I am Convicted

I imagine that you all are familiar with Penn and Teller. They're a couple of funny magicians who headline in Vegas. They're well known atheists and quite proud of that status. They even have a show on Showtime where they talk about various philosophical topics including their Atheism. (Beware the show title includes a curse word)

All that setup to include this youtube video from Penn Gillette where he discusses the Christian responsibility to share the Gospel. By the way, even after this clip was filmed, Penn has repeatedly confirmed that he has not 'converted' and is still very firmly an atheist.



I gotta be dead honest. I am a coward about sharing the Gospel, especially with those I actually care about. The people I don't know, I'm easy with the Gospel, b/c I have nothing to loose. But with my family and friends, I don't want to risk loosing my friendship with them, if they reject the Gospel.

How dare I wimp out when they are in mortal danger? Penn's words in the clip: "How much do you have to hate someone to believe that everlasting life is possible and not tell them about it...", cut me to the core.

What about you?

Nooma 23

here's a youtube link to this embeded video:



its got what looks like Portuguese sub titles but audio is in English.

What bugs me most about nooma videos is the imprecision of the language. The statements sort of thrown out there to be 'provocative' instead of informative. Just some examples from my notes after watching this movie. I took the notes fast so I might not have quoted perfectly:

"its my field. why should I let them on to take my stuff? its not fair" this is true its not fair and it shouldn't be extrapolated in how to run a government or your office or some other secular organization. However the church is not the government, nor is my family the government. We should be generous. Not to those who are lazy. The scriptures quoted from Deut. 24:19-22 are very clear that its to be left for widows, orphans, and aliens. These are people who are incapable of providing for themselves. Someone could easily hear what Rob says and think that the government should be providing health care, social security, and other benefits for people who haven't earned them.

"liberation is unfair, freedom is unfair, redemption is unfair, grace is unfair, God isn't fair." This is quite a dangerous statement. To say that God isn't fair means He isn't just. Saying He isn't just is a violation of scripture and the nature of God. He is fair. He punished sin! He also provided mercy through His Son's atoning death on the Cross. Now I don't think He has to be fair in His distribution of Grace its up to Him. But just saying God's not fair without some caviots and clarifications can be horribly confusing to people.

"when you empower others in their oppression, whatever that looks like. we find out out about God's power to us" That's fruit-cake. If you're a Christian you might being doing God's will and therefor feel empowered to further serve. But if you're not then just being nice to someone will make you feel better and that's it. In fact it will damn you worse because you'll think that you're doing good things and assuaging the guilt you've earned for cheating on your wife or taxes. Its a very very dangerous thing to say and do just to be nice.

"ultimately life is about a larger truth to find suffering. do something about it or we'll be miserable. our education time and money will turn on us if we don't give it away" I don't even have the slightest idea what he's trying to say here. "Turn on us" what does that mean? Millions of people are just happy thank you very much to do whatever makes them feel good. Being nice for nice's sake or even other people's sake doesn't mean or do anything if its not done for God. In fact as I said in the one above it hoses you even more because it tricks you into thinking you're doing something of benefit to yourself.

"our lives are either about us, or about a different path. this is why Jesus taught about serving" What??!?! our lives are about us or a different path? Why not tell us what the path is? How does this distinguish Christians from PETA followers? Jesus didn't teach about serving as an end to itself. He took pity on others and taught compassion as a way to reach them for the Gospel. How many times did He use a miracle just to point out to the pharisees that their good work in serving others was totally meaningless b/c they did it for the wrong reasons!

"extend unfairness to others. your overflow to someone else's necessity. find someone who needs what you have, only to discover they have what you needed all along." Huh? I guess in a sense he's talking about capitalism. If I find someone with a need that I can fill, I can sell it to them and get money back which is something I need to procure other goods and services that will help me. Oh wait, that's not the point of this talk I guess... Other Humans have nothing, nothing that I need in an ultimate sense. I sure appreciate nice words occasionally and thanksgiving for shoveling the walk from snow. But JESUS has what I need. He is the one offering salvation and grace and wonder and joy and wisdom and completeness. Serving someone else doesn't offer those things.

More google reader discussion

Here's some more dialogue on my discussion on google reader. In this installment, the guy I'm talking to presents a very clear understanding of the horribleness of Hell. I frankly don't think many Christians understand how bad Hell is, let alone non-Christ followers.

I pray that my church, and other churches, would preach as clearly as this poor guy does about how terrible Hell really is. That people would recognize their danger and flee to Christ.
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Not-me:

Ok, I'm going to take a slightly different tack, and maybe you'll come to an understanding of why your position is morally indefensable. In 100 years, civilization will be nearly unrecognisable to the likes of you and me. If you were punished for this many years, compared to being punished for an infinite number of years, your punishment would not have even considered begun. After 100 periods of 100 years (10^4 y.), civilization WILL be completely unrecognisable to us. If you were punished for this many years, compared to being punished for an infinite number of years, your punishment would not even be considered as having started. After 100 periods of 10,000 years (10^6 y.), humanity itself will be unrecognisable to us. If you were punished for this many years, compared to being punished for an infinite number of years, your punishment would not even be considered as having started. After 100 periods of 1,000,000 years (10^8 y.), the world itself will not look like what our maps display. If you were punished for this many years, compared to being punished for an infinite number of years, your punishment would not even be considered as having started. After 100 periods of 100,000,000 years (10^10 y.), the world will be gone, swallowed by a sun turned red-giant and then diminished into a hard white dwarf. If you were punished for this many years, compared to being punished for an infinite number of years, your punishment would not even be considered as having started. After 100 periods of 10,000,000,000 years (10^12 y), our galaxy, having merged with Andromeda 98,000,000,000 years ago will have finally settled down into a peaceful eliptical galaxy, unrecognizable from the beautiful barred spiral it is today. If you were punished for this many years, compared to being punished for an infinite number of years, your punishment would not even be considered as having started. After 10^100 years, our universe will have come up against heat death. All but the very very very largest supermassive blackholes will have evaporated into random radiation; the protons and neutrons that make up all matter will have long since decayed into weak photons; there is nothing left but a thin gruel of electrons and neutrinos. If you were punished for this many years, compared to being punished for an infinite number of years, your punishment would not even be considered as having started. As a matter of fact, if you take 10^100 years, and turn up the punishment so that each year turns into 10^100 years (10^^100 years; or take 10, raise it to the power of a Googol, then take EACH '0' in the power and turn each and every one into 100 '0's) that's 10 raised to the power of a 1-with-ten-thousand-zeros-behind-it, That's a number so large as to be literally unimaginable. There are only 10^90 particles in the entire universe! If you were punished for this many years, compared to being punished for an infinite number of years, your punishment would not even be considered as having started. An infinity in hell is unconcionable, no matter what the sin is. No matter what. Ever.

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you:

Wow I really appreciate your understanding of the depths and length of the punishment involved in spending eternity in Hell. I don't think most believers, let alone non-Christ followers, grasp what you're saying here. Jesus called Hell Gehenna, which was a burning, filthy trash-pit outside of Jerusalem, that never stopped burning and was the foulest thing His hearers could grasp. I don't think it would be inaccurate at all to say your description/illustration parallels His. In a converse way you're describing how Holy God is by describing how terrible the punishment is. Just to turn around the last part of your argument: God is more Holy and perfect than 10^90 bits of information could describe. His perfection is greater than that even. Its this indescribable 'otherness' that makes sin, even small sin, so reprehensible and foul to Him, and why He must put it away from His presence. Incidentally, this makes His decision to send His Son to earth to die for us, completely mind blowing!!! Why would He do that? Why would He knowingly sacrifice His Son for people that had violated Him so powerfully. This is why I don't just follow some words in the Bible, or go to church on Sundays in order to get some morality in my life, or in order to be 'good' to my fellow man. I worship, and spend my life trying to love and obey Jesus in response to His great, un-comprehensible gift. I can't change your mind by arguing with you, though I do enjoy the challenge of your questions and thoughtful responses. All I can do is ask, no beg, you to look at how much you have sinned. And then use your understanding of Hell to bring you to a desire for rescue from that punishment. The Bible is true, God will not let those who have sinned against him to go un-punished. He is a just judge and must punish lawbreakers. It sounds like you've read the Bible before, so this challenge may sound silly, but read the gospel of John and watch how John portrays Jesus. John's goal in writing is to show that Jesus is/was God. Jesus is harsh with some, but kind and gentle with others. See yourself in Nicodemus in chapter 3, a smart guy who thought He understood, but needed Christ to point out His shortcomings to welcome Nic in. Look at the woman at the well in chapter 4 and see yourself in someone who has sinned greatly and to whom Jesus should not be talking to, but instead He does and shows her Great mercy. In John 5 recognize yourself in the lame man who could do nothing to heal or save himself without Jesus' help. I could go on, but I hope you see what I'm trying to say. The Holy Spirit uses scripture to change and soften hearts to the Gospel. I pray that He would do that for you, as He did for me.

Discussion from Google Reader

I've been having a discussion on a google shared item for the last few days. I'm reprinting here for posterity... I've changed the name of the person I'm discussing with, and added the horizontal rules to make the sides of the conversation clear... The not-me starts out next:

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Not-me:

Haha! Now only if God hadn't written Leviticus...

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you:

I'm disappointed that the author didn't point out that the atheist's resulting judgment was to be punished by God for all eternity for not repenting and believing before dying. Of course God is loving and merciful, but He's also just, and therefore He must punish law-breakers, just like an earthly judge punishes law breakers no matter what they say or do to try and worm out of it. If they didn't punish they wouldn't be just, and neither would God.

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not-me:

Don't kid yourself, the Christian god isn't just or merciful. Ask the children of the ruler Sihon: Deut (2:33-34) And the LORD our God delivered him before us; and we smote him, and his sons, and all his people. And the LORD our God delivered him before us; and we smote him, and his sons, and all his people. And we took all his cities at that time, and utterly destroyed the men, and the women, and the little ones, of every city, we left none to remain.

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you:

fascinating. you're saying God wasn't just in destroying a people who had rejected Him as God? Sounds like good grounds to me. In fact we all have rejected Him since the Garden. Its amazing mercy that He lets any of us live and breathe. Its His air after all, not ours.

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Not-Me:

That's exactly what I'm saying. God is imaginary, and justifying genocide in his name is a horrendous abuse of power. But, let's assume that god really exists for a second. All of those destroyed people went to hell, yes? How is an ETERNITY of punishment a morally acceptable form of 'justice' to any possible crime here on earth? Pol Pot doesn't deserve eternal punishment for what he did in Cambodia. The argument that the Christian god is just is false prima facie.

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you:

Ahh, so this is where your understanding is not accurate as to the nature of God. You're right that eternity of punishment for crimes committed here on earth isn't warranted. But those crimes aren't just committed here on earth. They're also committed against the Creator of the Universe. You'd be right that the punishment doesn't seem to fit the crime if the person to whom the crime was committed was an equivalent human agent such as ourselves. But that's just it God isn't equivalent to us. He is infinitely above us and therefore sins committed against Him are infinitely worse than those of ours committed against each other. As a weak illustration, imagine I threatened to kill you, at worst I might get some civil suit with a restraining order or an attempted murder charge which would only put me in prison for a few months or a couple of years. If instead I threatened or was able to kill a United States President, I would be jailed for life, or put in the electric chair. See the punishment changes based on who the offense is committed against, with the more stringent punishment applied to the one offending the greater person. Even the "little sin" of Adam disobeying in the garden was enough to get him and Eve booted out forever. Because it wasn't so much that they did what God told them not to, it was that they choose to be their own gods in their defiance of His will. This is the ultimate blasphemy and a perfect and Holy God must elevate Himself above all others. Therefore their elevation of themselves above Him, deserved death. A death that God delayed until it could be carried out on His Son. In fact this death was foretold twice right in chapter 3 of Genesis. Once when God says "he will strike your heel, but he will crush his head". This is God pointing out that Satan will nip Jesus by contributing to His death, but that Jesus' death and subsequent resurrection was the death blow for Satan. Secondly God kills an animal and makes a skin covering for Adam and Eve to replace the insufficient fig-leave covering they had made for themselves. This was the first death ever. A tremendous thing. God took sin so seriously that He killed the first ever animal as a symbol of the payment necessary that His Son would come to provide for Adam and Eve later. Sin is so serious to God that only blood can pay for it. The most precious substance we have. And the debt we have incurred so great that only the most valuable blood would be acceptable to a perfect God. That blood is the shed blood of the perfect God-man sacrifice of Jesus Christ. God isn't imaginary. The empty tomb proves it, the creation around us proves it, yours and my conscience proves it. But none of those proofs will work for you until you realize that your sin is way worse than you currently think it is. Reflect for a little on how much sin you've committed (the thousands of lies you've told, the repeated blasphemies declaring that God isn't real or just, the disobedience to your parents, the lustful thoughts, the things you've stolen, etc, etc..). The Bible says that God hates sin, and that He will in no-ways leave sins committed un-punished. Please think about how bad your sin is, and then repent and believe that Jesus' death is sufficient to cover your sins. Repenting means recognizing your sin's depths and confessing them to God and then turning away from them, and by God's grace and help stopping them. If you truly repent and believe then you will see your life change as the Holy Spirit begins to drive you to want to be more like Jesus.

Cool Bible Resource

Just found this site while looking up a question for a friend. http://www.openbible.info/. I don't know that I would trust a lot of the topics yet since there's a lot of opportunity for skewing. But the part I liked the best was the google-earth kmz files for locations mentioned in the Bible. I don't think they're all exactly right, but they give you a good general idea.

Neat site.

Terrified!

A friend of mine suggested I listen to Todd Friel's Wretched Radio. He's a Christian evangelist that preaches the gospel by giving law to the proud and grace to the humble. His premise is that, this combination worked great for Jesus, so why shouldn't we use it.

The first thing I listened to was Terrified! (only costs $6!!) An MP3 CD with 20 some odd witness encounters all designed to teach how to share the Law with people to get them to realize how desperately they (and I) need Jesus, instead of their (and my) own filthy works. I started listening to the encounters, and after the first couple I was so convicted about how proud I am, and how I always seek to be served by my law keeping instead of falling on the Grace of our Lord. I'm not saying I was re-converted, just reminded that I am desperate for grace too.

Now I can't stop listening to Todd. All the encounters are encouraging and challenging and convicting to get me to witness too. I know all the answers that Todd gives to the questions people ask and I have the big Ace, the Holy Spirit, so its not like I'm not qualified. Its just that I'm scared plain and simple. Where is my courage?

Oh Lord please give me courage to talk of you to others. And not just strangers, but the people I actually care about.

The Count

So I spent the last few months, July - Oct, reading "The Count of Monte Cristo" (Google books|Project Guttenburg) by Alexandre Dumas. It was an amazing story. I used to think that Tom Clancy had invented the literary style of bringing a lot of different story lines that seem unrelated finally together in a climactic ending, but really Dumas had been doing it 150 years earlier. The plot lines and characters swing out of nowhere and surprise you. Dumas even tries to throw off the reader a few times as you think you know who is doing what.

The Count, Edmond Dantes, is wrongly convicted of a crime he didn't commit and basically 'dies' in prison. He eventually escapes 14 years later and spends the great wealth he is gifted with while in prison to carry out justice against those who put him into prison. Despite the justice of his cause, he is conflicted with whether or not he is acting on behalf of Providence.

I had lots of favorite parts, but I wanted to quote this one passage from chapter 84: "The Hand of God" The Count, playing an abbe, is speaking with Caderousse, a thief and a liar, who is dying from a knife wound (not inflicted by the Count) and the two go back and forth discussing the existence of Providence. We'll pick up with Caderousse speaking:

"I do not believe there is a God!" howled Caderousse; "you do not believe it: you lie -- you lie!"
"Silence!" said the abbe; "you will force the last drop of blood from your veins. What! you do not believe in God when he is striking you dead? -- You will not believe in him, who requires but a a prayer, a word, a tear, and He will forgive -- God, who might have directed the assassin's dagger so as to end your career in a moment, has given you this quarter of an hour for repentance. Reflect, then, wretched man, and repent."
"No," said Caderousse, "no; I will not repent. There is no God, there is no Providence -- all comes by chance."
"There is a Providence, there is a God," said Monte Cristo, "of which you are a striking proof, as you lie in utter despair, denying him; while I stand before you, rich, happy, safe, and entreating that God, in whom you endeavor not to believe, while in your heart you still believe in him."

I don't know if he was a Christian or not, but I believe Dumas has it right. Man knows in his heart that God is real. Man may deny it, he may fight it, he may loose himself in great or small debauchery to get away from the knowledge of Providence. But man cannot shake loose His Creator's touch. We all know that we are on this world for more than just living and dying. We are here to 'love God and enjoy Him forever.' But to do that we must repent as the Count says above. God grants mercy continually by allowing us while we're still sinners to continue to live that we might be given opportunity to repent and come to Christ.

If you are denying the existence of God, think about why you don't want Him to exist. Is it because you prefer to go your own way instead of His? Come to His mercy. Repent of your unbelief and submit to Him as Lord. You will be saved. Come today. Don't be lost. The gifts He offers are greater than the things you will give up in response to His Lordship. Please come, your danger is great. His mercy could be at an end even tonight. Don't risk it.