Camping Trip

Day 322 in my "Year In My Life Through Pictures" blog series

If you have been living under a rock or tucked away in the Andes Mountains I must let you know that tomorrow is supposed to be the last full day of existence. According to Harold Camping May 21st is to be Judgment Day. How he comes up with this estimation is quite mind boggling and I will not even attempt to explain it. There is a brief description on his wikipedia page in the "Controversy" headed section.

Will the Rapture take place on May 21st, this Saturday? It's possible, but it will not be because of Camping's leap in mathematics. The Lord can return at any time and when He does I pray that you are ready to meet Him. In 1 Thessalonians 5:1-11 we are told to not be concerned about dates and times. It almost seems like Paul is directing those in Thessaloniki to just be concerned about edifying one another and to not worry (and those that are true believers today). He encourages them and us to know that we are guaranteed to be saved and taken up with Christ on whatever day He comes back for His bride.

I read the Left Behind books several years ago. They actually made an impact on me and I "rededicated" my life to God. Actually I just reassured myself of my false conversion when I was 8 years old, once again pointing back to that time of my life and once again saying the sinners prayer and asking Jesus into my heart. Thing is I was still not trusting in Christ and Hi perfect sacrifice for me. I was still trying to be saved by my own means. If I wanted to be saved bad enough I would be, or so I thought. There is nothing biblical about that, but after living so many years hearing the same types of messages that is all I knew. I was living in deception and I was headed to Hell.

It was still several years later, after living still in unrepentant sin that God did take the scales from my eyes and truly save me. I now do not point at something I did, but to Christ as my salvation and trust in Him to save me and not a prayer I mumbled as a child. Only the blood of Christ has the power to take our sins away, not a prayer or a decision, not a walk down an aisle or being baptized. Only a total surrender to God and a repentant heart are the pathway to salvation. He has said that if those things are present He will save you - not out of obligation because you do them, but because of Christ. His grace and mercy made a Way, the only Way, and it is narrow. Do not be deceived and do not look at anything other than Jesus Christ as your salvation. If you are, then you are not saved and are on the way to judgment, whether it be Saturday or 30 years from now. We are promised that after death is the judgment and I can guarantee 100% that you will die some day if the Lord does not return soon that is. Today is the day of salvation - who or what are you trusting in?

Day 70: Man I'm Confused Now

Today is day 70, if you couldn't tell by the title of this posting. If you could tell by my last 2 posts, which were not "picture of the day" posts, I have been keeping up with the goings on in Florida as the ball continues to bounce in favor of Pastor Terry Jones burning a couple hundred Qur'ans. It has been a busy day for me posting on here, so I used the banner of my blog as my picture of the day - it is a jpg so I am stretching it by calling it a picture, I know, but

Seems like Mr. Jones can not make his mind up and was fed some misinformation from the Imam in Jones' area seemed to make a few promises about the Ground Zero Mosque not being built in exchange for no Qur'ans being burned. The Imam neglected to be forthright with Pastor Jones, because he has had no contact with the New York Imam over the opening of the Cordova Center at Ground Zero.

So, is it on or is it off? I am fairly sure we will see this fringe group in Florida or the ultra-fringe Westboro church in Topeka Kansas has vowed to take over the festivities if Jones fails to follow through. You all remember Westboro, they are the way out in left field "church" that says "God hates fags" and protest military funerals under the guise that God is judging America through killing her soldiers because the U.S. allows homosexuals to serve in the military. This is not the group of people that I want associated with me or what true Christianity is.

Seems like the loonies are always the ones a religion is stereotyped by. I believe for the most part that most Muslims would never do anything terroristic in nature. But they all get lumped in with the extremists that commit all of the atrocities we hear about. This holds true for Christianity as well. The world sees Christianity as those that dance around with snakes drinking strictnine daring God to take their life. Now we have the uber-extreme folks that claim to be followers of Christ, but want to cause discord wherever they can. They love to draw attention to themselves and in turn really run God's true Church through the mud with them.

I am definitely not a Muslim sympathizer, but I do believe that their religion is as false as most of the professing "Christian" churches today, including Westboro and possibly Jones' Dove World Outreach Center which he pastors. I was initially on the fence with this man, but I am getting a foot on the ground on the side that says Jones is a wacko. Jones does seem to be having second thoughts and is looking for an answer on what to do or not to do. Pray that the God of Abraham and of David will enlighten him. If he is not a true Christian, pray that this is his Damascus Road experience that brings him into a true knowledge of God.

What it boils down to is that on the 9th anniversary of the September 11th terrorist attacks that there will be Qur'ans burned. I honestly believe that we will feel repercussions from that day for a long time to come. I am content though that God is in control. This day was ordained before the Earth was spoken into existence and God is firmly in control and I am firmly leaning on Him and His Word for guidence even more.

The people of Dove World Outreach Center and also of Westboro need to be prayed for very greatly. We also need to be praying for our soldiers over seas, that they will be protected. Pray that the extremist Muslims that look for opportunities to kill and destroy are held at bay and that God puts a hedge of protection around His people.

Is Burning A Qu'ran Acceptable?

I am not in agreement with either side of the uproar of burn the Qur'an day. I do think that it will be a very dangerous and self serving move by Florida pastor Terry Jones. Also, knowing the history of Islamic extremists, I am in agreement that they will retaliate for the burning of their sacred book. The problem? They will retaliate on American citizens that will have no part in Jones’ actions. We could see repercussions from this act for many years to come.

My opinion: While Pastor Jones is covered under the “freedom of speech” of the United States, this is not speech. This is an action. Where is the line drawn when something is deemed to not be speech and is indeed called what it is? In this case a theatrical burning of the Qur'an to show his personal disgust with a violent faction of the Muslim faith. If this were just for his church members and himself, then no one else would have known about this, no media involvement and no threats from the extremists that have had their attention drawn to his church. Would this even be an issue if the media circus had not grabbed hold of this and sent it across the globe? Will the media be there to make sure the smoke rises on the 11th? I am sure they will be.

The coverage of this by the media brings me to my next point. Where is this much coverage of bible burnings? Where is the public outcry when Christianity is attacked? This is proven by Comedy Central’s South Park program. They censored the episode that insulted Muhammad, but they openly mock Christ and Christianity very regularly. Why is that allowable, but is not for the Muslim religion? Seems to be double standards from media and TV. I assume this is because Christianity is a peaceful religion, or at least that is what I hope is the reason. I would like to think that Christians are outraged at these things and are doing something about it. Maybe not at the extreme level that the Muslims go to, but doing something.

Would Pastor Jones be doing this without media attention? Who knows, but if this was for something other than a show we would definitely not be hearing anything about it. If this was a personal conviction of Pastor Jones he would have just called his church membership together and said “we’re going to burn a Qur'an tonight” and done it. There wouldn’t have been a media blitz with a countdown clock on CNN (not really, but there is a lot of coverage) had this not been told to the press by someone and that someone had to come from that church.

I don’t know this mans convictions. I have no idea why he wants to do this. I only know that chances are the extremist Muslims are going to take this a run with it, opening the doors for a “reason” to do evil things. They look for “reasons” to cause destruction and this is a “reason” to them. They hate the USA already and they will lump all of Christendom together with this lone church, they will lump all US citizens together with this lone church and life is going to be very different from now on. I am sure the “terror Alert” will be maxed out on September 11th and following. I just pray that none of our troops or civilians are harmed because of this act.

When you start to hear things attributed to this book burning, just keep in mind that Muslims burn Christians. They do not only burn our Bibles, they burn our brothers and sisters alive for not renouncing their faith. I have seen videos of this. Check out The Voice of the Martyrs webpage if you want to know what real persecution is. It is not being laughed at work for praying before you eat, it is being burned alive because you hold fast to the cross of Jesus and what He did for you. It is loving Christ more than anything and singing hymns while your skin melts from your bones.

Christians do need to take a strong stand against these horrendous acts. To what extreme I have no idea. But to be passive and let dear brothers and sisters be tortured for their faith is unacceptable. But, having a “Burn the Qur'an” day is not the way to do it.