How can a sinful cultures fascination with zombies point us to God?

At church we are currently in a series on Romans. In Romans 11:33-36 Paul talks about how all things are from Jesus and through Jesus and to Jesus. Which makes me ask "all things?" Now I am not a fan of horror movies or books or anything of that genre. As a Christian I think I can justify that by pointing to God's call for us to dwell on things that are beautiful in Philippians 4:8. But I can't help but think that even in the culture's fascination with zombies there is a great reminder for us. I don't know much about zombies but I do know they are the living dead. How can that point us to God. We live among a people that the Bible tells us is spiritually dead (Rom. 8:10, Eph. 2:1). Even though they are spiritually dead they continue to live physically in this world. If nothing else I believe the world embraces the idea of zombies because they are in a spiritual sense like them. And like zombies moving together, they serve their father the devil without even being conscious of it. Rather than simply being repelled by the things in our world perhaps we should ask if the base things we see are perhaps a reflection of what is already in the heart of men. This should make us grateful that we have been made alive in Christ Jesus our Lord (Rom. 6:11). Perhaps even this could be an entry into a conversation that could help someone come to new life in Christ. This is one more backhanded way our sinful culture can remind us to live a life focused on God. What are some other ways our culture's fascinations point out their fallen state and remind us to look to God?

Is God surprised by...evil...uh I mean Obama care?

Obama care is the prevailing thing in the news. There seems to be a lot of stress and concern about it. Anytime something like this comes along I get the feeling that people especially Christians forget that God is in control. I was reminded of this last night as we discussed the issue of evil at an apologetics class one of my sons is a part of. Romans 9:22-23 says, "What if God, desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power, has endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, in order to make known the riches of his glory for vessels of mercy, which he has prepared beforehand for glory— " (ESV) In this passage we see that God is far from being surprised by sin and evil. As a matter of fact He uses that very thing to reveal more about Himself to the vessels of mercy. Think about it. What if there had never been any sin and everything was perfect? We are walking with God in the garden in the cool of the day. God is revealing what He can about Himself to finite beings as we commune together. He mentions that He really hates sin. He tells us that even though He hates sin that He is a God of mercy and grace. He says that He is long-suffering and patient. Remember there has never been any sin in this scenario. How could we begin to understand what God means by hate and sin if we have never experienced it. We would have no framework for understanding mercy and grace if we never needed it. Who could comprehend patience in a world that is perfect with everything happening according to God's perfect plan.
You see because God allowed Adam to fall and allowed sin to enter into the world we will know God far better for all of eternity. Because Pharaoh refused to let the enslaved children of Israel go we saw the power of God to change the course of history. God was not surprised by evil. He could have stopped it but then there would have been less revealed about God's nature to those who come to know Him. Obama care is no different. I don't know what God is doing. But I do know that He is not surprised by it. I am praying for Obama that God will use him to magnify His name and exult Jesus. He may use Obama like He used Pharaoh. I don't know His plan, but I know that Obama care is not outside of it. We can trust God in the midst of this. My prayer is that I will come to know Jesus better because of it.

Eclipse...of reason

There is a really insightful article on foxnews on the newly released movie Eclipse, called, "Conservative Imprinting In 'Eclipse'?" While the article is insightful in pointing out some trends and counter culture conservative morals in the movie it fails to realize the greater point of those morals. Morality is never just morality for moralities sake. Morality is rooted in something for a reason. Morality in western culture has been derived from the moral law of God as we find it in the Bible. This is one of the reasons why morals and law seem to go hand in hand. We see the opposite all the time because immorality often leads to unlawful acts. What we often miss though is that the goal of morals or the moral law is not to restrict us but to reveal to us what is pleasing to God. This is why David could say that the law of the Lord is perfect reviving the soul...and...the precepts of the Lord are right rejoicing the heart (Psalm 19:7-8). The idea of making the soul alive and causing a heart laden with sin to rejoice is not a picture of restriction. David says in the same verses that they make the simple wise and they are so pure they enlighten the eyes. So they give us understanding and they help us to see things more clearly. David sees them as so desirable that he paints them as valuable as gold and sweeter than honey (Psalm 19:10). How many people do you know that feel this way about God's law. The point of God's law is to bring us to God. We will never be more satisfied then when we are satisfied in Him. This is where the morality of Eclipse while it might be a good formal acting out of morals is totally bankrupt. The heros in the movie maintain their morality and virginity but to what end and for what reason. Simply love waits...I guess. But you see if the vampire gets the girl in the end she will be joining the undead who cannot give birth because that would be the opposite of what they are. We also know that vampires are the enemies of God because they hate the cross. So if the heros win and maintain their morals then they will be together forever damned. How is that supposed to be a fulfilling end??? The point of morals is to bring is into greater fellowship with God in the context of all of life. Because of morals all of life becomes an act that leads to worship of God. Maintaining virginity until marriage is so that we come into marriage celebrating and consummating the relationship in a way that mirrors Jesus own fidelity for His bride and His bride's fidelity for Him. The goal of morality is to truly engage in the most awesome thing that anyone has ever conceived of -- namely to stand in the presence of the most awesome being that has ever existed. So join with David and delight in God's law and meditate on it day and night (Psalm 1:2).

Ignorance is bliss!

We have all heard the phrase but for some reason it struck me today in relation to pride. Pride seems to lurk in every seam and corner of the fabric of life. You can be proud of just about anything. Proud that you have job in this tough economy. Proud that you toughing out not having a job better than your friends are. Proud that you were able to go out to eat. Proud that you saved money and ate in. You can be proud of your kids your parenting your spouse your hobby. You name it and you can be proud of it. I have a tendency to become proud of my writing or my thoughts or if God seems to really work in a persons life I can start to think that it was a good thing I was able to be there to help out. All of the pride that we store up and embrace is nothing but wood hay and stubble. There is not one thing that we have that we have done that is we should be proud of. Everything we have and everything that we are and all the successes we experience are from God and through God and are for the praise and glory of our Lord Jesus Christ (Romans 11:36, 1 Corinthians 8:6). We were created for the glory of God not for our own glory. When God by His grace gives us the grace to rest in His presence and glorify His name--that is when we are truly most satisfied. The promise of satisfaction whispered into our souls by the perverted voice of pride  is nothing but a corrupting attempt of our flesh to take to ourselves what is God's. May God grant us the grace to pray that He will keep us focused on Him and away from our pride.

Righteous anger what it is and isn't

What is righteous anger? Jesus had righteous anger when He made a whip of reeds and drove out the money changers and the sellers of animals from the temple courtyard (John 2:15). 2 Samuel 12:1-6 tells us the story that Nathan told to David about the stolen lamb. In the story it tells us that David became angry at the injustice that was done. I believe that we could call David's anger at the injustice done to someone else a righteous anger. The same David refused to get angry and take vengeance on Saul when he had the opportunity (1 Samuel 24). David spoke to Saul who was after him to kill him and he told Saul that he would not strike back and take vengeance but that he would look to God to avenge him (1 Samuel 24:12). Romans 12:19 exhorts us to not take vengeance but leave it to the Lord to do.
I take from these instances a general principle that I believe holds these tensions in balance. If there is a wrong done against me or my rights as in the case of the state or a company I will not retaliate. Why? Because in this case it is God's to avenge me. If there is a wrong done to a child, a woman or the poor and oppressed and it is within my power to be a defender of the defenseless then I will give vent to my righteous anger on behalf of someone else. Lets put it like this:

If it is against me I should flee, 

but against a defenseless other 

I should become a defending brother

This would take care of all the time wasted seeking our own rights and free us up to seek the well fare of those in need. We can discern these things easier in the context of living a God focused life.

Why the tea party movement will not save us

The reason that the tea party movement will not save us is the same reason that Obama and the democrats cannot save us. In both cases we are looking to a political movement to solve our problems. Lets think about what some of our problems are? (These are just a few of the general ways in which the public is talking.)

• Man is basically good and just needs a break - so lets have the government give him a hand out.
• Sexuality and what I do is my business and does not affect anyone else - so lets have the government protect my freedom of sexual expression.
• My rights of expression are being threatened - so lets have some laws enacted to protect them.

Freedom is essentially a moral issue (Romans 6:16-18). The ultimate question we need to ask is not which political movement will save us, but what must we do to be saved (Acts 16:31). The tragedy is that our society has drifted so far from a Biblical moral base that the first statement in my informal list is generally accepted everywhere. Man is fallen and born in sin and the thoughts of his heart are only evil continually (Romans 5:12, Genesis 6:5, Psalm 140 ). Government cannot save fallen man from himself no matter what programs they start. Sexuality was created by God for the sake of His glory (Ephesians 5:31-32). Perversion of God's intention for sexuality is man assaulting the God's picture of Jesus relationship with His bride the church. If you want to assault God's picture don't be surprised when He responds in retribution. Only faith in Christ and a love for Him can help us get our bearings in the sea of sexual perversion on which we drift. The extreme emphasis on personal rights within our society exist because we  are a self centered society. Only in the love of Jesus do we gain the freedom to die to self and minister to others as if we are ministering to Christ. A political movement will never be able to solve these problems. These problems need a real Savior to restore our hearts back to God. Lets pray that God will give more hearts a Godward focus on Christ and a desire to pray. For only when God steps in and hears our prayers will our nation be healed (2 Chronicles 7:14).

Why do people kill people?

An article today on Foxnews.com titled, "Jamaica's Bloody Lesson On Guns" talks about how banning guns for citizens does not keep them out of the hands of criminals. Even if the criminals are on islands with no easy access to areas where gun controls are not in place. Every time I see one of these articles it seems to me that they always overlook the most important part of this problem. People kill people because the heart of man is desperately wicked (Jeremiah 17:9, Genesis 8:21). Taking away an evil persons means of producing evil does not stop the intent to produce evil. What must be dealt with is man's desire to do evil. There is only one person that can deal with man's evil desire and that is the Lord Jesus Christ. If we would see people stop their evil ways we must introduce them to the one who conquered sin, death and evil for all time. If we would seek to live a God focused life we would find that God begins to change us so that we might be more effective in helping to really help introduce the seeds of change in the hearts of others.

Grassfire or misfire???

I receive e-mails from a political action group called grassfire because I signed a petition at the urging of a friend a few years ago. I received a new request to sign a petition on May 17th. It was for another group called the Media Research Center. Here are the opening lines of the petition request.

The Media Research Center has just launched an important
petition opposing Comedy Central's plans to air a cartoon
series about Jesus Christ called "JC" where he would move
to New York to "escape his father's enormous shadow."

I'm urging all members of our team to read the details
below and then sign this important MRC petition.

Before you just close this window I really want you to read this and consider what our response as Christians ought to be. I looked up the source material on the Media Research Center web site. The first is an article called "Jesus, Mohammed, and Comedy Central". The second is the actual petition that you can sign called, "Petition Opposing Comedy Central’s New Faith-Bashing Show and the Anti-Christian Double Standard". These are links that will take you to these sites if you so desire.

To begin who are the people who are promoting this hatred of Jesus Christ. And make no mistake they are bashing the Jesus of Christianity not the Jesus of Mormonism or the Jesus of the Jehovah's Witnesses (I know these are both cults but this is an important distinction). If they were bashing the Jesus of these cults they would not cast Jesus as the Son of God. The people at Comedy Central that are planning on making this cartoon series are natural men. They are spiritually dead. They are pagans and we can expect them to do pagan things. The truth is they hate God and the idea of God for good reason (Romans 1:18-25). They are under God's wrath for their unrighteousness. They cannot truly understand a Christians reaction to these things because our reason for not liking them is we have been made spiritually alive and they are spiritually dead (1 Corinthians 2:14). They particularly hate Jesus because He will ultimately testify of the evil of their deeds (John 7:7). In short we should expect the unsaved pagan world to hate Jesus and ultimately to hate us (John 15:18-19, 1 John 3:13).

This presents a dilemma for us as Christians seeking to live a life that is focused on God. The unsaved world has a certain amount of respect for Muslims because their faith is not a true faith. Their faith is a faith that claims you can repent and do good works that will appease their god. In a sense they make man powerful and able to influence God. The Muslim makes demands that comedy central not do something and they capitulate because there is no real condemnation from Mohammed or Islam. We are called by Christ to be different. In Matthew 5:39 Jesus called us to not resist the one who is evil...but to turn the other cheek. The actions of Comedy Central are evil and have a blasphemous and evil intent. Surely they have slapped all of us as Christians. Should we be responding by demanding to be treated with the same respect as Muslims and other cults? Wouldn't Jesus have us turn the other cheek? Paul in Romans 12:19 calls us never to avenge ourselves but to leave it to the wrath of God. After all vengeance is God's and He will repay.

The second part of our dilemma is how do we love these folks at Comedy Central? In Matthew 5:43-48 Jesus clearly calls us to love our enemies. He wants us to be different from the world. If you read the petition you will find that it is not different from the world. It is demanding that we be treated like the rest of the world. It asserts our rights and makes accusations. I do not see how anyone at Comedy Central will feel loved upon receiving this petition. We have an opportunity before us to do something different from the world and yet it looks like we are going to botch it. What we should be doing is seeing this as an open confession of their sinful hearts. Then we should figure out how to reach out to these guys and demonstrate the love of Jesus to them. At this point we would be demonstrating a trust in the ability of the Holy Spirit to convict them of their sins (John 16:7-11). Brothers and sisters lets not start a grassfire on this one. I believe it will only be a misfire that is bound to backfire. Lets instead seek to live a God focused life and realize that He has got this under control. This should free us to love those who are doing this evil in a way that perhaps might bring them to the feet of Jesus. After all isn't that what were here for anyway?

When evil becomes good and good becomes evil

The New York Times has an article titled, "Evangelist May Be Disinvited to Prayer Day Event at Pentagon". A more complete article was on Yahoo, "Army considers rescinding invitation to evangelist." Apparently the Pentagon is considering rescinding an invitation for Franklin Graham to pray at the national day of prayer event at the Pentagon. The reason for the potential recall of the invitation hinges on a statement Franklin made in 2001. After the terrorist attacks he said, "Islam is a very evil and wicked religion". Since we have Muslim employees at the pentagon people are afraid that Graham's presence might endanger American troops by stirring up Muslim extremists.
Now lets think about this logically. Our troops are in the middle east fighting muslim extremist because they attacked us first. Somehow a Christian preacher praying at what is a historically Christian tradition in a Christian country is going to stir up muslim extremist. The extremist are not already stirred up by the fact that our troops are fighting their fellow extremist?!? A preacher praying for a few minutes in our country is going to push the extremist over the edge? I guess they will now become extreme extremist (whatever that is). This is just evidence that we have become a nation that is held hostage to the radical belief that we can somehow pacify our enemy into accepting us. This will never happen and that is apparent. Since this is not a political blog why the political focus? I am glad you asked. You see we do the same thing in the church. We do it with the seeker friendly movement. All this is a watering down of the gospel to make it relevant to the unsaved. What we have done is stripped the gospel of its power to change lives in the name of having more friends. We are trying to pacify them into accepting us. This will never happen. Men and women need a change of heart in order to accept Christ. Jesus was not acceptable in His day and to the pagan He is still not acceptable. Why? Jesus requires us to repent of our sin and accept Him as our Lord. Paul called people to repent and believe in Acts 19:3-5. There are people in the church today who would tell you it is evil to share this message with someone. We have begun to call good things evil when we do this. We seem to have forgotten where we should be seeking our friends. James 4:4 says that friendship with the world makes us an enemy of God. See what we need to do is seek Christ first and His righteousness (Matthew 6:33). This will result in a transformed life and a real care and compassion for people that comes from Jesus. This is the only way that lives will be changed from evil to good. We must never give up seeking to live the God focused life.