Hypocrisy is Hypocrisy - Truth is Truth

My bio/about me in most of my socials may sound like hyperbole, but I don't believe it is:

57th-worst sinner who ever lived. Saved by the blood of Jesus Christ.

I'm not so self-loathing that I don't think there are at least 56 sinners worse than me. But I also don't think the sins from which I've been cleansed were less egregious or offensive to God than almost everyone else's. I've always tried to emphasize in my limited capacity as a preacher that I'm a sinner who was given a few good words to say by the grace of God. To put it whimsically, the Biblical figure I most resemble is Balaam's donkey - a hairy and dumb creature miraculously given some wise words to share.

The American Founding Fathers took up the herald that "all men are created equal." Still, many of them were slaveowners. Later generations cited this declaration of equality in their fight against slavery. "All men are created equal" is a stark example of how someone can say something that exposes them as a hypocrite, but the truth and sentiment of what they say remains intact.

One of the unique things about the Bible is that so many of its heroes or most important figures aren't so lionized as to make them seem flawless. The two most prominent examples lie in two of Israel's greatest kings, David and his son Solomon. David was a mighty warrior who was famously described as being "after God's own heart." But among the times he was disobedient to God was his Machiavellian plot of coercing Bathsheba, a married woman, into having sex with him, then conspiring to ensure her husband Uriah would be killed in battle. Even so, King David wrote many of the Psalms, some of the most key pieces of Scripture - including a psalm in which he expressed his contrition and anguish in repentance of these sins (Psalm 51). The Psalms are pivotal in Christian theology, many of them pointing to the coming Savior, Jesus.

David's son Solomon was hailed as the wisest man in the world, and wrote most of the book of Proverbs, the Song of Solomon, and possibly the book of Ecclesiastes. Yet toward the end of his life and reign as king, as 1 Kings chapter 11 tells us, his heart was turned away from Yahweh as a result of his lust for the flesh - and his disregard for an instruction in the Torah that forbids kings from having many wives (Deuteronomy 17:17). 

And yet with these marks on these men's records, their words are invaluable treasures in our holy texts. Their praise of God, their enthusiasm in pointing their readers to Him, is not made dim or erased by their glaring sins. This is a stunning example of God's grace - He allows us sinners to speak truths that reveal Him. Even Judas Iscariot, who was a thief and later betrayed the Lord, performed miracles with the Twelve. 

It's important to note that Scripture is Divinely inspired, a word meaning "God-breathed" - "All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work" (1 Timothy 3:16-17). The words these men shared flowed from the Holy Spirit and not their own personal whims. 

I've used this blog for many things, among them sharing the Gospel. This includes spiritual truths recorded by very flawed men, by Divine inspiration, truths from the holy Scriptures we've come to call the Bible. If my own many, many mistakes and misdeeds are ever scrutinized or magnified, I hope it's understood, if only so any good word I've shared wasn't shared in vain, that our sins don't negate the edifying things a Christian speaks about Christ. "For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God" (Romans 3:23), and as unfaithful Solomon (possibly) wrote before his own downfall: "there is not a just man on earth who does good and does not sin" (Ecclesiastes 7:20). The exposure of a Christian as an unrepentant hypocrite doesn't put an asterisk next to the truth he or she has spoken - even if it does cast a pall on their character.

A person steeped in unrepentant sin has no place to preach God's word. And yet it happens all the time - it's almost a trope that pastors and vocal Christians are caught committing some terrible indiscretion. But in your heartbreak and grief over that person's seemingly strong example being daashed to pieces by their hypocrisy, remember this one thing: a hypocrite is a hypocrite, but truth remains truth.

Think of it this way: if someone says Earth is round, but is caught at a Flat Earther convention, it doesn't change the truth that the planet is indeed round. Or, someone who advocates for the funding of advancement in medical science who's caught posting conspiracy theories on an anti-vax message board.

It's immensely difficult sometimes to focus on Christ when He's being spoken through people. It's easy to see only the person speaking about Him, to put them on pedastals for their eloquence or character. This is why it's important to latch onto the truth of Jesus in their words, and only Jesus, even if we think the speaker's character is unimpeachable. When we find that it's not - as we certainly will - we'll have grasped the truth of the Gospel from what they've said, and not an unhealthy reverence for the person relaying it. Anyone proclaiming Jesus will let you down - they're sinners like you and me. Even if those disappointments come not from sin or malice but some minor slight or disagreement, we'll always find some reason to be disenchanted, even if only slightly or briefly, by human beings. That disenchantment of course feels much heavier when the person who lets you down is a person from whom you've gathered some beautiful piece of truth.

But remember: a hypocrite is a hypocrite, but truth remains truth. That's one of the great things about God - He is unchanging and unchangeable; the truth He reveals to us never disappoints, even if the people sharing it will.

3 Common Biblical Misconceptions

Fun Bible trivia! 3 common misconceptions: 

1. Jonah was not swallowed by a whale, but by a "large fish." 

2. "Lucifer" comes from a descriptive term, not a proper name. Satan's name before his fall from heaven is unmentioned. 

3. Christians don't lose their salvation by voting for Democrats.

 

Money and Your Local Church: A Layperson's Thoughts

It's amazing, but it's also not very amazing, that there are those of us in the body of Christ who can go so long not knowing what the Bible has to say about certain topics. Many of us even blindly believe there are things in the Bible that are simply not there - "this too shall pass" comes to mind, "God will never let you go through more than you can handle," and even "It is better to cast your seed onto the belly of a whore, than to let it fall to the ground" (yes, there are people who think that's a Bible verse).

But it's even more challenging when a piece of actual Scripture is misquoted, misrepresented, or manipulated in such a way that Christians and non-believers alike develop a false idea of what the Bible says on certain matters. These are more challenging because of the difficulty in separating what the verse actually says from the way it's paraphrased - it's easy to do a word search on biblegateway.com and show someone there's no "belly of a whore" verse. But if a paraphrased and distorted version of Scripture becomes embedded in someone's memory, it's difficult to put that verse or passage back in its proper order and gather again what was taken out, or take out what was added.

The best example I can give is the idea that the Bible says: "Money is the root of all evil." This is so often repeated that it's even a cliche amid secular circles of the world. Even my favorite band Pink Floyd gets it wrong in their classic song "Money."

In fairness to Pink Floyd, however, the actual verse contains much more substance and wouldn't fit the meter of the music. The quote in question is from 1 Timothy 6:10, which actually says:

"The love of money is a root of all kinds of evil" - that's the first part, the part that's become shortened and changed - and continues, "for which some have strayed from the faith in their greediness, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows." (NKJV) 

The actual verse, and the context of Biblical teachings on money and finances, reveal far more than our pithy paraphrasing: that money itself is not the root of evil, much less all evil, but rather the worship and idolatry that develops when one loses sight of the good God desires for us to do with money. This verse even expounds on how destructive that greed can be to one's faith and general life.

If money was the actual root of all evil, a lot of things wouldn't make sense. People who live by the false paraphrase and not the actual Scripture are faced with some tough questions. For example, how do sins not related to money or greed have their root in money when none is involved? If two people commit the sin of, say, fornication, or if one person takes the Lord's name in vain, how can this be traced back to money?

A social media post that reeked of the ignorance sparked by misquotation of Scripture asked, "If money is the root of all evil, why do churches ask for it?", implying that if a church claims to teach from the Bible, it displays hypocrisy in asking for tithes and offerings. But as we've seen from the actual verse, this philosophy is not a Biblical one. This would contradict the teachings of the epistles in the New Testament, wherein the apostle Paul instructs believers to help their local churches in many ways, among them materially, while also warning leaders not to become greedy. 

Also, if one believes "money is the root of all evil," and seeks to avoid such evil, that person then sins against their own conscience by accepting a wage from their employer. Fortunately, the amended form of this verse is a lie to which no Christian is bound.

As a sinner myself, I'm certainly not immune from ignorance of the Scripture. In my case, it's usually willful. I used to scoff at the idea that a pastor should be paid for his work. I glossed over Paul's instructions to the various churches, and was blissfully unaware of the apostle's words in 1 Corinthians, chapter 9: he elaborates that, though he has not used this privilege among the Corinthians, those who preach the gospel have a right to be supported by the church(es) to whom they preach.

Speaking of making a living as a pastor of a church, as my edgelord attitude toward a minister's wages faded in light of what Scripture teaches, I began to see just how perilous an honest preacher's position can be. If a pastor preaches only the truth, that pastor runs the risk of unsteady job security. I speak this from experience within my own local church during the past two and a half years.

During the height of the pandemic, my church implemented a mask mandate: worshipers were required to wear masks. This greatly offended certain congregants, who left our church because of it. Their ire wasn't eased when my church began a campaign to help get as many people vaccinated as possible.

Then came 2021. My pastor bravely, publicly condemned the January 6th Insurrection in no uncertain terms. This caused more exiles from our congregation. Then, this year, he released a book denouncing Christian nationalism, and explored nationalism as an entity itself. The book has received much attention, though you certainly wouldn't know it if you'd never attended my church before, as my pastor has upheld his conviction that he should not use our pulpit to promote his literary work. Not all of the attention was positive, however, as - you guessed it - the book's message (and even its cover) rubbed some people the wrong way.

Less congregants means less tithing, which means the threat of a preacher - and church staff, from sound engineers to janitors - being without a salary. Our church also uses its tithes for mission work, including a program that teaches English to refugees settling in America, planting multicultural churches, and supporting children in Kenya and drilling water wells there. If our church had suffered a catastrophic loss of membership, certain people in Kenya may not have access to water. 

Tithing also helps those within the local church who are in need. As one of our deacons preached just this morning, the "loner Christian" is not a Biblical Christian. There are no instances in Scripture of an apostle or disciple going it alone, the misunderstood lone wolf. "A man who isolates himself seeks his own desire; he rages against all wise judgment" (Proverbs 18:1). The idea that one doesn't need to go to a building once a week, and can "worship in their own way" is tough and edgy on the surface, but it's a philosophy built on sand and not a stone; it is not a Biblically founded Christian life. Thus, if a church is a community of believers, that community will inevitably have needs and troubles, to which their brothers and sisters can minister with their tithes and offerings. We forget this in our isolation, which so often leads to a worship and serving of self rather than God.

Fortunately, however, despite the backlash my pastor received for his preaching of the truth, God was faithful to protect us from fiery arrows, and our church thrives. We have even grown since the departure of so many whose sociopolitical ideologies outweighed their spiritual priorities. 

What a job, the ministry. It's such a strange position, when adhering to the truth is a risk to your employment and livelihood. "Yes, and all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution" (2 Timothy 3:12). There are many megastar evangelists we can all name whose aversion to strict Biblical truth and the needs of the underprivileged puts them in no danger of the unemployment line. I'm grateful God has given me a community whose leaders are brave and faithful enough that they would risk such hardship. Therefore, a church's response to God's generosity is to in turn be generous to its own, so that they as a local body might spread the Gospel and minister to the needs of the suffering. And it starts with a wise and godly understanding of the role of money - and of good and evil - in a Christian's life.

Common Questions About Hell

What is hell?

Simply put, hell is eternity without God.

Fire and torment are things we often associate with the concept of eternal damnation, and they are indeed Biblical descriptions – Jesus Christ says, “there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth” (Luke 12:38), and the apostle John writes of his vision of the Judgment before the Great White Throne, “anyone not found written in the Book of Life was cast into the lake of fire” (Revelation 20:15). But what makes hell truly hell is the complete and irrevocable absence of the love, mercy, and Spirit of God.

In that respect, hell is an extension of how one lived his or her life on Earth. So too is eternal life in heaven. If a person gives their life to Christ and lives and abides in Him in their temporary, mortal life, they will share that same fellowship with Him, in His eternal presence, in “a new heaven and a new earth” (Revelation 21:1). On the flip side of this coin, one who lived their mortal life on Earth in an unrepentant state of disbelief and rejection of the salvation offered to them by Jesus Christ, accomplished through His blood on the cross, will continue to live without Him and the light and love for which He once suffered to attain for them. This absence of God's love is manifested in the form of everlasting agony. The non-believer continues to have it their way – an existence without God.

The phrase “hell was not made for humans” is often used. This refers 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.

Where is hell?

The caricature often painted of hell is a pit at the center of the earth. In fact, many Christians who lived during the first century and the years following believed that Sodom and Gomorrah were still burning far below the earth's surface.

But if we look at this from the eternal viewpoint, we see that this cannot be the case. Eternity for those who accepted Jesus Christ involves, again, “a new heaven and a new earth” in the eternal city of New Jerusalem. Being that the currently existing planets, galaxies, and their elements will be no more when Jesus returns to judge all souls, hell cannot exist under the earth's surface, not even in its very molten core. So we must think of hell as another realm, so to speak, not unlike the concepts of “Hades” or “the Netherworld.”

A notable difference between the Biblical concept of hell and those of pagan religions is that hell is not simply a “land of the dead” – not only will the dead rise for the Judgment, but so too will those who are alive at the unknown hour when Jesus Christ returns: “For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive the things done in the body, according to what he has done, whether good or bad” (2 Corinthians 5:10). Concerning the Lord's second advent, the apostle Paul comforts believers who despaired at the thought of their fellow believers who had died: “I do not want you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning those who have fallen asleep, lest you sorrow as others who have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with Him those who sleep in Jesus. For this we say to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord will by no means precede those who are asleep. For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air” (1 Thessalonians 4:13-17).

This makes it clear that Jesus' return will not be seen only by the dead, but by the living as well.

A place of spiritual torment exists while we on Earth still live. Jesus says just as much in a harrowing tale He tells found in Luke, chapter 16, wherein He describes what happens after the deaths of a sinful rich man and a poor man named Lazarus. (This passage is often incorrectly thought of as a parable, but unlike other parables, the text never indicates that Jesus means this story as a fable or a metaphor, as the New Testament so often does with His actual parables; it does not conclude with Jesus Himself speaking a coda or summary of the parable or its meaning, as that is found in the words of the people involved in the story themselves – including one Jesus refers to by his specific name rather than strictly “a certain beggar.”)

In this story, the merciless rich man finds himself in fiery damnation. The rich man, realizing he has no hope of escape, begs Abraham, to whom he speaks from his agony, to send Lazarus to warn his brothers of this danger: “'I beg you therefore, father, that you would send him to my father’s house, for I have five brothers, that he may testify to them, lest they also come to this place of torment.'”

(It is also worth noting that Abraham tells the condemned rich man, “between us and you there is a great gulf fixed, so that those who want to pass from here to you cannot, nor can those from there pass to us”).

Who goes to hell?

The answer to this question is not: gays, addicts, suicide victims, or saved people who backslide or make mistakes. 

It has often been erroneously said that suicide in the “unpardonable sin.” This is not true. The Biblical “unpardonable sin” cannot be committed today, as it applied to the Pharisees in Jesus' generation who attributed His power to demons rather than to God. Jesus proclaims, and Mark commentates, in Mark 3:28-30: “'Assuredly, I say to you, all sins will be forgiven the sons of men, and whatever blasphemies they may utter; but he who blasphemes against the Holy Spirit never has forgiveness, but is subject to eternal condemnation' – because they said, 'He has an unclean spirit.'”

As that sin cannot be committed today, as the Pharisees of that day are all dead, the “unpardonable sin” is more of an unpardonable state – the state of disbelief, the denial of Jesus Christ as the Son of God, the only way to salvation. This rejection come by atheistic means, by the denial of Jesus through the worship of other, false gods, or empty-hearted or heretical use of His name (those who unrepentantly blaspheme God by teaching false doctrines that are not found in Scripture, those who twist and distort God's word and teach lies. Revelation 22:15 mentions “whoever loves and practices a lie” as among those who are “outside” New Jerusalem).

It should be noted that when “sinners” are mentioned as those condemned to hell, this refers to unrepentant sinners: those whose flagrant disregard for God's warning attempts to make a mockery of His commands; those who have been rebuked and taught many times, but deny that God is against their doings and continue in them with abandon and delight.

Those who use the name of Jesus in an empty and insincere manner for personal gain, but whose hearts are far from Him, will find themselves in hell. Jesus declared, “Hypocrites! Well did Isaiah prophesy about you, saying: ‘These people draw near to Me with their mouth, and honor Me with their lips, but their heart is far from Me. And in vain they worship Me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men’” (Matthew 15:7-8).

Jesus describes those who emptily use His name but do not heed His commandments, and what awaits them at the final Judgment: ““Then He will also say to those on the left hand, ‘Depart from Me, you cursed, into the everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels: for I was hungry and you gave Me no food; I was thirsty and you gave Me no drink; I was a stranger and you did not take Me in, naked” and you did not clothe Me, sick and in prison and you did not visit Me.’ “Then they also will answer Him, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister to You?’ Then He will answer them, saying, ‘Assuredly, I say to you, inasmuch as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to Me.’ And these will go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into eternal life”” (Matthew 25:41-46).

How can a spirit feel physical agony?

This question comes from our limited perception of spiritual things. We cannot help this limitation as we are in our current condition, spiritual but bound by flesh and elements, though we look forward to a day when we will be free of our earthly limitations and understand wonders and mysteries of God. As Paul writes, “For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I shall know just as I also am known” (1 Corinthians 13:12).

Paul later writes, concerning this dichotomy and rigor of living spiritual lives in physical bodies, “For we know that if our earthly house, this tent, is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. For in this we groan, earnestly desiring to be clothed with our habitation which is from heaven, if indeed, having been clothed, we shall not be found naked. For we who are in this tent groan, being burdened, not because we want to be unclothed, but further clothed, that mortality may be swallowed up by life. Now He who has prepared us for this very thing is God, who also has given us the Spirit as a guarantee” (2 Corinthians 4:1-5).

We, being so used to thinking of things physically and materially, are often baffled by the idea of a spirit – in theory not limited to physical things – experiencing pain. Pain, which we only know in physical and psychological ways. But we forget that torment is not limited to the physical. Think of the worst emotional times of your life. Did it not feel as though something deeper than just a psychological, chemical reaction was happening? Did it not feel as though your very being was held in the grip of pain? Did you find yourself thinking a physical ailment would be a relief compared to your sorrows, regrets, fears, and anxieties?

Think of this and multiply it by eternity.

As previously mentioned, what makes hell truly hell is the permanent absence of God. And that would truly render any soul in a state of eternal agony.

If there are already people in hell,

why will they be judged again?

Much like the heaven that exists now, the hell that exists now is not the “ultimate version.” Jesus tells the believing thief who was crucified with Him, “Assuredly, I say to you, today you will be with Me in Paradise” (Luke 23:43). In the aforementioned story of the rich man and Lazarus, He describes in beautiful terms what happened to Lazarus upon his death: “So it was that the beggar died, and was carried by the angels to Abraham’s bosom” (Luke 16:22). This is a "temporary heaven," so to speak, that will be immensely overshadowed by the final residence of those saved by Jesus Christ, that is, New Jerusalem: “I saw no temple in it, for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are its temple. The city had no need of the sun or of the moon to shine in it, for the glory of God illuminated it. The Lamb is its light. And the nations of those who are saved shall walk in its light, and the kings of the earth bring their glory and honor into it. Its gates shall not be shut at all by day (there shall be no night there). And they shall bring the glory and the honor of the nations into it. But there shall by no means enter it anything that defiles, or causes an abomination or a lie, but only those who are written in the Lamb’s Book of Life.

“And he showed me a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding from the throne of God and of the Lamb. In the middle of its street, and on either side of the river, was the tree of life, which bore twelve fruits, each tree yielding its fruit every month. The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations. And there shall be no more curse, but the throne of God and of the Lamb shall be in it, and His servants shall serve Him. They shall see His face, and His name shall be on their foreheads. There shall be no night there: They need no lamp nor light of the sun, for the Lord God gives them light. And they shall reign forever and ever” (Revelation 21:22 – 22:1-5).

The afterlife for believers that exists now is no doubt a beautiful place, but it surely pales in comparison to the one where all believers will ultimately live forever. This New Jerusalem comes after the Judgment at the Great White Throne.

But those souls for whom a true Christian should weep are likewise in a temporary place: a horrible form of torment indeed, but their current place of agony will be outdone by the “lake of fire,” the ultimate and everlasting punishment, as mentioned earlier. This fate too comes after the Great White Throne.

It must be stressed that the “temporary hell” is not purgatory. The false doctrines of purgatory and other similar ideas imply that these lost souls can be refined or purified after death, or prayed for and saved after death, and that their spiritual state is more of intermediacy than agony. However, there is absolutely nothing in Scripture to suggest such a state after death for the atheist, agnostic, or unrepentant sinner. Death is permanent, as are one's choices and beliefs they held at the time their soul departed. These cannot be atoned for in the afterlife. One must accept Christ while they live on Earth.

What happens between death and final Judgment?

The notion of purgatory brings us to a question often asked and debated among Christians and non-believers alike: when we die, are we in a state of “spiritual sleep,” a kind of unconsciousness in which our souls are reserved for the Day of Judgment? Or are we, as described, sent to bliss or banishment?

Ecclesiastes 12:7, after describing the difficult final days of a human being and their approaching death, states, “the dust will return to the earth as it was, and the spirit will return to God who gave it.” Paul, as we have already seen, refers to the dead who lived in Christ as being “asleep.” Chapter 12 of the book of the prophet Daniel tells us, while describing an end and a rising of the dead, uses similar language: “many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, some to shame and everlasting contempt.”

These verses certainly suggest that bliss or damnation are not found immediately after death, but rather that the soul is kept in a sort of rest or reserve until Judgment. Other verses however, support the notion that one's soul tastes their ultimate eternal fate right away. Jesus' account of Lazarus and the rich man, which the author has already asserted to be a true story and not a parable, describes a complete consciousness and torment while those who still live on Earth continue to do so - the rich man mentions his brothers who have not yet died.

This debate could go on for days between two Christians, or between a Christian and a non-believer, but debating and arguing never led a soul to Jesus. Whichever scenario is correct, the bottom line is made clear by Scripture: there is an eternal paradise and an eternal damnation that exist for the believer and the non-believer respectively. Whether the soul is taken to the bosom of Abraham or to the bosom of fire as soon as its body ceases to live, both are permanent, one is amazing, the other is abhorrent.

What this author believes on the debate is clear, but there are things in Scripture that even a believer cannot be absolutely dogmatic about. However, this does not apply to issues of salvation – that God's Word is inerrant and Divinely Authored, and that repentance from sin and acceptance of His Son Jesus is the only way to eternal life. Christians can disagree on non-salvational points in Scripture without having to accuse one another of heresy: “is the soul conscious after death?”, “did Jesus die only for 'the elect'?” “is the 'behemoth' described in Job an elephant or a dinosaur?” These are not core issues of the doctrine of Christ.

Is the soul simply destroyed in hell?

The Scripturally unsound “annihilationist” view of hell contends that, after a punishment equal to one’s degree of wickedness, the soul simply “dies” and ceases to exist, or that the afterlife for unbelievers is simply the annihilation of the soul. Proponents of this view will note that the lake of fire described in Revelation is referred to as “the second death,” or will twist the meaning of Romans 6:23 to make a summary of their view of the contrast of hell and heaven – “For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

But what the annihilationist fails to understand is that this verse, with the rest of the fifth and sixth chapters of Romans (and Bible verses must be understood in context, as with any other document), is not telling us a life lived in unrepentant sin leads to merely the end of one’s soul after physical death. It is actually describing the result of sin on Earth; that the reason death reigns in our world is because of the transgression of Adam and Eve (Romans 5:12-21). These passages tell us that sin and death go hand in hand; it was a result of sin in the Garden of Eden that death came into the world – “but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.” This did not mean Adam and Even would instantly drop dead, but rather that they would surely become subject to decay and death, contrary to the life God had given them in His Garden.

But as Romans 6:23 tells us, it was as a result of sin that Christ died to atone for our wrongs, to offer us the free gift of everlasting life.

The death described in this verse does not refer to a simple snuffing out of the soul. Jesus Himself refers to eternity for the unrepentant as “everlasting punishment” (Matthew 25:46).

In fairness, I would be remiss if I didn't mention Jesus' words in Matthew 10:28. Though I don't believe it describes the soul's end, the text is as follows (NKJV) - "do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. But rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell."

Are there “levels” of hell?

Concerning a question many people ask, “is hell the same for everyone who goes there?”, I’d have to say no. There are different rewards in heaven, and I believe there are different degrees, so to speak, of hell. Jesus tells the village of Capernaum, because of their unbelief even after the miracles He performed, that it will be “more tolerable” for Sodom and Gomorrah than for Capernaum on the Day of Judgment.

I don’t believe the average agnostic or atheist will experience the same kind of torment as people like Nero or Stalin. Some people, like Osama bin Laden or Hitler, might find themselves cast into a much more agonizing form of eternal damnation.

This is another non-salvational issue that does not affect the doctrine of Christ or His Scripture. I could very well be wrong about different “degrees” of suffering in hell.

But, again, the bottom line is that hell is eternal, unbearable anguish for anyone who goes there, be they the passive one who never found time or reason to repent, or the tyrant who suppressed the name of Jesus and killed their own citizens. And the reason, again, is the absence of God and His rich mercy.

Is Satan in charge of hell?

No. Satan will be cast into the lake of fire and be subject to eternal torment: “The devil, who deceived them, was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone where the beast and the false prophet are. And they will be tormented day and night forever and ever” (Revelation 20:10).

He will not reign in hell. The Bible says that Satan's dominion is actually our world. Paul mentions the devil's spiritual activity in this world: “And you He made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins, in which you once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience...” (Ephesians 2:1-2). “The prince of the power of the air” refers to Satan and his demonic influence and battles against those in Christ.

Paul also calls Satan “the god of this age” (2 Corinthians 4:4). John says, “We know that we are of God, and the whole world lies under the sway of the wicked one” (1 John 5:19).

Addressing the church in Pergamos, Jesus refers to the evil spiritual dominion Satan has established: “I know your works, and where you dwell, where Satan’s throne is. And you hold fast to My name, and did not deny My faith even in the days in which Antipas was My faithful martyr, who was killed among you, where Satan dwells” (Revelation 2:13).

It must be remembered that God is not the “good God” and Satan “the bad god.” Satan is a created being, and is subject to the will of God, who is sovereign. The devil can only go so far as God allows, and is only given what God allows. See the beginning chapters of the story of Job for an example.

Did Jesus mention hell?

Jesus talks about hell more than other figure in the Bible. A term often translated “hell” when spoken by Jesus in the New Testament is “Gehenna.” Gehenna was once the Valley of the Son of Hinnom, and became a synonym for abomination and wickedness. It was there that two of Judah’s most wicked kings, Ahaz and Manasseh, sacrificed their children to the false god Molech. Gehenna became a place for burning refuse, a landfill, and in Jewish apocalyptic literature, a synonym for hell itself. In the ninth chapter of Mark’s account, Jesus, speaking to Jews who would be familiar with the connotation of the name of the valley, says that the fire of hell (“Gehenna”) “shall never be quenched.” Also in this chapter, Jesus quotes from Isaiah 66:24, describing a worm that does not die, and a fire that is not quenched.

Jesus also describes eternal torment in His condemnation of those who proclaimed Him but did not love Him: “And these will go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into eternal life” (Matthew 25:46).

Perhaps most stirringly, He says in John 5:28-29: "for the hour is coming in which all who are in the graves will hear His voice and come forth—those who have done good, to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil, to the resurrection of condemnation."

How should a Christian feel about hell?

Unrelenting sorrow. Not delight or glee at the thought of anyone spending their eternity there. To get to hell, one must deny and never know Jesus. And why would a Christian want that for anyone?

How should a Christian tell others about hell?

They shouldn't. A Christian's focus should be sharing the good news – that is, the Gospel – of Jesus Christ. Our focus should not be the damnation that awaits those who reject this Gospel. Undoubtedly, in conversations about Jesus and the Bible, the subject of hell can arise, and a Christian should not be hesitant to be honest about the reality of hell. But no one will listen to those who only rave about fire and brimstone.

The center of Christian evangelism must be centered on Jesus and the light and life He offers, both on Earth and in eternity.

"Conscience: Judas" by Nikolai Ge

Bored With Miracles

To paraphrase, God told Elijah, go and trouble the king of Israel, then run and hide yourself at a dreary wilderness near a brook, and I'll command ravens - literal birds that fly - to bring you food every day.
So Elijah did what God commanded. He told the evil King Ahab that a drought would come upon Israel, and it would not end until he said so.

In the meantime, Elijah hid from the wrath of the king near a small brook east of the Jordan. We know that Elijah was there for a while, because we're told that eventually the entire brook dried up as the drought worsened. Unlike most places in the Bible, it's unknown where exactly this place was on a map, but if it looked anything else like the surrounding country, it probably wasn't the most exciting or entertaining places to spend a great deal of time doing...

...well, we don't really know what Elijah did to occupy his time he spent by the brook. If his faithfulness tells us anything, he likely did a lot of praying. And every day, while he was doing a lot of praying, a miracle happened in the morning and at night, when ravens would bring him bread and meat. That was Elijah's daily schedule for a long time in a long drought: pray, eat breakfast provided through Divine miracle, pray some more, eat dinner provided by another Divine miracle, pray again, sleep.

Pray, miracle, pray, miracle, sleep. Pray, miracle, pray, miracle, sleep. Pray miracle, pray, miracle, sleep...

If Elijah was anything like me, and it's evident by Scripture that he was not, he'd have eventually become bored - complacent, even. And I know exactly how I would have felt if I'd been in Elijah's position because I'm in his position every day. So are you. We rise in the morning with a miracle - that miracle being God's providence. The miracle of our Salvation, sealed by Jesus' blood on the Cross. The miracle of His Holy Spirit guiding us and giving us discernment in our prayers, in every day decisions and troubles.

And yet, we often become restless. We get bored, our minds wander, even wander during our prayers. Even if we pray a lot.

Twice a day, Elijah received a mind-boggling, nature-defying miracle. Ravens directed by God Himself brought him bread and meat. And despite such a wondrous thing, if I'd been there, knowing me, eventually, as the brook slowly dried up, I'd have forgotten just how amazing those ravens were, just how amazing the Hand is that brought them. I know this full well because in my fleshly weakness and the sluggishness of my faith, I do exactly the same thing today - all day, every day, I receive a mind-boggling, nature-defying miracle. Every day, I receive the mind-boggling, nature-defying truth that Jesus Christ was slain on a Cross for my miserable sins, yet rose from the dead and, miraculously, invited me to live with Him now and in eternity, washed anew and redeemed.

That was, and is, a far more amazing miracle than being brought food by ravens. And yet, despite being reminded of that miracle, being faced with that miracle, I find myself complacent if I'm not careful. I find myself bored.

We must bear in mind that a life lived in God does not become one of intrigue and explosions as one's faith grows. One can have the most sincere and fruitful of faith and still live a life that would to many appear mundane and average. Among the many things the Bible explicitly tells us to expect, we can expect to often have to build our faith and live it in dreary, troublesome days.
But the Bible also tells us to expect those dreary, troublesome days to be opportunities to serve others, to bless them in all sincerity, to share the truth of this miracle you and I wake up to every day, to fill our dreary and troublesome days with the light of the Gospel. Even when those days are as still and dry as a ravine near the Jordan in the midst of a drought.

Later in Elijah's ministry, after fleeing from the wrath of Israel's vengeful monarchs, he found himself in a cave in a mountain called Horeb. God told him to leave the cave and stand on the mountain. Elijah was then surrounded by the ominous noise, debris, and chaos of a great wind, an earthquake, and a fire. "But the LORD was not in the wind... the LORD was not in the earthquake... the LORD was not in the fire." Then, "a still, small voice."


And there in the delicate, whispering voice was God.

God is in the sullen whispers and chirping crickets that fill our day to day lives. Our lives that can often seem boring and repetitive. But those dull - sometimes painfully dull - days and nights are made radiant and solemnly jubilant when we choose to embrace the miracle we remember every day. The miracle that we are saved, loved, and cherished by the same God who made the galaxies and the worlds, the same God who dried up Israel and brought the rain again, the same God who raised His Son Jesus from the dead.

If we embrace this miracle and listen to it in the silence of the day, our complacency turns to contentment, our boredom to peace, our restlessness to determination to make the most of that mind-boggling, nature-defying miracle that is Salvation.

(1 Kings chapter 17-19)

God Killed Him

There it was, in plain black and white, in unadorned speech: "Er, the firstborn of Judah, was wicked in the sight of the LORD; so He killed him."
This statement appears amidst the scores of names and genealogies in the first book of the Chronicles. There are many little jewels that stand out in those first few chapters, so yawn-inducing. "The prayer of Jabez" is the most powerful example, and little things that stick out in the lists of names so alien to us..."And they were helped against them, and the Hagrites were delivered into their hand, and all who were with them, for they cried out to God in the battle. He heeded their prayer, because they put their trust in Him....because the war was God's"...and a daughter of Ephraim, Sheerah, a strong woman who built three cities, in a Book so ignorantly called a chain to women.

But of all the things that softened my heart, there it was: "Er, the firstborn of Judah, was wicked in the sight of the LORD; so He killed him."

Some Christians were given a mind for apologetics as a theological practice and skill. And some were given minds for other gifts. In my bumbling attempts at apologetics, I'd tried to make the more scrutinized and accused pieces of Scripture become acceptable to a world that will never accept it, no matter how lucidly it is explained. Deeper in my motives, I was trying to make the world accept me as some great thinker of Christianity, perhaps the American C.S. Lewis, so that maybe they'd accept the Gospel.

How ridiculous. How idolatrous! I thought the world would accept the Gospel if it accepted me.

But there, the words "He killed him" in a Book where God striking down the wicked is not uncommon, freed me from apologetics, something I had no business handling. I could not make it look acceptable, gentle, and okay in the sight of the world that a God I insist is so kind and gracious struck down a man with death. And I would not try. I was free. I was free from explaining to the world with long-winded evasions the epistle's instructions that a wife should adhere to her husband; I was free from explaining to the world why the Flood makes sense; I was free from explaining to the world that pagan Nineveh really did accept Yahweh, if only for a brief time, at the preaching of Jonah, who had just been spat onto shore by a giant fish, in which he'd spent three days and nights, though no historical record of this conversion exists.

God killed Er, the firstborn of Judah, because he was a wicked dirtbag who contaminated the land and the people in it. And that's the way it was. No God as powerful and as awesome as mine needs an idiot like me to explain Him, to make Him look good to the world that made up its mind long ago that it hates Him and the light He brought by dying on the cross for them.

My God, who killed Er the firstborn of Judah, is an awesome God.

OHMS,
Cpt. Bud Sturguess

"And some of the Pharisees called to Him from the crowd, "Teacher, rebuke Your disciples." But He answered and said to them, “I tell you that if these should keep silent, the stones would immediately cry out."" -Luke 19:39-40

Cpt. Bud's Devotionals, 9-27-15: "Soft Answers & Fake Accents"

Long ago, when dealing over the phone with customer service (particularly when it pertained to my internet service with a company I won't name), I found that the inevitable result of my shouting and cursing could be curbed by a simple trick: faking an accent. At first, I chose the voice of Al Pacino in Scarface, but it wasn't long before my throat felt quite rough and was frankly killing me. Aside from that, the Tony Montana voice actually encouraged the rage and profanity, rather than diverting it. So, next I chose a British accent. Having long been a fan of British rock, and listened to many interviews by many English artists, I felt I could fake one at least well enough to quell my anger while on the phone with [internet company].

"But Bud," one might ask...
"Captain Bud."
"But Bud," one might ask, "how did faking an accent keep you from flying off the handle?"

It's simple: I was too focused on keeping the mild-mannered British accent (not the angry British accents, like from Snatch...or were they Irish?) to lose my cool. If I said what I needed with a focus on not only communication, but on keeping my fake Cambridge accent, I found I was too preoccupied to handle being angry. And anyone who's ever been angry knows, anger takes up a lot of space in one's mind. There was simply no room for it in my brain or on my tongue with a fake accent.

In the book of Proverbs, it's written, "A soft answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger." If, mentally at first, then verbally, we can talk and think about our issues with a calm and cool voice - literally - it will do a surprising bit of good to avoid becoming more upset than we already are. Much like the fake accent, focusing on a reserved tone will leave us too preoccupied to lose our grip on being calm. Not only does it give us more opportunity to search for the right words carefully, so as not to add insult to an already ugly situation, but the softness of speaking in such a way can have a calming effect on one's body and mind. Maybe it's some kind of physiological thing I discovered.

And no, you don't have to try to sound like Rex Harrison while doing so. Be yourself.

As for the anger that must be released, there is always One to whom we can take those burdens. One to whom we can cry out, even shouting that we don't understand, that He's allowed us to go through something awful and unfair, that we've been unjustly treated, that we've treated others unjustly, One who, being our eternal High Priest, Advocate, and Savior who took on God's wrath on the cross, will listen to our most inarticulate rage with understanding: the Lord Jesus Christ.

But with people, we flawed and disappointed things, use a soft answer. An actual, verbally soft answer. Even if that soft answer doesn't turn away the wrath of the person offending you, it will certainly help ease your heart, and turn away wrath from yourself. Which is abundantly healthy, because anger will consume our thinking and eat us alive, rendering us broken vessels for Christ's love, dimming beacons for His light of life.
OHMS,
Cpt. Bud Sturguess

"Make no friendship with an angry man,
and with a furious man do not go,
lest you learn his ways
and set a snare for your soul."
-Proverbs 22:24-25

Cpt. Bud's Devotionals, 9-20-15: "Queen Elsa Rhapsody"

This past Tuesday saw my last performance of my "summer job," playing Queen Elsa at children's birthday parties. I probably could have kept up the performances through the winter (fitting, as the character is from a movie called Frozen), but at this last party, I exhaled a little too hard and the paunch of my Elsa costume tore. This job playing Queen Elsa was a tough one. Not just because I've still never seen Frozen and didn't know what to say to the kids (besides "you kids go play - ol' Captain Bud needs to sit down"), but also because a nagging thought stayed in my mind, namely, a statute in the Torah (the Mosaic Law) that forbids transvestism.
I tried to remind myself, "It's not like I'm Tim Curry in Rocky Horror. And I'm not wearing this stuff to fill some sensual thrill."

God reminded me of what He spoke through the great prophet Jeremiah to disobedient, wandering Judah: "For I did not speak to your fathers, or command them in the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt, concerning burnt offerings or sacrifices. But this is what I commanded them, saying, 'Obey My voice, and I will be your God, and you shall be My people. And walk in all the ways that I have commanded you, that it may be well with you'" (Jeremiah 7:22-23).

Obey God's voice. And what does God's voice speak to us under the New Covenant sealed by His own blood on the cross, a Covenant foretold by the Torah itself? God speaks, saying we are not under the threat of a cosmic hammer; we are not under the world's misconception of God - we are under the law of the true God. Not the Law of the Moses, the Torah, that beautiful prelude of salvation to come, but the law of grace and righteousness in Christ Jesus.

As I learn more that Christianity is not about rules and fear, I realize that the "secular" world has barked more orders at me than any pastor ever did. The world tells me: "Don't do this, don't do that. Don't say this, don't say that, lest you feel the wrath of Twitter and a boycott. Don't eat this, don't eat that. This is now acceptable, that is not. Saints worthy of praise are: Darwin, Dylan, Reagan, Roosevelt, O'Reilly, O'Maher. And, beware of boogeymen and devils like the Illuminati and vaccines that cause autism."
The world makes for a fickle god with its own unstable religious doctrine. A doctrine of rules and regulations, of exclusion and prejudice, of ignorance, of humiliation, with no redemption unless Oprah can get a tearful interview from it.

I thank God that His voice commands no such things. I thank God that His voice calls me back to Him when I stray, reminds me of the unkillable truth of His joy when I'm alone. I thank God for such a beautiful voice to obey.

OHMS,
Cpt. Bud Sturguess
"Now if the ministry that brought death, which was engraved in letters on stone, came with glory, so that the Israelites could not look steadily at the face of Moses because of its glory, transitory though it was, will not the ministry of the Spirit be even more glorious? If the ministry that brought condemnation was glorious, how much more glorious is the ministry that brings righteousness! For what was glorious has no glory now in comparison with the surpassing glory. And if what was transitory came with glory, how much greater is the glory of that which lasts!" -2 Corinthians 3:7-11

Cpt. Bud's Devotionals, 9-6-15: "Captive Hearts"

When the Supreme Court voted to legalize same-sex marriage in June, God told me (not audibly, but you know what I mean), "Muse on this in your heart, but don't speak about it; wait until I give you the proper things to say." Now, He has.

In Christian history, the name "Babylon" has often been applied to any place known for excess and decadence. In the early days of the Church, Christians and Jews alike referred to the authority in Rome as "Babylon." Rome...that place of rampant murder of emperors and politicians, and sexually immoral behavior not seen since Sodom and Gomorrah. So, if the followers of Christ who lived in such a place were focused on proclaiming the Gospel rather than trying to prevent various sexual sins (including homosexuality, quite the norm in Rome) via political power, why aren't we in America doing the same? Granted, those in Rome didn't have much political power with which to work, lest they lost their heads (literally), but you understand my point.

The fact is, so many in Christ's Church reacted to the same-sex marriage issue (long before its legalization) as if America were our god. We weren't dismayed by the fact that God's word forbids homosexual relations - we were dismayed because it's not what John Wayne would do. We were dismayed because it's not the good wholesome America of the 1950s - apple pie, crew cuts, and segregated schools. We chose to live in political strife, rather than accept, and practice, what Christ's word tells us - that the world will turn further and further from His instructions, that people will heap up for themselves teachers of false doctrines; that we're to persevere and spread the Gospel despite living in evil times in an evil world. What little faith we have in God's word to be so surprised when these things come to pass! What audacity we have, what distrust in our Savior, to seek an answer in a good, decent candidate who can lead our country in "the right direction again," instead of earnest prayer and sacrifice.
We were up in arms with posts and polls, instead of prayers and petitions for those in need. We looked forward to reading the voting ballots for various propositions to proclaim same-sex marriage unconstitutional, more than we looked forward to reading God's word - the word written by the Holy Spirit through those who lived in turbulent and decadent times, but whose desire was not in legislation, but in leading the lost to Christ.

When we base our faith on politics, worldly protocol, and other such idolatry, we try to manipulate Jesus into "our" Jesus - the conservative Jesus, the liberal Jesus, the middle-of-the-road Jesus, the hippie Jesus, the tough guy Jesus. We place our idea of the American dream and American values over the commission given to us by our Christ. If we think America didn't fit the Babylonian description before the same-sex marriage debacle, or that the exaltation of homosexual relationships is the only sin that makes us like the decadent Babylons of eras past, we are certainly deluded.

The prophet Jeremiah told those in sinful Judah that the nation would be overrun, its inhabitants taken captive to Babylon. The Lord instructed Jeremiah to tell the captive Hebrews in Babylon to live life for God, despite having been taken captive to a foreign land, rank with other forms of the ungodliness that had caused His judgment to fall on Israel and Judah. He also rebuked false prophets who said it wouldn't happen, that Judah was safe from destruction - much like we in America have the same notion that we're somehow immune to becoming a fallen empire like Assyria, Egypt, Rome, and even Babylon.

Jeremiah wrote to the captives there:
"Build houses and dwell in them; plant gardens and eat their fruit. Take wives and beget sons and daughters; and take wives for your sons and give your daughters to husbands, so that they may bear sons and daughters - that you may be increased there, and not diminished. And seek the peace of the city where I have caused you to be carried away captive, and pray to the LORD for it; for in its peace you will have peace. For thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel: Do not let your prophets and your diviners who are in your midst deceive you, nor listen to your dreams which you cause to be dreamed. For they prophesy falsely to you in My name; I have not sent them, says the LORD" (Jeremiah 29:5-9).

If those in Babylon were instructed to seek the peace of that ungodly empire, and to even seek the good of its leaders as the prophet Daniel later did when Babylon fell to another empire, what gives believers in modern America a license to live in strife and debate, rather than in love, in ministering, in being witnesses for the Gospel of Jesus Christ? Isn't that our best way to seek the peace of our nation?
A debate on same-sex marriage never led a soul to Jesus; nor did a vote, nor did a Facebook profile picture that changed the pink "equality" sign into a cross. These things never fed a starving belly nor tended to a helpless person's wounds. God's instruction to believers in America is no different than His directions to those carried away to Babylon, or to those in the early Christian Church, so abundantly slaughtered by Rome - to seek the nation's peace, to be holy. To be holy is to be set apart. "Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God" (Romans 12:2).

How will Christ's love be evident through us if we serve American values - whatever those are - rather than the Lord Himself?

Cpt. Bud's Devotionals, 8-9-15: "What a Load of Behemoth Crap"

When I was a teenage girl, life was sure hard. The other girls made fun of me because of my thick facial stubble, and because I was a dude. But what made it most confusing and frustrating were promises from people claiming God, but not Scripture - people, maybe well-meaning, who promised romance for everyone. They'd post things like, "When someone lets you down, don't worry - God is saying, 'I'm saving this one for someone special.'"
When I grew up and became a man, I learned that this was a load of Behemoth crap, and that romance is not a Biblical promise. Even if you don't believe in the word of God, you must admit that the notion of "someone for everyone" is unrealistic mathematically, statistically, circumstantially, and environmentally. But for those of us who do believe, we must not only consider those things, but also, nowhere in the Bible does God promise a husband or wife, boyfriend or girlfriend, for all believers. Our soul mate is Jesus - I found out the hard way that a true soul mate will give His body and blood as a ransom for your sins, rather than run you over with their Dodge Durango because they've had a few too many Jack Daniels Cactus Kickers. There's nothing wrong with wanting to find someone, or even looking - but we often make it an idol and place it before Jesus.
The "someone" on this earth that Jesus is saving all of us for, single or otherwise, is the wandering friend or stranger who has not heard the Gospel, the aching belly that hungers, the lonely soul that needs an ear to listen.
OHMS,
Cpt. Bud Sturguess

"The LORD is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer;
My God, my strength, in whom I will trust;
My shield and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold."
-Psalm 18:2
"For I, the LORD your God, will hold your right hand,
Saying to you, 'Fear not, I will help you.'"
-Isaiah 41:13

Cpt. Bud's Devotionals, 8-2-15: "A Walk-On Role in God's Big Picture"

When the power went out during an electrical storm, with no lights to see our Hungry Hungry Hippos tournament, some friends and I resorted to playing a spirited game of Which Historical Figure Would You Most Like To Punch in the Face?. The usual answers arose: Josef Stalin, Hirohito, John Wilkes Booth, Caligula, Jimmy Fallon, etc. But one friend's answer - Adam and Eve - made me think. My friend reasoned he'd backhand them both for messing up humankind by their disobedience to God. But I was hesitant about that answer.
Adam and Eve didn't need a bash in the face to remind them they'd erred; they were banished from a paradise as decay and death entered the world. But that wasn't my only reason for not punching Adam and Eve in the face. Of course, if sin had never entered the world by their actions, we'd never know death, illness, injustice, grief, loss. But - and maybe I'm just too accustomed to a world that sucks - how boring would the history of life on this planet be?
This may stem partly from the fact that the only world any of us knows is a hard world, but, what triumph would we know? What victory? How would we shed tears of joy in gripping God's hand to overcome an addiction? How would we see the beauty of any choice to do right, a choice great or small? And above all, we wouldn't know the greatest story ever told of good versus evil - the agonizing, beautiful, harrowing, joyous true story of Jesus Christ and His sacrifice upon the cross, His triumphant defeat of death and sin.
I don't like the way the world is, but I consider it more than just a silver lining that we all have walk-on parts in that epic story.
OHMS,
Cpt. Bud Sturguess

"Then Job answered the LORD and said:
"I know that You can do everything,
and that no purpose of Yours can be withheld from You.
You asked, 'Who is this who hides counsel without knowledge?'
Therefore I have uttered what I did not understand,
things too wonderful for me, which I did not know.
Listen, please, and let me speak;
You said, 'I will question you, and you shall answer Me.'
I have heard of You by the hearing of the ear,
but now my eye sees You.
Therefore I abhor myself,
and repent in dust and ashes.""
-Job 42:1-6

Cpt. Bud's Devotionals, 7-19-15: "High People in Low Places"

Courtesy National Geographic

During the turbulent period of the kings of Israel and Judah, there rose an idolatrous practice in which worshipers of false gods would perform their rituals almost exclusively on altars built on mountains and hills (often called "the high places" in the Bible). They did this in the belief that being at a higher place made one physically closer to their god.

In contrast to the true God, however, it is at our lowest that we can worship Him fully and embrace His promises with joy; when we are humbled, when we are defeated, when we are persecuted and downtrodden, when we cry out amidst the cries and screams of terror in this world that we need His strength to help us back to our feet, out of the deepest, darkest places of the human heart and imagination. We are grateful to have a Christ who is with us not just in any geographical height or depth, but who loves us and strengthens us in lows, valleys, ditches, and trenches that are physical, emotional, spiritual.

OHMS,

Cpt. Bud Sturguess

"Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." -Romans 8:37-39

That's Not Science - And That's Not Jesus

A few months ago, a friend asked me about my widely criticized, Biblically-influenced, belief that our planet is only several thousand years old, rather than the hundreds of millions of years believed by most scientists (though to be honest, even if one goes by the Bible, he still has no positive idea how old this world is). I didn't want to debate my beliefs, and basically stated that I trust God more than I trust man, and that I believe in the divinity of His word, this Book we came to call the Bible. I don't dispute that my spiritual beliefs are dogmatic - if I believe something to be an absolute truth, such as "2 plus 3 makes 5," I also can't help but be "dogmatic" if I refuse to believe the possible answer could be pi. When pressed further about my beliefs, I pointed out how many times scientists have been wrong over the centuries; for example, many of Aristotle's theories are now known to be butt-over-tea-kettle wrong, and yet he's still lauded as one of the grandfathers of science.

My friend's response was simply, "That wasn't science."

For a while, I thought that to be a silly and dodgy answer. But the more I thought about it, I realized my friend was right. No, Aristotle's misses weren't science. I believe God gave us science to study and better care for our environment, our bodies, and so forth - and being so, I believe true science, much like true religion, holds one true answer to our questions, even if man provides a myriad of blunders to try and explain them.
Man's wrongs don't render science null and void. Even now-defunct scientific theories that were widely held until just the 19th century - the Miasmatic theory of disease, Luminiferous aether, the immovability of Earth's continents, the "static universe" (if I've misspelled Miasmatic or Luminiferous, I apologize) - have been debunked and abandoned in droves, yet that doesn't make science a waste of time. And it didn't negate the many times scientists have been right to be somehow wrong.

Likewise, man's wrongs don't render my God or my faith in Jesus as the Messiah to be useless. The Westboro Baptist Churches, the false doctrines of Mormonism and the Jehovah's Witnesses, and etc., are all against God's words, twisted doctrines that claim Him but are in direct opposition to His truth. Man's lies and evil actions don't render God's truth ineffective. Fred Phelps was to Christianity what Immanuel Velikovsky was to independent theory. The abominable "Phinehas Priesthood" is to Christianity what Cyrus Teed was to...to um, not-getting-electrocuted-and-developing-wildly-inaccurate-theories-about-the-planet.

If a person does something in the name of Christ that is actually against Christ - picketing funerals, condemning someone to hell while frothing at the mouth, banishing someone from attending their church because they've been divorced, etc. - this is not the command or love of Christ. Much like my friend's assertion that it was not "science" to believe the universe to be spherical and finite. Just because I misidentified that obsolete belief with science doesn't make it science.

A disproven theory is not science, much like hypocrisy is not Jesus.

I've always found the Bible to be in harmony with nature and science. Certainly the Bible acknowledges God's creation and sovereignty over these things (Psalm 147:8, Isaiah 5:6, Job chapters 38 and 39), which many dispute. I understand that. But, the Bible doesn't claim that angels dump buckets of water from the sky to make rain - it acknowledges rain as moisture and precipitation descending from clouds (Psalm 147:8, Proverbs 25:14, Ecclesiastes 11:3, etc.). The Bible doesn't claim mischievous sprites make flowers and grass in underground factories - it acknowledges that plants need seeds, rain, soil, and such to grow (Deuteronomy 32:2, Leviticus 26:4, Jesus' parable of the sower in Matthew chapter 13, etc.).
The Bible never described Earth as a flat center of the universe, but a planet suspended in space, when as yet no images from satellites and space stations existed (Job 26:7 - Job is, by the way, widely accepted, even among non-believing scholars, to be among, if not the, oldest recorded book of the Bible).
The Bible never claimed a fixed amount of stars or celestial bodies, as other early astronomers did - God alluded to an uncountable amount of stars when He told Abraham in Genesis 15:5, "'Look now toward heaven, and count the stars if you are able to number them.' And He said to him, 'So shall your descendants be.'"

Likewise, when contrasted with myths, the Bible always makes a distinction between the natural and the Supernatural. Unlike in the myth of Icarus, where it was supposed that men are just somehow able to fly when they strap wax wings to themselves. I once read a Native American legend during which a warrior went to sleep and told his thigh (or in other versions, his excrement) to keep watch and speak to warn him if enemies approached - because apparently that's just how it works.
Not in the Bible. When miraculous and awesome events are described, they're always separated from natural occurrence and attributed to the supernatural work of an omnipotent and all-powerful God. This ranges from Creation to the plagues of Egypt to Jonah surviving in the belly of a large fish, and most importantly, to the Resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ from the dead. It's a Pasteur-like dismissal of spontaneous generation - the Bible teaches that the awesome doesn't "just happen."

Scientists and science may not always, nor have they always been, in harmony. And, those who claim the name of Christ are not in harmony with the truth of the Lord when they blaspheme His name with evil ideas and doctrines.
But truth can never be separated from itself. 

How the Twisting and Manipulation of Words Ruined the World, Like, Forever

Most of the time, no one bothers to twist and manipulate the words of unimportant things, because it doesn't benefit them in some twisted, manipulative way. So when you hear people in rabid debate over the meaning, relevance, truth, substance, and importance of something someone once said, wrote or recorded, it's always something like the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, the lyrics to "Comfortably Numb," and just as often, the Bible.

The twisting and manipulation of the Bible doesn't strictly refer to an outright changing or omitting of words and passages. I refer instead to the manipulation of the finished product.
Many ask how I could be sure this Book we came to call the Bible is truly of God's breath. Pertaining to the assured divine Authorship of the Scripture:
If I believe God is omnipotent and powerful enough to have created the breadth of the universe and all biological forms in it by speaking them to be so, I'm deluded if I think that He stopped paying attention and ceased being almighty just for a little while, so that man fiddled with His Word and added his own selfish agenda. If God is almighty enough to have formed the galaxies and the comets, the planets and all life, then He is almighty enough to prevent man from interjecting his own will and desires into the Scriptures without sound rebuke. If God allowed man to alter His instruction and love to us, man would have long ago translated the Bible to read "Murder is perfectly okay if one's neighbor steals his cable. Adultery and the abuse of our bodies is fine too. Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law." 

Therefore I refer to the grasping at straws and desperation to make the actual words of God's law mean something they don't.

Now, the twisting of the Word of God began long ago, to create lies and self-imposed doctrines that attempt to free one's self from the responsibilities Christ has given us. Long before the historical events depicted in the Bible were ever written down, long before God breathed His word into chosen men to put to ink and scroll, His words were being misused and manipulated.

The first instance, not surprisingly, was perpetrated by Satan, in the form of a serpent in the Garden. His lie to Eve was that, not only would God be envious if man knew good and evil, but also that God had lied, that they would not surely die if the fruit was eaten. 

"And he said to the woman, “Has God indeed said, ‘You shall not eat of every tree of the garden’?”

And the woman said to the serpent, “We may eat the fruit of the trees of the garden; but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God has said, ‘You shall not eat it, nor shall you touch it, lest you die.’”

Then the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die. For God knows that in the day you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”"

(Genesis 3:1-5)

The truth is that this sin in the Garden resulted in the fall of man - it introduced sin, death, decay, general mortality into the world. Therefore when God said "you shall surely die" if Adam ate of that tree, He did not say nor imply "you will die instantly, you will drop dead on the spot." But rather, that Adam would bring death and mortality into the world by his sin if he chose to be disobedient to God. And being that death would be inevitable, he would, therefore, surely die. (Genesis 2:15-17)

The first sin committed in this world was caused by the twisting and manipulation of words for one's own twisted, manipulative benefit. And Satan, being a serpent of old, the father of lies, the most twisted, manipulative, selfish being to ever roam this world, still revels in this sin millenniums later.

This selfish and warped attitude is the same we adopt when we engage in pointless arguments over the meanings and subtexts of various words. We do so when we debate the 2nd Amendment - does the right to bear arms have relevance today, or was it merely meant for the militias of the time? I don't know and frankly don't care (and I don't want to hear from gun enthusiasts giving me all the reasons I'd better care - I like guns as much as the next Texan, but focus on the bigger point I'm trying to make).

When we engage in this war over the words of God, we don't merely risk distorting some document that can be ratified and changed at the drop of a hat or the hanging of a chad - we risk distorting the Truth of a God who loves us, who gave His only Son to die for us, whose Son rose from that death, and that whoever believes and proclaims Him will not enter into eternal condemnation but be given everlasting life. 

When we dispute and debate theology in bitterness, when we argue for or against Predestination, when we quote Scripture in spite rather than love, edification and teaching, we risk distorting our belief and understanding of the basic principle fact that Jesus saves us.

If a man can choose not to believe just one piece of God's Word...maybe he chooses to dismiss that Jonah was swallowed by a large fish and survived...he opens the door for the devil to exploit man's fleshly weakness, and lead him away from the Christ who saves lives, physical and eternal - the fact that Jesus died for us and rose again, that He is Lord of lords, and King of kings.

And if man is so arrogant to think he's incapable of being fooled by the devil, he's already been deceived. Here's a good way to avoid being tricked by Satan - consider him as he is, crafty and cunning, who "walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour." (1 Peter 5:8) And, as bruising as it may be to our fleshly egos, pretend for a moment that we know nothing; pretend we people are idiots.
Just pretend.
And when we're caught up in our performance, portraying simpletons, we will see the damage the devil inflicts upon the souls, bodies, and minds of many. We will see how God raised Christ from the dead, yet the devil still deceives many who don't believe. And only then in our Gump-like states can we begin to achieve wisdom.

"For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not come to know God, God was well-pleased through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe. For indeed Jews ask for signs and Greeks search for wisdom; but we preach Christ crucified, to Jews a stumbling block and to Gentiles foolishness, but to those who are the called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men." -1 Corinthians 1:21-25