so much? God spoke it once, but the Psalmist heard it twice—he had to hear it with physical and spiritual ears. If I'm honest, I realize I need to hear this twice as well. I confess that God is infinitely powerful, but I don't always want to wait on him. This conflict between what I say and what I believe needs to be reconciled. It must needs be that this idea soak in; it needs to gel in my heart and mind. Power belongs unto God.

Patience ought not be absent from youth, but I have no easy answers. Everyday I pray for the thing I desire, and everyday I come home with no progress made. I comfort myself with the thought that it, like desert at dinner time, is the best part. Sometimes it works, sometimes not. Patience is a hard learn.

Jewish belief summary

2005-04-22T08:59:00.000-07:00

This discussion over on LJ, has a good summary of one Jew's beliefs. I find it very informative. Scroll down to phaedra_amunet's comments.

Cancer causing meat

2005-04-21T11:17:00.000-07:00

Well, it looks like I might need to change my daily lunches. I was just getting used to my sandwitch, chips, cookies, and a drink lunch. According to recent article eating too much processed meat or red meat gives you cancer. What really doesn’t give you cancer though? I’m reasonably sure my cell phone probably will--although they say not; now my lunch will; I wonder if it is possible to live in modern society without consuming cancer causing goods.

A conservative pope

2005-04-21T07:36:00.000-07:00

This article has some interesting quotes on the new Pope.

Others see his election as widening the global religious "red-blue" divide between conservative moral absolutists and liberals of all faiths who say religion must be more inclusive.

The only way to make religion “more inclusive” is to destroy the differences of each one. Only when we say that the words have no meaning can we all be agreed as to who God is and what he requires.

In his last homily as a cardinal, Pope Benedict XVI said that "We are moving toward a dictatorship of relativism which does not recognize anything as for certain and which has as its highest goal one's own ego and one's own desires."
Benedict has dismissed anyone who tried to find "feminist" meanings in the Bible, and last year told American bishops it was appropriate to deny Communion to those who support abortion and euthanasia.

I’m by no means a Catholic supporter, but I like this statement. At least someone is blowing the whistle on modern relativism, feminism, and the like. They are all errors.

"He is clearly a person who believes in absolute truth and the clarity of truth - and the possession of truth by the Roman Catholic Church" says Chester Gillis, chair of the theology department at Georgetown University in Washington. "He is very unbending about that."

Well, at least he believes in absolute truth, I’ll go with him that far. I don’t think the Roman Catholic Church really has possession of it though.

The views the new pope has expressed in the past, however, suggest that he is not willing to deal with members of other faiths as equals. "Any notion that we are on a level playing field, and dialogue with other religions under the assumption that they have the same access to truth, would not be something he would be happy with," says Paul Lakeland, a professor of Catholic studies at Connecticut's Fairfield University.
Benedict XVI "has very clear views, that salvation comes only through Jesus Christ, and it makes it difficult to have a dialogue of equals if you do not regard everyone as equal before God," adds Tissa Balasuriya, a progressive Sri Lankan theologian whose run-in with Cardinal Ratzinger in 1997 led to his temporary excommunication.

This is relativism in a nut shell my friends. If all religions “have the same access to truth,” then they are essentially the same. This is nonsensical. Allah and Jehovah are not the same god. They’ve said different things and their writings are different--what more do you want? Christianity is the only religion that says there is nothing you can do to appease God. No Holy War, no keeping his law, no ceremonies can make you clean before the One with whom we have to do. God saves his people from their sins; they do not save themselves.

Those who are cleaver among us will be quick to point out all the similarities: creator, similar prophets, moral codes, etc. This is to be expected. Man was originally made in the image of God:

Romans 1:18-25 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, because what may be known of God is manifest in them, for God has shown it to them. For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse, because, although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God, nor were thankful, but became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Professing to be wise, they became fools, and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like corruptible man--and birds and four-footed animals and creeping things.
Therefore God also gave them up to uncleanness, in the lusts of their hearts, to dishonor their bodies among themselves, who exchanged the truth of God for the lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen. (NKJV emphasis mine)

Satan’s deceptions are rarely totally black. He much prefers to take a bit of truth and mix it in; that way he can appeal to the image of God in man while he feeds them the lies. The similarities argument doesn’t fly.

I’m not Catholic, but some of what this Pope says is very good. I guess I kind of think that modern relativism, feminism, humanism and the like are more dangerous than orthodox Catholic doctrine, but maybe I’m wrong on that; I would almost like to hear an argument that orthodox Catholic doctrine is more dangerous than humanism. Too much defending Catholicism lately for me--it is very unlike a Reformed person ;-)

The new pope

2005-04-20T08:21:00.000-07:00

I posted a response to this. It was a LJ I found that "The German" posts to frequently; I probably shouldn't have posted at all, but I couldn't drop it once I started LOL

Outsourcing: time to pay the piper?

2005-04-19T13:50:00.000-07:00

I’ve written on outsourcing before.

Outsourcing is always a hot topic amount IT professionals because it has to do with their job security. Since I became a software person, I’ve thought that the outsourcing will probably not continue indefinitely. Eventually the costs will rise high enough that it won’t be cost effective.

This article provides some survey facts from Deloitte and Touche about recent outsourcing data:
"-- 70 percent of participants have had negative experiences with outsourcing.
-- One in four respondents realized that they could handle certain functions better in-house, and yanked those back inside the corporate walls.
-- 44 percent did not see cost-savings from outsourcing.
-- 57 percent ended up absorbing costs that they believed were included in the contracts with vendors.
-- Nearly 50 percent cited hidden costs as the biggest problem"

Please forgive me for my next extremely pro-American comment, but it seems like this shows that globalization is not always a good thing. For some of the companies that jumped on the bandwagon, it is time to pay the piper.

Not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth

2005-04-18T19:46:00.000-07:00

Sometimes it is good to step back from the daily grind and consider the bigger picture. It never ceases to amaze me the depth of insight the Bible has into man. This shouldn't amaze me of course because the Bible itself told us it would have such insight.

Hebrews 4:12 For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any twoedged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.

In my daily readings, I usually have the doctrines of grace reaffirmed and applied to my life, but every so often, I stumble across something that I just seem to understand better. Maybe it is because of how it relates to life or maybe it is something I'm supposed to learn.

Luke 12:15 was the latest verse that stood out to me like that.

Luke 12:13-15 And one of the company said unto him, Master, speak to my brother, that he divide the inheritance with me. And he said unto him, Man, who made me a judge or a divider over you? And he said unto them, Take heed, and beware of covetousness: for a man's life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth.

Christ has a way of going right to the heart of the sinner. He doesn't do a whole lot of dancing around the issue. Christ went right to the sin of greed and made it blindingly apparent to this man.

Of course by stating the negative about something, Christ directs us the the positive about it. The natural question to ask is “What does a man's life consist of?” I believe Christ answers that question in the next parable.

Luke 12:16-21
And he spake a parable unto them, saying, The ground of a certain rich man brought forth plentifully: And he thought within himself, saying, What shall I do, because I have no room where to bestow my fruits? And he said, This will I do: I will pull down my barns, and build greater; and there will I bestow all my fruits and my goods. And I will say to my soul, Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years; take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry. But God said unto him, Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee: then whose shall those things be, which thou hast provided? So is he that layeth up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God.

A man's life does consist in being rich toward God. How exactly to be rich towards God could probably lead many places, but for some reason, I'm lead to the parable of the talents. Each man's task on earth is going to be slightly different, and some men are going to have more gifts (remember the 5, 2 and 1 talents?). We are to glorify God with what we've been given. Then we'll be rich toward God.

A black heart

2005-04-18T19:26:00.000-07:00

Proverbs 16:18 tells us that “Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall.” Pride is a deceptive beast. It appears in the strangest forms, but if you search hard enough it can be found almost anywhere. My Pastor is fond of saying that every drunk at the bar knows he is better than someone. “At least I'm not like So-and-So” he'll say. People that you'd think were the humblest could very well be the proudest people.

Some kinds of pride are good. I think it is good to take pride in your work; it spurs you onto good deeds. As long as you don't think that such works can save you that is. They are still filthy rags before the holy God.

I clearly see two instances of pride in my own life right now. I'm sure there are people who aren't proud and hold these same positions, but I'm not one of them. Looking into my own heart, I can see their real root. It is a scary thing to look into my own life and see the blackness of my own heart. In all honesty, I would much prefer not to do it a whole lot. In this specific case, I can clearly see my thinking. I believe that my way is the best, and that my activities are the most important. The more sophisticated I get the more complicated I can make my justifications. Proverbs 26:16 says “The sluggard is wiser in his own conceit than seven men that can render a reason.” Could that be true of the proud man as well?

Case #1
As I'm playing some Frisbee golf with some good friends, my mom calls my sister and requests our help with moving some rock for her yard. I had already made plans to play through this game and then go shooting with another friend. I like to keep my word, but I knew that my mom's request was just her nice way of saying that she needed help. I've heard it before; she always tries to ask in a much nicer manner than she should. I figured I could help later, after I was back from shooting. We drove up to the range and found it completely packed--there were no open places, so we ended up not getting to shoot. I should have known it would be that way on a Saturday afternoon. It was pretty late when I got home; I called to see if anymore help was needed, but they had completed the work that day.

Case #2
I've complained a lot about the lack of eligible single women in the Church, and yet I don't bother to take good opportunities that other friends and relatives provide. You could say that I don't like being set up. Why is this? Mainly because I don't want to be indebted to someone; I want to be independent--to go my own way. I don't like the feeling of needing someone else's help. If I can't do it myself, or pay for it myself, then I don't want it. Maybe this is the key thing I must learn before I find the one. Maybe I have to learn that I can't do it alone.

I hope that GI Joe was right when he said “Knowing is half the battle.”

My 2005 Mustang GT

2005-04-13T14:38:00.000-07:00

My 2005 Mustang GT

A car analogy

2005-04-13T11:37:00.000-07:00

In my conversation with the German today, I developed the following analogy for my life.

My life is very similar to the German’s car. His car was recently hit, and the rear bumper was damaged. Not as bad as it could have been, but the bumper did need to be replaced. I can tell you that he was definitely concerned about it. I’m sure he worried about how to get it fixed a lot before it was fixed.

Well sometimes, I view my life like that. Most of the big things seem to be working. I like my job, and where my career is going. I like my house; you always would like a bigger house, but this one is working well now. I don’t mind my car; it does well ;-) when there isn’t any snow. But I’m missing that significant other (to use a politically correct term). It is like that damaged bumper; it probably consumes more of my thoughts that it ought to. The car overall is running well; life is pretty good, but something is missing. I like my Church and friends here. Over all life is actually really good; I just wish I could fix that bumper...

Update: At the request of the German, here is a more accurate picture of my car (i.e. it has the same rims, although my car has red interior).

Politically correct again

2005-04-13T09:03:00.000-07:00

I was watching FahrenHype 911 recently. As a side note, this is a pretty right wing movie. I liked it. It is good to have these "mainstream" left-wing movies counterbalanced.

What I really wanted to share was a line from the movie. It was something along the lines of "we need to realize that Norwegian women in wheel chairs are probably not a threat to national security."

Couldn't have said it better myself; that is awesome!!!

There was also a cool story on the movie a congressman told about rattlesnakes, but I don't remember it well enough to summarize. It was hilarious though!

The Calvinist’s dilemma

2005-04-13T08:41:00.000-07:00

I was reading Psalm 127 last night, and it occurred to me how perfectly that illustrates the Calvinist position. The Calvinist position is sort of strange in this way. We hold that God is omnipotent and that he absolutely controls everything that comes to pass. We also hold that man is indeed responsible for his sin against God; Adam was not some cosmic robot on whom God was playing a sick joke, and neither are we. Humans are moral creatures created in the image of God, and they have real responsibility to obey his commandments.

That being said, I entitled my post "The Calvinist’s dilemma" for a reason. Dictionary.com defines a dilemma as "A situation that requires a choice between options that are or seem equally unfavorable or mutually exclusive." This is usually how those of a Pelagian or Semi-Pelagian position attack the Calvinist doctrine of Predestination. They would suggest that God lets man have the final say in his own salvation; this implies of course that God does not. They say that if God has the final say in the salvation of individuals, then we are mere robots on Earth. We have no real freedom, and we are just puppets. However good this sounds from a purely logical point of view, the scriptures do not present it that way. On the contrary, the scriptures take Calvinist position on the matter. It is not my goal here to present a total defense for the doctrines of grace. For this, I recommend Calvin’s Institutes of the Christian Religion especially Book 3 or (if you don’t have that much time) Luther’s Bondage of the Will. There are many other good summaries as well, those are just the older works of note.

So, we have this dilemma it seems; man is free and responsible and God is totally in control. Consider Psalm 127:1-2

Unless the LORD builds the house,
They labor in vain who build it;
Unless the LORD guards the city,
The watchman stays awake in vain.
It is vain for you to rise up early,
To sit up late,
To eat the bread of sorrows;
For so He gives His beloved sleep.(NKJV)

Could it really be said any better? Unless the Lord actually does the building, unless he raises up the house, the men who are building it will not succeed. It isn’t that they are robots doing the work--they are really doing the work; they are really responsible to do the work, and yet the Lord still absolutely controls the building. The second part of verse one reiterates the same point with a different example.

Verse two takes the idea in verse one and applies it. The people that realize that God is in control don’t have to worry--He gives His beloved sleep! Once you realize that God works all in all, you can stop your constant worrying. This doesn’t imply of course you can stop working. That isn’t the point at all, but that you don’t have to worry about whether or not your work will succeed. That is in God’s hands. The watchmen can watch and the builder construct, but they need not worry constantly about their job. The Lord watches the city and builds the house!

I would like to point another place where this same idea is presented. Consider 2 Kings 19:25-26:

Did you not hear long ago
How I made it,
From ancient times that I formed it?
Now I have brought it to pass,
That you should be
For crushing fortified cities into heaps of ruins.
Therefore their inhabitants had little power;
They were dismayed and confounded;
They were as the grass of the field
And the green herb,
As the grass on the housetops
And grain blighted before it is grown.(NKJV)

A little bit of context might be good. The king of Assyria, Sennacherib, had sent a messenger to Hezekiah, King of Judah. Basically the messenger told Hezekiah to surrender Jerusalem because there was no way the city would be able to stand against the might of Sennacherib. Hezekiah, though, took the message into the temple and prayed to the Lord. 2 Kings 19:25-26 is part of the Lord’s answer to Sennacherib’s threats through the prophet Isaiah.

Sennacherib had actually done these things. He had also assumed that his power and his ability to destroy nations was because of his own greatness. His own choices had brought him here, he thought. Sennacherib was only partly right. His choices had brought him there, but God had ordained that it should be that way. God had it planned from the ancient times--from eternity, and now He had brought it to pass. Is it not arrogant of us to assume that even our salvation was simply and ultimately because of our own choice? I submit to you that it is. God alone sits on the throne.

In closing, Isaiah 45:5-13 should also be considered, but I won’t comment on it.

5I am the LORD, and there is none else, there is no God beside me: I girded thee, though thou hast not known me:
6That they may know from the rising of the sun, and from the west, that there is none beside me. I am the LORD, and there is none else.
7I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things.
8Drop down, ye heavens, from above, and let the skies pour down righteousness: let the earth open, and let them bring forth salvation, and let righteousness spring up together; I the LORD have created it.
9Woe unto him that striveth with his Maker! Let the potsherd strive with the potsherds of the earth. Shall the clay say to him that fashioneth it, What makest thou? or thy work, He hath no hands?
10Woe unto him that saith unto his father, What begettest thou? or to the woman, What hast thou brought forth?
11Thus saith the LORD, the Holy One of Israel, and his Maker, Ask me of things to come concerning my sons, and concerning the work of my hands command ye me.
12I have made the earth, and created man upon it: I, even my hands, have stretched out the heavens, and all their host have I commanded.
13I have raised him up in righteousness, and I will direct all his ways: he shall build my city, and he shall let go my captives, not for price nor reward, saith the LORD of hosts. (KJV)

Reporters run amuck

2005-04-12T15:16:00.000-07:00

The title is much worse than my comment actually is. Somehow, the NY Times got a hold of some of President Bush’s iPod playlist. Some quotes are in order:

As for an analysis of Mr. Bush's playlist, Mr. Levy of Rolling Stone started out with this: "One thing that's interesting is that the president likes artists who don't like him."

Wow, this is amazing isn’t it? If I only listened to the music by artists I agreed with, it would definitely be a slim selection. I don’t know that I even know of any Reformed/Presbyterian artists…
From CNN’s version:

The playlist does reveal a rather narrow range of babyboomer tunes. Writing in the London Times, Caitlin Moran noted: "No black artists, no gay artists, no world music, only one woman, no genre less than 25 years old, and no Beatles."

Way to make sure your political agenda gets into the news Caitlin! I’m sure that statement will fire up a liberal somewhere. Maybe I shouldn’t have even bother to comment on this--it is probably more than it deserves.