My Best Friend Went to Hell
Over the years I have come to realize that finding a real friend is not easy. Surely a real friend is more than just being on someone’s Facebook page at the click of a mouse. A friend is a lot more than a casual acquaintance you see at school or work. It is much more than being around someone you work with or walk past at school in the hallways between classes. It is much more than living in the same neighborhood. Finding real friends can be challenging at times. When I was a kid, my friends were people I spent time with over many years. I knew all of them personally. We grew up in the same neighborhood, spent time together on camping trips, Cub Scout events, played on the same sports teams at school and did our homework at each other’s house once in a while. My friends were people I knew I could count on. If I had a problem or they needed me, we would be there for each other one way or another.
As we continue to watch the recent deadly tensions in Israel between the Israelis and the Palestinians over the Land and control of the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, most people fail to see the profound issues that are under way. From Presidents to Popes, no one seems to have found any lasting answer about what to do. Finding a lasting peace between the Palestinians and the Israelis has turned into the most vexing political and spiritual problem in history.
I sat back this past week and watched the Democratic Presidential Debates. It seemed like every sound byte was another candidate talking about another promised giveaway program that seems to be meant to buy votes. Some of the candidates even wanted to give away money to people who were not citizens. Sadly, we are truly nearing the end of this Country as we know it. Back in 1776, around the time of our Nation’s founding, a European historian, Alexander Fraser Tytler, published a work entitled, “The Decline and Fall of the Athenian Republic.” In his work, Tytler made the following observation:
If there is one name that is universally recognized for betrayal and evil it is Judas Iscariot. The name of Judas is infamous in the minds of people around the world and throughout history.
Just the other day, Mark Zuckerberg, Founder and CEO of Facebook, was pictured wearing a virtual reality headset. Facebook is investing billions of dollars to explore taking their social networking to another level, by incorporating it with virtual reality. Many people may not be aware of “virtual reality,” but it is an attempt to create reality for people using technology. People are fitted with headsets and other controls to allow them to experience life in another dimension. According to Wikipedia:
This past week has marked yet another season of murder, violence and tension surrounding the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. What else is new? The Temple Mount area, and the surrounding Old City of Jerusalem, has become the most fought over area in human history. This pattern has seemingly gone on for the last 4000 years or so…..ever since Abraham visited the area with his son Isaac in Genesis 22. When you visit Jerusalem today, one never knows if you will be able to visit the location or not due to the unpredictable political and spiritual issues surrounding the area. It is as though the tensions of the whole world are somehow contained in that small piece of ground. While few may care or even understand the issues, all of our lives are somehow eternally connected to those few acres in Jerusalem, its’ peace and future. Jerusalem has truly become the “Ground Zero” for every event in our world today.
During my past 30 years or so of ministry I have watched a growing phenomenon emerging in the Church world that has shaped American Christianity like nothing else. It is the rise of the Mega Church. It kind of started with Pastor Bill Hybels doing market research in the Chicago area about what people liked and didn’t like about a typical church. That market research birthed what became the Willow Creek Association and a new way of doing church. Many others have joined this movement. Some of these leaders have become celebrities that are widely known around the world. While I am not sure Bill Hybels or anyone in this movement would agree, the movement seemed to move the Church more toward the audience’s wants and less toward God’s Word and will…..at least at first glance. It was and is assumed by the architects of this movement, that the Lord would still be there, whatever was done in His Name. The message of this movement came down to almost a simple slogan that went something like this, “same message different methods.”
One of the hardest things to watch these days are the silly attempts by our political leaders in Washington to totally ignore reality in their mishandling of foreign policy. There seems to be no end to it. While volumes could be written about the current chaos with the Iran “deal,” there seems to be a close runner up. The runner up candidate goes to our dealings with Russia and their leader, Vladimir Putin.
Just the other day, a person sent me a devotional from a local mega church that said the goal of the Great Commission is to be more like Jesus. The devotional read:
If there is one area where Christians and Jews miss each other today it is the fact that we have a different understanding of our holidays. As an example, Christians have Good Friday, while Jews have Passover. However separate their meaning is to each faith, these two holidays are very closely related. The Jews celebrate the Passover deliverance from slavery in Egypt. Christians celebrate the deliverance from sin through the death of the Lord Jesus Christ. What each group commemorates actually happened on the same Hebrew calendar date. In reality they actually are the same event, as they have the same meaning….deliverance from bondage. That said, most Christians and Jews still live in totally different worlds. Christians joyously affirm that our Lord Jesus Christ is Israel’s Messiah and deliverer, while most Jews today are still waiting for the coming of the Messiah.
Have you ever heard someone say, “Never Again,” referring to an event of history? That phrase is always used to refer to the Holocaust during World War II in which over 6 million Jews were murdered, largely in the crematoriums of the Nazi regime. The phrase “Never Again” is designed to express moral outrage for what happened and to serve as a powerful statement to make sure it never happens again. Because the Holocaust evokes such horror in the minds of most people, any time its memory is brought back you have an audience. So when former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee, now presidential candidate, accused the Obama Administration last week of marching the Jews in Israel to the ovens of the Holocaust in their nuclear deal with Iran, it created a media sensation and deep reaction around the world.
For many Christians, one of the hardest things to do is to see oneself as part of the Bride of Christ. Some have never even heard of the Church being a Bride. Perhaps it is too personal, too close, to see the Lord as the Bridegroom and us as the Bride. Maybe it’s uncomfortable to think of God living with us day to day like a spouse. After all, do we really want that kind of accountability in our lives with the Lord? Isn’t the Lord just for Sundays, funerals, baptisms, weddings, and when we need help? And then there are the sexual identity problems. How do Christian men see themselves as a “Bride”?
