It used to be Ann Landers and Dear Abby, now it’s Rhona. Do they really help?

These columns are put in the Life section of the newspaper, I suppose, for their entertainment value. I wonder if anyone ever seriously thinks they can solve their problems by the advice they get from these sources.

There are a number of problems with the advice columns. Let’s start with the most obvious: they are too short! How can someone give good solid advice about a serious problem when all you know about the problem is the briefest of paragraphs? Even if someone writes in with a detailed letter that is edited down to fit the column, how can the advisor know about the circumstances to really offer anything close to wisdom?

Let me let you in on a little secret. They can’t!

Besides being too short, one wonders about the quality of advice these newspaper columnists can give. The problems addressed often involve what appear to be very complicated problems. The columnists offer very short answers. I have read some recently (I confess that I do look at them once in a while!). Most of the questions sent in to such columns have to do with marriage and relationships. The columnists often seem quite ready to dismiss relationships fairly quickly. Do they really know what they are saying?

The questions you see in these columns today also often seem to highlight fairly bizarre relationships and their problems. Maybe it is just me (maybe I have gotten old??), but it seems that there is an interest in describing rather prurient topics. Are relationships today really like this? And if they are, surely the people writing in (if there really are people writing in) need much more than a few paragraphs of advice in a newspaper.

Where should someone turn for advice?

There are many professional counsellors in the world. Some are better than others, most charge fees, some take their own bizarre approaches to life and are no better than the newspaper columnists. If you pursue help for problems from this class of advisors, you will need to be discerning (and be able to pay for it).

Christian pastors and churches often offer counselling services with less cost, but of course you know that old saying, “You get what you pay for.” Often the advice you will receive from these sources will be rooted in life experience and common sense rather than formal training. Some pastors are very good, others are not so good.

And all human counsellors have a common problem: their humanity! That is, they are all quite capable of making hasty judgements, speaking before they learn all the facts, being manipulated, and so on.

Here is what I think you should do if you have some life problems you really need advice to overcome. First, get involved in a good church and seek out Bible answers to your problems. If you will learn the Bible yourself, you will have a good barometer with which to evaluate anyone’s counsel. Second, as you get involved in a good church, get to know those on the staff or in the congregation who have good spiritual sense. Seek them out, and try to follow their pattern for living. Many of the problems you have may go away of their own accord in this way.

But some problems do require more formal approaches. Be sure to test everything by the Bible, but do find a good Bible-believing pastor who can point you to Bible-based solutions or to another counsellor who can do the same.

This all presupposes, of course, that you come to believe the Bible. The Bible gives Jesus the title “Wonderful Counsellor”. If you learn to listen to Him, you will learn to discern between the good and the bad in the counselling world.

~~

by Pastor Don

A recent column appearing at MLive.com suggests that music is the religion of many. Does that describe you?

For many boomers — and their offspring — rock music is the background soundtrack to a lifelong spiritual search. Its transcendent moments open divine doorways to our shared joy in being alive, or at least make you briefly forget about that hip replacement.

The gist of the article is that people look to music to provide a ‘transcendent’ experience, one that helps men and women to forget their troubles and get out of the mundane experience of their lives. It gives a lift, it rejuvenates, gives perspective and relieves anxieties.

I suspect that this is true for some. Music speaks to us on a level beyond that of verbal communication. The printed or spoken word can have impact, but music stirs us on a much more basic or primal level.

But I would suggest that music as religion is not a good thing.

First, though perhaps at times uplifting, music is only temporary. The very multiplication of songs and musical pieces speaks to the temporary value of any one piece of music. Perhaps someone can escape the harsh reality of their world through a concert or an album or some particular performance of music, but ultimately the soul craves something permanent, something that lasts, in order to solve the harshness of this world. Music, at best, can only provide temporary relief.

Second, music as religion is an illusion. The way this ‘religious effect’ is described, music seems to be used much like a drug or alcohol. It seems to provide relief, but its artificial nature demands a ‘bigger rush’ or a ‘new stimulus’ for the next time. The solution it offers is ‘good feelings’, but when the feelings subside, harsh reality remains. Your life problems won’t go away, no matter how much music (or anything else) is used to assuage the harshness of your reality.

Third, music can only deal with the ‘edge’ of life’s problems, it can’t really provide a permanent solution. The pain might be dulled, the emotions might be quieted (or brought to a more satisfying focus), but the problems are never solved.

~~~

True religion, found in the faithful worship of the living God, will find the true solution to life’s problems. There is immediate action on the defects of your inner man (your soul), and there is ultimate solution to all of life’s problems by faith in God’s ultimate victory over all the problems of this world.

The whole subject of true religion is too lengthy to deal with completely here, but I do invite your comments on these observations as well as any questions you might have. I hope that you can find lasting peace for your soul in the source of real peace, the Prince of Peace, Jesus Christ.

~~ Pastor Don

Jesus said, “the mouth speaks out of that which fills the heart.”

Well, what does the way you talk reveal about your soul? Does it reveal uncleanness and filthy thinking? Does it reveal bitterness and angry contention and disagreeability? Does it reveal meanness of spirit?

On the other hand, does the abundance of your speech reveal an obsession with something empty or vain?

• Some people can only talk about their sports idols or their favourite music star, or some actor or actress. Their thoughts and minds are filled with people who will no doubt fail them at some time in the future.

• Some people constantly talk about money and business deals. All they can think about, it seems, is the next big contract.
• Some people talk constantly about themselves, what they like and what they do and where they go and who they associate with and what they ate for breakfast, lunch and dinner… You know what I mean. It is all about them. They never have a question about you or your life. They are totally obsessed with themselves.

I don’t mean to say that you should never talk about sports, or business, or even yourself. But what is the abundance of your speech?

If you are known for talking about something excessively, if your conversations always revolve around some object or person, that is your idol. You are using ‘worship language’.

If your speech is profane and unclean, that reveals something else wrong in your soul. It’s a real problem also.

But it isn’t just the speech that is the problem. The problem lies in the heart. It lies in every heart. And the problems we have in our hearts reflect our need for salvation from sin by Jesus Christ.

I’d like to talk to you about what you talk about, but most of all I’d like to talk to you about the Lord Jesus Christ. You will find him an answer to every need of your soul.

~~ Pastor Don

Creation vs. Evolution is a long-standing debate. Some may think the debate is settled in favour of evolution, but the truth is that many credible scientists hold that the Bible’s teaching of a six-day creation is at least compatible with scientific evidence.

Our speaker for this event is one thoroughly trained as a geologist who became a Christian and subsequently a believer in the literal creation record of the Bible following his conversion. His story is quite interesting and worth at least your giving him a hearing. Here is his ‘bio’ from the CMI website:

Dr Silvestru earned his Ph.D in geology at the ‘Babes-Bolyai’ University in Cluj, Romania (where he has worked as an associate professor), in karst sedimentology including caves. (Karst is a term which initially referred to barren regions of mostly limestone and dolomite, noted for spectacular and distinctive landforms, and with substantial underground drainage features — caves, underground rivers, etc. It has come to refer more to the entire geosystem, above and below ground.)

A world authority on the geology of caves, he has published 41 scientific papers (see here), written one book (The Cave Book—see here) and co-authored two books. He was, until recently, the head scientist at the world’s first Speleological Institute (speleology = the study of caves) in Cluj. Since 1997 he has been a full-time researcher and speaker with CMI.

His areas of expertise include: Sedimentology of clastic deposits, stratigraphy of limestone terranes, general geology, karst genesis and functioning, cave climate and glaciology, show-cave assessment & designing, ore prospecting and exploration (surface and mining).

After becoming a Christian he quickly realized that the ‘millions of years’ interpretation, so common in geology, was not compatible with Genesis. ‘Once I became a Christian,’ Emil says, ‘I knew I had to “tune up” my scientific knowledge with the Scriptures.’

‘Although philosophically and ethically I accepted a literal Genesis from my conversion, at first I was unable to match it with my “technical” side.’

E-mail discussions with qualified creationist geologists, creationist books, Creation magazine and especially the Journal of Creation (formerly TJ) helped him realise what he calls two ‘essential things’:

• Given exceptional conditions (e.g. the Genesis Flood) geological processes that take an extremely long time today can be unimaginably accelerated.
• The Genesis Flood was global, not regional.

‘These factors were immensely important in my conversion and my Christian life. I am now convinced of six-day, literal, recent, Genesis creation. That doesn’t mean that there are not still some unanswered problems, but researching such issues is what being a scientist is all about.’

He has over 30 years experience in climbing and spelunking, educating many young spelunkers and mountain climbing devotees as well as participating in mountain and cave rescue operations.

In January 2002 he immigrated to Canada from Romania with his wife and two daughters. In addition to doing research and writing for CMI, he now also on staff at CMI Canada as a Seminar Lecturer, and has written a number of articles for the Journal of Creation, Creation magazine and this website, and produced several DVDs.

Dr. Silvestru’s first topic will be Genesis, the Gospel, and the Creation/Evolution Issue (10 AM). The second topic will be The Darwin Delusion (11:30 AM). We strongly encourage you to attend and bring your questions!

Grace Baptist Church of Victoria is located at 2731 Matson Rd, at the end of the Ruth King School playing fields. You can get further directions from our website.

~ Pastor Don

Suppose you suffered some kind of physical injury, a deep cut in some part of your body. Instead of allowing the wound to be stitched up so that it could scab over and heal, you instead keep the wound open, constantly picking away scabs and making certain the bleeding continues. Would you think that wise or healthy? (I hope NOT!)

Well, do you suppose that God designed our psyche in similar ways? You may have suffered some great hurt in the past. There are a whole host of things that could serve as examples. There is a natural psychical healing process that can insulate us from past damage. As time progresses, memories begin to blur, some of the sharp edges come off, and eventually the pain of past events is barely remembered if at all. That is the natural process, God-designed for psychic health.

But, you say, my pain is very deep and it affects everything I do! I can’t cope with it! I can’t form good relationships because of it!

Well, you probably did have a very bad experience in the past. I won’t deny it! But have you made your past problem a present problem by keeping the pain fresh and the focus sharp? Have you simply brooded on the issues, filling your heart with rage? Did you have ways of ‘acting out’ against your old tormentor that you continue to use to ‘act out’ against your family members today? Do you really want to put the past behind you?

The Psalmist spoke of a blessing received from God, where his past was turned into blessing:

Psa 30:11 You have turned for me my mourning into dancing;
You have loosed my sackcloth and girded me with gladness,

Wouldn’t you like that to be your testimony also?

These are some of the lessons you must learn:

1. Forgiveness
2. Vengeance belongs to God
3. Beauty from ashes
4. Forgetting

Forgiveness because as long as you carry your past pain around in the present, you are letting the past dominate you. Your troubler is probably long gone, he can’t hurt you any more, unless you allow him to. Yes, what was done in the past was wrong. Hanging on to it won’t make it right and it certainly won’t make it better.

Then Peter came and said to Him, "Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me and I forgive him? Up to seven times?" Jesus said to him, "I do not say to you, up to seven times, but up to seventy times seven.
(Mt 18.21-22)

A little hard? You’re right. You will need supernatural power from God for this, but God is willing to give you grace, then you can forgive.

Vengeance belongs to God: Did you ever hear of the Hatfield’s and the McCoy’s? They were real people and they had a real feud. (I know it’s true because I read it in the newspaper!) How did the vengeance thing work out with them? You can never exact justice by hanging on to the past and lashing out at people in the present. You will only compound your problems and cause others to have bad memories of you.

‘Vengeance is Mine, and retribution, In due time their foot will slip; For the day of their calamity is near, And the impending things are hastening upon them.’ (Dt 32.35)

"VENGEANCE IS MINE, I WILL REPAY," says the Lord. (Rm 12.19)

Beauty from ashes: We already quoted a verse about turning mourning into dancing – your painful experiences can dominate and defeat you or they can become a springboard to a positive future.

One of the patriarchs of Israel was sold into slavery by his own brothers. When it was all discovered, they were worried that he would take vengeance against them. I am sure they were relieved that Joseph left vengeance with the Lord and saw the good that came from it: the saving of his whole family from famine and death.

"As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good in order to bring about this present result, to preserve many people alive. (Gen 50.20)

Forgetting may be the last thing you think you can do, but forgetting isn’t just passive, waiting for your head to stop talking to you, instead, it is active. It is a decision, a choice, that refuses to remember any more. When the mind conjures up the past, the forgiving and forgetting soul resolutely pushes the thought out of the mind and thinks on something else. Choosing not to remember is the key to forgetting.

That is how God treats our sins, if we are in a saving relationship with him. God knows all things, everything from the beginning of time to the end. How can God ‘forget’ anything? He chooses not to remember the sins of his forgiven saints. He won’t remember them against them, he chooses to forget.

"I will remember their sins and their lawless deeds no more." (Hb 10.17)

The forgiveness of God is the real first step in solving the problems of your past and your present.

If you would like counsel from God’s word about troubles from your past, please contact us on the contact links for this site.

— Pastor Don

A few years ago, NASA’S Cosmic Background Explorer satellite-COBE-shot back pictures of the most distant objects scientists have ever discovered.

These pictures were alleged to reveal evidence of how the universe began.1 Ted Koppel of “ABC News Nightline” questioned Robert Kirshner, chairman of Harvard University’s department of astronomy on the significance of this discovery by asking a question about origins.

• Ted Koppel: The big bang theory, to what limited degree I understand it, calls for something infinitesimally small, so small that it cannot be measured to have exploded into the universe as we now find it, in other words, something tiny exploded into the reality of everything large that exists in the universe today. Now, how does that work?

• Robert Kirshner: Well, you’re trying to answer the hardest part at the beginning. It might be easier to think about some of the observational facts and see why the big bang is such a simple explanation for them. The thing that we see today is a universe which is expanding, galaxies getting farther from one another, and if you imagine what that was like in the past, it would be a picture in which the galaxies were getting closer to one another. And if you take that picture far enough back, and we think the time scale is about 15 billion years, far enough back, then you get to a state where the universe is much hotter and denser than it is today. That’s the thing we’re talking about when we talked about the big bang. The details of exactly the structure of space and time at that—in that setting are a little tricky, but the basic picture is that the universe that we see today is very old, and had come from a state which was very different than we see around us today.2

At the conclusion of the program Koppel, unsatisfied with the previous evasion to the essential question, returned the central issue of the origin of the universe:

• Ted Koppel: And in the 40 or 50 seconds that we have left, Professor Kirshner, you want to try another crack at that first question, how we get everything out of next to nothing?
• Dr. Kirshner: No, I don’t think that’s the question I really want to answer. That’s the one I want to evade…3

[as quoted in the theological journal, Bibliotheca Sacra4]

Koppel’s question is an interesting one. Many people accept the Big Bang theory without much question because they heard it from an authority figure who seemed to know what he was talking about.

But what are we really talking about when we talk about “the universe”. If, as some say, the whole universe were once (15 billion years ago) all condensed into one infinitesimal [i.e., really, really, really small] bit of space, how much energy are we talking about? And how could it have been condensed so small?

Let’s consider the amount of energy that is constantly being produced by our Sun. According to NASA, the Sun occupies a tremendous amount of space and emits a tremendous amount of energy.

At over 1.4 million kilometers (869,919 miles) wide, the Sun contains 99.86 percent of the mass of the entire solar system: well over a million Earths could fit inside its bulk. The total energy radiated by the Sun averages 383 billion trillion kilowatts, the equivalent of the energy generated by 100 billion tons of TNT exploding each and every second.5 [emphasis mine]

A million earths…

100 billion tons of TNT every second…

That’s a lot of mass and power. Condensed into an infinitesimal fraction of space?

But that’s not all. That’s just our Sun, a medium sized star. Apparently, according to Wikipedia,6 the Sun doesn’t have enough mass to supernova. Too puny. It will go to Red Dwarf stage, though. Red Dwarf means it will expand past the earth’s orbit. Some dwarf. (And speaking of global warming!!!)

In any case, our Sun isn’t all there is to the universe. I don’t know how big the universe is. I guess nobody does. But considering the amount of power generated by the Sun in one second, let’s take this little snippet from NASA to put it into perspective:

NASA’s Swift and Fermi spacecraft are monitoring a neutron star 30,000 light years from Earth that is drawing attention to itself with a series of powerful gamma-ray flares.

“At times, this remarkable object has erupted with more than a hundred flares in as little as 20 minutes,” said Loredana Vetere, who is coordinating the Swift observations at Pennsylvania State University. “The most intense flares emitted more total energy than the sun does in 20 years.”7 [Emphasis mine]

So what we have here is just one gamma-ray flare erupting from a neutron star that emits in a matter of minutes more total energy than the sun does in 20 years.

That doesn’t count the energy that remains inside that neutron star.

And all of that, plus all the other millions of stars in the universe, and all the planets, comets, asteroids, etc. in the universe were likewise compressed into an infinitesimal portion of space?

How would that work?

How stable would that super-compressed infinitesimal portion of space be, actually? No wonder it exploded! I wonder how long it was compressed?

Of course, I suppose you are detecting I am a little sceptical of such claims.

On the other hand, the Bible says that God began creation by saying:

Let there be light.

I recognize that many people are as sceptical about God as I am about the claims of science. But I ask you, which is easier to believe, that the mass and energy of the universe was compressed into an infinitesimally small portion of space (for how long? and how did it get there?) or, on the other hand, that an infinite, all-powerful, intelligent God said the word and all that is came into existence?

The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament shows his handiwork. Day unto day utters speech, and night unto night shows knowledge. There is no speech nor language, where their voice is not heard. Their line is gone out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world. In them hath he set a tabernacle for the sun, Which is as a bridegroom coming out of his chamber, and rejoices as a strong man to run a race. His going forth is from the end of the heaven, and his circuit unto the ends of it: and there is nothing hid from the heat thereof. (Ps 19.1-6)

And if there is such a God, with this kind of power, what do you think you owe Him? Do you think he has any concerns about the way you live, or  your attitude towards Him?

— Pastor Don

PS: I remain fascinated by space science. I recommend the RSS feed found at the NASA science links I provide below, if you, like me, are interested in the amazing discoveries of NASA and other space scientists around the world.

1. See Michael D. Lemonick, “Echoes of the Big Bang,” Time, May 4, 1992, 62–63; and “ABC News Nightline,” transcript 2850, April 24, 1992, 1.
2. Ibid., 2.
3. Ibid., 4.
4. Bibliotheca Sacra Volume, 149:426-427 [Dallas Theological Seminary, 1992]
5. http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2003/23oct_superstorm.htm
6. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sun
7. http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2009/10feb_sgr.htm