RIDDLE ME THIS: Part X of Why Not? - a Perspective on Suffering

Let’s move on to another reason we may gain suffering.

From the Darwin Awards for 2008:

 "(January 2008, Pennsylvania) A 23-year-old man with various body piercings wondered what it would feel like to connect his workplace test equipment to his chest piercings. Several co-workers tried to convince him that it was a bad idea to wire himself up to the electronic control tester, but he ignored their pleas.

"He proceeded to connect two alligator clips to his piercings and hit the test button... When the police and rescue personnel arrived, his co-workers were still trying to revive him with CPR and rescue breathing. They were not successful."

Why does God allow such suffering?

God gave us a brain, now you want God to think for you?

God has given us common sense. Believe it or not if we use it we avoid a lot of suffering, but the videos on “World’s Dumbest…” and “20 Most Shocking” and others all over YouTube show us how often we skip right over common sense to folly.

Yes, we can suffer because of folly.

Folly can be tied to a sin, but just as often may not be. It may be nothing more than plain stupidity. We have a lot of labels on products that state the obvious, such as "remove baby from stroller before folding", because someone did something stupid and suffered for it.

So let's look at another famous Bible character, this one in the Old Testament and he is pretty famous, especially his romance, but boy he could have used more discipline to avoid folly. Unfortunately he didn’t act very prudently at times and his suffering was very harsh indeed.

Do you all get this was Samson?

Samson is one of the heroes of the Bible. He is probably the best known of the Judges of Israel. He was given the gift of supernatural strength. He may have had big biceps, but his brain wasn't the biggest bulge of his body. He actually liked to play mind games, but he couldn't keep his mouth shut about his cleverness and he couldn't keep secrets if a pretty woman was involved. He was strong physically, but he was weak in his morals.

One day Samson killed a lion. A bit later he saw the carcass of the beast with bees and honey in it and he ate some of the honey. (I'm not big on eating something out of a dead animal, which strikes me as a bit of folly in itself, but maybe people were less fussy back then.) He came up with a riddle from this, "Out of the eater, something to eat; out of the strong, something sweet." He made a big bet with some fellows they couldn't guess the riddle's answer. And they couldn't and they wouldn't. Samson's wife, however, begged him for a week to tell her the answer and when he told her, she told them, and he lost his bet, and eventually lost his wife. (See Judges 14 – 15:1-6).

Samson didn’t seem to learn any lessons from this; he just couldn’t seem to resist women.

In Judges 16:1-3, he follows a prostitute in Gaza and became surrounded by Philistines. His strength saved him from this situation his lust had placed him in, but he still didn’t learn that he was relying on his God given power wrongly in the folly of his behavior.

This folly was a pattern that repeated itself and led to great suffering for Samson. He later met another pretty woman, not his wife by the way, named Delilah (Judges 16 4-22) and she asked him to tell her why he was so strong. Now to show you how dimwitted Samson was and why this was folly, she didn't stop there. She added to her question: "Tell me the secret of your great strength and how you can be tied up and subdued."

Do you think he might have thought that last part through?

He decided to have some fun with her and told her a lie about seven thongs that haven't been dried. So she tied him with seven such thongs as he slept, then let in a bunch of thugs who tried to subdue him.

They failed.

You'd think he had the picture by now, but then she asked again and he lied again about rope and she tied him with rope as he slept and thugs came again and they got dispatched again. And of course then he woke up to just what Delilah was doing.

No-o-o-o.

She asked again and he lied again about braiding his hair on a loom and she braided his hair as he
slept and thugs came again and they got dispatched again. Well, three times is the charm it is said, so naturally this time the light bulb went on in Samson's head, right?

No-o-o-o.

Then she said to him, "How can you say, 'I love you,' when you won't confide in me? This is the third time you have made a fool of me and haven't told me the secret of your great strength."

With such nagging she prodded him day after day until he was tired to death. So he told her everything.

"No razor has ever been used on my head," he said, "because I have been a Nazirite set apart to God since birth. If my head were shaved, my strength would leave me, and I would become as weak as any other man."

When Delilah saw that he had told her everything, she sent word to the rulers of the Philistines, "Come back once more; he has told me everything."

So the rulers of the Philistines returned with silver in their hands. Having put him to sleep on her lap, she called a man to shave off the seven braids of his hair, and so began to subdue him. And his strength left him. Then she called, "Samson, the Philistines are upon you!" He awoke from his sleep and thought, "I'll go out as before and shake myself free." But he did not know that the LORD had left him. Then the Philistines seized him, gouged out his eyes and took him down to Gaza. Binding him with bronze shackles, they set him to grinding in the prison. (Judges 16: 15-21)

Samson was often a fool for pretty women. Delilah wasn't his first dalliance, but it was his last. His commitments of adultery were sins, but he suffered his fate through folly.

Folly may not be so obviously a sin as Samson committed. Folly can be simply ignoring what is best for us in pursuing our pleasures. It may not be a sin to go Base Jumping off a high building or a cliff, but if the jumper one day goes splat they will list the cause of death as  “death by misadventure” or folly.

If one does a wheelie on a motorcycle, flips over and breaks their back, they will suffer from an act of folly and do we blame God?

When I go walking up in Brandywine Creek State Park, on narrow high paths, sometimes on mud or

snow, with no cell phone and having not told anyone where I was going to walk that day, I am indulging in folly. Should it be God’s responsibility to see that I don’t fall down a ravine?

Okay, for next time I am suggesting a couple more Bible Characters, but you don’t have to guess.

One is named Saul, not the Saul who became Paul, but the Old Testament King Saul and the other is the Paul, who was once called Saul, the New Testament Apostle Paul. Take a look at something in these men’s lives that points to another reason we may suffer.

References:  Judges 14, Judges 15:1-6, Judges 16:1-22

NEXT TIME: FULL BARNS

More what Scripture says about our suffering:

For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope. Jeremiah 29:11

Blessed is the man who remains steadfast under trial, for when he has stood the test he will receive the crown of life, which God has promised to those who love him. James 1:12

I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need. I can do all things through him who strengthens me. Yet it was kind of you to share my trouble. Philippians 4:12-14

Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? As it is written, “For your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.” No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. Romans 8:35-39

For you have need of endurance, so that when you have done the will of God you may receive what is promised. Hebrews 10:36

ILLUSTRATIONS:

Picture of a jar of Lion Kashmir Honey

"Samson Carries the gates of Gaza " by Henri Paul Motte, 1908

“Samson and Delilah” by Matthias Stom, 1630s.

The author walking the trails, 2014

Hold Your Four Horses of the Apocalypses (Yes, Apocalypses)

Left, William Miller - "Jesus Christ will return between March 21, 1843 and March 21, 1844."

Okay, for those impatient for the end of the world there is good news. You do not have to wait until December 21, 2012. The new date for the end to come is October 21, 2011. We have that on good authority, one Harold Camping.

Now I don't know for sure if Mr. Camping reads my Blog, but apparently he has picked up on my suggestion that God, being patient and loving, might delay the finale. This seems to be his explanation from the little I have heard so far today.

Right, Mayan Calendar: "The world will end on December 21, 2012."




Camping had, of course, actually predicted October 21 to be the end of the world. What he claimed would happen on May 21 was the Rapture and a great worldwide earthquake and the beginning of Judgment. He now says God, being merciful, put all that off to October 21, including the Rapture of the Campingites.  I do not know if that is the proper term, but I know many people are afflicted with Campingitis.

Left, Harold Camping: "The world will end in 1994 maybe...er, make that May 21, 2011 absolutely...uh, let's say October 21, 2011 and I'm pretty sure this time, I think."


Why? Because God in his mercy would not even put sinners through the hell of the next five months if that earthquake has happened.  Now it will all be over with very quickly. Much more quicker that the predictions of Harold Camping seem to be over.

For my wife, here is the bad news and the good news. October 21 comes too late to get her out of Jury Duty in July or August, but she will get to celebrate one more birthday. Given there will only be about a week left, though, I probably won't get her anything too expensive.

I said in my past post I thought Camping was sincere and he believed in his own research, but if he came up with another date I'd begin to doubt that sincerity. Now I am even a bit suspect of his so-called deep Bible study that determined all this dating. I am beginning to think he may have been dipping into some old-time Adventist literature. Not just this setting dates thing, but his teaching there is no Millennium Rule of Christ and no Hell; that the unsaved simply cease to exist.

Left, Charles Taze Russel: "The Second Coming of Christ and the end of the world will be in 1914."  [I don't know if there was a 21st of anything in there.]







William Miller put the date off a few times, saying he must have miscalculated his math somewhere (where have we heard that before) and others decided it had happened, but as a spiritual thing and the real bad stuff still awaited God's decision (which seems familiar, too). Russel, who was influenced by Miller made a couple more stabs at it after 1914 came and went, but like Miller, died before the end came. That is because those guys were born too soon and couldn't possibly have lived to October 21, 2011.

I suppose I will be writing another post about these non-events on October 22, 2011. Unless the Lord should come before then, certainly a possibility.

You see I do believe in Christ's Second Coming, in Judgment Day and in the end of this world. Here is what I have to say about the date. I don't know it. You see, someone once said, "No man knows the day or hour," someone with much more authority that William Miller or Charles Taze Russel or even Harold Camping, a gentlemen known as The Lord Jesus Christ.

Let the Mocking Begin - The Lions are Hungry

Well, that was pretty anticlimactic. I didn't expect anything, of course. Even so, can I admit, I still felt a bit disappointed. But the only thing that happened on May 21 was a volcano erupting in Iceland.

This is the largest eruption in Grímsvötn in 100 years. (They probably don't have records going further back.) It is bigger than that other volcano eruption last year that shut down air flight in Europe for so long. Iceland has shut down air flight at the moment.


So one big spit in your eye from Mother Earth is all we got on "Judgment Day". That is something, anyway.


Think if the largest eruption in 100 years had happened on Tonga early on in the expectations yesterday, around 6:00 PM their time. That would have shaken some people up for sure, until nothing much happened anywhere else.


Here we are on the twenty-second, safe and secure. The bars are or have had their "End-of-the-World" Parties and the churches are having their sermons on false prophets. Family Radio is still on the air. Some people are pitying "those people" and some are making fun of them. For the world at large this makes for great sport.


Howard Camping may have missed the mark -- again, but you have to give him credit for one of the most successful marketing campaigns in history. In all my years I often heard advertisers claim, "The product everyone is talking about."  This is the first time I have really heard everyone talking about it. Everywhere I was this week, everyone I saw, this subject came up. I heard jokes in passing on the street, mentions at work, statuses on Facebook, tweets on Twitter and monologues on TV. There were articles in each newspaper we subscribe to, on the front page no less. It came up both in a poem and in discussion at my Poetry Group meeting on Thursday and again in discussion after the Open Mic at Borders on Friday. It was the postings of many Blogs. I went to the hardware store to buy some dirt yesterday and everyone in the store, customers and clerks, were making comments about the day and what was predicted.


Now by the time I was in the hardware store we knew it wasn't happening. 6:30 PM of the 21 May had already come and gone in much of the world. It was already Sunday, May 22 in Australia and Japan; all of Asia I suppose. I had coincidentally set out to buy my dirt just as it struck 6:30 PM in Jerusalem. When the Temple Mount did not split apart I figure we could definitely relax.


There is much speculation this morning about what Mr. Camping will do now. He is 89 years old, time is running out for him to recalculate and come up with something new. I think Mr. Camping was sincere about his vision, that he truly believed in it. If he comes up with a new date, then I probably won't feel that way anymore. When he wrote and predicted that September in 1994 would see Judgement Day he wrote a book called 1994?. (Boy that makes for awkward punctuation.) There was a question mark and within he mentioned 2011 might actually be a possibility if it wasn't 1994. He gave himself an out.


He left himself no out this time it would seem. He guaranteed it. He said it would absolutely happen. It didn't. End of story with no possible twist to another announcement left, right? 


I can think of one. 

But it displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he was very angry. And he prayed unto the LORD, and said, I pray thee, O LORD, was not this my saying, when I was yet in my country? Therefore I fled before unto Tarshish: for I knew that thou art a gracious God, and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and repentest thee of the evil. Jonah 4:1-2 (KJV)

 Then said the LORD, Thou hast had pity on the gourd, for the which thou hast not laboured, neither madest it grow; which came up in a night, and perished in a night: And should not I spare Nineveh, that great city, wherein are more than sixscore thousand persons that cannot discern between their right hand and their left hand; and also much cattle? Jonah 4:10-11 (KJV)

Why in the world would I think these couple quotes from Jonah could be used by Camping as an out? You remember Jonah? He was that prophet whom God told to go one way and instead he ran the other, got on a ship and tried to get away from it all. You know, the guy who ended up in the belly of a great fish that everybody keeps mistakenly calling a whale. There is a lot we can say about the plight of Jonah and Christianity, Jesus and salvation, but Jonah doesn't have anything to do with Judgment Day, the end of the world or Harold Camping, does he?


Well, it could have if we think about Jonah's situation. Why did he run away from what God asked him to do? For that matter, just what did God ask him to do anyway?


God asked Jonah to go to this terrible city called Nineveh, a place so full of sin that God planned to destroy it. He told Jonah to warn those people if they didn't straighten up and fly right they would be toast,  and Jonah didn't want to do that. Why?


Because Jonah had a bad attitude to begin with. He hated those Ninevehian, uh—Ninevehites...uh, those people of Nineveh. He didn't want them saved, he wanted them flattened, but he feared they just might repent and God wouldn't smite them, which is exactly what happened. This made Jonah really sore at God. Jonah tells exactly what his feeling were. "And he prayed unto the LORD, and said, I pray thee, O LORD, was not this my saying, when I was yet in my country? Therefore I fled before unto Tarshish: for I knew that thou art a gracious God, and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and repentest thee of the evil."


Harold Camping actually used this story of Jonah recently in explaining his coming Day of Judgment. He used it as urging everyone to repent, but also to show how God was patient and sometimes spared people and places because of his compassion for the few who were not sinners. You can find several such examples in the Old Testament.


It would be quite possible to put forth that God was ready to pronounce judgment upon the world, but out of his desire that no one be lost postponed the date. The reason would be there are some who God knows will come to Salvation yet and so a new Judgment Day must occur. 


As a Christian, who believes a real Second Coming of Christ must eventually come on a day and hour no man knows, I am not effected much by what Mr. Camping does or doesn't do. I do take what he did seriously, though, as causing great harm.

It certainly harmed many folk who choose to put their faith in Mr. Camping. Some of these will suffer as a result of this fiasco. But so will we Christians who argued against his interpretations all along. The world isn't going to be overly discriminating between some of what we believe and what they have been hearing preached for many moons in the media leading up to May 21. No, the mocking began in earnest last week and it will continue for a while, and in the future anyone proposing Judgment Day is at hand will be quickly compared to Mr. Camping's crusade.


Christians are fair game these day, as the Bible told us we would be. We have plenty of those out there quite willing to feed us to the lions, if not in actuality, at least figuratively. 


Jesus left us in the dark as to exactly when he would return or when Judgement Day would be. However, he and other prophets left us with a number of signs that will point more and more to that time as we approach it. As a younger man I used to be mystified reading the prophecies, the events that would begin to happen, and yet the Bible said men still wouldn't turn to God or believe this was from Him. I wondered how knowing such happenings before they happened anyone could deny they were from God. But it recent years I have heard many discussions that would put in place excuses to not believe God had a hand in such things, for instance "Global Warming". 


This May 21 will make it more difficult to get anyone to seriously consider such prophecies if we begin to recognize a quicker pace in the signs of the times. People will simply compare any such warnings as akin to Camping's folly.


Remember as well, December 2012 lies ahead. Expect more media coverage of this other prediction of the end of the world. Even though this one has nothing to do with Christianity, it will certainly bring forth much rehashing of the May 21, 2011, failure to launch and all Christian belief will be held up to ridicule as well.


As for me, I trust in the Lord. This is not a prediction of the end of the world, but a prediction of labor pains growing closer together. I would keep awake and keep my eyes on this September and the state of Israel. Yes, indeed, I would.

Is It a Thousand or What?

This is a follow-up to what I posted yesterday.

But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. 2 Peter 3:8 (KJV)

And I saw an angel come down from heaven, having the key of the bottomless pit and a great chain in his hand. And he laid hold on the dragon, that old serpent, which is the Devil, and Satan, and bound him a thousand years, And cast him into the bottomless pit, and shut him up, and set a seal upon him, that he should deceive the nations no more, till the thousand years should be fulfilled: and after that he must be loosed a little season. Revelation 20:1-3 (KJV)

As perhaps many of you are aware, or have seen many of the placards and billboards, this year has been proclaimed the last.  According to Howard Camping Judgment Day will occur on May 21, 2011, a date that has all ready begun somewhere in the South Pacific this very day. In fact, as I begin to write this, it is 12:45 AM, Saturday, May 21 appropriately enough in the Christmas Islands. Thus, if Camping is correct, in less than 12 hours the great earthquake will begin.


I do not believe any such thing will happen, but many do. Camping has said if you dispute him, you must do it from Scripture. There is not enough space here to take on that challenge  and I am not such an expert on the Bible to feel equipped to do so. However, there is a statement he has made that popped out at me as making no sense.


In his explanation of the timeline, he has said there is no 1,000-year millennium as traditional Christian prophesy often teaches. It is stated in Revelation that Satan is seized after Armageddon and bound for a 1,000 years after which he is let loose a little bit. He contends the 1,000 is not physical time, but is symbolic. In his scenario, Satan was bound at the time of Christ's crucifixion and resurrection. Satan was thus chained up for 1,955 years, until 1988 and then released. In 1988 upon release, Satan then took over all the churches in the world and so everyone who is truly saved should get out of the churches.


He has also stated that during this 1,955 years that Satan was bound, he was still able to roam about seeing whom he could devour like a roaring and sowing "tares" in the churches. I do not quite understand how he could be bound while also roaming free. Perhaps somewhere Mr. Camping explained that.


Note that I said Mr. Camping. I have seen and heard him called in the news media a Preacher or Minister. He is not a minister. He is a civil engineer, turned founder of a Christian radio network called Family Radio. Up until 1988 he was a member in good standing in a Reformed Christian Church, but never more than an Elder. I would call him a Bible scholar.


As long as we are correcting the media, many have gotten great glee in reporting Mr. Camping called for Judgment Day in 1994 and it didn't happen, so he wrote another book. This is technically true, but the original book was 1994?, with a question mark, and he did say in it there was a possibility that 2011 might be the actual year if 1994 wasn't. He has not left himself any wiggle room this time. He has unequivocally and absolutely guaranteed May 21, 2011 is it.


Anyway, back to my problem with 1,000.


Mr. Camping has explained the Devil being bound at the Resurrection for 1,955 year as the fulfillment of the 1,000 year bondage spoke of in Revelation. So how does he explain adding 955 more years on?


He references the passages quoted at the beginning of this post. With 2 Peter 3, He interprets "one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day" as simply symbolic.

 Explaining that numbers are used both figuratively and symbolically in Scripture, he goes on to note we must determine how a number is used, a fact I have no argument with. It is his view that Peter as well as John in Revelation are using it symbolically here. It is his opinion that Peter did not mean a day was literally a thousand years or vice-versa to God, but simply meant "a long period of time". This is also how he viewed the 1,000 years mentioned in Revelation.


This is possible, and certainly in the case of Peter could be exactly right. Peter was calming people impatience about Christ not yet having returned. He began this way: Knowing this first, that there shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts, And saying, Where is the promise of his coming? for since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation.


Obviously he is telling the believers that what seems a long time to them is nothing to God. I don't see that as the case in Revelation. I feel where it says a 1,000 years there it means a 1,000 years.


Even so, Mr. Campings stretching 1,000 years to 1,955 for the convenience of his timeline is...well...it is a stretch. (I'm not even going to get into his placement of this event where he did.)


A problem with his argument is he is fine with using the 1,000 equals a day concerning other events, for instance, the 7,000 years between when the Great Flood came and this coming Saturday. Here he uses such things as the seven days of Creation, Daniel's Week and the seven days between when God told Noah to get in the Ark and when the rain began as indicating there would be 1,000 years from then to Judgment Day.


In these situations as described by Mr. Camping I don't think you can have it both ways.


There is an irony that Mr. Camping should rely so heavily on Second Peter. In that Book, Peter spends much time warning against false prophets and those who interpret Scripture to their own devices.


A second thing I would like to touch upon is knowing or not knowing the date of the Second Coming. Mr. Camping is emphatic that true saved Christians will know the date and the hour. One reference he uses to support this is from 1 Thessalonians 5:1-10:

But of the times and the seasons, brethren, ye have no need that I write unto you.

For yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night. For when they shall say, Peace and safety; then sudden destruction cometh upon them, as travail upon a woman with child; and they shall not escape. But ye, brethren, are not in darkness, that that day should overtake you as a thief.

Ye are all the children of light, and the children of the day: we are not of the night, nor of darkness. Therefore let us not sleep, as do others; but let us watch and be sober. For they that sleep sleep in the night; and they that be drunken are drunken in the night. But let us, who are of the day, be sober, putting on the breastplate of faith and love; and for an helmet, the hope of salvation. For God hath not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ,Who died for us, that, whether we wake or sleep, we should live together with him.

But I see this differently than he. If a thief is going to come to rob your house, you will not know the day or time. However, if there have been a number of burglaries in your neighborhood, then there are signs that such a criminal attempt could be imminent. You would then take protective measures and you would be sober and aware, so when such a crook came you were not caught by total surprise and are ready. 


The people who feel safe, who get drunk or go to sleep without care are those who do not believe Christ will come again or dismiss the signs around them. They are taken by surprise.


We Christians need to believe in what Jesus told us and be ever ready for his appearance, not in fear, but in hope. But we shouldn't not so focused on the specific day or hour we lose sight of everything else. That would be counterproductive.


As to going as far as naming the hour, 6:00 PM, that is even more problematic, but this piece is already very long, so we will leave that go for now.


It is now 10:30 here. Less than seven hours to the earthquake begins in the South Pacific, so we shall see, shan't we?

The illustration is "Judgment Day" by Michelangelo.

The full 2 Peter passage:

Knowing this first, that there shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts, And saying, Where is the promise of his coming? for since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation.

For this they willingly are ignorant of, that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of the water and in the water: Whereby the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished: But the heavens and the earth, which are now, by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men.

But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.

The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up.

Seeing then that all these things shall be dissolved, what manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy conversation and godliness, Looking for and hasting unto the coming of the day of God, wherein the heavens being on fire shall be dissolved, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat? Nevertheless we, according to his promise, look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness. Wherefore, beloved, seeing that ye look for such things, be diligent that ye may be found of him in peace, without spot, and blameless. 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; 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.

Ye therefore, beloved, seeing ye know these things before, beware lest ye also, being led away with the error of the wicked, fall from your own steadfastness. 2 Peter 3:3-17 (KJV)

Within These Next Few Waning Hours

I suppose it is possible this could be the last post, a time I should be saying goodbye, so long, been nice to know you, my friends, what with Judgment Day coming by the weekend. And if I believed that this would be so, then this would be such a piece.

But I don’t believe it.

Still I am disturbed by some of the mocking comments being made about those who do.

It especially bothers me to hear a Sunday sermon opened this way: “Just so you know just in case the crazies are right and we don’t get to see each other next Sunday … listen today like this is the last day [here]”

The objection is not to simply say, “In case this thing happens, and we are not here another Sunday,  listen as if it’s true.” My objection is referring to these people as “crazies”.

As a Christian I will tell you what I believe. I believe in a God who created the world and universe. I believe in Jesus Christ. I believe in the Virgin Birth. I believe in the Bible. I believe in the Resurrection. I believe in salvation and a Judgment Day. I believe Jesus will return as He said He would, and following the daily news and seeing how events are occurring and the world is lining up; I believe that the Second Coming is not far off.

I presume this is what many Christian preachers also believe. So are we the “crazies”?

I would never call someone of faith a crazy or a nut case or a wing nut because they believe something different than I.  If someone professed to being Jewish or Muslim or Buddhist or Hindu or Atheist (and yes Atheism is a matter of faith), would you dare to call them “crazies”? Obviously I believe they have placed their faith in the wrong beliefs. If I did not, then I would be a Jew or a Muslim or a Buddhist or a Hindu or an Atheist.

Obviously I believe Christianity it true. Otherwise, why would I be a Christian?

But because I disagree in where someone else has placed their faith, does not mean I think they are “crazies”.

I do not think Howard Camping or all these many people who have accepted his claims that May 21, 2011 is Judgment Day are nuts, nor do I think they are stupid. I just think they are wrong. If you have read the material put out by Camping you would not find some rambling mad utterances. It is very structured and intellectually presented. It is even convincingly logical, given Mr. Camping’s interpretation of Scripture. It is very understandable why many people would be willing to embrace it as the truth.

On the Family radio site there is a countdown clock. Today it reads “2 days to go”. But given Mr. Camping’s forecast of how it will begin, it is in reality just a bit more than one day away at the time I am writing this. It is his stance that a great rolling earthquake will begin at 6:00 PM on Saturday, May 21. It will begin in the South Pacific and will follow the time zones around the world, quaking in each area at their hour of 6:00 PM.

If this part of his prediction is true, then we here in my part of the country will know if it is happening sometime between 10:00 and 11:00 PM Friday evening. Why? Because it will already be 6:00 PM Saturday in the South Pacific just over the International Date Line. Of course if nothing happens at that time, it will not necessarily mean Judgment Day will not come on Saturday, only that this part of his calculation is wrong.

Of course, I expect nothing to happen, no worldwide earthquake, no Rapture, no Judgment Day…not yet.

If I am wrong and they are right, then nothing I have wrote matters. If they are right and I am wrong, then I will be among those facing condemnation by God, for that is what they believe. They believe if you cannot accept that Saturday is Judgment Day it is because you are not truly saved even if you think you are.

However if they are wrong and I am right, then on May 22 we are going to have a mass of disappointed and disillusioned people around this world, not the least of which will be Mr. Camping. This will not be something to gloat about. These will be people on the verge of losing faith in anything and some may be facing a very uncertain future. Some of these people have spent their finances and now will face difficult times. Some have split their families and will need healing. These will be people we should not mock, but instead show compassion for, reach out to with love and understanding. We should be prepared to help them back to faith in something and lift them up from their folly back into a life of true hope.

These people are not “crazies”, but like many, many others, they are just folks who lost their way for a while.

Peace and Depravity

Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator Romans 1:24-25a

During the 'sixties a repeated chant was "never trust anyone over thirty". In the summer of 1971 I crossed that Maginot Line. In a couple more years the so-called Decade of Love would be over, the Vietnam War would end and Nixon would be sinking in the flood from Watergate. An era of my life was ending as well.

The group of artists, actors, poets and writers my wife and I had socialized with for several years was going separate ways. The Hippie culture and psychedelic streets near the river were fading from view. The Beatles had broken up in 1969. By 1973 a different sound was dominating everything, Disco. The new icon was a skinny John Travolta in a tight white suit.

I was still selling some writing, still going to evening college, still not believing in God, but I was losing the anger. Fighting every authority figure was behind me. I had been through a couple of jobs, had moved to New Jersey and in a sense felt at peace. I now had a job that was going to last several years. I was an Assistant Controller (and eventually would be the Systems Manager) for a steel fabricating company in Philadelphia. We were no longer living in the "roach hole", but had a very nice modern apartment at Ski Mountain in South Jersey. (If you know anything about South Jersey, you will chuckle at the idea there could actually have been a ski resort there.) 

In the near past we had lived with a motley crew of neighbors of sometimes questionable repute. Our life had been one of some austerity. There were months when I lived on soft pretzels for lunch and there had been stretches when I would walk along the trolley stops looking for dropped change in order to buy food. Now we lived among people who in a coming decade would be called Yuppies. The times of protest had ended; party time had begun.

Our old crowd had talked about art, literature, politics and philosophy. The new friends we were making had little interest in any of that.  If our 'sixties group was cerebral, our new associates were tactile. Pleasure was at the center of our relationships.

In began with W. and B. and a chance meeting in a lingerie shop. My wife was there to buy a teddy or something. She took a couple items into the dressing rooms and I found myself standing next to another fellow of approximately my same age self-consciously holding his wife's purse, too. A moment later this nice-looking young blond woman came out of the dressing rooms wearing only a fish-net body suit. She twirled about and asked her husband what he thought. He approved and she went back behind the curtain. He glanced at me and we smiled at each other.  What do you say in such a circumstance?

But somehow this turned into a strange contest between his wife and mine for most daring display. Out they would come in another brief wisp of material. The owner of the shop seemed delighted, and why not? When we turned to leave there was a large crowd gathered around the front of her shop watching this impromptu burlesque show.

While waiting, her husband and I had talked and exchanged telephone numbers and addresses and we became friends. We would get together at each other's apartments and play striptease games, take Polaroid pictures and have sex.

Now, I want it to make it clear. We were not wife-swapping. We only had sex with our own spouse.  I did not see any of this as sin at the time. I was still a faithful husband. And really by secular standards I was and am. I was a virgin when I met my wife and I have never had sex with any other person. By the worldly definition I have not committed adultery. By Biblical standards, I have over and over again. Besides this voyeuristic period of sexual games with another couple, I had long been a collector of pornography. But I saw no harm in it. I wasn't neglecting my wife. These were just images on the pages of magazines. Or those women contorting themselves in the nude upon some sleazy stage were just a show. Or those base acts were just shadows on a movie screen.  I didn't "really" break the Seventh Commandment. I didn't believe in the Ten Commandments anyway.

This friendship with W. and B. didn't last long. We began to suspect they wanted to go where we didn't and we broke it off.  We found another couple who we had a much longer relationship with. These were our drinking buddies.

When we met B. and G. we all lived in the same apartment building.  We would get together every weekend and sometimes in between. Sometimes we went out, but often we simply gathered in one of our apartments, played pinochle and drank. For some reason I had a great tolerance of alcohol and didn't get drunk. Not so much with B. Most evenings ended with me picking up his inert body and carrying it back to his bed before my wife and I went home.  There were also times I had to pull him out of a bar before fists began to fly or off the street before the cops came. But, although there were dirty jokes and innuendo aplenty in our conversations, there was no sexual play with B. and G. B. was an extremely jealous husband with a tendency toward violence.

This relationship ended when I got saved. Somehow after that, B. and G. found us different and no longer with shared interests.

We had some other friends during this period. We had a long and close relationship with V. and M. These friends would have been considered perfectly respectable. There was no sexual hanky-panky, no drinking to drunkenness. But there were a lot of parties and everything was pleasure. V and I played tennis almost every lunchtime during the work week and golf every weekend. 

For about four years life couldn't have been better as far as I was concerned. The only fly in the ointment had been losing another baby. It seemed pretty hopeless and I had accepted the idea of never having children. That was just one of those things. We had each other, a nice place to live and friends. We considered ourselves good people. We worked hard and paid our taxes, harmed no one, so what was wrong with having fun when ever we could. This was what life was all about was our motto. Grab the gusto. If it feels good, do it. 

Without kids, there were no encumbrances. We were free to do as we pleased. We could just take off on weekends and enjoy vacation trips each year. It was on one of those vacation trips my wife said something that would change everything. 

"Honey", she said, "I think I'm pregnant again."  This would make number seven.

To be continued: Seven, the number of completeness. 

The photo was me in 1971.