Philippians 3:11: “If by any means I might attain unto the resurrection of the dead.
12 Not as though I had already attained, either were already perfect: but I follow after, if that I may apprehend that for which also I am apprehended of Christ Jesus.
13 Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before,
14 I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.”

This is not as difficult a passage as it seems. Paul is not saying that it is a sin to believe that you are saved, or that it is wrong to believe in “once saved always saved”. Even Paul said “I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that He is able to keep that which I have committed unto Him against that day.” Paul taught extensively (especially in Galatians) that salvation is through grace, not works.

What he is saying here is that as Christians we are running a race and we need to finish it. We shouldn’t say “Oh, I’m saved, so my work is done,” and then just sit down and do nothing for the rest of our lives. We need to keep working, keep going, keep serving, and keep striving. God saved us and gave us life so we could do things, not so we could just sit idly and watch the world go by.

The key to interpreting passages like this is to take the whole Bible into account. The New Testament talks a great deal about salvation, grace, and works. Once all of its teachings are taken together it becomes possible to see what verses like this are actually saying. You have to look at the whole because looking at a single verse can be very deceiving. After all, look at what Philippians says just two verses later: “Nevertheless, whereto we have already attained, let us walk by the same rule, let us mind the same thing.” Notice how Paul admits that “we have already attained” – confirming what he said in many other places.

So, let us run the race with perseverance, redeeming the time and making the most of our lives. We should cast aside everything that distracts us and focus on just one thing: advancing the kingdom of God, and preaching the gospel to every creature. The world is full of people who are dying without Jesus, and yet so many Christians are far more concerned about the size of their house or the status of their bank account. If we do not preach the gospel then who will?

This is a mocked-up cover for the unwritten book Starman #9, Project Orion. It was one of the books that we originally planned to write and even created a brief plot summary for, but ultimately ended up skipping.

If you would like to read the proposed plot for the book, simply click on the image below to see a higher-resolution scan.

(I do not know who created the cover artwork, but it was not me.)

Some time ago I wrote a paper on the various commandments that are found within the Mosaic Law of the Old Testament. I’ve since had a chance to update this paper (in order to clean it up and make it a little easier to read), and I have posted the result here:

The Mosaic Law

While the Mosaic Law does not apply to the Church, there is still a great deal that can be learned from it. The Law offers may fascinating and valuable insights into God’s character – and God’s views on justice. It is a subject that is well worth studying.

An old fire alarm on a forgotten street.

Philippians 3:9: “And be found in him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith:”

This is an important point. Our righteousness doesn’t come from obeying the Ten Commandments; it comes from faith in Jesus Christ. He is our righteousness. Obeying God’s commandments does not make us more righteous and disobeying them does not make us less righteous.

Now, as Christians we should obey Him out of love and a desire to serve Him; our obedience should be motivated by love and gratitude. After all, Jesus told us that if we love Him we should demonstrate that love through obedience. A believer follows God out of love and gratitude, not out of fear that disobedience will result in the loss of salvation. But the key is to remember that this obedience (or lack of it) does not affect our righteous standing in the sight of God. We have been given righteousness; we did not earn it by our own actions, and we cannot lose it by our actions either.

Philippians 3:1: “Finally, my brethren, rejoice in the Lord. To write the same things to you, to me indeed is not grievous, but for you it is safe.”

I don’t think I do nearly enough rejoicing. It’s so easy to become burdened by all of life’s problems and lose sight of how glorious and awesome our Lord is. Jesus loves us so very much (even to the point of dying on the cross) and He has blessed us in so many ways. And yet, when I’m in the mist of hard times, the thought of praising the Lord is often the farthest thing from my mind.

In fact, when things are going wrong it’s quite easy to start blaming God. After all, we usually expect things to go well for us and so when they don’t we think that God has slipped up somewhere. However, what the Lord promised us was not an easy life but a hard one. Jesus plainly told us that the world hated Him and it would hate us as well. We expect life to treat us fairly, even though God warned us that we would suffer many trials and pains, and when unfair things happen we get upset at God – the very person we should be going to for help and comfort.

We also tend to expect justice to be immediate. All around us people are committing horrible crimes, and yet they seem to get away with it. Nations bomb their citizens and no one does anything about it. Angry mobs seize Christians and murder them, and no one arrests them for it. Yet, God never promised to judge people the instant they sinned; instead – thankfully – God offers space for repentance. God has promised a final day of reckoning, but it comes after death, not before. Justice will be served, but not until the proper time, and the Bible urges us to wait and be patient. (What if God had not waited for us to repent?)

The fact of the matter is that God is a glorious God who is worthy of great praise. He has blessed us with His Son and with the Holy Spirit; He has given us forgiveness, grace, and eternal life, and He has promised us an amazing future that is filled with peace and joy. He is with us in our trials and will never abandon us. He is most worthy of praise.

“In retrospect, I think we could have handled that a bit better,” Captain Max remarked.

Captain Max and Jones were sitting on a bench by a wide, crystal-clear lake. The lake was surrounded by weeping willows. There were a few boats out on the lake, as people enjoyed the splendor of the day. They could see the spires of a city in the distance.

“I don’t know,” Jones said. “I kind of like it here, actually. It’s good to be home.”

“Oh, I agree – don’t get me wrong! This really is a better country. I just wonder if, perhaps, we made a serious tactical error back there.”

“I’m sure we did,” Jones agreed. “Keep in mind, though, that the Artilect is the one that made it. None of us had anything to do with it, really. If there is any blame to be placed it is on him.”

“I suppose you’re right,” the captain replied.

“Besides, sir, this is how things were going to turn out all along! Don’t you remember what Itzel told you?”

“I do, and she was right – a fact she keeps reminding me of,” Captain Max said, grinning. “I wasn’t able to save him after all. Still, it was worth the effort. The situation down there is quite different than it used to be.”

“Quite so. The great sin of Xanthe has at last been revealed, and the survivors have been deprived of their synthetic worlds. They must now live in the real world and face the very real consequences for what they have done.”

“You don’t really think Amy is going to kill them, do you? Surely she wouldn’t!”

“She is in a lot of pain right now,” Jones said. “In a single day she lost her family, her friends, and everyone she knew. The only other human being she knows is a traitor who tried his best to kill her. She is in a desperate situation. Plus, the people on that planet are utterly depraved, hateful monsters. It will not be easy for her to find reasons to save them.”

“At least she has the Sentinel,” Captain Max said. “I’m sure he will help her.”

“If he can,” Jones agreed. “But it is a sad thing when a person’s only companion is a piece of computer hardware. That is not the way life was meant to be lived, but she will have to accept the way things are. There is still a lot of work ahead of her.”

“You’re thinking about Earth, aren’t you?”

Jones nodded. “One day she will have to bring down the Wall and decide what to do with the people that are still living behind it. That will be a much harder decision to make than what to do with the murderers on Xanthe.”

“But why? They haven’t done anything to her!”

“That’s why it will be so difficult,” Jones replied.

The captain was silent for a few minutes. “Is there any hope?”

“There is always hope, sir. This is not over yet. This is a hard place for Amy to be, but it is a good place to be as well. For when her strength is gone, she will be forced to turn to Someone whose strength is far greater – and she will find that it is more than sufficient for her.”

Philippians 2:4: “Look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others.”

One thing the Lord makes quite clear tis that He wants us to serve others, not ourselves. Our lives should be focused on two things: loving God and loving our neighbors (in that order). These, in fact, are the two greatest commandments.

Now, this is a very different thing from Communism. In that system you do not give anything to your neighbors; instead the State takes it from you by force and then gives it to someone else, whether they need it or not. There is a huge difference between freely giving something to someone and having them steal it from you. There is no love in saying “I need this thing so I’m going to take it from you by force.”

These days people think nothing of asking the government to take things from one class of people and give them to another class, as if somehow it’s not stealing if you use the power of the government to arrange the transfer. At the end of the day, however, it really doesn’t matter if you hired a mobster to break into your neighbor’s house, or if you instead wrote to your congressman and got him to pass a law. You are still helping yourself to things that are not yours.

Do you see the difference between love and welfare? Love says “I see that you have a need, and I am going to help you with that need.” Welfare says “You have something I want, and I am going to take it from you.” The two are worlds apart. Christianity is not Communism. In Christianity people give their possessions away; in Communism their possessions are forcibly taken away. It is not a gift if it is demanded at gunpoint.

This is a mocked-up cover for the unwritten book Starman #8, The Secret of the Asteroids. It was one of the books that we originally planned to write and even created a brief plot summary for, but ultimately ended up skipping.

If you would like to read the proposed plot for the book, simply click on the image below to see a higher-resolution scan.

(I do not know who created the cover artwork, but it was not me.)

I just wanted to let everyone know that the newly-revised ninth Starman book, Master of Shadows, is now available as a free, unabridged audio book! You can find it right here:

http://www.archive.org/details/MasterOfShadows

A while back I wrote an extensive research paper on the Catholic Church, explaining why I believe it is as alien to Christianity as Islam or Buddhism. I’ve since had a chance to revise the paper (not to change its content, but to clean it up a bit) and I’ve decided to post it on this blog. You can find it here:

Catholicism (PDF file)

Many Protestants today believe that the Catholic Church is a Christian church, and is merely another “flavor” of Christianity. I disagree with this, and this paper explains why.

Country roads, take me home / to the place where I belong / West Virginia, mountain momma…

Amy Stryker was sitting on the beach in her world, crying. She had been crying ever since she saw her sister die. When the Artilect had requested her presence at a meeting she yelled at him, so he departed and left her alone. The Sentinel, however, remained. He wanted to hold her but Amy refused to be held. The girl simply sat on the beach and cried.

Although the Sentinel was physically there with her he was also in communication with the Artilect. He watched from afar as Elder Lane was transported to the Artilect’s home world. He then watched with horror as Lane killed everyone. He saw the Artilect fight for his life and ultimately sacrifice it so that the swarms could be wiped out.

While the Sentinel had been filled with grief at the death of his friend Amanda, he now finally understood the utter depth of sorrow that Amy was going through. His father, and all that he had ever known, was now gone. Amy’s family was gone. He felt as if all the light had gone out of the world and there was nothing left but sorrow and pain and death. He was so overwhelmed that, for the first time in his long life, he fell to his knees and cried.

Amy looked up and saw that the Sentinel was overwhelmed with emotion. As upset as she was, this got her attention. She had never seen the Sentinel become that emotional. “Steve, what’s wrong? Why are you crying?”

“They’re all dead,” he said between sobs. “All of them, Amy. They’re all gone.”

“Who’s gone?” she asked, confused. “The probes are gone?”

“The people are gone. Amy, oh Amy, Elder Lane has attacked the Artilect. He killed him, along with your family and friends. You and I are the only survivors.”

“What? But – that’s not possible! Elder Lane? But – why?”

The Sentinel then explained what had happened, telling her everything he had seen. He expected her to burst into tears again, but that didn’t happen. Instead she stopped crying and looked off into the distance.

“So it was them all along!” she said angrily. “Those wretched murderers were never in danger. In fact, they were behind the danger all this time! Those ‘survivors’ are nothing but a bunch of monsters that have been trying to kill us from the moment we got here!”

“That is correct,” the Sentinel said.

“They killed them!” she screamed. “They killed my sister, and my parents, and my friends. We came here to save them, and they murdered us instead!”

“Yes,” he said.

“Adrian betrayed us. I thought he was our friend! He led them right to their death – and he is going to pay for it.”

“What do you mean?” the Sentinel asked, as Amy stood up.

“I mean that I am going to make him pay. They are all going to pay – every last one of those worthless murderers. I don’t need the Artilect to destroy that planet, Steve; I’m quite capable of doing it myself. If my sister can fix it then I can rip it apart.”

“But–”

“Shut up!” she screamed. “You can’t stop me, do you hear? I am not going to let those people get away with murdering my family – not when I can do something about it!”

Amy reached across space and created a holographic image of herself on Xanthe. It was not hard for her to locate Adrian in the planet’s communications center. He was still staring at the monitor, lost in thought.

“Adrian!” Amy screamed.

The elderly man jumped up in surprise and whirled around. A look of surprise crossed his face. “Amanda?” he said uncertainly.

“Oh no,” Amy said bitterly. “Amanda can’t be here right now. Do you know why? It’s because you killed her! You killed her, and the Artilect, and my entire family. But you missed one, Adrian. You didn’t kill me.”

“And you are?” Adrian asked.

“I’m Amanda’s twin sister Amy – and I have all of her powers. I don’t need the Artilect, Adrian. I’m quite capable of destroying your planet without it.”

Adrian looked surprised. “A sister! But – that is, I didn’t know she had a sister. Where have you been all this time?”

“Of course you didn’t know! Why, if you had known then I would be dead too. You murderer! They came here to save you and you killed them.”

“But we had to! You don’t understand – we didn’t have a choice. All of you had to die so that we could be free. You would have killed us all sooner or later anyway. It was a matter of pure survival!”

“Don’t you dare blame this on us! You are the ones that wiped out every single Ranger colony. It was your people who killed countless billions of others just so you could lead depraved, self-centered life in pods. You’re all monsters.”

“Of course we are,” Adrian agreed. “Everyone is – even you. That’s why we had to kill the others, so that they wouldn’t kill us first. But you can’t kill us. That’s what I finally realized! You can’t kill us because if you did you would be the last human being left alive in the universe.”

Adrian paused, and then looked at her. “In other words – we have won. And there’s not a thing you can do about it.”

Amy clenched her fists in anger. She was so furious that she couldn’t speak. She reached out a hand toward Adrian, but before she could touch him the girl vanished.

On her own world, Amy whirled around and glared at the Sentinel. “You had no right to stop me!”

“You cannot wipe out humanity,” the Sentinel said firmly. “That prerogative belongs only to God. You are not the judge of mankind.”

“You have no authority over me!” Amy shouted. “Don’t you dare tell me what to do!”

“I will not let you do this,” the Sentinel replied. “You may be in authority over me, but there is a higher law that I must obey. If you continue down this course then I will oppose you.”

“This is not over,” Amy said. She then vanished, leaving the Sentinel alone.

After she left the Sentinel looked out over the waves that were crashing against the shore. The tide was going out. Evening was rapidly approaching and soon the stars would be out. But the world was empty.

The Sentinel kept a close watch over Tau Ceti but Amy did not approach it. He did not know where she had gone and he was not sure how to find her. Since the Artilect had been destroyed it was no longer possible to watch every planet in the network at once. The Sentinel had great power, but it was extremely limited compared to what the Artilect could do.

What do I do now? The future that my father hoped for is now gone, and the people he spent so long trying to rescue are dead. Now no one will ever live in the network; its cities will remain empty until the Lord returns. There is no longer any hope for mankind. The few survivors that are left on Xanthe will either be killed by a vengeful Amy or will die of old age. Since the Artilect destroyed their pods it is quite likely that the remainder of their lives will be short, as they probably cannot survive in the real world for very long. Even if Amy does nothing they may still die anyway.

Is there no hope left? Is this simply the end, as the last members of a dying race vanish, leaving no future? Was all of this simply for nothing? Or is there some greater purpose that I cannot see?

With nothing else to do, the Sentinel stood on the beach and waited.

Let’s say that one day you decide that you’re going to read the entire Bible cover to cover. This is quite a task: even if you read three chapters a day, every single day without fail, it’s still going to take you an entire year to read through all 66 books that make up the Bible! The Scriptures are quite lengthy and contain a lot of information. It’s really not something that you can just plow your way through over the course of a long weekend.

At first your effort will probably go fairly well. Genesis and the first half of Exodus are easy to read. Things will get harder in the second half of Exodus, when Moses begins talking about the details that surround the construction of the Tabernacle. After this the reader is faced with the daunting books of Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy – books that are quite difficult to get through, let alone understand. However, if you persist things will eventually get better: Deuteronomy is followed by Joshua, which is a really fascinating book. This is followed by a lot of other books that are easy to understand.

Eventually, however, you will come to I Chronicles, where you will be greeted by page after page of genealogies. You’ll encounter verses like these:

I Chronicles 1:11: “And Mizraim begat Ludim, and Anamim, and Lehabim, and Naphtuhim,
12 And Pathrusim, and Casluhim, (of whom came the Philistines,) and Caphthorim.”

I suspect that nearly everyone who encounters these lists of names ends up skipping them entirely. No matter how firm their intention might be to read every last verse in the entire Bible, people will make an exception when it comes to the first few chapters of 1 Chronicles. After all, people can’t even pronounce these names (who names their child Naphtuhim?), and, to be quite honest, no one cares that Mizraim has six sons. So people skip over these verses entirely, believing that these lists of names are completely and utterly useless. Oh, they may have been useful back in the day, but let’s be honest: are there really deep spiritual truths buried in the fact that Mizraim had a son named Ludim?

In fact, for that matter, why is this information in the Bible at all? I’ve never met anyone who was passionately concerned about Mizraim and his offspring, and I’ve never heard a sermon about him either. Over the course of my life I have heard thousands of sermons and I believe I can safely say that not a single one ever focused on the fact that Mizraim had a son named Pathrusim. I have a feeling that everyone who is reading this paper can say the same thing. The truth is, no one cares about Mizraim or most of the other people in these long lists.

But we should care, because there really is an important truth buried in these chapters. There is something absolutely vital about all of this that can change everything about the way we live, if only we’ll take the time to stop and see it.

You see, the reason no one cares about Mizraim and his six sons is because he died thousands of years ago. Mizraim is mentioned four times in the Bible (Genesis 10:6 and 10:13, and I Chronicles 1:8 and 1:11), and each of the four times is a genealogical record. If it weren’t for these verses he would have been forgotten about entirely.

To be more blunt about it, these verses are all that is left of his life. All of his possessions were destroyed long ago. If he had a house it is certainly no longer standing. All of the people that once knew him are long dead. Anything that he ever accomplished life has been forgotten about. In fact, if the Bible had not recorded his name no one alive today would have ever known that he even existed. His life would have been entirely forgotten about.

Mizraim may have been a millionaire. He could have been a powerful individual that controlled vast tracts of real estate. He may have had vast farms, herds of cattle, and the best that life had to offer. But now, today, all of that is gone. Time has destroyed everything that he had and everything that he did. These four mentions in the Bible are all that is left of him – and even that doesn’t do Mizraim any good, because you and I just skip over these names as a bothersome annoyance.

The fact is, all of these people were once alive. Mizraim was born, lived, and died. He had hopes, dreams, a family, and children. He had problems, triumphs, and losses. As the son of Ham, he was the grandson of Noah and it’s quite possible that he was famous, or at least prominent in his day.

But today none of that matters. Everything he had, and everything about him, has been lost. The passage of time has destroyed it all.

We don’t like to think about it, but one day that will be true for us as well. We spend our whole lives trying to get all the stuff we can lay our hands on – cars, houses, money, power, fame, you name it. We think that the rich have got it made and we covet their success. We devote our waking hours to the pursuit of things, and we put all of our energy into it. If our neighbor has nicer things than we do then we’ve got to have them too. So on and on we go, until we die.

But we will die – everyone does. Then time will destroy every last thing we ever possessed and will erase our name from history. After enough time has passed everything we’ve ever owned will be gone and everything we’ve ever done will be forgotten. There may be a few people whose names linger on long after they die, but for the vast majority of the human race that doesn’t happen. If we’re extremely lucky we’ll eventually become like Mizraim – a name in a genealogy list. If we’re unlucky then we’ll be forgotten about entirely, and from the point of view of those who are still alive it will be as if we had never existed at all.

But there is one other side to all of this – a very important side that is too easily missed. This Mizraim that we read about in I Chronicles 1:11 may be dead, but he is not gone. The truth is that everyone lives forever; the only question is where they will spend eternity.

You see, if Mizraim followed God – if he responded to God’s call and believed Him – then he has been in Heaven for a long time now. He is with his Savior and with the rest of the family of God, living in Paradise, enjoying a life that the apostle Paul said was far better than the one we have now. He hasn’t gone off into utter oblivion; instead Mizraim has been living in a place where there is no sin, or disease, or trouble, or pain. He has been enjoying an existence that make the wealthiest men today look like paupers.

However, if Mizraim did not follow God – if he refused to believe the Lord, or tried to save himself by living a good life – then he has spent thousands of years being tormented in a place of fire and brimstone, where there is no rest or relief from his agony. All he has to look forward to in the endless ages of eternity are even greater agonies and pains. At this very moment Mizraim longs for just a single drop of water, but even that is forever beyond his reach.

The fact is, there is just one thing that matters to Mizraim now, and that is the relationship he had with God while he was still alive. The same is true for every one of us. Yes, it is true that if the Lord does not return in our lifetime then one day we will die, and eventually the living ones will forget about us. But when that day comes, all of us will still be alive somewhere, and that somewhere will be entirely determined by what we did with Jesus. Those who repent of their sins and believe in Jesus now will find forgiveness and be given everlasting life. Those who refuse to accept God’s forgiveness and don’t believe will be faced with the unending wrath of an angry God.

The Lord freely offers everyone forgiveness and grace. Those who accept it will find mercy, and those who reject it will find wrath – and they will have no one to blame but themselves, for they chose to reject God’s offer of forgiveness. And that decision will matter for the rest of time.

As human beings we spend a great deal of time chasing things that don’t matter. People spend their entire lives trying to get all the wealth, power, and fame that they can possibly obtain – but this is ultimately a meaningless pursuit. Even the richest and most famous person will still die, and when that day comes he will find out that he can’t take any of his riches with him. What will matter in that day is his relationship with God, and that is the one that that people tend to neglect. We vainly seek things that we cannot keep, and we neglect the things that will matter forever.

If we have come to Jesus and begged for mercy then we will still be around through all the ages of time. The world may have forgotten about us, just as it has forgotten about Mizraim, but when it does we’ll be in paradise, enjoying blessings that far outstrip the greatest riches that this world has to offer. (Plus, we have a Resurrection to look forward to!) When our lives are judged we will learn that the hours we spent building our own fame and fortune were simply wasted time, but the effort we put toward building God’s kingdom will be richly rewarded and never forgotten. One day we will die and lose everything that we have in this life – but if we’ve taken our resources and invested them in God’s kingdom we’ll find a rich inheritance waiting for us.

All of us are faced with the same choice: what are we going to do about Jesus? Are we going to ignore Him, or worship Him? Are we going to ask for His forgiveness or are we going to claim that we don’t need to be forgiven for anything? Are we going to make Jesus our Lord, or are we going to reject Him and follow our own desires instead?

The difference between these choices is the difference between life and death. Things that seem so urgent now aren’t going to seem important at all when we’re standing before God. There are a lot of things in this world that we occupy our time with, but when we reach the end of our life there will be just one thing that really mattered: what did we do with Jesus?

Philippians 1:21: “For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.
22 But if I live in the flesh, this is the fruit of my labour: yet what I shall choose I wot not.
23 For I am in a strait betwixt two, having a desire to depart, and to be with Christ; which is far better:
24 Nevertheless to abide in the flesh is more needful for you.”

This is such an important attitude to have! Can we honestly say that Christ is our life? Do we view death as gain, or loss? It’s so easy to get so caught up in this world that we come to view death as a tremendous loss – we leave behind a career, a life, fame, power, money, possessions, or whatever it may be. It’s certainly tempting to think that way.

And yet, to live is Christ and to die is gain. Perhaps the key is not to spend our lives trying to get everything this world has to offer, but instead to simply be like Christ: to love, to serve, to help. If you’re living a life of service then you have a different perspective. Then death has no loss, for you go from serving here to serving in Heaven – and, in fact, there is great gain because the problems of this life are gone and “in His presence is fulness of joy”.

“To die is gain” is not a hopeless statement, but a focused one. This is saying that life is about serving Christ, not gathering “things”, and that death takes nothing away but rather removes the trials of this life and replaces it with the joy of being in the presence of God.

Perhaps we are simply trying too hard to “win” this life when we should be focusing more on being a servant of Jesus. Servants don’t have complicated lives: they simply serve their master. Yet we get so easily caught up in serving ourselves instead.

Temptations tend to focus on things that people want. However, if the world does not hold our interest because we’re too focused on serving Jesus then many temptations lose their power. If pleasing Jesus is all we really want in life then the devil is going to have a very hard time trying to tempt us.