To those who believe the Universe is Infinite...

I present to you the dark-sky paradox, also known as Olbers's paradox. This was named for Willhelm Olbers, a 19th-century astronomer who brought to the forefront an argument presented by Edmond Halley to the Royal Society. He fought the idea of an eternal universe, saying it had to have a beginning because "if the number of Fixt stars were more than finite, the whole superficies of their apparent Sphere would be luminous.''

If the universe were infinite, with all the stars and galaxies about, any person would not see dark spaces between stars, because the spaces would be filled with more stars, and the sky would be briliant with a uniform light.

New Books Coming Out

Hurray! I just finished in negotiations with Cedar Springs and the company has agreed to present my trilogy for the Christmas season! The three-volume set is called the White Icicle Chronicles and is an adventure of little Nicholas as he encounters a whole new universe in which he is enlisted as a translator. It's an allegorical Christian fiction journey along the lines of C.S. Lewis' tales.

It will be released in late October - all three books at once.

This is the first step of my new publishing ministry. Thank the Lord for the encouraging first step across the threshold.

The Small Problems Become Large

Small mistakes can quickly become big ones. That’s why it’s important to pay attention to detail. You may remember the scene in the movie “Remember the Titans.” The young freshman running back eagerly ran into the field to play in his first ever game of high school football. He was immediately called back to the sideline before the play ever started. Why? He forgot a simple detail known as having a helmet on his head!



A strange-but-true humorous web site relates another actual story of those who make small mistakes that quickly become big ones.

Back in May of 2004, a group of Ukraine soldiers were exhausted after a morning of piling up live artillery in a military warehouse. Totally ignoring the warning signs against smoking and open flames posted on virtually every wall, the group of soldiers took a cigarette break at lunchtime.

At this point I’m going to inform you that the warehouse was filled with 92,000 tons of ammunition.

After the lunch hour, the soldiers flicked the still-lit cigarettes away and went back to work. The glowing embers of the cigarette butts caught onto flammable material, starting a small fire that quickly set off a domino-like reaction of massive explosions.

Did I mention that there were 92,000 tons of ammunition in the warehouse?

The explosions threw wreckage as far as 25 miles away, dropping burning fragments in other towns which then set off fires. The explosions lasted for a full week and leveled all buildings within in a two-mile radius. A gas pipeline ruptured. The whole region had to be evacuated.
That little naughty smoking break ended up costing about $750 million in damages.

The infraction seemed minor, but it set off a change of events that were supremely disastrous.

Song of Solomon 2:15 reminds us of the little nuisances that have big results when it says:
"Take us the foxes, the little foxes, that spoil the vines: for our vines [have] tender grapes."

The little foxes may seem petty and even cute, but soon the whole harvest is ruined.

Just like a word spoken in anger can ruin a friendship.
Just like a small but callous response to someone's need can hurt them deeply.
Just like a quick disregard for giving help to mission work can slow the spread of the Gospel significantly.
Just like the small stolen item at work can severely damage your Christian testimony.

Think about it. Are there small foxes in our lives that are doing damamge to the harvest?

Psalm 48:12-14 Count the Towers!

Walk about Zion and go around her; Count her towers;

Christian, take a look around and see the protection and guidance that God has given you all these years. Start right now! Count your blessings, add them up and start bragging on Jesus. Go ahead, count the towers! Count the times you were delivered!

I recall clearly the time in my youth when I fell off of a car that was moving almost 40 miles per hour. In a moment of teenaged goofiness, I was sitting on top of a car that was racing through a parking lot. I fell off, and to this day cannot comprehend why my brains weren't smashed all over the pavement. I realize that God was preserving me to carry on His ministry in a small way.

Count the towers? Let me list some amazing blessings He has shown us:

1. Jill's continuing recovery from fibromyagia. Remember, only a year ago, she was bedridden for days at a time.

2. Nicholas' ministry at Camp Red Cloud this summer. The doors opened miraculously so that he may minister and be ministered to.

3. The arrival of this 4500 square foot home that we have opened up as a ministry to high schoolers and college age students for serious Bible study and a refuge.

4. Peter's growing sensitivity to the Lord's leading and a continual growing experience at Berean Christian School.

5. The beginning of our publishing ministry to Christian families.

6. Jesus bringing me out of a deep illness with my thyroid. Every day I am happy that my mind is in recovery.

7. My witnessing the personal salvation decisions of people like Chris Swiatocho, Jean Pipestem and the inmate at the South Carolina prison.

8. The students whose lives I saw changed while I taught at Grace Christian Academy, Christian Academy of Knoxville, and Calvary Christian School. The teens who now minister whom I was blessed to see while a youth pastor all these years.

Consider her ramparts; Go through her palaces, That you may tell {it} to the next generation.

For such is God, Our God forever and ever; He will guide us until death.

Ah, there is so much more I could write here, but I must get to work. Thank you, Jesus for an exciting and joyful life these past 48 years. I want the world to know that You get all the credit for any successes I have enjoyed.

Trying to ignore mercy

And I saw the dead, the great and the small, standing before the throne, and books were opened; and another book was opened, which is {the book} of life; and the dead were judged from the things which were written in the books, according to their deeds. - Rev 20:12 NASB

"This is not a trial, trying to determine what the facts are. The facts are in; here is the sentencing of someone already condemned." (Guzik)

“Their standing posture means that they are now about to be sentenced.” (Walvoord)

"...when the sentence is pronounced upon them at that point, they are sent into Gehenna which is the second death and that is permanent." (Chuck Smith)

"God's omniscience will not allow the most insignificant to escape unobserved, and His omnipotence will cause the mightiest to obey the summons. " - (JFB)

If we don't take the mercy shown by Jesus, nor the grace extended by the Father, the only recourse is to let us be judged as holy by our deeds. That's the most pitiful thing I can imagine - to try to stand before God and let Him be convinced of my attempt at using personal self-made holiness to force my way into Heaven.

Reality

"You are not a Christian because you lead a Christian lifestyle. Rather you lead a Christian lifestyle because you are a Christian. There are tens of millions of religious people in this country of ours and countless millions in other lands, who are staking their eternity upon the notion that they are Christians because they try to lead a relatively Christian lifestyle.

But if that were possible, why do you suppose the Apostle Paul, the greatest Christian theologian and missionary of all time, would have spent three chapters talking about justification before he ever got to the subject of how to live the Christian life?

The simple truth is that you can imitate a Christian life, and you can fake a Christian life, but you cannot really live a Christian life until you are one."

(from "A Call to Holy Living" by Michael Andrus )