I Shall Not Wash My Hands Nor Let Them Hang Useless

"I replaced her rings, her bracelets, her combs, before I closed the grave, and that was Lorraine. All that she had ever been or wanted to be had come to this, and that is the whole story of how we met and how we parted, Lorraine and I, in the land called Lorraine, and it is like onto my life, I guess, for a Prince of Amber is part and party to all the rottenness that is in the world, which is why whenever I do speak of my conscience, something else within me must answer, "Ha!" In the mirrors of the many judgments, my hands are the color of blood. I am a part of the evil which exists to oppose other evils. I destroy Melkins when I find them, and on that Great Day of which prophets speak but in which they do not truly believe, on that day when the world is completely cleansed of evil, then I, too, will go down into darkness, swallowing curses. Perhaps even sooner than that, I now judge. But whatever . . . Until that time, I shall not wash my hands nor let them hang useless." - Corwin of Amber (The Guns of Avalon, The Chronicles of Amber, Vol. 1, pg 208-209).

Posting Quotes

I have seen it written (I just can't remember where - maybe here or here) that posting quotes from books you are reading without providing your own commentary is bad blog etiquette. However, from the numbers of comments this blog receives (the squirrel story has more comments than the rest of the site put together) I don't think I am running too big of a risk.

Why am I writing this? See the next post.

My Best Squirrel Story Ever

On Friday night, Wendy and I and two friends were driving through Elliot Park neighborhood in Minneapolis. We saw something moving across the road. I slowed down and looked carefully. A plastic cup, similar to a frappucino cup was moving across the road, pushed by a squirrel. Then we realized that the squirrel had its head stuck in the bubble lid.

It had to be hot in the cup, since it was about 85 degrees outside. The squirrel couldn't see very well, because the cup was still coated with whip cream and coffee or whatever was in the cup. I wonder if squirrels have bad breath. I bet he was wishing he had brushed his teeth that morning.

Jenny jumped out with her iPhone and took a picture. I was trying to figure out if I could save the squirrel without touching it or getting bit by it. It was moving slow enough that catching it was no problem, but they have sharp claws and it was still skittish. If I stepped on its tail and pulled the lid at the same time I might be able to save it, but it might whip around and bite me or something.

My flash decision was to simply grab the cup and yank as hard as I could, hoping the cup and lid would all come off at the same time. Without additional thought, I reached down, grabbed the cup and yanked. Squirrels are very light. There was almost no resistance at all. The squirrel went flying in the direction of my pull, but the cup stayed in my hand.

Then I realized that the cup stayed in my hand, but not the lid! By this time, the squirrel was bounding across the road and under the nearest car, clear plastic lid still stuck around its neck. It couldn't run that well, but it could now see and breath. At least I gave it a small chance to live when before it had none.

I have no idea what has happened to the squirrel. It may be able to eat, if it finds something, but I doubt that it can climb trees. It is probably easy prey for bigger urban dwellers.

Moral of the story: Don't litter! Be Green! If you don't it hurts the animals!

(Tongue firmly planted in cheek.)

Numa! Numa!

I know that this has been seen over 18,000,000 times (as of right now), but it is still hilarious - and catchy too.

Piper on Abortion

(HT: The Bethlehem Institute)

Worship?

I stumbled upon a church website near my home town the other day. Here is how they described their worship:

At Journey we believe that connecting with our Savior through corporate worship is essential to our spiritual walk. We strive to provide a themed service that revolves around the scripture presented each week; incorporating drama, movie clips, contemporary worship, secular songs and symbols - all to communicate the good news of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

I was also pointed to a quote from John Owen by a guest blogger on Justin Taylor's blog:

It is an innate acknowledged principle that the soul of man will not keep up cheerfully unto the worship of God unless it has a discovery of a beauty and comeliness in it. Hence, when men had lost all spiritual sense and savor of the things of God, to supply the want that was in their own souls, they invented outwardly pompous and gorgeous ways of worship, in images, paintings, pictures, and I know not what carnal ornaments; which they have called "The beauties of holiness!" [Ps. 110:3]. Thus much, however, was discovered therein, that the mind of man must see a beauty, a desirableness in the things of God's worship, or it will not delight in it; aversation will prevail. Let, then, the soul labor to acquaint itself with the spiritual beauty of obedience, of communion with God, and of all duties of immediate approach to him, that it may be rifled with delight in them. (Overcoming Sin and Temptation, John Owen, eds. Kelly Kapic and Justin Taylor, pg. 269-270)

Sallow and Scrawny

Wendy and I (especially Wendy) are challenged by how to feed a family of six in a healthy way. In light of our desire to feed our family well and of the Olympics and the sallow and scrawny look of many of the athletes, I thought the following comments from Douglas Wilson quite appropriate.

One last comment. Suppose someone were to ask why I appear to be so against "healthy eating." First, I have no objection to faithful stewardship when it comes to food, and I do not believe that all foods are equal when it comes to a healthy diet. A steady diet of deep fat fried Twinkies is probably not the way to go. If your doctor tells you to knock off the coffee, Ho Ho's and cigars for breakfast, then go ahead and listen to him. But this is a spiritual issue only in terms of stewardship and general wisdom. It is not a case of spiritual defilement. People who react to an offered Dorito the way a rabbi would respond to a slice of pork roast are sinning. And secondly, as a practical observation, some of the sickliest people I know got that way through an obsessive interest in what they call healthy eating, but which obviously isn't. If they were to show up at Melzar's exam after ten days, he would slap them back on the Babylonian diet so fast it wouldn't be funny.

Daniel and his friends were willing to put it to the test. Let's take three groups of kids, and let's look closely at what they eat for ten days. One group watches television constantly, one hand on the remote and the other in a bag of Cheetos. The second group is languishing on a diet of tofu and rice. The last group is fed on what we might call a common sense American mom suburban diet -- Honey Nut Cheerios for breakfast, PB&J's for lunch, a couple of cookies after school, and a well-rounded dinner (meat, potatoes, veggies), with a little ice cream for dessert. On the eleventh day, let's have them all run around the block.

I'll put my kids up against your tofu and rice eating kids any day.

(HT: Douglas Wilson)

Loose Threads

One of the things that makes a story a good story is when all the loose threads are tied up in the end. A story that weaves an intricate tapestry but leaves many threads untied at the end is not satisfying. When all loose ends are tied up and everything is accounted for, then the tapestry (or the story) is that much more beautiful and satisfying.

If one considers all of history -- redemption history -- a story, then it seems reasonable to hope that all the threads of human history will be tied up nicely a the end. I believe that God, as the premier storyteller, will make sure that all the loose ends are tied up. In other words, the reason for cancer, wars, car accidents, theft, betrayal, tsunamis, hurricanes, plane crashes, crib death, drugs, and a million other sufferings will be beautifully explained and satisfying by the time we read the last page.

To live this life believing in anything else would lead me, at least, to despair.

“Remember this and stand firm, recall it to mind, you transgressors, remember the former things of old; for I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like me, declaring the end from the beginning and from ancient times things not yet done, saying, ‘My counsel shall stand, and I will accomplish all my purpose,’ calling a bird of prey from the east, the man of my counsel from a far country. I have spoken, and I will bring it to pass; I have purposed, and I will do it.” (Isaiah 46:8-11)

The Centripetal Force on our Planet

I have been reading The Brothers Karamazov, and was struck by a sentence. Ivan, the atheist brother, is talking with Alyosha, the hero of the story who is a monk. He says, “The centripetal force on our planet is still fearfullly strong, Alyosha.” He is speaking in the context of his love for life despite “logic” which tells him there is no order to the universe. It is after this discourse that Ivan launches into the two most famous chapters of the book, “Rebellion” and “The Grand Inquisitor,” where he argues against God.

In my mind, one of the main jobs of the preacher is to counter-act the “centripetal force of this planet” by proclaiming a Jesus that has a stronger pull. If people don’t see a Jesus that has a greater pull on their wants, their desires, their souls, then the force of this world will ultimately draw them into the center. As I drove in to the office this morning my longing was to see Jesus more clearly, to delve into his words and actions and better understand him. I want to sit at the feet of Jesus and wrestle with both the tough and the tender, to see how his turns of a phrase, how his quotations of the OT and how his insight speaks clearly to me in a world of iPhones and skyscrapers and high gas prices. I want the gravitational pull of the son to overcome the centripetal force of this world!

Abortion is About God

A new curriculum will be available August 2008 from The Bethlehem Institute

Title: Abortion Is About God: Reframing a Moral Issue

Short Description: "Abortion Is About God: Reframing a Moral Issue" is a six-week Sunday School curriculum advancing the truth that the deepest evil of abortion is that it defies God¹s supremacy over life in the womb. The course will aim to provide a biblical and theological foundation for the pro-life cause. Moreover, the course will aim to bring a God-centered perspective to bear on this contested issue. In addition to asserting that abortion is fundamentally an offense to the glory of the Creator, the curriculum will celebrate the sovereignty of God over all of life, will lift up the good gifts of children and parenthood, and will proclaim the mercy freely offered to all through the gospel. Students will gain a deeper understanding of this issue by closely examining key biblical passages, answering provocative questions, and considering sermons and writings from the ministry of John Piper. It is our prayer that this course would be used by God to awaken the church afresh to the horror of abortion as a belittling of the glory of God and an assault on those made in His image.

About the curriculum: New TBI Curriculum - Abortion Is About God

Annotated Table of Contents: CURRICULUM: Abortion is About God - TOC

Evolution and Entropy

Sunday morning, on our way to church, we drove down Highway 96 and I contemplated the median. The curbed median had been landscaped, with trees and flowers and shrubbery and barkdust. The flowers were in bloom, reds, purples, yellows and oranges. And weeds. The weeds were clearly moving in on the flowers and attempting to assert their control over the median.

A few more hundred feet down the road and a right turn on to Highway 10. We were passing an older military base that had been shut down years before, I suppose during the Clinton era. The driveway and parking lot were cracked and broken, with weeds growing up there, too. The windows were dirty and broken. Open holes in glass staring back at me. The brick walls of the building looked worn out and in need of a cleaning.

What struck me is how normal it is for things like medians and old buildings to go from pristine and beautiful to cracked, broken down, and old. And it doesn’t take very long for this to happen either. If we leave something in a box for twenty years, there is no guarantee that it will work just right when we pull it back out again.

If it is so normal for all things around us to move from order to chaos, or from good shape to worse shape, why would we imagine that one or two cell organisms would eventually become human beings? Does adding a million years to the process help?

Help me, O Lord!

The first eleven verses of Psalm 74 are a cry out to the Lord for help. The “enemy” of the Lord, the Lord’s “foes” are destroying the meeting places of God. They are breaking down the carved wood, they are setting the sanctuary on fire. In the beginning of this psalm, Asaph sees this as God’s anger toward his people. He attributes the suffering of God’s people at the hand of the Lord’s enemies as the Lord’s anger at his people, “O God, why do you cast us off forever? Why does your anger smoke against the sheep of your pasture?” This is a pleading cry, not an angry accusation. Asaph understands that God is ultimately sovereign over the enemies.

There is an interesting word at the beginning of verse 12. In the ESV and NASB the word is “Yet.” In the Hebrew it is a waw used in a concessive manner. Despite the fact that God is angry toward us, nevertheless, “God my King is from of old, working salvation in the midst of the earth.”

This is an intriguing response to the situation that the people of God were in. Asaph and the people of God are suffering. They are being put down by God’s foes and enemies. They are crying out to God for help, for defense, for deliverance. Yet in the midst of this horror, Asaph recognizes, remembers, believes, holds-on to the fact that God is making salvation or working salvation from ancient times in the land. God is doing something bigger in the midst of the terror. God is working salvation in the land, despite the fact that everyone is at a loss. God is doing something deeper than what Asaph and people see. He is working salvation.

Asaph then spends several verses (13-17) extolling the sovereignty of God over the earth, clearly describing again the power of God over all things, which is the basis of his belief in verse 12. Then, from v. 18 to the end of the psalm Asaph returns to his pleas for salvation from God. Verses 12-17 are the ground for Asaph’s pleas to God for deliverance both in the beginning and in the end of the Psalm. Without that middle section, Asaph has no real basis for crying out to God. It is the fact that God is sovereign over everything - the sea, the sea monsters, the springs and brooks, the day, the night, the stars, the sun, the boundaries of the earth and its seasons - that enables Asaph to confidently cry out to the Lord for help.

O that I would believe and trust in the sovereignty of God the way that Asaph did. O that I would cry out to my God, my king who is ancient of days, with the sheer confidence in his sovereignty for his deliverance of me from my troubles.

O Lord, Do Not Delay!

There are some big decisions going on in our lives right now: what job should we move towards (there are several options), should we visit Kentucky in April, what will our future be, am I called to teach in a college or preach in a church or how do I do both, and can I get Wendy a new camera? Some of these are big, and some are small, but all of them feel weighty when we are trying to live for the Lord and be holy with our lives. TBI needs about $2M in the next month or so to construct out the building we have been given and launch a bigger vision. That is big. Is it inappropriate to ask the Lord to be quick with his decisions?

Psalm 70 speaks to this. Verse 1 says, “Make haste, O God, to deliver me! O Lord, make haste to help me!" Now, one might argue that David is speaking about deliverance from his enemies. That is true, yet do we not all have enemies of one form or another? (See comments in the last post.) What was the biggest difficulty in David’s life that he cried out to God about? It was his enemies. David cried out about his front burner issues, and I think that we should also cry out to God about our front burner issues. Just because we are not being sought by enemies “who desire our hurt” (Ps 70:2), does not mean that we can not cry out to God about our financial woes, our career woes, our family woes. We can and should cry out to God in all these things.

And, if we take David as our example, we can also beg God to be quick about it. It is not necessarily disrespectful to God to ask him to hurry, as long as our heart is not angry or presumptuous. Instead, like David, we should be poor and needy. David wrote, “But I am poor and needy; hasten to me, O God! You are my help and my deliverer; O Lord, do not delay! (Ps 70:5).

Enemies and Life Struggles

After I finished thinking about God hearing us, I thought about other things in the Bible that could be comparable. Specifically I thought about how David wrote Psalms about getting relief from his enemies. If stars (see previous entry) can be compared to people, then certainly enemies can be compared to various life struggles and battles. In other words, the stress of getting a project at work completed is no less mundane than protection for enemies seeking our life. Not that enemies are mundane, but David’s work week and our work week are similar in that we both trudge off to do battle with something.

Then I read Psalm 55 in my quiet time after I got to work. “Give ear to my prayer, O God, and hide not yourself from my plea for mercy! Attend to me, and answer me; I am restless in my complaint and I moan, because of the noise of my enemy, because of the oppression of the wicked. For they drop trouble upon me, an din anger they bear a grudge against me” (Ps 55:1-3).

We can bring our mundane troubles with curriculum or networks or people or studies to God in the same way as David cried out to God about his enemies. This is really basic, but this morning it seemed very profound to me.

Stars and Prayer

I have been stressed at work lately, and this morning as I drove in I attempted to pray. As I looked at the masses of people in cars around me, I wondered how could God possibly hear me. Why would he hear me? I am so small, so insignificant in relation to the rest of the world and all that is going on. There are seven million people in the greater Twin Cities area. There are six plus billion people in the world. There are governments, presidents, ambassadors, rebels, and corporate CEOs. How and why could or would he possibly listen to me as I drive in to work on I-35W in Minneapolis, MN?

Then a text from Isaiah 40 came to mind. "To whom then will you compare me, that I should be like him? says the Holy One. Lift up your eyes on high and see: who created these [stars]? He who brings out their host by number, calling them all by name, by the greatness of his might, and because he is strong in power not one is missing" (Isa 40:25-26).

There are hundreds of millions of galaxies in our universe and there are likely hundreds of millions of universes. That means there are billions of stars. Stars that all have a name. Stars that all emit light in various ranges of the spectrum. Stars that emit various radio and magnetic and electric and light waves that create a symphony to those that have ears to hear and eyes to see. Who has those eyes to see and ears to hear? Who knows them all by name?

The God of the Bible. And if he knows all those stars, who have names and are not missing, then I can be confident he hears my prayers.

Father God, please strengthen my faith in you today. Grant me eyes to see and ears to hear your wondrous works. Amen.

John 10:1-21

Click below to listen to a recent lesson I taught on John 10:1-21. There has been a lot of problems with audio lately, as the first ten minutes of this teaching did not get recorded. The audio picks up ten minutes in, after a review of John 9:1-5, at 9:6.

Would We Recognize a Good Shepherd if We Saw One?

Emerging or Emergent?

This is the best and shortest description of what it means to be emerging vs. emergent that I know of. If you care about the church, and recognize that there is a rift between traditional church and many so-called post-moderns, then this is a helpful read.

Would the Real Emerger Please Stand Up?

(HT: Reclaiming the Mind Ministries)

I and the Father are One

I had the privilege of preaching at Oakridge Community Church in Stillwater, MN last Sunday. Here is the audio for the sermon titled I and the Father are One.

Please note that the last three minutes of the sermon were lost. As it is now, it ends okay, but the final concluding thought and prayer were not recorded for some reason.

UPDATE: The file has been fixed and the entire sermon is now available.

Take the Puritan Reading Challenge

I read about this from Justin Taylor's blog, Between Two Worlds, and I thought it was definitely worth reproducing here. To find the main Puritan Reading Challenge click on the button below.



Happy Reading!

(HT: Between Two Worlds)

A Frightening Warning from C.S. Lewis

In the third book of C.S. Lewis' Space Trilogy, That Hideous Strength (Collier, 1986, p. 353), Lewis describes the mindset of the chief villain. It is frighteningly real and shows deep understanding of human nature:

The last scene of Dr. Faustus where the man raves and implores on the edge of Hell is, perhaps, stage fire. The last moments before damnation are not often so dramatic. Often the man knows with perfect clarity that some still possible action of his own will could yet save him. But he cannot make this knowledge real to himself. Some tiny habitual sensuality, some resentment too trivial to waste on a blue-bottle, the indulgence of some fatal lethargy, seems to him at that moment more important than the choice between total joy and total destruction. With eyes wide open, seeing that the endless terror is just about to begin and yet (for the moment) unable to feel terrified, he watches passively, not moving a finger for his own rescue, while the last links with joy and reason are severed, and drowsily sees the trap close upon his soul. So full of sleep are they at the time when they leave the right way.

It should be our prayer that we never succumb to the habitual sensuality, resentment, or fatal lethargy that might keep us from the saving grace of the cross. May we feel the terror of being separated from the One who has the power to cast both body and soul into Hell.