I Hate Funerals

The last time I went to a funeral was several years ago.  Before that one, I don't even remember the last one.  I don't think I would even go to my own parents' funerals. 

But when you are asked to be a pallbearer at the funeral of your brother-and-shipmate, how can you say no?  So I went to a funeral today.  Mostly I was as stone-faced as ever but I had to point my eyeballs up a little extra when somebody in the family of the deceased started bawling by the casket, and again during the military honors.  If there had been a 21-gun salute I think I would have been Mr. Faucet Eyes already.

********
It wasn't supposed to be this way.  We were all supposed to have basically endless, carefree lives in intimate association with God, in person, on a daily basis.  Then a serpent had a conversation with Eve.  Physical death is hateful to me.  ESPECIALLY the death of somebody I care about, and ESPECIALLY a brother-in-arms.  It doesn't matter if he was 87 years old and barely kept one step ahead of the grim reaper for the last decade.  He wasn't supposed to die.

Well, he didn't really, but his widow from a 65-year marriage is probably going to miss him until they meet again.  It seems like it would be cold comfort, the first time you would go back to a bed that would always be empty when you left it.  Over coffee the next morning, it seems like it would be very comforting to know that your loved one is in a better place.

Still.  Standing at attention and staring down into a hole lined with landscaping timbers during prayers, and seeing an old lady's eyes all watery . . . sucks.

Here I Make My Stand.

Here I make my stand, and I shall be pushed no further.

It is better that my country should be destroyed than that I should vote for a heathen to be its President.

Variety of Rewards in Heaven

Do some people get more/better/different rewards in Heaven?

During a conversation with a co-worker this question was raised just as we were about to head home. I typed this all up and thought about posting the e-mail but at the time I decided against it. The question has come up again in the space of a week, on an internet message board this time. For my own convenience, all of what follows is a copy/paste of the commentary I sent to my co-worker.

********

The verse that was in mind this afternoon was first corinthians chapter 3 verse 12 and the surrounding context. The Apostle Paul wrote this letter to the church at Corinth. Paul was one of the better-educated men of his day, and lots of the main doctrines of Christianity are spelled out in his letters.


1 Corinthians 3

1 And I, brethren, could not speak unto you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal, even as unto babes in Christ.
2 I have fed you with milk, and not with meat: for hitherto ye were not able to bear it, neither yet now are ye able.
3 For ye are yet carnal: for whereas there is among you envying, and strife, and divisions, are ye not carnal, and walk as men?
4 For while one saith, I am of Paul; and another, I am of Apollos; are ye not carnal?

You guys still can't deal with the deeper theological stuff, because you still have trivial/worldly drama. This one preacher named Apollos was pretty popular, and Paul was popular, and the people were getting caught up talking about "well I go to this cat's church" instead of going on into the more important stuff...

5 Who then is Paul, and who is Apollos, but ministers by whom ye believed, even as the Lord gave to every man?
6 I have planted, Apollos watered; but God gave the increase.
7 So then neither is he that planteth any thing, neither he that watereth; but God that giveth the increase.

Preachers aren't the point...

8 Now he that planteth and he that watereth are one: and every man shall receive his own reward according to his own labour.
9 For we are labourers together with God: ye are God's husbandry, ye are God's building.
10 According to the grace of God which is given unto me, as a wise masterbuilder, I have laid the foundation, and another buildeth thereon. But let every man take heed how he buildeth thereupon.
11 For other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ.

This is the bit I was thinking about:

12 Now if any man build upon this foundation gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, stubble;
13 Every man's work shall be made manifest: for the day shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire; and the fire shall try every man's work of what sort it is.

(the day = a day of judgement of the works christians did. Not go-to-Heaven/Hell judgement day)

14 If any man's work abide which he hath built thereupon, he shall receive a reward.
15 If any man's work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss: but he himself shall be saved; yet so as by fire.

You can get saved from your sins and go about doing things that don't help God's kingdom to be increased, and it will prove to have been vain in the end. Or you can go and Do the Right Thing and you will have a reward for having done so.

********

This page uses a different translation of the Bible than I prefer but it does a decent job expounding on the concept:

http://www.pleaseconvinceme.com/index/Are_There_Different_Degrees_of_Reward_in_Heaven

You Can Read The Bible A Hundred Times

. . . and learn something new on the hundred-and-first. The verse numbers to follow are all in the sixth chapter of the book of Judges

Prime example: me, this morning. I don't know how many times I'd read the story of Gideon delivering his people from their oppressors and I didn't get why he was called Jerubbaal. I hadn't even *noticed* that he was an Abiezrite, much less the following:

Gideon was the son of Joash, an Abiezrite in verse 11.. In verse 34, Gideon blew a trumpet and Abiezer showed up. That is, he sounded a call to arms and the men of his tribe responded. That was the start of his militia/army action. I don't know how I missed it, but I did.

Gideon's father, Joash, had a sacred grove and an altar to Baal which Gideon destroyed in verse 27. The townsmen were going to kill Gideon and Joash said 'if Baal's a god, let him contend with Gideon' and renamed Gideon in verse 32 to Jerubbaal "Baal will contend".

********
You think you know a story, and then something like this happens!

I Sometimes Wonder (as I wander)

If our first parents (Adam/Eve) had obeyed the only rule they were given, would it hurt when a baby's first set of teeth came through the gums? If our mouths were not about to spend a lifetime of speaking vanities against our Creator, would it hurt as they were forming teeth?

The Name of God vs. The Word of God

"...for thou hast magnified thy word above all thy name."

"...faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God"

"In the beginning was the Word ... and the Word was God"

"And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us..."

"The words of the LORD ... O LORD, thou shalt preserve them ... for ever."

God's word will not change. It cannot change, because it is Him. You can hear it and believe in Him. This post started out as a quick jotting-down on a square inch of paper as an idea about it not being all that important what you call God but I'm not sure that's where it would end up if I were preaching on the topic.

God has many names, and not all of them are listed in the Bible or even anywhere in the historical record. At least one name of God, we don't even know how it is pronounced because it was so holy to the Scribes who transcribed our Bible refused to write it out the way it sounds. Besides which, the Bible was written in different languages from the one you speak. Therefore:

It is 100% certain you are mispronouncing the NAME of God. This is not the same as taking the name of the Lord in vain. It is the difference between day-vihd in English and dah-veed in Spanish. Heck these days I sometimes even answer to "Dave" and "Meester dehv" - and I am not as wise as God. My wife calls Him her "tati." Don't sweat this.

God knows your thoughts. He knows when you are thinking about, talking about, or praying to Him. He also knows if you are intending to be sacrilegious or disrespectful, honoring or worshipful. And He knows that you do not know hot to pronounce His name. But He also knows that you have in your King James Bible the entirety of His word, preserved for you to use. Sweat that. You are not held responsible for what you don't know, but for what you do know.

The Word of God is the important part. The Name of God is less important than the Word of God. "But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves"

Sweat the big stuff.

Scientists Discover Earth Has A Self-Cleaning Cycle

Preamble: It is laughable how people who wish to not believe God invented the world will twist their minds around facts. There is a greatly inflated sense of self importance in certain "scientific" circles these days, thinking we could destroy our ecosystem by merely living in it.
***
God is both infinitely smarter than the average bear AND not really giving us verbal messages much these days. So imagine the pleasure of one who believes that the Earth is a self-correcting system designed to sustain mankind . . . when a particle theorized before the global warmening craze existed turns out to be real. And it comes from plants and scrubs pollutants out of the air.

Good job, God. Way to be smarter.

Docking Your Own Pay

~or, Missing Out on God's Best~

I stayed up late Saturday and woke up an hour late on Sunday. If I'd really hustled the Zoo we could have got to church on time for the sunday school lessons, but I didn't. On the way to the subsequent church service (an hour late for an hourlong class) I realized I had hurt myself.

If I wake up an hour late during the week, I call in and tell them I'll be late. No problem, they'll just dock my pay. But then, if you miss a church service, you are also losing out. The loss is spiritual. I am pretty sure between the children and the adults, SOMEbody missed out on a really good Sunday School Lesson that day.

******

Do you value your money? Get up!

Do you value your spiritual progress as a Christian? Get up!

********

There's a sermon in there, I'm pretty sure.

Setting the Stage for Armageddon?

China has an army that could easily march a few million men into Israel. Israel will (if you read it that way) be the location of a battle that will include so many casualties that blood flows as deep as a horse's bridle for 200 miles.

But China has nothing to do with Israel! Why would China figure into the last battle just before the return of Jesus to Earth? They wouldn't, right? It was always some sort of vague "they'll come from the Kings of the North" type of thing. Until now.

China says they'll protect Iran even if it starts World War Three. Iran, of course, is on Israel's short list of "Nations to attack before they wipe us off the map." WWIII here we come.

********
The maths are open for debate(check the comments!). Depending on how you run your made-up numbers, it could be about the right volume of blood to mean everyone left on Earth dying in the same place. That seems . . . perhaps high to me.

"I Cannot"

A man is to be killed by the Islamic Republic of Iran.

For his belief in Jesus Christ.

The United States' department of State has no comment.

I speak with Speaker Boehner in condemning Iran for even HAVING this law.

Look out when the last judgment comes around.

Do not hold your breath waiting for this story on the news tonight.

Which Bible? King James.

IF you believe the King James Bible is the one to use,
IF you want to know why you should use it,
IF you want to know more reasons than you already do WHY you should use it

THEN you should read The Answer Book.

+bonus, it's free to read online!

********
IF you don't think the KJV/KJB/Authorized Version is the Bible you should use, a) you are mistaken and b) this book is not aimed at you but you might learn something from it, anyway.

Dem Translations Is De DEBIL!!!!!1!

Note the time stamp on this post. I couldn't sleep and fired up the computer, checked my messages, looked at car stuff, and then had a theological question come to mind. I am reminded the ugly way that -for English-speaking people- the King James version not being used is a good indicator* to be wary of what you are reading. I find that the newer and "easier to understand" the version someone uses in their study, the worse they will go off-track when they start drawing conclusions from "the Bible."

I have owned, read, and studied from MANY English translations of the Bible. This comes not only from the opinions of those whose judgement I trust, but also from my personal experience: If you are capable of discerning spiritual things and learning a couple of dozen archaic terms (out of a couple THOUSAND pages) then you should be reading the King James Bible. It expresses most clearly and (usually by FAR) most elegantly the intention you find if you dig through to the underlying Greek/Hebrew/Aramaic.

********

*Another good indication is that people make unnecessary use of four-dollar words. I find that excessive use of big words sometimes comes hand-in-hand with lack of clarity. I kin unnerstand all 'em big woards purty good-like and I can think straight. If you can't write in a way that is accessible to an 8 year-old, it is just possible you don't really understand your subject.

It is not necessarily bad to use endnotes, as should be obvious. Endnotes can dramatically improve the flow of a work, and give enhanced knowledge for the curious. The worst offender used end notes like they were giving a well-prepared dose of wisdom. Well, some of us check the endnotes as we read through, instead of waiting until we're done, just to be sure . . .

...the worst offender I found this morning both used big words and gave phoenetic spellings of "the original" words. I smelled a rat at first when they started out with a 'contemporary' "translation" of the Bible. I read with my KJV open, to compare - and sure enough they were getting it wrong. I carried on reading, accepting nothing but taking it all "with a grain of salt" to see where they were going with the article. I stopped reading and started writing when I was checking their references against the original (in this case Hebrew) text and the word they called out was NOT EVEN IN THE TEXT!.
********

Moral: use known-good primary sources, and check the references when you read an article. They might just be making it up!

I Don't Understand It

. . . but then, I am finite, so . . .

*********

I love my children. I am good to them. I treat them in ways that engender affection toward me in return. They love me back, because I loved them first and they know it.

********

We love him, because he first loved us. 1 John 4:19

You and I, compared to God, are less than the least. His goodness and wisdom are so far superior to ours that a comparison would be pointless. There is no reason we deserve to be loved by God - and yet He does love us. "...he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust." Matt. 5:45

God is better to us than we deserve, far better than a parent to his children. We ought to love Him back . . .

do you?

Galatians 6:2 - Not For Governments

Somebody started an internet discussion about socialized medicine and brought up this verse to try to support their cause. I had to remind them that the instruction is for individuals voluntarily acting out their own charity. It is not telling society at large that they should take money from some people at gunpoint and redistribute the wealth. Top-down socialism: NOT in the Bible, sorry.

Racism And Christianity: Not Compatible.

• You can't be a Christian and not believe in the Bible
• You can't believe in the Bible and be a racist
• Therefore, you can't be both Christian and racist.
  

Racism: the belief that one "race" or ethnic group is superior to another, biologically
Culturism: the belief that one culture is superior to another

I caught flak for telling The City on an Official Form that my "race" is Human. I changed it to reflect my skin color, though that is arguably inaccurate (if you look at my grandparents' skin color and national origins). Down on the inside, I stand by the original entry on the form. Because I believe what my Bible tells me:

"God ... giveth to all life, and breath, ... And hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth"

Black man? My brother
Brown man? My brother
Yellow man? My brother
White man? My brother

Trace that family tree back far enough and you end up with the same mother and father for all of us. Geographic necessity may have caused some minor variations to help us adapt to our surroundings, but when you cut our throats we all gush the same red blood.

So if you say something bad about the ever-hated Jew because his "ethnicity" is marked on the form as Jewish, you are a dumb ass and really ought to spend more quality time in your Bible. If you look down on the black man, or say the white man is out to get you, ditto. Excuse me if I do not share your enthusiasm on the subject.

Now, if you say that a culture which denigrates women and promotes fatherlessness, drug use/abuse/dealing, crime, and the like is of equal value to a culture which elevates women and motherhood, values the two-parent (opposite sex) married family foundation, discourages drug use and frowns on crime, you are a fool. And probably a government-educated fool at that.

Thou Shalt Not

. . . take the name of the LORD thy God in vain

If you pull out in front of traffic and drive slow, especially if you could wait 5 seconds and have a clear break in traffic, especially if you are going to take the next turning off the road, you are an [deleted].

If you have a little fishy on the back of your car and drive out from the church parking lot, you are proclaiming yourself to be one of Jesus' people. You are voluntarily identifying yourself with the Lord. You ought to be on Best Behavior.

If you pull out from the church parking lot in your car with the little fishy on it, and cut off traffic and drive like an [deleted], then you are putting negative connotations on my Jesus with your asshattery. This is a violation of the third Commandment.   Don't.  Some of us don't have little fishies on our cars because we don't want to publicly make our Lord look bad. If you're going to be a jerk, peel the fish off your trunk.

Yeah? So you don't like it, so what? Why should I do what YOU say, VFD?

. . . for the LORD will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain.

It is not about what I like or what I say. I am not the one declaring guilt, in the final analysis - nor the one handing out judgements and rewards.

See You In Church On Sunday!

This is the first Very-Widely-Publicized incident in my living memory where a false prophet has called out the end of the world and I am on the ball enough to call B.S. on it. Everyone else is calling BS also. Many, very many, are making a great deal of fun of it. As they are right and the prediction is false, they are perfectly fine making fun of Camping's Date. But . . .

It feels bad, wrong somehow. It makes the chest hair stand up and the skin to crawl most uncomfortably to see and hear such (what sounds like on the surface) blatant apostasy(?) or religious skepticism, or whatever it is. It makes me uncoooooomfortable. Maybe because I know the end will come, but that it will not come tomorrow.

We are making fun of a man who is about to take a huge fall tomorrow. Fine. But let us remember: you do need to get right with Jesus, because the end is coming, and if you aren't a Christian, you're [deleted] forever.

********

Harold Camping is a false prophet AND a false teacher. When I was in California I would sometimes catch his show and he was promulgating the false doctrine that you can never know for certain you are on the way to Heaven after you die. He is wrong, according to a straight reading of the Bible. Click that link to find out how you can know you are going to Heaven.

Let's See YOU Do It!

If you load a ship too heavily on one side, she will list (and maybe sink). If you load a plane too heavily on one side, she will roll (and maybe crash and burn). Load masters are vital because someone really has to know what he is doing when it comes time to set weights & balances.

Who hath measured the waters in the hollow of his hand, and meted out heaven with the span, and comprehended the dust of the earth in a measure, and weighed the mountains in scales, and the hills in a balance?

If you load a planet too heavily on one side, she will wobble (and maybe fly apart), not to mention your orbital trajectories won't stay where you set them. When He made the earth (and the other planets) God had to balance the hills so it would spin properly and stay spinning properly. In case you didn't notice, the hills are not all the same size, and not all evenly spaced.

. . . now that's quite a piece of work!

Why does God love Jerusalem? A Theory:

If your only son were murdered on the side of the road, how would you like it if the murderer opened up a strip club on the spot?

What if you knew thousands of years in advance that the murder would happen?

What Does Isaiah 40:4 Mean?

Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low: and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough places plain Isaiah 40:4

I always wondered about this, but just today I came up with an answer that works for me. It may be full of holes, but here it is:

Those of us who believe the Bible means what it says and is true, understand that the world is only a few thousands of years old, and that there was a cataclysmic world-wide flood. It makes sense to me that if the fountains of the great deep were opened, and the sky let down more water than it ever had done, the roofs of what used to be water reservoirs (with fountains on top) would collapse under the pressure from all the water overwhelming the world. The surrounding geography would be uplifted. There we have mountains. Receding flood water cut the valleys. The mountains and valleys, crooked and rough places of the world are mute testimony to the flood. The flood caused by the abject sinfulness of mankind.

When He comes back and sets things to rights again, these witnesses and reminders will be leveled and smoothed out. I shudder to think how great an earthquake would be required to do it, but that's how I read it.