Prophecy and the Media

Envy and the Tenth Commandment

2012-06-01T08:47:00.000-07:00

The Cross Instead of a Hook

2012-05-29T18:19:00.000-07:00

1 John 1:8-10

“If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say we have not sinned, we make Him a liar, and His word is not in us.”

I am in a struggle. I just finished writing a piece for my job where I define and discuss the concepts of altruism and narcissism. The struggle was in how to approach the topic for the secular academic world. How do you convict the college student without getting preachy? I must confess this was a challenge for me personally. I had a hard time citing my work, because there is a lack of secular research on narcissism in America. We as a culture value the individual. We like to solve problems and build stuff. Then we look back at our work and say to ourselves, “Look at what I accomplished.” It is from this “can do” and pragmatic attitude that we built this country. Now we in the church are picking up on that message with our corporate visions for our churches. We are focused on increasing our motivation, planning for our success and achieving our potential. Then we try to add these man-centered ideas to our motivation as Christians to accomplish God’s will for our lives. Here’s the problem. God does not need us to have business models to accomplish His will. He already has the model. It’s our lack of faith in the relevance of His model that causes us problems. We look for new ways to make God more relevant. We look for trendy things to bring people into our churches so they can encounter Jesus. We say that our generation is different and unique (which is narcissistic to even say). We say they need a new kind of music style. They need a special kind of hook. How about allowing a cross to do the work instead of a hook? It’s like when Jesus talked about building our house upon a rock instead of on sand in Matthew 7. People will be thinking they are hearing the gospel of Jesus Christ, when we are actually giving them church branding. They come to church because they are searching for truth. To give them anything other than the cross of Christ is to attempt to build the church on sinking sand.

“For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified.”

2012-04-24T11:24:00.001-07:00

This is the best video I have seen that clearly explains the history of the Middle East conflict. It is six minutes long and is really easy to understand. The video belongs to Prager University.

Walid Shoebat talks about Bible Prophecy

2012-04-05T18:45:00.004-07:00

I have been a big fan of Walid Shoebat for many years. He is a former terrorist who met Jesus. He now speaks about prophecy being tied to a struggle between God's plan for Israel, and Islam's plan for world conquest. I always learn something when I hear him speak. In this video, he talks about the current changes of power in the Middle East with the revolutions in Egypt, Libya and Syria. He also talks about how Turkey will be a key player in the consolidation of power back to a revived Islamic Caliphate (which was previously the Ottoman Empire). Ok, the audience in the video looks a little stereotypical for prophecy enthusiasts, but it's good content.
This video is from Jewish Voice.

A Little Off Topic: Trayvon Martin

2012-03-30T08:36:00.000-07:00

I just got home with my wife and daughter. We were playing at a local park here in Orlando. I sat down at a table and began reading the newspaper that my wife gets, so she can coupon. On the front page of the paper today was a headline that said, “Gun owners debate shooting, law.” It was correct. Gun owners are debating the shooting of Travon Martin. I wasn’t really intending on writing about this topic, but looking around at this playground gave me some perspective. I have been around guns my entire life. I have been following several forums concerning guns for about two years now. We are discussing this case. But then I had a different thought after reading that article in the paper.

I looked up and it occurred to me that I was sitting next to a Hispanic man. We had already laughed together about his kids while I was reading my paper. I looked at my daughter playing there in the park. I noticed that there was only one little curly blonde girl, with blue eyes on the playground. She was mine. There were about twenty different Hispanic kids and their parents. Then I noticed three different groups of Asian families. All of these families, and my little girl were playing on the playground together. I moved close to where my wife and daughter had wandered off to, and I found another bench to sit on. I watched them play for a little while, and a Caucasian man came and sat down beside me. I noticed his child on the slide too. He spoke to me about how the park gets more crowded when the weather gets warm like this. I replied about the weather in a pretty stereotypical way, as I noticed his accent. I believe it was eastern European. What brings all of these families to this playground? They are all playing together and having a good time. My frustration became focused. This is not the community or the America portrayed by the news. This is a meeting of some seventy-five Americans on a playground. They are from all over the world. Why are they here? If the news reports were right about America being a racist nation, then these people should be hiding in their homes. Yet they come out here and play…and they bring their children. Teeny-tiny ones. One little boy and his parents were most likely from Pakistan. They stuck out in my mind. They brought their one year-old boy out to play at this playground. Will he ever have to worry about being the wrong type of Muslim here in Orlando? They’re killing each other by the truck load in Syria, Egypt, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Sudan, Libya, etc. These are all countries overwhelmed by sectarian violence. Our new foreign policies are a driving force behind changing these countries. We are taking advantage of the racial and ethnic divides in these countries, and encouraging them to radically change in a short period of time, without really defining what the result should look like. They are being

manipulated by opportunists here in America.

With the recent shooting of Trayvon Martin, it’s easy to see the usual opportunists attempting to take advantage and hijack this situation. In America, the shooting of an African American boy is a tragedy. It creates such outrage that we all take notice. It’s so unacceptable that it causes all of us to question our identity as Americans, and shakes our core identity. It does this to us because it is a rare exception, and we do not intend, or desire for it to go unpunished. It is not the norm when compared to the rest of the world. This is because we are a nation that makes laws, which are designed to promote good intentions and morality. But the opportunists know that we are a nation of good people and of laws. They want to take advantage of our good intentions, by labeling the lawful society as the problem. We are not the problem. We are the reason why people come to this country from all over the world. People know that they can escape their oppressive regimes and come play in my playground, ten miles from where Trayvon Martin was shot, and be safe. They know that the laws exist here to deter people from targeting their families. They know that America is not perfect. But they are willing to overlook the imperfection, because they can easily see that the intent of the nation is to do what is right. Which makes me beg the question, why do we want to fundamentally transform America?

Stories of violence make the news every day. Sometimes people in America get killed. That’s because evil exists. Evil is not a respecter of race. It doesn’t care what race you are. Yes, you may hear about violence every week. We have constant news coverage all over the country. There are over three hundred million of us. (We had violence in the group home where I worked, and there were only twelve kids in the entire population.)

How many people are killed per day in the Middle-East by religious sectarian violence? There’s at least one truck bombing per month on a mosque that kills upwards of fifty people. Yet the people still go to the mosques. Our news media does not actually process these reports. Where is the media outrage for those people’s families? How many people die in foreign elections, yet they still vote. Where is the media outrage? These things happen in other countries, because there are no laws to prevent them from happening, and no punishments for those who commit the atrocities. The fear of racism may be justified in America, and I freely admit that I have never had to worry about being profiled due to my race. But I still have to do what is right. The structure of the law punishes those who do harm. If the laws were silent about this type of incident, there would indeed be reason to riot in the street when a boy is killed in cold blood. But a man who made an idiotic choice to ignore law enforcement is an exception to the norm. He is not a reason to disassemble the laws that allow people to come here. What country will build a playground where minority families can play together? What country will provide an environment without the fear of a truck bomb taking out an entire playground of minority children playing together? Will a fundamentally transformed America provide a better place for my child to play with minority kids? If so, why do the usual opportunists flock to this episode and try to dig up old racial profiling arguments. Those arguments do not seem to reflect reality on my playground.

The real aim of this movement is to remove the ability that you and I have at the moment to own a weapon in our home. They want to be able to remove your right to own a gun, and to rely upon the government to keep you safe. They know they have to do it in progressive steps. The easiest step is to attack Florida’s “Stand Your Ground” law. This case is not a stand your ground case. You cannot pursue someone and claim that you were lawfully standing your ground. All of the self-defense instructors teach that getting away from danger is the obvious best defense. Standing your ground makes sense, because you should not have to prove that you ran away from danger in a self-defense scenario. Image being mugged at gun-point and having to prove in court that you tried to run from the mugger. He would have just shot you for running. In other states you have to run from your house before you are allowed to defend yourself from your home being invaded. Stand your ground is intended to prevent law-abiding citizens from being convicted for defending themselves against bad guys. It is intended to allow you to defend yourself from attackers engaged in armed felonies. It is enforced in your home as you defend your “Castle” and on the street if someone uses deadly force against you. But it must be a threat of deadly force. Being African American, or wearing a hoodie is not a deadly threat. Nor does it warrant pursuit by an armed citizen. Nothing warrants pursuit by an armed citizen unless they are a police officer.

The usual opportunists desire to bring the lack of awareness on the part of the rest of the country in to Florida, to cast doubt upon our law. The law is designed to allow law-abiding citizens to keep the burden of guilt upon the felon engaged in felony. Not on the attacked victim. In this case, the media is using “Stand Your Ground” as the first progressive step in eliminating the Florida law. They want lots of gun control language encased in racial violence, on the public airwaves. They want to bring as many social questions to this case so they can generalize it to their efforts of enforcing gun control nation wide. It will be a tragic day if someone breaks in to your home, and you do not have the right to own a gun. When criminals can be criminals without fear of retaliation, the government will know that they can govern without fear of retaliation. This is why we have the Second Amendment. It gives a healthy dose of fear to bad guys, regardless of their party affiliation.

The Bible Has Layers

2012-03-26T13:56:00.002-07:00

All right, we’ll jump in quick. The Bible is separated into two parts, the Old Testament and the New Testament. You probably already knew that right? Okay. Stay with me…the Bible has layers. So do you.

You’re probably thinking to yourself, “What crazy psychology man? What did you say?”

Yes, the Bible has layers and so do you.

You have layers of ability that you use, and you don’t even realize that they are there. There is truth that you are benefitting from, and you aren’t even aware of it. We try to make life way too academic sometimes and try to explain things in really big sentences. I’m terribly guilty of this myself. Just think about this question for a second. How many times did you tell your heart to beat this morning before you left for work or for school? Or how about this…how many times did you take a breath today? You probably weren’t aware of these things. You take them for granted because they are subconscious. You just do them. But you know that it is true and happening, because you can feel yourself breathing or take your pulse as you read this.

The Bible has layers too, and we neglect to recognize the significance of the information we have been given.

Still with me?

God is mysterious, right? Of course He is. But He is consistent to the point that we miss it completely. I like to think about it as though God made things so simple that we try to complicate things… just so that smart people can say…they don’t know.

We miss a huge piece of God’s message to us when it comes to the Garden of Eden.

It’s kind of like not being able to see the forest, because all of the trees are in the way.

When you were in Sunday school as a kid did they teach you about the Garden of Eden? Did they teach you it was between the Tigris and the Euphrates rivers in Iraq? That’s what I was taught.

The Bible starts in Genesis. God created everything in six days. He planted a garden in Eden. A river flowed out of Eden and became four rivers. They are the Pishon, the Gihon, the Tigris and the Euphrates. I was taught that the Garden of Eden was in modern day Iraq because that’s where the Tigris and Euphrates are. I asked where the Gihon River was, and they could not give me an answer. What about the Pishon River? Again they could not give me an answer. So I was taught that the Garden of Eden is lost forever, and there’s no way to find it, because we don’t know where the other two rivers were located. So they told me, “Maybe it was in Turkey.” I think they just wanted me to stop asking so many questions.

Then I read the Bible some more.

The Gihon River was in Jerusalem. Underneath the temple mount is a slow flowing spring called the Gihon spring. They even named it the Gihon Spring! Imagine that. Pretty convenient! If you look in Revelation you will see the restored version of the Garden of Eden, called New Jerusalem. It has a river flowing out from underneath the throne of God. The “River of Life” flows from God’s throne in the New Jerusalem and waters the earth for the healing of the nations. The River of Life has the Tree of Life on both sides of it. The Tree of Life was in Eden, and now we see the Tree of Life in the New Jerusalem, having water flowing underneath it. The image I get here is that the tree is split like a tunnel with the River of Life flowing underneath and through it.

So geographically there are some parallels between the Garden of Eden, Israel and the New Jerusalem. Underneath the current Jerusalem is a spring called the Gihon Spring. In the Garden of Eden there’s a river feeding four rivers. In the New Jerusalem there’s a River of Life flowing out from underneath God’s throne and past the Tree of Life. I was beginning to see that the Garden of Eden really never went anywhere. God told the story of Israel and the promises of the Messiah centering on Jerusalem…for a reason. It was in Israel.

The entire Bible starts in Israel. It is about Israel. Prophecy is about God fulfilling His promises to Israel. Jesus returns to Israel and reigns there in Jerusalem. When all of human history ends, there is a New Jerusalem. But it uses geographic terms from the Garden of Eden. The River of Life, and the Tree of Life came from the Garden of Eden. All of a sudden God doesn’t seem so scattered. My understanding was scattered, because all of the layers were disconnected by a lack of understanding of what the Bible said.

First Things First

2012-03-19T13:51:00.000-07:00

Okay, so first things first. The world is not about to end! There. Now we’ve got that out of the way.

So…many people who have not been exposed to Bible prophecy think that we crazy Christians are obsessed with the end of the world. We are not. They can just see us now, standing in the church pews, arms locked with the others around us, swaying back and forth. Our eyes are closed with great devotion. Some of us are raising our hands or crying, and they think we are asking God to end all life on earth. They believe that is what makes us happy and fulfilled. The culture outside the church thinks this is an odd thing to want. They would be right. But is that what we believe? Are we praying for the end of the world?

The Bible does not say that the world is about to end. The book of Revelation is not about “the end of the world.” In fact it says something quite different. John, the writer of Revelation, wrote that he saw, “a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away (Revelation 21:1). But it was still a heaven and earth meant for people. Isaiah (a major prophet) does say that the heavens will roll back like a scroll (Isaiah 34:4). According to the Bible, it will be no sooner than one thousand and seven years from right now.

How do you handle the possibility of having to defend your belief in Bible prophecy? Do you just hope that it will not come up? Do you say that you don’t really believe in that part of the Bible? Many of our brothers and sisters died for their belief that Jesus would be returning to earth to fulfill prophetic events. But they were not focused on the end of the world. They were focused on the beginning of Jesus’ promise to visibly return to them and to be the King for a thousand years. If the Bible says Jesus is going to be Messiah (king) or “anointed one” on earth for a thousand years, why would we let people portray us as believing in the quick demise of the entire planet?

I think it’s funny how we let Hollywood bring us entertaining stories about “the end of the world as we know it.” Then the media hand over these ideas to the general public for religious scrutiny. We as Christians, in efforts to please the culture or to be “relevant” to our friends, laugh and say something like, “I don’t really know what the end of the world is going to be like…” As we laugh it off uncomfortably. Well no. You shouldn’t. Because the Bible doesn’t say it’s going to just end.

We are going to examine the difference between “the world” and the word. We will see that the world is on a progressive path to usher in a new government structure that will make it very difficult to discern between truth and deception…that part is coming soon.

To My Friends

2012-03-15T15:14:00.001-07:00

I have spent most of my life involved in getting to know Jesus Christ. I have been a fairly miserable companion in the relationship, I must confess. It’s pretty one sided. I talk to Him most at night, but throughout the day I think about what He would say in conversations with people I know. When I talk to my friends I think about how Jesus would talk to them. Would He be nicer than I am? Would He have better manners? Would he get nervous like I do? Then usually I feel like I could have been a better conversation partner with my friends. So I go back home and tell Jesus that I want to be more like Him. That’s when He challenges me to go to the Bible to learn more about Him.

The Bible is where I have learned to be confident in who Jesus is and who I am. I have learned that there is more to Jesus than I learn in church, and more to Jesus than I learn in being a counselor. My journey as a therapist has taken me to places in the human mind that I did not ever set out to find. I got there by accepting God’s invitation to serve others, and I was not surprised when my need for certain knowledge was far greater than I had been exposed to. I met a few people along the way who seemed convinced that they were giving me answers that would lead to the rearrangement of my theology. I was not surprised that my understanding of theology was only more greatly enhanced and broadened. It was never mistaken or obsolete. But the knowledge that I gained through a steady diet of Biblical exposure as a child was the only thing able to sustain me when I was confronted with a seemingly theological contradiction between psychology and truth.

The simple truth that is foundational for understanding all human conditions is relayed through the Bible. It does require us to become comfortable with the idea that God has a way of doing things that makes sense to Him…and He doesn’t need our help in figuring out problems that we think are new. Sometimes God’s way does not make sense to us, and we become offended. Then we re-arrange our knowledge in a way that makes us feel better about ourselves and call it truth. Silly us though, we don’t realize that we are missing the perspective that God has. We can find His perspective in the Bible, and when we feed ourselves a steady diet of His word, no human issue can arise that will outgrow God’s ability to meet our hunger. It may not be the immediate answer we want, but it will lead us deeper into a relationship with Him. He’s the one who made us hunger for relationships in the first place, and no amount of seeking Him will make Him any less satisfying if we are truly in a relationship with Him. The one thing that can go wrong is when we try to convince Him that we are better at being God than He is. Ironic isn’t it…He calls himself I Am. He’s pretty confident in His abilities. So I want to take some time talking to my friends about what I have learned about God on the road to being a counselor. I have studied Biblical prophecy, I have been asked countless times why I believe what I believe. I have sinned. I have repented of my sins. I have been a (arguably mean) boss and later, a servant. I have changed many times. It’s got to be getting pretty predictable to Jesus by this point. But along the way, Jesus has never changed. Now I want to serve you, because He told me to.