What happened after God’s funeral?

What Happened After God’s Funeral?

–Ravi Zacharias

These are the notes I took while listening to this message, it comes in 4 parts and they can be found here:

http://www.rzim.org/resources/listen/justthinking.aspx?archive=1

“Young people, please hear me; this, to me, is the problem of 20th century man: he no longer knows what to laugh at and no longer knows what to weep at.”

“So you turn on your television screen and before you know it, you’re looking at a seduction yourself. And instead of weeping at it, you’re watching in intrigue as the story unfolds. You watch illegitimacies transpire before your eyes and mine, and because Hollywood has convinced us that it is entertainment we become entertained, rather than sitting there with a crushed and a broken heart and a contrite spirit. And I often wonder, if my Lord Jesus were able to stalk some of the seats of Broadway, or sit in some of the theatres where things are perpetrated and shown to you and me, where jokes are made of His virgin birth, where Christianity is demeaned and mocked, where illegitimacies are glorified and exalted; that which is vulgar is intended to make us laugh, that which is sacred is intended to make us weep, rather than sit there in awe and gratitude for the sacred, what has really happened between the educational system and whatever else is happening, we’ve lost the differentiation between laughter and tears. It is vitally important what you laugh at. It is vitally important what you weep at. What breaks your heart tells God who you are. What makes you laugh tells God who you are.”

If God is dead:

1. You have to mistake man for being God:
   1. If there is no infinite being, you are left with a finite being: man.
      1. i.      If man is made god, some men will become God.
2. If God is dead someone will have to take his place, it will be megalomania or erotomania. The drive for power or the drive for pleasure; the fist or the fallace; Hitler or Hugh Heffner.
3. You will have to take your body to be a soul
   1. If there is no God, there is no soulishness. If there is no soulishness all you have left is the material, and you have to take the body to be the ultimate and the eternal. Your body becomes your soul.
   2. The Abolition of Man, CH 1: Men without Chests, by C.S. Lewis.
      1. i.      “If I believe these men, they tell me mathematics is real therefore my brain is real. Food is real, therefore my stomach is real. But they tell me my emotions have nothing whatsoever to do with reality; they are going to produce a generation of men with brains, men with stomachs, men without chests and no heart.” –Lewis
4. “And if God is dead, you have to take the body to be the soul. And you will end up killing feelings of nobility, and shame.”
   1. i.      If your glands are what make you feel a certain way, then you can decide what you do without consequences: there is no nobility, there is no shame. We become men without chests; we’ve killed our heart.
5. Matthew 16:26, “What good will it be for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul? Or what can anyone give in exchange for their soul?”
6. When we see something noble, there is something of the spirit in it (not just flesh, blood, and bone). If God is dead the body has to be taken to be the soul. The only way one can live with this is to live with a constant sense of contradiction.
7. “The new rebel is a skeptic and will not entirely trust anything. He has no loyalty therefor he can never be a real revolutionist. The fact that he doubts everything gets in the way when he wants to denounce anything, for all denunciation implies a moral doctrine of some kind, and the modern revolutionists doubts not only the institution he denounces, but the doctrine by which he denounces it. So he writes one book complaining that imperial oppression insults the purity of women, then he writes another book, a novel, in which he insults it himself. He curses the sultan because Christian girls lose their virginity, then curses Mrs. Grundy because they keep it. As a politician he cries out that war is a waste of life, and as a philosopher that all life is a waste of time. A Russian pessimist will denounce a policeman for killing a peasant, then prove by the highest philosophical principles that the peasant ought to have killed himself. A man denounces marriage as a lie, then denounces aristocratic profligates for treating it as a lie. … In short, the modern revolutionist being an infinite skeptic is always engaged in undermining his own mines. In his book on politics he attacks men for trampling morality, in his book on ethics he attacks morality for trampling on men. Therefore the modern man in revolt has become practically useless for all purposes for revolt; by rebelling against everything he has lost his right to revolt against anything. “ G.K. Chesterton.
8. When soulishness is gone and body is all that is left, you live with a constant sense of contradiction, and nothing will make sense anymore.
9. You have to take time to be eternity.
   1. There is no tomorrow, there is no eternity; worms will eat your body and it will decompose. When a child dies it is no more significant than if a 95 year old were to die after a long life, because death is the end of everything.
   2. If you live by Nietzsche’s philosophy, that’s it. If you live by the teaching of God’s work, that is not it.
   3. John 14:19 “Because I live, you also will live.”
   4. Illustration:
      1. i.      A young med student tried to perform an abortion on his wife. They could not go to the abortionist because in his lectures he denounced abortion, and he accidentally killed his wife. We should not play God.
10. “No guilt in life, no fear in death; this is the power of Christ in me.”

 

 

You choice: Christ, or Nietzsche.

 

 

 

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Out of the Silent Planet…

I recently finished reading C.S. Lewis’ book, “Out of the Silent Planet.” It is an excellent book and poses an interesting scenario. The scenario is that there is one supreme being with lesser beings (though still powerful) under him. Each one had a realm of control, in this case, a planet. (They are all still subservient to the supreme being.) One of them, Thulcan, became “bent” or evil. The other beings, under command of the supreme being, bound the bent one. That planet became “the silent planet,” and the other beings never heard anything more from the planet, though there were vague rumors that the supreme being (Meldil) had had strange dealings with Thulcan and the beings (the intelligent life) of his planet, Thulcandra. The planet is corrupt with the ways of Thulcan, and there is much greed and death in that world. On the other planets, death is natural and expected, unless one dies hunting it’s food. Each species lives out the normal number of their days, and when it is their time to go, the ruler of the other planets “unmakes” them. There is no murder, no life-taking diseases, and each “hnau” (intelligent being, like man) serves the planet’s governor in the capacity that they are best suited too. In this book the hrossa were the fishers, hunters, the song writers and wordsmiths, and the people of Malacandra spoke their language, because it was best. The seroni were the scientists and mathemeticians, they learned things about the world and knew how things worked. The pfiltriggi were the workers, the sculptors, and buildors. Each species had it’s part to play, and none tried to control the other. There were also Eldila, spirit-like beings (similar to angels) under the command of the governor, Oyarsa. If an eldil told you to do something, you did it. Life was a happy existence on Malacandra.

People have often asked, if there were life on other worlds, did Jesus have to come and die for each world’s sins? If you take into account this (fictional) idea of things…each world has it’s own governor who is subservient to God (in our case, an angel). One of the governors, Lucifer, became corrupt, and God had to take drastic measures to redeem his people and undo the harm that Lucifer had done to the earth, his planet of governance. The other planets (in this story) present life as it would have been had sin never entered the world. It’s a fascinating story, and just an interesting thought. The intelligent inhabitants are at peace with one another, happy to do what they were created for, and live as long as they are meant to, before they are “unmade”, or taken to the afterlife. The hnau of the same generation are taken at the same time, and the community is prepared for their leaving. There is really no need for laws, because there is no perversion of what is natural. One male of a species chooses one female to be his mate, they beget children, they live, they die. There is no greed, no lust, no hunger, and each gives to his brethren as they have need. Wouldn’t it be amazing if life were really like that? Because of the twisted ways of Lucifer and the sin he brought to us, we cannot be like that. But this is an excellent and highly recommended book, particularly because it paints this picture of a world without sin. What a wonderful world.

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Quiet me with Your Love

Quiet me with your love Lord,
as I walk through the storm,
Quiet me with your love God,
don’t leave me here forlorn.
On this restless sea of life,
Through the pain and through the strife,
Quiet me with your love Lord.

Quiet me with your love, my father,
Hold me in your hand.
Quiet me with your love, my teacher,
Guide me through this land.
In times when I feel so afraid,
I know you have my life well-laid,
Quiet me with your love, Lord

Quiet me with your love.

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The most frightening thing…

Ever wonder what life would be like if there were no God? (Aside from the fact that nothing would exist…) There would be chaos, yes, and death and destruction. But the most frightening thing of all…there would be silence.

I was listening to the radio this morning (Spirit FM) and in one of the songs the singer says she couldn’t imagine life without Him. (Or something to that effect.) And I stopped to wonder, “What would life be like without God?” (Including Jesus and the Holy Spirit.) I tried to imagine…and all I heard was silence. If He did not exist, if he did not care, the world would be silent, and we would be utterly alone. Even when I’m not talking to God I can still feel his presence. I know He’s there, even when I’m not thinking about Him consciously. If there were no God (and we did in fact exist) the chaos would be terrible, the corruption overwhelming, and evil would reign…but the silence? That, my friends, is the most terrible thing.

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