This week’s Pulse is a moving story from Haiti that I have copied from Albert Mohler’s blog, www.albertmohler.com.  Mohler is the president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and his blog is the most popular Christian blog, according to technorati.com.  As someone with a heart for adoption and who himself has been adopted (by my Father in heaven – see Galatians 4:4-7), I found this story particularly poignant.   

Arno was inseparable from Mr. Penguin. The little Haitian boy was almost three years old, and the plush penguin with the word “love” inscribed upon it was his most treasured object. The orphan and his penguin were always seen together.

The boy had been given the penguin just after his birth. A Dutch couple was in the process of adopting him almost from the start of his life — they had been matched to him when he was only two months old. The penguin represented a promise.

The process of adoption took two years — the length of time considered adequate to determine that no living relatives might claim him. According to official estimates, there were over 50,000 parentless orphans in Haiti before the earthquake came and orphaned many thousands more.
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 This past Sunday, I preached from Revelation 22:1-5 about the new heavens and the new earth and all that we have in store for us once we die.  One of the promises in that passage is that there will be a tree of life, and that the leaves on the tree will be for the healing of the nations.  To any casual observer of world politics, you can appreciate the beauty behind this statement.  In that new world, when the curse is broken and the dwelling of God is with man, the nations will no longer be at war, but will at last experience healing from the divisions that have destroyed this world so many times over.

 Keeping that promise in mind, as well as this month’s focus on the persecuted church, and with Thanksgiving coming up this week, let me share another story of what is going on in this mad, mad world (courtesy WorldNet Daily): Read more »

When he opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain because of the word of God and the testimony they had maintained. They called out in a loud voice, “How long, Sovereign Lord, holy and true, until you judge the inhabitants of the earth and avenge our blood?” Then each of them was given a white robe, and they were told to wait a little longer, until the number of their fellow servants and brothers who were to be killed as they had been was completed. (Revelation 6:9-11)

 This past Sunday was the International Day of Prayer for the Persecuted Church.  As we sit in church each Sunday in our comfortable chairs and hang out afterwards drinking coffee with other believers, it can be hard to comprehend what it is like to live in a land where going to church means risking your life.  We Americans often get squeamish when speaking of the judgment, the justice, and the wrath of God, but in places like China, India, and Iraq, where Christians are routinely persecuted and killed, there are few things more important than knowing that God is a God who will judge those who commit such atrocities. 

Consider this story from the Voice of the Martyrs website, one of numerous examples of persecution (in some cases state-sponsored) of Christians around the world: Read more »

For my money, Job 1:13-19 has to be the most ridiculously awful passage in the whole Bible.  If you know the story at all, Satan has contended before God that the only reason Job serves God is because He has made Job prosperous.  “Strike everything he has,” Satan says, “and he will surely curse you to your face.”  God proceeds to allow Satan to test out that theory, and what follows is the Job 1:13-19 nightmare:
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This week I’m taking a break from writing something original, but I want to recommend to you three very interesting things I found on the web this week, two of which will enhance the recent “Why Believe?” series.  The first is a “blogalogue” debate between N.T. Wright and Bart Ehrman on the subject of pain and suffering.  N.T. Wright is the Bishop of Durham for the Church of England, has taught at McGill, Oxford, and Cambridge, and has authored many books, including one that is relevant to this dialogue, Evil and the Justice of God.  Bart Ehrman is the James A. Gray Distinguished Professor of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, and the author of God’s Problem:  How the Bible fails to answer our most important answer – Why we suffer and Misquoting Jesus, among others. 
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“Advance warning of Katrina’s path was wrested from mute Nature by meteorological calculations and satellite imagery. God told no one of His plans. Had the residents of New Orleans been content to rely on the beneficence of God, they wouldn’t have known that a killer hurricane was bearing down upon them until they felt the first gusts of wind on their faces. And yet, as will come as no surprise to you, a poll conducted by The Washington Post found that 80 percent of Katrina’s survivors claim that the event only strengthened their faith in God… Only the atheist realizes how morally objectionable it is for survivors of a catastrophe to believe themselves spared by a loving God, while this same God drowned infants in their cribs.”

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“The baby died.”

If there were a list of things you hope you never have to hear, “the baby died” would have to be up near the top, somewhere right above “I’m leaving you” and “It’s definitely cancerous.”  Last Wednesday, as I was on the phone with Andy Hood, my cell phone began to ring, with an unfamiliar Manchester number on the caller ID.  I had warned Andy that my wife was at an appointment at the OB/GYN office, and that she would be calling anytime, so he graciously said good-bye and allowed me to answer the incoming call, where I heard a hysterical voice punch me in the gut with those three words:

“The baby died.”

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I hesitate to write this, because I hate to give publicity to those who don’t deserve it, but since I find this line of thinking creeping into the heads of Christians in other subtle ways, I think it needs to be addressed, so here goes…

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I am sure that many of you are shocked and saddened by the tragic events that unfolded at Virginia Tech yesterday as you listen to the stories and imagine what it must be like to be a student or parent of a student there today.  Two couples who have been part of our church over the past couple of years, Jesse & Kim Christophel and Eric & Brandie Couch, are recent graduates of Virginia Tech.  I’d like to share with you Eric’s brother Michael’s thoughts on the situation (Michael is currently a student at Tech), and intersperse some words from the Bible throughout to help us lift our eyes to our loving sovereign God.  Sometimes it’s just better to let God speak for Himself.

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