Author: darthjedi

Th house of mourning


(Ecc 7:2) It is better to go to a house of mourning than to go to a house of feasting, for death is the destiny of every man; the living should take this to heart.


Perhaps the teacher, son of David was a universalist, or a annihilationist, because it is not always better to go to a house of mourning….


I am on my way to a friends funeral in just a short while – as far as I know, he never accepted Christ, I invited them to Church a few times, but they never came. He was a very compassionate, friendly and caring person. Sure, he had his flaws, as we all do.


It’s moments like now that bring you back to earth; and make you want to question.


If only we could see things from begining to end.



-Gene

Do you surrender all?

In my Humanities course I was asked to comment on this story.



“A man went on a walk one day along the edge of a cliff, as he often did. This day, however, a strong wind came and blew him over the edge. Before falling to his death, he managed to grab a shrub. There he dangled, too weak to climb back up; his fate certain. Then he spied a beatiful flower nearby. It was like nothing he had ever seen before. The image of this flower seized him. Its brilliant blossom, its shape and size, its colors, its scent, its intricate design; for the few moments he had left, he caught a vision of absolute beauty. His grasp weakened, and he fell to his death.”



Here are my comments:



“It is said that in death, all things become clear.” – (Dan Brown, Digital Fortress)

It is unfair that I can’t comment on Tolstoy yet (or can I). 🙂

For now, I’ll stick with Dan Brown’s illustration. In our lives we spend so much time trying to get to a target destination that we often forget to enjoy the scenery on the way. When facing our ultimate demise, when facing the final rung on the ladder (so to speak), when, as humans, we are forced to come to the realization that our time on this earth is indefinite, when we come face to face with that realization, there is inevitably the awakening of the inner soul. The point where one begins to look around and realize what is most important. While not everyone can, or will undergo this during their lifetime (or even at the point of death), it is at the point of this surrender that all things become clear, and life has been put into perspective.

In reading this story, I have to wonder, as often as this young man had walked on this cliff, had he ever stopped to take the time to enjoy the breeze, the smells, the sounds, and the loftiness of the heights below him? How often do you think he passed that flower, just within view (or perhaps even reach), and yet, he had never seen its likes.

Studying the humanities gives me the opportunity to learn how to appreciate even the most simple and wonderful things about the world around me. Over the years, I have been a work-a-holic, driven and mad trying to control my own destiny, and make of the world, what I want it to be. Through this study, I hope to learn to better live my life, in what Bob Jacks in his book “Divine Appointments” calls “relaxed anticipation”. I hope to find more direction within myself to, as the colloquial statement goes: Learn to stop and smell the roses. I desire to come to the point of surrender, before I’m holding onto the edge of a cliff, waiting to take the plunge into the unknown.

Is it well?

This is a true story – I have copied it from http://chi.gospelcom.net/GLIMPSEF/Glimpses/glmps064.shtml.


May the Lord always give me the comfort to say “It is well with my Soul”, no matter the circumstance…



In the 1870s Horatio Spafford was a successful Chicago lawyer and a close friend of evangelist Dwight L. Moody. Spafford had invested heavily in real estate, but the Chicago fire of 1871 wiped out his holdings. His son had died shortly before the disaster.


Spafford and his family desperately needed a rest so in 1873 he planned a trip to Europe with his wife and four daughters. While in Great Britain he also hoped to help Moody and Sankey with their evangelistic tour. Last minute business caused Spafford to delay his departure, but he sent his wife and four daughters on the S. S. Ville Du Havre as scheduled, promising to follow in a few days. On November 22 the ship was struck by the English ship Lochearn, and it sank in twelve minutes. Several days later the survivors landed at Cardiff, Wales, and Mrs. Spafford cabled her husband the brief message, “Saved alone.”


When Horatio Spafford made the ocean crossing to meet his grieving wife, he sailed near the place where his four daughters had sunk to the ocean depths. There, in the midst of his sorrow, he wrote these unforgettable words that have brought solace to so many in grief:




When peace, like a river, attendeth my way,
When sorrows like sea billows roll,
Whatever my lot, Thou hast taught me to say,
It is well, it is well, with my soul.


Though Satan should buffet, though trials should come,
Let this blessed assurance control,
That Christ hath regarded my helpless estate,
And hath shed His own blood for my soul.

When can I write about something happy?

I am filled with disgust and anger at the hard hearts and the cultish minds of those that belong to the local fundamentilist unorthodox Campbellites (also known in their own circle as the Church of Christ).


They are blinded by their own minds… they can’t even see past their nose to look at their face in the mirror. They are filled with a mix of so many unchristian attitudes, and unbiblical teachings – they are as much of a cult as a cult can be – I really can’t figure out which emotion I am more overwhelmed with Anger, or Sorrow…




In truth, as much as the local group of Campbellites accuse me of trying to draw their members away – I am beginning to wish nothing more than to be able to do just that… to snatch each and every one of them out of the fire that is burning all around them.



Someday this local group (not the physical building – but the spiritual people) are going to collapse in around themselves and all that will be left is charred remains of poor wayward individuals that never knew what it was truly like to be a Christian.


Should I be angry or should I be sad – I’m overwhelmed with both…

Hypocrites

To anyone out there, that will care about someone only as long as they agree with every minute detail of their theology (no matter how poorly their theology is built and supported) – all I have to say is “goodbye and good riddens”.



Mat 23:13 “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You shut the kingdom of heaven in men’s faces. You yourselves do not enter, nor will you let those enter who are trying to.[c]


Mat 23:15 “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You travel over land and sea to win a single convert, and when he becomes one, you make him twice as much a son of hell as you are.


Mat 23:16 “Woe to you, blind guides! You say, ‘If anyone swears by the temple, it means nothing; but if anyone swears by the gold of the temple, he is bound by his oath.’


Mat 23:17 You blind fools! Which is greater: the gold, or the temple that makes the gold sacred?


Mat 23:18 You also say, ‘If anyone swears by the altar, it means nothing; but if anyone swears by the gift on it, he is bound by his oath.’


Mat 23:19 You blind men! Which is greater: the gift, or the altar that makes the gift sacred?


Mat 23:20 Therefore, he who swears by the altar swears by it and by everything on it.


Mat 23:21 And he who swears by the temple swears by it and by the one who dwells in it.


Mat 23:22 And he who swears by heaven swears by God’s throne and by the one who sits on it.


Mat 23:23 “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You give a tenth of your spices—mint, dill and cummin. But you have neglected the more important matters of the law—justice, mercy and faithfulness. You should have practiced the latter, without neglecting the former.


Mat 23:24 You blind guides! You strain out a gnat but swallow a camel.


Mat 23:25 “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence.


Mat 23:26 Blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and dish, and then the outside also will be clean.


Mat 23:27 “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of dead men’s bones and everything unclean.


Mat 23:28 In the same way, on the outside you appear to people as righteous but on the inside you are full of hypocrisy and wickedness.


Mat 23:29 “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You build tombs for the prophets and decorate the graves of the righteous.


Mat 23:30 And you say, ‘If we had lived in the days of our forefathers, we would not have taken part with them in shedding the blood of the prophets.’


Mat 23:31 So you testify against yourselves that you are the descendants of those who murdered the prophets.


Mat 23:32 Fill up, then, the measure of the sin of your forefathers!


Mat 23:33 “You snakes! You brood of vipers! How will you escape being condemned to hell?


Hypocrites

The Disciple – Thomas Kempis

YOU thunder forth Your judgments over me, Lord. You shake all my bones with fear and trembling, and my soul is very much afraid. I stand in awe as I consider that the heavens are not pure in Your sight.


If You found wickedness in the angels and did not spare them, what will become of me?


Stars have fallen from heaven, and I — I who am but dust — how can I be presumptuous? They whose deeds seemed worthy of praise have fallen into the depths, and I have seen those who ate the bread of angels delighting themselves with the husks of swine.


There is no holiness, then, if You withdraw Your hand, Lord. There is no wisdom if You cease to guide, no courage if You cease to defend. No chastity is secure if You do not guard it. Our vigilance avails nothing if Your holy watchfulness does not protect us.


Left to ourselves we sink and perish, but visited by You we are lifted up and live.


We are truly unstable, but You make us strong. We grow lukewarm, but You inflame us. Oh, how humbly and lowly should I consider myself! How very little should I esteem anything that seems good in me! How profoundly should I submit to Your unfathomable judgments, Lord, where I find myself to be but nothing! O immeasurable weight! O impassable sea, where I find myself to be nothing but bare nothingness! Where, then, is glory’s hiding place? Where can there be any trust in my own virtue? All vainglory is swallowed up in the depths of Your judgments upon me.


What is all flesh in Your sight? Shall the clay glory against Him that formed it? How can he whose heart is truly subject to God be lifted up by vainglory? The whole world will not make him proud whom truth has subjected to itself. Nor shall he who has placed all his hope in God be moved by the tongues of flatterers.


For behold, even they who speak are nothing; they will pass away with the sound of their words, but the truth of the Lord remains forever.



– Thomas Kempis

Should church goers use musical instruments?

Someone asked me recently if I would be comfortable worshiping with a group of Christians that use Musical Instruments in their worship; when, as far as they could tell, the scriptures were silent on whether instruments are an acceptable form of Worship in the New Testament Church (even though they used them in the Old Testament, and they are using them in the Intermediate Heaven, even as I type).


Let’s just say – although I don’t think I would agree with that position of Musical Instruments being wrong [On my scale of certainty it’s about a 1 – that is; I wouldn’t teach it openly that it’s ok; but I won’t say that it’s wrong either] – so back to the discussion – let’s just say that using Musical Instruments during the Church Service is wrong, because we should be ‘singing with our hearts’ (although, I think you can still sing with your heart, even with an instrument, or even without literally singing, because the idea of the ‘heart’ transcends the tongue).


If you look over, and the person two pews down from you is not singing, rather listening, and you feel that they aren’t doing what you think God wants them to do – do they cause you to sin? What if the person playing the musical instrument isn’t singing, and they are displeasing God, does that cause you to sin?


How about in the case of someone sitting three pews down from you that was drunk on Saturday night; or recently slept with someone they aren’t married to, and they are back in services on Sunday morning singing right along with you, does the fact that you are singing with them, cause you to sin (we’re not talking about whether or not you should approach them in love, and talk to them about changing, just whether their actions cause you to sin)?


It’s not that I would normally take this argument; because I think if there were people in a worship service with pictures of Satan on their shirt, I wouldn’t feel comfortable whether I was wearing the shirt or not – but I guess what I’m saying is (And my wife said that she has always felt that way) – is that our worship to God, while done collectively, is also an individual thing; we can’t know the hearts and minds of anyone else in the building, nor can we, or should we judge the actions and motives of things that are not clearly violating scripture, as Romans says that we will all stand before God and give an account to God, and we can stand, because the power is in the Lord to make us stand.


Anyway, just a thought…