Cpt. Bud's Devotionals, 11-22-15: "Bin Laden Blues: Thoughts On Hell"

A few years ago, I wrote (very "green") blogs and online sermons under the guise of the character Strother Lee Fiddlebear, a recovering laudanum addict from Big Spring Station, Nebraska. On April 19, 2011, Strother, filled with thoughts of eternity, posted a plea titled "Bin Laden in the Bouquet." It was a somewhat naive challenge to other Christians to pray for Osama bin Laden, then the most wanted terrorist in the world, that he would come to know Christ, and turn himself in to authorities.

Just a dozen or so days later, Osama bin Laden was killed after almost a decade of being the most wanted murderer in the world.

Across America, celebrations broke out at the news of bin Laden's death. Chants of "USA!" filled the air. The man who had devised the murders of thousands was dead. But in addition to those patriotic chants were the disgusted rebukes of some - I heard others say it was a shameful display that we would celebrate so openly for the death of an enemy. I suppose it was, in a vague way, in the same vein as Robert E. Lee's surrender at Appomattox; when news reached the Union troops, celebratory cannon fire began, but Ulysses Grant, being the class act he was, promptly ordered it to be stopped.
I don't know what Strother Lee Fiddlebear thought of it, but at the time, I was irked by those voices. I thought of them as pseudo-intellectuals, obnoxiously struggling to find something else wrong with America.

But now, I feel those voices were right to object to the cheering and champagne. Their reason might not be mine, but the fact is this: Osama bin Laden has gone to eternal condemnation. Why should I be glad that he, or anyone, denied Christ who saves?

For a moment, let's think about what hell truly is. I'd often heard the phrase "hell was not made for humans," which puzzled me, until I realized it referred to Jesus' words about those who will be turned away from entering heaven. He describes a place "prepared for the devil and his angels" (Matthew 25:41). It's not necessarily as if God has said, "let there be a place of torment for people who don't believe in Me." But even so, there remains a hideous place of everlasting anguish to which the wicked and unbelieving will go. Those who believe in a doctrine of "universal salvation," or any belief that after death everyone goes to some happy or neutral place, might say God would never allow those He loves to go there. But, again, let's think about what hell is, and who goes to hell - it's a place where God is forever absent, and the place where evil and unbelieving people go. So, if someone lives their life denying Christ and His love, His mercy, His providence, in hell they now find themselves where all those things are true - where this is no God, none of His mercy, none of His love, none of His providence.

Hell, and heaven, are in a way extensions of how one lived their life on Earth. If I deny Christ, I go to a place where He truly is not. If I embrace Him, I continue to live in His presence and love in heaven.

As for the agony of hell, I think pain and torment are the only things that can result from God being absent. If God were to remove His presence from the entire city of Amarillo, Texas, and His Spirit from everyone in it, the city would naturally fall into a place of "weeping and gnashing of teeth."

The universalist might also argue that God's wrath fell on Jesus as He died on the cross, that He has taken the punishment for our sins, in our place. Indeed He has. This is absolutely true. But, again, a gift that is made possible must also be accepted - if a child rejects a birthday gift, it doesn't mean the gift doesn't exist. It means the child has rejected the gift and is without it and its benefits. And hell is a place where the blessings of the gift they denied are indeed not there.

Those I found to be obnoxious dilettantes in May 2011 were right. It's no laughing matter or occasion for delight that Osama bin Laden, or anyone, is in hell - if we delight in the thought of anyone in hell, we delight that they've rejected the one and only Savior. Hell is a place that, if we truly believe in God's love and the splendor of eternity with Him, we should never desire for anyone to go. And if we believe in Him and the salvation He offers, we must let His light shine through us; we must sacrifice, we must love, we must risk the breaking of our hearts to point just one more person to the bliss of His everlasting arms.

OHMS,
Cpt. Bud Sturguess

"And many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, some to shame and everlasting contempt." -Daniel 12:2

Cpt. Bud's Devotionals, 11-15-15: "I Saw It On TV"

If asked to give a reason as to why I believe the entirety of God's word, this book we came to call the Bible, to be the absolute truth, I suppose one of my answers would be that I've seen it all unfold before me on television.
The Bible is the polar opposite of a fairy tale, and it peddles no easy answers. It promises persecution and hardship for those who zealously believe and proclaim it, and assures us that evil lies in the hearts of humanity, as our race chooses every day to disavow and disobey the loving and merciful Christ through whom we were formed. I've seen people do hideous things even in His name, blaspheming their Creator who despises such violence and corruption.

On TV, I've seen President Kennedy shot down in Dallas by a confused, aspiring revolutionary. I've seen men fight in Vietnam and be spat upon by their countrymen upon returning home, called "babykillers" by those who claimed to love peace. I've seen masked men kill hostages in Munich during the Olympics. I've seen politicians and trusted public servants lie under deposition when accused of wrongdoing. I've seen a twisted man bent on revenge for what went down at the compound in Waco blow up a building and kill children in Oklahoma City. I've seen planes flown into the World Trade Center towers by suicidal maniacs. I've seen a deranged twenty-year-old man enter a school in Connecticut and slaughter teachers and children; I then saw other mad men deny the first mad man ever existed. I saw one hundred twenty people robbed of their lives in Paris by men who gave themselves the right with bullets and hatred.

And, on TV, I've seen a child called Genie raised in isolation for thirteen years, a child developmentally disabled by abuse, who could not speak, delight in laughter and joy at the sight of helium balloons; I saw her use her hands to communicate, sign language that opened her heart to those around her.
On TV, I saw men and women in New York City risk their lives and abandon their own safety to rescue others in the midst of raining rubble as towers collapsed behind them. I saw a Holocaust victim named Eva Kor forgive and embrace a former SS bookkeeper, Oskar Gröning, at his trial, encouraging him to continue to tell the truth about an atrocity that many deny ever took place. I saw Amish men and women extend forgiveness to a deviant who entered their schoolhouse and executed their daughters; I saw one Amish man embrace the gunman's father. I saw men, victims of prejudice, released from prison for murders they did not commit, freed by DNA, by truth, and by faith, against all odds, against all hope.

On TV, I've seen human beings do the evil that only comes from hating and rejecting the love of God, the love He instills even in those who don't believe He could do so. And I've seen the good that can only come from Him, in the midst of the ugliness in this world, good and mercy so alien to us fleshly, greedy, angry, creatures who desperately need our Savior. You don't have to take my word for it, but I tell you, I've seen it in person, right before my very eyes. And what I wasn't there to see, I saw it on TV.

OHMS,
Cpt. Bud Sturguess

"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made. In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it." -John 1:1-5

"The heart is deceitful above all things,
and desperately wicked;
Who can know it?
I, the LORD, search the heart,
I test the mind,
even to give every man according to his ways,
according to the fruit of his doings."
-Jeremiah 17:9-10

Cpt. Bud's Devotionals, 11-8-15: "The Holy Spirit"

"Come Holy Spirit" by Lance Brown
courtesy paintedchrist.com

We often say to others when we can't be there for them in physical presence, "I'll be there in spirit." But, of course, we're not. Our spirit remains with us. The Holy Spirit, however, unlike when we tell a friend we'll be there for him in spirit during his appearance on Divorce Court, is Jesus Christ – God from the beginning, God in the flesh, the eternal High Priest and Mediator between the unapproachable holiness of God and the sinfulness of man – literally here with us in Spirit!
While we long for our own spirit to comfort our friend while he is berated on national TV for sleeping with his soon-to-be ex-wife's sister, the Holy Spirit actually does this, if the adulterer has allowed Jesus into his heart, and therefore allowed His Spirit to be with him, and in him. The Holy Spirit can wrap His arms around the man whose head hangs in shame, and tell him with or without audible words that it's going to be alright, that he can press on, and that He will fill him with the bread of life to help him overcome his unfaithfulness – the presence of a God so holy and glorious that seeing Him would render one dead, now present in Spirit (a word meaning "breath") because He was once also present in flesh, and will someday return.
OHMS,
Cpt. Bud Sturguess
"Come near to Me, hear this:
I have not spoken in secret from the beginning;
from the time that it was, I was there.
And now the Lord GOD and His Spirit
have sent Me."
-Isaiah 48:16

Cpt. Bud's Devotionals, 11-1-15: "Catwoman Blues"

"Do not judge according to appearance, but judge with righteous judgment" (John 7:24). Those are the words of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. But it seems my father and I, at least once in our lives, both failed to heed that command.

In 1992, my father was the victim of a hit-and-run that caused considerable damage to his prized Chevette, the little white automobile that dutifully delivered two of my brothers and I to school many a morning. Two doors, and no room for car seats. It was sad to see the Sturguessmobile hauled away by a tow truck. Weeks later, the police found the driver who'd caused the damage and fled the scene, and brought her into custody. On foot, my father rushed to the station. The culprit, as it turned out, was none other than Michelle Pfeiffer, fresh off the triumph of having brilliantly portrayed Catwoman in Batman Returns (eat your heart out, Julie Newmar, Eartha Kitt, and yes, Anne Hathaway). Upon entering the station, and seeing Ms. Pfeiffer, my father adamantly declared, without hesitation or timidity...

"I'm dropping the charges."

But my father said this not out of mercy and forgiveness, but out of little more than the fact that...it was freaking Michelle Pfeiffer.

Cut to twenty-one years later, in a similar situation: I was saddened to learn that actress Emily Deschanel, of Bones fame, is an agnostic. But, I wasn't necessarily saddened because she doesn't know the Lord - I was sorry, rather, because she's such a lovely woman. Fortunately the Holy Spirit convicted me of my shallow thinking. Even if Ms. Deschanel looked like Danny Trejo in drag, my heart should still be pained and stirred by the fact that she doesn't know Christ. As well, believers should be roused with the desire to see anyone who denies Jesus be saved and blessed with eternal life, no matter who they are, or how kind or unkind they are. Faces wither (unless you're Patrick Stewart), but souls are eternal - the souls of the good, the bad, and the ugly.

Speaking of biases, we shouldn't show partiality to fellow Christians, or expect them to turn a blind eye when we've erred. We should fully expect - and desire - to be corrected by a brother or sister in Christ when we've done or said something against the word of God. The psalmist writes, "Let the righteous strike me; it shall be a kindness. And let him rebuke me; it shall be as excellent oil; let my head not refuse it" (Psalm 141:5). But if we react with anger, stubbornness, and shouts of "don't lecture me" befitting an angst-ridden teenager, we've failed to grasp Jesus' command of meekness and humility.

The reason I want my brothers and sisters in Christ to stay on the narrow way is not because I have the deluded belief that committing a sin or making a mistake renders one's salvation null and void, or that one is less of a Christian if he or she stumbles. Neither is the reason so that I can make some claim that Christian works make one morally better than the rest of the world (a claim which would forget God's grace). The reason I want my brothers and sisters in Christ to do well is, simply, because I'm weak. I'm among the most habitual offenders and worst backsliders to whom God ever showed grace, and I need my Christian family to keep me accountable.
I need my Christian family to talk me out of dealing three-card monte at the children's hospital; I need them to remind me of what our Lord says concerning covetousness and lust; I need them to have fought that gutsy fight to remove the plank from their eye, so that they can see clearly to help me remove the plank from mine.
OHMS,
Cpt. Bud Sturguess

Cpt. Bud's Devotionals, 10-25-15: "God's Will"

One of the "Christian terms" some believers use the most carelessly, without prayer or much discernment, is "God's will." Some even use it as a means to comfort others when someone else has done some horrible thing. "It was God's will" - as if God approves of us doing sinful and destructive things to hurt others and ourselves. When a woman discovers her husband to be unfaithful, there are some who would say, "It was God's will." No, it wasn't God's will that the woman's husband spit on their marriage.

I was doing some research on mass murderers for a YouTube video I recorded about the gun control debate. I read about James Oliver Huberty, who in 1984 killed twenty-one people at a McDonald's in San Ysidro, California. When Huberty was a child, his mother claimed she had received a "calling" from God to leave her family and become a sort of street preacher. The abandonment by his mother devastated Huberty, and he spent his childhood - most of his entire life - sullen, angry, and in pain.
I've often said: in His grace, God often won't punish us for our sins - but we sure make each other pay for them.

God can call us to do some very seemingly crazy things. He called the prophet Hosea to marry a prostitute, as a message to disobedient Israel, who had repeatedly turned away from God, who remained loyal.
God called another great prophet, Jeremiah, to wear a yoke around his neck as a sign to Judah, whose apostasy would lead to their destruction by the Babylonians, and who scoffed at the idea of wearing the "yoke" of Babylon for their own good, denying that Jerusalem could be taken by any foreign nation.
God called the apostles to proclaim the Gospel of His Son Jesus Christ in decadent Rome, telling them beforehand that they would be persecuted and killed for doing so.
God can, and will, call us to do some daunting, weird, and frightening things. But He will never call us to sin.

James Huberty's mother's calling to preach may have been from God, but it was not His will that she abandon her son, leaving him to become a bitter loner. God does not contradict Himself, and being perfect, He cannot - He is so pure and good that He is incapable of it. Though we often wait for God, who sometimes remains silent for a season, as we wonder what He wants us to do, what His will for us is, though we often go days or years without answers, we can be sure that He will never call us to do wrong, to do that which is of the devil, who only seeks to "steal, kill, and destroy."
We can be sure God's will includes abundant love and mercy, that His will calls us to show such things, love and mercy so alien to our natural, fleshly state. We can be sure God's will includes sacrifice, for the sake of spreading the Gospel, for the sake of blessing others. We can be sure God's will includes His goodness shining through us, so that we may be a light to the world.

So, while sometimes we feel "in the dark" about God's will, we can be sure it has no association with the works of darkness, and that His light casts every shadow from among those who believe and diligently seek Him.
OHMS,
Cpt. Bud Sturguess
"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made. In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it." -John 1:1-5

Cpt. Bud's Devotionals, 10-18-15: "Cain, Abel, and Tom Landry"

After Cain had killed Abel, his flesh and blood brother, committed the world's first murder, God asked him, "Where is Abel?" And we all know Cain's notorious response. We often use it ourselves in a sarcastic manner when we don't feel obligated to care for one another; Cain retorted, "Am I my brother's keeper?"
The answer to Cain's bitter question is: yes. We are our brothers' and sisters' keepers. We have a responsibility to one another that all too often we shun. We think it's beneath us, a waste of our time. But as Christians, we have a responsibility to look out for one another lest we fall into temptation or stray from God. If we also care for those outside of the Body of Christ, for those who don't believe, they too will "by your good works which they observe, glorify God in the day of visitation" (1 Peter 2:12). If we care for both our brothers and sisters in Christ, and those who have not yet come to Jesus, they will praise God for our compassion if we remain humble and give the glory to Him from whom love truly comes. "Walk in wisdom toward those who are outside, redeeming the time. Let your speech always be with grace, seasoned with salt, that you may know how you ought to answer each one" (Colossians 4:5-6).

In November 1979, during a game between the Dallas Cowboys and the Houston Oilers, my uncle Mortimer Sturguess ran naked onto the field in an overzealous frenzy when Houston defeated Dallas, 30-24. As Mortimer was dragged from the field at Texas Stadium, coach Tom Landry handed my uncle his trademark fedora hat, saying, "Here son, cover up with this." The gesture stunned Uncle Mortimer sober. Coach Landry hadn't simply handed him a sweaty, used towel with which to cover his nudity, or worse, slugged him in his soggy gut while security held him in place. But with compassion and gentleness, he ruined a perfectly good hat - even if fedoras are really for women - for a man who had humiliated himself and his family on live television.
"For the despairing man there should be kindness from his friend; So that he does not forsake the fear of the Almighty." -Job 6:14 

Mortimer Sturguess never forgot the kindness of Coach Landry. And to me, it encompasses everything about giving. Tom Landry gave of the best of his wardrobe for a total stranger, not merely a used handkerchief. Likewise, when we give to others, we give to God, and must give of the first-fruits of what we have – our very best. This is why God accepted Abel's offering of the firstborn of his flock, and rejected Cain's hasty offering of his fruit. This is why God have His first and only Son on the cross for you and me.

When we give, we must give our best, not our leftovers. And when we bless, just as when we are blessed, we must acknowledge Him who truly gave. Our good deeds should be responses to God's gorgeous command to love. God does not want good deeds done out of guilt and pressure – that's what tipping your server at Applebee's is for. Rather, a good deed should come from the heart, from the desire to walk in Christ's love.
OHMS,
Cpt. Bud Sturguess

PS I really do tip, I was just...you know...some people give you the stink-eye if you don't, and that's not the reason to leave a tip. But we should totally tip our servers at restaurants, with a genuine heart for that person and how hard they work.

from the book Sheep Named Spike

Cpt. Bud's Devotionals, 10-11-15: "Mocked By Charles Manson"

A follower of Christ absolutely cannot afford to be distressed or discouraged when our beliefs are criticized by the world. There are three reasons for this. The first is that criticism and mockery mean little when one considers that in many countries, Christians are imprisoned or beheaded for their faith. The second is that a person only has so much emotional stamina to spend - energies that should be applied to ministering to those in need and to spreading the Gospel; it would be devastating to our mission if we let wicked words steal our emotional strength.

Finally, a Christian cannot let his or herself crumble under the words of this society given the depraved everyday goings-on in the world from which we were saved and set apart. After all, only the deranged would allow criticism from Charles Manson to tear them down. We must remember when ridiculed for believing in God's role in creation, in a Christ who rose from the grave, in eternity after death, that the same society who ridicules us is the same society in which:

- people deny the Holocaust or the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre ever happened, and claim climate change is a myth,
- unborn human beings are killed without regard and with approval of governments and "rights" groups,
- an entire category of jokes is devoted to dead babies,
- women are sentenced to be raped and paraded naked through the streets of India,
- a nation prioritizes access to firearms over human lives, despite at least 230 public shootings in that nation this year alone,
- professional athletes are paid 90 million dollars a year while single parents work two jobs to support their children,
- Charles Manson has been engaged, and I can't even get a date.

This is not a world from which we should take ridicule to heart, not a society of high learning and evolved thinking. The principalities of this world are evil, but also absurd.

As I mentioned before, we American Christians should acknowledge how abundantly blessed we are in the fact that, in most cases, we only endure criticism and ridicule by peers and media for our beliefs and our Christ, when others throughout the world suffer truly horrible tortures and deaths for proclaiming Him. I think there are much fewer martyrs in America than we might assume. Kim Davis, the county clerk in Kentucky who was jailed for refusing to provide marriage licenses to same-sex couples, is no martyr. She made a choice to break the law and make a spectacle of herself, when she could have chosen to resign from her position, knowing she would have to perform duties contrary to God's word; I would not accept a job at which I'd have to sell Nazi merchandise or pornography. If one asks, "Why should she have to quit her job?", they must remember that Jesus never said following Him would be easy - in fact, He clearly states the opposite. And I would ask, "Why should she have to go to jail?" No, Kim Davis is not a martyr. Kim Davis is quite free in America. We should embrace the blessing of freedom to spread the Gospel to as many as we can before, in some dark time in the future, Christians truly are persecuted in America. We should also seek the peace of our land, as God commanded the captive Jews in Babylon through the prophet Jeremiah (29:7).

Before I make my own sole aim to angrily retort, "How dare you, with the blood of fetuses and refugees on your hands, with jeggings on your legs, condemn me for insisting there is one God who loves you?!", I must remember my commission is not to rave at the world, frothing at the beard. My job is to tell the world this: Jesus the Son of God is risen, and desires to remove their sins from them, as He did for an undeserving thing like me. My job is to tell the world that Jesus the Christ is inviting them this very day to eternity in His glorious presence, where there shall be no more dying, suffering, lying, shame, rage, or bleeding.
My job is to love the people of this absurd and wicked world, no matter what absurd and wicked things they say.