daily java

Daily Java:

They deliberately forget that God made the heavens by the word of his command, and he brought the earth out from the water and surrounded it with water. (2 Peter 3:5)

I believe that people who deny the existence of God decide to do so. I do not understand why, but it is a conscious decision made on some level. It may even be one that they may not be aware of, but there is some perceived need in that person to not believe in God.

People are hard-wired to believe in God. As beings made in his image, it is the most natural thing to do. And people almost always turn to God in times of difficulties. As someone once said, there are no atheists in foxholes. When people get in trouble, it is natural to call on One higher than they.

But why would they choose to deny God? Why would they go completely against their inborn nature and just decide to deny the most basic thing in life?

It may be the desire to go it alone, to do what they want with no punishment or feelings of guilt. It would be like the man who decides he will not love his wife or his children or his parents. He wants to be by himself and keep all he has for himself and the only way to do that is to get rid of people around him, and to get rid of any entanglements caused by love. He just gets rid of what he considers “impediments” to his happiness.

It may be the decision that they know better and feel the belief in a divine being is beneath their intellectual station. Their mind has become their god and they begin to worship themselves. That is secular humanism and is infecting our culture.

It also may be that they want to do something that they know to be wrong and feel guilty. So they try to get rid of the Source of the guilt, God. If they can detach their moral compass, they can set themselves free (or at least think so). Hollywood does this. The immoral lifestyle Hollywood lives is incompatible with the Christian lifestyle so they jettison belief in God.

Or if they keep that belief in a god, the god they believe in has morphed into something totally unlike the God of the Universe. He becomes a rubber stamp for what they want to do and helps them justify what they do. That is the homosexual god, one who wants them to do whatever they want to be “happy”. If being happy means perverting nature and doing things that are abnormal, then this god changes into one who empowers them.

But it is always made as a personal decision. It is a sad decision, one that is kind of pathetic in that it makes a person totally alone and without the grounding that man was made to have.

And ultimately they will be by themselves. Having denied God, they have made themselves alone. The only company they will have in the end will be that of another who made himself alone by defying God: satan. What a sad ending.

the call of music

I recently watched a documentary about Jimi Hendrix. Whether you liked his music or not, and I did, you have to admit that he was a musician that pushed the boundaries of music.

It was this young man, only 28 at the time of his death, who brought about much of the kind of music we listen to today. Even in praise and worship bands, the influence of his style of music is common.

If you listen much to Christian radio this influence on modern Christian music is strong. In fact, it is hard to find a place where that influence is unknown.

However, unless all reports are false, he died outside of Jesus. His life was one of drug and alcohol abuse. And not only him, but the music industry is full of people who  were like this. Tremendously talented, yet they burned themselves out by hard living, drugs, alcohol.

Why is this? Why would such talented people with all the world to live for die like this?

It is because music is a call from God, a gift. When one answers that call in God, that person is happy. It’s not that nothing bad happens, it is that they fulfill themselves in a way that no one outside of Jesus can.

Outside of Jesus, the music is nothing but self-gratification. Inside of Jesus, it is a response to the One who gave it to you.

Why else have we seen musician after musician over the years die from overdoses, suicide, just plain hard living?

Music in and of itself is not enough. It has to be in response to that call from God. Nothing in this world is greater than praising God anyway; and praising him with your instrument is wonderful.

It is no wonder that the psalmist kept on entreating people to praise God with instruments, drums, voices, everything within one’s power to use.

Listening to Jimi play is amazing. His style and sound is immediately identifiable. But it has been almost 40 years since he died of a barbiturate overdose. What would have happened if he had answered that call of God in his music?

What an amazing thought. Let everything that has breath praise the Lord.

daily java

Daily Java: And account that the longsuffering of our Lord is salvation; even as our beloved brother Paul also according to the wisdom given unto him hath written unto you; 16 As also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things; in which are some things hard to be understood, which they that are unlearned and unstable wrest, as they do also the other scriptures, unto their own destruction. (2 Peter 2:15-16).

In my meanderings though the web, I come across a lot of different articles and ideas.

I have been following the debacle that has become the Episcopalian Church for several  years. In many ways, they have lost their course and have quit being the emissaries of God. They have replaced that mission with being emissaries of the liberal idea of American thought.

The Episcopalian Church has just ordained another lesbian bishop. In so doing, they have thumbed their noses at, not only their ancestors in the faith, but God and his holy scripture.

Although the Episcopalian Church has done good in the past, it has died as a force for God. It is a shame. As the writer said, they have confused their own desires with what God wants, and are wrong and suffering as a denomination because of it.

This article is a good one. One of the comments that he makes is that there needs to be a ctl-alt-del made to reboot the Episcopalian Church because it is messed up.

I don’t agree with much of his premise, but it is a good comment that they are messed up. One thing he says is that “Americans frequently mistake cultural conditioning for Biblical teaching.” Of course, his thought is that Americans believe in homosexual rights, but still. It is a good comment.

In the comments made by readers below, there is one from a Jewish commenter that is quite good. He says: “I would like to pose a question: to what extent is the Gospel considered Holy Writ? What I mean is that given Paul’s strictures, coupled with several millennia of exegesis, how could the Episcopalian Church, after “reflection and discussion” come to a different conclusion without diminishing the Writ’s holiness? Reform and Conservative Judaism have grappled with the same question and with the same result: degrade the Writ and achieve the desired result.”

The problem with a lot of denominations, not just the Episcopalian Church, is that they want something and are willing to bend the scriptures to get it.

The apostle Peter said that people want what they want so badly that they “wrest” what the scriptures say so that they can do what they want. They will use an homiletical method necessary to make it say what they want, and when they cannot, they will finally just say, well, that was just Paul, and will deny the passage.

If the scripture is real, it is real. If it is isn’t, all else we do as Christians is worthless.

The Episcopalians are just figuring that out. Unfortunately, they are dying as a church because of it.