Today, the Associated Press and the rest of the news world is reporting on the collision of hurricane season and the recent oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.  What kind of analogy can been drawn on to even begin to quantify what this means?

As oil-laden waves rush ashore, marine science technician Michael Malone says, “With this weather, we lost all the progress we made.”

To add insult to injury, the headlines read: “BP Oil Cleanup Did Not Consider Hurricanes”.

This is a monumental, collossal failure of proportions that our minds can’t quite get around.  Just as hurricanes are colliding with the oil spill, another frightful collision has become apparent, though of a different sort.  It is a collision that is at the root of this disaster and one that carries far worse consequences into the future.

It is a collision of indifference, overconfidence, greed and neglect.  A collision that typifies our current human condition.

We trust in experts and advisors who pretend to know what will happen or what can be done.  Like false prophets, they are paid to massage public opinion.  We see the news, read a blog and then parrot these assurances to one another.  But as this spill shows, in spite of his ingenuity man is severely limited and is not the ruler of the universe he imagines himself to be.

This was a man-made disaster, but as we head towards the end of this age, disasters, both natural and man-made, will be the order of the day.  We’re seeing this on an increased level in recent years.  But as the Bible (and history itself) teaches, the bearer of bad news is rarely popular, often ignored, caricatured or mocked.  Where does one go today to hear the clarion call, “Flee from the wrath to come!”

I fear it is out of vogue, unfashionable and distasteful to our sensibilities – even in the church.  It comes across as “shrill” and no one wants to be labeled a Dr. Doom.

What would you make of a recent news article like this?  From NASA no less:

Nasa warns solar flares from ‘huge space storm’ will cause devastation

I don’t advocate that we flip furiously through the news each day to see what prophesies are being fulfilled.  But, as the gospels tell us, as do the apostles, we are not to be ignorant of the time frame we are living in.   Paul had this hope for the church in Thessalonica:

“But you, brothers, are not in darkness so that this day should surprise you like a thief.” (1 Thess. 5:4)

The hope we have, as followers of Christ, is that we are not appointed to wrath.  In a world destined to unravel, along with the hopes of those who trust in material things, it is high time to awake from slumber and pay heed.

Was Peter shrill when he warned:

The heavens will disappear with a roar; the elements will be destroyed by fire, and the earth and everything in it will be laid bare. Since everything will be destroyed in this way, what kind of people ought you to be? You ought to live holy and godly lives as you look forward to the day of God and speed its coming. That day will bring about the destruction of the heavens by fire, and the elements will melt in the heat. But in keeping with his promise we are looking forward to a new heaven and a new earth, the home of righteousness.

The scriptures are full of warning, but it seems so imaginary and fable-like that this world and all its institutions may one day falter.  Looking out my office window right now, all appears so calm and enduring.  I’m sure this was the mindset of Lot’s sons-in-law as he urgently tried to get them to leave Sodom.  He was unto them as “one that mocked”.  Likewise in the days of Noah…  the people saw the Ark, but refused to listen to Noah’s message (he was regarded by the apostle Peter as a “preacher of righteousness” after all).  The Lord Jesus said, “they knew not”.  The knew mentally as they would come out to mock him each day, but their mental assent never generated a change in heart or mind.  The flood took them all away in destruction.  From the video I linked to here, the speaker makes a profound statement:

You can know something but “that knowledge never feeds back to change their behaviour.”

Could this be said of unbelievers as well as churchgoers?  Yes.

As believers we are not to ‘head to the hills’ or ‘bunker down’ but we are, at all times, to be vigilant and careful, ensuring our hopes are set on things eternal and not of this earth.  Let us not trust in man, the smooth words and assurances that “all is under control” from politicians and economists.  Our hope is in the Lord and the promise of eternal life.

Recently, I was in a discussion with a friend who recently listened to a well-known preacher’s take on the end of times.  I asked him what scriptures were used and he said that the message was premised on Matthew 24, specifically on these verses:

“Two men will be in the field; one will be taken and the other left. Two women will be grinding with a hand mill; one will be taken and the other left.” (v 40-41)

In virtually all Christian circles, these verses pin down the concept of the Rapture (though there are others that are often used as well).  In fact, there have been a whole series of fiction books written about the Rapture.  But, I highlighted the words ‘taken’ for a reason.

The reason?  In the above verses, those who are ‘taken’ are not taken up to heaven.  They are taken in death; destroyed.

Is that surprising?  Well, just look at the preceding verse, where the Lord speaks of Noah (v. 38-39):

“For in the days before the flood, people were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, up to the day Noah entered the ark; and they knew nothing about what would happen until the flood came and took them all away. That is how it will be at the coming of the Son of Man.”

Do you see that?  The word ‘took’ is used (past tense, since He was referring to Noah).  Then He elaborates in v 40-41 on the example of the men in the field and the women at the mill.  Noah was left behind while the unbelievers were taken.  The man taken (from the field) is not whisked to heaven, neither the woman (at the mill).  They are taken in death, just like the unbelievers in Noah’s day.

This seems pretty straightforward, but it got me thinking of how most people blindly accept the status quo without checking things over themselves.  It’s an area we’re probably all guilty of in some form or fashion.  The key is, how do we respond when the truth becomes apparent to us?  Are we prepared to abandon a misconception?

Something to think about…

“The obsession with current events is relentless. We are made to feel that at any point, somewhere on the globe, something may occur to sweep away old certainties—something that, if we failed to learn about it instantaneously, could leave us wholly unable to comprehend ourselves or our fellows. We are continuously challenged to discover new works of culture—and, in the process, we don’t allow any one of them to assume a weight in our minds. We leave a movie theater vowing to reconsider our lives in the light of a film’s values. Yet by the following evening, our experience is well on the way to dissolution, like so much of what once impressed us: the ruins of Ephesus, the view from Mount Sinai, the feelings after finishing Tolstoy’s Death of Ivan Ilyich.”

- Alain de Botton

Further to the post from yesterday, Fruitless Trees, I thought that an article posted today CNN captures some very interesting points about our religious landscape (though this article focuses on the USA).

Here’s the article:

How church shopping is polarizing the country

Is it possible that despite the “culture wars”, true faith and commitment to Christ is well, well in the background?

Are people who are looking to attend church looking for truth or a church that fits in with their values and style?

The fickleness of man is amazing.  The slightest gust of wind can shift the public’s allegiance from hero to zero in seconds.

I’m not even a basketball fan anymore, but I couldn’t help reading a few articles this week that are chastising the King-of-the-Court, Lebron James.  Just two weeks ago he was awarded the NBA league MVP (most valuable player) due to outstanding performance for the 2009-2010 season.  Now he and his team, the Cleveland Cavaliers, are engaged in a tight series with Boston.  The series was tied 2-2 when the wheels fell off for Cleveland in Game 5 and they suffered a massive defeat.  He played badly apparently (didn’t see the game myself).  They’re now down 3 games to 2, facing elimination.

With a potentially last game on tonight, commentators and sports pundits are already decrying King James as an “underachiever“, that he doesn’t have the necessary killer instinct to win, that he’s not a leader… on and on.  But two weeks ago they were singing his praises.  All season long they couldn’t find enough superlatives and adjectives to laud his performance.

History teaches us that this happens time and again, not just in sports, but in all arenas of life.   I could care less if Lebron James’ team wins or loses; I’m more concerned with the lesson.

Those who play to the adulation of the masses will eventually be the subject of their scorn, derision and shallowness.  We are to serve One Master alone.

I think back to the time of Christ.  Before His final Passover, the Lord Jesus was treated to a triumphal entrance into Jerusalem, sitting on the back of a donkey as the crowds screaming “Hosanna!” (“Please Save” or “Save Now”) and waved palm branches.  He had tons of fans, but sadly, few disciples.   Whether or not there were some in this crowd who, a couple days later shouted “Crucify Him!” at the promptings of the Jewish leadership, we’ll never know.  But it wouldn’t be surprising.  In fact, it was highly likely (especially when you read how quickly the tide turned in John 6 and John 8).

People root for the winner and lambaste the loser at the first hint of trouble.  It’s called the ‘bandwagon effect’ where people do and believe things because many other people do and believe the same things.  They are not operating from conviction, loyalty or commitment.  So please don’t be fooled.

That same Passover celebration ended with the Lord Jesus being escorted out the back door of Jerusalem, up the hill to Calvary where He was crucified as a common criminal.  The winds had shifted almost overnight.

Of course, we know this was in accordance with God’s plan, but it highlights the important truth of man’s fickleness.  We know that in death Christ conquered sin, and quenched the power of the grave through His resurrection.  Still, there’s an interesting verse recorded in John 2 that reads like this:

Now while he was in Jerusalem at the Passover Feast, many people saw the miraculous signs he was doing and believed in his name. But Jesus would not entrust himself to them, for he knew all men. He did not need man’s testimony about man, for he knew what was in a man. – v. 23-24

What did He know about the nature of man?  That we are fickle and changeable.  That the heart of man shifts loyalties depending on the way the wind blows.  That man, at his core, holds little interest beyond self-preservation.  Therefore, He didn’t dance to the tune of the masses, but listened to and obeyed His Father.  God was His solid rock.

What a temptation it is to play along with the praise.

How many men have ridden along the crests of these waves only to be dashed upon the rocks at the last?

Let us take heed to serve God, and not fall victim to the whims, flattery and praise of men.  When we are lifted up for whatever reason by men, may we find sobriety in the fact that earthly praise is changeable and therefore, we should never rest on these laurels.

“The softest pillow is a clear conscience.”

Right now my wife is reading a series of great books, published from Lamplighter, to our kids.  The other night I overheard this simple statement which caught my attention.

Encouraging traits like honesty and sensitivity to their conscience is something we are keen to instill in our children – as well as my own.  No amount of morality will make them worthy of salvation, but as parents we have a duty to instruct our children in the ways of righteousness and to teach them the wonderful gospel truth that they are in need of a Saviour.  The two are not mutually exclusive.

Morality alone is useless; it serves no eternal purpose.  In fact, it can often deceive people into thinking they are OK on their own.  There’s a word for this: self-righteous (righteous by your own merits).

Yet our conscience is God-given.  The issue is that it can be so easily mistreated and abused so that what was once considered distasteful, sinful or evil can be embraced as normal and acceptable over time.  Yet even then, your conscience will often persist.  I have spoken to many people who are afflicted at night with restless sleep.  They walk the day with a 100-lb weight of guilt on their backs.  No peace.  No rest.

When you finally grasp and dare to believe that all of your sin has been washed away by the atoning blood of Christ, a peace that cannot be put into words begins to fill the heart.  And even when you fall in sin as we all do, you can ask forgiveness and rest in the wonderful peace that only God can give.

The goal of our instruction is love from a pure heart and a good conscience and faith unfeigned. – 1 Tim 1:5

I have been thinking a lot lately about the sheer amount of noise that is out there – all clamouring for your attention and mine.

“The days are coming,” declares the Sovereign LORD, “when I will send a famine through the land–not a famine of food or a thirst for water, but a famine of hearing the words of the LORD. – Amos 8:11

Think about the following:

• The average young person views more than 3,000 ads per day on television (TV), on the Internet, on billboards, and in magazines
• Young people view more than 40,000 ads per year on television alone
• The average teenage girl sends 80 text messages a day; 30 for the average teenage boy

And here are some numbers that your mind can’t even compute:

• Youtube serves over 1 billion videos a day
• in 2009, 90 trillion emails were sent
• on Facebook, there are 400 million active users, 50% of which login on any given day

You get the idea.  I could keep rhyming off all the stats across all demographics… they’re endless.  You sense it in your own life.

People now report “feeling naked” if their mobile phone or Internet-accessible device is not within arms’ reach.  Insomnia has now reached epic proportions.  Millions of people cannot sleep without some sort of background noise – TV, radio, etc. – playing in the background.

Many people spend more time online in a virtual world than they do actually interacting in the real world, beyond the standard greetings and salutations.

Stats and figures.  Pundits and experts.  New medical research studies contradicting the old.  You can’t eat this; you should eat that.  A steady diet of information so that we don’t actually have to think (yet when we can quote and appear smart).

On Facebook, it appears everyone’s a philosopher; an expert.  Just key in a few words of grand, worldly-wise advice in your status bar and other people click “Like” even though they won’t remember it 5 minutes from now.

Even Christian literature – advice, new revelations, instruction – are well beyond the saturation point.  At the airport yesterday, I came across an absolute mockery of a book entitled “A Divine Revelation of Hell“.  Light, chaffy and cheap is the order of the day.

But forget about the junk.  Even with the good, profitable stuff that is out there, how can we possibly ingest it all? Picture a 10-litre bottle of liquid being furiously poured through a small funnel into another bottle.  Maybe a few drops will make it to the final destination, but 99% of it will flow over the edge of the funnel, all over the counter.  How much of what you read do you actually assimilate and incorporate into your life?

On Tuesday I was in Versailles, Ohio (a rural town pronounced “ver-sales”; that’s the mid-west US for you) and the first thing that hit me?  The quietness.  It’s a small town.  You could actually hear silence, if that’s possible.  And I enjoyed it.  But for how long before I need to be reconnected and plugged in to the noise and distraction?

In all of this, how can we possibly learn to listen to the voice of God which is often inaudible and at a deeper frequency than what our quick-hit, shallow culture allows for?

It’s important to take the time to be with God.  Cut off from time and the rest of the world.  Nature is a wonderful place to meet with Him (for me), but I’m sure each hungry person can find his own “closet”.

Going back to that scripture quoted above (Amos 8:11), is it possible to really hear what God is saying when His is just one of so many thousands we pay heed to?  Has His word simply been reduced to a guidebook of “suggestions” as a result?

If we are simply children and products of our culture, should we be surprised if we are malnourished spiritually?  We might have a lot of resources, books and quotations on the tip of our tongues, but poverty of soul is what I’m talking about.  Selah.

“Eloquence may dazzle and please; Holiness of life convinces.”

We live in an age of sound-bytes and headlines. An age when people are enamoured with rhetoric, lights, smoke and loud music, more than they are by straightforward, plain truth.  But after the music has stopped what are people left with?

In February, my employer sent the entire company to Sin City for a few days.  I am officially the worst person to go to Las Vegas with as I have zero interest in anything the city has to offer.  The highlight of my trip was getting out of the city on the last day and climbing a mountain (that’s me on the right at Red Rock Canyon).

For everyone else, the major highlight of the company event was guest speaker Tony Robbins who was able to convince 1,800 grown adults to run around screaming and jumping like kindergarten children.  I’ve never seen anything like it.  He spoke for about 2 hours, to the tune of over $150,000 for his services.  People raved and raved about the experience; people were called up on stage to report how this session completely revolutionized their life.  In his excitement, one guy from India said that part way through Robbins’ session, he called his wife and screamed that he’s coming home a new man!

But here we are, 2 months later.  Some of the thoughts were well-packaged common sense tidbits combined with name-dropping, rags-to-riches stories.  Today I wonder how impactful the principles (premised on neuro-linguistic programming or NLP; in my view a form of self-manipulation) have been in lives of the 1,800 since.   I’m sure some people bought books and CDs immediately after, but I don’t hear anyone talking about it around the office nowadays.  It’s faded.

It was an emotional event, run by a very charismatic speaker who razzle-dazzled the crowd.   It was a cloud without water. When we used to live in the bush of Kenya, in an area where it almost never rained, every cloud that appeared caught your eye.  ”I wonder if it’ll rain today.  We really need it.”  But the cloud passed on or evaporated in the heat of the sun.  You were left a little disappointed, forced to face 42°C heat day-after-day.

This frame of thinking – characterized by instant fixes, quick formulas for success, self-manipulation – is a spirit of our age.  Sadly many in the church expect this as well, and are able to find too many preachers more than willing to comply.

The less shiny, less euphoric, less glamourous aspect of Holiness – attempting to live right before our God, though we are imperfect – stands uncourted like an Ugly Betty.  After all, how can she compete with the flashing smile and dazzling eyes of Eloquence?

But in the end, the beauty of Eloquence fades, justs like a Tony Robbins event.  It was a vapour of rhetoric and well-formed words.  Holiness and likeness to Christ – the narrow, lightly trodden path – is what must be our pursuit if we are to attain unto eternal life.

Build on the sold rock of truth, not the sand of imagination.

One of my favourite accounts in the gospels takes place in Matthew 26, just after 2 very powerful chapters full of warning and the need for self-examination.

Through detail he gathered later on, Matthew takes us behind the scenes to the scheming of the Sanhedrin (Jewish Council):

Then the chief priests and the elders of the people assembled in the palace of the high priest, whose name was Caiaphas, and they plotted to arrest Jesus in some sly way and kill him. (v. 3-4)

The Lord was fully conscience that this meeting was taking place behind closed doors.  He knew the noose was tightening.  He knew that the very event for which he came – to die as a sin offering for humankind – was a couple days away.  Yet what is Jesus doing?

While Jesus was in Bethany in the home of a man known as Simon the Leper, a woman came to him with an alabaster jar of very expensive perfume, which she poured on his head as he was reclining at the table. (v 6-7)

He’s going about business as usual.  Meeting at a friend’s house, sharing a meal and talking about the things of God.  He was reclining, not looking over his shoulder, anticipating the door being broken down at any moment.  No extra security detail.  He wasn’t throwing evil glances Judas’ way.  In fact, the disciples had no idea that he would be the one to betray their Lord.  Why?  Because Jesus didn’t treat him any different, though he knew his heart from the beginning. Amazing.

I think there’s a lesson in this, and I have seen this fulfilled in the lives of others – reading the biographies of those now dead and those who are still live, living examples.  It has to do with a certain level of maturity that comes from deeply trusting and knowing God – not that he will move the mountains, but that he reigns and is sovereign.  It’s not textbook religion or some sort of leadership course.  It’s not positive-thinking.  It’s deep, settled faith.

Detractors will detract.  Gainsayers will gainsay.  Clouds may gather overhead.

What is their response to the closing noose, the gathering clouds, the beating war drums?  The crushing discouragement, the pain of betrayal, the loss of all they held dear?  Patient continuance.

Does this mean they are unfeeling or unfearful?  Of course not.  Tears may flow freely.  But they seem to have to come a place where they are resigned that God is in control.  Many of us say this (including me), but act to the contrary when push comes to shove.  But these seem to continue in their calling, perhaps more weighed down or stooped, but doing what they were called to do.

I pray for this spirit of patient continuance.  To continue with one foot in front of the other until the victory has been won.  We live in a day of instant gratification.  A microwave mentality has filtered into every area of our life, affecting our expectations.  If we don’t see green shoots in short order, it’s on to the next project.

There are many things to cause us to lose heart to be sure, but if any being ever had cause to give up, it was the Lord Jesus.  A man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.  Even his own disciples didn’t get it.  A man can barely cope with the weight of his own guilt, but Jesus bore the weight of all the sin and guilt the world over – including those yet to be born – and was jeered and mocked as a charlatan who had finally got what was due him.

I thank the Lord for showing the way and for godly examples of patience continuance in our time.  For those who continue on the path they were initially set, despite setbacks.  They may not operate in the limelight, but they are pillars of the world to come.

Though the fig tree does not bud
and there are no grapes on the vines,
though the olive crop fails
and the fields produce no food,
though there are no sheep in the pen
and no cattle in the stalls,

yet I will rejoice in the LORD,
I will be joyful in God my Savior.
- Habakkuk 3:17-18