Reading a lot of forum comments, I see that when Rick Perry referred to Social Security as a Ponzi Scheme, that many people took exception to that characterization.

I will give my opinion on that topic in this thread, because I did not want to hijack another thread where this topic is incidental, not the main point.

First, let me say up front that I do not think Social Security is a Ponzi Scheme, and I will give a few reason why in a moment.

It would be helpful if we had a working definition of a Ponzi scheme, but I cannot help you there. Looking for a definition on the web, was not that helpful, as the term in general, come from a specific case of fraud perpetrated by one Charles Ponzi, but the term has grown to include many schemes that have some of the same characteristics, so the definitions can vary somewhat.

Since we are talking about a government program, it might be best to find out what some of the characteristics of a Ponzi scheme are, from the U.S. government itself. From the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission website, I learned that Ponzi schemes have the following characteristics:

1. They involve the payment of purported returns to existing investors from funds contributed by new investors

2. They focus on attracting new money to make promised payments to earlier-stage investors instead of engaging in any legitimate investment activity.

3. They divert funds from the investors to other purposes, besides the generation of return on investment

So far, we can see why Perry (and others before him) refer to S.S. as a Ponzi Scheme, because:

1. Social Security involves the payment of purported returns to those “investors” who are now retired, from funds contributed by “investors” still in the workforce

2. Social Security focuses on collecting new money to make promised payments to earlier-stage “investors” instead of engaging in any legitimate investment activity.

3. Social Security diverts funds from the “investors” to other purposes, besides the generation of return on investment for retirees etc,

Now, with such striking similarities, you might ask: “Why do you say that Social Security is NOT a Ponzi Scheme”? That is a good question.  Let’s look at some of the differences instead of the similarities, and we will see a few reasons why.

Does a working person have the choice to not join?   Ponzi scheme yes, Social Security no.

Is there an upper limit on how much you can get back? Social Security yes, Ponzi scheme no.

If you are collecting your return on installment payments and you die, can you will your balance to your descendents? Ponzi scheme yes, Social Security no.

Is there a huge, inefficient, expensive bureaucracy that guarantees the investors money is wasted on overhead, so that much of the money is not available for the investors later? Social Security yes, Ponzi no.        (although most Ponzi schemes have dishonest operators who do siphon of funds)

When there are too few new investors to pay the early investors, will the plan collapse? Ponzi yes, S.S. no, the govt. just mandates more and more money to be taken from paychecks, increases the retirement age of earlier investors, and reduces their benefits, and possible declares a needs assessment in order to qualify for benefits.

Does the law prosecute systems that seek to knowingly and intentionally fleece victims by taking more from  them that they will get back? Ponzi yes, S.S. no, it is immune to this sort of prosecution.

Does the system increase the required contribution over
time?  S.S. yes,: 2.25% of pay between 1935 and 1953 to 4.5% by 1960, 6.9% by 1970, 8.1% by 1980, and 15.3% by 1990. Ponzi, no, all investment is voluntary.

So, now you can see for these reasons, that I do not consider Social Security to be a Ponzi Scheme. I feel it is an insult to the memory of Charles Ponzi, a criminal, cheat and crook, to compare the more abusive and lame-brained Social Security system, to his particular fraud.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/02/13/jobapproval-presobama-economy_n_726161.html

With numbers like shown above, it is hard for me to imagine that Obama can win, but I never count my chickens before they hatch. Time will tell. I have not even chosen a candidate. I am not sure there is a candidate in any party, that I would not choose over the current President, but there still seem to be a surprising number (to me) that are sticking by him.

However it turns out, I always assume that nothing surprised God, He is still in control, and even if the U.S. were to totally self destruct, even that is part  of His plan for His purposes, and I am o.k. with that. Still, I take voting as a serious duty of a Christian. I cannot stand by, failing to act or participate, just because I see no perfect candidates. I will always try to at least, elect a lessor of evils. To fail to do so, to me, is morally equivalent to voting for a worse evil, and I cannot do that.

It is a long way until the next election, long enough for us to get in a lot of serious prayer for the candidate, the election, the U.S., Israel, and the world. If we are not salt and light, then we are tolerating sand and darkness. I invite you to join me in praying for leaders in families, businesses, politics, the church. For good or for evil, they effect all of us, so they are a good subject for prayer.

We all wonder what will happen to us after we die. When a loved one dies, we long to see him or her again after our turn comes. Will we have a glorious reunion with those we love or is death the end of all consciousness?

Jesus taught that life does not end after our bodies die.  He made this startling claim: “I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die like everyone else, will live again.” According to the eyewitnesses closest to him, Jesus then demonstrated his power over death by rising from the dead after being crucified and buried for three days. It is this belief that has given hope to Christians for nearly 2000 years.

But some people have no hope of life after death. The atheistic philosopher Bertrand Russell wrote, “I believe that when I die I shall rot, and nothing of my own ego will survive.”¹ Russell obviously didn’t believe Jesus’ words.

Jesus’ followers wrote that he appeared alive to them after his crucifixion and burial. They claim not only to have seen him but also to have eaten with him, touched him, and spent 40 days with him.

So could this have been simply a story that grew over time, or is it based upon solid evidence? The answer to this question is foundational to Christianity. For if Jesus did rise from the dead, it would validate everything he said about himself, about the meaning of life, and about our destiny after death.

If Jesus did rise from the dead then he alone would have the answers to what life is about and what is facing us after we die. On the other hand, if the resurrection account of Jesus is not true, then Christianity would be founded upon a lie. Theologian R. C. Sproul puts it this way:

“The claim of resurrection is vital to Christianity. If Christ has been raised from the dead by God, then He has the credentials and certification that no other religious leader possesses. Buddha is dead. Mohammad is dead. Moses is dead. Confucius is dead. But, according to…Christianity, Christ is alive.”²

Many skeptics have attempted to disprove the resurrection. Josh McDowell was one such skeptic who spent more than seven hundred hours researching the evidence for the resurrection. McDowell stated this regarding the importance of the resurrection:

“I have come to the conclusion that the resurrection of Jesus Christ is one of the most wicked, vicious, heartless hoaxes ever foisted upon the minds of men, OR it is the most fantastic fact of history.”³

So, is Jesus’ resurrection a fantastic fact or a vicious myth? To find out, we need to look at the evidence of history and draw our own conclusions. Let’s see what skeptics who investigated the resurrection discovered for themselves.

Cynics and Skeptics

But not everyone is willing to fairly examine the evidence. Bertrand Russell admits his take on Jesus was “not concerned” with historical facts.⁴ Historian Joseph Campbell, without citing evidence, calmly told his PBS television audience that the resurrection of Jesus is not a factual event.⁵ Other scholars, such as John Dominic Crossan of the Jesus Seminar, agree with him.⁶ None of these skeptics present any evidence for their views.

True skeptics, as opposed to cynics, are interested in evidence. In a Skeptic magazine editorial entitled “What Is a Skeptic?” the following definition is given: “Skepticism is … the application of reason to any and all ideas—no sacred cows allowed. In other words … skeptics do not go into an investigation closed to the possibility that a phenomenon might be real or that a claim might be true. When we say we are “skeptical,” we mean that we must see compelling evidence before we believe.”⁷

Unlike Russell and Crossan, many true skeptics have investigated the evidence for Jesus’ resurrection. In this article we will hear from some of them and see how they analyzed the evidence for what is perhaps the most important question in the history of the human race: Did Jesus really rise from the dead?

Self-Prophecy

In advance of his death, Jesus told his disciples that he would be betrayed, arrested, and crucified and that he would come back to life three days later. That’s a strange plan! What was behind it? Jesus was no entertainer willing to perform for others on demand; instead, he promised that his death and resurrection would prove to people (if their minds and hearts were open) that he was indeed the Messiah.

Bible scholar Wilbur Smith remarked about Jesus:

“When he said that He himself would rise again from the dead, the third day after He was crucified, He said something that only a fool would dare say, if He expected longer the devotion of any disciples—unless He was sure He was going to rise. No founder of any world religion known to men ever dared say a thing like that.⁸

In other words, since Jesus had clearly told his disciples that he would rise again after his death, failure to keep that promise would expose him as a fraud. But we’re getting ahead of ourselves. How did Jesus die before he (if he did) rose again?

A Horrific Death and Then. . . ?

You know what Jesus’ last hours of earthly life were like if you watched the movie by road warrior/brave heart Mel Gibson. If you missed parts of The Passion of the Christ because you were shielding your eyes (it would have been easier to simply shoot the movie with a red filter on the camera), just flip to the back pages of any Gospel in your New Testament to find out what you missed.

As Jesus predicted, he was betrayed by one of his own disciples, Judas Iscariot, and was arrested. In a mock trial under the Roman Governor, Pontius Pilate, he was convicted of treason and condemned to die on a wooden cross. Prior to being nailed to the cross, Jesus was brutally beaten with a Roman cat-o’-nine-tails, a whip with bits of bone and metal that would rip flesh. He was punched repeatedly, kicked, and spit upon.

Then, using mallets, the Roman executioners pounded the heavy wrought-iron nails into Jesus’ wrists and feet. Finally they dropped the cross in a hole in the ground between two other crosses bearing convicted thieves.

Jesus hung there for approximately six hours. Then, at 3:00 in the afternoon—that is, at exactly the same time the Passover lamb was being sacrificed as a sin offering (a little symbolism there, you think?)—Jesus cried out, “It is finished” (in Aramaic), and died. Suddenly the sky went dark and an earthquake shook the land.⁹

Pilate wanted verification that Jesus was dead before allowing his crucified body to be buried. So a Roman guard thrust a spear into Jesus’ side. The mixture of blood and water that flowed out was a clear indication that Jesus was dead. Jesus’ body was then taken down from the cross and buried in Joseph of Arimathea’s tomb. Roman guards next sealed the tomb, and secured it with a 24-hour watch.

Meanwhile, Jesus’ disciples were in shock. Dr. J. P. Moreland explains how devastated and confused they were after Jesus’ death on the cross. “They no longer had confidence that Jesus had been sent by God. They also had been taught that God would not let his Messiah suffer death. So they dispersed. The Jesus movement was all but stopped in its tracks.”¹⁰

All hope was vanquished. Rome and the Jewish leaders had prevailed—or so it seemed.

Something Happened

But it wasn’t the end. The Jesus movement did not disappear (obviously), and in fact Christianity exists today as the world’s largest religion. Therefore, we’ve got to know what happened after Jesus’ body was taken down from the cross and laid in the tomb.

In a New York Times article, Peter Steinfels cites the startling events that occurred three days after Jesus’ death: “Shortly after Jesus was executed, his followers were suddenly galvanized from a baffled and cowering group into people whose message about a living Jesus and a coming kingdom, preached at the risk of their lives, eventually changed an empire. Something happened. … But exactly what?”¹¹ That’s the question we have to answer with an investigation into the facts.

There are only five plausible explanations for Jesus’ alleged resurrection, as portrayed in the New Testament:

1. Jesus didn’t really die on the cross.
2. The “resurrection” was a conspiracy.
3. The disciples were hallucinating.
4. The account is legendary.
5. It really happened.

Let’s work our way through these options and see which one best fits the facts.

Was Jesus Dead?

“Marley was deader than a doornail, of that there was no doubt.” So begins Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol, the author not wanting anyone to be mistaken as to the supernatural character of what is soon to take place. In the same way, before we take on the role of CSI and piece together evidence for a resurrection, we must first establish that there was, in fact, a corpse. After all, occasionally the newspapers will report on some “corpse” in a morgue who was found stirring and recovered. Could something like that have happened with Jesus?

Some have proposed that Jesus lived through the crucifixion and was revived by the cool, damp air in the tomb–“Whoa, how long was I out for?” But that theory doesn’t seem to square with the medical evidence. An article in the Journal of the American Medical Association explains why this so-called “swoon theory” is untenable: “Clearly, the weight of historical and medical evidence indicated that Jesus was dead. … The spear, thrust between His right ribs, probably perforated not only the right lung, but also the pericardium and heart and thereby ensured His death.”¹² But skepticism of this verdict may be in order, as this case has been cold for 2,000 years. At the very least, we need a second opinion.

One place to find that is in the reports of non-Christian historians from around the time when Jesus lived. Three of these historians mentioned the death of Jesus.

• Lucian (c.120–after 180 A.D. referred to Jesus as a crucified sophist (philosopher).¹³
• Josephus (c.37–c.100 A.D.) wrote, “At this time there appeared Jesus, a wise man, for he was a doer of amazing deeds. When Pilate condemned him to the cross, the leading men among us, having accused him, those who loved him did not cease to do so.”¹⁴
• Tacitus (c. 56–c.120 A.D.) wrote, “Christus, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty … at the hands of our procurator, Pontius Pilate.”¹⁵

This is a bit like going into the archives and finding that on one spring day in the first century, The Jerusalem Post ran a front-page story saying that Jesus was crucified and dead. Not bad detective work, and fairly conclusive.

In fact, there is no historical account from Christians, Romans, or Jews that disputes either Jesus’ death or his burial. Even Crossan, a skeptic of the resurrection, agrees that Jesus really lived and died. “That he was crucified is as sure as anything historical can ever be.”¹⁶ In light of such evidence, we seem to be on good grounds for dismissing the first of our five options. Jesus was clearly dead, “of that there was no doubt.”

The Matter of An Empty Tomb

No serious historian really doubts Jesus was dead when he was taken down from the cross. However, many have questioned how Jesus’ body disappeared from the tomb. English journalist, Dr. Frank Morison. initially thought the resurrection was either a myth or a hoax, and he began research to write a book refuting it.¹⁷ The book became famous but for reasons other than its original intent, as we’ll see.

Morison began by attempting to solve the case of the empty tomb. The tomb belonged to a member of the Sanhedrin Council, Joseph of Arimathea. In Israel at that time, to be on the council was to be a rock star. Everyone knew who was on the council. Joseph must have been a real person. Otherwise, the Jewish leaders would have exposed the story as a fraud in their attempt to disprove the resurrection. Also, Joseph’s tomb would have been at a well-known location and easily identifiable, so any thoughts of Jesus being “lost in the graveyard” would need to be dismissed.

Morison wondered why Jesus’ enemies would have allowed the “empty tomb myth” to persist if it wasn’t true. The discovery of Jesus’ body would have instantly killed the entire plot.

And what is known historically of Jesus’ enemies is that they accused Jesus’ disciples of stealing the body, an accusation clearly predicated on a shared belief that the tomb was empty.

Dr. Paul L. Maier, professor of ancient history at Western Michigan University, similarly stated, “If all the evidence is weighed carefully and fairly, it is indeed justifiable … to conclude that the tomb in which Jesus was buried was actually empty on the morning of the first Easter. And no shred of evidence has yet been discovered … that would disprove this statement.”¹⁸

The Jewish leaders were stunned, and accused the disciples of stealing Jesus’ body. But the Romans had assigned a 24-hour watch at the tomb with a trained guard unit (from 4 to 12 soldiers). Morison asked, “How could these professionals have let Jesus’ body be vandalized?” It would have been impossible for anyone to have slipped by the Roman guards and to have moved a two-ton stone. Yet the stone was moved away and the body of Jesus was missing.

If Jesus’ body was anywhere to be found, his enemies would have quickly exposed the resurrection as a fraud. Tom Anderson, former president of the California Trial Lawyers Association, summarizes the strength of this argument:

“With an event so well publicized, don’t you think that it’s reasonable that one historian, one eye witness, one antagonist would record for all time that he had seen Christ’s body? … The silence of history is deafening when it comes to the testimony against the resurrection.”¹⁹

So, with no body of evidence, and with a known tomb clearly empty, Morison accepted the evidence as solid that Jesus’ body had somehow disappeared from the tomb.

Grave Robbing?

As Morison continued his investigation, he began to examine the motives of Jesus’ followers. Maybe the supposed resurrection was actually a stolen body. But if so, how does one account for all the reported appearances of a resurrected Jesus? Historian Paul Johnson, in History of the Jews, wrote, “What mattered was not the circumstances of his death but the fact that he was widely and obstinately believed, by an expanding circle of people, to have risen again.”²⁰

The tomb was indeed empty. But it wasn’t the mere absence of a body that could have galvanized Jesus’ followers (especially if they had been the ones who had stolen it). Something extraordinary must have happened, for the followers of Jesus ceased mourning, ceased hiding, and began fearlessly proclaiming that they had seen Jesus alive.

Each eyewitness account reports that Jesus suddenly appeared bodily to his followers, the women first. Morison wondered why conspirators would make women central to its plot. In the first century, women had virtually no rights, personhood, or status. If the plot was to succeed, Morison reasoned, the conspirators would have portrayed men, not women, as the first to see Jesus alive. And yet we hear that women touched him, spoke with him, and were the first to find the empty tomb.

Later, according to the eyewitness accounts, all the disciples saw Jesus on more than ten separate occasions. They wrote that he showed them his hands and feet and told them to touch him. And he reportedly ate with them and later appeared alive to more than 500 followers on one occasion.

Legal scholar John Warwick Montgomery stated, “In 56 A.D. [the Apostle Paul wrote that over 500 people had seen the risen Jesus and that most of them were still alive (1 Corinthians 15:6ff.). It passes the bounds of credibility that the early Christians could have manufactured such a tale and then preached it among those who might easily have refuted it simply by producing the body of Jesus.”²¹

Bible scholars Geisler and Turek agree. “If the Resurrection had not occurred, why would the Apostle Paul give such a list of supposed eyewitnesses? He would immediately lose all credibility with his Corinthian readers by lying so blatantly.”²²

Peter told a crowd in Caesarea why he and the other disciples were so convinced Jesus was alive.

We apostles are witnesses of all he did throughout Israel and in Jerusalem. They put him to death by crucifying him, but God raised him to life three days later….We were those who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead.
(Acts 10:39-41)

British Bible scholar Michael Green remarked, “The appearances of Jesus are as well authenticated as anything in antiquity. … There can be no rational doubt that they occurred.”²³

Consistent to the End

As if the eyewitness reports were not enough to challenge Morison’s skepticism, he was also baffled by the disciples’ behavior. A fact of history that has stumped historians, psychologists, and skeptics alike is that these 11 former cowards were suddenly willing to suffer humiliation, torture, and death. All but one of Jesus’ disciples were slain as martyrs. Would they have done so much for a lie, knowing they had taken the body?

The Islamic martyrs on September 11 proved that some will die for a false cause they believe in. Yet to be a willing martyr for a known lie is insanity. As Paul Little wrote, “Men will die for what they believe to be true, though it may actually be false. They do not, however, die for what they know is a lie.”²⁴ Jesus’ disciples behaved in a manner consistent with a genuine belief that their leader was alive.

No one has adequately explained why the disciples would have been willing to die for a known lie. But even if they all conspired to lie about Jesus’ resurrection, how could they have kept the conspiracy going for decades without at least one of them selling out for money or position? Moreland wrote, “Those who lie for personal gain do not stick together very long, especially when hardship decreases the benefits.”²⁵

Former “hatchet man” of the Nixon administration, Chuck Colson, implicated in the Watergate scandal, pointed out the difficulty of several people maintaining a lie for an extended period of time.

“I know the resurrection is a fact, and Watergate proved it to me. How? Because 12 men testified they had seen Jesus raised from the dead, and then they proclaimed that truth for 40 years, never once denying it. Every one was beaten, tortured, stoned and put in prison. They would not have endured that if it weren’t true. Watergate embroiled 12 of the most powerful men in the world—and they couldn’t keep a lie for three weeks. You’re telling me 12 apostles could keep a lie for 40 years? Absolutely impossible.^“26

Something happened that changed everything for these men and women. Morison acknowledged, “Whoever comes to this problem has sooner or later to confront a fact that cannot be explained away. … This fact is that … a profound conviction came to the little group of people—a change that attests to the fact that Jesus had risen from the grave.”²⁷

Were the Disciples Hallucinating?

People still think they see a fat, gray-haired Elvis darting into Dunkin Donuts. And then there are those who believe they spent last night with aliens in the mother ship being subjected to unspeakable testing. Sometimes certain people can “see” things they want to, things that aren’t really there. And that’s why some have claimed that the disciples were so distraught over the crucifixion that their desire to see Jesus alive caused mass hallucination. Plausible?

Psychologist Gary Collins, former president of the American Association of Christian Counselors, was asked about the possibility that hallucinations were behind the disciples’ radically changed behavior. Collins remarked, “Hallucinations are individual occurrences. By their very nature, only one person can see a given hallucination at a time. They certainly aren’t something which can be seen by a group of people.”²⁸

Hallucination is not even a remote possibility, according to psychologist Thomas J. Thorburn. “It is absolutely inconceivable that … five hundred persons, of average soundness of mind … should experience all kinds of sensuous impressions—visual, auditory, tactual—and that all these … experiences should rest entirely upon … hallucination.”²⁹

Furthermore, in the psychology of hallucinations, the person would need to be in a frame of mind where they so wished to see that person that their mind contrives it. Two major leaders of the early church, James and Paul, both encountered a resurrected Jesus, neither expecting, or hoping for the pleasure. The Apostle Paul, in fact led the earliest persecutions of Christians, and his conversion remains inexplicable except for his own testimony that Jesus appeared to him, resurrected.

From Lie to Legend

Some unconvinced skeptics attribute the resurrection story to a legend that began with one or more persons lying or thinking they saw the resurrected Jesus. Over time, the legend would have grown and been embellished as it was passed around. In this theory, Jesus’ resurrection is on a par with King Arthur’s round table, little Georgie Washington’s inability to tell a lie, and the promise that Social Security will be solvent when we need it.

But there are three major problems with that theory.

1. Legends rarely develop while multiple eyewitnesses are alive to refute them. One historian of ancient Rome and Greece, A. N. Sherwin-White, argued that the resurrection news spread too soon and too quickly for it to have been a legend. ³⁰
2. Legends develop by oral tradition and don’t come with contemporary historical documents that can be verified. Yet the Gospels were written within three decades of the resurrection.³¹
3. The legend theory doesn’t adequately explain either the fact of the empty tomb or the historically verified conviction of the apostles that Jesus was alive.³²

Why Did Christianity Win?

Morison was bewildered by the fact that “a tiny insignificant movement was able to prevail over the cunning grip of the Jewish establishment, as well as the might of Rome.” Why did it win, in the face of all those odds against it?

He wrote, “Within twenty years, the claim of these Galilean peasants had disrupted the Jewish church. … In less than fifty years it had begun to threaten the peace of the Roman Empire. When we have said everything that can be said … we stand confronted with the greatest mystery of all. Why did it win?”³³

By all rights, Christianity should have died out at the cross when the disciples fled for their lives. But the apostles went on to establish a growing Christian movement.

J. N. D. Anderson wrote, “Think of the psychological absurdity of picturing a little band of defeated cowards cowering in an upper room one day and a few days later transformed into a company that no persecution could silence—and then attempting to attribute this dramatic change to nothing more convincing than a miserable fabrication. … That simply wouldn’t make sense.”³⁴

Many scholars believe (in the words of an ancient commentator) that “the blood of the martyrs was the seed of the church.” Historian Will Durant observed, “Caesar and Christ had met in the arena and Christ had won.”³⁵

A Surprise Conclusion

With myth, hallucination, and a flawed autopsy ruled out, with incontrovertible evidence for an empty tomb, with a substantial body of eyewitnesses to his reappearance, and with the inexplicable transformation and impact upon the world of those who claimed to have seen him, Morison became convinced that his preconceived bias against Jesus Christ’s resurrection had been wrong. He began writing a different book—entitled Who Moved the Stone?—to detail his new conclusions. Morison simply followed the trail of evidence, clue by clue, until the truth of the case seemed clear to him. His surprise was that the evidence led to a belief in the resurrection.

In his first chapter, “The Book That Refused to Be Written,” this former skeptic explained how the evidence convinced him that Jesus’ resurrection was an actual historical event. “It was as though a man set out to cross a forest by a familiar and well-beaten track and came out suddenly where he did not expect to come out.”³⁶

Morison is not alone. Countless other skeptics have examined the evidence for Jesus’ resurrection, and accepted it as the most astounding fact in all of human history. But the resurrection of Jesus Christ raises the question: What does the fact that Jesus defeated death have to do with my life? The answer to that question is what New Testament Christianity is all about.

Did Jesus Say What Happens After we Die?

If Jesus really did rise from the dead, then he alone must know what is on the other side. What did Jesus say about the meaning of life and our future? Are there many ways to God or did Jesus claim to be the only way? Read the startling answers in “Why Jesus.”

-from y-Jesus.com

Notice the title carefully. It describes the subject. I will be using some
examples of things that might fall into the categories above, but please
remember that the examples are not the topic, the topic is about being deceived
vs. discerning the truth.

We are bombarded with messages from television, newspapers, magazines, movies,
radio, schools, the web. Even our friends share their opinions and beliefs with
us. It is easy to accept what our loved ones tell us. Children are especially
susceptible to believing what parents tell them. I believe this is God’s design.
He wants children to learn from their parents, and He wants parents to teach
their children. While the most important subject that a parent can teach a child
is about a loving Creator/God and His plan for redemption, it is not the only
thing. We who are parents, are responsible for training our children in ethics
and life skills, and from my observation, I think many are doing a poor job. Of
course, it is not easy, the same things I mentioned at the beginning of this
paragraph, are bombarding our children as well.

This is not about parents and children though, it is about everyone, so let’s
look at some examples of challenges we face.

Example 1 – Emotional Manipulation in Media

Let’s take global warming as one example. I am not here to debate the
validity of either side in that debate, but I want to show one way that
information is used to sway our opinions.

The image to the right has become very famous. It is used in magazine and articles on the web, documentaries etc. It depicts a polar bear on a small piece of ice. Often, the accompanying text or commentary will say something to the effect, that this polar bear is drifting out so sea on this little chunk of ice, because manmade global warming is melting the polar ice caps. Now, is global warming real? Maybe. Is it caused by man? It is possible we are contributing to it. But let’s examine what the picture is, how it is used, and what it is said to be of.

First off, you will notice that the photo I put here, has the iStockphoto
watermark. iStock is the source of the picture, they are a stock photo agency
that licenses buyers to use their pictures (without the watermark). If you were
to go to the iStockphoto website, and locate this picture, you will find the
text:

“A polar bear managed to get on one of the last ice floes
floating in the Arctic sea. Due to global warming the natural environment of the
polar bear in the Arctic has changed a lot. The Arctic sea has much less ice
than it had some years ago.”

Sometimes, that quotation accompanies the picture in articles. What you would
also see at iphoto, is this:

“(This images (sic) is a photoshop design. Polarbear (sic), ice floe, ocean and
sky are real, they were just not together in the way they are now)”

In case you have not guessed, this last part is usually not quoted, maybe it
never is.

So what do we have here, we have people knowingly using a contrived picture,
and implying that this is one of the last ice floes, and somehow, this lucky
polar bear managed to find it. This is designed to arouse your emotions, feel sorry
for the polar bear, and generate real concern about these disappearing ice
floes. This could be expected to work on children, but it also seemed to work on
adults.

Again, I am not debating global warming here, I am demonstrating
manipulation. One might think that is is a good thing to do something like this,
because it is an important cause which needs to be promoted. I say fine, if
global warming is real, then sell it with facts. Will the people who use this
kind of tactic bother to tell you that there are 5 times as many polar bears
today as there were in 1950? I doubt it. Will the mention that DNA genome
studies indicate that the polar bear has survived previous global warmings? Not
likely. Do they mention that polar bears can swim 60 miles? Seldom. Do they
mention that Polar Bears can live on land, without any ice? You get the idea.
While the ice may be thinning, and the polar bear’s normal habitat may be
shrinking, they are manipulating information and images to manipulate your
emotions. Resist emotional manipulation, recognize it when it is happening, and
look deeper into things. Don’t believe something, just because it tugs your
heart strings, believe things because facts back them up. Remember, even people
we trust, who would never lie to us, can also be deceived.

Example 2 – Email Urban Legends

I got an email one time, one of those chain emails that people
forward to their friends. Fortunately, I do not have many friends, so i do not
get these often. This one was talking about some woman who purchased a large
potted cactus, and put it in her home as a decoration. Without going into all
the details that builds the story up, the cactus later explodes from the pressure
of growing baby tarantulas inside it, and the house is filled with the little
critters. 

Now I read this, and had a huge laugh, because the story is so
ridiculous. Where do I begin? Cactus are not house plants, they need sun.
Tarantulas do not lay eggs in cactus. The babies, in order to grow, would have
to have a food supply, they eat insects. If there were enough insects in the
cactus to feed them, would not the cactus have already exploded from their
volume? Cacti are not hollow, there is no place for all of this to even happen.
Cacti are stronger that fragile spiders, if the pressure were that great, the
spiders would have been squished. There are so many levels that point this out
as an urban legend, but as obvious as it was so to me, apparently it was not
obvious to the friend that forwarded it to me.

If you receive this sort of email, do a little research before
passing it on. Think also, of what the consequences of passing it on might be.
For example, there are often emails forwarded about some new way criminals have
come up with to get their victims. I won’t go into examples, and I would not
forward these. Most of the time, they are not true. Some of the time, the
tactics might even be clever. By forwarding these around, the will eventually
fall into the hands of criminals, who beleive it or not, also have friends with
email. Why give them clever ways to victimize people?

There is one of these that surfaces once in a while about
Madalyn Murry O’Hair, telling of her successful effort to remove Bible
reading and prayer from schools, and her plans to get the Federal Communications
Commission to ban the gospel from broadcasting. It urges Christians to petition
the FCC. It also says that Madalyn is campaigning to remove Christmas songs and
programs from public schools.

I have no problem with Christian activism. What saddens me, is
that people just assume that these sorts of emails are true, after all, it was
forwarded to them by a trusted friend, so they forward it to people that trust
them. So, is the any truth to the claims in the email?

Ms. O’Hair never petitioned the FCC on the topic, nor does the
FCC have the authority to ban religious programming. Those who know me, know
that I believe that we need to be ever vigilant though, as the federal
government has had a track record of overstepping it’s constitutional bounds.
Never-the-less, petition number
RM-2493, to which the email refers, had nothing to do with Ms. O’Hair and
was not about banning religious broadcasting, it was about  preventing
religious organizations from obtaining broadcasting licenses on channels
reserved for educational purposes, and then using them for other purposes.

It was defeated in 1975, yet the FCC still is receiving
petitions to stop Madalyn (who had nothing to do with it) from having her way.
Now, if someone were to read this email, and then just look up Madalyn Murray
O’Hair, the would discover that she went missing in  1995, and her remains
were discovered in 2001, so you can rest assured that she is not a danger to
your religious liberty. There is a newer version of this email floating around
out there, that has president Obama as the villain.

Scare Tactics

Did you notice that in all the cases above, that those who
were perpetuating this disinformation, did so one the basis of fear? You have
heard all of the dire predictions of the result of global warming, the stripping
of your religious rights, how scary would it be to have a house full of
Tarantulas? If you read something, and it induces fear, that is a good time to
take a deep breath and say “Wait, is this really true?” If you can get the fear
out of it, you can more clearly think rationally, let fear grip you, and you
will focus on the fear, and stop looking for the truth. Fear paralyzes, truth
empowers. This tactic of employing fear is wide spread. We see it in politics -
vote for us, because our opponents want to send your babies to war, and feed you
parents dog food. I know, it sounds silly, but those have been used to mobilize
opposition. For some reason, we are willing to believe our guys when they lie to
us, and are ready to believe the worst of “the other guys”. Don’t fall for it,
both sides lie and use fear in politics.

It is true in day to day advertizing as well. If you have
dandruff, bad breath, tooth decay, wrinkles, you will not be happy. If your
laundry is not a white as can be, if your car doesn’t get 40 miles to a gallon
of gasoline, you will be ostracized or you are not a responsible world citizen.

Some of this stuff isn’t even public advertising, some of it
is just word of mouth rumor. Years ago, in a discussion on Worthychat, the topic
of artificial sweeteners came up. One person contending that Aspartame
(NutraSweet, and Equal) had formaldehyde in it, and could lead to cancer and
brain tumors. Now, I am immediately skeptical of such claims, because our food
an drug administration is fairly cautious, so cautious that you could make a
valid case that thousands have died, as a result of being denied medications
that could have saved their lives, because they have not passed the stringent FDA
guidelines that allows release to the public. We sometime have to wait a decade
or more, for the release of a drug in the U.S., that has been successfully
employed in other countries. There is no way around this, we can either be
cautious, and lose people, or we can be reckless, and lose people. My point is,
that it is doubtful that the FDA would approve something, that it knew caused
cancer and tumors.

I did not challenge the chatter’s assertion that Aspartame
contains formaldehyde, because I just did not know the the facts. I did however,
look it up in the next few days. What did I discover? Aspartame does contain
formaldehyde, well sort of. . Under certain conditions of temperature, a small
amount of formaldehyde can form in aspartame. How much? Let’s put it this way.
If you drank 500 cans of soda sweetened with aspartame, you would be ingesting
about as much formaldehyde as is contained in a single orange.

A similar one, is that in some countries, they have all but
ceased using sodium lauryl sulfate. What is that? It is the main ingredient in
many if not most shampoos. It is rumored to cause cancer. Big surprise, most
‘dangerous’ things are using the cancer scare. It is said, that it is a powerful
detergent, used to clean garage floors. Now, there is some truth to that. The
properties that make for a good garage floor cleaner, would be that is is able
to clean, dissolve oil and grease, be water soluble, and not be too dangerous.
These are the same properties that we want is a shampoo, the ability to clean,
break down grease and oil, and disolve in water. Furthermore, since it is going
down the drain, it cannot to too toxic, or we put the environment at risk.
Bio-degradability is what we need. This type of substance, is known as a
biodegradable anionic surfactant. We usually refer to them as detergents. While
there are others, they all do the same thing. Any ingredient that will clean
your hair well, will also clean a garage floor. There are two types of people
who will attempt to scare you about sodium lauryl sulfate – those who are
ignorant, and those who willfully deceive in order to sell you an alternative.
Use what you want, but don’t be fooled by urband legend hype. How did this get
started? The cancer scare and shampoo started in the early seventies, because
shampoo contained nitrosamines. Nitrosamines are known carcinogens (cancer
causing substances). What is odd though is that bacon contains nitrosamines, and
we eat that. We were afraid to put nitrosamines in our hair, but not too afraid
to eat them. Go figure.

There is one ingredient commonly used in industry, which is
responsible for the deaths of thousands. It is commonly dumped into our oceans
lake and streams, and there is some in every household. An analysis of your
blood, would show it’s presence. It is not only in the chemical solutions of
cleaning products that we use, it is even used in food preparation and even as
an ingredient in the food itself. This dangerous chemical compound, is
Dihydrogen Monoxide. according to the
Dihydrogen Monoxide
Research Division :

Dihydrogen Monoxide (DHMO) is a colorless and odorless
chemical compound, also referred to by some as Dihydrogen Oxide, Hydrogen
Hydroxide, Hydronium Hydroxide, or simply Hydric acid. Its basis is the highly
reactive hydroxyl radical, a species shown to mutate DNA, denature proteins,
disrupt cell membranes, and chemically alter critical neurotransmitters. The
atomic components of DHMO are found in a number of caustic, explosive and
poisonous compounds such as Sulfuric Acid, Nitroglycerine and Ethyl Alcohol.

Petitions have circulated in the U.S., but to date, no
legislation has been inacted to ban or curtail it’s use. New Zealand, however,
had been on the cutting edge of fighting DHMO. In 2001 a staffer in New Zealand
Green Party MP Sue Kedgley’s office responded to a request for support for a
campaign to ban dihydrogen monoxide by saying she was “absolutely supportive of
the campaign to ban this toxic substance”. In 2007 Jacqui Dean, New Zealand
National Party MP, wrote a letter to Associate Minister of Health Jim Anderton
asking “Does the Expert Advisory Committee on Drugs have a view on the banning
of this drug?”

 You have probably heard of this dangerous substance
before. In the U.S., we usually refer to it as water. That is how normal,
ordinary things, can become something to fear. Nothing said about water above,
was untrue.

Of course, when there is a fear, it is an opportunity to sell
the antidote – to sell hope. We fear cancer, so we will but things that offer us
hope of prevention. I know someone who spent $500 on what amounts to a blender
with colored LEDs. Supposedly, you put water in this, swirl it around, and you
get hexagonal
water, which prevents cancer. I wish you could see me roll my eyes.

However, just because there is no science to back up claims of
health from certain practices and substances, doesn’t mean they won’t work. Look
up the

placebo effect sometime.

What is the point of all this? I’ll bet you thought I would
never come to that. The point is that we are easily and readily deceived.

Deception

What all of the above have in common is deception. Deception
can be done to us, or we can be self deceived. The worst kind of deception by
far, is religious deception. The are thousands of  religions and cults
offering differing world views and ideas. Atheism and related
dogma (like evolution as an example), while not properly religion, are
practically religion, because they are based on faith and offer alternative
thought to traditional religion. Let’s be clear about one thing, if there are
ten ideas which contradict each other, no more than one of them can be correct.

Some may question why I said religious deception is the worst
kind. If it is true (and it is obviously true) that it is impossible for two or
more contradictory statements to all be true, then we have to compare religious
claims, and their implications. The bible tells us that mankind is too flawed to
enter in to eternal life in Heaven, and that we need a savior to deliver us from
the consequences of our sins. The Bible presents Jesus as that savior, and the
only way that we may enter Heaven. That claim is either true, or it is false. If
it is true, then we must follow that faith, or suffer eternal consequences. If
it is false, then we should not go about being self deceived and deceiving
others. This is of such vital importance, that we should spent to most effort
possible, to arrive at what is true. To fail to do so is to risk eternal
damnation for ourselves and for others. Nothing can possibly be more important.

Much of what I discussed above, involves what many call “junk
science”. I would like to propose, that there is also “junk religion”. Junk
religion, is similar to junk science and urban legends. It plays on fears,
exploits false hopes, and like junk science, can be exposed with a little
research and a willingness to yield to the fact, if we can get past our
emotions. Some might argue that  playing on fears and emotions, offering
false hope is exactly what religion does. That is true. Since it is true that no
more than one religion can really be true (I am not talking about denominations,
but truly different religions), then that means that all but perhaps one, is a
junk religion, However, if there is one that is true, we need to find that one
and avoid all others, and discourage others from getting involved in false hope
with eternal consequences. We need to avoid all of them but one, if even one is
true.

I am haunted by something Penn Gillette said:

“How much do you have to hate someone to believe that
everlasting life is possible and not tell them that?” Pretty convicting words
coming from an athiest. Whatever else you may think about Penn Gillette, I do
believe truth is important to him. He just has not discovered it yet.
Never-the-less this foul mouthed entertainer and skeptic, has done much to
expose a lot of the junk science that is out there, one can only hope and pray
that one day he will receive a blessing from God and use his sharp mind and
investigative skills and apply them to the religious issue.

We as Christians, are aware that forces of deception exist,
but being aware of them is not enough to be free of their effects. We need to be
vigilant in our pursuit of the truth, ever on the guard for religious deception,
even from witin our own ranks, perhaps especially so. Dr. John Warrick
Montgomery wrote an interesting book called “Damned through the Church”, it is
worth a read.

From within the ranks of those that call themselves
Christians, we have seen doctrines immerge which appeal to our base instincts.
The prosperity gospel, for example. Some have come to believe that God wants us
all health, happy and rich. He wants us content in our circunstances, but that
does not mean that He wants our circumstances to cause our contentment.

As usual, I have not set about to write this blog, knowing
exactly where I am going, so it should not surprise you to learn, that I do not
know when and where to end. So, having grown weary of writing by now, I will
leave you with the following verses to ponder:

2 Tim 2:15

15 Be diligent to present yourself approved to God as a workman who does not
need to be ashamed, handling accurately the word of truth.NASB

1 Tim 6:3-10

3 If anyone teaches false doctrines and does not agree to the sound instruction
of our Lord Jesus Christ and to godly teaching, 4 he is conceited and
understands nothing. He has an unhealthy interest in controversies and quarrels
about words that result in envy, strife, malicious talk, evil suspicions 5 and
constant friction between men of corrupt mind, who have been robbed of the truth
and who think that godliness is a means to financial gain.

6 But godliness with contentment is great gain. 7 For we brought nothing into
the world, and we can take nothing out of it. 8 But if we have food and
clothing, we will be content with that. 9 People who want to get rich fall into
temptation and a trap and into many foolish and harmful desires that plunge men
into ruin and destruction. 10 For the love of money is a root of all kinds of
evil. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced
themselves with many griefs.

NIV

2 Tim 4:3-6

3 For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but wanting
to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in
accordance to their own desires; 4 and will turn away their ears from the truth,
and will turn aside to myths. 5 But you, be sober in all things, endure
hardship, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry.

NASB

1 Peter 3:14-18

14 But even if you should suffer for the sake of righteousness, you are blessed.
And do not fear their intimidation, and do not be troubled, 15 but sanctify
Christ as Lord in your hearts, always being ready to make a defense to everyone
who asks you to give an account for the hope that is in you, yet with gentleness
and reverence; 16 and keep a good conscience so that in the thing in which you
are slandered, those who revile your good behavior in Christ may be put to
shame. 17 For it is better, if God should will it so, that you suffer for doing
what is right rather than for doing what is wrong.

NASB

Be Content!

photo from freakingnews.com

Omegaman 2.0

Compromise is something that breeds complacency and eventually spiritual death, something we ought to avoid at all costs. I hope by the end of the study you will see the danger of compromise and how to avoid it in your own spiritual walk. I will wrap up with an examples from the New Testament, and some analogies.

Let’s place this story in context: The headship of Israel has switched from the judges to the kings. The last judge was Samuel, and King Saul took over from him. King Saul started off well, but the Spirit of the Lord had departed him, and 2 Sam 5:1-5 we learn that the people have approached David to be King.

David came from the tribe of Judah. King Saul was from the tribe of Benjamin (the importance of this will be made clear later in the study).

Acts 13:21 And afterward they asked for a king. And God gave them Saul the son of Kish, a man of the tribe of Benjamin, for forty years.

The two tribes (Judah and Benjamin) together to form the Kingdom of Judah, for which David ruled as king initially before becoming king of all Israel. David is 30 when he is made king (a foreshadow of Christ) and reigns for a total of 40 years. Despite his well known sin(s) with Bathsheba (2 Sam 11) , David is a good king, scripture tells us that he is a “man after God’s own heart” (e.g. 1 Sam 13:14).

Sometimes when you read the name ‘Judah’ it refers to the tribe of Judah, and sometimes it refers to the Kingdom of Judah (the tribes of Judah and Benjamin combined). Similarly, sometimes when you read ‘Israel’, it refers to all 12 tribes, and sometimes it refers only to the 10 “northern” tribes (everyone except the Kingdom of Judah and some Levites).

At the death of David’s son (Solomon) we see Israel firmly divided by the two Kingdoms (the divided era), with Israel in the north, and Judah in the south. Jerusalem is in the land held by the Kingdom of Judah. People who talk about the “lost” tribes are talking about the northern Kingdom of Israel.

There are many parallels in David’s life that make him a foreshadow of Christ. There is also a covenant named after him (the Davidic Covenant, 2 Sam 7) which promises that the promised Messiah would be a seed of David (a descendant of David, from the tribe of Judah), which is partially fulfilled by the birth of Christ (Matt 1:1).

Geographically, Israel has crossed over the Jordan river into the promised land. Each of the 12 tribes (with the exception of the Levites, who served as priests) were allocated a portion of the land, and they were commanded to drive out the inhabitants of the land, called Canaanites.

Num 33:51 Speak to the sons of Israel and say to them, When you have passed over Jordan into the land of Canaan,

Num 33:52 then you shall drive out all those who live in the land from before you, and destroy all their carved images, and destroy all their molded images and pluck down all their high places.

Num 33:53 And you shall possess the land, and live in it. For I have given you the land to possess it.

Question: What was Israel asked to do? Can you see an analogy beginning to form here about your own spiritual walk after salvation?

Israel was not completely obedient in this command. In particular, the tribes of Judah and Benjamin were allocated the land containing the city of Jerusalem. Jerusalem at that time was known as Jebus, and the inhabitants were Jebusites. However, the Jebusites were not driven from the land (Joshua 15:63). Later we read that the tribe of Benjamin and the Jebusites are living together (Judges 1:21).

This is a compromise from what the Lord required. Note that the tribe of Benjamin was not the only tribe that did not drive out the inhabitants of their land. Judges 1:27-36 lists many tribes who either did not dwell in their allotted land, or failed to drive out the inhabitants. The Israelites were given dire warnings about what would happen if they turned back, or if the inhabitants remained in the land:

Jos 23:11 And take good heed to yourselves that you love Jehovah your God.

Jos 23:12 Otherwise, if you go back in any way, and hold to those left of these nations, these that remain among you, and shall marry them and go in to them and they to you,

Jos 23:13 know for a certainty that Jehovah your God will no more drive out these nations from before you. But they shall be snares and traps to you, and whips in your sides, and thorns in your eyes, until you perish from off this good land which Jehovah your God has given you.

Question: what was Israel asked not to do, and what was the consequence of compromise?

Just how much a compromise this is, becomes clear when we look at the significance of Jerusalem. Jerusalem is where Mt Moriah is. It is where Abraham went up the mountain to sacrifice Isaac his only begotten son (Gen 22), something we now realise is a foreshadow of the sacrifice of Christ (the only begotten Son of God).

It is on Mount Moriah in Jerusalem that Abraham passes God’s test of faith. Mount Moriah came to symbolize for the Jews the supreme embodiment of their relationship with God. Then, “Abraham named this place: God Sees, which today is expressed as follows: On the mountain of God is one seen.” (Genesis 22:14) From this Jews understand that in Jerusalem, unlike any other place on earth, God is almost tangible. [http://judaism.about.com/od/jerusalem/a/jerslm_jews.htm ]

Israel is in the promised land but has failed to drive out the inhabitants of the land, directly disobeying the Word of the Lord, and is living in an uncomfortable compromise, despite the warning of what would happen. Their “holy city” Jerusalem is inhabited by the Jebusites (Canaanites) instead of the tribe of Judah and Benjamin.

King Saul dies, and King David begins his rule. As his first action, David takes the city of Jerusalem. Finally, Israel is putting an end to the compromising situation they are in. David builds a house (v11) and brings the Ark of the Covenant into the city (2 Sam 6). Jerusalem essentially becomes a holy city to the people of Israel and the center of worship.

We should have the attitude of David, and not Saul. Saul was king of all Israel, and came from the tribe of Benjamin, but in all his time as King he didn’t complete the task the Lord had given to drive out the Jebusites. Let’s have a closer look at how David and his men conquered Jerusalem from the Jebusites.

2Sa 5:6-10

6 And the king and his men went to Jerusalem to the Jebusites, the people of the land. And one spoke to David saying, You shall not come in here, except the blind and the lame will turn you away; also saying, David cannot come in here.

7 And David took the stronghold of Zion; it is the city of David.

8 And David said on that day, Anyone who strikes the Jebusite, let him go by the water-shaft and take the lame and the blind, the hated of David’s soul. On account of this they say, The blind and the lame shall not come into the house.

9 And David lived in the fort, and called it the city of David. And David built all around, from Millo and inward.

10 And David went on and became great, and Jehovah, the God of Hosts was with him.

Now, the first time I read this, I blinked. What is this saying about blind and lame people? The Jebusites are mocking David, suggesting that Jerusalem was so easy to defend, that even an army of blind and lame could defend it.

Jerusalem is high on a hill and walled on three sides. Any approach by normal methods is seen well in advance, it is naturally suited to defence. This was a significant stronghold, called a fort in v9. It was hard to take and that is why the tribes of Judah and Benjamin never conquered it.

Question: What kind of character attributes does David have, that we should try to copy, or does Saul have, that we should try to avoid?

How we can quickly settle with compromise instead of fully walking in the ways of the Lord! I remember when I first got saved, things were wonderful! I made good progress rather quickly. But after a few months, I began to realise that I had my own “pesky Jebusites” – sins and attitudes and desires in me that were not of the Lord, thing that represented compromise… while I was living with them I was not fully walking with the Lord.

It felt like those “pesky Jebusites” were so deeply woven into the fabric of my being that resistance was futile. I really resonated with the mockery of the Jebusites, that the blind and lame could defend their city, because that’s how I felt! These things were so firmly entrenched in me, if felt like even my strongest attempt to overcome would be easily defeated by the enemy.

Question [for personal reflection only]: have a think about your own walk with the Lord. Are you compromising?

Question [to discuss]: Can you think of anyone else in scripture who compromised their faith, and what was the outcome?

I encourage you not to become settled with these things. Continue to seek the Lord, striving to walk in His ways, and never accept compromise. A common “pesky jebusite” that plagues youth is lust. You really have to make a choice between becoming comfortable with it in your life, or like David, doing whatever it takes to dispose those “pesky Jebusites” from the Land.

Let’s have a look at an example from the next testament, of someone who gave everything they had to serve the Lord.

Mar 12:41 And sitting down opposite the treasury, Jesus watched how the people threw copper coins into the treasury. And many rich ones threw in much.

Mar 12:42 And a certain poor widow came, and she threw in two lepta, which is a kodrantes.

Mar 12:43 And He called His disciples and said to them, Truly I say to you that this poor widow has cast in more than all those who have cast into the treasury.

Mar 12:44 For all cast in from their abundance. But she, out of her poverty, has cast in all that she had, all her livelihood.

You might not have been given a task as big as King David. It is not about how much you have to give, or what role the Lord is asking you to fill, but that you give it all. No compromise, no holding back! Live fully for Him, don’t settle for 80 or 90 percent. Be like the poor widow, and cast in everything you have!

If you look closer at the tribe of Benjamin, you will see the small compromise lead to bigger and bigger compromise, and that is just as true for us as it was for them! The shameful events in Judges 19-21 further exemplify the consequences of compromise. I believe Ps 1:1 speaks about the slippery slope into deeper compromise.

Personally, I avoided kicking the “pesky Jebusites” out of my life because I feared the battle would be too strong for me, and I didn’t want the self denial was required for victory. But I should have feared the Lord more than the battle, because the consequences of not following the Lord fully are far worse than any earthly battle or temptation you could find yourself in.

I wanted to slip this quote in somewhere, and here seems like a nice place, to encourage you that we should have confidence rather than fear when it comes to engaging in battle against those “pesky Jebusites”.

“I’ve got The Father on my side, Jesus Christ, The Holy Spirit and 2/3 of the angels. What do you think I’m going to do? Sit down and cry?” - Leonard Ravenhill

The battle never ends, it is a constant day in day out, 24-7 life of living for Him regardless of the cost. Immediately after David took Jerusalem, the Philistines hear of the victory, and come up to seek David. God confirms that David and his men will get victory, and the Philistines are defeated (v17-25).

To finish tonight I want to share a long analogy, that brilliantly describes the kind of trust and faith we are to have in the Lord, going all the way and holding nothing back.

There was a tightrope walker, who did incredible aerial feats. All over Paris, he would do tightrope acts at tremendously scary heights. Then he would go across the tightrope, blindfolded, pushing a wheelbarrow.

An American promoter read about this in the papers and wrote a letter to the tightrope walker, saying, “Tightrope, I don’t believe you can do it, but I’m willing to make you an offer. For a very substantial sum of money, besides all your transportation fees, I would like to challenge you to do your act over Niagara Falls.”

Now, Tightrope wrote back, “Sir, although I’ve never been to America and seen the Falls, I’d love to come.” Well, after a lot of promotion and setting the whole thing up, many people came to see the event. Tightrope was to start on the Canadian side and come to the American side. Drums roll, and he comes across the rope which is suspended over the treacherous part of the falls-blindfolded!!

He makes it across easily. The crowds go wild, and he comes to the promoter and says, “Well, Mr. Promoter, now do you believe I can do it?”
“Well of course I do. I mean, I just saw you do it.”
“No,” said Tightrope, “do you really believe I can do it?”
“Well of course I do, you just did it.”

“No, no, no,” said Tightrope, “do you believe I can do it?”

“Yes,” said Mr. Promoter, “I believe you can do it.”

“Good,” said Tightrope, “then you get in the wheelbarrow.”

Some of us claim to be living for God, but are refusing to get into the wheelbarrow. If you have been tempted to compromise, and not give the Lord your whole life, instead keeping a part for yourself, to control for yourself, trusting in your own abilities or bowing to the pressure of others, make a commitment today to step out in faith and give it over to the Lord.

If you haven’t made that first step of faith, today is the day of salvation, now is the time to repent and to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. Let me tell you how you can become a Christian if you are not one already.

We have a sin Problem!
Romans 3:23 for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God,

Sin has a penalty Penalty!
Romans 5:12 Therefore, even as through one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin, and so death passed on all men inasmuch as all sinned:

God has made a Provision!
Romans 5:8 But God commends His love toward us in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us.

Through faith in Jesus, we have a Pardon!
Romans 10:9-10 Because if you confess the Lord Jesus, and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you shall be saved. For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth one confesses unto salvation.

That is the end of the bible study today, would someone like to close in prayer, asking the Lord to keep this message in our hearts and mind, to help us recognise and eliminate the compromise in our lives, and instead trust fully in Him? After this, we have a few minutes for questions.

Heb 12:1 Therefore since we also are surrounded with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight and the sin which so easily besets us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us,
Heb 12:2 looking to Jesus the Author and Finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and sat down at the right of the throne of God.
Heb 12:3 For consider Him who endured such contradiction of sinners against Himself, lest you be weary and faint in your minds.

This text is so jam packed full of important information that we need to go word by word through it. It starts with “Therefore”, which tells us that what we are about to hear leads on from the previous passages. Any time you read a bible verse that starts with “therefore”, “hence”, “because of this” etc, you know that you should flip back a few verses to find out why and how the verse under consideration is linked to the previous verses.

In this case, Paul was talking about the great hero’s of the faith (we learned about them in the ‘Have faith!” study) who have walked before us, whose lives are a great testimony of the faithfulness of Christ, who endured many things for His name. Despite their great testimony to us, they are but a poor reflection of Christ, and it is to Him that we are to fix our focus, as we will read later.

We are told that we are “surrounded” by a great cloud of witnesses. The Greek word here actually gives the impression of an amphitheatre or an arena where sports events would be held. It is sometimes translated as “encircled” or “encompassed”, as the seating in a stadium circles the participants on the field. During this time in history, gladiators would battle each other to death in arenas, watched by many hundreds of people, and sadly this also included some of our brothers in the faith being thrown to lions in the same kind of arena.

The next part of the first verse is talking about the “cloud of witnesses”. In this setting, the cloud refers to a large number of people, much like how a swarm of locusts appears like a cloud when there are enough of them. You are not alone in your Christian faith. No matter what it feels like in your situation at this point in time, know that many have gone before you in the faith, and there are many others around the world who are also suffering and struggling. You are not alone by any means!

There is a difference between the “witnesses” in the bloodthirsty slaughters in arenas, and the witnesses that Paul is talking about. These witnesses are more like testifiers, whose lives speak of the faithfulness of the Lord. These witnesses are for us, not against us, cheering us on. When I read this, I am slightly convicted, knowing the kind of things that these people endured for His name, and the ways in which they denied their own desires to follow Him. I am spurred on, a convicted encouragement, to continue in my own personal walk.

So we have Paul already setting the scene of an athletics arena, filled with the saints who have gone before us, cheering us on as we run this race. I remember running a long distance race in high school, and when the exhaustion set in, I was tired, but running alongside my peers somehow made it easier for me to continue. They encouraged me to carry on, just as the saints who have gone before us encourage us as we run for Christ.

The analogy of the athlete continues in the next phrase “ let us lay aside every weight and the sin which so easily besets us” and I think we could easily have a sermon on this issue! Weight and sin in this phrase are not two ways of saying the same thing, they are two separate issues. We need to lay them aside, so that they do not hinder our running ability!

The weight refers to those extra things we carry that burden us, picture a runner dragging a very heavy weight behind him, and you will see that a lot of energy is spent for very little reward. This is the essence of that word in the Greek. This can be relationships or hobbies or fears etc., anything that burdens us. This is different from the sin in our lives, which ensnares us, and the idea here is that we trip over this with our feet and are unable to stride, much like a runner would trip over untied shoelaces. It is a rope around our feet so that we fall. No one runs a marathon wearing a Santa suit, high heals (pumps), carrying a large suitcase while juggling balls. We need to be free from those weights so that we can freely run the race! Similarly we don’t want our feet entangled in sin, so that we can freely stride ahead. This concept is also found in the book of Matthew:

Mat 5:29 And if your right eye offends you, pluck it out and throw it from you. For it is profitable for you that one of your members should perish, and not that your whole body should be thrown into hell.
Mat 5:30 And if your right hand offends you, cut it off and throw it from you. For it is profitable for you that one of your members should perish, and not that your whole body should be thrown into hell.

The next phrase “and let us run with patience the race that is set before us” is perhaps the clearest part of this analogy. I want to point out something important here, that we are to run, and not walk, it is not supposed to be a casual stroll in the park. This is a endurance race and we are to run as if we want to win! [1Co 9:24 Do you not know that those running in a race all run, but one receives the prize? So run, that you may obtain. ]

We are going to get to this point again later, but for the moment I want you to consider your own walk with God. Are you running? If not, take off your “flip flops” and put on your running shoes! Running requires a lot of exertion, our full effort, we continue it as our main focus. We don’t run and engage at other activities at the same time, I’ve never seen a marathon runner do anything other than run! Even carrying on media interviews while running seems to distract them. If you aren’t running, perhaps you need to pause and “turn your feet to Him” (Ps 119:59).

“Looking unto Jesus” means keeping our eyes fixed on Him as a runner keeps their eyes fixed on the finish line, with steadfast devotion. Those runners who let their attention drift from the finish line get off course and go out of their lane, run into obstacles etc. Our eyes are fixed on Him alone. Recall that when Peter took His eyes off Jesus, he sunk. While he had his eyes fixed on Jesus, he could walk on water. Keep your eyes on the prize!

Let’s move on to “the Author and finisher of our faith”, does this mean that Jesus has written the whole sports commentary, and we just need to be swept along with the flow? Leaving the predestination debate aside, let’s see what this really means. To do this, I want to copy and paste the Clarke commentary on this verse, because it is fascinating and says it better than I could anyway!

The author and finisher of – faith – Αρχηγος, translated here author, signifies, in general, captain or leader, or the first inventor of a thing; see Heb_2:10. But the reference seems to be here to the βραβευς, or judge in the games, whose business it was to admit the contenders, and to give the prize to the conqueror. Jesus is here represented as this officer; every Christian is a contender in this race of life, and for eternal life. The heavenly course is begun under Jesus; and under him it is completed. He is the finisher, by awarding the prize to them that are faithful unto death. Thus he is the author or the judge under whom, and by whose permission and direction, according to the rules of the heavenly race, they are permitted to enter the lists, and commence the race, and he is the finisher, τελειωτης, the perfecter, by awarding and giving the prize which consummates the combatants at the end of the race.

The next few phrases / verses concentrate on who Jesus was, what He did, and why He deserves to have our steadfast attention and be the object of our faith. Jesus “for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross”. Notice that Jesus reaps the benefit of His work after it was completed. Similarly, we don’t get our trophy until after the race is completed. We aren’t looking to receive our rewards here on earth, but in heaven when we are finally and completely reconciled and reunited with Christ. Those who want to run unhindered should not be distracted by seeking to be rewarded while the race is still in progress.

Moving on to verse 3 now, “For consider Him who endured such contradiction of sinners against Himself, lest you be weary and faint in your minds.” the Greek of this text is asking us to consider Jesus, as in, to compare our current situation to His. What did He suffer for us, and how does our suffering compare to His suffering? When I compare my sufferings with His, I realise that my sufferings pale in significance!

In sports, we have a gold standard to compare against. When in gymnastics, you want the perfect score of 10. In weightlifting, you have a record score that has been lifted, in running races, you have a time to beat. We look to Jesus as our gold standard, some one who has run the race before us perfectly. We see what He endured, and we know that in perspective we are not suffering as much. We do this, as the last part of the verse says “lest you be weary and faint in your minds.”

They are the verses I wanted to go through in detail today, but there are many other verses through out scripture that speak in a similar way about our walk with Christ. Have a look at a few other verses:

Php 3:12 Not as though I had already attained, either were already perfect, but I am pressing on, if I may lay hold of that for which I also was taken hold of by Christ Jesus.
Php 3:13 My brothers, I do not count myself to have taken possession, but one thing I do, forgetting the things behind and reaching forward to the things before,
Php 3:14 I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.

The language here of “pressing on”, “reaching forward” and “press towards the mark” all continue this same analogy of athlete running a race. Infact, the greek word “ekteino” from which we get “reaching forward” implies much much more than simply having your arms outstretched. It is a straining of your muscles to the absolute limit, the kind of strain we see in a weight lifter as they put everything they have into lifting that weight above their head.

To “press” towards the mark, is an active verb in the greek, something we should be constantly doing. It is not a once off effort, but an endurance race, something we are continually doing. Those who want to dig futher into this analogy can read more in 2 Tim 2:5 and 1 Cor 9:24-26.

Running a race, requires endurance, effort, concentration, self denial. It takes action and energy from us! It is not a passive sport and we are never called to be “armchair athletes”. There are other warnings in scripture against spiritual apathy, and I will show you just two:

Amo 6:1 Woe to those at ease in Zion, and those trusting in the mountain of Samaria, who are noted as leader of the nations. And the house of Israel came to them.

Zion is the holy mountain. Woe to those who are at ease (too comfortable) in Zion. Our trust and complete faith should be in the Lord, and not in the strongholds of this world (Samaria), and when we do this, we will be uncomfortable, stretched, and put through our paces. This walk is never supposed to be easy or comfortable. Chatters who want to explore this further should check out Paul’s warning to the Hebrews in Heb 12:8, that those who are not experiencing the discipline of the Lord are “illegitimate children and not sons” (ESV).

Rev 3:14 And to the angel of the church of the Laodicea write: The Amen, the faithful and true Witness, the Head of the creation of God, says these things:
Rev 3:15 I know your works, that you are neither cold nor hot. I would that you were cold or hot.
Rev 3:16 So because you are lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will vomit you out of My mouth.

Let’s not be lukewarm about our faith, casually strolling along, it is a race, we are to run, we are to be hot! It’s all about denying ourselves and giving everything to follow Jesus. As it says in Matt 16:24 Then Jesus said to His disciples, If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow Me. At the end of our life, we want to say what Paul said in 2Ti 4:7 “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the course, I have kept the faith.”

If you are too comfortable in your race, not straining your muscles and running this race to win, perhaps it is time to ask God to shake you up a little. And if you are not a Christian, it’s time to enter into that race, to run for the Lord with earnestness for all of your life.

I want to acknowledge that some of the information in this study was taken from the following website: http://www.bereanbiblechurch.org/transcripts/hebrews/12_1-3.htm. All scripture quoted is from the MKJV of the bible.

Most of us have faced temptation to do things that we know are outside of His will. And after giving in to temptation, we can struggle with the guilt and avoid Him for a period of time. This roller coaster is familiar to me, and I spent years on it, riding all the highs and lows, before I figured out how to get off that roller coaster into a more stable and consistent walk of faith.

I remember feeling elated at positive spiritual growth for a few continuous months, followed by frustration at facing the same old temptations over and over again, the heartbreak of falling into sin, not wanting to “face the music”, feeling separated from God, and finally repentance, coming back to Him, and feeling elated again. We do not need to go through this!

In 1 John 2:2-3 we read about stages in our walk with Christ, from children, through to young men and finally fathers. The mark of a “young man” is that he has overcome the evil one. Being able to overcome temptation is part of growing in our faith. The bible doesn’t give us a guarantee that we can avoid being tempted, but it does give us many promises about being able to stand under it (1 Cor 10:13).

1Co 10:13 No temptation has taken you but what is common to man; but God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted above what you are able, but with the temptation also will make a way to escape, so that you may be able to bear it.

God has faithfully provided a way for us to resist all temptation, but it doesn’t come without effort or cost on our behalf. However, we have a great motivation to endure temptation, as is written in James 1:12 Blessed is the man who endures temptation, because having been approved, he will receive the crown of life which the Lord has promised to those who love Him.

Before we go any further, lets have a look at what temptation is, and what it isn’t. First thing to notice is that God does not tempt us, but rather temptation comes from the world and our own lusts (James 1:12-14). However, God does send us trials which are different from temptation. These trials are not designed to weaken our faith or cause us to sin, but rather to strengthen our faith, and lead us into patience, perseverance and maturity (James 1:2-4, Heb 2:18, 1 Pe 1:5-7).

Temptation comes from the fact that we have the old flesh at war with the born again new creation within us. Paul speaks a lot about this in Romans 7 and 8. In particular, he says:

Rom 7:22 For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being,

Rom 7:23 but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members.

He also says:

Ro 7:19 (ESV) For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing.

Rom 8:13 For if you live according to the flesh, you shall die. But if you through the Spirit mortify the deeds of the body, you shall live.

You see that living according to the Spirit, rather than the flesh, is about more than just temptation, but about life and death!

What is it that we are tempted to do? We are tempted to fulfil fleshly desires, defined in Gal 5:19b-21 as: adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lustfulness, idolatry, sorcery, hatreds, fightings, jealousies, angers, rivalries, divisions, heresies, envyings, murders, drunkennesses and revelings. These things are in direct opposition with the fruit of the Spirit, which are defined in Gal 5:22b-23a as: love, joy, peace, long-suffering, kindness, goodness, faith, meekness and self-control.

Gal 5:24 tells us that those who are in Christ have “have crucified the flesh with its passions and lusts.” The central idea to fighting temptation is to crucify the flesh and to instead live in the Spirit (Gal 2:20, 5:16-18). To crucify the flesh, means to consider it dead to you, and pay no attention to it. As we read again in Gal 5:16 I say, then, Walk in the Spirit and you shall not fulfill the lusts of the flesh.

And also in Gal 2:20 I have been crucified with Christ, and I live; yet no longer I, but Christ lives in me. And that life I now live in the flesh, I live by faith toward the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself on my behalf.

We have no life in the flesh, we consider it dead. Our life is in the Spirit, living according to the leading of the Holy Spirit. We live for Jesus, and He is our role model. The message is simple, but putting it into practice is costly and difficult. Jesus says this another way in Matthew 16:

Mat 16:24 Then Jesus said to His disciples, If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow Me.

All the hints and tips I will give you today are the same basic idea: resist the devil / the flesh / the world, and instead draw near to God through the Word, prayer, and fellowship with the saints. This is what we read in James 4:7-8: Therefore submit yourselves to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Draw near to God, and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, sinners; and purify your hearts, double-minded ones.

One of the things that kept me on that roller coaster of elation – temptation – sin – withdrawal, was that I was looking for the easy way out. I wanted there to be some magic cure for temptation. Perhaps a quote, a story, a single bible verse, a thought, a vision, a dream, a book, a supernatural spiritual event… something to make the temptation instantly disappear and make walking the Christian walk easier for me. It never came.

There are no shortcuts, usually our growth comes from consistent and persistent effort, painfully denying our own flesh and walking every single day in obedience to the spirit. When I gave up looking for this shortcut and just concentrated on being obedient to the leading of the Holy Spirit, it was then that I saw progress and growth.

The only person to have lived a sinless life, perfectly resisting temptation, is Jesus Christ Himself. We can read about His temptation by the devil in Matthew 4. He Himself was tempted and this means two things: we can look to His example for how to fight temptation, and He understands what it is like to battle temptation and can sympathise with us. (Heb 4:15, Heb 2:18)

What I noticed first is that Jesus was tempted while He was vulnerable (hungry v2). Most often we are faced with temptation while we are vulnerable for some reason, for me it is when I am tired and busy, and have not had the time [or have been lazy] to feed myself daily on prayer and bible study. Keep this in mind and be most diligent at times when you know you are vulnerable.

So here we are looking at Jesus being tempted, and the weapon that He used was to quote the Word. Jesus said “It is written” each of the three times He was tempted (v4, 7, 10). This requires that we know the Word! We can’t hope to use the Word as a sword to break down those temptations and false promises if we do not know the Word.

Have a look at what David wrote in Ps 119:

Psa 119:9 With what shall a young man cleanse his way? By taking heed according to Your Word.

Psa 119:10 With all my heart I have sought You; do not let me wander from Your Commandments.

Psa 119:11 I have hidden Your Word in my heart, so that I might not sin against You.

I find that in the heat of temptation, what I need most is a safe place for my mind to go to. If I have scripture that I have been thinking of, or a bible study I am working on, or a verse I am trying to memorise, this instantly gives me a place I can run to in my mind, even if I can’t physically avoid the situation.

Similarly, another tool I use to resist temptation is to immediately change environment. Stand up and go for a walk, turn the TV off, do some chores, etc. The change of physical surrounds tends to reset me and distracts me from the temptation I was facing.

Going back to Jesus’ temptation, also notice that the devil misused the Word in v6, just as he did in the garden of Eden when he tempted Eve (Gen 3:1-6). The devil is a liar, and so is the world. The promises of the devil and of the world are empty and do not fulfil. He misquoted the Word, in an attempt to put before Jesus an alluring but false promise. Jesus was able to detect this twisting of the Word and resist the false promise that the devil was bringing, because Jesus knew the Word.

The second tool we have as a weapon against temptation is prayer. We are told to pray against temptation, at least twice. Once occurs in the Lords prayer (Matt 6:13) “lead us not into temptation”, and the other in Matthew 26:41: Watch and pray that you enter not into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.

Pray that we would not enter into temptation, and also pray for strength when you are tempted.

Jesus regularly retreated up the mountain to pray. Prayer requires us to confess our weakness before Him, ask Him for His strength, and submit to the spirit rather than the flesh.

I remember when I was deep in temptation, I often felt embarrassed about being open and honest with the Lord about these things. I was ashamed by the things that tempted me, and I resisted coming to Him in prayer. Please don’t do this. He is our High Priest, who was also tempted, and He sympathises with us when we are tempted. Run to Him in prayer, not from Him in shame! This is what I think is meant in Heb 4:16 when we are told to “come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need.”

The third tool is to “come out of the world”. One way to do this is to surround yourself with people who are going to encourage you to walk in the spirit, and not the flesh. The bible is full of warnings about who you associate with, and examples of people who avoided this advice and fell. King Solomon is a prime example, whose wives (of a different faith) lead his heart away from the Lord. We read this plainly in 1Co 15:33 Do not be deceived; evil companionships corrupt good habits.

Most of us are familiar with the scripture in 2 Co 6:14 “Do not be unequally yoked together with unbelievers; for what fellowship does righteousness have with lawlessness? And what partnership does light have with darkness?” But if we keep reading through to verse 17, we read this: 2Co 6:17 Therefore come out from among them and be separated, says the Lord, and do not touch the unclean thing. And I will receive you.

Coming out of the world, and choosing instead to fellowship with Christians who love the Lord, can be a powerful way to reduce the amount of temptation that you face. It also keeps us focussed on Him and not the flesh / the world. In fact, we are commanded in Hebrews 10:25 to not forsake the gathering together, but (v24) to provoke one another to love and good works.

To elaborate this point further, we read in 1 John 2 that:

1Jn 2:15 Do not love the world, nor the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him,

1Jn 2:16 because all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world.

1Jn 2:17 And the world passes away, and the lust of it, but he who does the will of God abides forever.

What does it mean in practice to ‘come out of the world’? It is to no longer live according to the ways of this world but according the the Spirit. It is crucifying the flesh! It is not just friends who can influence us for good or bad, we can allow the things that we see, listen to and involve ourselves in that can also lead us astray. If something causes temptation or sin in you, cut it off. Better still, don’t even expose yourself to it in the first place.

Be diligent not to look at things that you know will cause you temptation and arouse the desires of the flesh. Perhaps it is magazines, fashion articles, television soaps, the gym, the pool. Be ruthless and cut off all things from your life that are drawing you into the flesh rather than the spirit. This is no joke, and it is part of the “cost” of being a Christian. This concept is found in Matt 5 and 6 as below:

Mat 5:29 And if your right eye offends you, pluck it out and throw it from you. For it is profitable for you that one of your members should perish, and not that your whole body should be thrown into hell.

Mat 6:22 The light of the body is the eye. Therefore if your eye is sound, your whole body shall be full of light.

Mat 6:23 But if your eye is evil, your whole body shall be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in you is darkness, how great is that darkness!

From experience, it is much much easier to resist the temptation to look, than it is to turn away once you have started looking. It is easier to nip temptation in the bud, than it is when you have let the temptation take root and fester into something large. Be wise, don’t make this harder for yourself than it need be, and remove all sources of temptation from you life.

I wish I had more time to go into this today, but cannot. I have provided a link here to a study I have posted on the boards that I found fantastic dealing with “amputation issue”, and those of you who feel led can read it. It might also be beneficial for those who feel that they have tried and tried and tried, but are still falling to the same sins over again.

http://www.worthychristianforums.com/index.php?/topic/117861-radical-adoration/

A fourth tool is again related to “coming out of the world”, and that is accountability. Accountability is not a worldly concept, it involves confessing your sins and weaknesses to another person, that they might hold you to a godly standard, pray for you when you fall and when you are tempted, and support you in your walk with Christ. It requires humility and honesty or it doesn’t work.

We read of the concept here in James 5:16: Confess faults to one another, and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous one avails much.

Accountability has to be one of the most frightening things I have done as a Christian, but it has had fantastic results. Choose this person wisely and prayerfully, and God can do wonderful things through it. There is nothing like having to stare someone in the eye after confessing a sin, to give you the incentive never to do it again!

The fifth and final thing I want to mention today is to guard ourselves against the “slide”. Psalm 1 describes the slide into sin… first we look upon sin, then we get near it, and finally, we commit it. This gradual fall can be so subtle we barely notice it, but it should warn us that little compromises can add up to disaster, making us gradually more and more comfortable with sin until we are ensnared in it.

Here are the first two verses of Ps 1, note the “walk stand sit” slide into sin described in verse 1, and the fact that the blessed man delights in the Law of Jehovah (v2).

Psa 1:1 Blessed is the man who has not walked in the counsel of the ungodly, and has not stood in the way of sinners, and has not sat in the seat of the scornful.

Psa 1:2 But his delight is only in the Law of Jehovah; and in His Law he meditates day and night.

Perhaps the most common and relevant, example to youth today is the fall into sexual sin. At first, it starts with not expressing disapproval of pre-marital activities. Then, we see a gradual chipping away at convictions… I can hug, I can kiss, I can touch… it’s OK to do this if we love each other.. . until sin is rampant. Guard yourself against this gradual slide into sin by standing firm in your convictions and not compromising even on those small (seemingly insignificant) things.

I don’t want to dwell on this particular temptation too much, other than to give those of you who are struggling with it this encouragement. It is God’s will that you succeed in this battle, He is for you and not against you, and this battle is win-able.

1Th 4:3 For this is the will of God, your sanctification, for you to abstain from fornication,

1Th 4:4 each one of you to know how to possess his vessel in sanctification and honor

1Th 4:5 (not in the passion of lust, even as the nations who do not know God),

I don’t want to end the bible study today without reminding you that despite the fact that we should not give in to temptation, we do, and forgiveness is available in Christ. If you have faced temptation and fallen into sin, I encourage you to truly repent (turn from your sin) and ask the Lord for forgiveness.

As is written in 1 John

1Jn 1:9 If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness, and 1 Jn 2:1-2 My little children, I write these things to you so that you may not sin. And if anyone sins, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. And He is the propitiation concerning our sins, and not concerning ours only, but also concerning the sins of all the world.

Sin doesn’t affect our eternal relationship with God, our sin is forgiven and the penalty for it was paid at the cross. But it does affect our fellowship with God, the way we interact with Him. If you have fallen into sin, repent and ask for forgiveness, and repair that fellowship with Him.

Recall from Romans:

Rom 8:1 There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.

Rom 8:2 But the Law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death.

We are not condemned for our sin if we are in Christ Jesus. Forgiveness of sins is there for those who are in Christ Jesus, those who believe in Him. The question is, are you in Christ Jesus? Folks, if you are not a Christian, now is the time to repent and to have faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.

1 – We are saved through faith:

Eph 2:8-9 For by grace you are saved through faith, and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast.

2 – Faith pleases God:

Heb 11:6 But without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.

3 – We are to live by faith:

Rom 1:17 For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith, as it is written, “The just shall live by faith.”

So we know that faith is incredibly important, by it we are saved! But what is it? Faith is not merely an believing in God in your head. Faith is such strong confidence in God, that we chose to act based on God and His Word and His promises, rather than the world and circumstances.

One of my favourite chapters in the bible is Hebrews 11, it is a whole chapter about faith, and in it we can read about Paul telling us what faith is, who the “hero’s of faith” are in the old testament, and (briefly) what their faith looked like in action. I will refer to this chapter a few times throughout the study. If you want to study faith further, I suggest you read this chapter .

The chapter starts by defining faith, and it is the only place in the bible where faith is defined.

Heb 11:1 Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.

In this verse, “substance” means “confidence”. Faith is the confidence that what we hope for (in Christ) is true and real.

A few verses later (13-16), the chapter talks about a common feature of the “hero’s of the faith”. They confessed that they were “strangers and pilgrims on the earth” (v13) and were seeking a heavenly fatherland (v16). In other words, they were not looking to this earth to determine how they would act and what they would believe, but to God. Their actions revealed where their faith was, and our actions reveal where our faith is too.

When I was a child, we would go to the public pool every weekend in summer. My father would stand in the deep end and tell me to jump to him, and promised that he would catch me. I knew that I couldn’t touch the bottom or swim to safety, but I would willingly jump because I whole heartedly trusted him to catch me.

There were two conflicting messages coming at me… the circumstances around me said “you can’t swim, therefore don’t jump into the water!” and my father said “jump, I will catch you!”. I had such confident faith in my father, believing his promise was true, that I willingly jumped.

This is the kind of child like, innocent faith we are to have in the Lord. We are to believe His Word and His promises more than circumstances.

Mat 18:2-3 And Jesus called a little child to Him and set him in their midst, and said, Truly I say to you, Unless you are converted and become as little children, you shall not enter into the kingdom of Heaven.

Now that we know what faith is, let’s talk about something that can confuse people. Many people believe that if they have doubt, it must mean that they don’t have any faith and must be unsaved. While it is true that you either have faith or you don’t, the bible is clear that there are different levels of faith. Jesus mentions: great faith (Matt 8:10, 15:28), little faith (Matt 14:31), as small as a mustard seed (Matt 17:20, Luke 17:6), no faith (Mark 4:20).

The mustard seed is the smallest seed, about the size of the end of a mechanical pencil. But it grows into the largest herb plant, so large that the birds of the air nest in it (Matt 13:32). Also note that it can take years for this mustard plant to bore fruit, and this is the nature of faith, that it starts off small, and can take years to come to full maturity, but from seemingly small beginnings we can see tremendous results.

The presence of both faith and doubt is written of a few times in the bible. Probably the most familiar to you, is when Simon Peter is walking on the water, takes his eyes off of Jesus, and starts to sink. Jesus says (Matt 14:31b) “Little faith! Why did you doubt?”

A second example is of the father who brought his mute son (who had a ‘dumb spirit’) to the disciples to have the demon cast out, but they could not do it. Jesus casts the spirit out of the boy, and says “If you can believe, all things are possible to him who believes.” We read in the next verse (Mark 9:24) the father of the child cried out and said with tears, “Lord, I believe. Help my unbelief”.

We might have more or less faith than the person next to us, we might doubt different things to them. This shouldn’t make us question our salvation, so long as we have faith “as small as a mustard seed”, we are saved. But we should not be satisfied with a weak faith, and should do as the disciples did in Luke 17:5 and pray for more faith.

The answer to doubt is not to leave God. The answer is to cling to the Lord, honestly admitting your doubt, praying for more faith (just like the disciples did) and acknowledging that we really have no where else we can go, because salvation is only available by grace through faith.

My favourite scripture in the bible addresses this issue:

Joh 6:68-69 Then Simon Peter answered Him, Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the Words of eternal life. And we have believed and have known that You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.

We also know that faith comes from hearing (reading or listening) to the Word of God (Rom 10:17).

However, we all know that we should not doubt, our aim as Christians is set out in Hebrews 10, to draw near with “full assurance of faith”, “holding fast our profession of faith without wavering”. This is a strong, solid, doubtless faith! Elsewhere in scripture we are told not to have a heart of unbelief (Heb 3:12).

Heb 10:22 let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience and our bodies having been washed with pure water.

Heb 10:23 Let us hold fast the profession of our faith without wavering (for He is faithful who promised),

Heb 3:12 Take heed, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief, in departing from the living God.

I have repeated myself many times now, but it is a very important point. Faith is having so much confidence in God’s Word that we act as if it is true, even in spite of what the world or the circumstances around us might be telling us. This is a nice place to pause and very quickly talk about “works”.

Faith is something that must be put into action – think of it as a verb, something we do, not something we merely believe in our minds. Faith that we do not act upon is dead (James 2:20). Faith without works is a belief, but without the strong confidence and trust that causes us to act on our beliefs. Notice that belief alone is not enough, even the demons believe! (James 2:19).

This is why we are told to judge a tree by it’s fruit (it’s actions, works etc) (Luke 6:44). In other words, we are judged not by what we claim to believe, but by what our actions demonstrate that we do believe.

Go back to the example about me at the pool. If I truly have faith in my father to catch me, I will jump! And if you truly believe in God, and His Word and His promises, you are going to act like it!

Hebrews chapter 11 gives us a lot of information about the “works” and attitudes of those with great faith. There is a major focus on Moses (v23-30) and Abraham (8-10, 17-19), one or two lines for each of Abel (4), Enoch (5), Noah (7), Sarah (11-12), Isaac (20), Jacob (21), Joseph (22) and Rahab (31), and mention made of Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, David, Samuel and the prophets (32).

I have plans to do future study on these people that I will place on the forums for reading, but is too long to include here today. We can have a short look at Moses faith and draw out a few points of interest about him from Hebrews 11:24-26:

Heb 11:24-26: Having become great, Moses by faith refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter, choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a time, esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures in Egypt, for he was looking to the reward.

Moses chose to suffer with the people of God rather than enjoy the pleasure of sin. Moses also chose to esteem (respect, value) the reproach (rebuke, shame) of Christ more than the treasures of Egypt. Moses was looking to the reward that we have in Christ, not just for salvation, but for all of His promises to us!

One thing we need to keep in mind, is that when we reject the world and it’s wisdom, it will also reject us. Do not be surprised at all when you are persecuted, feel like you don’t fit in, or have nothing in common with the world. This is part of the Christian life.

Having faith in the Lord does not guarantee a trouble free life, in fact we are to expect persecution. We have already met the “hero’s of faith” in Hebrews 11, have a look at some more verses in that chapter that describes some of the events in these hero’s lives.

The account starts off very positively with many answered prayers and blessings. In verses 33-35 we read that they:

subdued kingdoms, wrought righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the violence of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, out of weakness were made strong, became valiant in fight, turned to flight the armies of the strangers. Women received their dead raised to life again,

But in verses 35-37, we also start to see some of the trials of having faith in this world. Read what else they endured:

and others were tortured, not accepting deliverance, that they might obtain a better resurrection.

They endured a trial of cruel mockings and scourgings; were stoned, they were sawed in two, were tempted, were slain with the sword. They wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins, being destitute, afflicted, tormented.

As we have seen, people of great faith in the bible had more than just an academic belief. They had a strong trust in the Lord that translated into action. They looked to Him and His promises, instead of the world and circumstances, and held on for the prize of eternal life with Christ. This kind of faith comes at a cost, having to deny yourself, and being rejected and persecuted by the world.

Our Christian walk might not be as dramatic as the events we read in this chapter, but we still experience the blessings and trials. Faith will cost you! We need to have enduring faith, that remains constant, regardless of whether we are going through a blessing or a trial.

Hebrews 11 lists many people with great faith, but we really ought to keep reading into chapter 12, where we are reminded that Jesus is the perfect example of faith on earth, and the person we should look to:

Heb 12:1b-2a let us run with patience the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus the Author and Finisher of our faith,

To finish, I want to remind you that God is faithful, even when we are not. His faithfulness works both ways: He is faithful to give eternal life to those who believe in Him, He is also faithful to condemn forever those who do not believe in Him.

As 2 Timothy says:

2Ti 2:12 If we suffer, we shall also reign with Him. If we deny Him, He also will deny us.

2Ti 2:13 If we do not believe Him, yet He remains faithful; He cannot deny Himself.

If you are not a Christian, now is the time to repent and to have faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Let me tell you how you can become a Christian if you are not one already.

We have a sin Problem!
Romans 3:23 for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God,

Sin has a penalty Penalty!
Romans 5:12 Therefore, even as through one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin, and so death passed on all men inasmuch as all sinned:

God has made a Provision!
Romans 5:8 But God commends His love toward us in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us.

Through faith in Jesus, we have a Pardon!
Romans 10:9-10 Because if you confess the Lord Jesus, and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you shall be saved. For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth one confesses unto salvation.

OK, it was nice to start with a joke, but prayer is a serious, important part of our christian life. “To be prayerless,” suggests Raymond Brown, “is to be guilty of the worst form of practical atheism. We are saying that we believe in God but we can do without him. It makes us careless about our former sins and heedless of our immediate needs.”

Phil 4:6-7 tells us that we are to make all our requests known to God, after which we are filled with the ‘peace that surpasses all understanding’. We are also told to pray without ceasing in 1 Thess 5:17. Jews would pray three times a day (sunrise, midday, sunset). Jesus also called the temple a house of prayer.

I think we all know that we should pray more often. We often don’t pray, because we feel like we don’t know what to say, we feel awkward praying in public, we get distracted by life (or chat!). So today isn’t going to be about whether or not we should pray more [we know we should!], but how we should pray effectively.

Let’s have a closer look at what Jesus taught His disciples about prayer, from Matthew 6. We can break it up into two parts.

Mat 6:5 And when you pray, you shall not be like the hypocrites. For they love to pray standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, so that they may be seen by men. Truly I say to you, They have their reward.

Mat 6:6 But you, when you pray, enter into your room. And shutting your door, pray to your Father in secret; and your Father who sees in secret shall reward you openly.

Mat 6:7 But when you pray, do not babble vain words, as the nations. For they think that in their much speaking they shall be heard.

Mat 6:8 Therefore do not be like them, for your Father knows what things you have need of, before you ask Him.

In verses 5-8, we read about the hypocrites prayer. They loved to pray in public, in order to get attention for their prayers. They prayed long prayers, sometimes turning to babble. Here we also get a glimpse at what our prayer life should be like, praying to the Father in secret, not babbling long prayers.

Mat 6:9 Therefore pray in this way: Our Father, who is in Heaven, Hallowed be Your name.

Mat 6:10 Your kingdom come, Your will be done, on earth as it is in Heaven.

Mat 6:11 Give us this day our daily bread;

Mat 6:12 and forgive us our debts as we also forgive our debtors.

Mat 6:13 And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil. For Yours is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever. Amen.

Verses 9-13 are the Lord’s prayer, something we have all probably memorised from when we were young. This prayer is directed to God the Father, it is short and humble, it asks for His will to be done in all things, it asks that our needs be met and sins forgiven, and it gives God glory.

There are three main things here that I want to discuss today, that can help us to have an effective prayer life:

1 We are to pray in the will of God.

2 We are to pray boldly but humbly.

3 Prayer is for the righteous by faith

The most important key to effective prayer is to pray in the will of God. Prayers outside of this will cannot be rewarded by Him. Jesus taught us in the Lord’s prayer, to pray “Your will be done”, and this was the same prayer prayed by Jesus in the garden just before His crucifixion, when He prayed “Take away this cup from Me. Yet not what I will, but what You will. “ (Mark 14:36).

There is something else very important in this verse. “Take this cup from me”. Jesus knew that He was going to drink from a very bitter cup, and that the will of God was going to send Him to a very painful death. We must be willing to pray for the will of God to be done, no matter what it is going to cost us!

If you forget everything else you learn today, remember this. We must pray in the will of God, which means denying our own will, and this is often costly and painful. This is the christian life! Of course, we don’t always know the will of God. But the more we read the bible and pray, the more we get to know God, and the more we can understand His will.

Jas 4:3 You ask and receive not, because you ask amiss, that you may spend it upon your lusts. 

I might take this opportunity to clear up a confusion some people have about prayer. Poeople often ask: Doesn’t it say that if I pray, God will give me the desires of my heart? [Psa 37:4 Delight yourself also in Jehovah, and He shall give you the desires of your heart. ] Yes, it is true, but have a look at the first part of the verse. We must first ‘delight ourselves in Jehovah’.

When we delight ourselves in Jehovah, we share in His will. We will get pleasure from seeing His will done, our desires and wishes will align with His. If God has not answered your prayer, its more likely that He has said no because it is not in His will.

There is a second thing I want to clear up before we move on. We are taught in John 14:13-14 to pray “in Jesus name”.

Most of us add these words to the end of our prayers out of habit but rarely do we understand what it means? Does adding these words magically mean your prayer will be answered the way you want? The short answer is no.

This idea is cleared up in 1 John 5:14, where we read that praying in the name of Jesus really means the same thing as praying in the will of God. [1Jn 5:14 And this is the confidence that we have toward Him, that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us.]

In Ivan endures all the horrors of a Soviet prison camp. One day he is praying with his eyes closed when a fellow prisoner notices him and says with ridicule, “Prayers won’t help you get out of here any faster.” Opening his eyes, Ivan answers, “I do not pray to get out of prison but to do the will of God while I am here.” Our Daily Bread, December 29, 1993

That was a long section! Let’s move onto the second key part of effective prayer, being bold but humble, Notice that the hypocrites prayers were the opposite of humble! Their prayers were proud, loud, in public, and long. We are told to submit to God’s will, pray in private, and not babble.

Jesus used a parable to compare a pharisee’s prayers with a tax collectors prayers (Luke 18:9-13). From this, we learn that the tax collector walked away justified, but the Pharisee didn’t.

One of the things that surprised me most about Jesus prayers, was their length. Most of them are no more than three sentences long. Even in serious situations, His prayers are simple and short.

At a meeting of the US Fellowship of Christian Athletes, Bobby Richardson, former New York Yankee second baseman, prayed this: “Dear God, your will: nothing more, nothing less, nothing else. Amen.” I love this prayer so much, it is my signature here on the forums. It is short, humble, and submits to the will of God.

Please don’t misunderstand me here… you do not have to pray short prayers, but you aren’t heard more because you pray long prayers. You also should feel free to repeat prayers as often as you like – God is not turned away by the fact that you ask for the same thing 10 or 100 times. There are many parables and verses in the bible that encourage us to pray repeatedly and constantly.

 If your prayers are not answered as you want, it is probably not because you used the wrong words, or didn’t pray fancy enough, or didn’t pray long enough. Don’t be tricked into thinking that long prayers are better!

 However, being humble doesn’t mean you can’t be bold. We can! Infact, the Apostle Paul tells us to be bold [Heb 4:16 Therefore let us come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need. ] 

Two of my favourite bold prayers from the bible are: Abraham pleading to God to spare the righteous people in Sodom, and the prayer of Stephen the first martyr.

We are to recognise our position before Him, He is our Heavenly Father, the Holy One, He is God, and we are His children, loved and forgiven by Him. We are to approach Him with confidence, boldness, honesty and humility, without guilt, as His child.

It is because of Jesus, and what He did, that we can come into God’s presence, and ask for anything, with no shame, no guilt, and no fear. We are free to reveal our hearts desires to Him, since He knows anyway. When I became a christian I could finally enjoy God’s presence, and ask Him for things, with nothing holding me back!

The third point I wanted to make about prayer, is that we have to ask in faith, as righteous people. James 5:16 tells us that the prayer of a righteous man avails much. James 5 also tells us about a man named Elijah, a righteous man whose prayer for drought [yes, a strange request!] was answered, and for 3.5 years it did not rain! Later he prayed for rain, and the drought broke.

We are also to pray in faith (James 1:6), knowing that faith pleases God (Heb 11:6). This doesn’t mean being convinced that we will get everything we pray for. It means believing that God has heard us, and that He will act accord to His perfect will, believing that He will remain true at all times to the promises in His Word [the bible].

However, there is a catch, and it is a big catch! Being one of His is a requirement for being righteous, and therefore having your prayers answered. We must be fully sold out to His will, not only asking for His will in things that benefit us (blessings, jobs) but also for things that are difficult and ‘cost’ us (repentance and holiness).

The ‘Baptist Challenge, December 1981′ says “It is strange that, while praying, we seldom ask for change of character, but always a change in circumstance. “ Sometimes, for our prayer to be effective, it is our attitude that must change first, in order to come into line with God’s will and God’s requirements for righteous living.

We cannot ask God to bless us, but to ignore the fact that our hearts are far away from Him. We cannot ask Him for a boyfriend, knowing that we have no intention of honouring Him in that relationship. We cannot ask Him for money that we intend to use for evil purposes.

We need to be righteous people. Being righteous essentially means being in right relationship before God, submitting to His will and being obedient to His commands.

If you want to pray, you better get yourself right with God first! This is a great place to finish this study, with a call for all of us to have right standing before God, and the only way to do that is to repent and place your faith in Jesus.

If you are not a christian, now is the time to repent and to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. Let me tell you how you can become a Christian if you are not one already.

We have a sin Problem!
Romans 3:23 for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God,

Sin has a penalty Penalty!
Romans 5:12 Therefore, even as through one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin, and so death passed on all men inasmuch as all sinned:

God has made a Provision!
Romans 5:8 But God commends His love toward us in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us.

Through faith in Jesus, we have a Pardon!
Romans 10:9-10 Because if you confess the Lord Jesus, and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you shall be saved. For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth one confesses unto salvation.

Choose a number between 1 and 48.  Don’t over think it, the number should be random, as though you drew it out of a hat.

Write it down.

Next, choose  some letter of the alphabet, either upper case or lower case, or choose a space instead of a letter, but make it something random, with no reason for your choice.

Write that choice down also.

Now, consider the following sentence:

Even a simple life form is extremely complicated

Now in the sentence above, count over from the left by the number you wrote down. In my case, I chose the number 7. Moving over 7 times in the sentence, I see that my number is the space between the word “a” and the word “simple”.

Now, remove the symbol that is at the number position you chose, and insert the character or symbol you chose (the letter or space). In my case,  I chose the letter “h”.

Applying my choices we arrive at a new sentence which reads:

“Even ahsimple life form is extremely complicated”

Do the exercise a few more time, using your new sentence. For example, with the number 23 and the letter N, my new sentence reads:

“Even ahsimple life forN is extremely complicated”

Okay, two more times  43 s   and 33 K

“Even ahsimple life form is extreKely complscated”

What has just happened? We took a perfectly good sentence and made a few random changes to it.

My question is this: “Did our changes improve the function of the sentence?”

The obvious answer is no, it did not. What is the difference between the two sentences? One serves a purpose, the other is just a deformed mess. As you can imagine, the more random changes we make to our sentence, the less functional it becomes.

What accounts for the differences between the first sentence and the last sentences? In the first case, the letters were chosen intentionally, with a purpose in mind, to convey information. In the last sentence, we see how that purpose is destroyed by chance changes, mutations.  This is the difference between intelligent design, and random changes.

Someone might argue, that given enough mutations, this sentence might again become functional. It has been said let a million monkeys type on a million typewriters for a million years, and you will get Shakespeare. Personally, I seriously doubt that. However, let’s assume that is true.

“To be or not to be that is the question”

Here is the problem. Let the monkeys keep typing and you will soon have:

“fodfe ob soteto be phat iq tre wsdstoon.”

What chance creates, chance also destroys. Millions of years of monkey typing, will be eradicated in a few moments.

Any child can see that chance mutations cannot bring about sophisticated order, it takes a brilliant scientist, to come up with a story that that attempts to explain away, what we know intuitively.

Now, while this poses a problem for any honest atheist, it is a tiny problem compared with another problem.

In the first example (Even a simple life form is extremely complicated), we took an already formed and functional sentence and mutated it into extinction.

But what are the chances of this sentence coming into existence in the first place by random, non intelligent processes.

I had 26 lowercase letters as 26 upper case letters to choose from to make that sentence, plus the spaces, for a total 53 symbols.

There are 48 ‘slots’ taken up by the the letters and spaces in that sentence. To arrive at the total number of possible combinations we would take the  number of symbols (in our example 53) and multiply it times itself 48 times.

The number of possible combinations of letters in those 48 places is then

5.82427 X 10^82, or to put it another way, there are 5,824,273,234,102,671,721,638,474,597,358,900,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 possible combinations.

Astrophysicists tell us, that there are about 10^80 atoms in the universe.

The first number is over 582 times larger that the second number.

To grasp the scope of this, imagine taking an atom,and writing a check mark on it. next, take the atoms contained  in 582 universes, and put them in a very big bowl, and toss our checked atom into the  bowl. Stir them up very well.  Now, with a blindfold on, reach into the bowl and draw out a single atom.

The chances of random letters falling into the 48 positions and forming the sentence, are the same as drawing out that one specific atom from 582 universes. Good luck with that.

So, how do these numbers relate to life arising. All life that we know of, contains DNA molecules. The DNA molecules, are the blueprints, the instructions that govern the nature of life forms. DNA is a language, a code, a form of information, just like our sentence is.

There is  big difference though. The simplest micro-organism that we know of, is Nanoarchaeum. It has 10^200,000 possible combinations in it’s DNA code.

I would do the math and show you how big a number that is, except for two problems, my calculator cannot perform calculations with numbers that large, and you do not have enough time to read the number if I could put it here.

(if you want to see an interesting depiction of the way DNA ‘works’, you will have a better understanding of yet another aspect of this, that is just hard to explain away apart from an intelligent designer. Note: youtube is known for having videos of every sort, some which you may not want to see (use your own judgement):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4PKjF7OumYo&feature=youtu.be

Remember how I said that the first problem the random chance theorist has to deal with was small, compared to the problem I just finish outlining?

Well, they have a bigger problem yet. Again, I will use the analogy of a sentence. A sentence is composed of words, and the words are composed of letters. What if there were no letters to choose from, what if there was no ink to write the letters with, or air to transmit the sounds of the words and letters. Without materials, we cannot communicate. So where do the letters come from? Where to the words come from. Where do the ideas to have letters and words come from, and where to the ideas come from that we communicate with the words and letters? The answer to all of those questions is that they come from intelligence, they are designed by a mind.

In a similar way, in order for  DNA to be sequenced in a life form, there has to be a programmer, and builder of the environment and materials for life, is this really too complicated for those who do not believe in a creator to grasp? Of course it is not, but they have too much faith in the religion of nature and chance mutation driven evolution, to be rational.

I think the problem is obvious. One can believe in evolution or not. One can believe it is intelligently set in motion, or was just some cosmic accident.

A Christian (or other person of faith) can believe in evolution, as a instrument of God’s hand in creation. It is not the simplest explanation of Genesis chapters 1 and 2 are about, but their are those who for their own reasons, believe that these chapters are more poetic, than literal, a metaphor of the actual events, only intended to identify the fact of a Creator, and introduce us to Him, and His claim on, and plan for, our lives. The Christian believing this way, can still have a saving relationship with his/her savior.

In the same way, a person who is sold on the idea of a naturalistic explanation of existence, can still believe in a God, whose hand is seen in the creation, without having to acknowledge any specific tenants of any given religion. This is possible because the examination of things outside of and existing prior to the universe, are outside of the investigation of science. That being the case, science cat never affirm God. Neither can science refute God. Science is silent and therefore neutral on the topic.

For some reason, many scientists and those influenced by them, seem intimidated by the idea that it was God who did it. Is there some rational reason for this? If there is, I have never heard it, and I cannot think of one.

The mathematical science of statistical analysis and probability estimation, leads one to conclude that the odds are hugely in favor of a creator. Science and statistics cannot reveal if this creator is male or female or genderless. In cannot reveal if it is the God of the Bible, or any other god, or, several gods. We can only look at the facts that we can observe, and perhaps extrapolate some details about this creative force. The universe seems to be in a state that supports diverse life on our planet. We study all of the interactions of physics and chemistry, life and environment, and when we take it all in, we should be stunned bye how complex, intricate, and functional it all is.

We can also look at the things we have learned through science, and compare what we know to the catalog of beliefs in various religions, and weed out some of them as not worthy of consideration, they are just  too out of whack with the facts in many cases, and in other cases, these religions just lack enough support from science, history, or other disciplines to make them worthy of further consideration.

My hope is, that one day, people who are anti-God in their philosophy, would just give it a rest, and realize that all the blustering in the world, does not make their case more likely or appealing, and we can enter into dialogue about what we actually know and can know.

I have had the opportunity on several occasions to have conversations of just that sort on worthychat.com, and in general, it has been a rewarding experience for all parties.

This particular blog has been about looking at one aspect of belief systems and certain aspects of the physical world and looking at those though the spectacles of probability.

If you found this at all interesting, leave a comment, perhaps I will explore similar topics in the future.

Thanks for reading my blog.

It was that time of year, where we had to revamp Worthy Chat.  We’ve given Worthy a fresh new look and we hope you like it!

We’ve added a Worthy Chat Facebook page — so be sure to become a fan!  We’re also now Twittering!

Keep an eye out for different chat events coming up!

Until next time…

Lately, I have gotten into a few conversations and debates, having to do with so-called rights. Those who are familiar with my rants on topics political and social have heard me say that rights are not plucked from trees.  Rights, true rights, ultimate rights, can only be dictated by our Creator. It is for His pleasure and purposes, that we exist, everything we are, everything we have, everything we do, is ultimately His do with as He pleases. Really, what this boils down to is that we have no rights, He owns us, end of story.

God is not a cruel slave owner though, He is a loving Father to those who will allow it, and a terror to those foolish enough to oppose One of such great power, and the only one who can define what is good.  By definition, all who oppose God are evil. Consequently, since we all oppose God, we are all evil. Where are the rights here? He has the right to wipe us from His presence.

However, we know that He has chosen to give life, and He reserves the right to take it away. We have no right to interfere in that process, unless he grants it to us.  Capital punishment comes to mind, so also might war. While there are many who would take issue with whether God has granted mankind any license whatsoever in the taking of human life, I am not here to have that debate.

In trying to recall verses about God granting rights specifically, only one came to mind:

John 1:12-13

12 But as many as received  Him, to them He gave the right  to become children of God,  even to those who believe in  His name, 13 who were born not  of blood, nor of the will of  the flesh, nor of the will of  man, but of God.

NASB

I decided to look at the Greek underlying the word “right” in that passage:

Strong’s NT:1849

exousia; (in the sense of ability); privilege, i.e.  (subjectively) force,  capacity, competency, freedom,  or (objectively) mastery  (concretely, magistrate,  superhuman, potentate, token  of control), delegated  influence

From the way that definition from Strong’s reads, even this does not sound like what we consider rights to be. This kind of makes sense. If it is a right, we can take it. Our relationship however, is a gift, we were adopted, this is a bestowed privilege, more than it is a right.

Anyway, having these  discussions about rights, and  my repeated claim to the fruit  pickers, that rights do not  grow on trees, made me wonder  myself about rights. Where do they come from, who has the authority to say, how do you know what is a right, and what is not?

While it is not hard for me to say to others claiming rights, that no such right exists, I have a harder time defining what rights do exist. It is easy to point to some law, and within the law, discover rights secured by that law.  However, what about rights that are not obviously given to us by God, nor granted in any law, do they exist? If so, on what basis or on whose authority?

I have no idea. I am not  willing to say that a right  does not exist, if there is no  law establishing that right,  but I also cannot find it  within myself to grant every  right that people  think they  or others have. Often, when  people state “it is my right”,  I think what is going on is at  some level, they think it  should be their right, but  fear that unless they claim it as a right, no one is going to automatically grant them the  supposed right.

Claimed rights can be pretty silly.  Some of these rights are claimed on behalf of others who have no voice. Some will say that chickens have a right to be treated decently. In fact, according to the law in my state, they do have that legal right. It is a crime, to have roosters have fights with each other. Now, this one I understand, but I cannot help but think there is a sort of irony in this. No one is making the roosters fight; they are only being allowed to do what they want to do, what their instincts tell them to do. Could t not be said then, that the roosters are having their rights interfered with, not protected, because the roosters are entering into personal combat by mutual consent? Boxers do this, and it sometimes results in death, unnecessary death. Why do we allow grown men to kill each other in the ring, while we generally believe that men have more value than roosters? Animals apparently have the right to be protected from themselves, while humans do not. Interesting!

Now, of course, one thing that will jump into the mind of many readers is that the roosters lack the clear thinking ability to make decisions regarding their own lives. Okay, I can accept that, they lack the rational ability to enter into contracts with such serious consequences. I would argue that the fact that two men will get into a ring together and pummel each other into unconsciousness, is evidence that they also lack the ability to think rationally.

Okay, enough with silly illustrations. Let us get into a real world example. Children.

We are protective of children. We assume that they cannot rationally make all of their own decisions. Let a child choose between chocolate and broccoli for dinner, and you will see what I mean (not that adults would necessarily choose well either).They cannot enter legally binding contracts; they cannot make decisions about other areas of live that they are not mature enough to decide on. I should not have to get too specific here. If you are an adult, you can figure some of these things out. We also recognize that children do not have a powerful political voice, so, are at the mercy of the adults in the society around them.  Some of these adults, make poor choices themselves, and are not suited to make decisions regarding the welfare of children. I should not have to offer evidence or examples of that for they are plentiful and obvious. So, out of the recognition for a need to have a way to insure that the rights of children are protected, comes the U.N.  Convention on the Rights of the Child.

Now in my country, few people have even heard of this. I am not sure, but perhaps it is not well known in other countries either. For those interested in a long read, you can read the text of it here:

http://www2.ohchr.org/english/law/pdf/crc.pdf

Now, I will be the first to admit that I do not know all that I should about how international law/treaties work, but my understanding is that all nations which have ratified the UNCRC, have obligated themselves to submit to the terms laid out in that treaty. This treaty has been in force, since late 1990. Unless you live in Somalia or the United States of America, this treaty is probably the law of your land.  Somalia is planning to ratify the treaty. Elements within the current administration in the United States and in Legislative Branch of the U.S. are preparing to try to shove ratification through there as well. One might well ask, “Why would a country resist ratifying a treaty to protect the rights of children?”

 Let me remind the reader, that this is what I am trying to reason out for myself here: “Where do rights come from”?

In this treaty, we have an attempt to recognize and agree upon, a universally accepted set of rights that children have. This seems like a lofty goal. Now, I would like to point out, just how dedicated to children’s rights, this U.N treaty is. There is a protocol in the treaty, which is optional. Basically, it says that children (under 18) cannot be conscripted into military service. It also requires that those children who volunteer for service, shall not be directly involved in direct hostilities. There is no age limitation on how young a child volunteer can be. As I read it, it looks as though a 5 year old can volunteer for military service under this protocol. Remember, this protocol is optional, meaning that the nations that ratified the UNCRC, are not obligated to obey this optional protocol unless they also separately, ratify it. In other worlds, this treaty allows nations who have not adopted the optional protocol, to force children into the military and make them be soldiers in combat if such nations see fit. So much for protecting the rights of children – oh, I guess that means that the U.N. had decided that children do not have a right not to be forced to be soldiers. O.K. I am beginning to see where rights come from, they come from the U.N. So, if a child complains that it is their right to try to have a happy and peaceful childhood, the U.N. say no, that is an option, not a right. I might mention another optional protocol. Article 1 of this second optional protocol declares Article 1 of the protocol declares that states must protect the rights and interests of child victims of trafficking, child prostitution and child pornography, child labor and especially the worst forms of child labor. So here again, this is an option, and Nations that do not choose the option are not obligated to obey they option. Once again, we have the U.N. pointing out, that children have no implicit right not to be sold, or to not be prostitutes, or not to participate in child pornography. I feel very comforted knowing that the U.N. is there to tell us that children only have these rights as an option, up to their country’s leaders to decide.

Now, I have mentioned these optional protocols, to demonstrate that the U.N. proves itself incapable of figuring out what rights should be. My country, the United States, is preparing to join the other countries that have already ratified the U.N. Treaty; I certainly hope that it does not. I do believe that children have rights, but I do not think the U.N. is the source of rights, nor am I confident that is it right place to hope to find rights.

I make no secret of the fact, that I distrust governments. The bigger the government, the more I distrust it. I am not an anarchist, I just believe that smaller governments are better, and local governments are superior to broader governments.

The smallest, most local human government is the individual. Children are individuals. However, clearly children lack the wisdom, knowledge or power to manage their own lives. The next largest small, local government is the family, specifically the parents. In my opinion, the family is God’s design and the raising of children, providing for them and protecting them, is a role given to parents by God. If it is given by God, does not that mean that it is a right, if anything can said to be a right?

While I distrust governments, I also recognize that God raises up authorities and wants us to obey the authorities as long as they do not usurp His position or try to overrule His commands.

To me then, rights, true rights, come from God. If the rearing of children is placed into my control, then I assume that it is parents, more than children, who need to have their rights protected.

Are we to trust that an international body, which thinks that keeping children from prostitution is an option, is the governing body that should decide what parents can and cannot do? I would rather have my own government, maintain it’s sovereignty, because so far, it has demonstrated itself to be morally superior to the U.N., but more to the point, I do not want distant, unrelated people, who have no personal interest in my children, deciding what is best for the family God has charged me with managing.

Now this is where it gets tough. Parents sometimes abuse their children, parent sometimes are drug addicts, or violent, etc, etc. Do I believe that the God given right of parents is absolute? No, I do not. Now, how can I say this?

It is God that grants human life and God who sustains it, and it is God’s right, to take back the life He has given, as he sees fit. Life is a basic human right, if there is one. It is God given. However, God has also dictated terms in which men can deprive other men of life. One only need read the Old Testament to discover many of these. I am not saying that every excuse for removing life found in the Old Testament should be exercised, that is not what I am addressing. What I am saying is, that God has shown us, that there are times, when it is proper for men, to deprive other men of rights that He has given.

I see parenthood in this light. Since He has charged us with taking care of and loving our families, it is our job first, as parents, to raise our children, and to make decisions about their welfare, according to the principles he has given us. When a parent is beating a child (beating, not spanking), or not providing for the child’s well being, or in some other way demonstrating that he or she is unwilling or incapable of providing and raising a child, then it is time to recognize that the parent has surrender parental rights, by quitting the job of being a parent. This is not different that giving a child up for adoption, rights are not ultimate or unlimited, they are dependent on responsibility.

As I said, this is where it gets difficult. Who gets to decide, and on what basis, when a parent has relinquished their right as a parent, through irresponsibility or lack of ability? This is dangerous ground. In my country, children have been removed from their parents because of the parent’s decision to educate their children themselves (a role assigned to them by God, by the way), rather than subject their children to the indoctrination of the public school system.*

I do not have the answers. I am writing this with no plan in mind, just exploring ideas about “rights” as they pop into my head. Every time I try to come up with some hard rule about who has what rights and what is a right and what is not, I can think up a situation where there is a large potential problem.

One day, not of this will matter. One day, we will either be with the Lord under His rule and yet as a co-heir, or we will be in a place where we do not have any rights whatsoever, except the right to a continual existence that we cannot enjoy. In this life, we do have the one right, to choose to live in eternity in bliss, or in pain, it is a tremendous opportunity.

For now though, we have to muddle our way through the complexities of a fallen and cursed world, imperfect humans and situations, and try to figure out it means to have rights, where they come from, what they are, when they can be removed, and whether they are flexible or inflexible, timeless or temporary, universal or regional etc.

I would be interested in hearing your thoughts, if you are up to the challenge, since I clearly do not have the answers. All I know, is that for now, I need to try to obey God and let everything else, take it’s course.

Once again, if you managed to make your way all the way through this (only to find no light in the darkness), thank you for your patience. May the Lord’s peace be with you.

* As a side note, you can read about a few cases where children have been removed from families for stupid reasons at  this website, as well as find out more information about the possible implications of the UNCRC and what you can do to resists it’s implementation in the United States.

What is prompting me to write this one is the fact that a judicial activist (an ideologue wearing a black robe) has decided that his opinion is worth more than the 7 million voters he just overruled.

We had a proposition on the ballot here in California, to define marriage as between a man and a woman in our state constitution. Proposition 8 added these words to our state constitution:

Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California

Now, one would expect that I might be against gay marriage as a Christian; after all, the Bible has several passages denouncing homosexuality. I am not writing this as a Christian, I am writing this as a citizen, and my Christian faith requires that I be a good citizen.

I have made it abundantly clear that I am a right wing conservative, something that my left wing brothers and sisters in Christ seem to be offended at, not because of my actual positions, but because in their perception, most Christians are right wing and seem to question the faith of left wingers, or at least, regard them with suspicion. Maybe that is true, but please do not think that I question the faith of those on the left. Whether one considers oneself left wing or right wing is irrelevant to me, what matters to me is things like right and wrong, practicality or impracticality, and law or lawlessness.

It is this last aspect that I am addressing here this time. Some refer to the U.S. as a democracy. This is not accurate, but its system does have a strong democratic component. We are a constitutional republic. What does all of this mean? Our roots derived from the fact that most of our early founders and residents, before we were a country, came from England. England was a monarchy, a country ruled by a king. Our founders were so distressed by the abuses of the monarchy – heavy taxation and religious bias from ruling authorities, that they finally rebelled. These men and women put everything on the line to achieve the right to be self-governing. The fought a war with their own countrymen, lost fortunes, land and family, all for the belief that the natural state of man, as intended by God, was to live lives of morality and responsibility free from the tyranny of a human king or ruling class. Democracy could have achieved that goal, but the founders saw a danger in democracy. In a democracy, the people rule. They implement laws through the vote of the majority. The founders believed that the danger of a democracy was that laws would be no better than the quality of character and sophistication of the voters. In other words, if the majority of the people proved to be unknowledgeable or of poor character, the resulting laws of the country would reflect this. In order to minimize this unfortunate side effect of direct democracy, a system of government where a constitution was the highest human law of the land was implemented. This law would be written, maintained and modified by representatives of the people; these representatives were to be democratically elected.

The hope was that those who chose to be representatives would have to be people of knowledge and character, in order to have the confidence of the people, and earn their vote. Voting was not a right bestowed upon everyone. It was recognized that certain classes of people, were more likely to be educated. Certain classes of people, would be funding the government, and had an extra stake in the country. The concern that led the founders to go this way is perhaps best illustrated by hypothetical example.

One could imagine, for example, that 80% of the people might be of low economic means. These people might desire a better standard of living. See the 20% who are well off, the 80% might decide to tax away the wealth of the 80%, to appropriate the benefits of wealth for themselves. If this were done without the legitimacy of law, we would call the confiscation of property “theft”. In essence, a democracy has the potential to make theft legal. While it might seem fair to have people of equal means, in practical terms, the rich provide jobs for the poor. Confiscate the wealth, and you destroy jobs, and ultimately, a lower standard for living for all.

Therefore, recognizing the dangers of democracy, the system was improved to make it a bit less dangerous. Furthermore, the government was split up into three branches, the legislative branch (those who write the actual laws), the judicial branch (those charged with trying actual cases in and rendering judgments in accordance with the intent of the laws) and the executive branch, The president and his staff and departments under his leadership, (functions as the chief executive officer of the country), in charge of enforcing the law, the military, and foreign affairs.

These three departments were created so that power would not be concentrated in any individual or ruling group. The goal in our form of government is to insure that the country is governed from the bottom up, not from the top down. The will of the people is superior to the will of a ruling class. That is the theory upon which our form of government is based.

None of what I have told you, is subject matter, it is only background, a framework from which we can understand the actual topic I have chosen to ponder and share.

The topic is Tyranny. People in other parts of the world would laugh to know that I hold that the United States is governed by tyranny. Certainly, it is not 100% true, but just as certainly, it is the direction we are headed. We have, though our choices in elected officials, slowly moves this country toward tyranny. We do not notice much, because we have a nice tyranny, not one bent on abusing us and harming us in a way that we would notice, but it is tyranny just the same.

The individual states were robbed of their right to self govern, and choose for themselves whether they wanted to allow abortion as a legal option. This was done by a judicial ruling, not through an act of legislation. In essence, a court held that abortion was a constitutional right. Looking over the constitution, you will find no mention of the topic of abortion, one wonders then how it could be a constitutional right. Furthermore, the 10^th amendment declares, “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”

That is clear is it not? If abortion is neither delegated to the United States, nor prohibited to the States, then the States or the people get to decide what they want to have, it is not an area of federal concern.

The government has many laws about religion, placing limitations on what places of worship can or cannot do, creating tax exemptions for churches, restricting prayer in school or religious symbol on public property etc.

Look at the 1^st amendment, in part it says: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof”.

Again, it is quite clear. If congress shall make no law prohibiting the establishment or exercise of religion, then why are there such restrictions? Now notice, that is say congress shall make no law. This, in accordance with the 10^th amendment, leaves such matters to the states. Indeed, in the early days of our country, many states required a statement of faith, for one to hold public office. However, the federal government has again, overstepped it’s bounds, and just does what it wants to. This is tyranny.

Taxation. Power is granted to the Federal government to levy taxes. However, it is not empowered to do things that the constitution does not grant it as it’s role. Therefore, most everything that the federal government spends money on (think of the hundreds of social programs), it has no legal authority to do.  For the government to confiscate money and then spend that money in ways that the government is not authorized to do, and that the people were never allowed a choice in, is again, tyranny.

What set me off was this court decision to hold a law about marriage as unconstitutional. The constitutionality of this law has already been looked over, tested and found to be in harmony with the constitution by a great number of legal minds.  The judge himself in this case, is a self-proclaimed homosexual. It seems to me, that if he were a man with honor, instead of a man with an agenda, he would have excused himself from the case because of a conflict of interest. Whether gays should or should not be allowed to marry, is not at all my point or issue. My issue is with an individual deciding that he can use his position to override the will of the people. There are so many of these types of issues, that I see where states and individuals are losing their rights to a few who think they should decide for the rest of us what is right or lawful.

It is tyranny, and I am tired of it. I want my country back. The person currently occupying the Whitehouse is in my opinion, the biggest tyrant our country has seen since we won our independence.

Are we reaping our just rewards for abandoning God in this country, or is it just the result of lazy, selfish, and ignorant people not caring to preserve the things that made this country work so well for so long? I think it is a little of both, and I think the cures are obvious. However, I am not very optimistic that we will do what it takes. We have failed to pass on values, and we have failed to encourage values in those who immigrate to our country. I fear that our moral, political, and fiscal destruction is no longer in question, the only question is, “How fast will we fall”.

Part one in a potentially ongoing series.

The first category that comes to mind had to do with words and language. One of my pet peeves is hijacking words.

Some examples:

Organic. When I was younger, organic had to do with life or with carbon (life that we know is carbon based). Although the term had been applied to food and farming before I was born, it was my generation that made the term begin to mean something different. When I first heard of organic food, I thought that is redundant. All food is organic, but some in my generation seemed to think there was great benefit to eating tomatoes full of worms, because synthetic pestisides had not been used on them, a claim that I am still skeptical of. To my mind, any benefit, comes from the consumption of the worms, but I’ll pass anyway, thank you. I wonder if they ever stopped to realize that the curare poison on the tips of blow dart of indigenous South American peoples is organic, as are poisonous mushrooms, bubonic plague and crude oil.

Chill. People are sometimes described as chill these days. I don’t know what it is, but each generation seems to have some need to incorporate words into their speech, in ways that distinguish them from prior generations. To me, this appears to be a way of lowering others’ opinions of you, by using fad language of your own generation, you wish to identify with people with less wisdom than those the hand the language down to you. The sad thing about the word chill, is it is so unoriginal, since previous generations had already hijacked the word “cool”.

Gay. Believe it or not this used to mean happy or festive. There is a Christmas carol with the words “don we now our gay apparel”. I cannot hear that song any longer in the same way.

Ghetto language. By this, I do not mean the inner city only. I mean any time that a group of people, decide to modify the language in a way that makes it unique. I suppose that the purpose, is to make one feel part of something that others have in common, but what annoys me is that it has the effect of alienating those not of the group. Even the church does this.

There are several ways that the church does this.  One way is to use regular words in a different way than “normal”people do. For example, the word “just”. You may have no idea what I am talking about, but if you are an evengelical Christian, you have heard it:

“Father, we just come together tonight, to seek your face in prayer, and we just ask that you would look over us as we drive to the retreat. And Father, we also just ask that you would just bless those who attend the retreat . . . “  Now, if you examine that sample prayer, you will notice that leaving the word just out of it, leaves the intent of the prayer totally intact. Another example: the word “fellowship”. Fellowship is a noun, at least to “normal” people. Christians, however, think it is a verb. “where to you fellowship?”

Another way the church employs ghetto language, is to use words of theologians, those who make a living out of making word of God complex and specialized. Please undertand that I am not suggesting that theologians are doing anything wrong. There are reasons why special words exist in any specialty, whether it be science, law, medicine, theology or even construction work. What I am talking about is when we lay people (lay people meaning simple non theologians, non clergy) use theological terms in talking to each other or talking to non-believers.

We use phrases like sanctification, justification, propitiation, etc. I would bet that over 90% of non-believers have no idea what we are talking about, surely over 50% of believers are not certain, but nod their heads in agreement, waiting for the subject to end. Let’s not even talk about such clear terms as homologoumena, kenoticism, or perichoresis.

Even words like “the rapture”. In spite of the popularization of the term, especially among evangelicals, it has always struck me as odd. When I was an unbeliever, rapture meant a state of ecstasy or passion. I saw the bumper stickers that read “Warning, in case of rapture, this car will be driverless”. I kept thinking, that person needs to find a hotel.

Then there was the time when I started noticing little chrome fish or window stickers that has a fish with the letters IXOYE in them. I did not know how to pronounce IXOYE, but I figured it must be a brand of detergent, sold through multilevel marketing, that was friendly to the environment (fish friendly). I really thought that.

I still have to wonder why people have those, even knowing what is behind them, what it means. In case someone reading this, thinks it is and organic detergent, let me set you straight.

It is said that in the early church, where it was under heavy persecution, that believers used that fish symbol, as a way to identify each other without verbalizing their faith in Jesus. They might be sitting or standing, one would just casually draw a curved line in the dirt with a stick or finger, or even the edge of his sandal. The other person, if they were Christian, would do the same thing, making their mark overlap the other to form the fish symbol. They now both knew they were Christians and could speak freely to each other about things of faith. Is this story true? I have no idea. One might wonder why the fish, and not the cross. Perhaps the cross was too obvious. The fish supposedly comes from the idea that many of the first disciples were fishermen, and Jesus told them, that He would make them fishers of men.

O.K. what about the IXOYE? Well, it isn’t IXOYE, it is five Greek letters, Iota, Chi, Omickon, Upsilon, and Epsilon – ΙΧΘΥΕ . These stand for Iesous Christos Theou Huios Soter, Jesus Christ God’s Son King. Now, knowing this, why do we use these on our cars. Some might say, it is as a witness to Christ, to show that we identify with Him. Well, that might be the reason, but are unbelievers going to buy into this form of advertising, or will they think you are selling organic soap? I have asked unbelievers what they think it is about. Some say that they have no idea. I tell them what it means, and they ask the obvious question: “Why don’t they just say Jesus then?” I have no idea, but I have a theory. I think it is somewhat like the fish was used in the first place, a way for other Christians to know each other, only this time, they don’t have fellowship, they just drive by each other. Gee, that was worth the $3! I have heard other theories advances by unbelievers. One of my favorites is: It is a way for Christians to say: “I am a Christian, I am better than you!” Wow, is that what we are saying? We need to rethink our marketing strategy.

Okay, you get the idea. I make an issue where there is none. There is no real point to this article, no deep issue or importance, it is just a glimpse into what my mind concerns itself with when my intellect is disengaged. You now know some things that annoy me. Perhaps this article, can be one of yours.

Omegaman 2.0