I have not kept it secret by any stretch of the imagination that I have changed my theological views drastically over the years, particularly over the two decades. One of the areas that was impacted the most in my early twenties was the area of eschatology. Was there such a thing as a Pre-Tribulation rapture? Was Christ's kingdom going to be a literal, physical kingdom that we had to wait for? Was there any point in polishing the brass on the Titanic if it's going to sink anyway?
For clarity, that last sentence is an analogy for whether or not the church should even bother trying to transform the world if it's doomed to failure anyway. A common theme amongst many prominent Dispensationalists.
This time of year, we often sing the hymn "Joy to the World", which has anything but a defeatist attitude towards the Kingdom of Christ and the reign of Christ over the earth. Why? Didn't Isaac Watts understand how hopeless things were until Christ returned? Fortunately, Watts lived at such a time when this view of history and the idea of a secret rapture as an escape hatch to avoid dealing with the world didn't exist. So, what did men like Watts believe? In order to understand why Watts had such an optimistic outlook, there is one place we need to look and one place only: the holy scriptures themselves. What did Christ actually teach about His own kingdom? What prophetic statements are made about Kingdom of God that we can hold to. Is there a reason to be optimistic about any of it?
Today's lesson examines just that. Yet, with as much scripture and as much ground as I tried to cover, there is still much to say about the subject, but I did my best to lay out the fundamental principles for why the beliver should have an optimistic outlook on the Kingdom and why that hope should spur us on in our fulfillment of the great commission.
I've always been a fan of Egar Allen Poe's work and one of my favorite memories growing up was finding an Illustrated Classics edition of several of his works. The illustrations captivated me and I tore through that book several times. "The Cask of Amontillado" being a personal favorite. Speaking of burying things in the walls, "The Black Cat" is another great story of his that I first heard as an edited speech for a fine arts competition. I hadn't thought much about it for years until I read "The Cats of Ulthar" by H.P. Lovecraft. So, with it being spooky season yet again, I decided I would try my hand (or voice) at doing a reading of "The Black Cat".
The story is decent length and certainly captures the spirit of Poe's work. Even more interesting is that the narrator had some of the same issues Poe had, alcohol addiction being the main one. Even more interesting is the way that Poe actually includes some decent theology in his narrative:
I am not more sure that my soul lives, than I am that perverseness is one of the primitive impulses of the human heart -- one of the indivisible primary faculties, or sentiments, which give direction to the character of Man. Who has not, a hundred times, found himself committing a vile or a silly action, for no other reason than because he knows he should not? Have we not a perpetual inclination, in the teeth of our best judgment, to violate that which is Law, merely because we understand it to be such? This spirit of perverseness, I say, came to my final overthrow. It was this unfathomable longing of the soul to vex itself -- to offer violence to its own nature -- to do wrong for the wrong's sake only -- that urged me to continue and finally to consummate the injury I had inflicted upon the unoffending brute.
Later on, the narrator says the following of himself as a person:
And now was I indeed wretched beyond the wretchedness of mere Humanity. And a brute beast -- whose fellow I had contemptuously destroyed -- a brute beast to work out for me -- for me a man, fashioned in the image of the High God -- so much of insufferable woe!
In the former selection, we have a very astute and very accurate depiction of man's inherent nature. We often plunge into sin precisely because we know we aren't supposed to. Not to spoil the story, but the next section in the story has the narrator commit an action which he says would:
...so jeopardize my immortal soul as to place it -- if such a thing were possible -- even beyond the reach of the infinite mercy of the Most Merciful and Most Terrible God.
Even though he realized and admitted that this was something worthy of the damnation of his soul, there would still be no way to place it far enough away from God's mercy. Of course, that mercy is only properly availed of through repentance, but notice the equal description of "Most Terrible God". People frequently talk about the "fear of the Lord" being simply a term for respect and awe, which it certainly does mean. However, simply put "fear means fear". It can certainly include the aspects of respect, awe, and reverence, but it will never not also mean "fear". After all:
And do not be afraid of those who kill the body but are unable to kill the soul; but rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell. (Matthew 10:28 NASB2020)
In the second section I copied, the one about being made in the image of God, the point the author makes is that this cat, a mere beast, was being used to torment and punish someone who was made in the image of God. He had fallen so low that a lesser creature was being used to show him the depths of his evil. When you understand the biblical basis behind what Poe was writing, something which was certainly opposed to the views of Transcendentalists like Thoreau, the words take on a great deal of poignance. Even though Poe's life was less than exemplary, especially concerning how he died, even he didn't seek to rationalize and promote his own vices. He very much seemed to recognize the evils of addiction and alcoholism and did not portray it as anything but that.
Anyway, hope you enjoyed this little foray into the text and scriptural basis for what is in the story, and hope you enjoy the reading of the story as well.
It's no shock to anyone who has been following this blog or knows me in person that I am a huge fan of the Final Fantasy series. So, it should be no surprise that as soon as Final Fantasy XVI came out, I bought it day one. I had that thing on pre-order and was excited to dive into another fantasy world, this time produced and directed by none other than Naoki Yoshida, director of Final Fantasy XIV, the critically acclaimed MMORPG with an expanded free trial which you can play through the entirety of A Realm Reborn through the award-winning Stormblood expansion up to level 70 for free with no restrictions on playtime!
I played through the demo a week or so before the main game launched, and after playing through the full-release, most of my thoughts are still the same, with some additions. First, the battle system is still fun and the game definitely leans hard into the Devil May Cry style that, well, the combat director of Devil May Cry designed for this game. It's easily more of an action game than an RPG. It would be more appropriately described as an action game with RPG elements tacked on. Unfortunately, most of the abilities are sort of useless once you get the best skills around the mid to late game. The serve a purpose earlier on and depending on your playstyle you may get some more mileage out of them than I did, but there were a lot I just never bothered with. I'm not sure if that holds true with other games in this genre, but it seemed sort of pointless here and I wish there had been greater variety or utility. This same lack of depth is quite apparent in the "crafting" system, if it can be called that. Most materials you get just from doing the MSQ so you don't really have to go out farming for materials. As long as you do the MSQ, hunts, and side-quests, there isn't anything to worry about. You'll have everything you need.
The main focus, of the game is, of course, the story. This is a very story-heavy game and the dungeons and main quests are where the game shines brilliantly. The characters, overall, are engaging and fun to see on screen. Some are better than others, but most are rounded out enough to feel like real people. One villain in particular was always a pleasure to see on screen, and not just because she was hot and exuded a sort of dominatrix vibe (well, two villains did this in different ways). Honestly, I think a lot of guys find the quasi-domineering but feminine thing very attractive even if the person is on the wrong side of things. There may be red flags, but if you're colorblind or love the color red, it's not a problem! In all seriousness, I hated to see one get killed off so early on, and the other wasn't on screen often enough as far as I was concerned. Neither had enough screen time for me, and I think that's also a testament to how well the characters were portrayed in the short time they were there.
Side-quests were a let down too but they definitely follow the sort of standard MMO style sidequest of kill/gather "x" number of things and return for a reward with very little in the way of story or world-building. It's a shame since there are definitely some quests that are well worth it for those exact reasons, especially in the latter portion of the game. Unfortunately, the game doesn't do a good job of incentivizing sidequests, but there are some gems within the list of them.
Music is as good as to be expected from Masayoshi Soken, meaning it's epic and everything you could want.
There's a lot more I could say but that's what the video is for. One note I forgot to mention in the video is the pacing of the story. There are definitely some pacing issues and I think most of that has to do with the writers trying to drag out the drama and hopefully make they payoff bigger. For example, there is a meeting between to very important characters that is teased frequently during the game around the time there is the second time-jump in the story. This is a huge deal plot-wise. However, they drag it out and tease the player with this reunion for far too long. They even do the trope of both people being in the same building but miss each other by seconds. It is supremely frustrating and the one thing I hated about playing through it the first time. The payoff was great, I just don't know if it was worth giving everyone story-telling blue-balls to get there.
Anyway, I have more to say in the video but over all I'd give the game a B+. There are some great highs and lows in the story that really hit hard, and there is a lot of fun to be had with the game. However, there are some design and pacing issues that hold it back from being best of the best. At best, I'd be willing to give it an A-, but it's not S-tier. We'll see what the DLC adds later on.
So, I've finally gotten around to detailing my thoughts about Diablo IV up through the first season. It's been a rollercoaster to say the least. Started out strong, then after the campaign it sort of fell off. Then there's the tragedy of the 1.0 patch which nerfed everything into the ground. Of course, things have been slowly rebuilding and getting better again since then but it's been a long road (even though it's only been just shy of three months). Season 2 is right around the corner and I wanted to give a breakdown of what has been happening.
To briefly summarize: everything got nerfed including exp. People then started complaining that this was Blizzard's way of making more money by essentially using Stockholm Syndrome against their player base and hoping to extort more money out of them via battlepasses. Of course, battlepasses only give glamors and emotes as well as some premium currency you can use in game for...wait for it...more glamors. So, all of it is totally optional, but that doesn't stop people from venting their spleen about how evil and corrupt Blizzard is. That may be true, but the battleapss system as it stands now doesn't prove that since you don't actually need to buy one to play either the base game or the seasonal content.
Then of course there is the story which is pretty good overall but has some questionable decisions as far as what happens. Some of the characters go full Patrick Star and make some of the most idiotic decisions I've ever seen. Then the story ends on a cliffhanger which, in retrospect, is pretty par for the course for Diablo.
Let's see, what else was there? Well, there's the usual bugfixes and patches that happen with any live-service game, but the biggest complaint has been the lack of endgame content. I agree, I just don't know what else they could do that they haven't added to previous games in the past. By that, I mean that the endgame content is almost identical to a lot of what was in Diablo 3 and that game didn't have any of this stuff at launch. In fact there's more endgame in D4 at launch than any other one, but for some reason it just doesn't feel as fun at times. It could be the itemization but I'm not really sure. The campaign and levelling up until 70 is fine, but after that it's sort of "meh". Still, if you're a fan of the series I'd recommend giving it a shot. Things will be improving more over time I'm sure, and maybe Season 2 will add a lot of stuff that feels like it should have been there in the first place. The devs seem to be listening and want to do better, but time will tell.
Once again, I was given the opportunity to teach my adult Sunday School class at church. It was difficult coming up with a topic on such last minute notice, but fortunately I was able to come up with something. Unfortunately, the impetus for the lesson was the passing of a beloved church member who had been battling cancer for several years. How should a Christian deal with the idea of suffering as a believer? I don't mean suffering due to your beliefs, but as a general rule, how should we view tribulation and hardship in life as a child of God? Is there anything in scripture that gives us hope and guidance for how to look at these things and what encouragement can we take, if anything, when thinking of someone who has passed on after such a difficult battle with cancer? I hope the lesson is beneficial to you all.
It's been a little longer than intended since my last recording but I've had quite a bit going on, not the least of which includes home repairs and, well, being lazy about recording. Being lazy can take a lot of work.
In any case, I've been wanting to do an arrangement of "A Mighty Fortress" for a while now and only recently did I get around to actually transcibing out the music, arranging it, troubleshooting it, listening to it over and over again in my notation software, and then finally recording the vocals. What's fun is that no matter how many times I listened to it, I kept finding one or two notes in the middle of phrases that sort of clashed. I think I have it all worked out now. If not, oh well. I'm not re-doing it again.
Anyway, the lyrics to Martin Luther's classic hymn are a great reminder for Christians about the provision of God for us and the fact that no matter what happens, He will have victory. If you're like me, and like many Christians, I've sung through the song numerous times over the years but never really paid attention to the lyrics. For simplicity, I'm reproducing them here:
A mighty fortress is our God,
a bulwark never failing;
our helper he, amid the flood
of mortal ills prevailing.
For still our ancient foe
does seek to work us woe;
his craft and power are great,
and armed with cruel hate,
on earth is not his equal.
Did we in our own strength confide,
our striving would be losing,
were not the right Man on our side,
the Man of God's own choosing.
You ask who that may be?
Christ Jesus, it is he;
Lord Sabaoth his name,
from age to age the same;
and he must win the battle.
And though this world, with devils filled,
should threaten to undo us,
we will not fear, for God has willed
his truth to triumph through us.
The prince of darkness grim,
we tremble not for him;
his rage we can endure,
for lo! his doom is sure;
one little word shall fell him.
That Word above all earthly powers
no thanks to them abideth;
the Spirit and the gifts are ours
through him who with us sideth.
Let goods and kindred go,
this mortal life also;
the body they may kill:
God's truth abideth still;
his kingdom is forever!
One thing I learned in high-school was that when it comes to poetry, it helps to never read it like a poem. A lot of times we get caught up in the rhyme scheme and when we read it out loud we're more focused on the cadence and flow of the words rather than the words themselves. This is especially unfortunate when dealing with hymns like this. So, I've decided to paraphrase the verses and write them as if they were a written devotional:
"Our God is like a mighty impregnable stronghold that will never be overthrown. Here, despite the overwhelming adversities of life on this mortal coil, He continues to prevail no matter what the enemy brings against it. Be certain, our adversary continues to seek to destroy us. Even though we have God as our fortress, Satan is not to be taken lightly. He is incredibly resilient, crafty, and commands great power among his cadre of fellow fallen angels. His is possessed of a malice and hatred for mankind that no mere mortal on earth could ever rival. If we were to rely on our own strength and seek to withstand him on our own, we would surely fail miserably. Fortunately for us, we have God's chosen Man who stands at our side and so long as we rely on Him, our striving against sin will never be in vain. Just who might this Man be you ask? None other than Jesus Christ, the Lord of the Sabbath Himself! From age to age, from the time He defeated Satan at the cross until now, He remains the same and he will win the battle!
This world is filled with evil and devils and it may at times feel as though we are going to be undone. However, we have no reason to fear because God has purposed in His children that His truth will triumph over evil. While we do not take that grim and terrible Prince of Darkness lightly, we also do not tremble because of him. Why should we? His doom is an absolute certainty! All it takes is one simple word from God to lay him low and defeat him for all time!
That in mind, never forget that the living Word, Christ, which rules above all earthly kings and authorities (no thanks to them for surely they continue to resist His kingship) continues to abide. Just as He promised the disciples in the upper room, through Him we have the Holy Spirit and the gifts of the Spirit as well. So, with all that God has done for us through Christ and the surety of victory that there will be against Satan, let all of our wealth and family leave us if they may. In fact, let us be willing to lose our lives for God's sake if necessary. Even if they kill us because of the gospel, God's truth will remain regardless because His kingdom is a glorious kingdom without end!"
Now, I could break this apart and cite numerous biblical passages which the lyrics to the song are based on and which would really fill out the ideas of the song even more. Suffice it to say, just as my paraphrase and expanded explanation of the lyrics shows, Christ's kingdom is current and active. There is no reason to look forward to some earthly kingdom at His return because He is ruling over the earth right now and bringing all things into subjection to Himself. It may not be fast enough for our tastes, but He will have the victory and no matter what happens, we can rest secure in God our fortress knowing that He has won the battle for us. We need but trust in Him.
God is our refuge and strength, A very ready help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear, though the earth shakes And the mountains slip into the heart of the sea; Though its waters roar and foam, Though the mountains quake at its swelling pride. Selah. (Psalms 46:1-3 NASB2020)
As promised, part two is finally here and this time I finished getting through the rest of the original post on Reddit that inspired this series. Last time, we dealt with the setting of the story and the father dying "as a Christian". If you listened to the previous installment, you'll know that description is utterly meaningless without further qualification and then we dealt with the issue of whether or not it would be just for the father to be in Heaven under any circumstances. The answer was, of course, maybe. It depends on what you're defining as Christian. If it's by biblical standards, the only circumstance would be that of true repentance and faith resulting in works which serve as proof of genuine conversion and regeneration.
In this video, we deal with the issue of whether or not it would be fair for the daughter to be in Hell if she lost her faith because of something that happened to her. Well, if unbelief is a sin and if apostasy is evidence that true faith never existed in the individual in the first place, then yes. It would be fair and just. Does it mean she was suddenly innocent of every other sin she ever committed before then?
What about the mother? Is the mother unfairly brainwashed by God to not suddenly think His judgement of sin and actions concerning the father and daughter were unjust? It's heavily implied that God is essentially a capricious and unfair monster in this area. However, what does scripture say about this sort of thing let alone how we will see things when Christ returns in judgement?
All of this is covered more in depth in the video but suffice it to say, no, it is not unjust or unfair for the daughter to be condemned, and the mother, if my understanding of scripture is correct, would not see God as being a callous monster unjustly condemning innocent people to torment.
