Do you know how much $700 billion is?
September 25th, 2008
Do you know how much $700 billion is? Yes, it is the amount of taxpayer bailout that the United States administration is urging Congress to adopt in order to save the financial institutions that have recklessly accumulated “toxic debt” in their quest for skyrocketing profits. But how much is $700 billion? If the 3,200 students at Andrews University were to be declared the beneficiaries of this bailout, each of our students would be receiving $218,750,000. One could afford college education with a subsidy like that! How much is $700 billion? If you sent the bill to the 330 million men, women and children living in the United States it would cost each of us $2,121.21. But in reality, the addition of this $700 billion bailout to our national debt raises our debt to an unfathomable $11.3 trillion! If this nation began to pay off that debt $100 billion per year, it would take 113 years (assuming not a single penny more were added to that debt during the time).
In response to the dramatic downward spiral of both our national and global economies over the last few days, the blogosphere is electric in reaction. Todd Harrison, with Marketwatch.com, opined, “The free market system officially broke last week and the ramifications are profound. A new world order is upon us, one that will forever change the construct of capitalism” (9-24-08). Likening this crisis response to what took place post September 11, 2001, his lengthy two page analysis included the sobering observation, “Indeed, anticipation of social unrest may be the catalyst for the decision to transfer troops back to the states [sic]. Beginning Oct. 1, a military army brigade will be an ‘on-call federal response force for natural or manmade emergencies and disasters,’ the first time an active unit has been given a dedicated assignment of this kind” (http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/shock-awe-five-things-you/story.aspx?guid={0FBD43B9-A7CA-4816-95C2-2ABA25FE8ED8}).
The point is inescapable, irrespective of your political persuasion or economic acumen. We now live in an hour of profound and rapid change. Literally overnight the headlines are rewriting life as we know it.
I received an email from a young adult this week asking if there is anything to her remembering reading somewhere once that economic crisis would precede the return of Christ. Revelation 18 unapologetically describes such a global financial meltdown. And you can be certain our own nation will not be spared.
How then should we now live? The bold command of Christ bears our brooding: “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven. . . . for where your treasure is, there your heart will be also” (Matthew 6:19-21 TNIV). Though we may consider ourselves treasureless, nevertheless Jesus’ point is clear—we must invest our very selves in the kingdom of God.
If ever there were an hour of history when our treasures would not be just well-spent, but best-spent in advancing the everlasting gospel to the ends of a very uncertain civilization, this would surely be it, wouldn’t you agree?
. . . for the pastor’s weekly blog, go to www.pmchurch.tv
A week ago, a scientist warned that the world might end . . . a week ago.
September 18th, 2008
A week ago, a scientist warned that the world might end . . . a week ago. Which is why he wasn’t celebrating with the rest of his colleagues in the scientific world over the brand new Large Hadron Collider that was unveiled beneath the grassy sod along the Swiss-French border. Billed “the world’s largest atom smasher,” this brand new particle accelerator is a seventeen mile underground circular tunnel. In the tunnel are two parallel tubes into which scientists last week first fired one beam of protons clockwise and then fired a second beam in the second tube counterclockwise. Traveling at nearly the speed of light, the two beams made 11,000 circuits of that 17-mile tunnel . . . in a single second! Cheers went up when computers revealed that the two beams had successfully circumnavigated the tunnels and crossed the finish line in opposite directions.
Why all the hoopla? Because scientists are hoping to recreate the conditions that might have been present in the birth of the universe long ago. Their plans are to gradually increase the two beams with protons, fire them in opposite directions, and then at four points in the tunneled circuit through giant magnets cause the beams to cross into each other. At that split second massive digital cameras weighing thousands of tons will record those collisions through millions of snapshots per second. Pouring over those “pictures,” scientists hope to piece together clues that might unravel the mystery of our universe’s origin.
And that party-pooper scientist? He fears that the underground collision of those protons will threaten this earth through the formation of micro black holes, ultra-tiny versions of the collapsed stars in the universe that are known to suck in all nearby light, planets and stars. Adios amigos, is his warning.
Let’s leave to the scientists the debate over the perils of this fascinating new particle accelerator. But surely we who believe in the Creator God of the universe are not surprised at the unbridled power that science unleashes in these atom smashers. “By the word of the LORD the heavens were made, their starry host by the breath of his mouth” (Psalm 33:6 TNIV). We sprinkle the word “omnipotent” in our sentences, but truly the all-powerful reality of the divine is beyond our feeble human comprehension!
Let us remember—he is the God who poured out his life for a fallen race at Calvary. At the fulcrum of the cross, the energy of a trillion trillion galaxies was released, as into the black hole of Christ’s death the sins of an entire planet were sucked into the divine heart, so that “whosoever believes in him will not perish but have everlasting life” (John 3:16). No wonder, as we noted in “Primetime”—III last week, it is so strategically essential that through prayer we bring our lost friends and family to him. What more powerful force could possibly be unleashed to save and rescue them than the redeeming love of the universe’s Creator?
Forward on our knees indeed!
So how much power is swirling in Hurricane Ike right now?
September 11th, 2008
So how much power is swirling in Hurricane Ike right now? With Gustav last week and Ike this week and possibly Josephine a few days hence, the destructive power of nature’s howling winds is on more than a few minds! Googling for the answer, I discovered several sources that have calculated that, while it is extremely difficult to compute the power of a single hurricane, it is estimated its power is equivalent to 400 twenty-megaton hydrogen bombs (8000 megatons, or 8 billion tons of TNT). If you converted that to electricity, it would be enough to power our nation for six months! According to the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists the “total destructive power” of our planet’s known nuclear arsenals is 5000 megatons—3000 megatons less power than that contained in a single hurricane.
The point? Mother Nature packs an explosive wallop unequaled on earth by man! Would that be true of Father Nature, too? True of God? But of course. No wonder then the very first followers of the risen Christ were so insistent on and consistent in connecting with their divine Lord. They called it “prayer.” And even a cursory reading of Acts reveals they did it often.
Do you suppose the reason you and I pray as little as we do is because we’ve lost prayer’s connection with the explosive, risen Christ? I.e., prayer for us has become a lazy afternoon breeze, when in fact it conceals in its calm center (like the deceptively still “eye” of a hurricane) the seeds of a mighty wind so powerful that there is nothing in all of humanity or even “satanity” itself that can resist the explosive divine omnipotence prayer taps. Perhaps we’ve been lulled into relegating the practice of prayer to elderly ladies and tiny children, when truth is it is the most potent weapon any earth child can wield!
John Dawson in his compelling Taking Our Cities for God observes: “The prayer of a human being can alter history by releasing legions of angels into the earth. If we really grasped this truth, we would pray with intensity, and we would pray constantly” (140).
If we really believed in the power of prayer, we really would be praying constantly, wouldn’t we? But of course. Praying for what? “Primetime: Down on All Fours” seeks the answer. The Japanese called it kamikaze—literally, “God’s wind.” Makes you wonder in this season of the hurricane, could that be the blowing that we hear?
“Birds of a feather flock together.”
September 3rd, 2008
“Birds of a feather flock together.” My mother drilled that sage piece of counsel into my pubescent brain when I was a kid growing up. She wanted me to learn the truth that people judge you by the company you keep—so choose your friends carefully. And her words stuck, irrespective of how I as a teenager conformed to her maternal wisdom.
“Birds of a feather” has to do with political parties and loyalties, too. For the first time since 1956 our nation has just endured two back-to-back presidential conventions—dominating the news and preoccupying our conversations with their partisan hoopla. Hurricane Gustav wasn’t the only blast of hot air these past two weeks!
Hopefully, however, we as Christians (and Adventist Christians, at that) do not succumb to the divisive rhetoric that is characteristic of political seasons like this. I keep hearing the words of our Lord under interrogation by the Roman governor Pilate. “‘My kingdom is not of this world . . . My kingdom is not from here’” (John 18:36). While both political parties have nominated respectable candidates for president, we dilute our public witness and water down our spiritual mission when we allow ourselves to be swept up in partisan rancor and political attacks.
Does that mean we won’t have political opinions? Should we not speak out for national concerns? Are we not to participate in the electoral process of selecting government leaders? Of course we should, and we must. But we can do so, can we not, without aligning ourselves with divisive party rhetoric and dividing political alliances? If like Christ our Master, our highest loyalties are firmly attached to God’s eternal kingdom and uncompromisingly aligned with his radical passion to save all humankind (irrespective of creed, gender, race or party), then shall we not be careful to avoid alienating the very people and populace we’ve been called to reach for him?
“Birds of a feather flock together.” Then let us daily fly the colors of the Sovereign Leader who claims our highest allegiance and most fervent loyalty. And when the conversation turns political, why not find in that very turning a quiet opportunity to witness to your allegiance to the only One who can solve our planet’s most vexing perplexities and satisfy this civilization’s deepest longing?