Iowa Trip

As I type this, we are on the road in Illinois, heading home from a short visit with my family in Iowa. My niece and nephew graduated from high school on Sunday, so we drove over last Saturday. The nine hour trip culminated in swimming at the hotel pool for the girls, and the guys went to see Star Trek: Into Darkness. That is an awesome movie, by the way.

On Sunday we worshiped with our friends at Altoona Regular Baptist Church, and ate lunch with Pastor Humburg, his family, and my friend April Tidwell. Pizza Ranch was an excellent choice. For those of you who have never heard of Pizza Ranch, picture a restaurant in western theme that serves both pizza and fried chicken. It’s like someone put a KFC in a Godfather’s pizza, but the food is better. And they do a buffet, so it’s great!

After lunch, we drove to Chariton for the graduation. These were the last two of my sister’s children to graduate from high school, so I guess this means I never have to go to the Chariton High School again, and that’s fine with me. While in Chariton, I was overcome with a sense that the people I kept running into were different than me, which is odd, since I used to work there in high school. These people all seemed to have not enough clothes, too much skin, too many tattoos, not enough teeth and hair, and not enough sense. I overheard one genius ask another one, “Do wisdom teeth grow back?” She looked like she was hopeful, since she only had three or four other ones. Eek.

The graduation reception followed shortly thereafter at my sister’s church. When it looked like she was going to run out of hamburger, I volunteered to go get more. I grabbed my son and put him behind the wheel of our van. He drove across town to Hy-Vee, I bought the meat, and he drove me back to the church. We didn’t die, and he did a great job not wrecking the van. I got some practice not-panicking. The hole in the passenger side floor of our van will have to be fixed though.

After hanging around for several hours, I drove my mom back up to her house in Des Moines. Along the way, we were treated to a display of God’s majesty and power, and we were thankful that the wall clouds only delivered rain.

On Monday we went to Adventureland Park, which is an amusement park in Altoona, Iowa with no connection to the raunchy movie of the same name. We rode several nausea inducing rides, and a few roller coasters (I rode all three of the big ones). The odd thing I noticed was that the size of the seats varied widely. I have a big butt. It’s getting smaller, but it’s still kind of big. It was a tight fit for me in the Tornado, the Dragon was downright roomy, but The Outlaw coaster was almost too small. I had to wedge myself in there and almost couldn’t buckle the belt. I wonder why the seats aren’t all the same width.

It was just about the most perfect day you could hope for at Adventureland because the weather was nice (72 and partly sunny with a light breeze), I was with my family, and the attendance at the park was way down, due to the fact that it was a weekday when school was still in session in most schools in Iowa. Our longest wait for a ride was 5 minutes on the Raging River (although my wife tells me that we waited a little longer for the Sawmill Splash, but I wasn’t counting). A five minute wait for the Raging River is unheard of. We rode almost every ride in the park and it only took us four hours. Normally it takes all day to hit the major ones.
We left the park and I drove my family to my best friend’s house in rural Iowa, where we spent the next 36 hours. We enjoyed our time in Iowa, but it was too short. A few days with my family and a day with my best friend isn’t enough time. It only serves as a reminder of the reality of death. Death is not the end, it is merely “separation.” When someone dies, they are not gone forever, they are merely living someplace you can’t go. Someday we will all be “dead” and that is why the most important decision you make is your destination. You have to choose your destination while you are here on earth, because there is no changing your mind after you die. When you die, your ticket is waiting for you. If you are trusting in the death of Christ to pay the penalty for your inability to keep God’s law, you will pick up your ticket for an eternity of joy with God and all those who also trusted Christ. If you are trusting in anything else (including your own “good deeds”), you will pick up your one-way ticket to an eternity of suffering and agony in the lake of fire.

I planned this Iowa trip for several days, and it was only for five days. I don’t understand why some people refuse to plan for the trip that every single one of us will make at the end of our lives here on earth. That trip never ends. I can’t wait to make the trip, to see my loved ones who have already left, as well as to meet my Lord face to face. But I ache for those of my family and friends who are not trusting in Christ alone for salvation, because they are lost, and if they don’t trust Christ before they die, I may never see them again.

Air, Shifter, PC, and Permit.

Yesterday it was finally hot enough that we turned on the air conditioning. It doesn’t work. I called our guy, and he came to look at it today (rather, a guy from his company did). Evidently it will cost us about $1500 to fix OR we could just replace the whole system for a few thousand more. They are going to have someone from their office call us and give us the details of our options. I’m guessing this is going to set me back 3-4K.  I wish the sale of our house had gone through last summer, but God knows best.

My son and I got in my car so I could drive him to the Bureau of Motor Vehicles to apply for his driving permit. We made it about a block down the road, when the stick shift lever started flopping around and became useless. I pulled over. Long story short: it was the shifter cable bushing. I thought I would have to scrap the car, but I only needed to buy a $25 little plastic piece and I fixed it myself. Of course the plastic didn’t work as advertised, so I had to jury-rig it, and finish the whole thing off by taping the whole thing together with electrical tape (we were out of duct tape….I know. I bought more last night). It works again.

I ordered my new laptop for school on Wednesday, the 15th. I paid a little extra for “Next day shipping” so I could get my laptop by Friday.

I’ll wait a minute for you to do the math on that one.

So I go to Dell’s website today to check the status of my order, and it still says “pending” (as in “Not shipped yet”). At noon I called Dell, and the kind Indian gentleman said, “I would like to be informing you that your bank has not approved this purchase. I would like to be informing you that if you call your bank and ask them to approve the purchase, we will ship your laptop to you.” I called my bank, who said, “Yeah, we didn’t know if maybe this was fraud.” I said, “When I ordered the laptop, you guys texted me to ask if it was really me. I said yes. Nobody has called me to ask, so you should have either called me to check this out, or approved the charge.” The guy approved the charge, so whatever, I guess he did what I wanted, even though I had to poke at them to get it done.

So I call Dell back, they put the sale through, and my laptop is in processing. There’s still hope it may arrive tomorrow (Friday), but if it doesn’t, it won’t get here til next week. If that happens, I’m going to call and demand a refund on my “Next day shipping.”

In contrast, I ordered something off Amazon.com for a friend of mine and had it shipped directly to her house from Amazon.com. I ordered it yesterday afternoon with my free “Amazon Prime two day shipping.” It was delivered today, less than 24 hours after I ordered it. Dell, you should be taking notes.

So I type this, waiting for my laptop, and it’s hot. There are an infinite number of ways that my life could be worse. I am thankful to God that, right now, these are the worst of my problems.

PS: The kid passed his test, and got his permit. Well, he got a paper printout of his permit. The actual plastic card comes in the mail now in a few weeks. Then I went to a vacant lot and gave him his first driving lesson. He did great.

Questions About Boston

Boston Police search Watertown, MA. (image from The Guardian website).

Like everybody else, I was horrified when two bombs blew up at the Boston Marathon last week. I was encouraged by the swift response of the general public in sifting through all the available footage, and locating the probable perpetrators quickly. My belief that they might be the guilty ones was changed to near-certainty when, in attempting to avoid capture by the police, they used an explosive device made out of a pressure cooker, much like the one used at the finish line of the marathon. I was relieved when they said one of these murderers had died as he tried to kill more innocent people.

Like everybody else, I watched the footage as the Boston police (and others) searched for this man. But as I watched and listened to the news reports, something bothered me.

The media said that the police commanded every person in a twenty-block radius to stay indoors. The police then went house to house, forcing the “house-arrested” residents to get out while the police searched their home for the perpetrator. And this is the part that concerned me.

The fourth amendment to the constitution states, “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”

This means that the government does not have the right to enter your house or search you, your house, or your possessions unless they have probable cause to search. On April 19th, 2013 the Boston police forced people from their homes, and searched their homes without warrants. I did not hear of one case of someone refusing, and I’m sure if anyone DID refuse, a warrant would have been issued fairly quickly. This does not change the fact that the government wanted something, and they simply took it, with no regard to the rights of the homeowners in Watertown, MA.

But I have two other questions that maybe someone out there can help me with:

1. Why is this man being tried in federal court? He is a United States citizen who committed murder on a city street in the city of Boston in the state of Massachusetts. He did not commit this murder on federal property, he did not cross state lines, or do any other thing that would move him into the jurisdiction of the federal government instead of the state government. Is it simply because it is a “high profile” case? In this case, why weren’t O.J. Simpson or Casey Anthony tried in federal court?
2. This man is charged with using “weapons of mass destruction.” How does killing three people and injuring dozens qualify as “mass destruction”? I thought the term “WMD” was reserved for chemical, biological, or nuclear weapons. If pipe bombs qualify (IED, whatever you want to call it), then there WERE WMD’s aplenty in Iraq, thank you very much, liberals!

Don’t get me wrong: I am glad they found the perpetrator, and that he will be brought to justice. What concerns me is the manner in which he was apprehended. I can foresee a time when the government uses similar tactics to apprehend, arrest, and try someone who simply disagrees with them. What if a group of people felt that the government was not serving in the best interests of the nation, and the government needed to be forcibly changed? This is what our founding fathers did. In today’s world, the founding fathers would be hunted down, shot, or killed by the very government they founded.

How’s Your Vision?

I have worn corrective lenses since I was 13 years old. I remember at the time that I didn’t really think I needed glasses, until I went to the eye doctor and saw how well I could see with glasses. The same thing happened to me today.

I wear Acuvue Oasys contact lenses. These are the kind you can leave in for two weeks, then take them out, throw them away, and put in a new pair. Twice a month I have to mess with my contacts, and I have 20/20 vision as a result, with no fuss the other 26 days. I can always tell when it is time to change my contacts, because they start getting dirty and things get blurry. It’s kind of unpleasant to poke my finger into my eye a few days a month, but it’s worth it for the clarity of vision.

One day last week, I changed my contacts and went to work. I didn’t notice that there was a problem with my vision at first. Things were slightly blurry, but I didn’t think it was a problem, since my eyes were accustomed to the old, blurry contacts I had been wearing.

Today I tried to read some small text at a distance (like the title of a book from several feet away). Normally I have no trouble, but today I couldn’t make out the writing. So I took my left contact out (my “dominant eye”) and put in a new one.

It was like someone turned on the lights! Everything is sharper, clearer, and easier to see. I think there’s a problem with the old contact lens, and I’m going to try to get some credit for it, but for now I’m just glad that I can see well again.

As humans, we get used to “the way things are.” We don’t like change, because we fear the unknown. When God puts something in our lives to carry out His plan, and to make us into the people He wants us to be, it isn’t always a fun process. It doesn’t always seem like a “good thing” at first. It is only later that we are able to see how truly good He is (and was at the time, though we did not realize it). It is only when our vision is clear that we can see the goodness of His plan.

Maybe you are going through a trial. Maybe someone close to you has died, you have a serious illness, financial difficulties, or some other problem. It may not seem like it right now, but someday you will praise God for His wisdom and goodness. This doesn’t seem possible to you today, but that’s because you have blurry vision. Your vision is blurry now, but one day soon God will remove the scales and you will be able to see clearly. The pain will ease, the problems will disappear, and then we will have perfect vision, just like Christ.

I John 3:2

Beloved, now we are children of God, and it has not appeared as yet what we will be. We know that when He appears, we will be like Him, because we will see Him just as He is.

Tolerance

I understand the desire of gay people to be accepted. Everybody wants to be accepted.  But it seems to me that we’re on a slippery slope.  Let me explain.

At first, gay people just wanted to be left alone.  Society said, “If you think homosexuality is ok, there’s something wrong with you, and you should be punished.” Homosexuality was illegal. It was punishable by prison time, monetary fines, and other penalties. But then the view of society started to shift. We heard thing like, “what is done in the privacy of the home is nobody’s business.” Movies promoted the idea that, well, gay people might be a little off, but they are kind of funny, and well, it isn’t really our place to say they can’t do whatever they want.  End result:  society said, “We will ignore homosexuality.”

Then people started to put forth the idea that homosexuality wasn’t bad, it was just “different.”  We were told that gay people were just like us, and that there was nothing wrong with homosexuality. Once again, Hollywood promoted the idea that gay was ok. End result: society said, “We will accept homosexuality.”

At some point in the past ten years, there has been a decided shift from merely “accepting” homosexuality, to actively promoting it.  Watching certain TV shows, reading certain books gives one the idea that not only are gay people “ok,” they are “better” than their straight counterparts. All of a sudden, people started thinking that being gay was not only “not bad” or “neutral” but that being gay was actually a good thing.  End result: society said, “We should approve of homosexuality.”

And now that homosexuality is promoted as a good thing, those of us who still believe that the words in the Bible actually mean what they say when they say God says homosexuality is sin are being castigated. We are getting the message, “how dare you say that homosexuality is wrong!” End result: society is coming full circle, and is now starting to say “If you think homosexuality is wrong, there’s something wrong with you, and you should be punished.” We have reached the point where people are being punished for disagreeing with homosexuality.  I have two examples of this.

Example number 1: Just Cookies. This is a bakery. They make cookies.  It is a family operation. In 2010 a local college (IUPUI) was planning a celebration for “National Coming-Out Day.”  The college decided to call Just Cookies and special-order some cookies with rainbows on them. The owner refused the order since he is a Bible-believing Christian, and he does not agree with homosexuality. He (rightly) believed that if people saw his cookies with a pro-gay message, they would think that he approved of homosexuality. The gay rights lobby told the city they needed to investigate this breach of the city’s “anti-discrimination” policy.  Nevermind that they were asking the bakery to make something they don’t make.  They wanted this business shut down.  They wanted the business to be kicked out of their lease on city property. Thankfully the city backed down and this man was allowed to continue to run his business with his values intact.

Example number 2: Aloha Bed and Breakfast. In 2007 a lesbian couple tried to book a room at this bed and breakfast.  When the owner of the bed and breakfast clarified that they were a gay couple who wanted a room with one bed, she told them she was uncomfortable having lesbians in her house because of her religious views.  The couple sued her for discrimination. Yesterday, April 15^th, 2013, the first circuit court judge of Hawaii ruled in favor of the couple. The court has informed the owner of this bed and breakfast that she must allow gay couples to stay at her establishment. She now has two options: operate her business against her religious views, or close her business.

Many Christians, including myself, foresee a time in the near future when, like this lesbian couple in Hawaii, gay couples will come to our churches and demand that the church marry them. When the church refuses, there will be fines, prison time, or even closing the church down.  That’s when the real persecution will start.

Advocates for gay rights don’t see why this is exactly the same as what our society used to do: they forced people to comply with their point of view on the subject. Is this the way we should behave in a free society?

Tolerance isn’t tolerance if you don’t allow people to disagree with you.

The Bible: Episodes 4 and 5

Well, I watched the last two episodes of “The Bible,” but I got caught up in doing homework and other things that prevented me from spending the time to write down the things they got wrong.  Suffice it to say they were legion.

They got the basic idea correct:  Jesus died on the cross for our sins, and He rose from the grave.  Most of the details however, they got wrong.  And I don’t understand why.  This is like if someone decided they were going to do a play, but instead of following the script, they decided to let the actors say whatever they wanted.  It wouldn’t be the same play.  If you take the Bible (the supposed source for the material in this miniseries) and change key facts, you don’t have “the Bible” anymore.  I don’t know what it is, but it’s not the Bible.

I was going to go through the videos and list the errors one by one, but the History Channel took the full episodes down, so I can’t. All that’s left are the short recaps of each hour of the show, and I will detail what I can, for those of you who still care.

1. Lazarus:  John 11 gives the record of this event.  Jesus never entered the tomb. They removed the stone, and He called for Lazarus to come out.  Lazarus did.
2. Walking on water:  Jesus didn’t call Peter out of the boat until Peter asked to come out.
3. The adulterous woman:  Where does the Bible say that Jesus picked up a stone?
4. Why is Mary Magdelene present in every scene?  She did travel with the disciples, but IIRC, she was at the Last Supper, an event which the Bible says in Mark 14:17 that it was just Jesus and “the twelve.”  Mary was not an apostle.
5. Matthew describes the audience of people listening to the “sermon on the mount” as a “multitude.”  It looked like about fifty people in this video.
6. The feeding of the five thousand:  a boy gave his lunch, Jesus broke the bread and fish with His hands, and it multiplied.  The video has people simply lifting up baskets above their heads, and then lowering them to find bread and fish that had not been in them.
7. Cleansing the temple:  John chapter 2 records that Jesus saw the moneychangers, made a scourge, and drove them all out of the temple.  The video shows him merely upending the tables of money and then whining at the moneychangers.  Not what happened at all.
8. In the movie, at the last supper, Jesus has a “vision” of Judas betraying him.  The movie seems to imply that this was news to Jesus. Jesus, as God, is omniscient. He knows all things.  Nothing surprises Him.
9. The movie also seems to indicate that, at the last supper, it was very clear to all the apostles that Judas was the betrayer.  The Bible says in Matthew 26:22, “And they were exceeding sorrowful, and began every one of them to say unto him, Lord, is it I?”
10. Pilate acts like the Jews had free reign to kill whoever they wanted of their own people. This was not the case. John 18:31 records that it was illegal for the Jewish religious leaders to condemn someone to death. That’s why they had to convince Pilate to execute Him.
11. The video portrays Peter’s denial of Christ differently than the Bible does.  Just read Matthew 25:69-75 for the actual event. The actual event happened at night, for one.
12.  Of course since the producers of this movie are Roman Catholic, they had to include the stations of the cross. Just a note:  Six of the 14 “stations” are not in the Bible.
13. The crucifixion was accompanied by miraculous signs, which the movie ignores.  There was darkness from noon to 3pm when Jesus died (Matt 27:45-50). There was an earthquake. The veil of the temple was ripped in two. There were multiple resurrections.
14. The angels were conspicuously absent at the resurrection and at the ascension.  I would have thought the producers would have taken these final opportunities to have angels removing their hoods.
15. They show the apostles being martyred in various places.  Only one of the apostles’ deaths is recorded in the Bible:  James the brother of John. \

So that’s pretty much every error I can gather from the summary clips the History Channel provides.  I’m sure there were others, but I can’t remember them. If these final two episodes ever become available to view for free, I may watch again and detail the errors I missed, but really, does it matter in the end?  I believe I’ve made my point, that the producers decided to make a movie called “The Bible,” the contents of which only bear a passing resemblance to the actual Bible.

If you want to find out what is in the Bible, just read it.

Boston

In light of today’s news out of Boston, I have heard several people say words to the effect of, “What is wrong with people?”  I have the answer.

I understand that there is an accepted standard of behavior in our society that we hold people to, and that this standard keeps changing. For instance, 50 years ago a woman who lived with a man who was not her husband would be shunned, castigated, and even persecuted.  Fast forward to today.  I know several couples who are living together (and presumably sleeping with each other, since they have children), and they experience little or none of the things they would have experienced had they lived and made this choice 50 years ago.  So our standards change over time.

We understand that there is a disconnect between acceptable behavior and the actions of whoever planted these bombs in Boston today (assuming that bombs were the cause, as the news agencies are currently doing), the man in Sandy Hook who shot all those kids, Osama Bin Laden, Mohammad Atta, and every other person in recent memory who has murdered innocent people.

We ask, “What is wrong with people” but what we really are asking is this: why don’t these people hold to the same standard of behavior as we do? Why don’t they believe that killing people is wrong?  Why do they think it’s acceptable behavior to shoot children, to blow up spectators at a race, and to blow up buildings with planes? Why don’t they agree with our standards?

God is asking the same question.  He has perfect standards.  He has given us a written record of His standards of what is acceptable behavior, and what isn’t.  And you know what?  Every person on earth fails to live up to His standards.  Every single one of us fails to behave as we should, every single day.  Every day God is disappointed in the actions, thoughts, and words of every single one of us.

That is why He came to earth.  That is why He died on the cross, rose from the grave and made the provision for our salvation from the consequences of failing to live up to God’s standards. He loves us, and doesn’t want us to suffer forever because we continually make choices against His righteous standards.  All we have to do to avoid this eternal suffering is to accept His gift.  We simply trust that the sacrifice He made is sufficient in and of itself to save us.  Nothing we do counts as anything towards paying these consequences.

In October of 2001 I bought a new van.  It was the only brand new vehicle I have ever bought.  A few weeks after I  bought it, I drove my wife and two kids to my Dad’s house for a visit. We took our baby daughter inside while our four-year-old son played in the yard.  After a while, we came outside to see what he was doing. Evidently he decided that the shiny, glossy finish on our new van was too boring, so he picked up a piece of gravel and drew on the paint.  Not in one spot. Not in two spots. He scratched up the hood, all the way down the driver’s side panels, and the back of the van.  It was at that moment that I told myself, “I love my son more than my van.”

Thankfully insurance covered the repair, but we still had to pay the $500 deductible.  My four-year-old son would never have been able to pay that to us.  He’s almost 16 years old now, and if you added up all the money he has received in his life up to this point, it probably still doesn’t total $500, let alone the multi-thousand dollar bill that the body work actually cost.  That van was wrecked eight years later and is now scrap metal, but my son still does not have the ability to pay me what his actions cost.  As his father, because I loved him so much, I paid for the consequences of his actions.  And that is what God wants to do with us.

What is wrong with people?  In one word:  Sin.  We all have it. We all express it differently, but we are all sinners.   It has been reported that famous author G. K. Chesterton answered the question “What is wrong with the world” by sending a letter to the newspaper as follows, “Dear Sirs:  I am.  Sincerely, G. K. Chesterton.”

While the actions of the perpetrators of today’s crime in Boston are truly heinous, we would do well to remember that they are just as heinous in God’s eyes as the choices every one of us makes every day.  We may be “better” than the bomber because we haven’t killed anybody, but whose standard matters in the end?  Ours?  Or God’s?

When we are all present at Judgment Day, I know who is going to be sitting on the throne. I guarantee it’s not going to be you or me.