Plan "B"

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2010-03-20T19:45:00.001-07:00

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There's nurture in that sandwich

2010-03-20T19:19:00.000-07:00

I'll freely admit it, I'm a horrible sick person. Some people get sick and just want to be left alone. I'm the complete opposite. I get sick and all I want is someone to nurture me, to take my temperature, to hold a cold compress against my forehead, and tell me that's it's all going to be o.k..

Right now, I have none of that. A friend just offered [via text message] to go shopping for me, but it's not the same. A cold sandwich delivered at a door is nothing compared to a grilled cheese served with love.

God knows my prayer. The ball's in His court.

My Pastor

2010-03-01T15:58:00.000-08:00

Well, I wrote about my Bible. Pastor's talking about my church, so I thought I'd pull over for a bit and talk about my Pastor.

As anyone with any insights to Pastor's life will know, Pastor has a very difficult job. The office of Pastor is discussed and described at some length in our Bibles, and in the interest of giving the whole Word, it's fitting that we learn about our Pastor from a Biblical standpoint. It is vitally important that we understand that God desires us to have a Bible-believing and Bible-preaching pastor, and He wants us to understand our relationship with him in terms of his leadership and responsibilities.

Hebrews 13:17-18

¹⁷Obey them that have the rule over you, and submit yourselves: for they watch for your souls, as they that must give account, that they may do it with joy, and not with grief: for that is unprofitable for you.

¹⁸Pray for us: for we trust we have a good conscience, in all things willing to live honestly.

Now, I hope we all know this morning that Pastor takes his ministry calling very seriously and his role as the undershepherd of this church - and therefore us - very seriously. His daily responsibilities are probably enough to cause us headaches just listening to what he has to go through on a regular basis. But the office of pastor is designed by God to benefit our spiritual growth and well-being.

Pastor needs our prayers. We learn that every Wednesday night when Pastor asks that we pray for him and his family; for their health and well-being as well as for keeping Satan away from his household. He needs our prayers and our support if he is to be the pastor that God desires him to be.

The life of a Christian is tough business enough. We all know that. I know that each of us struggle with the daily life and trials that come about, but when it comes to Pastor, so much more is demanded of him. We need good men to continue the work of teaching, preaching, loving and giving their lives for the spiritual health and blessing of God's people. Just as Pastor is a vital link in our spiritual growth, we are a vital link to his.

[God Appointed Institutions:]

First, I want to set a basis by stating that there are God appointed institutions in the Bible. First, God instituted the home and marriage. Marriage was not conceived by mankind in any kind of effort to set up a system by which people would function in a home or raise children. Therefore, whatever mankind does to marriage or the home does not add to or build upon God's plan. If anything, it's Satan and his desire to destroy what God has established perfectly and for all times. The Bible records the story of God creating Adam and Eve. In the very first wedding ceremony God brought Eve to Adam, joined them together and instituted the home. Of course, as soon as God instituted the home, Satan began to attack it, to tear it apart, and to cause division. To this very day, he is still trying to bring down people's homes, destroy marriages, redefine marriage and even love.

Secondly, God also instituted government. The Bible speaks of government as early as Genesis 8, and the Devil continuously attacks and brings corruption into government. As a result, there is a lack of trust toward government. Satan is busy attacking the very authority structure in America today.

Thirdly, God also instituted the church. Here again, the church was not man's idea. It wasn't Israels idea to get together and build a tabernacle. It wasn't the apostles idea to have a regular meeting to discuss religiousity. The church today belongs to Jesus Christ. He's the One Who called out the 12 disciples. After He gave the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost, the disciples spread the Word and the local church was born.

It's crucial that the church be separated from the world. It's crucial that the church be set apart - to be sanctified. But here too Satan is fighting the church like never before. Today, there are too many churches - or buildings with crosses - and people in vestments and rock bands and motivational speakers and life coaches and all manner of worldliness. In the midst of it all, Satan is completely happy having us argue among each other about all manner of things instead of getting the Word out to the lost world. Satan's goal is to sidetrack us and keep us from doing God's work.

I'm thankful that I've found a church where the Pastor has not strayed from the basics - from the fundamentals of faith. Pastor peaches Christ. Questions abound in Christianity and in the world today:

A. How can I have my best life now? Christ.
B. I don't know what to do with my life. Christ.
C. I need help with a struggle I'm going through. Christ.

God has the local church as a vital part of our Christian growth where we can hear the preaching, have fellowship and grow. I'm thankful that I'm at a church where Pastor preaches the Bible and not self-help. Pastor is a vessel who can teach the truth to God's people. Pastor's responsibilities are to water the spiritual plants, to pull the weeds, and to keep the garden in an environment of growth.

The local church can be likened to a group of plants. Some members try to plant their lives on one side of the road and they don't grow. Other members plant their lives in a good Bible-preaching church, where the weeds are pulled and water is poured out. These members experience growth. The local church is not something to neglect and the man of God called to preach to us is likewise someone we should not neglect nor take for granted.

Remember Spiritual Leadership

The first principle to understand is that members in the local church must remember spiritual leadership. In the book of Hebrews, Paul is writing to Hebrew believers, probably around Jerusalem. He is telling them to remember their pastors and to follow their leadership. What was true for the early church is still true this morning. Paul has some specific words for the early church with respect to their pastor in Hebrews 13:7,

"Remember them which have the rule over you, who have spoken unto you the Word of God." He tells them to remember or acknowledge their spiritual leadership. Later on in verse 17, Paul uses two words that can really go against our grain. It starts with "obey".

"Obey them that have the rule over you, and submit yourselves: for they watch for your souls, as they that must give account, that they may do it with joy, and not with grief: for that is unprofitable for you."

Obey and submit. These may be two words that don't sit well with us in today's world. There are lots of reasons why we don't want to submit to Godly authority. In the world view, we have a "you're not the boss of me" attitude. We're not eager to ask for Pastor's counsel because we think we know what he's going to say, and we don't want to hear it. But deep down, we know we can find it in Scripture for ourselves - we just don't want to. But there could be other reasons why we don't want to obey our Pastors. It could be that we've been at a church where the pastor overstepped his authority or "demanded" a loyal following, or perhaps he wasn't the man of God that he should have been. These are betrayals of trust, and the consequences of such abuse hurts many people in churches for many years all over the world. If a pastor is living the life of a pastor and is giving loving leadership, he won't have to demand anything of us. He will earn the respect and the following that God intends. A godly pastor will always give his church family a worthy example to follow through his preaching, but more importantly, his actions and his life will give us more sermons than anything else.

As individual Christians this morning, we must make the choice to follow the Word of God and actually give the remembrance and support that the Bible commands to our pastor.

Now that I've pumped up pastor to a level that is almost unattainable, I must add the caveat that regardless of pastors level of perfection or imperfection, we need to support him in his godly role of leader of this church; as undershepherd. We may not agree with everything he says about cats or Ford trucks, but when it comes to Biblical issues and principles, according to the Bible; according to our text this morning, we are to give remembrance to him.

Verse 24 of the same chapter in Hebrews is another reference to pastoral leadership. In verse 7, he says to remember them. In verse 17, he says to obey and to submit to them. In verse 24, he says to salute those who have the rule over you.

A salute is simply a greeting. It's an acknowledgment of an office. In the Army, we saluted all the time. I saluted countless officers regardless of if I knew them or not, and we should have the same respect for the office of any preachers who preaches in good standing in a like minded church. Now, having saluted countless officers, I remember one in particular who I saluted all the time. Captain Phelps. He was my captain. I was his driver when we would go out to the field. During the normal garrison time at Fort Lewis, Washington, I was working in an office outside his office, but we really got to know each other when we were in the field - living in each others way. Since he was my captain and I was his sergeant, there were a few things that were perfectly clear. One, he was in charge of me, and two, life was a lot easier when we got along.

Captain Phelps was usually a man who I could approach about things, but really only about really things relating to the Army. Since I was unsaved at the time, the people I would ask about more personal issues were my peers; my friends. What's amazing to me is how many people will go to their friends for advise on something that their friends have no experience or training in, instead of going to the person that God has put into your life for these situations. It's like facing a new subject in school and being introduced to a new concept that is completely foreign to the entire class, and asking a classmate for the answers to the homework. They don't know the answers any more than you do! The truly wise student isn't one who knows all the answers. The truly wise student knows to ask the teacher when they don't know. Now, here again, I need to fill in some blanks because I'm not telling you to go to Pastor for every little detail about life the universe and everything. For the most part, the Bible holds the answers that we need for most situations, but when there's an issue or a decision that you need to make - or not make as it turns out - pastor is the person God has put into our lives for further guidance.

This is another area and perhaps the first and most frequent one that the Devil fights us in. It's in this relationship with our pastor that should be open and honest. If you can't talk to your pastor about important issues of life, then you're selling yourself short because he is a God-given resource. You may also, if you feel the need to under certain circumstances talk to Mrs. Pastor - if you're a lady. If there's a struggle in your walk with God or some spiritual issue, why is it that Pastor is sometimes the last person we want to talk to? It is during these times in life that we try to avoid the Pastor. We slink out of church unnoticed; squeezing between the wall and the plants. And it is often at these times when we need this relationship the most. The Devil knows this and that is why he fights it.

Is there an issue even now that you've thought about that you know Pastor isn't completely aware of? If there a spiritual problem that you're facing, but you're choosing to face it alone? Why?

Proverbs 11:14 "Where no counsel is, the people fall: but in the multitude of counsellors there is safety."

Let Pastor be one of those counsellors whose opinion and godly counsel you lean on. I dare say that we might need to exclude some people from our list of advisors. Psalm 1:1 covers these situations, "Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly". Certainly, we should not be getting our spiritual guidance (if you will) from unsaved friends and family members. When we eliminate those people from our pool of counselors, the numbers drop pretty quickly. I wanted to continue with Proverbs 19:21, "There are many devices in a man's heart; nevertheless the counsel of the LORD, that shall stand", but instead of reading off the multitude of verses that recommend godly counsel and searching the Scriptures, I'll just say, "read Proverbs, and see what it says about godly counsel."

The book of Proverbs and all the verses we're going to cover here are not talking about a dictatorship or some kind of man-centered, fleshly honor. It is simply teaching us to maintain a healthy, Christ-honoring, and open relationship with our spiritual leaders - those who teach us the Word of God, those who pray for us, and those who lead us to follow Christ.

According to 1 Peter 5:2-3, pastors are not to be lords over God's people.

2Feed the flock of God which is among you, taking the oversight thereof, not by constraint, but willingly; not for filthy lucre, but of a ready mind;

3Neither as being lords over God's heritage, but being examples to the flock.

A Pastor may be defined as one who labors in the work of God, stays in the will of God, and is faithful to the Word of God.

In Acts 20:28 the Bible says that the Holy Ghost appointed the pastors to be overseers in the congregation.

"Take heed therefore unto yourselves, and to all the flock, over the which the Holy Ghost hath made you overseers, to feed the church of God, which he hath purchased with his own blood."

Ephesians 4:11-12 says that Christ "gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers; For the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ."

In God's structure of authority, He holds pastors accountable for how they steward that influence. God will hold pastor responsible for the direction of this church and for how he provided spiritual oversight for our lives. This is the first church that I think I ever heard this, and it's something I can find from Scripture, so A: it must be true and B: I'm thankful to be in a church like this because if Pastor believes it, he's going to take his calling that much more seriously.

Satan is doing his level best to disrupt this relationship. God will always bless a church that allows spiritual leadership to lead. The best thing a church can do for its pastor is to allow him to lead from a heart that follows God. We should also support pastor because stagnation will kill this church, and pastors with vision like what he sees on that patch of dirt outside there are few and far between.

As long as what pastor proposes is ethically, morally and doctrinally correct, the Bible says that the church is to lend a helping hand. This is what it means to remember spiritual leadership.

So, what's the message in Hebrews 13? If you're fed by Pastor's messages, and if you're growing in this church, then you have a duty to support our Pastor and this church until God calls you to something else. That's a choice that we can all make. We CAN choose to have the right spirit towards Pastor - because there's plenty who can choose a resentful spirit. Chose to be joyfully supportive - because some will bitterly oppose. Choose to pray for and love Pastor - because some will gossip and resist. Choose to remember, because some will forget.

Virtual Veils

2010-02-24T09:56:00.000-08:00

So, I'm not sure if I should be happy with my latest find or embarrassed. Here's the story...

Parallel question:
Why does the Muslim Sharia ( '‎شريعة ) law require women to cover their bodies head to toe? Simple, because they would tempt men. So, in one sense, I understand the argument that taken to an extreme, woman could be dressing immodestly without these "guidelines" (guidelines that will get you killed). But in another much more significant sense, shouldn't the men be controlling what they look at and lust over? Just a thought. Mail your letter bombs somewhere else, Ali.

Current scenario:
In a similar sense, while I do enjoy surfing the Internet and Googling and YouTubing and all that, I'm more and more often confronted with text and images that I find offensive. Now, that's my problem, right? RIGHT!

Now, NetNanny and the like can be used to prevent you from going to certain sites, but my keyboard and fingers should be able to do that for me as well. On the one side, I understand the need for accountability partners in this area, but that's not the point of my story.

The point of my story is that sometimes I'm at a site (say, YouTube) innocently looking at a video about bathroom remodeling or cruise destinations, and there's a comment on the page which uses language that a sailor wouldn't use.

That's the problem I'm trying to solve here. "WIBNI [wouldn't it be nice if] there was something that would read all your webpages before you did and replaced all the swear words with ***** ?"

Solution:
Poof! After a little searching, I found greasespot.net and userscripts.org. After searching around for a few minutes, I found exactly what I was looking for.

Goodbye Potty-mouths! Hello, safer, cleaner surfing experience.

H1NoSenseOfHumor

2010-02-23T16:25:00.000-08:00

I walked into a free H1N1 clinic at work today. Nurses were sitting with needles in their hands. People had their sleeves rolled up and there was the faint smell of rubbing alcohol in the air. "Oh, I'm sorry", I exclaimed. "I thought this was the H1B clinic."

Nobody got it. I closed the door behind me.

My Bible

2010-02-18T09:15:00.000-08:00

"To read the Bible in translation is to listen to the gentle whispers of our divine Creator through a wall." - jcolino

Our intent should not be to translate the very Word of God into a language that we can more easily understand. Our intent should be to bend ourselves to what God is clearly saying. When I first came across the word, and later the definition, of the word παράκλητος, I started down a path which I was completely unprepared for. Indeed, I don't give into pedantic study of the Word in order to puff myself up or to get the proper words to give in order to convict sinners. I study the Word because all other ships are sinking and these are the lifeboat instructions.

Grace again

2010-02-17T15:04:00.000-08:00

Mostly, I've been learning that grace is a place to fight sin from. When we're standing on the side of grace and salvation, sin has no power over us. Grace is not a hiding place because we've sinned. Grace is not a gift that should be taken advantage. And grace is not anything we can earn - and therefore it's nothing we can demand (read: nothing we deserve).

That's grace in a nutshell, but here's my lesson on grace from two weeks ago:

Let's turn to Romans 6:1:

Romans 6:1-15:
1What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound?

2God forbid. How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein?

3Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death?

4Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.

5For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection:

6Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin.

7For he that is dead is freed from sin.

8Now if we be dead with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him:

9Knowing that Christ being raised from the dead dieth no more; death hath no more dominion over him.

10For in that he died, he died unto sin once: but in that he liveth, he liveth unto God.

11Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord.

12Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that ye should obey it in the lusts thereof.

13Neither yield ye your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin: but yield yourselves unto God, as those that are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God.

14For sin shall not have dominion over you: for ye are not under the law, but under grace.

This somewhat lengthy section has a close similar to its opening.

"What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound?"

Nothing is more contradictory for me as a human being and as a sinner than the concept of grace. It's easy to give an illustration of trust like I did last time. It's easy to give a human story involving love and even selflessness. Many human emotions and actions are easy to describe in the form of a story, but grace is a bit trickier - at least as illustrated between two people. For that reason, I think I may be hovering on grace for a few weeks - or maybe God will lead me somewhere else, I don't rightly know just yet. But I do know one thing. I cannot learn about Grace without also learning about faith. And Grace and Faith are related and intertwined with forgiveness and righteousness. And parts of righteousness are often confused with obedience and the law, but all of these concepts are related in one way or another. It's a bit like juggling where all these concepts must be understood in concert.

Just like Bro. Rossi illustrated last week about eating out being related to our finances, many - in fact every - aspect of our lives are interwoven and either feed or are fed by every other aspect of our lives. All of the characteristics I just mentioned; grace, trust, faith, love, forgiveness, righteousness and all the others are all related, and there's usually a human quality or example that we can draw from.

But just as we saw illustrated last time that trust in fellow sinners was a completely different prospect than trust in God, examples of grace between ourselves are almost unheard of, however God's grace is the basis and cornerstone of our faith. It's not something we give God, like our trust. It's something God gives us. To the very largest extent, this is a one way road. God gives us grace and forgiveness and supplies all our needs. And all we are capable of giving God is surrender.

It doesn't sound fair, but that's why we're not likely to find grace in other people. As the old saying goes, "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me." The lesson that the world teaches about those in the world is to be on you guard. Look out for #1. In our modern vocabulary, the only grace I could find is the grace period on a credit card. When you purchase something and put the charge on a credit card, you're given a few days to pay it back, but you always need to pay it back. The credit card companies give some grace, but not much.

In contrast, God's promise of Grace to His children, and His power over sin is greater than even our best attempts to conquer our sin on our own. For me, when I'm at my best, on my best day, under my own strength the power that I have over sin is the spiritual equivalent of an ant trying to move mountains. We read in our verse this morning that we are under grace and not under the law and that should have an impact on our lives today. I wonder if we take the time to contemplate what Grace truly is. Grace describes the means by which we are granted salvation.

I'll say it again. "Grace describes the means by which we are granted salvation." Grace is not how we earn our salvation and grace is not anything we can deserve or work for or be obedient to. Salvation is granted by God's grace and God's grace alone. Salvation is the understanding and the acceptance of God's grace upon us. God's very nature and His overwhelming grace and favor for us caused Him to build a bridge and cross it on Calvary's hill when we were still so unwilling to obey.

God understands that we were incapable of obeying His laws, so He gives us grace.

When we understand that we are no longer under Law, but under grace – when we understand that we are forgiven, and that all our sins are paid for by Christ, and that God loves and forgives us through His grace – in other words, when we are standing on the ground of grace, then we are able to walk in the Spirit, the Holy Spirit Who is our strength, and the One who enables us to rise above sin.

As Romans 8:2 says, “For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death.”

Did you catch that? We're under a new law just like we're under a new master. We were once under the law of sin - slaves to sin, but now we're under the law of the Spirit and slaves to Jesus Christ.

When we walk in the truth of the grace of God in Christ, then that truth sets us free, and then the love and life of Christ flows through us, and sin loses it's power. Truth always sets you free.

But the lie that we are still under the Law, that following laws and rules are how we earn God's love and favor, that lie brings bondage. And that bondage repeats itself and strengthens itself.

I don't care how many times you repent of a sin, if your solution to that sin is going back to the law and buckling down to force yourself to obey that law, you will fail. Hasn't that often been your experience when you've tried to bring the flesh into subjection using the flesh?

When I talk to a lot of people and ask the question, "Do you know for sure that you're going to heaven?" I usually get the answer, "I don't know. I hope so." I sometimes ask them how they could know that they're going to heaven and the answer is usually the same. "Be a good person."

In my experience, people don't understand the simple principle that basing our thinking and our lives on Law or rules, has no power over sin. In fact, the Scripture says that “the power of sin is the law.” (1 Cor. 15:56)

What that means is that when we put the law into our thinking instead of grace, sin actually gains power over us. The Pharisees did something like that. They replaced obedience to God with a set of rules to follow. I know plenty of people who do that even now. But lives can be radically transformed when we realize the grace of God and accept His gift for what it is.

I mentioned before that illustrations of grace between humans was going to be difficult for me to come by. Then, over an In-n-out double-double & chocolate shake, it came to me like a beacon. Just over a week ago, I went to a kind of graduation. This was kind of a high school graduation. But kids don't graduate high school in January, right? You're right. This was the promotion of 4 young women who just a year prior were criminals, strung out of drugs and destitute. Their own words say it best, [paraphrasing] "When I sobered up after partying all night, drinking and taking drugs, I was in jail. I was three months pregnant and I was charged with driving under the influence. I had totaled my car, destroyed my life, and put the life of my unborn daughter in jeopardy. [here it is] But by the Grace of God, I'm getting my GED tonight, I've been clean and sober for 6 months and I have a relationship with Jesus Christ that I never thought I'd have."

"But by the Grace of God." Do we understand this morning that that's exactly our story too? But by the grace of God, we would be hopelessly lost and dying in unforgiven sin. That's what the grace of God has done for us. God's grace is where we find mercy and help. Hebrews 4:17, "Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need."

[To Whom Does God Give His Grace?]

It's God's grace that we need to seek for not just mercy and help, but for all things. And not just all things in the here and now, but all things for eternity, because under our own power, we're powerless. But who does God give His grace to? Well, my Bible says that God gives it to the humble.

The Humble:
Proverb 3:34, "Surely he scorneth the scorners: but he giveth grace unto the lowly."
James 4:6, "But he giveth more grace. Wherefore he saith, God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace unto the humble."

Since grace isn't anything we deserve and it isn't anything we can work for, it makes sense that we can't demand that God give it to us. We can, and indeed must, approach God's throne with humility and a contrite heart and thank God for His grace. And it's through the new covenent that God has made with His people that we can ever obtain grace.

These verses also point out who God does not give His grace to. Scorners and the proud. The word scorner here means literally, "to make mouth at". It means to mock or to scoff. The literal translation is really, "God will make mouth at those who make mouth at Him." Translated into a language I can understand, you don't want to get into a shouting match with God. God's opening move is checkmate. Beyond those who are in a futile word battle with God, there are the proud. Those who make themselves out to be above others, sure. But if we take the verse from the beginning of our chapter, Romans 6, we can draw a larger and more significant conclusion. "What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound?" Or let's skip just past our verse this morning to verse 15 of Romans 6, "What then? shall we sin, because we are not under the law, but under grace? God forbid."

Humility and brokenness are the only ways to approach God's throne of grace and once there, we must not abuse it. Before launching out and living in a life of sin, someone I know asked me about salvation and the question of whether anyone can ever loose their salvation. "So according to your church", he said, "once you're saved, you can never loose it." "Well", I responded, "according to the Bible that's correct."

"So, I can get saved, and then I can go out and kill someone, and it won't make any difference to my salvation? I'm still going to heaven?"

That's an interesting question. What does the Bible have to say about that? There is a person in the Bible who fits the profile of the actions this man was describing. His name is Judas. I'm not anyone's judge, but if someone had the notion that he could [finger quote] get saved, and then go out and commit murder, I would doubt if that person ever really got saved. The Bible gives an example of how people can misunderstand this salvation by grace through faith alone.

It's in Romans 3:8, "And not rather, (as we be slanderously reported, and as some affirm that we say,) Let us do evil, that good may come? whose damnation is just."

Paul understood grace so well, because he needed it so badly. It was by God's grace that he was able to become an apostle of Christ. Not because he relied on grace because he was always getting into trouble and falling into sin, but because he was standing on the side of grace and sin had no power over him. Let's go back now and read about God's grace starting in verse 11.

11Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord.

12Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that ye should obey it in the lusts thereof.

13Neither yield ye your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin: but yield yourselves unto God, as those that are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God.
14For sin shall not have dominion over you: for ye are not under the law, but under grace.

Grace

2010-02-10T09:31:00.000-08:00

I've been reading a lot about grace lately. Not from any Christian author's self-help book, not from any commentary on grace, but straight out of the Bible. Yep, it's in there, and you don't need a commentary to help you find it.

I'm not a big fan of commentary for the same reason that I'm not a fan of loose translations of the Word of God. I don't want to know what someone things a passage says. I WANT TO KNOW WHAT GOD SAYS! Study your Hebrew and Greek. You will be surprised.

But back to grace.

Testing testing 1-2-3

2010-01-25T16:00:00.001-08:00

What in the world is going on in this world?

Interesting Image Googling

2010-01-21T10:47:00.000-08:00

So, still hobbying around with the idea of the family and the decades, I did this just now, and you can too.

1. Go to Google's image server (advanced): --> link <--
2. Where it says, "related to all of the words", type in '1950s family' without the quotes.
3. Where it says, "Size - Return images that are:", select "large"
4. Click the "Google search" button.

Observations in this very unscientific approach.

1950s family - The first page of 18 photos yields:

14 photos of various families and family members

1 aerial photo of a house and farm

1 photo of a crime scene

1 magazine recipe

1 travel brochure for black vacationers (vacation & recreation without humiliation)

1960s family - The first page of 18 photos yields:

13 photos of various families and family members

2 photos involving houses

1 ad for a television

1 movie ad (from the 2004 release called "Falling Angels")

1 mafia family tree

1970s family - The first page of 18 photos yields:

12 photos of various families and family members (noticeably less formal)

2 houses (one in Poland)

2 ads for a synthesizer

1 family tree

1 family planning org logo

1980s family - The first page of 18 photos yields:

11 photos of various families and family members (2 from the 1920s)

Our first protest photo

1 family planning org logo (again)

A wine label

The Back To The Future car

1 house

Our first machine gun

1 family tree

1990's family - The first page of 18 photos yields:

13 photos of individuals or parts of families (1 from the 1920s shows a family)

2 commercial buildings

A train [did I mention that this was not scientific?]

A wine bottle

A sort of chart displaying total married / workers / children / etc.

So, what are the results of this very unscientific journey through the family over the decades? Over the last 50 or so years, I see via this Googling a decrease in family as a unit and an emergence of the individual. I've seen a decrease in the things that make up house and home, and an increase in things that don't unite families (recipes vs. wine bottles; houses vs. commercial property). I suspect that if I were to develop this observation further, I would find a decrease in family night of board games and an increase in individual televisions in everyone's rooms.

Conclusion: Off the cuff, I would conclude that the family that sticks together, sticks together. Insightful, eh?

Life On Earth - Fresh clues hint at how the first living organisms arose from inanimate matter

2010-01-05T16:44:00.000-08:00

Edited for humor:

Observation:
Science cannot explain the origin of life according to the lack of assertive statements in this article.

Conclusion:
"...and life as we know it began."

Edited Text:
... virtually impossible ... 3.7 billion years ago...Stanley L. Miller and Harold C. Urey... Thus, explaining how life began entails a serious paradox...suggest...could have been...may forever be lost...most difficult and interesting mysteries...against nature's tendency toward disorder or entropy...rapidly breaks down in even mildly alkaline solution...is not so obvious...seems promising...potential pathways...most intense frustration...does not lead to the spontaneous formation of a nucleotide...may have...inefficient at best...most cases unsuccessful...could have...perhaps...does not generate exclusively the "correct" nucleotides...still need a route...challenges remain...do not form spontaneously...not by itself solve the problem of the origin of life.

seems plausible...WE SELECTED...ONCE AGAIN WE SINGLED THOSE OUT (my note: so much for slaming Intelligent Design)...they fall short...unfortunately...required the presence of preexisting...far too long and complex to have accumulated spontaneously...WE mixed the templates...gaps in our understanding.

How on earth could a rudimentary protocell, lacking protein machinery, carry out these tasks?...probably...pose a formidable barrier...suggested...WE prepared...WE exposed...this process would not have started on its own.

Could be...perhaps...might have...their bag of chemical tricks (my personal favorite. The modern day equivalent of "and then a miracle happens")...and life as we know it began.

Taken from the article "Life on earth" by Alonso Ricardo and Jack W. Szorstak

Reflections

2009-12-30T13:53:00.000-08:00

O.K. So it's the end of the year, and I'm supposed to be writing about how I met or surpassed all my goals, yadda yadda yadda. But I never do that, and I don't make plans for the coming year other than - grow.

I would instead like to reflect on this. Do you suppose there were other cultures (perhaps the French, perhaps the Italians, perhaps someone completely foreign like Canada) who would look at American fashion in the 70's and ask themselves, "Are they for real?"

I mean, what were we thinking? Really!

Things I hate

2009-12-22T09:08:00.001-08:00

Hate? Yep, hate. I don't use that word very often. In fact, I hate using that word, but it's the only word I can find in my limited vocabulary to describe my feelings toward something. I've been around it for years, and it used to be invisible to me. I never really noticed it - it was like cigarette butts in the gutter, or gum on a wall. It's not pretty; it's not something you want to look at or pay attention to, but if you learn to hate it like I have, you'll want to do something about it. No. If you have the right attitude about it, you'll need to do something about it.

I'm talking about homelessness. 67 men and women died in San Jose this year and homelessness was a contributing factor. 82 people died last year. The average age of these people was 49. That's nearly 30 years younger than the national average! Can you imagine that in America today, there's a sector of our population where the life expectancy is 49!?

I can think of nothing more selfish than to pass these people by as if they don't exist. I can think of nothing more disrespectful to my direct orders (1 John 3:17) than to hurry on my errands without stopping to help them in some small way - because they don't matter. I can think of nothing more arrogant than to wish them peace and joy, and not meet any of their needs. They don't exist. They're gum on a wall. They're nothing, nobody, tramps, bums, hobos. They're boxcars and a jug of wine.

Many of "us" would think that "they" are homeless for a reason: drugs, alcohol, selfishness, laziness, etc.. I would submit that we're not called to get them off drugs or alcohol or even to fix them up and get them a job. We're called to love them, and (since they're also people) to give them the Good News. We're called to point them to Who can get them off drugs, off alcohol, off the streets, and onto the path of mercy and grace. We're called to do these things directly. Of that, there can be no alternate interpretation of Scripture. But to be sure, they won't care how much we know until they know how much we care.

But there are so many. There are so many homeless people, and too many to make a difference. To you, I submit the following. An old man was walking along the beach during an unusually low tide. As a result of the tide, thousands of starfish were washed ashore. The sun was shining and it was a beautiful day, but the sun and heat were killing the starfish at a rapid rate. In the distance, the old man spotted a small figure running back and forth between the shore and the edge of the water. As he got closer, he saw a young boy picking up starfish one by one and throwing them back into the ocean - to survival.

The man was struck by the futile efforts of the boy. After all, there were starfish as far up and down the beach as you could see. The old man walked toward the young boy and called out to him. "You must be crazy", he said, "The beach is covered with these starfish. You can't possibly make a difference." The boy reached down and picked up a starfish and threw it back into the ocean. He turned to the man and said, "I sure made a difference to that one!"

Below are the names of those homeless people who died in 2009. You can make a difference in the life of a homeless person today, so their name will not be on this list next year.

Source: EHC LifeBuilders

Janell Alarid
Gregorio Alvarado-Rodriquez
Edward Atherton
Viola Bailey
Ramon Barajas
Medina Bernardo
Ryan Buck
Nicandro Canseco
Ronald Ceglio
Israel Chapa
Jose Cortez
Stephen Creal
Mary Lou DeRosa
Nung Duong
Michael Eagan
David Escobar
Benjamin Espinoza
Kimo Fernandez
Neil Fitzpatrick
Chareles Gadbery
Mark Gale
Norine Gallager
Henry Garcia
Heise Kimberly
Daniel Hopkins
David Huang
Jeffrey Ivers
Martin Jensen
Colby Jervis
David Johnson
Julia Jones
James Leary
Michael Leyden
Kenneth Loyola
Phillip McLaughlin
Cheryl Ann Mendoza
Richard Michels
Bill Mix
Gaylen Mix
Lois Moore
Bruce Morowski
Theodore Nelligan
Alfonso Nuno
Robin Oreglia
Russell W. Paquette
Joseph Paul
Kathryn Powell
Vivian Riley
Rita Rodriquez
Anthony Rodriquez
John Ryan
Kelly Smith
Deally Som
Barry Sterns
David Studt
Tom Sullivan
William Teixeria
Allison M. Thomas
Gregory Thompson
George Tyson
Debra Wakayama
Lindon West
Thomas White
Tommy Williams
Carl Wiseman, Jr.
Rickey Young

So many choices

2009-12-21T19:59:00.001-08:00

I've been thinking about organizing these thoughts for quite a while, but I haven't had the time to concentrate on it all at once. There's a lot to get your head around, and it took me over 3 months to do this study a few years ago. It all started when I found a scripture verse that I wanted to know more about, so I did some Googling. Much to my surprise, the word translated was not the word I thought it was at all. It was the equivalent of using the phrase, "someone to hold you and keep you warm and kiss your head and make it all better" versus "someone who will fight in battle along side you and will join his weapons with yours in war." Pretty different, eh? But what image do you think of when you hear the word "comforter"?

Basically, in non-chronological order, I did some research. One thing was clear right away. Ask yourself this question, "How many words do I want changed in my Bible from the original text?" Pretty stupid question, right, but if you learn copyright law as I had to for this study, I discovered that in order to make copyrighted material out of previously existing material, you need to change ever 300th word. I don't know about you, but I don't want my Bible changed just so some money grubber can get their copyright on God's Word.

Now, do this - if you dare. Go to your favorite Bible. Open its cover and look for a copyright. Does it have one? If so, and if it was copyrighted in America, one of every 300 words is changed from the text they got it from. That's what publishers do. They copy from previous editions of the Bible, and unless your Bible was published by a company that was in business around the year 33 A.D., there are some words that were changed. It's the law! The only exception I've found is the Dollar Store Bible where only the cover design is copyrighted.

O.K. now that you have your Bible in your hand, take a look at another page or at the spine. Does it have the name of the publisher on it? Mine did to. I did some research on who some of these people were and I was shocked to find something out. I won't tell you the name of the publisher, but let me ask you another question. Who do you want to get your Word of God from? Would you be willing to get it from a Christian organization? O.K. Would you be willing to get it from the same company who also published Penthouse magazine? Didn't think so. Do the research yourself, you may be as shocked as I was.

I'll leave it at that for now, but as long as you have your Bible in your hand, READ IT! Here are some passages to look at along with some questions that may or may not be answered in your version. I'm not the first to find these differences, but since finding them, I've thrown away all but one 'version' of my Bible.

Luke 4:4 - What DO we live by? Is it by every word of God or something else or was that part removed?

1 Timothy 3:16 - Who appeared in the flesh? God or Man?

Romans 14:10 - Whose judgement seat will we stand before? God's White Throne of Justice or Jesus' Bema Seat?

John 6:47 - We should have belief, but belief in what? Is that explained in this verse or is it removed?

1 Peter 4:1 - Christ suffered but why? Is that explained in this verse or is it removed?

Luke 2:33 - Who is the father of Christ in this passage?

Isaiah 7:14 - Some translations say a young woman will give birth to Immanuel

Here's a graphic I'm working on to depict how the Bible had been translated over the years from 33 AD+/- through the 4th century. There's not enough to keep the interest of my readership to go into the historical practices of keeping or dumping Bible transcripts. There's not enough entertaining verve to explain how we got here, but I'll close with this: The Word of God is not a book like any other. After all, "God means what he says. What he says goes. His powerful Word is sharp as a surgeon's scalpel." (the message)

Snowcastles and Sandmen

2009-12-14T12:32:00.000-08:00

I still don't like the rain. Some people love this weather, but I really don't care for it. Everything gets wet and muddy, and I've managed to track some mud onto my new carpet. [sigh]. So, give me water, but don't give me rain. I can do without the rain.

The exceptions being on both extremes of course. I love the rain when it's 85 degrees outside and I'm at the bottom of the ocean in the Caribbean. I really enjoy that. I loved taking a day off and making sand castles in Aruba too. Nearly everything about the Caribbean is appealing to me. Sun, ocean, scuba, white sand, shells...

I'm also somewhat fond of making snowmen in the winter. No award winning, monster snowmen. Just your basic 3-sphere variety with sticks and rocks for decoration. I wonder though...

I wonder why we make castles out of sand and people out of snow?

I can justify anything

2009-12-11T14:55:00.000-08:00

I just encountered myself doing what I keep trying not to do. Justify things. You see, I really don't want it to rain tomorrow because a group of us are hoping to go ice skate downtown - outside - where ice skating should be done. Then, we want to go see Christmas in the Park. Well, if you look outside, you start wondering how that's going to happen with all that wet stuff coming down.

So, what do I do? I go to the weather websites, weather.com, wunderground.com, even goingtorain.com. Unfortunately, they all say it's going to rain tomorrow. So, what do I do next? I keep looking for at least one weather website that will tell me that it won't rain tomorrow. "Isn't it interesting", I thought. Isn't it just like us? When we aren't hearing what we want to hear from the proper authorities (say, the weather service, or our parents, or the Bible), we start asking around until we find people that will agree with what we want.

I'm guilty. 100% guilty of doing this today. I want to change the forecast, so I'm asking around until I get an opinion that I agree with. How many people look for the right answers "inside themselves" or "from a trusted friend [who is also just as uninformed as we are]" or from any other source except the authority?

Now, please take this blog entry the right way. Don't come back and say, "Who are you to judge where I should be getting my weather from? How do you know your weather person is right? I can show you plenty examples of how your weather service doesn't know a thing. It's just made up anyway." O.K. if you're dead set against listening to the weather service, I suppose you're free to believe whatever you feel. You can come up with your own weather forecast and you can make it whatever you want. You can use the weather service of inner light for all your decisions. But - and here it comes - that doesn't change the weather.

That's where the "don't shoot the messenger" thing comes in. Do we blame the weatherman for bad weather? Usually not. Do we blame physicists for injuries when we fall because they keep telling us about gravity? Hopefully not. The weatherman is charged with giving the weather - good or bad. Physicists are charged with telling people about gravity. And we are - I am - charged with telling people about how to be free. Not some man made freedom that just makes us feel good inside but truly free. The trouble is not that people don't believe me. The trouble is that people don't believe God. Until it rains.

When did things change?

2009-12-10T12:12:00.001-08:00

Photo: Wedding Pants

So, during my last cruise, I decided to pose this question to the Greatest Generation. "When did women stop wearing dresses?" The responses were interesting and always sparked further conversation. The question that I didn't think about until much later was, "When did men stop wearing suits?"

Seriously, I look at pictures from the 30's and 40's and I see almost all men wearing suits and many of them still wearing hats.

So, as far as the original question goes, here's what I found out from my traveling companions (i.e. 3,000 strangers).

About a century ago, Coco Channel designed a pant-suit for ladies that was a horrible flop. Women weren't ready for those futuristic unitards and they weren't very flattering. Enter WWII. While the men went off to fight in Europe, the women were left behind to run the factories. This meant overalls, which were almost completely identical in form and function of Coco Channel's design. Women wore them and they ended up liking them. They were warmer in the winter and "frumpy" for lack of any better term. After all, there were no men to impress with their figures and they were certainly more comfortable than dresses.

When our boys returned from war, the overalls turned into pants, and it stuck.

So, the next question I had was, "When did women start wearing tight pants?" The answer was without exception, Audrey Hepburn.

While dresses are still popular (although no longer exclusive) at formal events, one wonders when things like the wedding dress will be a thing of the past. How about tuxedos?

Dive Blog & ξένος φόβος (xenophobia)

2009-12-08T08:27:00.000-08:00

I've been tinkering with my new domain (http://www.diverstemptations.com). I'd like to organize all my diving pictures and put them up for a couple of reasons.

Give people an idea of what to expect when they visit different areas from Monterey to the Red Sea
Remind me of what Caribbean islands had the best diving. Example: I think St. Lucia was just a bit better than Bonaire despite the hype. Either way though, a clear day in Monterey is just as good if not better than most of the Caribbean. [true]
Sneak in a Bible verse to hopefully make people think...

... Why divers temptations? The Bible verse is James 1:2, "My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations;" Does that mean that we should welcome temptation? Well, sorta. One of the points I'd like to make about this passage is that we're mostly limited to English for our translation of the Bible. Some people (read: large corporations) have taken some time to read this passage and create their own interpretation and called it trials (NIV), troubles (NLT), tests (GW), etc.. But [shocker] none of these are the in the original Greek. The real word is πειρασμός.

What needs to happen then, if you hope to understand the Bible for yourself and not rely on the translations of anyone else, is to understand the history of the word πειρασμός. Study its true meaning. How was this word used in other texts (Sacred and Secular) at the time this word was penned?

That's one reason why I don't really care for commentary. I don't want another derivative of what God is saying. I want to be as close to the source as I can humanly get. I don't want a stranger telling me what the Bible says. There's enough mud between God's mouth and my ears.

O.K. All that is just my opinion. Let's run a thought experiment then, shall we?

Imagine that you want to read the Bible in its original tongue, but you only understand English. Many of us fall into that category. So, you ask someone to translate it for you to read. You don't know the person you've asked to do this, but you pay him, and he does it. He translates the Bible for you and gives it to you in a nicely bound book with gold embossing on the cover that states boldly, "Holy Bible". He has plenty of credentials that show why he's more qualified for the job than anyone else (their opinion).

Neat eh? But who was really in charge of deciphering the words from their original into your language? Whose words are they now? What if you discovered that the person who owned the translation that you purchased (with its leather cover and fancy gold embossing) also publishes Penthouse magazine? What if they also publish Star Magazine (grocery store tabloid). What if they also ran porn channels on cable t.v.? Would you have any reason to be concerned over the accuracy of the people who own the translation you hold so dearly?

After discovering that, I went home and threw away every Zondervan Bible I owned. Xenophobia: A dislike and or fear of that which is unknown or different from oneself. The moral fabric of Zondervan is different from my own and I cannot consciously justify funding their operation.

And Johnny jumps off his soap box.

The space between chapters

2009-12-01T19:04:00.000-08:00

Well, I'm back again. After a total 17 days on cruise ships, it's going to take some getting used to doing things for myself. I mean, I had to make my own bed today, and I'm stuck with Lucky Charms for dinner - again. At any rate, I hope to "wow" 'em for Christmas dinner. I'm making a roast and my yummy salad (spinach leaves, fresh raspberries, candied pecans, crumbly gorgonzola cheese, love).

At any rate, yes, I'm been away from my blog for entirely too long and I think it's time to get back into the swing of things. I'm apparently done with Facebook and the big time sponge that it was. It's time to collect some thoughts, pray for direction and take it.

I should be taking some of my own medicine. The Lord's Leading was my Sunday school lesson from Psalm 5. The Lord's leading is also my life verse, "Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts: And see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting."

There's still some significant questions out there that He hasn't answered yet in terms of direction, but my choices are limited as a response. I can choose to wait, or I can choose not to wait. Personally, I think it's safer to wait on Him. In the back of my head though - I know. I know the way you know something is inevitable.

My future is out there. What scares me though is that it looks a lot like where I am now. Not that life is bad or anything now. I'm growing spiritually (that won't change - err, that will always change - aw, you know what I mean); I've got my health; a great job; and a dog that loves me no matter what. I just thought things would be different; ya know?

2009-10-19T13:46:00.001-07:00

Your Facebook account has been deactivated. Thank you for playing. Time to move back into my blog for a while.

One Book, Many Ways

2009-07-22T13:13:00.000-07:00

In discussing things of faith with people of different Christian faiths, I'm starting to discover something. Actually, something is beginning to gel in my head and give me a more clear vision for some questions that need to be answered. Some beliefs that need to address disbeliefs in others.

Without being confrontational, there are simple, basic, fundamentals of Christianity that even "Christians" don't agree about. I want to start a series which will discuss these key points, but I want to start off with the understanding that this conversation is not for everyone. This conversation will deal with Christianity in its most basic sense. This conversation will take place independent of anything that people have heard, or what people have been believing for many many years, or tradition, or anything - because ultimately, our opinions and insights don't matter. God does. This conversation will focus on Biblical questions, and it is my hope that we will get Biblical answers.

The first question is: Why are we here?

What does the Bible say about our purpose on earth? What's the point? What Bible verses give us an understanding of why we're here?

Face The Music

2009-06-22T07:40:00.000-07:00

Here's a copy of the Sunday School lesson I gave yesterday. It's here only for my reference. If you don't think it pertains to you, it doesn't. I may or may not start posting my Sunday School lessons after I give them, and I may or may not post the ones I've already given. Dunno.

If you've never heard or read "Sinners in the hands of an angry God", then I suggest you read that first.

-- ==================================================

2009.06.21.PreciousFaith.9

Face the Music
(was: Sinners in the hands of an angry God, but someone already got that title)

Associated Press
Posted: 06/17/2009 09:16:07 AM PDT

LOS ANGELES

After nearly being caught for stealing copper wire from a San Fernando Valley warehouse, a burglary suspect tried to evade police by hiding in a narrow storm drain under a busy freeway for 12 hours. The suspect resisted multiple applications of tear gas, a police dog, negotiators, an improvised plunger and a professional urban search & rescue firefighter. Finally, wedged in the storm drain 18 inches wide, 80 feet long and 30 feet under ground, he called his girlfriend, and she called Channel 7 news.

KABC-TV news reporter, Leo Stallworth was granted an interview over the phone with him which went like this:

Stallworth asked, "The question is, why won't you come out?"

"'Cause I hate leaving my freedom," the man said from inside the pipe.

"You're in a storm drain. Is there any freedom in there?" Stallworth asked. "At some point you're going to have to face the music."

Isn't that true? At some point, everyone's going to have to face the music. At some point, we're all going to die and face a holy and just God.

When some people hear the term, "the wrath of God", the image that immediately leaps to mind is a big all-powerful hammer of an angry God coming down to violently smoot those rebels who don't do what they ought to. But the Scriptures describe a much deeper concept of this part of who God is. The Bible describes the wrath of God as the act of his moral integrity. God's wrath is just; it's right; it's His prerogative and, if I may, his duty as a Holy and perfectly good God.

Leonardo da Vinci said it this way, "He who does not punish evil, commands it to be done."

You see, God formed the stars from nothing and told them to swirl in their galaxies until He tells them to do something else. God formed the Earth by speaking it into existence and told it to circle around the Sun along with the other planets, and they do. He created the ocean and told the waters exactly how far they could come up to shore, and it obeys. He created every animal and every plant, and they went forth and multiplied and carried out the perfect will of God. And He created man, and told him how *he* ought to behave, and man said, "No!".

That's a problem. That's why we're here. We're not here to get as much stuff as we can get and squirrel it away in the biggest house we can get our hands on and drive around in the biggest SUV that we can't afford in the first place. But I'm not against those things if you want them. We're here for one reason and one reason only. To know and do the will of God who created us, but our time to do so is precious short.

There's been a lot of talk lately about birthdays - about getting older. Pastor just turned 40. Brother Morris is about to turn 30. Miss Roy just turned something, and most of us have had a birthday in the past 365 days. So, I started thinking about why there was all this fear and trepidation about getting older. We're all getting older at the same rate. But then I thought that some may be thinking that they aren't where they thought they'd be when they turned whatever age they are.

Life may or may not turn out the way you thought it would, but what about the eternity of time after this life? Is that going to turn out the way you're hoping? Eternity's going to last a lot longer than some 100 years down here.

I want you all to know that it is my earnest prayer that the will of God is for you to find the mate He has for you. In this brief time of life, you may or may not get married though. You may or may not have 10 kids. I had 10 kids just this last week. All boys. I don't think I'll be having 10 kids - all boys, but I may or may not. You may or may not do and be a lot of things while you put time behind you in your walk through this life, but it is my hope that above all of that, you will enter in the narrow gate when all is said and done. Everything else that you see and do and experience and are and all the minutia that you're going to go through during this lifetime is nothing save the cause of Christ. Everything else is vapor. It doesn't matter when compared to the eternity that you're going to spend in one of two places.

We're going through the book of 2 Peter, so open your Bibles with me to 2 Peter 2:9.

"The Lord knoweth how to deliver the godly out of temptations, and to reserve the unjust unto the day of judgment to be punished."

Everyone has ahead of them, an appointment with God. There is going to be a day of judgment, a day or reckoning. When we think about the subject of judgment in the Bible, we must consider the judgment of sin. When Christ died for us, He took our sins in His own body on that tree, and God judged our sins in the body of the Lord Jesus Christ. End of lesson.

But...

So many millions - billions of people are living as is that day will never come. They are living as if there will be no judgment, but be assured, there is a meeting in your future. If we are truly children of God, we have a holy obligation - a holy command to tell people about this appointment that they're going to keep. But, I also need to ensure that you know as well that that day is coming.

The Bible speaks of the judgment of sin. When the Lord Jesus went to the cross, He paid our sin debt in full. God took the sin debt of the whole world and laid it on Jesus Christ. When Jesus Christ became sin for us, a holy, righteous God punished sin in the body of His own Son. He who knew no sin died, "... that we might be made the righteousness of God in him." (1 Cor 5:21).

The Bible says in Hebrews 2:9 that the Lord Jesus tasted death for every man. I understand this to mean that every filthy, ungodly sin that has ever been committed in humanity was paid for by Christ on Calvary. The wrath of a holy and just God was unleashed on the Son of God and God judged sin when Christ died for our sins on that cross... My cross.

In 1 Corinthians 11:31, the Bible speaks about the judgment of self. Let's all turn there and read what it says.

"For if we would judge ourselves, we should not be judged."

How do we know we're Christians? How do we know that we're saved? Are you saved because you walked down and aisle one Sunday morning and someone walked you through a few verses in the Bible and you nodded in agreement but inside there was no transformation? Are you saved because there was a time in your life that you wrote a date in the cover of your Bible to remind you that you prayed a prayer one time? Does your life bare out that day? Does your life bare out that promise from God?

Turn over a few pages to 2 Corinthians 13:5:

"Examine yourselves, whether ye be in the faith; prove your own selves. Know ye not your own selves, how that Jesus Christ is in you, except ye be reprobates?"

A Christian is called to examine themselves. Compare your life with Scripture to see if you are saved. A Christian is called to judge themselves when they sin and immediately confess that sin to God alone - according to Scripture. As David said, "against God and God alone have I sinned." That confession can't save you, but if you find your prayer life as one of continually confessing and apologizing to God for a sinful life that you just can't shake, you need to take some serious time to examine yourself. Examine your life. Unfortunately, I won't have time to develop this subject of repentance this morning, but repentance is a key component of your salvation.

Romans 6:1
"What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound?"

Romans 8:6-8
"For to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace.
Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be.
So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God."

Galatians 6:8
"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."

James 4:4
"Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God."

Can you be saved and still be an friend to this world? I don't know how many enemies of God are going to be in heaven, but I don't think it could be that many, and I know I don't want to be one of them. [hyperbole]

[THE JUDGMENT SEAT OF CHRIST]

Switching back into today's lesson for Christians, the Bible speaks of the Judgment Seat of Christ, where Christians will stand before Jesus. This is not a judgment to determine where we're going for eternity. That will have already been determined by what you've done with Christ in this life.

1 Corinthians 3:9-15

For we are labourers together with God: ye are God's husbandry, ye are God's building.
According to the grace of God which is given unto me, as a wise masterbuilder, I have laid the foundation, and another buildeth thereon. But let every man take heed how he buildeth thereupon.
For other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ.
Now if any man build upon this foundation gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, stubble;
Every man's work shall be made manifest: for the day shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire; and the fire shall try every man's work of what sort it is.
If any man's work abide which he hath built thereupon, he shall receive a reward.
If any man's work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss: but he himself shall be saved; yet so as by fire.

I still hold that this passage is telling me that when all is said and done and every work and every good deed be it either helping an old lady across the street or gifting a million dollars to this church for the building project, everything - EVERYTHING will burn away and all that will be left are my motives. Verse 13, "... and the fire shall try every man's work of what sort it is."

[The Great White Throne]

The Bible also speaks of the Great White Throne Judgment. Jesus Christ will sit on the Great White Throne - His holy and pure throne - and judge every unsaved person who has ever lived and died. They will be brought before Christ, not to determine whether they are going to heaven or hell, but to determine how severe they will be punished.

Luke 12:48:

"But he that knew not, and did commit things worthy of stripes, shall be beaten with few stripes. For unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall be much required: and to whom men have committed much, of him they will ask the more."

The Great White Throne is discussed and described further in Rev 20:11-15.

So, all of that was introduction. First in our outline this morning, I want you to notice in our verse the power of our sovereign God. When we come to 2 Peter 2:9, we find the Spirit of God giving Peter the words to summarize verses 4 through 8. We see here the power of our sovereign God.

The Bible says in verse 9, "The Lord knoweth..." Have you ever worked with someone who did something they shouldn't have done, and you wondered if the person in charge knew about it? We serve a sovereign God who knows all things. Nothing has ever escaped Him. Not only have the words and deeds not escaped God, but no thoughts we have ever had can escape Him either.

What do you think it's going to be like when the thoughts of men are made public in the day of judgment? Our God is sovereign, all mighty, all-powerful, and all knowing.

In Psalm 1:1-6, the Bible says:

¹Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful.

²But his delight is in the law of the LORD; and in his law doth he meditate day and night.

³And he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth his fruit in his season; his leaf also shall not wither; and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper.

⁴The ungodly are not so: but are like the chaff which the wind driveth away.

⁵Therefore the ungodly shall not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous.

⁶For the LORD knoweth the way of the righteous: but the way of the ungodly shall perish.

I know that I can get worked up when I see that things are not being done the way they ought to be done. I know how I feel in my flesh when I see someone cheating at life and getting away with something. I ask myself, "How can they be getting away with that?" But when my thoughts clear I realize that nobody is getting away with anything. Our confidence and faith must be in the God who is all-powerful and all-knowing. It is 100% under His control.

I find that I get along much better with other people on the road when I realize that God is in control. He knows what he's doing and He is going to take care of business with everyone on the 101. But a freeway example is so benign. How about when someone gets the promotion in front of you, even though you were clearly the best qualified? How about when someone takes something that is clearly yours? I've had some first hand experience with people taking and boasting about what they got away with from me. People who call themselves Christian, but people who will ultimately not answer to me. I've had to live with the consequences of the decisions made by others, but ultimately, they are not answerable to me. My job is to forgive them, and that's not always easy, but forgive we must. The problem is then not between you and them, but between them and God.

In Amos 4:12, the Bible says, "Prepare to meet thy God". Have you prepared to meet God? The only way to do this is to trust in His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, as your Savior and yield your life to Him by asking Him to forgive your sin and come into your life. But when you ask, you can't do it with your mouth only.

As Christians, those of us who have come to Him need to be living lives of obedience to Him. One thing that disturbs me greatly is that so many people professing to be Christians seem insincere about their faith. Does God ever deal with you? Does God ever chasten you? Are you ever convicted? If I could not answer 'yes' to these things, I would seriously doubt that I had been born again.

In America, we have developed such a casual Christianity. We do just enough to say, "I go to church. I have the right Bible. I go to Sunday School." All across America though, there are people who are professing this, but in the last days, what will Christ say to them?

But there's good news in this morning's lesson. God delivers the godly and reserves the unjust for punishment. So secondly, notice the Promise to Deliver. "The Lord knoweth how to deliver the godly out of temptations, and to reserve the unjust unto the day of judgment to be punished."

God performs a dual work for Christians. He begins by saying He will deliver you out of temptations. I want you to think about that promise. Remember, [1 Cor 10:12-13] "There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man: but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it." God makes a way of escape from temptation for us by the indwelling Holy Spirit. He gives us power to say, "Lord, help me in this moment to have victory and not yield to this." There's a secular saying, "Lead me not into temptation, I can find it myself." Sin involves a conscious, willing choice. Sin is not something that sneaks up on you and says, "Ha! I got you! You sinned!" That's not how it works at all. If sin catches you by surprise, you need to take another serious look at some things in your life to see why you're not on the lookout for seeing it a long way off. Or better still, you should be resting in the general will of God, and it will become very easy to see sin sneaking up on you.

Lastly, we see the Punishment of sin. God says, "...and to reserve the unjust unto the day of judgment to be punished." I knew a man in junior college who was actually never tempted by sin. Do you believe that? Never tempted by sin. In fact, whenever he saw temptation a long way off, he'd run toward it and jump headlong right into sin. While he may not have experienced any of the heartache or suffering that his sin would result in immediately, you can bet that God's going to deal with him eventually. Unfortunately, I was too young a Christian in junior college to understand what I needed to do, but I suspect that if I had shared the gospel with him, he would be in more trouble for hearing it. That's because in Luke 12:47, the Bible says:

⁴⁷And that servant, which knew his lord's will, and prepared not himself, neither did according to his will, shall be beaten with many stripes.

⁴⁸But he that knew not, and did commit things worthy of stripes, shall be beaten with few stripes. For unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall be much required: and to whom men have committed much, of him they will ask the more.

⁴⁹I am come to send fire on the earth; and what will I, if it be already kindled?

Those who hear and know, but do not obey, get many stripes. Those who do not know and do not obey are still going to be punished, but with fewer stripes. It would appear in this line of Scripture that there are different levels of punishment in hell. The book of Matthew in chapter 11, verse 20-24 also seems to indicate this by saying that it would be "more tolerable for the land of Sodom in the day of judgment, than for thee."

There are lots of places out there that don't have the Gospel yet. In many countries, the Word has not yet reached them by missionaries. In contrast, most of us own more than one Bible. Jesus taught that it was going to be a horrible thing to go to hell if you're from Capernaum and unsaved. And of all the nations in the world today, I believe the worst place to go to hell from is America because we have so much Bible, so much light, so much opportunity to know God and for Him to know us. But the devil has made a nest here. He's on t.v. peddling prosperity gospel and using leather bound books with gold letters that say "Bible" on them. The devil is trying to get you to gloss over your salvation. I believe in my heart that the devil goes to every church service and preys on the weak ones afterward.

That's why we're here. We're not here to punch our ticket. We're not here because we're expected to be here. We're not here because our parents are here. We're here for one reason and one reason only. To know and do the will of God who created us, but our time to do so is precious short. Know that you're in the will of God. Know that you're saved - examine yourself, examine Scripture and see if you are saved.

"Why call me Lord, Lord and do not the things I say?" "Many will say to me on that day, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name drive out demons and perform many miracles?' Then I will tell them plainly, 'I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!'"

Are there gaps in your "religion"?

2009-06-04T10:55:00.000-07:00

Or, Gaps vs Goo

Question posed to me: "Why does it matter what religion you belong to, if you believe in God is that not enough? I am interested to know how religious believers justify the gaps in various doctrine."

My Answer (from a scientists perspective):

Satan believes in God. Is that enough? And enough for what? I'll presume you're asking what is enough to go to heaven, but that's a bit selfish, isn't it? "Just give me enough details so I can escape this 'hell' that everyone is talking about (if one even exists)."

That's called "fire insurance" and is not real salvation. That's the kind of religion with holes and gaps in doctrine. True salvation is whole and complete and complements itself throughout what we call the Word of God; the Bible. We need not add anything to it, and we dare not take anything away from it.

There are basic fundamental truths that are out there, that so many in the world reject because they contradict their thinking. But why should the universe conform to our way of thinking? Why should our finite brains have any power over the power of God (or god)? But that's exactly what most of religion has done - attempted to explain or ignore basic universal truths in order to make people feel good about where they are. Mostly by giving them a vague promise of what is to come (heaven, reincarnation, 70 virgins, etc.).

So, what is truth? What is the truth without gaps and without holes and without man made rules? For any truth to be known, it has to be tested and evaluated and it needs to come out unblemished and just as complete and whole on the way out as it did on the way in.

When I rhetorically ask my fellow scientists, "So one day, we had primordial goo, and the next day, we had goo that could think?" They shrug their shoulders at me. They don't have the answer, but they're sure that's how it worked. So, I put it through the test. A computer program to check the validity of chaos into order.

If you're not familiar with the "Infinite number of monkeys" thought experiment, it goes something like this. If you had an infinite number of monkeys all typing on an infinite number of typewriters for an infinite amount of time, eventually one of them would type the complete works of Shakespeare from start to finish without a single typo. So, take that principle and instead of applying it to writings, apply it to the human Genome. And instead of an infinite amount of time, you have what the scientists hold to; hydrogen turning into bonded hydrogen and having this conversation by pushing oxygen through meat in about 14 billion years. Kind of a neat trick if it works. So, how did I go about doing it?

I took 30 simple elements of hydrogen, oxygen and carbon and isolated them in a synthetic petre dish (this is a computer simulation) so they wouldn't be interfered with by other elements (a pristine situation), and I let time have its way - accelerated of course because I do not have 14 billions years to run this test. The best result I've had so far after running this several times is after 70.6 billion iterations of trying to randomly self assemble into a compound that I have predefined, they got 18 of the 30 letters in the right place. Mathematically, they would get all 30 correct a bit after the sun is expected to burn out. The other results were within 1% of each other, so this leads me to believe that this is a pretty common result.

Now, supposing we had an ideal situation where it actually finished (around the time the sun burns out) and I get a chain of 30 elements together at random into the exact shape needed (because the primordial goo didn't know what its final shape was going to be, right?). Now, I need to run that experiment sequentially and 100% successfully 246 million more times. That's right! That's about 246 million sun lifetimes. "O.K.", you're thinking, "So then what do you get? A Human?"

Sorry. After that, congratulations! You have 1/24th of the human genome. You still need to run THAT complete set of runs 100% successfully 24 more times in order to have the complete human genome come out the other end.

Now, if you're into math, you can figure this out on your own, but the odds of this happening even once is beyond astronomically rare. About 1,000 sun lifetimes - keep in mind that we are told by science that we live near a 3rd generation star (3 sun lifetimes).

But this doesn't even begin to approach the issue of "Why do we think?" or "Where is the kindness gene?" or "Why do we feel bad when we hurt others?"

14 billion years isn't enough time to make goo that can reproduce, but science would have you to believe that it's enough time for hydrogen to have emotion. That takes more faith than I have.

On the other hand, there is the spooky word "religion", which attempts to convince its followers that they have all the answers. Science mocks them. But there's something that can't be explained away when science and atheism look at it. While there are no scientists who were eyewitnesses of evolution (macro not micro), there are eyewitness accounts (Luke 1:1-4) in the Bible of those who saw the miracles performed by Jesus first hand. They saw him hang and die on a cross, and they saw him alive three days later. Eyewitness accounts!

So, are there gaps in my faith? No. Why? Because I know that I know that I know without a doubt that there isn't nearly enough time for hydrogen to become the tree you see outside your window. So, it must be something else. I know beyond a shadow of doubt that there is a higher reality beyond what you can see or touch or taste. That force, that power, that "creator" has a name, and we call Him, God.

Knowing that, there are further truths that I cannot ignore. God put on flesh and dwelt among us some 2,000 years ago. I know it because I have an eyewitness record of the events. But more than that, I know that I have deep rooted feelings that I can't explain with science or psychology. The miracle of life can't be answered by science, but it's explained in the Bible. The mystery of conscience can't be explained by psychology, but it's explained in the Bible. It's the universal law of man, what Einstein sought for his whole life. A single law that explains everything without gaps!

If evolution was the answer, then we would not have any conscience whatsoever, because conscience gets in the way of survival and advancement.

So, what's the problem? Why doesn't "religion" seem to work? Well, since I've already exposed that I'm a Christian, I'm also of the opinion that it's not working because 99% of Western Christianity is wrong. They rely on man made rules and ceremony and have trumped God's commands with their opinion. The Bible, when taken on its own merit, works! But it's men who have altered and skewed the Word of God to serve themselves. Joel Osteen and Benny Hinn are the examples in today's world. What's so wrong with how God wrote the Bible and how God says that we must live and how to be saved that we needed extra ceremony? Was Christ dying on the cross and coming back three days later enough or was it not enough? If it was enough, then it's enough for me. It's unfortunate that t.v. crazies and cults are the only representation of the Christian faith that many will ever see, because many people are too {lazy?} to actually go through their phone books to find an independent (not answerable to anyone except God), fundamental (Bible only) church.

If you're genuinely curious, try Googling "independent fundamental church" in your area.

Thoughts on Columbine

2009-04-19T21:38:00.000-07:00

10 Years later...

Dear God,

Why did you let all those students die in Columbine High School 10 years ago?

-Student

-- =======================================

Dear Student,

I'm not allowed in schools.

-God

My last day on Earth

2009-01-07T15:50:00.001-08:00

First, I've always wondered why Earth is not normally capitalized. How many of them are there? Worlds sure, but Earth's?

This thought just entered my head. What if this were my last day on Earth, and I didn't know it? No clue. What would my last thought be? What would be the last thing I would every say haphazardly. My last email. My last blog entry. The last song on my radio. You probably don't know when you're going to die, and it's just as well. It's just going to happen someday. Someday, when you're not expecting it, but you're coming back from lunch and thinking about the reports you have to write - or the grocery list - or calling a friend back. Then, BLAMO! The greyhound bus of destiny you weren't expecting pays you a visit.

So, given the fact that I have no idea of when I'm going to die, I also have no idea what my last words will be. With that in mind, shouldn't everything I say be as if it were? So, what should I say that I haven't said before? I know that if I had the chance, I'd tell everyone that God loves us despite who we are (Romans 5:8). I've discovered that this is what offends people on many levels though.

|God| Some people don't believe in God at all. Some people believe that we are simply the product of hydrogen and time. Others believe in a God, but reject the God that the Bible refers to (Lev 19:4). Still others believe in the God of the Bible, but refuse His authority (2Tim 3:5). Lastly though, there are some who are seeking God and are willing to accept His Word, no matter how it makes them feel (Matthew 6:33).

|Loves| If someone loves you, despite your feeling for them, there's an uneasiness in the relationship. One sided. But God loves us no matter what we've done. God loves you! I understand how this would make someone feel if they didn't love them back and be willing to do anything about it. It might feel like knowing someone has a crush on you - and tells everyone - and you totally don't feel the same way toward them.

|Sinners| That's us. That's me and I'm sorry but that's you too. I understand how this can make people feel uncomfortable; myself being a sinner and all. Being a sinner conjures up images of misbehaving or disobeying, and people generally like to think of themselves as good people. So, I totally understand why being called a sinner could make someone angry.

So, put Romans 5:8 together, and you've got |God| |loves| |sinners|. The last, and most important part is this: |so He gave|. God loves me so much that He gave a way for me to be reconciled with Him. Ah ha! That's the tricky part - reconcile. Why should we need to reconcile? What have we done to God that is so terrible? Why is God picking on us? Why can't God just love us no matter what? There are lots of arguments and questions about that, but thinking about it in strictly human terms, it makes sense. Would a parent be pleased with a child that did whatever they felt was right? Does a court let criminals free without punishment?

That's not a matter for me to decide. It's up to God, and He's spoken on the subject. I won't go into the gorpy details about what or why or how. That's a matter for study because it would take too long to explain. Perhaps over time, if I'm granted another day. But I guess if today were my last day on Earth (captialized), I'd want the last thing I ever said to be...

God loves us so much, despite who we are, that He gave a way for us to reconcile with Him.

Was that so offensive?