Tuesday, June 30, 2009

Thoughts on the Sanfords


You've heard of Mark Sanford by now, right? He's the Republican governor of South Carolina that admitted to having an affair with a woman in Argentina. He disappeared over Father's Day Weekend (Sorry kids, I can't come to Father's Day dinner...Daddy's busy!). Turns out he was in Argentina with his mistress.

His wife is committed to making the marriage work, but he said this today:

"South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford said Tuesday that he “crossed lines” with a handful of women other than his mistress - but never had sex with them.

The governor said he “never crossed the ultimate line” with anyone but Maria Belen Chapur, the Argentine at the center of a scandal that has derailed his once-promising political career.

“This was a whole lot more than a simple affair, this was a love story,” Sanford said. “A forbidden one, a tragic one, but a love story at the end of the day.”

During an emotional interview at his Statehouse office with The Associated Press on Tuesday, Sanford said Chapur is his soul mate but he’s trying to fall back in love with his wife."


Kids, this is why we don't live life based on feelings. "Gee, I'm going to give it a real college try to love my wife again. Aren't I a swell guy?"

A little tutorial for those of you who have cheated on your spouse... Here is what your wife (or husband) wants to hear: "I'm a schmuck and I am so sorry I traded in real love for a cheap imitation. You are a thousand times the person they are. Please, please, please, forgive me for being an idiot."

How you feel, or the reasons why you did it, are really irrelevant, at least from a Christian standpoint. There is only one right response: It was wrong and I'm sorry and it will never, ever, never, never, ever, never happen again.

Believe it or not, Sanford's is an attitude that I hear a lot when I counsel people who are dealing with similar situations. Often the person who is being cheated on hears this excuse; "Look, I love you (Mark Sanford didn't even do that), but I also love this other person. I didn't mean for it to happen, it just happened and I'm torn about what I should do." (*cough, baloney, *cough)

This is what you get when you base decisions on, not what is right or wrong, but how you feel.

There is a biblical way to handle this, that is not only right, but might well win your spouse back at the same time...and we'll talk about it tomorrow. I know the three of you who read this blog (not at the same time, of course) will not be able to sleep tonight. I apologize.

Monday, June 29, 2009

Michael Jackson

Copied this from Ray Comfort's blog:

"Yesterday 150,000 people died, including one very well-known celebrity. May this remind us that we all have an appointment to keep. May it also help us to forget that which doesn't matter, and get right with God while we still have time."

Saturday, June 27, 2009

Athiest Summer Camp!



This should be fun...

There’ll be no tent for God at Camp Dawkins!

Britain’s most prominent non-believer is backing its first atheist summer camp for children.

The article is here if you want to be tempted to swear.

p.s. How about a caption contest for the picture? I'll start - "Welcome to Camp 'Brainwash me to Hell!'"

Friday, June 26, 2009

Are Science and God incompatible?


From the Wall Street Journal Opinion Page Entitled "God and Science Don't Mix:


“J.B.S. Haldane, an evolutionary biologist and a founder of population genetics, understood that science is by necessity an atheistic discipline. As Haldane so aptly described it, one cannot proceed with the process of scientific discovery if one assumes a ‘god, angel, or devil’ will interfere with one’s experiments. God is, of necessity, irrelevant in science.

The rest of the article is here

Another favorite quote:

"Faced with the remarkable success of science to explain the workings of the physical world, many, indeed probably most, scientists understandably react as Haldane did. Namely, they extrapolate the atheism of science to a more general atheism."

This to me misses the point. I don't think anybody argues that science hasn't led us to discover how things work, but it doesn't answer the more important question of why things are. Science is fascinating and exciting, partly because the more we dig, the more complex we find that things are.(I'll never forget making my first exploding plastic 2 liter coke bottle filled with Drain-O and tinfoil...but I digress) It wasn't that many years ago that nobody knew what DNA was. New discoveries reinforce the knowledge that our world is a complex and intricate place that somehow all fits and works together.

That knowledge should, I would think, drive a scientist to ask - how could all this be just an accident? Is there no "why" behind the "how?" How could something so complex be the result of chance? What scientists can't recreate in a lab under controlled conditions, came together randomly in outer space somewhere?

Now, what this has to do with Science, I have no idea:

"Finally, it is worth pointing out that these issues are not purely academic. The current crisis in Iran has laid bare the striking inconsistency between a world built on reason and a world built on religious dogma. Perhaps the most important contribution an honest assessment of the incompatibility between science and religious doctrine can provide is to make it starkly clear that in human affairs -- as well as in the rest of the physical world -- reason is the better guide."

Ok, besides the obvious response that religious dogma and God don't necessarily have anything in common and it certainly doesn't make him not exist - To me, if a person is obsessed with living their life based on reason, they would look for reason in all things. They would think things out to their conclusions and back to their beginnings. And it seems reasonable (dare I use the word?) that they would consistently have that nagging question in the back of their minds - How could this all be an accident? It's just not rational. It's anti-reason, if you ask me (and nobody did). It's the kind of reason that ignores obvious questions and facts. There is no answer to the question "why?" in atheism, and I would think that would bug a scientist most of all.

p.s. If you want to drive an Atheist crazy, in the middle of his argument get a far off look in your eyes and start singing, "We are the Reason." (Actually, now that I think about it, that would drive ME crazy)

Thursday, June 25, 2009

Good Quote

Found this from John MacArthur while I was researching my sermon:

"By the way, do you know that that (holiness) is the only attribute of God in all of the Scripture that is spoken of in repetition three times? Never does the Bible say God is love, love, love. Never does it say God is light, light, light, truth, truth, truth, mercy, mercy, mercy, wrath, wrath, wrath. But it says He's holy, holy, holy. This is an absolute priority, people. It is impossible to understand the fullness of it and yet you must understand as much as the Scripture gives us. The absence of a clear understanding of God's holiness is the reason for our shallowness, it is the reason for our impotence, it is the reason for our selfishness, it is the reason for our weakness, it is the reason for our disobedience. We don't really understand how holy God is that's why we compromise, that's why we are the worst kind of pragmatists who do only what fulfills our desires." –John Mcarthur

Yowsa...good stuff. As we will learn Sunday from Isaiah, understanding the holiness of God is the beginning of intimacy with Him...and the flipside would also be true: to not understand it, is the reason for our distance from Him. His holiness puts everything else in perspective.

Every time the angels repeated Holy, Holy, Holy during Isaiah's vision, he heard, dirty, dirty, dirty...which is what he knew he was, compared to God. Every reminder of God's holiness reminded him of his filthiness.

That revelation gave him a new perspective and set the stage for God to purify him and empower him for the rest of his ministry

The holiness of God was revealed to Isaiah in a vision; The written Word of God is our revelation, and that is where His holiness will be revealed to us. So, get in the Word, and ask God to reveal Himself to you!

Till Sunday...

Love it, memorize it, swallow it.

Tuesday, June 23, 2009

Two More Reasons People Think Christianity is a Joke

First, the shameless redefining of holy words that make the Holy Spirit look like a fool:





And then the shameless merchandising of holy practices:



In one sense, these athiests have a straw man argument. Whether it is wrong to package oil and sell it for a profit is irrelevant to the claims of Christianity. It doesn't prove or disprove anything. However, this kind of profiteering is disgusting and way more common than it should be.

As for the guys in the top video...in our search for the touch and moving of the Holy Spirit, we have to be extremely careful what we attribute to God. To throw Biblical words like "anointing" around attached to wierd stuff like this is treating the real touch of God too flippantly.

I get frustrated over the hesitancy of people to say something is not of God just because someone else says it is. There doesn't seem to be too much "testing of the spirits" going on these days. I suspect that there is a spirit involved here, but I don't think it is the Spirit of God. Is this the best God can do? A Pheasant? Please.

To me, this is scary, scary stuff.

Tuesday, June 16, 2009

Isn't This Inspiring?



Shoobeedoobeedingdong?

Two words: Cra. Zy.

Love This Quote


This is about the best I have ever heard this explained...

"You cannot legislate the poor into freedom by legislating the wealthy out of freedom. What one person receives without working for, another person must work for without receiving. The government cannot give to anybody anything that the government does not first take from somebody else. When half of the people get the idea that they do not have to work because the other half is going to take care of them, and when the other half gets the idea that it does no good to work because somebody else is going to get what they work for, that my dear friend, is about the end of any nation. You cannot multiply wealth by dividing it."

-Adrian Rogers

He was a preacher who died a couple years ago. Smart guy.