Eventually Updated
Updated Eventually
When Will You Die?
Aug 31st
“O Lord, make me know my end
and what is the measure of my days;
let me know how fleeting I am!
Behold, you have made my days a few handbreadths,
and my lifetime is as nothing before you.
Surely all mankind stands as a mere breath! Selah
Surely a man goes about as a shadow!
Surely for nothing they are in turmoil;
man heaps up wealth and does not know who will gather!
With this statement, King David reveals to us that he is just as we were. He is a man who is fearful of death and who wants to know when he will die. As the ticker to the right states, no one can be sure of when they will die. Every breath we have is a gift from God and no one can be sure that the next will come. 150,000 people will die today. 150,000 have already died yesterday, and 150,000 will die tomorrow, then the next day, and the next. Eventually you will be in that number. I was reminded of a child that we lost through miscarriage. He was with us for about 22 weeks until something happened and the wick of his life was snuffed out. It took me a long time to deal with that loss and I’m still not entirely sure that I’m over it now. About a year and a half later my son Caleb was born. For years afterward I’d still go into the room he shared with his sister and check to see if he was still there and breathing. Even now, as he’s 11 and his sister is 14 I still go by their rooms at least once a week just to hear them breathing. Every man, woman, and child, regardless of their station, class, or location, are all subject to the same destiny – every one of us will die.
So, what is King David’s response?
“And now, O Lord, for what do I wait?
My hope is in you.
Deliver me from all my transgressions.
Do not make me the scorn of the fool!
I am mute; I do not open my mouth,
for it is you who have done it.
Remove your stroke from me;
I am spent by the hostility of your hand.
When you discipline a man
with rebukes for sin,
you consume like a moth what is dear to him;
surely all mankind is a mere breath! Selah“Hear my prayer, O Lord,
and give ear to my cry;
hold not your peace at my tears!
For I am a sojourner with you,
a guest, like all my fathers.
Look away from me, that I may smile again,
before I depart and am no more!”
David seeks deliverance from his sins! Why would he do this? He was the greatest king who ever lived. Ask any Jew who was the greatest king they’ve ever had and they’ll quickly tell you that it was King David! Why should he be in fear of the judgment of God? Because God is the just Judge of the whole earth. No one is able to escape God’s judgment. He will not hold those guiltless who takes His name in vain. This includes those who profess to be Christians but continue living in their sins. Pornography? He views that as adultery because He even judges the intention of the heart. Have you been angry with someone without justification? Then God sees you as a murderer at heart. He has promised that all sexually immoral, idolaters, adulterers, sorcerers (those involved in witchcraft and the use of drugs), cowardly (those who have renounced their faith due to fear of their friends or fear of repercussions from family or neighbors), faithless (those who refuse to trust in the promises of Christ), murderers, and those who do detestable things will be cast into the lake of fire and sulfur. No one who sins will escape His judgment.
This is why He sent Jesus. Knowing that no child of Adam could ever meet His standard He sent His own Son, Jesus. Jesus was able to live a life that was free from sin. He never swore at anyone, He never lusted after women, He never was unjustly angry at anyone. He never, ever lied about anything. He fulfilled every one of the commandments – every one of the Laws of God to the letter. He was the only just man to ever walk the earth. Then, just as the passover lamb was slain for the people of Israel in Egypt so that the Angel of Death would “pass over” their houses as he went through killing the firstborn of the Egyptians, Jesus willingly laid His life down for those who hated Him. Beaten, torn, bloodied, His beard had been ripped out of His face, He had been spat upon, mocked, beaten with rods, ridiculed, and dishonored in every possible way. Even through all of that, He still carried His cross as far as His frail earthly body could carry Him. Then He was delivered to the hill of death, iron nails were beaten into his wrists and ankles and He was hoisted up to suffocate to death. It only took 3 hours for Him to die in that state. At His death, the sins of every person who would ever turn to Him for salvation were taken from their accounts and placed onto Him and He died the painful, humiliating, and spiritual death that they deserved, in their place.
How do you receive this gift of grace? Do you have to be a good person? No. You can’t be a “good person”. To do that you’d have to first atone for all of your sins and then exceed the 10 Commandments in every aspect of your life until the day you die. That’s impossible. Do you have to say a “sinner’s prayer”? Sort of, but not like you’re thinking. King David, knowing the promise of the Messiah to come, repented of his sins (he apologized to God and turned his back on them – promising to do everything in his power to abandon those sins for the rest of his life) and trusted in the promised Messiah forgive him of his sins. We don’t have to hope on the promise of the Messiah to come – He has already come and He will come again to take those who have abandoned their sinful lives and who have chosen to follow Him for all eternity. We, like King David, repent of our sins before the Lord and trust in the work that He has already completed. When should you do that? Look at the ticker on the right-hand side of this post. How many people have died while you’ve been reading this post? If you want, you can decide to put it off, but realize that you’re taking your life into your own hands. Today is the day of salvation – who are you to know what tomorrow may bring. My son lived only 22 weeks. A friend of mine in high school – football star and in excellent athletic shape died as a result of a complication from a knee surgery when he was only 16. Did he know when he was going to die? When you finally breathe your last, it will be far too late for you to call out to the Lord for salvation. How are you to know that you won’t be hit by a bus or have a brain aneurism on the way home? Today is the day of salvation – take this seriously as all of eternity is at stake. Escape the wrath of God while you still can.
Toleration, Part 2
Aug 25th
Yesterday, I posted about an organization named Teaching Tolerance who states their purpose as follows:
Teaching Tolerance is dedicated to reducing prejudice, improving intergroup relations and supporting equitable school experiences for our nation’s children.
They went on to define tolerance as:
Tolerance is respect, acceptance and appreciation of the rich diversity of our world’s cultures, our forms of expression and ways of being human. Tolerance is harmony in difference.
In actuality, however, we discovered that they preach for the acceptance and appreciation for sexual perversion, even going so far as to engineer classroom discussion and structure to impose beliefs onto children and imply that their preconceived notions information that they have learned from family and church is not only wrong, but it’s unacceptable. Would this same drive carry over to other areas of teaching as well? What about evolution vs creationism? Would there be room for both at the open marketplace for ideas?
A search for “evolution” on their site brings up three articles and one classroom activity for pre-kindergarten/kindergarten children. The activity explains that we have hair like animals and encourages the children to behave like their animal “brothers and sisters” – climbing in a “tree like an orangutan” or “go in circles like a poodle”. The stated purpose of this activity is to help the children learn “biological evolution and the diversity of life” in accordance with the Mid-continent Research for Education and Learning (McREL) knowledge standard #7 in relation to biological evolution. You know, as I read that standard, I don’t see anything related to other views outside of biological evolutionary methods. In fact, the only thing I can find anywhere related to the subject is a an article from 2007 that simply states that we must continue to press the same message of evolution, not because of scientific evidence alone, but because of “inferences made
by the scientists”. So where the facts are insufficient, we must stand firmly on the ideals. The article then goes onto explain that inferences made on the small scale must be explained such that they are descriptive of large scale proofs. The underlying principle here is uniformitarianism – an idea given by Jean-Baptiste Lamarck in 1809 but predicted by God through Peter in 2 Peter 3:1-7. The problem with this principle is that while it’s possible to assume that what we see in nature today is exactly what has happened since the creation of the world, it’s not likely. Before I get on a soap box here, I’m going to sideline this article until a later time.
Back to Teaching Tolerance! In another article on their website, there is an article where a second grade teacher named Mary Cowhey explains how to dissuade belief in the Bible through a groupthink method of leading the 7-8 year old children in a rational experiment. She starts by questioning the class, asking where they think people came from. Then, she responds:
“Wow! We have a lot of different ideas about how we got here. Let’s think about how we could find out. What kind of evidence would we look for as scientists and historians to help us decide which idea we think is most likely?”
She takes out a book about evolution and infers the superiority of science over that of the Bible. She talks about Darwin’s “scientific theory of evolution, based on the law of natural selection” and juxtaposes that set of “facts” with the “story” of Adam and Eve. She implies that “One difference is a scientific theory has predictive power, whereas a story more often has explanatory power and is often an effort to teach the values of a culture in a memorable way“.
After this she discusses the problem that Galileo had with the Roman Catholic Church and quotes Psalm 104:5, “He set the earth on its foundations, so that it should never be moved”. The implication that she makes is that the church as a whole cannot be trusted to support science and that the Bible is not worthwhile for instruction. She finishes that section by explaining that in 1992 the Roman Catholic Church pardoned Galileo – showing that they were “wrong” about him – establishing more doubt that the religion can be trusted for anything. While I personally agree that the RCC was incorrect about how they treated Galileo and that they should have embraced his exploration and learned more about our amazing God and His handiwork, I cannot agree with her premise.
She then finishes by stating:
My goal as a teacher is to help children develop as critical thinkers. Across disciplines, in science, history and philosophy, I want them to be discerning judges of the quality of evidence as they practice the habit of constantly asking questions. I also want to educate my students as well-rounded human beings who respect and understand different cultures. Part of that education includes learning the stories, legends and epics of many world religions and cultures. They learn stories are different than theories.
Her tolerance for an opposing view is such that, in her classroom, when she experiences a view that is outside of her own (that being creationism vs her view of evolution), she undermines it and establishes her view as superior.
Teaching Tolerance is about anything but. Their views are firmly rooted in their own agendas and ideologies and they are teaching schools and organizations to push their agendas, regardless of the opposition. In 2 Timothy 4, Paul instructs Timothy to stand up in the face of strong opposition:
preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching. For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths.
We need to be ready, as Paul commands, to preach the truth to an immoral and perverse generation that rejects the God of the Bible in pursuit of their own sinful desires. This debate over false tolerance will never end until Christ returns, but until then we can stand firm and fight with honor before the Lord. Never bending or quitting but, through the Holy Spirit, living in true tolerance with our pagan neighbors. May God give us strength to withstand the storm.
Toleration, Part 1
Aug 24th
Toleration is something that’s often misunderstood. The dictionary definition of toleration is as follows:
tol•er•a•tion1 a : the act or practice of tolerating something
b : a government policy of permitting forms of religious belief and worship not officially established
A more modern definition reads:
tol•er•a•tion
Agreeing with any cause or stance that affirms your beliefs. It can also apply to others who should agree with, empower, embolden, or protect your ability to do whatever it is you decide to do, feel, think, write, or act like. Anyone who disagrees with your self-perceived right to act or think in any way is to be seen as “intolerant” of you personally and therefore can be ignored, rejected, or belittled.
While the dictionary definition is very simple – the more modern definition is something that is experienced more than anything. In researching this post I came across a promising site named Teaching Tolerance. Their stated purpose is to:
Teaching Tolerance is dedicated to reducing prejudice, improving intergroup relations and supporting equitable school experiences for our nation’s children.
In fact, on their “About Us” page, they even provide their own definition of the word “tolerance” as follows:
Tolerance is respect, acceptance and appreciation of the rich diversity of our world’s cultures, our forms of expression and ways of being human. Tolerance is harmony in difference.
We see again a very different view where tolerance is not something that is merely the process of tolerating (understanding without prejudice) something, but “accepting and appreciating” those differences. This is a theme that they are very dedicated to. There are scores of articles that I’ve found on their site that denounce hatred for all people. This is something that I agree with whole-heartedly. It’s some of the other things that I seem to have an issue with. First is their call for acceptance of homosexuality in the classroom.
In an article entitled Exposing Hidden Homophobia, an 11th grade English teacher is lauded for her approach in exposing and transforming the minds in her care in regards to their view of homosexuality. Her whole project started when she heard the children stating that offensive or irrelevant things were “gay” and she wanted to see if she could stop this practice. While I agree that name-calling of any kind is unwelcome and should be avoided, it’s her second motive that really struck me. She was curious why there were so few openly gay people in her community. What she developed was a 37-day course that introduced the children to heroes and martyrs of the homosexual community and, with careful planning and organization, imposed upon them the belief that any sexual orientation is acceptable and to be appreciated. As part of her course, she introduced them to movies and books that are at the very least pornographic. What do I mean? One of the books that were produced for required reading is described on the author’s site as follows:
Two best friends spend their first summer apart blogging to each other about their separate but equally exciting romantic and sexual adventures. Chuck, the talented one, goes off to summer theatre camp where he proceeds to fall for the sexy female lead of his show. Hal, the less talented one, stays at home in exciting Wheaton, MD learning how to drive and getting busy with a hot French dude he meets at the mall. With a frank and shocking candor, these two 15 year-olds going on 20 debate their differences, consider their similarities, and push their decade long friendship to the breaking point during a summer that neither of them will soon forget.
I can barely quote that description in good conscience and I would definitely not quote anything from the book. The very description speaks of homosexual pedophilia. To make it worse, the same “tolerant” site has recommended that this course be adopted into other schools and taught in as many places as possible.
I wonder if they would be so tolerant of teaching that homosexuality is a sin and that it was spoken against in the Bible repeatedly. Tomorrow I will dig a little deeper into this site and see where they stand on the marketplace of ideas related to evolution and creationism.
How Then Shall We Live?
Aug 18th
In my daily reading I read Romans 8 again and thought it would be a good idea to repost this one. I think everyone Christian and church-goer needs to read and ponder this passage from time to time.
Romans 8:1-11Free from Indwelling Sin
1 There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit. 2 For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death. 3 For what the law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh, God did by sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, on account of sin: He condemned sin in the flesh, 4 that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. 5 For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit, the things of the Spirit. 6 For to be carnally minded is death, but to be spiritually minded is life and peace. 7 Because the carnal mind is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, nor indeed can be. 8 So then, those who are in the flesh cannot please God.
9 But you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. Now if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he is not His. 10 And if Christ is in you, the body is dead because of sin, but the Spirit is life because of righteousness. 11 But if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you.To sum up, in the last seven chapters we’ve learned that the unrepentant sinner is condemned by the law and that his sin is something that is a part of him and that he cannot be apart of that sin without dying to himself and being raised again into new life by the faith in Jesus Christ which is a gift of God by the grace of God alone. We’ve learned that the law itself is not sinful but that it brings a knowledge of our sinfulness as a mirror will not call you ugly or beautiful but it merely reflects the truth. We’ve also learned that man cannot “undo” past sins or pay for his own sins while here on earth and that we need someone who us much more righteous than us to grant His righteousness to us to pay for our sin debt.
That said, for those who are now saved by the work of Jesus Christ alone, through faith in God alone, by the grace of God alone, there is no condemnation from the law. We are eternally freed from our sins and from the consequence of our sins. Jesus has taken our punishment on our behalf. How then shall we live? Should we walk according to our old lives? Should we continue in our old sinful ways? Of course not! We should walk in the new life that God has granted us through the death and resurrection of His Son. We are to live our lives in constant repentance of our continued sins as the Holy Spirit of God works to transform the parts of us that are still tied to our old lives. We cannot continue to live in the way that we previously lived as that old life was a life that was in constant opposition to the God who has sacrificed so much to save us.
If you were on death row a $100 million dollar fine could get you out and you could not afford that on your own, if someone you didn’t know was so willing to save you that he liquidated all of his assets just to save you from your death – would you dishonor his sacrifice by going right back to the life that got you there? More than that, God has promised us that we’d have a new heart with new desires when we repent of our sins and turn the lordship of our lives over to Jesus. Many of the things that we previously desired are not important to us anymore. I lost the ability to be excited about my work. That may not sound like much but coming from someone who was a workaholic who was abandoning his family on the altar of promotions and career-based growth, this is a HUGE deal. Many of my personal changes happened overnight. Many more come as God shows me a new area in my life that He’s going to work on to conform me into the image of His Son. If that transformational change is not present in your life, then you are not a Christian.
You may belong to a Christian religion, sect, synod, or group. You may have been lifetime members of the same church and your last fifteen generations may have attended at that building or been part of that denomination, but if you have never surrendered control of your life to Jesus Christ, then you are not a Christian in the Biblical sense of the term. You are just as unsaved as the rest of the world. Take no comfort in that. All it will grant you is a free pass to Hell where you will burn for eternity as God and all the saints and angels stand applauding as the righteousness of God is unveiled for all to see – that God has done the just thing, the perfect thing, and cast you into the fires of Hell.
If you have been transformed, if you have that Spirit of God living inside you that tells you how to live and act and instructs you to go into the world and proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ, then you are eternally forgiven and immediately counted among the saints of God.
For Whom Did Christ Die?
Aug 16th
To which I may add this dilemma to our Universalists:
God imposed his wrath due unto, and Christ underwent the pains of hell for,
- either all the sins of all men,
- or all the sins of some men,
- or some sins of all men.
If the last, some sins of all men, then have all men some sins to answer for, and so shall no man be saved; for if God entered into judgment with us, though it were with all mankind for one sin, no flesh should be justified in his sight: “If the LORD should mark iniquities, who should stand?” Ps.130:3. 2. We might all go to cast all that we have “to the moles and to the bats, to go into the clefts of the rocks, and into the tops of the ragged rocks, for fear of the Lord, and for the glory of his majesty,” Isa. 2:20-21.
If the Second, that is it which we affirm, that Christ in their stead and room Suffered for all the sins of all the elect in the world.
If the first, why then, are not all freed from the punishment of all their sins?
You will say, “Because of their unbelief; they will not believe.”
But this unbelief, is it a sin, or not?
If not, why should they be punished for it? If it be, then Christ underwent the punishment due to it, or not.
If so, then why must that hinder them more than their other sins for which he died from partaking of the fruit of his death?
If he did not, then did he not die for all their sins. Let them choose which part they will.
~ John Owen, The Death of Death, Book 1
Atheism defined
Aug 12th
Atheism
The belief that there was nothing, and nothing happened to nothing, and then nothing mysteriously exploded for no reason, creating everything, and then a bunch of everything mysteriously rearranged itself for no reason whatsoever into self-replicating bits, which then became dinosaurs.
I love that definition. 
Here’s my example:
Are you wicked?
Aug 9th
What are the signs of a wicked person?
Psalm 10 describes a wicked person as follows:
They boast of the desires of their soul. In their deep pride and self-confidence they curse and renounce the Lord. Their hatred for God is so great that they even make the ridiculous claim that “There is no God”, despite all the evidence seen in the world around them which point clearly to the contrary. In their own mind, all of their decisions and thoughts are exactly as they should be because they have refused to listen to the God who created them and are instead following their own vain imaginations. They are constantly cursing; uttering deceit, trickery, and lies. They are quick to make a fast dollar at someone else’s expense and think nothing of it. Their eyes are constantly looking for opportunities to take advantage of a person or situation for their own gain. The reason they do this is because they think they will not be punished by God for their actions. If they clearly understood who God is and the punishment that awaits them, they would never have acted in this manner.
As I read this psalm and I am immediately reminded of how wicked and worthless I used to be. This description, written 3,300 years ago, is a detailed account of my life prior to God converting me to Christianity. The point is that the God of the Bible is the God of justice who will not allow the law breaker to go without punishment. When you examine God’s standard for entrance into Heaven (the ten commandments) you can easily see how everyone is without hope of salvation on their own merits. This is why God send His Son to make full payment for our sins on our behalf – none of us could do this on our own. How do we obtain this gift of salvation? Jesus, God in the flesh, told us how:
Now after John was arrested, Jesus came into Galilee, proclaiming the gospel of God, and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.”
The word “gospel” means “good news”. Jesus is telling you to repent of your sins which means to reject them all and not go back to them and to trust in the salvation that God has provided to all people. Even if you are not as bad as I once was, telling a lie once or stealing anything is enough to break the laws of God and to place yourself at the wrong end of his judgment. Does God have a plan for mankind? YES! It’s that all people should repent of their sins and turn to Him for their salvation. When should you do this? NOW! As the ticker on the right shows, 150,000 people die every day. 150,000 died yesterday – 150,000 will die before midnight tonight, then another 150,000 tomorrow, and the next day, and the next. Eventually, you will be in that number as well. How many of those people knew that they were going to die that day and got their affairs in order? Psalm 10 concludes thusly:
The Lord is king forever and ever;
the nations perish from his land.
O Lord, you hear the desire of the afflicted;
you will strengthen their heart; you will incline your ear
to do justice to the fatherless and the oppressed,
so that man who is of the earth may strike terror no more.
How do you know that you will survive the day? Do you really want to take your chances with the God who created the universe when you die?
Nothing in my hand I bring
Aug 4th
Rock of Ages
by Augustus Toplady
Rock of Ages, cleft for me,
Let me hide myself in Thee;
Let the water and the blood,
From Thy wounded side which flowed,
Be of sin the double cure;
Save from wrath and make me pure.Not the labor of my hands
Can fulfill Thy law’s demands;
Could my zeal no respite know,
Could my tears forever flow,
All for sin could not atone;
Thou must save, and Thou alone.Nothing in my hand I bring,
Simply to the cross I cling;
Naked, come to Thee for dress;
Helpless look to Thee for grace;
Foul, I to the fountain fly;
Wash me, Savior, or I die.While I draw this fleeting breath,
When mine eyes shall close in death,
When I soar to worlds unknown,
See Thee on Thy judgment throne,
Rock of Ages, cleft for me,
Let me hide myself in Thee.
This is, by far, my favorite hymn. It reminds me of the heart of God who completed all the work necessary to save me from His own wrath. I am wholly bereft of any means by which I could atone for my sins. Even on my very best day I am already damned. If I were able, for even just a moment to be able to be “good enough” to enter Heaven (holding God first in all that I do, fully excluded from any pride or self-worth, not holding on to any past sin or desire and seeking only the glorification of God in all things), it would only bring me to the point at which God requires us all to be, and not any further. I would be unable to put myself into a position whereby I would be adding anything of any merit to my account. Even doing “good works” for others, if I am totally honest, isn’t about selflessly helping others, but instead it’s about my recognition for helping people, or what people believe when they think of me. This is why God had to provide salvation for us.
Suppose that there was a thief who lived in a wealthy mans’ mansion without his knowledge. One day he was discovered and, in an attempt to make restitution he broke into the man’s vault and stole valuable items, breaking them in the process. Could he then hand back these destroyed items in payment for his crime? No. The blood of a billion animals can only cover the sins of a man, never pay back in full. Who is responsible for the life of those animals? God. He is the one who created them, He is the one who feeds them, He is the one who brings their numbers and sustains them. Should I be the one to presume that stealing something from God and destroying it will somehow atone for my sins I’ve committed against Him? The salvation must come from the one that was wronged. God has provided that payment on our behalf in the person of Jesus Christ.
For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.
Jesus didn’t have to condemn the world – the law has already condemned us. Jesus asks us to repent of our sins and trust in the finished work He completed on the cross. Our debt before God has been paid in full and it is in this that we rest. This is the joy that is brought. I’m not always “happy” but I am secure and that’s the deepest joy you can ever appreciate. That my God is so just and holy that I could never be in His presence, and in order that His justice and holiness would be preserved, He provided a sacrifice that is wholly sufficient for all of my sins in His Son. Jesus lived a perfect life that I could never live and died the death that I deserved in my place so that I could spend eternity in His presence, worshipping the King of Kings to whom I could never bring enough glory and honor. God did this on my behalf, and it is in light of this that I stand with tears in my eyes, proclaiming His righteousness and singing aloud:
Nothing in my hand I bring,
Simply to the cross I cling;
Naked, come to Thee for dress;
Helpless look to Thee for grace;
Foul, I to the fountain fly;
Wash me, Savior, or I die.