The worship of youth is the fear of truth.

"Where do you go to, Beloved Son,
With your heart harshly troubled, my noble young one?"
"I must go to the world and bequeath hope and warning,
To tell fractured hearts that a new age is dawning,
There's hope, healing and fire, vile sin and great ire,
And a fearful judgement to come."
(Copyright Andrew Clarke)

Yesterday, reading a historical article in the newspaper, I read about Elizabeth Bathory. It's a problem that she had the same given name as my closest companion, my wife, because she has an evil history. Elizabeth Bathory was one of the people on whom the vampire legends are based, along with Vlad the Impaler, aka Dracula.
She was a princess in what is now Hungary, born in 1560 and being bricked up alive in a room in 1610. She had killed hundreds of young women, drunk their blood and bathed in it because she hoped it would preserve her own youth and beauty (Beauty? Physical only, by the sound of it!) Once it was discovered what she was up to, her accomplices were put to death but because she was an aristocrat she could not be. So they imprisoned her until she died, instead.
Some reports had it that she was descended from Vlad Dracula, the Impaler, who must be among the vilest and grossest human demon who ever blotted this planet God made.
The underlying thing is trying to cheat death. It's been going on forever. People want to avoid aging, and dying. Youth is made into an ideal state, to be worshipped, idealized and imitated in later life even if it can't be made to last into later life. Well, being human, I don't want to look or feel too old, admittedly. Who does? We want to stay fit, and active, and (I'll be honest) still a bit attractive to look at, for as long as possible. But past a certain point it just becomes an obsession, with results that can be either ridiculous or straight out evil. Some people have multiple face lifts and other surgery, trying to look twenty five when they're nearer fifty five, and can start to look like something Dr Frankenstein did on a bad hair day.
Or it can become a murderous obsession, like Princess Bathory, above.
People want to stay young, partly, because they are vain, or afraid that they will be left out of a society that idolizes youth. In doing that, they are being shallow. All life is part of the human continuum, and all of it is meant to be. I was glad to be young when I was, but now I'm fifty seven I can cope with being fifty seven. In fact, I have no choice, unless it becomes absurd self-deception.
People want to cheat death because they are afraid of what comes next. If there is nothing, then once they die they've got nothing left. If there is something, then what is it, they wonder.
They could find out, if they want to believe God's revelations. But that would require them to be humble, and humility does not come easily to people.
God's Word tells us, we WILL die. But that death is only of the body. And if what comes after is better, then clinging to life at all costs is not only futile but it can be self-destructive. You can cling to life and find out it is not only a fragile straw, but a spiky one that can let you down and pierce you. I wrote once before about people who knowingly laid down their lives because they felt they should die themselves rather than see others killed. They would rather die in good conscience than live in bad conscience. It's easier to talk about than to do, but that is how it is. It really IS better to die in good faith than live in bad. I hope I die painlessly in my sleep at a good age, but if I have to, I pray I can die in good faith rather than live in bad. God help me.
So there is the stupidity and pointlessness of thinking, this life is all there is. You can cling to what you will lose anyway, and behave badly towards others in order to cling to it, and find out it's just a sack of dust. But if you remember the soul, not just the body, then you know your existence does not end when your physical form stops breathing. You know that conscious life goes on. Then it matters where that life will be lived.
I'm very thankful the Lord found and called me. I'm very thankful the Lord found and called my wife and our five children. I can never stop thanking Him for that. Without that, I might be madly trying to preserve youth and life and making a complete fool or villain of myself.
Come again, Lord Jesus

If you want them to come, build it right!

I saw a small flier about home schooling/unschooling in our town today. There seems to be a growing interest in it. I can imagine some teachers and senior education bureaucrates voicing their disapproval too, but there is a good reason why some people home school, or at least get their children out of state schools.
My only experience with schooling is in N.S.W, Australia, but it seems the situation is much the same in some other parts of the western world. The school is supposed to be there for everybody, but in fact it just does not suit some people at all. In this state schools teach a secular approach to life, and a tolerance of certain things, such as abortion, which contravene the teachings of Christianity and possibly other faiths as well. That is to say, the schools' position on some life issues is quite wrong to some people. Since we accept freedom of belief, and freedom of worship, the Christians can't impose their beliefs on others but others can't tell Christians - or Jews, or Hindus, or whoever we have - to their own. The state school system alienates some people by wanting them to keep their beliefs private while others are proclaimed as being 'right'. By whose authority are they right?
That's not the only reason why some kids do not want to be in schools, be they state or any other. Bullying has been a problem in school for as long as I can remember. Some individuals find a school to be a hostile place full of nasty hostility. In the last few years we've seen the pure horror of child or teenage suicide, the victim being driven to it by what happened to them in school. What's worse is, some school staffs appear completely unable to stop it - or is it unwilling, because it becomes so difficult?
Respect for the individual can involve accepting that they are different from a lot of people around them and need to live differently. I can completely sympathize with some parents who do not want their kids going to school, because they know just what hostile places schools can be for some people. There are times when school inmates gang up on a lone student like animals. That might be harsh, but look at what happens sometimes and try to be 'nice' about it. Come to that, this is just what sometimes happens. Excuses get made for the bullies, saying that they are victims themselves. Even is that is true, which I don't believe it always is, then saying it does not heal the injury done to the victims. It just gives people an easy way out. They excuse themselves having to confront the problem, and claim a superior social conscience at the same time.
If the community at large wants schools to be suitable for all, the community will have to run them properly. There needs to be effective measures taken against vicimisation that goes on, and an acceptance that kids do not have to deny their own beliefs and background when in school. Make schools work right, and at least some people who try to avoid them might like them better. That is NOT to say that everyone should go to school. Home schooling might really be better for a lot of individual kids. But for those who do go, they would be less off-putting if better supervised. Make them better, more people might like being there. Build them right and they will come to them.

Are you scared of it?

Two newspapers in Australia have reported that their are 'concerns' over the way scripture, or Religious Instruction, is being taught in N.S.W. public schools. Volunteers from the community, as well as church pastors, take these classes as part of the legally mandated Scripture classes run in public schools in the state. A study by Macquarie University has been told that children are being told they will go to hell if they do not believe in Jesus Christ.
Does anyone dare write to the people running the study and tell them: bluntly, though it's not intended to be a threat, that is what the Gospel does teach. There is only one way for the human soul to be saved after the body dies. The soul is everlasting, and it may or may not be saved from permanent misery by separation from God; and that one way is to know Jesus Christ and believe in Him.
The complaint is that kids are being brainwashed, or scared, or something, into 'extreme views' of Christianity. Apparently the pure truth taught by the Christian Gospel is 'extreme'.
It might be that those teachers who put this across had in fact said that Jesus came to save the world, and die for us, rather than just trying to scare kids. Evangelism is 'the Good News', after all. But it is not extreme to teach about the threat of dying unsaved, unless you want to falsify Christian doctrine into a wishy washy thing about just being nice to people.
Suppose it scared kids to be shown what can happen if they drink and then drive, by telling them what happens in vehicle accidents? Should they not be told in case it makes them uncomfortable? What about the risks involved in unsafe sex? Should others keep silent in case hearing the truth upsets someone? In Australia, we have health warnings about skin cancer caused by too much exposure to the sun. Should we stop running them in case it upsets someone?
It is not compulsory to attend Scripture classes in public schools. No-one has to be there. But if the classes are about Christianity, should they not tell it like it is?
I had to grapple with this when I first became a Christian, at 24 years of age. It was not good to know that some 'good' people I knew were not saved. They needed to come to terms with Jesus, not just be well intentioned. I find it difficult to cope with. But if it's true, it is true. You can't escape an issue by denying it.
That is why some people do not want to hear the Gospel. It would confront them with things they don't want to have to admit or deal with. I can't make them, but they can't make me deny what Christianity is and dumb it down for their convenience. If they don't like hearing, what does that show? They might be afraid it's true? It's funny the way some people scoff at Christianity, yet get uncomfortable when ever it is discussed.
Are they scared of it?

Some deeds I admire.

This could quite a list, but I'll stick to two particular ones. We all have our heroes, although we have to keep hero-worship under control, because it can be a misleading distraction.
Did you ever hear of Captain Oates? He was a member of Robert Falcon Scott's Antarctic expedition in 1911. They set out to reach the South Pole, hoping to be the first people to do so. When they reached the Pole they found that another group, led by Roald Amundsen, had beaten them to it. So, disappointed, they set off back to their base, and ran into trouble with fatigue and failing health. Captain Oates realized that his friends were being slowed down by him, because he was the worst affected, and that the others might lose their lives trying to save him.
So he walked out into the freezing cold, knowing he would die, to give the others a better chance. Apparently his last words were, (paraphrased) "I'm going for a walk, gentlemen. I may be a little time."
When I read that I couldn't think of anything else for nearly an hour. That took guts - and it took care for others to put them first, giving up his own life.
Another example was a soldier, Colonel O.C. Hannay. He was a Scotsman, and an officer in the British Army.During the South African War (1899-1902) he was given an order that he knew would cost the lives of too many of his men. The order was to make a mounted charge against a strong postition, which Hannay knew would have just got his men slaughtered. But he had his orders. His orders were "You are to charge the enemy position." Hannay took the view that, right, HIS orders were to charge this strong enemy position, even if it was suicidal.
So he obeyed his orders. He charged - on his own. He gave NO order to his men to follow him, and charged the enemy alone. He was shot down from his horse and killed, but he had saved his men from pointless slaughter.
That action was noble and brave. He gave up his own life to spare others.
Those two men could only save the bodies of others. They could not save souls. They must have cared enough about others to do what they could, whatever it amounted to.
The human race must look quite contemptible to God, with all the cruel and stupid things we do. You could wonder how much suffering we are worth going through for.
Crucifiction has been described by doctors as the most agonizing way to die. But Jesus Christ undertook to suffer it, for the sake of others. Not only that, but according to the Scriptures, when His body died His soul descended tnto Hell. He literally has been to Hell and back. But Hell couldn't hold Him. It had no claim because he was guilty of no wrongdoin.
Men like Oates and Hannay, and women too, have gone to death to save the bodies of others. I hope they were saved. Jesus Christ went through death to Hell itself,to save our souls.
Self-sacrificing heroes and heroines reflect the awesome example of Jesus Christ, because Humankind is made in the image of God and we can sometimes reflect His glory when we do what is right and good. But they can only save bodies. One only can save our souls, and He suffered hideously to do so. God be thanked. Come again, Lord Jesus.

Message: still relevant.

Some books and stories stay in print because they tell the reader something that remains true. They might narrate a moving, sad tale which leaves the reader deeply affected. Such is the power of the language. But they might also be a warning against mistakes we should avoid.
If you read "Wuthering Heights", you remember the character Catherine, who is in love with Heathcliff but decides that she can't marry him. The reason she gives is that, even though Heathcliff is her soul mate, who she loves and needs, she can't imagine taking him into the sort of polite society that she mixes with. Catherine belongs to a landed family, with a certain social station, and Heathcliff was a homeless orphan her father found in the streets and took in. She just can't imagine taking him to a social function of some sort - he would not fit in. So she marries someone 'more suitable' as the saying goes; and just finds that all ends in tears. If you know the story then you recall that it all ends in tragedy, with Catherine dying in some sort of despair and Heathcliff mourning her for years, wanting to reach out to her beyond the grave and eventually dying himself. It is a bleak, heart-wringing story and it probably remains a classic because it gets to people. But it also reveals the human folly of the lead characters. They deny the deeper, spiritual side of themselves to fit in with human society's prejudices.
Catherine is a sympathetic character but she made a bad mistake trying to be married to one man and still closely bonded to another. Heathcliff, also a flawed character, marries another woman to get even with Catherine and treats her with great cruelty; and mistreats his son also.
The story would not be what it is if they all lived happily ever after, but lives would not have been spoilt if the lead characters hadn't given in to their own bad ideas.
It still happens today. It happens because people still give way to the bad ideas invented by humans and don't look for higher spiritual guidance in leading their lives.
Not long ago I read an article in which a Christian single woman argues that it should be okay for Christians to have sexual relationships outside marriage. Her reason is, she can't find a husband. So she hopes to have some sort of intimate relationship without one. I prayed for that woman that she finds what she really needs in life, but I'm wondering quite what that is!
I don't know her at all, but could it be like this? She can't find a husband because of human, worldly prejudices about what a suitable man should be?
It happens to men as well. An old friend I saw at a reunion was still single though he does not want to be because he can't get past daydreams about willowy blondes. He wants to meet a woman who looks like Jerry Hall or something, and in real life he never does.
So where's this going? Dating and matchmaking agencies have become a huge industry in recent decades, because there are people everywhere who 'can't find anyone'. I don't believe that the God revealed in Jesus Christ would leave someone languishing in loneliness because He didn't care. More likely He has to get through to them, that if they want a partner they should leave that to Him. It would sound a bit cute to say it, but God is the best matchmaker in the universe and you don't have to pay for His services. The thing to remember is: God's idea of your right partner might not be what you have been expecting. If that is the problem, change your approach.
One of my sons recently married, and the odds of he and his wife meeting they way they did would be a billion to one. Yet it happened.
My wife and I met rather unexpectedly, on a blind date arranged by someone I hardly even knew. Over thirty years later, God's arrangement is still working out.
So there it is. Do people not find the chance to marry for a long time because they are blinded by a predispostion of mind that their ideal other has to look like some sort of a poster pin up? (Or centre fold!) If they do,then they're being very shallow; and it won't work out anyway. The message is the same as it has been since the Scripture were written. "In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct your paths." (Proverbs 3, verse 6.)
A man might dream of Liz Hurley, or a woman of Hugh Grant, and spend their life on a silly shallow dream. And all the time God can set things to right if you undertake His direction and allow Him to. As well as that, we all need to remember what they say, even if it seems corny. Physical beauty is only skin deep. It does not show you the whole person. Hollywood has a bit to answer for, giving so many humans this tinny view of what people should be like. The real answer comes from an eternal source.

Pharisees of today

Jesus compared the pharisees to tombs, 'whited sepulchres.' They were clean and presentable on the outside but inside they were filled with corruption and decay. The same applies to any pretenders who claim to be better than they are by keeping up appearances, which is not the same as living up to them. And some of the best examples are the political poseurs who claim to show the rest of us the way.
What strikes me in particular is this. Some righteous, politically correct people have the most exhaustive social conscience, and make sure they tell others. They don't drink coffee if the beans were picked by exploited workers. They don't wear clothes made in a sweat shop. They don't buy things exported from a country with a government that breaches human rights. And when it comes to their sexual behaviour they have no scruples at all. Even if they are as good as they say, doing all the fine things to save the planet, their behaviour can be a betrayal of others and do huge hurt to those they claim to care about.
In Australia, a member of parliament from the Greens party, married with three children, has been caught having an affair with a member of the Liberal party. Both are married, and they represent different sides of politics. But they can both go behind their partners' backs and carry on with this thing in secret. Them and hundreds more. They say all the right things, claim to stand for what it good and then just indulge themselves, in a way that hurts those close to them and denies what they claim they stand for.
I have to remember my own sins, and the words "Judge not, that you be not judged." My own record will be no great credit to me on the Day of Judgement. But the longer I live the more believable are the words of the Prophets, and of Jesus Himself, condemning the vast sin of the world. It is a bad mistake to start thinking humans are not really so bad, and that the Christian Gospels are too harsh in what they say; and that a loving God would not condemn, and all that. Because if I look around me or inside myself it is not a pretty picture. God must love me all right, to not have abandoned me long ago. And that goes for us all, the more so the proud ones who think they will prove their worth while denying God. You can see people about to bring fearful wrath down on themselves, and they don't know it or refuse to see it. Like the pharisees, if they keep the outside clean and polished, what do they think the inside matters?
But you can't fool God.

Renewal

When thinking about our own joys, I should remember the strife and trouble other people may be going through. Writing this, I feel thankful. I wish as much good on the life of anyone who reads this. But I've been absent from blogging for a time because we've been to Hawaii, to our son's wedding!
It sounds exotic, though what happened was this. Our daughter in law is American, our family Australian and to save either family having to make the whole journey across the Pacific the young couple chose Hawaii as a half-way point. So David and Melissa exchanged their vows in Honolulu. It was pure joy. Actually, when I say that, I was getting choked up at one stage. We began singing the opening hymn and I had trouble singing, shedding a few quiet tears. I couldn't help it! When you have children you realize how vulnerable they are and how badly they need God to help them with life, and to look to Him. Our son David is a Christian, and so is our new daughter Melissa. And so are her family. It is a huge blessing to find that your child has been led to God's choice of partner, and that as well as loving her we can love her family as well.
The ceremony itself honoured God. It was the subject of a lot of prayer. It was God's blessing on our son and our whole family, and on the bride's family as well. We have four other children, and we pray it is as good for them. We also have new people to remember in prayer, our daughter-in-law's family. We know that David and Melissa might end up living in the United States, where it's harder to get to see them; but if that's God's will, then it is for the best.
Seeing David and Melissa coming together and a new family beginning gave me a sense of renewal. That is what life in Christ involves. Renewal and new life. God be with them always.