A Boomer in the Pew

To Whom Does an Atheist Lament?

When I was a child, my young cousin Jamie was killed in a car accident with his mother.  I must have been fairly young as I don't remember grieving as much as being confused.

I do remember however my family grieving which in turn created fear in me.

When tragedy strikes us in such a way, the first question to form on our lips is the question:  why?

In the book of Job we see the same pattern exhibited.  Job's ten children are dead, his wealth is destroyed, and Job lies naked, covered with boils, desperately distraught, and cries, "why?".

In Job's case, his despair is so deep, he wonders why God even brought him to see the light of day.

Job 3:

• Why did I not die at birth?
• Why did the knees receive me?
• Why the breasts, that I should nurse?
• Why was I not hidden as a stillborn child?
• Why is light given to him who is in misery?
• Why is light given to a man whose way is hidden,
  whom God has hedged in?

When these most terrible times come upon us, it seems our first intuition is to question why.  But then, does this not suppose someone might be able to answer the question?  Are not these questions, at the end of the day, presumed upon God?  Certainly mortal man is not disposed to answer the question.

When the atheist happens upon such circumstances, does he question why?  If so, who does he imagine might answer him?

Arizona Artist Pat Cain's Abstract: Desert Light

I have grown to enjoy certain styles of abstract painting.  As I total lover of vibrant color, this painting by Pat Cain resonates with me.

It must have also resonated with the Sonoran Art League, as this is the painting featured on the front cover of the 13th Annual Hidden in the Hills Artist Studio Tour & Sale.

Another interesting tidbit about this particular artist is that she currently lives in our gated-community, and is also from Michigan.

In fact, she once had a place on Torch Lake (Michigan), another one of my favorite places in the world, and like us was drawn to the Sonoran desert.

My favorite colors tend to fall in the red/yellow spectrum, subsequently this painting immediately captured my attention.

Clearly one of the reasons that I love the Southwest is that these colors are presented everywhere around me.

Tomorrow is the last day for the artist tour. If you have a chance, I highly recommend it.

Happy Thanksgiving

How to Understand God's Ultimate Will for Your Life

All of us have at the core of our being a desperate longing.  Furthermore, all of us act in ways to find the source, and the meaning of this longing.

The Scriptures teach us that this longing came from our separation from God in Eden.  Jesus Christ then came, as God incarnate, to teach us that God has an ultimate will for each of us.  And that will is to completely satisfy this longing that we all corporately share.

The most surprising thing is the way in which God has chosen to do this. 

Please set aside 45 minutes as Dr. John Piper unpacks incredible testimony, and points us towards the words of Jesus Christ, as Christ himself describes God's ultimate will for our lives.

Presidential Thanksgiving Day Proclamations From George Washington to Barack Obama

I thought it would be interesting to observe the presidential Thanksgiving Day proclamations that have occurred over the years, beginning with our first President George Washington.

As I read through these documents, I found a profound change in worldview present from Washington, and Lincoln, to our current President Obama.

Why not encourage your family to read through these, and discuss the differences you might find, and why you think these differences might exist?

The Manhattan Declaration and a few Sanctimonious Christians

I signed the Manhattan Declaration today.

I must confess, I have read of a few, who call themselves Christians, who refuse to sign. 

Here is the essence of their sanctimonious logic:

Roman Catholic Person:  I just read the Manhattan Declaration, and I stand behind the three truths proclaimed in the document.  I am going to sign it.

Sanctimonious Christian:  I am not going to sign it!

Roman Catholic Person:  why not?

Sanctimonious Christian:  because I do not agree with your position on Justification, therefore, I will not stand with you.

Dear sanctimonious ones, please grow up, please stop looking for arguments, please stop acting like Pharisees.

Would you too criticize Christ for having his feet washed with oil by the prostitute? 

Stand for truth, yes, but not at the expense of your commanded love.  You will have no witness if you continually nauseate the world with your holier-than-thou attitude.

This is the time to stand against an evil rising tide in our society, and not to act like the guy in this photograph.

Deal?

Josiah's Holy Rampage and his Appointed Death at Megiddo Prior to the Babylonian Exile

Josiah became king of Judah at the age of eight, and reigned until his death at Megiddo at the age of 39.

Finally, after a long string of evil, and proud kings, we find Josiah on a holy rampage to rid Judah of all abominable idolatry.

King Josiah re-instituted the Passover, and literally went through all of his kingdom destroying pagan alters, high places, and was "like him, who turned to the Lord with all his heart and with all his soul and with all his might, according to all the Law of Moses, nor did any like him arise after him. (2 Kings 23:25)

Because of his piety, God promised King Josiah that he wouldn't live to see the shame that was about to come upon Judah, because of the offenses brought about by King Manasseh.

As I mentioned in a previous post, Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar is waiting in the wings to completely destroy Judah and take them into captivity. 

It makes sense to me that God would have provided King Josiah to strengthen the promised remnant of Judah with their new found faith in Yahweh.  Judah is about to undergo unprecedented misery, at the hand of God.

The photograph above was taken in 2008, at the current dig going on at Tel Megiddo.

This is the death place of King Josiah, and also most interestingly, the place of Armageddon, where the Book of Revelation predicts that a final battle between good, and evil will occur prior to the second coming of Messiah.

As I was looking through the Megiddo expedition website, we can see that they have found many objects of idolatry amongst the temple ruins. 

It is widely held that this dig is one of the most important in all of archaeology.  In fact, this site is so important to the history of the world, it was listed as a World Heritage Site in 2005.

I would encourage you to spend some time at the Megiddo website.  Remarkably, we live in a time where technology can take you immediately to Megiddo.  I don't know about you, but seeing these sites makes these Biblical narratives jump off the page into physical reality.

Further, it helps us to understand that no faith possesses the physical record of the Judeo-Christian faith.

There really is significant evidence that forces the thinking mind to produce a verdict on the claims of Scripture.

Dr. Wayne Grudem: New Testament Teachings Regarding Civil Government

This post is part of a series of posts taken from Dr. Wayne Grudem's Sunday school class at Scottsdale Bible Church.  In this class, Dr. Grudem is taking us through his forthcoming book:  Politics:  According to the Bible. I have created a category link here, which will allow you to scroll through all of the upcoming posts.

In today's class, Dr. Grudem spent a few minutes finishing last week's conversation regarding government and the Old Testament.

Some might ask, "why shouldn't we enforce the "Law" that was given to Moses and the Israelites.

Dr. Grudem states that we should not enforce these Mosaic Laws because:

• Israel was a theocracy ( a system of government where priests rule in the name of God), and therefore not appropriate for our democracy.
• When Christ appeared incarnate, he established a New Covenant with creation, thus making these Old Covenant laws inappropriate for us today.

In considering God's view of civil government under the New Covenant, Dr. Grudem points us to Romans 13:1-7:

Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God. 2 Therefore whoever resists the authorities resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment. 3 For rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad. Would you have no fear of the one who is in authority? Then do what is good, and you will receive his approval, 4 for he is God's servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword in vain. For he is the servant of God, an avenger who carries out God's wrath on the wrongdoer. 5 Therefore one must be in subjection, not only to avoid God's wrath but also for the sake of conscience. 6 For because of this you also pay taxes, for the authorities are ministers of God, attending to this very thing. 7 Pay to all what is owed to them: taxes to whom taxes are owed, revenue to whom revenue is owed, respect to whom respect is owed, honor to whom honor is owed.

In a recap of the Bible's whole testimony on the subject of civil government, Dr. Grudem points out:

1. Human government was established by God to bring multiple benefits to human society, and this happened at the re-establishment of human society after the flood had destroyed the earth.
2. God authorizes government to punish those who do evil, both as a deterrent to further wrongdoing, and in order to carry out God's wrath against evil.
3. Government should reward and encourage doing good.
4. Government should establish justice, and take special care to defend the weak and helpless.
5. Civil government officials serve God in their tasks.
6. These tasks that government carries out are "good" in God's sight.
7. Without civil government, anarchy soon develops, and the unrestrained evil in human hearts leads to a horrible outpouring of wickedness in human conduct.
8. God holds all nations, and the governments of all nations, accountable to him.
9. God sovereignly establishes specific rulers over human governments.

There is a great deal for American to contemplate here.  The most significant of which is likely the doctrine of God's sovereignty, and his particular appointment of the world's leaders.

Do you believe that God appointed President Obama, or does God merely watch human events from afar?  How about Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad?   Do you believe God appointed him too?

The last thing that Dr. Grudem touched upon is that even in a sinless world, we will have a civil government, as the Bible clearly teaches men will rule cities, and even the angels, in heaven.

Although not in a specific hurry to get there, I am greatly looking forward to the perfect, and holy civil government that we will experience in heaven.  I tell my wife all the time that perhaps we might be privileged to be a joint governors in heaven.  I love working together with my wife.

Here are notes from the class:  Download BiblicalPrinciplesConcerningGovernment

Here is the audio from Dr. Grudem's Sunday school class:

Contemplating a Conversation With a Post-Modern

I have had a great deal of very interesting conversations since the starting of this blog.  As such, I have come across a common confusion that I would like to attempt to set straight.

Point #1 - we live in a marvelous land where people of all faiths are welcome.  We respect each other's faith, and in fact many would die to protect a land where we are all free to worship in their own way.

I stand firmly in this camp. 

I rejoice that we live where one is free to call themselves New Age, Catholic, Evangelical, Buddhist, Hindu, Morman, Seventh Day Adventist, Protestant, Eastern Orthodox, Jewish, or even Atheist.

Now that we are all here, and free, we can now freely dialog with one another about which faith must be true.  This must occur because these faiths all ultimately contradict one another. 

This is where the post-modern has gone astray.   The post-modern would proclaim that there is no true truth, and whether you believe in thousands of gods, one true God, or that we are all somehow a piece of god, all of these are possible to be true, if you believe them to be true.

This is pure nonsense.  Go stand in front of a speeding locomotive, and you will find that there is true truth.  Standing in front of a speeding locomotive will produce your death. 

Point #2 - Christianity proclaims itself to be the one, actually the only way, to know the one true God, and to save oneself from a future judgment of this one true God to those who rebel against him, and do not place their faith in him.

Because of the seemingly irrepressible influence of post-modern thought, Christianity's  statement seems arrogant, and greatly offensive to much of the American mind.

Unfortunately, a speeding locomotive is a speeding locomotive, and no amount of imagination will change it from being so.

Therefore, lets abandon all this nonsense about many "truths".  This way of life is not livable.  There is true truth.  If you jump off the edge of the Grand Canyon, you will be smashed like a bug.

Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. (John 14:6)

Let the real, true conversation begin!

Carol Serves up Some Homemade German Goetta

Many hundreds of years ago, German peasants would add oatmeal to their meat dishes in order to have enough protein to go around.

As the centuries have passed, many of these dishes have become cherished family recipes.

My wife's family hails from the Cincinnati area, and a highly coveted dish amongst these particular Germans is something called Goetta.

Today, after arriving home from church, Carol served up some of this wonderful concoction, with two sunny-side-up eggs on top!

What a wonderful treat! 

Have you ever had Goetta?  If not, you don't know what you are missing.