What, When, Where, Why, How?

Before I start this post I just want you guys to know that Kenneth and I DO NOT collaborated before writing these things. But it seems like everyday we're writing about the same thing. God works in mysterious ways. Kenneth says we're brother's from a different mother. I say we're bros from the same heavenly Father!

Questions! That seems to be the theme for the day. I recently finished The DaVinci Code. For any of you who haven't read it let me summarize it for you. It's a great suspense novel, a page-turner where every chapter leads to a new twist in the plot; but it is entirely FALSE! It's amazing how many people are accepting Dan Brown's fiction as, for lack of a better term, the Word of God! The whole claim of the book is that the infamous Holy Grail that has been the object of many quests throughout history is not what history claims it to be. Throughout history, it has been widely accepted that the Holy Grail was the cup that Jesus and His disciples drank from during the last supper and that Joseph of Arimathea used to collect some of Jesus' blood. The theory is that if one finds this Holy Grail they will become immortal. That itself is a pretty outrageous claim, but wait till you catch what Dan Brown asserts in his FICTIONAL novel.

Brown says the Holy Grail is not a chalice, or cup, at all, but it is in fact the dead bones of Mary Magdalene, representing the royal bloodline of Jesus Christ. Davey, how can Jesus have a royal bloodline if he never had a child? Therein lies Brown's argument. According to him, Mary Magdalene was Jesus' "partner" and the two had a baby. He claims the church uses Mary's association with prostitution to cover up the fact that Mary was Jesus' sexual partner. He also claims that somewhere out in the world today are people who are DIRECT descendents of Jesus Christ. OUTRAGEOUS!

First of all we have to understand that this is not a new idea that has surfaced because of some new archeological evidence or documentation. This idea has been around for a while. In fact, Brown freely references some prominent historians in his novel, including Michael Baigent, Richard Leigh, and Henry (Leigh Teabing, the novel's mastermind behind the uncovering of this conspiracy, is in fact an anagram for Baigent and Leigh—switch the letters around in Baigent and you have "Teabing"). Remember Martin Scorsese's 1988 "The Last Temptation of Christ?" Although insanely sacrilegious, it made similar claims about Jesus and Mary Magdalene. But even Scorses wasn’t among the first of these theorists. His movie was based on a Nikos Kazantzakis' 1955 novel which was based on historians’ claims from as far back as the Middle-ages.

The point is that these claims have been around since the message of Christ has been preached. The enemy (Satan) loves to use any avenue he can to try to discredit our Savior and make people doubt Him. Despite what you may believe, you have to admit that Dan Brown’s novel has raised serious questions in our society about the authenticity of the New Testament and the Christ it portrays.

I asked for your continuing prayers over the weekend that we would get into some awesome conversations about Jesus with the guys on the team, and God was once again faithful in answering those prayers. I got into a deep, DEEP discussion about Christianity and Jesus with this one guy on our team, Ben, who is a self-proclaimed agnostic. This guy had some SERIOUS questions—Questions that boggled my mind. I mean they were loaded, cocked and ready to explode! Our conversation was a couple tiers above my intellectual capabilities but amazingly I was able to give Him challenging and sufficient answers. PRAISE GOD! I could feel the Holy Spirit’s words flowing through me as I offered up answers to some of his questions. After Ben left my apartment (well after 1:00 in the morning) I remember saying out-loud, “Jesus, where did those answers come from!?” Jesus simply replied back, “You didn’t think I’d leave you alone with Him did you? You’re crazy if you think I’d trust you to answer those questions by yourself!” Haha!

I had ample time to sit and ponder this conversation and these questions (especially after I received an email from this guy with 4 more typed pages of questions that he wanted answers for). And as I was thinking I began to thank God for people like Ben, who are searching. I love it that he’s not taking this Christianity thing at face-value and mindlessly accepting Jesus as THE WAY. If he ever accepts Jesus as his Savior (which I believe whole-heartedly he will) he will know, without a shadow of a doubt, that Jesus is REAL, ALIVE, and ABLE to transform his life and his traditional way of thought—he will experience Him unlike many people have been able to!

Look at guys like C.S. Lewis and Lee Strobel who asked some of the toughest questions and essentially put Jesus under the spotlight for interrogation. Both of these guys were atheists to the core, went on quests to prove Christianity wrong, and ended up realizing that there was nothing more REAL than Jesus Christ. These guys didn’t leave their quest for Truth unchanged! And now their writings hold some of the most prominent influence among Christians and non-Christians alike!

The point is that God has been under the spotlight of interrogation since the beginning of time and he has NEVER been proven wrong. That’s quite a record! He is undefeated and undefeatable! Check out the Old Testament. It’s chalk full of stories about people and nations who questioned and defied God, and every time God showed up for the challenge and blew them away! Read about Elijah and the prophets of Baal on Mount Carmel in I Kings 18!

Another cool story about God stepping up the challenge is when the Assyrians invaded Judah while Hezekiah was the king. Assyria was a nation that proved a nemesis to God’s chosen people, the Israelites. It seemed like they were always trying to get in the way of God’s plans. One occasion, in 2 Chronicles 32, Sennacherib (what’s the deal with the names in the Bible? We’ll call him S-Dawg for the sake for pronunciation), the king of Assyria at the time, had the entire nation of Judah surrounded and was laying siege to the city of Jerusalem (not letting anyone go in or out—essentially trying to starve them into submission). S-Dawg sent a very intimidating message into the city basically claiming that the God of Israelites is worthless, useless, and cannot save them from S-Dawg’s fierce warriors. “Just as the gods of the peoples of the other lands did not rescue their people form my hand, so the god of Hezekiah will not rescue his people form my hand,” S-Dawg says in verse 17.

But, check this out! Hezekiah cried out to God and pleaded with Him and in verse 21 it says that God sent an angel who “ANNIHILATED all the fighting men and the leaders and officers in the camp of the Assyrian king.” That couldn’t have been pretty! Blood and guts flying everywhere, straight out of a scene from “Braveheart” or “Saving Private Ryan,” and the Israelites just sat and watched their God exterminate the entire Assyrian army! WOW! God always steps up to the challenge!

So here it is. Here’s my claim. Ben WILL come to know the Lord before this semester is over! That’s my cry out to God! And I believe whole-heartedly that God WILL step up to the challenge!

"But if from there you seek the Lord your God, you will find Him if you look for him with all you heart and with all your soul." -Deuteronomy 4:29