Carson again

I haven't posted anything in a while. Life has been extremely busy and the Twitter thing seems to have been a little bit easier for me in the last months. I actually did run across many blog worthy things both in the MMA world and the evangelical world. Just yesterday, I read a pretty interesting article written by a deacon at one of the Mars Hill campuses. But what really excited me was the e-mail from the Gospel Coalition that I received this week informing me that Dr. D.A Carson will be around my area in November. I have said many times that there is average gifting, where we'd find most of us, then there is above average gifting, a few "rockstar" preachers and teachers and then there is D.A Carson. Needless to say, I'm pretty excited about this event. Here is an article I read today that is just one more evidence of how the Lord has gifted him for our instruction. To him be the glory. Amen!

Please find the original posting of this article here.


Pastoral Pensées: Motivations to Appeal to in Our Hearers When We Preach for Conversion

D. A. Carson

D. A. Carson is research professor of New Testament at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in Deerfield, Illinois.

Most of us, I suspect, develop fairly standard ways, one might even say repetitive ways, to appeal to the motivations of our hearers when we preach the gospel. Recently, however, I have wondered if I have erred in this respect—not so much in what I say as in what I never or almost never say. What follows is in some ways a mea culpa, plus some indication of why I think the topic should be important for all of us.

Before I survey the motivations themselves, I should specify that because the gospel is to be preached to both unbelievers and believers, the motivations that here interest me may be found among both parties. Nevertheless, I shall tilt the discussion toward those motivations of unbelievers to which we should appeal when we preach the gospel to them, aiming, in God’s mercy, at their conversion.
1. A Survey of Possible Motivations

The eight motivations I am about to list are not necessarily mutually exclusive. Several may, and often do, coexist at one time and in one person. In no particular order of importance:
1.1 Fear

The Letter to the Hebrews insists that people are kept all their lives in fear of death but that the coming of the Son of God as a human being, a son of Abraham, set in train the destruction of him who has the power of death, namely, the devil himself (Heb 2:14–18). With respect to this particular fear, then, the preaching of the gospel promises a reduction in fear. On the other hand, in various ways Jesus tells his hearers to fear him who has power to destroy body and soul in hell (Matt 10:38). Not a few of the parables end in a simple polarity: gathered into barns or burned (Matt 13:30), entering the home of the wedding feast or being shut outside where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth (Matt 22:10–13), and so forth. Some apocalyptic images depict people calling for the rocks and mountains to fall on them and hide them from the wrath of the Lamb (Luke 23:30; Rev 6:15–17). Belonging to the same theme are texts asking us, rhetorically, where the profit lies if we gain the whole world but lose our own souls (Matt 16:26), or the insistence that it is a dreadful thing to fall into the hands of the living God (Heb 10:31).

Obviously it is possible to preach the wrath of God in such an angry and self-righteous fashion that we bear a much closer resemblance to Elmer Gantry than to Jesus Christ. On the other hand, in addition to the example of Jesus and the apostles, we have occasional examples from church history where God has used the appeal to the fear of judgment in powerful ways. The best known witness is doubtless Jonathan Edwards’s “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God,” which I reread some weeks ago to remind myself how biblical most of it is.
1.2. The Burden of Guilt

I specify “the burden of guilt” instead of “guilt” because I prefer to use the latter for one’s moral and legal status before the holy God. In other words, one may be very guilty and not feel guilty, that is, not labor under any burden of guilt. If one is in fact guilty but feels nothing of the burden of guilt, the objective guilt is not a motivation for conversion. Until one cries, in these words or something similar, “Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight” (Ps 51:4),2 one is not strongly motivated by the burden of guilt. On the other hand, that guilt, rightly perceived, can be a crushing burden and thus a powerful and desperate motivation for relief.

It is a truism of much Reformed theology, not least Puritan theology, that the law must do its work before grace can do its work. Without an adequate dose of the former, the latter is likely merely to heal the wounds of the people slightly (to use King James English). That Puritan heritage influenced many who were, strictly speaking, outside that heritage. For example, John Wesley’s advice to a young minister on how to preach the gospel in any new situation is replete with this perspective.3 The text to which many in this tradition appealed was Gal 3: the law is our παιδαγωγός to bring us to Christ, for the law was added to turn sin into transgression, to make us see our fault, to shut us up under condemnation (Gal 3:19–25). Careful exegesis of Gal 3 has often shown, of course, that this interpretation is substantially mistaken: Gal 3 is less interested in the psychological and moral profile of the person transitioning from guilt to grace, than in unpacking the place of the Mosaic law in redemptive history. Nevertheless, the Puritan vision of the place of the law is not as off-base as some think. For even if Paul’s primary point in Gal 3 is to locate the law’s rightful place in redemptive history, over against the place that many Palestinian first-century Jews thought it should have, the conclusion one must inevitably draw is that God took extraordinary pains to establish and nurture the law-covenant across a millennium and a half as preparatio Christi. Total ignorance of this OT background is one of the reasons that so many in contemporary culture feel almost no burden of guilt when they are first confronted with the Bible, with Jesus, with the gospel. In fact, nurtured on a spongy epistemology, many hear the law’s demands and conclude, at least initially, that the God who thought this lot up is not worth respecting, for he must be a manipulative and power-hungry despot. Still, at some point the burden of guilt catches up with many people, and it can become a powerful motivation in their conversion.
1.3. Shame

A glance at the literature shows how difficult it is to distinguish absolutely between guilt and shame. Some cultural anthropologists speak of “shame cultures” as if such cultures know little of guilt, and of some traditional Western cultures as if they are guilt-ridden but know little of shame: the two kinds of cultures are sometimes treated as if they are categorically disjunctive. Some in the field of psychiatry assert that guilt arises from what we do, while shame arises from what we are, but that is certainly not a biblical distinction. In the Bible we may be guilty and feel guilty for what we are, and equally we may be ashamed of what we do.

In popular parlance, I suspect that shame has more to do with losing face, primarily (though not exclusively) in horizontal relationships. Nevertheless, if one loses face before one’s family or peers, it is usually because one has done something “wrong” as judged by those peers, so it is hard to see why guilt feelings do not also intrude. Similarly, one may be genuinely guilty of some sort of moral breach and be ashamed of what one has done. Initially Adam and Eve are naked and unashamed: they have nothing to hide. But when sin changes everything, does Adam hide from God because he feels guilty or because he feels ashamed? Must one choose? Nevertheless, there does appear to be a slight difference in focus between the two: shame has to do with losing face, often objectively, and hence feeling shamed. Such loss of face commonly springs from one’s own faults, but of course it may spring from something one has endured—like David’s envoys who are ashamed of losing half their beards at the hands of the Ammonites and whom David therefore consoles by instructing them to remain at Jericho until their beards grow back (2 Sam 10:1–5). They have lost face, but of course in this instance they are not guilty of anything.

Many have argued that in a culture like ours, which protests that it is unmoved by the law’s demands and that refuses to admit to guilt feelings because it refuses to admit to guilt, a better way to unpack the nature of sin is to unfold the nature of idolatry rather than the nature of law. Idolatry is bound up with corrosive relationships, with de-godding God, with shameful distortions and substitutions; and, it is argued, these evils are more easily admitted among yuppie postmoderns than are the evils of transgressing law. In other words, shame is more readily acknowledged than guilt.
1.4. The Need for “Future Grace”

When John Piper unpacks this category, he has primarily Christians in view. Historically, however, a great deal of evangelism has been carried out by urging people to prepare to meet God, to receive the grace now that alone prepares a sinner for resurrection-existence in the new heaven and the new earth. Where is the profit in gaining the world and losing one’s soul? Where there is widespread belief that one must finally give an account to a holy God who does not grade on the curve, this sort of appeal carries quite a lot of weight. The motivations to which one appeals are a mixture of fear (which I have already mentioned) and the desire to be found right, just, before this God, acceptable to him.
1.5. The Attractiveness of Truth

Frequently the apostles declare that they bear witness to the truth, that they declare the truth, that they do not peddle the truth, that they cannot do other than speak the truth, that they speak the truth plainly in the eyes of all, and so forth (e.g., John 19:35; Rom 9:1; 2 Cor 4:2; 11:10; 13:8). The assumption, of course, is that by the grace of God, the truth itself is attractive to some. Cornelius was such a man. He was a good deal more eager to hear the truth, at least initially, than Peter was to declare it. For those with eyes to see and ears to hear, the truth can be self-attesting; for others, like some of Jesus’ opponents in John 8, the truth is precisely what is detested: “Because I tell you the truth, you do not believe” (John 8:45; cf. also Isa 6, cited in Matt 13 and elsewhere). To draw an analogy: the one gospel can be a wonderful aroma to those who are being saved and a disgusting stench to those who are perishing (1 Cor 1:18). So also the truth can appear wonderful to those who by grace begin to see its beauty and compelling nature, while actually causing offense and unbelief in those who are perishing.

When I was a young man, many university missions spent a lot of time defending, say, the deity of Christ or his resurrection from the dead. The widespread assumption, both among the evangelists and among many of the student hearers, was that if one accepted the truth of these claims, one was already on the path toward becoming a Christian. This assumption sustained quite a lot of evidentialist apologetics. The approach is flawed in several ways, of course. James reminds us that the devil knows and believes such truths, but such “faith” does not save him (James 2:19). Granted, however, the need for grace to enable the “natural” person to perceive the truth, one cannot deny that one of the motivations in people as they begin to “close” with Christ (to use an old Puritan expression) is the attractiveness of the truth. While some in Athens sneered, others, in some ways already hooked by what the apostle Paul was saying, wanted to hear him again on these matters (Acts 17:32). They were drawn to the truth.
1.6. A General, Despairing Sense of Need

It is pretty clear from the Gospel accounts that many who pursued Jesus did not do so out of a well thought-through theology (e.g., law precedes gospel, and they were under deep conviction of sin), but out of desperation fed by their most acutely perceived need. Witness the woman with the history of hemorrhaging (Matt 9:20–21), the two blind men by the side of the road calling for the Son of David to have mercy on them (Matt 9:27), the Syrophoenician woman (Mark 7:25–28), and many others. In some cases, of course, Jesus responds to such needs yet also pushes on a little farther to deal with the sin in their lives (the Samaritan woman [John 4:10–18], the man by the pool of Bethesda [John 5:5–14]). Moreover, it does not follow that everyone who is healed by Jesus is “saved” in the fullest theological sense of that word. For instance, nine of the ten healed lepers do not have the courtesy of gratitude, let alone saving faith (Luke 17:11–19). Yet where there is a whole-hearted and desperate plea to Jesus, even absent much theological understanding, it is wonderful to see how embracing Jesus is.

Pastoral experience supports this assessment. Many of us have witnessed people turning to Christ with remarkably little exact theological knowledge. The knowledge comes later. Why these people come, at least initially, is that they need help, need it desperately, and turn to Jesus. This may prove to be part of a broader, whole-life turning to Jesus. Their initial motivations, however, are all bound up with desperation.
1.7. Responding to Grace and Love

Both Testaments repeatedly emphasize the matchless love and grace of God. Some are drawn to Christ when they begin to glimpse the Father’s love for this damned world in sending his Son to the cross, and the Son’s love in accomplishing his Father’s will. One suspects that the appellation Mary and Martha had for their brother Lazarus—“the one you love,” they say to Jesus (John 11:3)—reflects a common experience: so many felt peculiarly loved by Jesus, even the Fourth Evangelist himself (John 13:23; 19:26; 20:2; 21:7, 20). Paul cannot talk long about justification and the cross-work of Christ without breaking out with an adoring exclamation such as “who loved me and gave himself for me” (Gal 2:20). Whether it is the love of the proverbial father for his prodigal sons (Luke 15:20–24) or the assertion that Christ loved the church and gave himself for her (Eph 5:25, 29), whether it is the gut-wrenching portrayal of the love of God in Hosea or Paul’s prayer that believers might have the power, together with all the saints, to grasp the limitless dimensions of that love (Eph 3:17–19), the response to the love of God is one of the most powerful motivations people experience, not only when they first close with Christ but also when they mature in Christ.
1.8. A Rather Vague Desire to Be on the Side of What Is Right, of What Is from God, of What Is Biblical, of What Is Clean, of What Endures

I know that sounds terribly vague. If I had to attach one word to what I am talking about, it would probably be the motivation of hope. Consider the encounters with Jesus in John 1:19–51. The Baptist’s disciples begin to follow Jesus because their master had pointed to him. They clearly hope he is the one to come. The christological confession at Caesarea Philippi (“You are the Messiah, the Son of the Living God” [Matt 16:16]) is part of this hope, of course—even though the context shows the apostles at this point have no category for a crucified Messiah. The same sort of longing, with even less theological understanding, is reflected in the desire of Zacchaeus to entertain Jesus in his home (Luke 19:6). I am not trying to specify exactly when the apostles or Zacchaeus were converted. I am pointing out merely that at least part of their motivations in pursuing Jesus, at least initially, lay in their desire to see if he really would fulfill Scripture-anticipation, if a good and powerful man would come to the home of a corrupt civil servant. They hoped so. Transparently, such hope can merge with other motivations already listed: people may hope for release from the burden of guilt, hope to be justified by God on the last day, hope that things will turn out well both short-term and in eternity.

So I turn now from this survey of possible motivations that people display when they turn to Jesus and offer:
2. Four Theological and Pastoral Reflections on This Survey

1. We do not have the right to choose only one of these motivations in people and to appeal to it restrictively.

Consider an analogy. It has become common to speak of half a dozen distinguishable models of the atonement. I do not much like the rubric, but I shall use it for the sake of convenience. Many is the recent book that argues that since all these “models” are grounded in Scripture, we are free to choose the one we prefer. But that is precisely what we are not free to do, unless we conceive of Scripture as little more than a case-book, an inspired volume of cases, warranting readers to glom onto those few cases, and only those cases, that seem to fit their own situations or preferences most closely. If we hold to a more traditional and faithful understanding of Scripture, then to the extent that the various models of the atonement are warranted by Scripture, we must hold to all of them—and then work out how each is related to the others, what holds them together, where there is a priority among them that is established by Scripture itself, and so forth. But we dare not choose merely one or two of them.

So also here. Insofar as these diverse motivations enjoy biblical precedent or even biblical warrant, preachers do not have the right to appeal to only one or two motivations as if they were the only legitimate ones. We ought to appeal, at various times, to all these motivations—and, again, work out how each is related to the others, what holds them together, and where there is a priority among them that is established by Scripture itself. But we do not have the right to appeal constantly to, say, fear before God, without also on occasion appealing to other biblically illustrated and sanctioned motivations.

2. On the other hand, we may have the right to emphasize one motivation more than others.

In the same way that the structure and emphases of Paul’s evangelistic addresses could change, depending on whether he was addressing biblically literate Jews and proselytes (Acts 13) or completely biblically illiterate pagans (Acts 17), so the particular motivations to which we appeal may vary according to our knowledge of our audience. In a somewhat similar vein, if we are addressing biblically literate but unregenerate people, some of our appeal will presuppose that they know the Scriptures at some level, that many of them, say, will be convinced that there is a judgment to be faced, a heaven to be gained, a hell to be shunned and feared. By contrast, if we are addressing biblically illiterate people, then although all those themes will at some point have to be introduced, our initial appeals may sound quite different. Some motivations are of course unworthy, and we should never appeal to them. For example, “Come to Jesus, and you will receive a lot of cargo,”4 or “Turn to Jesus, and you will always be free of trouble.” Where motivations are not unworthy, however, and especially where they are biblically sanctioned, we may find it particularly appropriate to appeal to certain motivations rather more than others.

It would be easy to go through the list I laid out and conjure up situations where it is the part of prudential wisdom to appeal to one or two motivations rather more often than to all the rest. Had we time, it would be an excellent exercise to envisage the kind of audience that ought to find us appealing to primarily this or that motivation in our hearers.

3. Nevertheless, the comprehensiveness of our appeal to diverse motivations will reflect the comprehensiveness of our grasp of the gospel.

Once again, let me draw an analogy first before establishing my point. For the last fifteen or twenty years, many of us have wrestled long and hard with the doctrine of justification, judging that something essential to the gospel is at stake in the current discussions. The result, however, is that we have sometimes so tied the gospel and conversion to the question of our right standing before God that we have downplayed the new birth. We have emphasized Christ’s bearing our guilt and the nature of imputation without correspondingly emphasizing the regenerating work of the Spirit and the gospel as the power of God, the same power that raised Jesus from the dead, in transforming our lives, in our becoming part of the new creation. Suppose, then, that we managed to emphasize both of these elements of conversion appropriately (let us call them the forensic and the transformative). We might, of course, then tumble into neglect of the running biblical tension between our joy in the kingdom of God now already operating in the reign of King Jesus and the joy that awaits the consummation of that kingdom in the resurrection-existence of the new heaven and the new earth. Understanding this tension will engender hope, thereby reinforcing all the motivations that spring from a godly anticipation of what God has promised that still lies ahead. In other words, while the exigencies of our pastoral location during these past twenty years have demanded that we focus on forensic elements of the gospel and conversion, a robust biblical theology demands that part of our ministry be taken up by the biblical exigencies, the shape of the gospel itself, the rich and complex nature of its outworking in conversion and in the spiritual maturation of the believer and of the church.

So also this matter of choosing the motivations to which we appeal—choices that largely shape our sermons. For pastoral reasons, we may decide, for instance, that our particular audience, with its endless frustrated and idolatrous relationships and its suspicion of law-categories, needs a heavy emphasis on the generosity and freedom of God’s grace: our God, as Tim Keller likes to put it, is an overwhelmingly prodigal God.5 Well and good. But the Bible itself depicts Jesus inciting fear in the hearts of people with his insistence that the God with whom they have to deal “can destroy both soul and body in hell” (Matt 10:28). Again, Jesus openly appeals to motivations that seek eternal rather than temporary and material rewards. He does not hesitate to elicit awareness of guilt and to invoke shame: Who goes home justified, the Pharisee or the publican (Luke 18:9–14)? Who gives more, the wealthy givers or the widow with her two mites (Mark 12:41–44)?

So while we may, for pastoral reasons, initially choose to appeal to certain motivations and not others, it is surely the path of biblical faithfulness so to teach and preach the Word of God that we awaken new motivations in the hearts and minds of our people as we unpack the complex richness of the glorious gospel of our blessed God. If instead we find ourselves constantly appealing to the same two or three motivations while ignoring others, it is probably because our choices are too much shaped by our perceptions of local cultural needs and too little shaped by the richness of the biblical gospel. Sooner or later, our people may read their Bibles with limiting and even dangerous blinkers that we ourselves have given them.

4. To put this another way, all of the biblically sanctioned motivations for pursuing God, for pursuing Christ, say complementary things about God himself, such that failure to cover the sweep of motivations ultimately results in diminishing God.

Thus, the motivations characterized by fear are bound up with the truth that God is holy, that he is rightfully our Judge, that he gathers some into his presence and casts others into outer darkness, that his knowledge of us is perfect, extending not only to a grasp of our motives but even to a full-bore knowledge of what we would have done under different circumstances (a form of so-called “middle knowledge”). The burden of guilt reminds us that God does not grade on the curve, and unless we are justified by the one who is himself just while justifying the ungodly, there is no hope for us.

And so we could work through the list. The point to be made is simple: any failure to appeal to the full range of biblically exemplified and biblically sanctioned motivations not only means that there are some people we are not taking into account, but, more seriously, that there are elements in the character and attributes of God himself that we are almost certainly ignoring.

1. ^This article is a lightly edited manuscript from a paper presented on May 19, 2010 at The Gospel Coalition’s Pastors’ Colloquium in Deerfield, Illinois.
2. ^Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture citations are from Today’s New International Version (tniv), © 2005.
3. ^John Wesley, “To an Evangelical Layman,” in The Works of John Wesley: Volume 26: Letters II: 1740–1755 (ed. Frank Baker; Oxford: Clarendon, 1982), 482–89.
4. ^Cf. neo-Melanesian “cargo cults,’ or our own health, wealth, and prosperity gospels.
5. ^Timothy Keller, The Prodigal God: Recovering the Heart of the Christian Faith (New York: Dutton, 2008).

Vera vs Jones

Alessio Sakara vs James Irvin:
I am not a big fan of unnecessary muscular mass. You may get big and intimidating but, in general, you'll get winded after a little action because all that muscle needs oxygen and that's when your fit, well conditioned opponent will smile. In the Sandman's case, his muscles actually make him one of the strongest punches in the Light Heavy Weight division. I can only imagine what he would be able to do if he were able to recover well from the cut to 186lbs. Unfortunately I don't think that will be the case. He is already not really known for his endurance, after cutting 20 extra pounds, he is in for a rough night against Sakara who is a seasoned boxer and is very unlikely to repeat the mistake he made against Chris Leben. The Legionary will pick him apart and finish Irvin by the end of the second or beginning of the third round. Sakara by TKO.

Paul Buentello vs Cheick Congo:
I am not sure what Congo accomplishes with this fight. It seems to me that the UFC is throwing him a bone here. If he wins, all it does is that it keeps him from losing 3 in a row because as far as moving up the ladder in the Heavy Weight division, beating the Head Hunter won't really do it. On the other hand, If Buentello comes out on top on this one, people will start paying attention to him and he'll be eligible for a bigger fight, maybe Yvel or Cro Cop. Here is the deal, the UFC is throwing Congo a bone here but this bone may be poisoned. On paper, Congo should get a decision but Buentello does have the 1 punch KO power on his side and because of that, is a very dangerous opponent. Not totally confident but I will say Congo via decision.

Junior "Cigano" dos Santos vs Gabriel "Napão" Gonzaga:
Unfortunately, for Napão, all fights start standing. While I like Gonzaga, I don't think he has the boxing skills to survive Cigano enough time to be able to go for a take down. Even if he does so, is he going to be successful at the take down attempt? If he is, do we really think that Cigano would try to grapple with him? The fact is that Cigano is Minotauro's pupil and definitely knows how to stall and / or get up. When Cigano gets up, Gabe is in deep trouble again, one punch away from La La Land. I do not see this going any other way, even if  the Napão who fought Couture shows up, the result will be Cigano by KO first round.

Vera vs Jones:
It is true that Jones has not fought a striker of Vera's caliber, therefore I don't think he will be as free as he's been in his last fights. One might say "what about Bonnar. Doesn't he have a golden glove under his belt?" Yes, I don't discard Stephan Bonnar (not even after the Coleman fiasco). He is a good striker and I think the only reason he got hit with those spinning elbows was that they were unexpected. People, and especially Vera, have wised up to them. Can Bones land some pretty tricks? Of course, but will they be enough to win? Definitely no. This is why I think this is going to come down to wrestling and that is an area where we have no doubt about who's got the edge.  Bones will ground and pound from either side control or half guard and get a stoppage. Bones 2nd round TKO.

God's story and porn

I really enjoyed our men's breakfast today. God has laid this on my heart and today I had the privilege of talking to our men about it. Here is the outline of a very short talk. Hope it blesses you.

Men's breakfast:
God's story and porn.

Gn 1:1
Gn 1 everything is good: God places man in a perfect world. SHALOM. Peace, rythm, harmony, perfect synchronism in everything. Even with that perfect set up, God gifts man with a suitable helper. He says that it is not good for man to be alone. He marries them and it is interesting to notice 2 things:
1) Shalom was not compromised by marriage but extended to marriage. Perfect rhythm and union between man and wife. Which points to God himself. Perfect union within the Godhead where 1 God exists in three persons that are in complete and perfect harmony eternally.
2) Thus picture is further displayed with the phrase: "they shall become ONE". This word is used in the SHAMA. Deut 6 the Lord your God is ONE. Diversity within the absolute unity.

We see then that the union between a man and a woman is a very beautiful picture of God. This beauty is loved by those who love God and hated by those who hate Him.
In chapter 3 they get lured by Satan, their pride and desire to be independent from God and they sin.
Now Shalom was shattered. No peace, no synchronism, no rythm, no harmony. No relationship will ever be the same, death comes into the world and even creation itself groans waiting eagerly for the revealing of the sobs of God.
Gn 3:15 the first gospel is announced. Seed of the WOMAN. (no mention of a biological father) Satan has been attacking men ever since.
In Gn 6 God declares the estate of the human heart " every intention is evil". V5
God floods the earth saves 1 family. Another picture of Jesus.
(The ark)
Gen 12 God calls Abram and makes a covenant with him. ( make him a great nation, bless those who bless him. Curse those who curse him.)
From then on the pictures and prophecies of Christ get more and more clear to the point where the prophet Isaiah describes Jesus and his substitutionary death in detail.
God's story culminates in what we call the NT where God himself takes humanity upon himself lives, dies and is resurrected for his people. Jesus Christ ascended into heaven and has promised to come back to wrap up history redeeming completely the totality of his children and condemning those who aren't his, who do not obey his Gospel. (2 thess 1:8,9)
Between now and then we live in a very interesting time wher there is pain, sorrow, tears, death. There is a fierce spiritual battle between God's people and Satan and his servants. They do not want the kingdom of God to be expanded and the surest way they have is to destroy men. If we are behaving like little boys, churches won't flourish, families will not flourish, the next generation won't be trained in the fear of the Lord, our wives won't grow in the Lord because they have to spend the totality of their time acting like our moms and not like a suitable helper the way Gid intended to be so that his glory would be displayed in holy matrimony.
Brothers, St. Paul says in 2 Cor 2:11 that we are not ignorant of Satan's devices. I love you and I don't want you to be ignorant of his devices. I don't want you to be defeated. I don't want you to be a loser. I don't want your family destroyed. I want you to grow into mature men of God. Jesus loving, bible believing, God fearing men who look like Jesus.
Satan has been feeding the lust of our flesh with porn:
Stats:
Seventy percent of American men ages 18–34 view Internet pornography once a month.
Fifty percent of Christian men viewed pornography recently. 60% have viewed it in the last year.
The average age for first time viewing porn is 11 years old. That means that thousands of 9 year olds are exposed to this daily.
Seventy percent of women in the sex industry have been molested as a child. In most cases by a relative or close friend of the family.
I want you to know that as a child of God, you are not enslaved to sin anymore. You have the power by the holy Spirit to say "NO" and not click and not pop that DVD in, not look at that magazine, not use your internet enabled phone as a "porn to go" device.
Also, as men of God, we don't get to live in a lie. If God loves you, he will expose your sin to correct you. The best path for the child of God is repentance.
As men of God, we have to put on the mind of Christ and as we see the women in porn we should remember how much brokenness there is inside that human being who is created in the image of God and think: I wonder who she lost her virginity to. Was it her dad? Uncle? Was it a violent rape? Brokenness in the world should ignite in us compassion and desire to join God in mission, not sexual arousal. Sexual sin is a demonic, cheap imitation of God's great plan for intimacy in marriage and one of the surest ways to welcome demonic activity.
I'll leave you with this verse:


1Cr 16:13 Be watchful, stand firm in the faith, act like men, be strong.

UFC 109 Educated guesses

The UFC has titled it "Relentless" but these guys came up with a better, funnier title: "UFC 109 Can't get it up". While I do think the main event is lame, unless it's 2002 again, and the Serra x Trigg should be a words only fight, at an elderly home weekend bingo or something, I am actually looking forward to the other fights. From the bottom I'll start:

Trigg x Serra: Wrestling goes to Trigg, BJJ to Serra who also has heavier hands. That puts Serra in a pretty comfortable spot for this one, so I'll go with Serra via TKO 2nd round. (But who cares..)

MIke Swick x Paulo Thiago: This fight is tougher than people think and Swick will be in danger of a TKO because Thiago has "1 punch Knock Down power" on both hands and he can smell blood from afar, while Swick relies more on landing sequences a la Wand style, but he, most likely will not be able to land many of those on Thiago. Having said that, I do think Swick will stay away from the big punches and barely out strike Thiago, yanking a split decision on this one.

Nate Marquardt x Chael Sonnen: When I first heard the rumor of this fight I begged Nate (via Twitter) not to take this fight. Henderson was still in the mix and the Silva x Belfort deal was not done yet. Since Silva was still healing from his surgery, I thought Nate could fight either Victor or Henderson but Joe Silva apparently had different plans. I mean no disrespect to Sonnen but he hasn't really done anything to deserve the number 1 contender. Sonnen is a good fighter with a good history and an even better future in my opinion. Having said that, he's got his work cut out for him on this one. Simply put, Marquardt does everything Sonnen does, better. I honestly feel that Nate will give him an ugly beating for 3 rounds and either get a very convincing unanimous decision or a ref stoppage, deep in the 3rd round. Nate will not finish Sonnen because there is no "quit" in that man. Sonnen will take a beating that would make many fighters give up, but not Sonnen and for that, he deserves our respect.
Marquardt by unanimous decision. (10-26)

The main event: Couture x Coleman may be an interesting fight according to a friend of mine and I agree but let's just put it this way: "It will not be up for fight of the year", not even close. I think it will be painfully boring to see two excellent wrestlers pressing against the cage, fighting for under hooks for 13 minutes. On the brighter side, we may get to enjoy a little bit of sub par striking devoid of any knockout power before they clinch for 3 minutes and Coleman gets out of gas and Couture scores a TKO before the bell ends the 1st round. So I'm thinking Couture via TKO before 7:30 minutes. If that happens, we'll actually be able to see Danzig and Rolles Gracie at work. Two very interesting match ups.

Fight of the night: Marquardt x Sonnen

It's Halloween again.

Once again the streets of America have a different face, a scary face. Carved pumpkins and spider webs everywhere. Kids dress up in their cute costumes (some cutter than others) and go out on the streets "Trick or Treating". I won't pretend to be an expert on Halloween because I am clearly not. I have to say though, having been brought up elsewhere, the fact that children go out on the streets knocking on strangers' doors asking for candy does trip me out. But why is it that we don't do Halloween? Are we being over zealous parents? After all, the triplets are 3 1/2 and this is the first year we have to really deal with it. And mind you, we haven't slept in 3 1/2 years.
I do think that it is possible for godly parents to go trick or treating with their children and use that as opportunity to teach them about Christ while at the same time engaging the culture, being part of a community and etc...Having said that i am fully convinced in my conscience that I should not participate in it. It's not like I don't want to do Halloween because of all the child sacrifices and satanists looking for little children to murder on that day, which the police records in the country don't know much about anyway. It's not like that at all. So why don't we do Halloween?
One reason is a fascination for the ugly. I think there is already too much ugly and negative in the world that we have no control about. For that reason, Halloween is not attractive to me. It's actually a turn off.This is why I do believe in Halloween alternatives where kids can have a lot of fun in, what I think, is a healthier way. There are other reasons too. I, in my BC days, was deeply involved in a religion very similar to the Cuban Santeria. One of the "deities" we celebrated was a pair of twin children that was appeased by candy or they would trick you. People all over the country would go out on the streets and lay their offers to this deity in hopes of getting on their good side through out the year and to thank them for the past year. Children would go out at the same time all over the streets stealing the offerings from every corner and the whole thing was a big celebration for worshipers and children alike. That has too many similarities to Halloween for me, and it hits me in a way that makes me not want to take any part of it.
When I was writing this post, a pastor, church planter I follow on Twitter posted his reasons for not celebrating Halloween on his blog and I was blessed as he conveyed my sentiments exactly. I asked for his permission to steal it and he replied: " Post away", so here we go:

Why we don't do Halloween, by Joe Holland.

The Hollands don't do Halloween.

To be honest, Halloween makes my stomach turn. I'm a pastor. I daily face death and its destruction—physical and spiritual. In hospitals, counseling sessions, and sermons I teach people about Jesus's triumph over sin, death, and the devil. Mortality, spiritual malevolence, demons, twisted sensuality, devils and the like aren't just costumes at RiteAid. They are daily realities.

So when it comes around to Halloween and I see ghoulish decorations, 5 year old zombies, 8 year -olds in fish net stockings, bloody corpses in front yards, and resurrecting dead it hits a little too close to home. How can I laugh and give kids sugar highs when I'm facing grotesque, cartoonish representations of the things that literally haunt people's souls? Do I really want my kids thinking that death and the demonic are only lawn decorations for a few weeks a year?

I know what you're thinking, "Dude, lighten up!" Well, I've tried and have been unsuccessful. I'm not angry at Halloween or the folks that will pad my street on the eve of October 31. I'm not really all that concerned with the historicity of the cultural practice. I don't even think there is a whole lot of malevolence going on—in fact I'm more concerned with the relative ease in interacting with Halloween on a thematic level.

I just can't keep from cringing when I think about it.

It comes down to the cross. I actually believe that Jesus triumphed over malevolent spiritual forces at the cross—Col 2:15. The cross has changed me and my affections in ways I could never have predicted. I'm more serious about death and the spiritual world than I've ever been. I'm also more joyful in God's power over sin, death, and devil through Christ than I have ever been.

For so many Halloween is about good times, candy, and fun. Put simply it is joyful frivolity and dress up. For me it is sobering and sharpening.

So we don't do Halloween. Not because we think it earns us anything with God. It's just the way the cross has affected me and my family.

Now for all of the disclaimers:

1. If you participate in Halloween with a clear conscience then please continue to do so. I don't think you're a pagan Satan worshiper.
2. I know not all of Halloween is about death and the creepy. If you want your little pumpkin to parade up and down the street with Freddy and 12 year old bar maids, then go for it.
3. I love my neighbors and actively and aggressively look for ways to tell them about Jesus. The whole, "You're not really into evangelizing if you don't do Halloween" is one of the more stupid arguments I've heard.
4. I'm not really into Halloween alternatives either.
5. The whole argument not do Halloween based on its historical basis is silly too. Although, if Halloween occurred for the very first time this year, would you participate? Something to think about.
6. Don't worry about my poor deprived children. We have a large tupperware full of costumes and I give them enough candy to make a dentist's drill finger twitch. They do just fine on the other 364 days a year when it comes to dress-up and sugar consumption."

Additionally, I read something very interesting on The Resurgence blog. The history of the holiday and its connection with the protestant Reformation.Give it a read.

Radical video

This is more radical than Piper on divorce or the Duncan brothers rapping. Check it out.

JR Vassar

I don't remember how I came across @jrvassar from @apostlesNYC or why I started to follow him on twitter, but I am glad I did it. Pastor Vassar's preaching engages you in a way that gives you the feeling that he's talking directly and only to you. I recently listened to a brief series of his and I highly recommend it. Here are the titles:

1-Marriage and Men
2-Gospel, Community, and Mission
3-Marriage and Women
4-Intentional Singleness
5-Gospel parenting.