Jesus Paid It All
Tuesday, August 9, 2016
Monday, August 8, 2016
Stay Out of Libya
By Justin Raimondo, Antiwar.com, August 4, 2016
We’re back in Libya, with US warplanes bombing targets in the city of Sirte, on a mission that, according to the Pentagon, has “no endpoint at this particular moment.” And that statement sums up perfectly the Sisyphean task that presented itself to US policymakers when the Terrible Triumvirate–Hillary Clinton, national security honchette Susan Rice, and UN ambassadress Samantha Power–prevailed on President Obama to overthrow the regime of Libyan despot Moammar Ghaddafi.
Take a look at what we’re getting ourselves into: with no less than three governments, lawless Libya is a perfect example of Ronald Reagan’s famous dictum that “government is the problem, not the solution.” Yes, that’s right, the former domain of Ghaddafi has three rival “governments.” Go ahead and count ‘em:
The General National Congress (GNC), headquartered in Tripoli, is controlled by Islamist militias and backed by Turkey, Qatar, and Sudan.
The Council of Deputies, located in Tobruk, is basically the instrument of Gen. Khalifa Hiftar, a known CIA asset who used to live a few miles from the Agency’s headquarters.
The UN-appointed “government of national unity,” which was never elected by anyone and had to be shipped into the country by boat because the Tripoli authorities wouldn’t let their plane land.
While the ostensible reason for the US air strikes is the elimination of ISIS from the country, there is no escaping the “nation-building” aspect of Washington’s mission. For the logic of the mission means ISIS must be replaced with something, and that something is bound to be the UN-approved “government.” Yet this is likely to provoke further conflict, as the Islamists in Tripoli and the followers of Gen. Hiftar in the east are not likely to be pushed aside so easily.
The divisions that ensure a future of perpetual conflict are rooted in the history of a country that isn’t really a country at all.
The fiction that is the nation-state of “Libya” was only maintained by the brute force of Ghaddafi’s military: when that was defeated and dissolved, the “Libyans” rallied around what have always been their authentic allegiances: tribe and faith. Indeed, “Libya” has only existed since the end of World War II, when the UN moved in and forcibly joined together three regions that had no common history or culture: Tripolitania in the west, Cyrenaica in the east, and the southern Fezzan area, a desert mostly inhabited by Tuareg and Tebu tribes. The UN was merely replicating the plan carried out by Mussolini, and his Italian predecessors, who colonized the region and sought to abolish tribal boundaries. When King Idris I, installed by the UN, protested that he didn’t want to rule over Tripolitania, and preferred to extend his domain only over Cyrenaica, he was ignored. With the fall of Ghaddafi, the country has reverted to its natural state–and now, once again, the UN is coming in the “fix” the ‘problem.”
The age-old scam of governments creating problems that they then use as an excuse to increase their powers so they can “solve” them is on full display in Libya–and Syria, and Iraq. All these countries had secular governments where not a trace of Islamist radicalism could be found. Their “liberation” by the Western powers, who launched regime change operations in the name of “democracy,” gave rise to ISIS–and created the rationale for yet more destructive intervention.
All three disasters can be properly laid at Hillary Clinton’s doorstep, but GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump is no rational alternative. While rightly averring that Western meddling created the Libyan miasma in the first place, he wrongly says “We have no choice” but to intervene once again. This is arrant nonsense: we are sliding down a slippery slope in Libya, and soon will be faced with the problem of how to prevent ISIS from popping up once again. Trump says he’s against “nation-building” but you can’t just drop bombs and then fly away–once you intervene, then you own the country, like it or not.
Do we want to own Libya?
Here Trump is faced with the inevitable contradiction at the heart of his foreign policy views: he wants to appear “tough” without getting his hands dirty. This marriage of rhetorical bellicosity and instinctual anti-interventionism can only end in divorce. Instincts aren’t enough: what’s required are principles–a concept entirely alien to Trump.
Hillary, on the other hand, does have principles–the wrong ones. She’s a liberal internationalist and serial regime-changer who, once in power, will take us into conflicts ranging from North Africa to Eastern Europe and into the steppes of Central Asia. Trump may stumble into trouble–she’ll take us there by the express route.
The only candidates for President who want us to stay out of Libya are the Green Party’s Jill Stein and the Libertarian nominee, Gary Johnson. But since neither of them are going to wind up in the White House, it’s certain we’ll be sinking into the Libyan quagmire no matter which major party wins in November.
This is a recipe for disaster. As the Russians continue to pound ISIS in Syria with air strikes, and the government of Bashar al-Assad makes gains on the battlefield, the international jihadist movement will increasingly transfer its attention to Libya, where they have a real chance of establishing a “caliphate” in alliance with the very forces Mrs. Clinton enabled by overthrowing Ghaddafi. When she visited Libya to celebrate her “victory,” she infamously declared: “We came, we saw, he died”–and, with those words, sealed the fate of a nation.
We can follow the Islamists around the globe, playing whack-a-mole unto eternity: our interventions only make them stronger, and us weaker. This is what Osama bin Laden gleefully predicted when he said:
“All that we have mentioned has made it easy for us to provoke and bait this administration. All that we have to do is to send two mujahidin to the furthest point east to raise a piece of cloth on which is written al-Qaida, in order to make the generals race there to cause America to suffer human, economic, and political losses without their achieving for it anything of note other than some benefits for their private companies. All Praise is due to Allah. So we are continuing this policy in bleeding America to the point of bankruptcy.”
Terrorism is like scabies–the more you scratch it, the more it spreads. We are seeing this truism play out as terrorist attacks are now becoming a weekly occurrence in Europe. How long before the same condition afflicts us in North America?
When we invaded Iraq we opened Pandora’s box–as I warned so long ago. Now the same people who brought us that disaster have the nerve to counsel patience when the demons they unleashed are harrying us at every turn.
As the playwright Tennessee Williams put it in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof:
“There’s nothing more powerful than the odor of mendacity.”
Thursday, August 4, 2016
Have You Got the Whole Story?
Mike was previously on the staff of Christ Church Clifton, Bristol, UK, & has now been with Emmanuel, a church plant from Christ Church
Whenever I am asked to give a series of apologetic talks I try & make it clear to those who have invited me that I am not coming just to win an argument about the reliability of the Bible or merely to leave people with the impression that the reality of suffering need not rule out the philosophical possibility of there being a God.
The Rationale Behind 'Have You Got the Whole Story?'
I don't want people to walk away with the idea that theism is a plausible hypothesis; I want to confront people with the Christ who is Lord of the Universe. If people are going to feel the full force of His claim on their lives then they will need to see how he fits within the unfolding story of salvation from creation to new creation. It is as simple as that. They won't know how to make sense of the details of claims of Christ until we set those claims within the context of the unfolding story of the Bible. Because of this my habit has been to start any series of apologetic type talks with this overview of the Bible.
I do it with the following aims:
I want the Lord's revelation of Himself to set the agenda for the discussion. We may well have move on to issues such as the reliability of the Bible, suffering & pluralism, but if you start with God's agenda I have found people ask their questions in the light of what the Bible actually says rather than in the light of some documentary that they once saw on channel 4.
I don't want people to walk away with the idea that theism is a plausible hypothesis; I want to confront people with the Christ who is Lord of the Universe.
I want the first talk to set the context for the subsequent talks. So when we move on to, say, the problem of suffering or the uniqueness of Christ I want to be able to show people how to make sense of those things within the Bible's unfolding story. So, for example, when we talk about suffering, go from creation to new creation via the cross in a way that sets the problem of suffering firmly within the plan of salvation & underlines the coherence of the Christian world-view; when we talk about the uniqueness of Christ, show how it is the unfolding story of the Bible that painted the early church into a corner when it came to their convictions about who Jesus is.
I want to show people that the worldview of the Bible is coherent & that it does in fact make sense of the world. It is easy to get sucked into the sort of apologetics that assumes we just have to win the intellectual battle & so spend all our time 'clearing away the intellectual barriers that prevent people from approaching the Gospel' without ever getting round to proclaiming the Gospel itself. It is the Gospel that is compelling & which melts hearts & transforms minds, so this talk is an attempt to usher people through the 'intellectual barriers' & show them the view from the other side – to show them what the world looks like when you look at it through the lens of the Gospel. It does, of course, give rise to questions & objections, but it means that when we revisit the 'intellectual barriers' people know what is at stake &, we pray, the power of the Gospel is at work in them because they have, at least seen the view.
I want to show people that we are not talking about a bit of private spirituality that can be slotted into your existing worldview, but that when we are talking about the claims of Christ we are talking about the one by whom & for whom all things were made. Calling people to turn to Christ means calling people to turn from their old worldview & to embrace a whole new one that has Christ at its centre. Doing apologetics in a 'biblical theological' sort of a way, means we are constantly talking to people on the level of total world view & not giving them a handful of spiritual fragments to make of which what they will.
Doing apologetics in a 'biblical theological' sort of way means we are underlying the fact that our God is the God of history who has stepped into history & is taking history to its climax. He is not the result of philosophical speculation – which is the impression that some apologetics can leave you with.
So, with this as the background, here's my talk:
Have You Got the Whole Story?
Out of a plastic Sainsbury's bag I pour the 1,000 pieces of a 1,000-piece jig-saw puzzle onto your kitchen table. Then I challenge you to complete the puzzle before bedtime. If you are going to pull it off, what will you need? A good light to see by? A mug of coffee & a plate of chocolate digestive biscuits? Some background music? Yes, all those things. But most of all you will need the picture on the box. If I don't give you the picture on the box you are stuffed before you have even started because when you pick up a light blue piece how will you know whether it is sky or sea? But if I give you the box & on it there is a picture of a summer meadow, then its odds on that the piece is probably sky. So you stick it up somewhere near the top & press on. The big picture on the box is what makes it possible to fit together all the little pieces.
And it's like that with all the different pieces of our lives. If I am to arrange them into a pattern that makes some sort of sense, I need a big picture. Without a big picture I won't know where to put the piece that looks a bit like it might be my career because I won't see how it connects with the piece over there that looks a bit like it might be my relationships with friends & family. And I won't know what to do with the piece that looks like death, because I haven't really found a place for the piece that looks like life. Without a picture on the box to work from all I have in front of me is a pile of unconnected pieces. And the trouble with unconnected bits of jig-saw is that it's not easy to tell what they really are. Is it sea or is it sky?
Not so long ago there was a girl at an American High school who'd gotten pregnant. She had the baby. Then she killed the baby & threw the body onto a rubbish tip before setting off to the school prom. When she was arrested she didn't seem to understand what she'd done wrong. All the commentators were shocked & wondered how such a thing could possibly have happened. One lone voice put his finger on exactly how. "We have brought her up to believe that life is disposable", he said. The picture on the box that we have given her to work from is one in which we are products of time, chance & chemical reactions, whose purpose in life is to er... go shopping. So it is no surprise that a young girl arranges an unwanted baby into the scheme of things by throwing it away. She has no reason to think that life is precious, no reason to see a baby as anything other than a disposable product.
The trouble is, although this is the picture we have been working from all our lives there are some pieces we just can't find a place for. It's as though the box I give you has an alpine scene on it & in amongst the pieces you've found one that has definitely got a picture of a palm tree on it. And you can't even begin to see where it fits. In your life there is a piece of the jig-saw that loves your wife; that feels that what you are doing together is not just propagating DNA. You've got pieces that laugh, that make you cry, that marvel at the stars, that blush, that write poems. You've got a whole hatful of pieces that make you feel you mean something. But in the light of the picture on the box that we have grown up with, of a universe that is coughed up by chance & ultimately meaningless, it is very hard to see how any of those pieces fit in.
So we have a go at redrawing the picture on the box, to try & account for some of these anomalies. But we don't do a very good job. We can't, because when it comes to looking at the big picture of life & the universe, I'm too small. I can't see the whole picture. I am looking at the universe through the keyhole of my life. And the narrow glimpse you get through the keyhole can be very misleading. You think she's about to kiss him & I think she's helping him with his contact lens. Which is it? Looking through the key-hole, it is hard to tell.
I can't see the whole picture. I am looking at the universe through the keyhole of my life.
So what are we to do? It turns out we live in the light of a framework, but the framework is one we have put together in the light of how we live. There is an awkward circularity about things.
The million dollar question is, "Is there anyone who could break the circle? Is there anyone who isn't looking at the universe through a keyhole, anyone who is big enough to see everything that is going on?"
The Christian claim is that God is the one person big enough to see everything that is going on, & that in the Bible He has given us the picture on the box that really does make sense of all the pieces of our lives.
God Made Us for Himself
For a start we are not left to conjure up meaning for ourselves. The Bible begins with God. He gives the whole universe its meaning. And what we discover is that we are no accident. God created us & he gives us a purpose in life. And that purpose is not to go shopping for ourselves, but to live for Him. He created us to enjoy His love for us & He calls us to grow in our relationship with Him by living in line with what He says: loving the things He loves, hating the things He hates, so that in the way we treat one another we reflect His character.
Of course we hate this already. It sounds like this is all about giving up all the things that make being human such an adventure; it sounds like this is all about being tied up in God's 'thou shalt knots'. But when there's a creator on the box who has created human beings to live for him, those who are most fully human are those who live most flat-out for Him. Living for Him is not shackles, it is freedom. And it is fun. Life with the one Who made the stars & dragonflies is not long-faced & 'bible black'. The body is not a prison from which to escape. He made our bodies for us to enjoy. So he didn't give us fuel to stick in our sides, he gave us food to taste: he gave us pineapples, grilled sea bass, potato salad, chocolate fudge cake & raspberries.
The Bible says God looked at what He made & called it "very good".
"Hold on", you say, "if the picture on the box is so good, what about all the ugly pieces of the jigsaw that lie scattered across the face of the earth? What about the massacre, the war, the disease? What about the tsunamis, the earthquakes? What about what she said to me, what he did to me, that really hurt? Where do those pieces fit into Paradise?"
We Walked Out on God
When it comes to arranging those pieces I need to do it in light of something else that is on the box. Life with God was good but we walked out on God. We said something like, "God, we don't want to live in the light of Your stupid picture on Your stupid box." And so, in the name of freedom, we have messed around with the pieces. We have broken them, scratched off the paint, & tried to put them together to make something they were never meant to make. Whereas what God made was very good, what we have made is not good. In fact this twisting of God's goodness is what we call evil. And the whole of creation has been caught up in it. Think of it like this. Scissors are great tools for making things with. You can have a lot of fun cutting out chains of paper men & snowflakes with them. But if you put scissors in the hands of a small child, they will need supervision. Without it, things get dangerous. On a cosmic scale, let us loose in creation without a relationship with God, & things get dangerous for us.
The harmony between God & man, man & man & man & nature is destroyed. A world that has walked out on God will always end up as a war zone. This is because the picture on the box shows us that God was meant to be in the centre of our lives. The pieces were designed to fit together for God's good purposes for His whole world. Now what has happened is that each of us has put ourselves at the centre of the picture, & rather than living for God's good purposes for his world, each of us is trying to slide the pieces around in order to pull off our self-serving schemes.
I am trying to rearrange the pieces so that I get to the top. I am not particularly sensitive to the needs of the rain forests or the poor or the fact that one child dies every 6 seconds of a preventable disease. I am not particularly sensitive to your needs, because I am looking out for myself. But things get ugly because just as I am looking out for me, you are looking after you. In my version I get to the top, in your version you do. So what do we do? Whose version do we run with? So we fight for it. Not just with bombs over Baghdad, but with words over the washing-up. Each of us trying to prop up our version how we think things should be.
The post-modern take on language as power play is just a fancy French way of talking about what humankind has been doing for centuries. It is what happens when we say to God, "God, we don't want to live in the light of Your stupid picture."
The pain & brutality of our world doesn't catch the Bible unawares. If you're working from the picture on the box that the Enlightenment paints, & you're running with the idea that humankind is on the up-&-up, it leaves you struggling to know what to do with the pieces of unparalleled violence that have littered the 20th century. But the picture that the Bible gives makes sense of the ugly pieces of jigsaw that we see strewn around. It shows us that we are not on the up-&-up. Something in our world has gone badly wrong. This doesn't mean that the picture on box paints a low view of humanity. Far from it. As human beings created by God we are noble creatures. But we use our nobility badly. We use it in a ways for which it was never intended.
A World Cut Off from the God of Life
So what does God do? His Paradise is a place of peace, not for warmongers. So Adam & Eve are thrown out of the Garden. They are thrown out of life with God & into what the Bible describes as death. Oh their arms & legs were still moving, but spiritually they're dead because they are cut off from the God of life.
The sobering picture on the box is that you & I are all born east of Eden. We are all born into a world in which our arms & legs are moving, but we are spiritually dead. So if you're reading the Bible, you are only in chap.3 & you are faced with the most important question you could ever ask. How do we get back to the reason we are on this planet? How does humankind get back to life with God?
And all my attempts to try & smooth out my life by changing jobs or changing boyfriends or changing hairstyles, or joining a gym, or travelling round the world are like a man with AIDS trying to cure himself by putting sticking plasters on the sores. Those sores are just the symptoms of something far deeper that needs to be cured. And the sores in my life speak of a deep-rooted problem. One that needs a profound cure. I need to be restored to life with the God who made me.
God's Promise of Life
When God expels Adam & Eve from the Garden, He also makes a Promise. He promises that someone descended from this woman will come to put things right & restore us to life with God again. And the story of the Bible turns out to be the story of God keeping that Promise.
So God takes a man called Abraham & promises that he is going to have more descendants than there are stars & that through his descendants He is going to bless the whole world by leading everyone back to life with God again. It has to be said that this all sounds a little unlikely. Abraham & his wife Sarah are childless pensioners. So when Sarah hears God's Promise, she just laughs. This has got to be a joke. But the God of the Bible is the Creator. He spoke & the stars slotted into place. When He says something will happen, it will happen – however impossible it looks to us.
So it's not long before Abraham & Sarah have Isaac; Isaac has Jacob; Jacob has Joseph & gives him his Technicolor dream coat. The story of Joseph is like one of those bad news / good news stories.
Joseph's brothers are jealous of him, so they sell him to a bunch of slave traders (bad news). It turns out alright though because Joseph ends up as chief slave in one of the most important households in Egypt (good news). But his master's wife frames him because he wouldn't sleep with her. So Joseph ends up in prison (bad news). But even this turns out alright because in prison Joseph meets Pharaoh's cup bearer. He mentions Joseph to Pharaoh; Joseph gets a hearing & ends up PM (good news).
But meanwhile, back in Canaan, there is famine. And this is very bad news. How were all the descendants of Abraham going to bless the whole world? It looks like they were going to get wiped off face of the earth. But there is grain in Egypt. So the brothers go cap in hand & who should be in charge of dishing out the grain? Joseph! (They don't know whether that's good news or bad.) When they recognise one another, there is a slightly awkward moment, but Joseph clears the air by saying: "What you intended for evil, God intended for good."
In others words we are being shown that through the mess of human dealings, God is working out His plan to keep His Promise. All human history is in His hands. Your life is not spinning out of control. Even through the hard times, God is working out His plan.
So the descendants of Abraham are kept safe (good news) & they all pile down to Egypt.
After a while there are so many of them (good news) that the locals get jumpy & turn them into slaves (bad news). And so God's people are left wondering whatever happened to God's Promise to restore all things? Making mud brick for the Egyptians was nobody's idea of paradise.
The God who Delivers
But God hasn't forgotten His Promise. And so He calls Moses. And we wonder, is Moses, at last the one who'll lead the whole world back into Paradise? God says that through Moses He is going to set His people free from slavery in Egypt. And here's how: He warns that He is going to come in judgement one night & strike down the first born in every household in Egypt. This was to be a graphic demonstration that to walk out on the God of life will always lead to death. "But", God said, "if you take a lamb, kill it & smear it's blood on the doorpost, then when I come in judgement I'll see the blood & pass over your house."
You can imagine the first born of the house just before bed-time:
"Dad, did you kill the lamb?"
"Yes. Now off you go up to bed."
"But dad, did you smear the blood on the door?"
"Yes..."
"And it's CLEARLY visible?"
That night there was a death in every house. Those with no blood on the door suffered the death of the first born. Those who had taken God at His word, so who had smeared the blood on the door, God passed over. But there had been a death. The death of a lamb. In the morning the first born would have been acutely aware that he had been kept safe by the blood of the lamb.
The next day Pharaoh had had enough. He lets the Israelites go. The Lord leads them through the Red Sea & they're free. But not free just to wander round the desert & do what they like. They have been restored to the reason they were created, they have been set free to start a new life with God.
God declares to them, "I have carried you on eagles' wings & brought you to Myself." In other words, He's telling them that He has saved them for a relationship with Him. Then He promises that He's going to take them to a new land, the one promised to Abraham, & that when they settle there it will be a kind of paradise.
This rescue from Egypt provides the backdrop to what God promises to do in the future. The Bibles sees God's people in Egypt as a picture of the state of all humankind. We like to think we're free, & we fear that God is going to come along & tie us up in chains. No, it is when we walk out on God that we end up in chains. We say things we wish we'd never said, do things we wish we could stop doing. But we can't. And that's because we are not free. Free means free to worship God as we were made to, to be His royal servants, & enjoy life with Him in all its fullness. As it is, we are like the Israelites in Egypt: slaves who face the prospect of death. So again the question we are forced to chew on is, "How can we be set free from slavery & be restored to the relationship with God that we were made for? How can we get back to life with God?"
In answer to that, the prophets go on to say that God is going to do a second Exodus. It will be bigger than the first. He won't just lead the Israelites out of Egypt; He will lead all people of all nations out of the slavery they find themselves in.
Meanwhile, God is leading the Israelites to the Promised Land, & on the way He gives them a whole bunch of laws. It is very important we get the order right here. Most people think that the deal with God is that He says, "Here are My laws & if you keep them, then that'll qualify you for life with Me."
No. If that was the way round, they'd still be in Egypt making mud bricks. God doesn't rescue them as a reward for their good behaviour. He rescues them just because He is the sort of God who keeps His Promises & will never walk out on his people. Then, once He has rescued them, He says, "Now, in the land we're going to I want you to live in a way that reflects My character. So don't lie, because I am a God of truth. Don't steal, because I am generous. Don't commit adultery, because I am faithful."
This means that very early in the story we see that the way that 'walking dead' people get back to life with God is not by pulling up their socks & gritting their teeth & resolving to turn over a new leaf & try harder to be better people. It is by God rescuing us...
Once that is firmly in place in the picture on the box it makes a big difference to how I arrange the pieces of my life. It means I am not collecting up all the good things I have done, hoping they will impress God at end of the day. It means I am not pointing a judgmental finger at you, thinking, "Well I am better than he is, that must put me in the top third. If God doesn't take me, who is He going to take?" I am not looking with smug satisfaction at my own achievements, it means I am humbly looking for God to come & rescue me.
And you ask, "But I wasn't in Egypt, where is the lifeline He has thrown me? Where is the lamb, whose blood means the Lord will pass-over me?" And it is to this Lamb that the rest of the story leads.
The Kingdom of God
Back in the Ancient Near East, the Israelites get to the land. And eventually get a King David. Is this the one? Is this the one who will finally destroy evil & set up paradise? For a while things look promising. David is a good King. But then the wheels of his reign fall off as he fools around with murder & adultery. But while everyone else is breaking all their promises, God goes on making them. He promises that a descendant of David, a king in David's line, will in fact be the one the world is waiting for.
Under David's son Solomon, we get a high point of the Old Testament. God's people are living with God & the writers says it is like Eden all over again. It's wonderful.
One day this extremely rich woman with a lot of camels & jewellery shows up & starts sniffing around the Kingdom. Solomon confronts her, "Who do you think you are, the Queen of Sheba?" Turns out she really was. She had heard about how wonderful life in God's kingdom was like, so she had come to look around. And she goes home saying, "I was never told the half of it." Life with God was way better than she had expected.
And so, we wonder, is this it? The nations of the wider world are being blessed by Abraham's descendants who are living in a kind of paradise. Have we got to the end of God's story?
No, because in the temple they are still sacrificing animals. Which sounds pretty primitive to us.
What's with the sacrifices? God is teaching His people that their sin is still a problem. They still need their guilt removed from them & their consciences cleansed. And the killing of a young bull (for example) is a picture of how He does that.
The priest looks at the people & says, "God says that your sin means you deserve death." Then he lays his hands on the bull & says to the people, "But in His kindness, God says, ‘let your sin be transferred onto this bull.'" And then the bull is killed & the priest declares that the people are forgiven. The bull has died to pay for their sin.
God gave His people a system of sacrifices that needed to be made again & again, to remind them that they don't have a cast iron right to enjoy life in His presence. God still has some cleaning up of their hearts to do.
And as if to demonstrate what they were like, what did they do? The same as you & I do. They walk out on God. It is like Adam & Eve all over again. They want to do their own thing. They don't want to live for God any more. They want to be like other nations. As Adam & Eve were expelled from the Garden, the Israelites are expelled from the land & end up in Babylon. Once again they become slaves. It's all horribly familiar.
Again & again we see from the picture on the box that God will not smile at sin. God will hand them over to the consequences of their rebellion. People who want nothing to do with Him will get their own way. They will have nothing to do with Him. They will be shut out of life with Him.
At first we shrink from the fact that that is on the box. We don't want a God Who judges. But when we think about it for a while we realise it is very good news for our universe because suddenly what I do is charged with meaning. Imagine a universe whose final verdict on our lives was, "Do what you want, see if I care." This is a God Who cares. He says that in His universe evil will not have the last word. He says that in the end He will put right all that is wrong.
So when it comes to the way I treat my little brother, the damage I do with my sharp tongue or the way I use my girlfriend, I can't just shrug it off. The picture on the box tells me that I am accountable for what I do. Which means that what I do matters; which means that ultimately I matter.
God Promises his Servant
Meanwhile, by the rivers of Babylon, the Israelites are not happy. In fact they "sat down & wept when they remembered Zion." They couldn't understand how God could have let this happen to them. Perhaps He has been bluffing. Perhaps He's powerless against the Babylonian gods. Perhaps He's not the one true God.
But into their doubts & fears God says that this exile will not last forever. He says, "When I end it, then you'll see I am God."
He says he's going to send His servant. And this servant of His will do the sort of things that only God can do. He will once & for all rescue all people from their exile from the God of life. He will pull off the great Exodus & lead all people home, back to the God Who made them.
What puzzled them was the way God says this servant was going to go about His task. The prophet Isaiah says He's going to suffer & be led like a lamb to the slaughter, & the "Lord will lay on Him the punishment for all our sins."
Well, sure enough, after 70 years, the King of Persia conquers Babylon & says the Israelites can all go home. They trickle back to Jerusalem & they wonder, "Is this it? Is this God's final rescue?" But the old folks burst into tears. Of course this isn't it. This isn't the paradise restored that that was promised. This isn't even as good as it was before.
So the prophets start to explain. Yes, physically we're back in Jerusalem. But spiritually we're still a long way from Home. And so, at the end of the Old Testament, the people of God are left still waiting for God to keep His Promise to come & put things right. So they wait. And they wait.
The Coming of the King
For nearly 400 years nothing. Then a bloke called John in a camel hair jacket & an eccentric line in snacks, stands up in the desert & cries out, "You know how God was going to send His servant to end the exile? Well get ready! Get ready for the one we have been waiting for, for the one Whose sandals I am not worthy to untie." At last, God is coming to our rescue. They are all agog. And then up steps this carpenter's son from Nazareth. And it has to be said, it was a big letdown.
But this Jesus stands up in the synagogue & reads out a bit from the prophet Isaiah, where God is saying that one day He'll come & end the exile & set people free, & restore things to how they were meant to be.
And Jesus rolls up the scroll & calm as you like says, "Today that Promise is fulfilled." And they are outraged. Who does He think He is? Restoring all things was something that God was going to come & do.
So Jesus heals the sick; with a word he calms a storm; feeds 5,000 people with a small boy's packed lunch; raises a dead man to life. And His disciples are wondering, "Who is this guy?"
People often ask, "Why doesn't God come & make Himself known?" The claim of the New Testament is that He has.
And all along Jesus is saying to them, "Does what I've been doing ring any bells? Who do you know Who's got power over the sea, Who famously fed people in the desert, Who has got the sort of power to bring the dead to life?" Then one day He says it straight out. The disciples say, "Show us the Father." And Jesus replies, "Don't you get it. If you have seen Me, you have seen the Father."
People often ask, "Why doesn't God come & make Himself known?" The claim of the New Testament is that He has. If you had been there 2,000 years ago you could have seen God, walking the streets of Palestine. You could have touched Him. You could have kissed His face.
The King on the Cross
So, the Son of God heads off to Jerusalem & the disciples say, "Don't go! They'll kill you." And He says, "Yes, that's exactly why I have come. I have come to die." He explains that He has come to give His life as a ransom payment. That is how He is going to set us free from the slavery we are in.
The crucifixion of Jesus is a bit like the story of Joseph. From a distance it looks like events in the life of Jesus have spun out of control, & that a promising career is brutally cut down in its prime. But it turns out that when we are doing our very worst, God is achieving His very best. Even through the ugliest moments in human history He is working out His good purposes. And it doesn't get any uglier than the cross.
Do you remember what Jesus cries out from the cross? "My God, my God why have You forsaken Me?"
The picture on the box has made it plain that God-forsakenness is for those who have walked out on God. Why is the one innocent person in the history of the universe being God-forsaken?
Look at the cross through the lens of our own culture & there is no way we'll ever get it. But look at it in the light of the unfolding story & you see how it is the climax of God's plan to rescue humanity.
Think of the Passover. The blood of the lamb saved them from God's judgement. Think of the sacrifices in the temple. The animal died in place of the people, so their sins could be forgiven. Think of the servant Who was going to come & die like a lamb, bearing on His shoulders the guilt of the world. And then you begin to get the Cross.
By His death we have been saved from God's judgement & set free from slavery. It's by His death that Jesus has pulled off the great Exodus. It's by His death that God calls us Home.
A lot of people I talk to think that there might be a God. But can't see why He is worth bothering with. As far as they can tell, if He is there at all He sits up there in the safety of His Heaven, paring His fingernails, looking down on us with indifference. If He cared, you'd think He'd do something. If He wanted us to bother with Him, you'd think He'd bother with us.
Look at the cross & there's where you see that the God of the Bible has bothered with us. He has rolled up His sleeves & got His hands dirty to pull off His plan to rescue us. It is a plan which meant, at its climax, sending the son He loved to take on His Own shoulders the consequences of the mess we made when we walked out on Him. And He did it all so that we could be set free from being walking dead men & women & enter into life with Him, life in all its fullness.
The picture on the box is very different from that one that the people who make religious programmes on the TV think. They think religion is about humanity's search for God as though God is playing hard to get. But in the Bible there's no parable of the lost shepherd who is tracked down by the conscientious sheep. The Bible paints a picture of how we like sheep have got ourselves desperately lost. We've wound up a long way from Him, a long way from Home. And in His love He has come looking for us. And it cost him everything. He is the good shepherd Who lays down His life for us sheep.
The King of the New Creation
Meanwhile, the disciples don't get it. The had dared to hope that Jesus was the Messiah sent by God to crush evil once & for all & restore things to how they were meant to be. But the Messiah was going to have power over life & death – not end up murdered. Messiah was going to be installed as the Judge of the universe – not end up condemned in a kangaroo court. All that was left for them to do was to go back to their fishing.
On the Sunday some of them go to visit the tomb. And His body has gone.
Meanwhile a couple of the heart-broken disciples are making their way to Emmaus, & they meet a fellow-traveller on the road who challenges them. "If only you'd understood the Scriptures, then you wouldn't be so baffled by the Messiah's death." So beginning with Genesis he tells them the whole story of the Bible. And then they realize that the fellow-traveller is Jesus. He is alive. The empty tomb; the appearances of Jesus to His followers & the story that the Bible told of God's eternal plan all came together to convince the first Christians that Jesus had been raised from the dead. And that changes everything.
For a start it means that death is not the last word. The Jews were expecting a day of resurrection when all people would be raised up & justice would be done. On that day God would deal with all that is wrong & begin to make all things new. Jesus' resurrection is like the first fruits of the harvest. It shows that there is more to come. It shows that just as Jesus has been raised, so one day we will all be raised & God will indeed deal with all that is wrong & puts all things right. The resurrection shows that one day God will make the whole world new.
The Jews were not just looking forward to that day, but looking out for the one who would be at the centre of that day. The expectation was that at the heart of that day there would be someone to whom God would give all authority to execute justice, someone who would have the power to deal with all that is wrong & put all things right. Well, the very first sermon that the early Christians preached, just a few weeks after Jesus' death & resurrection was, "Jesus is Lord." In other words His resurrection shows that He is the one appointed by God to have all authority over God's new Creation.
If that's on the box, I have got to rearrange the pieces of my life fast. The piece that I thought showed He was just a good teacher made Jesus very easy to ignore. It turns out He's the one Who holds my eternal destiny in His hands. The big picture shows me that I cannot afford to ignore Him.
Way back in Genesis, God promised to bless the world through a descendant of Abraham. It turns out that Jesus is that descendant. It is through Him that all people of all nations are called back into the blessing of life with God.
Paul reflects on it all by talking about how Adam was the head of the human race. But Adam messed up & led us all out of Paradise into exile. Christ comes as the second Adam, a new start, a new head of the human race. And He leads us out of exile back into Paradise.
Left to our own devices we find ourselves East of Eden, tied to Adam, following in his path away from God. A Christian is someone who recognizes that they were once tied to Adam. But now they are tied to Christ. Through Him we have been restored to what it means to be human, because He has led us back to life with God. True to what was promised in the Old Testament, He gives us His Spirit to start to make us new on the inside so that we begin to love the things that He loves, hate the things that He hates & treat one another in a way that reflects His character.
This relationship with God is one that starts now, but looks forward to the day when we enjoy life with God in a world made new forever. And that world made new is not the 'after-life' like some after-thought. It is the main event. It is where God's rescue plan has been heading. And the new creation is not a fluffy world of clouds & angels in nightshirts. This present world is the flimsy world where things rot & rust & fade & die. The world to come is the world of solid joys & lasting pleasures. God says that when He makes all things new, we will be with Him, & He will be with us & He will "wipe every tear from our eyes & there will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order will have passed away."
If the prospect of a new creation is on the picture on the box, you'll rearrange the pieces of your life in a totally different way. It sets you free from living for yourself. It sets you free to live for others. When all that the future holds is 80 years & then you rot, you are driven to see everything, try everything & have everything this world has to offer. And anyone who gets in your way is liable to get trampled on. But if you end up a bachelor in a bed-sit in Balham, & take your holidays in Bognor, if you are tied to Christ & have given your life to serving Him & reflecting His ways in the way you treat others, then you haven't missed out. The best is yet to be.
In the end, the picture on the box that tells the story of the universe is a picture of a person – Jesus Christ. He says, "I have come that they may have life, & have it to the full." He is not promising an easy life where all your troubles pack up & go & you pass all your exams & you never get ill. He is claiming to be the One makes sense of life & the One Who is the source of life as it is meant to be, because He is the One Who has come to restore us to the reason we are on this planet: He has come to give us life in a relationship with the God Who made us, life that starts now & lasts forever.
The Bible: a book of Prophecy
I was listening to a lecture by Bill Salus entitled The Future of America in Bible Prophecy.[1] Bill is a famous American author, radio host and lecturer on Bible prophecy. He starts off his lecture by quoting Isaiah,
Remember the former things of old: for I am God, and there is none else; I am God, and there is none like me, declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times the things that are not yet done, saying, My counsel shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure.[2]
Can we know the future? God’s Word says that we can, because God can reveal it. The prophet Amos said,
Surely the Lord God will do nothing but he reveals his secret to his servants the prophets.[3]
Here, Amos is making a conditional statement. God is going to reveal His secrets, not unto everyone, but unto His servants the prophets. The prophets were chosen of God, because of their love and obedience to Him. They were tested by God and had proved their faithfulness to Him. They desired to serve God, rather than man. They chose God over material things, over comfort and conformity. They preferred to live and die for the truth, than to live a life of compromise. Therefore, because of their dedication to God, to truth, to righteousness, God revealed His secrets to them.
The prophet’s job was to give the Word of God to the people, to follow God’s instructions in spite of opposition by family, friends or community. Many of them bemoaned their fate as God’s mouth-pieces, because they were ill received. In Chronicles we read,
And the Lord God of their fathers sent to them by his messengers, rising up betimes, and sending; because he had compassion on his people, and on his dwelling place: But they mocked the messengers of God, and despised his words, and misused his prophets, until the wrath of the Lord arose against his people, until there was no remedy.[4]
In this book, I am going to reveal to you what God has revealed to me, one of his servants. I am going to talk about where I believe America fits in Bible prophecy. It will be an interesting study. I hope you will enjoy it. But first I must share a little about who I am and what qualifies me as one of God’s servants. In these first chapters of the book I will share my story and I will let you judge from there. May God bless us as we study His Word together.
Notes:
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GKOKqCk5vuo (accessed 03/16)
[2] Isaiah 48:9-10
[3] Amos 3:7
[4] 2 Chronicles 36:15-16
How to Deal With the Negative Influences in Your Life
If you were to evaluate the major influences in your life that have shaped the kind of person you are, this has to be high on the list: the people and thoughts you choose to allow into your life. My mentor, Mr. Shoaff, gave me a very important warning in those early days that I’ll share with you. He said, “Never underestimate the power of influence.” Indeed, the influence of those around us is so powerful! Many times we don’t even realize we’re being strongly affected because influences generally develop over an extended period of time.
Peer pressure is an especially powerful force because it is so subtle. If you’re around people who spend all they make, chances are excellent you might spend all you make. If you are around people who don’t read, chances are excellent that you probably won’t read. People can keep nudging us off course a little at a time until, finally, we find ourselves asking, How did I get here? Those subtle influences need to be studied carefully if we really want our lives to turn out the way we’ve planned.
With regard to this important point, let me give you three key questions to ask yourself. They might help you better analyze your current associations.
1. Who am I around? Make a mental note of the people with whom you most often associate. You’ve got to evaluate everyone who is able to influence you in any way.
2. What are these associations doing to me? That’s a major question to ask. What have they got me doing? What have they got me listening to? What have they got me reading? Where have they got me going? What do they have me thinking? How have they got me talking? How have they got me feeling? What have they got me saying? You’ve got to make a serious study of how others influence you, both negatively and positively.
3. Is that OK? Maybe everyone you associate with has been a positive, energizing influence. Then again, maybe there are some bad apples in the bunch. All I’m suggesting here is that you take a close and objective look. Everything is worth a second look, especially when it comes to the power of influence. Both will take you somewhere, but only one will take you in the direction you need to go.
It’s easy to just dismiss the things that influence our lives. One man says, “I live here, but I don’t think it matters. I’m around these people, but I don’t think it hurts.” I would take another look at that. Remember, everything matters! Sure, some things matter more than others, but everything amounts to something. You’ve got to keep checking to find out whether your associations are tipping the scales toward the positive or toward the negative. Ignorance is never the best policy. Finding out is the best policy.
It’s easy to let influence shape our lives, to let associations determine our direction, to let pressures overwhelm us and to let tides take us. The big question is: Are we letting ourselves become what we wish to become?
Here are three ways to handle associations or relationships that might be holding you back.
1. Disassociate. This is not an easy decision, nor something you should take lightly, but in some cases it might be essential. You might just have to make the hard choice not to let certain negative influences affect you anymore. It could be a choice that preserves the quality of your life.
2. Limit the association. Spend major time with major influences and minor time with minor influences. It is easy to do just the opposite, but don’t fall into that trap. Take a look at your priorities and your values. We have so little time at our disposal. Wouldn’t it make sense to invest it wisely?
3. Expand your associations. This is the one I suggest you focus on the most. Find other successful people you can spend more time with. Invite them to lunch (pick up the tab) and ask them how they have achieved so much or what makes them successful. Now, this is not just about financial success; it can be someone you want to learn from about having a better marriage, being a better parent, having better health or a stronger spiritual life.
It is called association on purpose: getting around the right people by expanding your circle of influence.
Here are a few final thoughts on associations and influence:
When you succeed, you will create and attract more success around you. Success breeds success, so when you succeed, even at just a level above where you are right now, you will see that the people you associate with will also start becoming more successful themselves (which will also increase the level of your own associations!). That is one of the exciting byproducts of success.
Initiate relationships with people who are further ahead in personal and professional development than you are.There are so many successful people around you who can help you in so many ways! And if they are successful, they are busy! So, chances are, they are not going to initiate anything with you, but they will more than likely be willing to meet with you or invest in you if you initiate contact with them. Of course, some won’t, but that’s OK; just move on until you find someone who will. Meet with them, buy them lunch or coffee. Let your association with them help you. Learn from them. Watch them. Let their experience guide you. But remember, you will have to pursue them, not the other way around.
Have people around who you can rely on to speak the truth to you. We need people who will tell us the truth. Even if it is negative, given with a heart of concern, truth will still build us up and move us forward. We don’t just want people around us who will tell us only the good or what we want to hear. Growing in our personal and professional lives means we need to look at the whole picture and deal with both strengths and weaknesses. We need a good balance of people around us who can help us see all sides of an issue.
Carefully determine what will influence you. I use the word carefully because many people do not care about what they allow to influence them or who they associate with. And yet this is one of the biggest ways our lives are shaped. We need to be full of care when we are looking at who or what we allow into our lives and thus to shape and mold our lives. Look for people and information that will build you up and give you the next step you need to move forward in your journey.
Boot camps for the mind? Pentagon aims to build super soldiers.
WASHINGTON–Before they take a perfect or near-perfect shot, expert sharpshooters make fine adjustments, often without realizing it. Their breathing slows. So does their heart rate.
They enter “a very focused, calm, engaged state–almost at will,” says Amy Kruse, chief technology officer at Cubic Global Defense, which designs combat-training systems.
The question for military researchers is whether novices can tap into this mental “zone” before hitting the firing range, dramatically accelerating their learning curve. That premise is part of an ongoing effort by the United States military to create its own brand of “super soldiers” who can shoot better, make life-or-death decisions more quickly and accurately, and even recover more effectively–even joyfully–from wounds of war.
To do all of this, the Pentagon is delving into the nexus of biology and technology, experimenting with skin tattoos and wearable devices the size of a small bandage.
While soldiers in an all-volunteer force tend to start their military careers with a fair amount of motivation, they hit plenty of roadblocks along the way.
In basic training, for example, heat exhaustion remains a mighty feller of recruits. Wearable devices can help pick up markers in sweat and monitor recruits, letting instructors know when they could, say, use some Gatorade.
Wearable devices are also being used to sense fatigue in highly-trained Special Operations Forces, who tend to be loath to admit when they are bone-tired.
“You’re putting a team of six people together. Is this person ready to go, or not?” asks Rajesh Naik, chief scientist at the 711th Human Performance Wing at the Air Force Research Laboratory at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio. “Maybe [an operator] just got back from another mission. They’ll never say, ‘No, we’re not ready to go.’”
Such devices, he adds, could help commanders make decisions about who to send on a mission, and who to keep back.
Since being a “super soldier” requires a high level of alertness, Defense officials also want wearable devices that can also help better tailor training exercises. This is perhaps most important when it comes to helping them make split-second decisions about using deadly force.
While at the Pentagon’s futuristic Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, Dr. Kruse and her team were able to show that there are considerable differences between novices and experts when it comes to accurately gauging whether someone is a threat.
Now at Cubic, Kruse can monitor how trainees breathe, where their eyes are looking, how they point their weapons, and what position they are in as they go through a video course.
“We can actually say … ‘Dude, you weren’t even looking at the right spot. The guy was yelling, and you were looking at his face, not his hands.’” Kruse says.
Researchers say they can also tell whether trainees are actually taking in what they’re seeing. “You can say, ‘Sweetheart, I looked at your brain activity, and you didn’t absorb any of that,’” Kruse says
It is helpful that people are more open to this sort of feedback than they might have been in the past, she adds.
“I think in general the whole population is more comfortable with data about themselves. Ten years ago, if you told someone you wanted to measure performance, they worried, ‘You’re just going to tell me I’m not fit for duty, or I can’t fly,’” Kruse says.
“Today, we’re looking at it from a very positive perspective. We train our bodies, and I think people are coming around to the idea that there’s a corollary in that cognitive–and even emotional–domain.”
Sometimes that feedback can show, too, that soldiers are overly and unhelpfully alert. After a year-long tour-of-duty, for example, “You’ve been overtrained to survive,” Kruse says. “You just spent your tour looking for threats everywhere. But now you’re back in your hometown.”
Other researchers are taking on questions that seldom crop up in the soldier lexicon, including whether recovery from injuries can be enjoyable, or even beautiful.
“Patients are just given these bleak, second-rate experiences all the time,” says John Krakauer, director of the Brain, Learning, Animation, and Movement (BLAM) Lab at Johns Hopkins University. “But why not have a wonderful time?”
So Krakauer’s team designed a video game that turns physical therapy into a game and transforms patients into dolphins. They spend two hours a day using a robotic exoskeleton attached to their arm or leg to move dolphin fins on-screen.
The key is making movement fun, even when it’s difficult, and the feedback has been overwhelming. “One of the things that took me by surprise as a clinician is how joyous and tearful and thankful patients were to be given this kind of experience,” Dr. Krakauer says.
Krakauer has begun to explore the connections between a physical therapist teaching an injured patient to move and a coach teaching an athlete to be a really good mover.
In sports, “we know that there’s something about being beautiful and immersive that is important, that has a whole tradition,” he says. In physical training, military or otherwise, “something, somewhere is going untapped.”
