Spotted in a white-board photo illustrating a Dallas News article about the Institute of Creation Research:

"Truth is treason in the empire of lies." Isaiah 28:15

That's not a direct translation of this verse in the book of Isaiah, but it sure is an accurate observation about a culture where "we have made lies our refuge, and under falsehood have we hid ourselves" (Isaiah 28:15b, NKJV).  

It's certainly where we are in this country today. But it's not a sudden fulfillment of an ancient prophecy; it's precisely the condition that Hans Christian Andersen was exposing in his insightful 1837 story, "The Emperor's New Clothes" (illustrated above in a painting by Edmund Dulac). 

You know the story, right? Swindlers convince the emperor, and just about everyone else, that they weave fabrics so magnificent that clothing made from their cloth is invisible to those unworthy of their positions. The swindlers proceed to make the emperor an imaginary suit which he then parades through the town. 

No one wants to be exposed as unworthy -- until a child with no pride of position speaks the truth:

"But he hasn't got anything on."

At last, a whisper begins to spread through the crowd, and at least some acknowledge of the truth. But the elite continue in their fantasy, Andersen tells us:

"The Emperor shivered, for he suspected they were right. But he thought, 'This procession has got to go on.' So he walked more proudly than ever, as his noblemen held high the train that wasn't there at all."

It's a perfect analogy for what has happened among the world's scientific elites, and what organizations like ICR are doing to help the crowd see through the lie. 

Truth has indeed become treason. Thank God for scientists such as those at ICR--scientists who stand for truth in spite of the consequences.  ​

​Sadly, many in the unbelieving world think that hell is the place to be for all eternity – that all their friends will be there, partying forevermore. I suppose there were times when I might have agreed with them, back in the days before I’d sought, and found, the absolute truth about our existence.
 
Jesus, however, assures anyone with ears to hear that hell is a place of eternal torment, where there will be “wailing and gnashing of teeth” (see, for instance, Matthew 13:42 and 50, 22:13, 24:51, 25:30, and Luke 13:28).
 
The Bible offers other hints about hell – perhaps most notably, in Jesus’ horrifying Luke 16 account of the rich man in torment in Hades.  
 
But one is tempted to ask, “And then what? Did the rich man later join his friends for a party where his thirst would be forever quenched? Was he offered another chance to slip on over into heaven? Did he disintegrate into oblivion or head on to Buddhist nirvana?"
 
Any student of the Bible will tell you that these things definitely did not take place. But most of us would be rather vague when asked to explain exactly what did happen next.
 
Enter Randy Alcorn’s novel Deadline (Multnomah Publishers, 2006), which we recently read for our Christian women’s book club. It’s a great story, offering both a satisfying mystery and plenty of food for thought about eternity. Included are multiple descriptions of what heaven may be like for repentant believers in Jesus Christ; those who’ve read Alcorn’s wonderful book Heaven will recognize a number of his ideas fleshed out in Deadline.
 
If you’re thinking about getting the book, stop reading now, because what I’m about to say could be viewed as a bit of a spoiler. At least, it answered the overwhelming question I’d been trying to ignore since Chapter Four.
 
But if you’re one of those with a dozen books already waiting to be read and scores more tucked away for that mythical “when I have time” future, you might be interested in a glimpse of how Alcorn envisioned hell in this novel. Just a few quotes:

• “Where was everybody? Doc had never felt so utterly alone.”
• “The aloneness was becoming stifling … He considered the unthinkable – that this was not a phase, a part of a transition, but the final destination.”
• “He felt a burning. A fury welled up inside him … But there was no one to lash out at.”
• “He turned his memory to his days on earth, but panicked as he found it increasingly hard to remember what had happened there. He wanted to, for memories … were at least a distraction.”

 
Alcorn’s terrifying description goes on for eight pages. He doesn’t describe any physical torture – just the mental, emotional and spiritual anguish that might torment anyone spending forever in hell, eternally separated from the Creator of everything good.
 
If you are among those who have rejected the salvation available only through Jesus Christ, and absolutely refuse to read the Bible, do yourself this favor: Pick up a copy of Deadline and read the last half of Chapter Twenty-Eight. Author Alcorn has done a serious, Bible-saturated study of eternity. His opinions and insights are undoubtedly far more accurate than those of people who’ve simply spent an hour or two interrogating their own brains on the subject, or decades immersed in the teachings of false religions. 

In Philippians 4, the apostle Paul advises us never to be anxious, but instead, “in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God." The result? "The peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.”
 
But it's rarely easy to cast aside our anxieties, as virtually any Christian can attest. For some, the trials of this life can become almost overwhelming.
 
Beth Horn, Field Experience Liaison in Bob Jones University’s School of Education, is one who has experienced tremendous adversities associated with the diagnosis, treatment and aftermath of aggressive breast cancer. Last fall, she shared her experience extensively in articles entitled “Blessings through Burdens,” “One Seed,” and “The Work of Your Hands.”
 
Beth has now written about the aftermath of her treatment—perhaps the most chilling part of this journey—in “Torn Apart, But Never Alone.” 

A book review   
 
There are so many things I love about this book, starting with the subject: What will it be like for those who are left behind when the Rapture occurs? What might they think about what has happened? How might they react?
 
What born-again Christian has not thought about these things in the face of beloved unbelievers’ stubborn resistance to the good news of Jesus Christ? Wyler tells us what she thinks, and I suspect she’s right.
 
To be honest, I didn’t like narrator Sarah Colton very much, but I think that’s because she reminded me of myself before I came to Christ (and sometimes since then, I’m ashamed to admit). She’s a self-absorbed feminist atheist, viewing the world through her own selfish eyes. Just one example: When a plane crashes near her home, the ambitious photojournalist grabs her equipment and races to capture the scene on video. Her motive? “This will make me famous. Sarah Colton has arrived …” (location 736). 
 
The author’s presentation of Sarah is consistent from start to finish. More than once, I wondered how someone so familiar with what Scripture says about everything from salvation to the Rapture could also have such accurate insight into a feminist atheist’s thinking. It’s really a brilliant character sketch.
 
I also appreciate Wyler’s generous use of foreshadowing. It’s fairly subtle; there’s none of the obvious “you could hear her coming in her wooden shoes” foretelling. But it’s the sort of thing that makes this reader’s heart smile when it plays itself out.
 
Then there’s the pacing. It’s flawless. The author continually turns up the tension and then gives the reader a breather with detours into less intense territory. For instance, in location 751, Sarah is rushing out to capture the aftermath of the crash on camera. Her heart is pounding, and so is mine. She takes this opportunity to tell us about her witnessing the convenience-store shooting of the governor’s son. Not a pleasant diversion, to be sure; but it’s in the past and Sarah has clearly survived the incident, so it lets the reader relax for a few moments.
 
But not for long. Wyler ramps it up again in short order, keeping my pulse racing and my eyes leaping through page after digital page.
 
As a result, I found it difficult to set this book aside. That may be due in part to the author’s use of the present tense throughout. Interestingly, I’m not at all a fan of present-tense novels; in the past, it has always struck me as gimmicky. But not in this case. The present tense is integral to the story. And Wyler handled it so transparently that I didn’t even notice it until I was halfway through the book.
 
But perhaps my favorite thing about Untakenable is Sarah’s voice. This book is not simply written in the first person; it is written to the reader. Sarah holds a running conversation with you from beginning to end. She asks you what you think, and if you saw, heard, or felt what she did. She wonders if you’re still with her, or have abandoned her, as of course you are free to do. She invites you to tell her what you would do if you were in her shoes.
 
She gets kind of personal, too. In the aforementioned scene when she’s racing to the crash site, she asks, “Are you keeping up with me? I do not know what shape you are in healthwise, but step it up as we must get to the scene before anyone else does.”
 
Sarah even admonishes the reader a time or two for failing to help her. “Are you here with me?” she asks at location 1784. “But why do I bother asking you? You have been of no help since we started this relationship.”
 
It’s crazy and I found it endearing. Since there’s nothing new under the sun, as Solomon told us in Ecclesiastes, I suppose that other writers have pioneered this technique. But I’d certainly never seen it. In fact, I’ve never read anything quite like Untakenable.
 
A bonus: Wyler closes with an interesting discussion of the choices she made in writing the story and an appeal for the reader to believe on Christ. She also includes Bible passages describing the Rapture and God’s plan of salvation.
 
Bottom line: This is an irresistible book that I think virtually any true believer would thoroughly enjoy--one that all unbelievers really should read and ponder, before it’s too late. Find it here.

Seems like everywhere I turn lately I am being reminded of Jesus’ commands in Matthew 5:43-45a: 

"You have heard that it was said, 'You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.' But I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven…” 

Like so much of what Jesus taught, these commands go against human nature, against human experience, and against human desire.  Even with the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, the born-again believer retains vestiges of the “natural man” described by the apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 2; and this natural man wants our enemies to suffer while watching us prosper. 

And we’ve received a lot of support from our culture. “Living well is the best revenge” was advice I read decades ago in some woman’s magazine, and I took it to heart; to this day, if someone has irritated or hurt or angered me, my first reaction is to fantasize about some way of making him feel small, and me look radiantly happy and successful and positively unfazed by anything he could do or say.   

But thanks to Matthew 5 and the indwelling Holy Spirit, such thoughts now vanish in fairly short order, being forcibly replaced by meditations on how best to love, bless, do good to and pray for the enemy at hand.  

After all, it’s the Lord’s will that all should be saved and know the truth (1 Timothy 2:3-4). And which is more attractive to a potential saint, even if he’s wearing wolf’s clothing at the moment – an attitude of love or disdain?

Consider, for example, how the ladies of Atlanta treated prostitute Belle Watling. (If you don’t know off the top of your head, you simply MUST see Gone with the Wind just as soon and often as possible!) With one exception, they stuck their noses in the air and told her to get lost, right? The exception, of course, was the overtly Christian Melanie Wilkes, who treated her with great kindness and humility, as in the scene in Belle’s carriage after Belle had provided a life-saving alibi for the ladies' husbands (pictured above): 

Melanie: How can I thank you enough for what you did for us? How can any of us thank you enough? 
Belle: I got your note saying you were going to call on me and thank me. Oh Mrs Wilkes, you must have lost your mind. I come up here as soon as it was dark to tell you you mustn't even think of such things. Why I'm... Why you're... Well it wouldn't be fittin' at all 
Melanie: Wouldn't be fitting for me to call on a kind woman who saved my husband's life? 
Belle: Mrs Wilkes, there ain't never been a woman in town that's been nice to me the way you was, I mean about the money for the hospital, you know. And I don't forget a kindness.

I think it’s safe to say that if Belle Watling ever did seek Christ, it would have been at least in part because of the Christian love Melanie showed her – not the cold judgmentalism demonstrated by the leading ladies of Atlanta society.                                                                
Several years ago, I came across a quote from Dr. Russell Moore, Dean of the School of Theology at Southern Baptist Seminary: “The next Jonathan Edwards might be the man driving in front of you with the Darwin Fish bumper decal. The next Charles Wesley might be a misogynist, profanity-spewing hip-hop artist right now. The next Billy Graham might be passed out drunk in a fraternity house right now.”

Noting the immense comfort to be found in these words, author Carol Barnier concluded, “Your prodigal may currently be making choices that range from uncomfortable to shocking. But the God of the universe looks down in love on your child and says, ‘I’m not done yet. I have plans for that one. And if they ever turn to Me, you’ll see something amazing. Something beautiful. Something that can change the world.’”  

And that is perhaps the best reason for obeying Jesus’ command to love, bless, do good to and pray for our enemies. After all, by doing so, we might be pointing a modern-day Saul of Tarsus to the kingdom of God.  

You’ve probably heard it said that “BIBLE” is an acronym for “Basic Instructions Before Leaving Earth.” And it’s true! The Bible is much more than that, but this is not a bad in-a-nutshell description of one of its primary purposes: It is, in fact, the perfect operator manual for navigating our way successfully through this life.
 
I know quite a bit about operator manuals. I spent a big chunk of my career writing them for medical equipment such as the first commercially available MRI and PET systems – the diagnostic imaging systems that have given physicians such astounding new insights into our bodies.
 
As it turns out, writing manuals for such complex equipment is profitable, intellectually satisfying and a lot of fun to boot. But whoever would have guessed that this work would also yield important spiritual lessons decades down the road?
 
Here’s the scoop. I recently found myself in a debate with a professing believer who likes to isolate Bible verses that would seem to support his home-grown, “I’ve given it a lot of thought” theology. This time, he justified his extra-biblical thinking with Exodus 20:3, “Thou shalt have no other gods before Me.” This verse, he insisted, implies that God is not the only god—unless one reads it metaphorically. “It’s fine if you want to say that ‘other gods’ means money or sex or anything else,” he wrote. “But that’s not what it says. If you read it literally, it says that there are other gods, which I don’t believe.” And that, he concluded triumphantly, is why he feels free to slap the “metaphor” label on any Biblical passage that contradicts his personal worldview.  
 
But hold on! Does the Bible not address this “other gods” issue in multiple places, and in multiple ways? Does it not give us many examples of the practice of having other gods before Him – in short, idolatry? And even if we're pressed for time, could we not learn a great deal more simply by reading down a couple verses, to find that we are not to bow down or serve these “other gods”?
 
In point of fact, the Bible does a wonderful job of explaining not only this issue but virtually every other one you can think of. That’s especially true if the Holy Spirit is guiding you “into all truth” (John 16:13).

There's just one prerequisite: you need to read the whole thing.
 
The only alternative would have been for God to inspire His writers to spell out in detail every last word or phrase that could possibly be misunderstood or misinterpreted.  If He had done that, I suppose we could get complete understanding of a given topic from reading just one passage. But instead of a readable book of under 800,000 words (roughly the equivalent of Gone with the Wind plus Lonesome Dove), we’d be forced to wade through an 800,000,000,000,000,000-word library to learn all He wants us to know about our lives.
 
Consider the impact such a scheme would have on any other sort of operator manual – automobile instructions, for instance.
 
Say you wanted to know how to tell other drivers you were about to make a turn. No one would have an issue with a manual that said something like “push the turn signal lever up to signal a right turn, down to signal a left turn.” But with the “spell it all out every time” scheme some try to force on the Bible, the manual would have to say something along these lines: “Open the driver’s side door, climb in, and don your seatbelt by pulling the strap across your body and plugging the buckle in to the receptacle provided. Then insert your key into the ignition and turn it ¼ turn clockwise while stepping on the brake. Keeping your foot on the brake, press the button on the gearshift …” and so on and so on, until finally, 50 pages later, you’d come to “push the turn signal lever up to signal a right turn, down to signal a left turn.”
 
Would you want your car manual to do that? Of course not! With any operator manual, we expect that details on specific aspects of the machine to be found in multiple places; we would otherwise need a truck to haul around the instructions.
 
And so it is with the Bible. The information imparted in its pages builds on itself until, by the time you read Revelation 22:21, you have been exposed to all God wants you to know. I suppose some might call it “progressive” or “cumulative” revelation, although I believe those terms can be misused too.
 
The point is simply this: If you really want to know what God has to say to and about His creation, you need to read and meditate upon the whole thing. And when you’ve finished, read it again. Given the fact that a human life is a tad more complicated than driving a car or acquiring an MRI or PET scan, don’t expect to reach complete understanding in this life. But the serious student finds that each hour spent in the word of God yields life-transforming knowledge, wisdom and understanding.
 
Just one tip to help you along the way:
 
For best results, begin by repenting of what God says is sin and trusting in the Savior to have paid its penalty on the cross. When you do so, the Holy Spirit will indwell your heart, and guide you in the way of all truth.    

Not long ago, I attended yet another funeral of yet another wonderful woman who had died, surrounded by her loving children, after having spent nearly 90 faith-filled years on Planet Earth. 

This woman's funeral was held in a church packed with family and friends. Over the course of an hour or so, we sang some of her favorite hymns – “In the Garden,” “When Morning Gilds the Skies,” and “How Great Thou Art," to be specific. We heard some comforting readings from Scripture, a fine sermon, and a number of heartfelt prayers. And we listened to several relatives talk about what a terrific mother, aunt and grandmother she'd been, and what a great example of Christian faith she had set for them.

There were some tears, but mostly underscored by radiant smiles. It turns out that most of the woman’s family members are believers themselves. They haven’t lost her; they know exactly where she is, and know that they will be reunited with her eternally one happy day. And so they are able to rejoice over her home-going.

What a contrast to the secular funerals I’ve been to over the years, where uncertainty or unbelief have reigned. 

It makes me wonder once again how anyone can approach the inevitability of death without investigating what comes next, and what our options might be.

If that sounds like you, allow me to pose some critically important questions: What if Christianity is true? What if eternity exists, and you will spend it in either heaven or hell? What if your ultimate destination depends not on how good you have been in this life, or how popular or how rich, but solely on whether or not you trusted in Christ to have paid the penalty for your sin? 

Millions of people have believed just that over the centuries. Some of us even came to this conclusion after investigating the subject exhaustively.

Doesn’t it strike you as the epitome of foolishness to refuse to consider it?

I spent almost a half century of my life in precisely that foolish state. Year after year, I told myself that no one could possibly know what happens after death, although I have no idea where I got that idea – certainly not as a result of any exhaustive intellectual inquiry. I reserved that inquiry for the 15 months following the biggest heartbreak of my life. And it led me to the doubt-free conclusion that Christianity is Truth -- absolute, unshakable, unchanging, eternal Truth.

If you haven’t yet investigated this most important question, what exactly is stopping you? It can’t possibly be worth the risk of spending eternity in hell. 

Here’s a good place to begin. And here's another. I sincerely hope that you'll check them out. Then, if I can help you with your quest in any way, don't hesitate to let me know. 

"And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free." (John 8:32)

A bumblebee that tumbles into an open jar will not find its way out on its own, they say. It will try to find freedom through the sides at the bottom of the jar, until it destroys itself; it will never look up to see the easy escape route at the top. 
​
Same with a buzzard finding itself in a small, open-topped pen. It needs to run itself into flight. If it doesn't have enough room to do so, it will remain a prisoner until it dies.

This, at least, is what they say. I can't report from first-hand experience, never having personally captured either bumblebee or buzzard.

But what an apt illustration this is for what it takes some people to find their way to the Lord: We find ourselves in great distress, trapped in intolerable circumstances, and we beat ourselves up in trying to make a horizontal escape where no escape exists. It's only when we look up that we spot the freedom of everlasting life. 

This was certainly the case in my life. I was perfectly self-sufficient and contentedly earth-bound until May 31, 2000. That's when I was swallowed up in sorrow over my mother's death. Like the bee and buzzard, I looked around and saw no escape. But then, unlike these critters, I looked up and glimpsed true freedom.

Okay, so the analogy falls apart for me at that point. It took me over a year to sort through the evidence for a god in general, and the God of the Bible in particular. But the point is that I found the freedom I so desperately sought only by looking up. 

This is my constant prayer for the lost: Lord, please do whatever it takes to hedge them in as You did me. Help them to see that there's no escape in the world around them, not in money or achievement or even the most all-consuming love. Help them to look up and see You. Help them to trust in You alone so that they will find liberty forevermore. 

Do whatever it takes, Lord. Help them to know that, if the Son makes them free, they will be free indeed (John 8:36).