The Christian Life Alone Is Worth Living

The Christian Life Alone Is Worth Living

by | Aug 17, 2023 | Apologetics, Christian Stories of Hope, Justin Tarr, Spiritual Battles

The Christian Life Alone Is Worth Living

One of the most enigmatic verses in the entire bible is also one of the most intuitively obvious once someone is honest with themselves about the state of this world, the great wickedness that we witness daily, the injustice of war, the corruption of authority, and all other horrors of humanity.

Indeed, this verse captures the natural, Holy, and true response to the violence, sexual perversion, and delusion that we see, experience, and sometimes even partake in in our own shame.

“And I thought the dead who are already dead more fortunate than the living who are still alive. But better than both is he who has not yet been and has not seen the evil deeds that are done under the sun.” (Eccelsiastes 4:2-3, ESV)

What an obvious statement–its almost a truism or a platitude. This verse, more importantly, completely cedes to the Atheist the most poignant criticism against God that there is: God should not have created at all, if the known result was that the elements of His creation would go on to form the molecules of evil and suffering whatsoever.

This criticism is still the strongest in academia today, and it was also my own greatest criticism of a good God. It was what I shook my fist at God for. It was why I cursed him whenever I saw injustice and evil. It was why I resented all that was comforting, sweet, kind, and charitable, because I “knew” it was a fantasy and a lie.

Ultimately was why I laid all of the world’s dysfunction at God’s feet to blame, rather than men. Worse of all, it led me to become a very, very bitter person.

Therefore, you could imagine my surprise when I find that the bible itself completely cedes the premise that it is better to not be born and experience life if that experience includes any form of evil. Moreover, it fascinated me that this book could be inspired, and thus considered infallibly true, by Christians! However, my experience with deep thinking Christians in life and throughout history spared me the foolish and intellectually dishonest exercise of merely chalking it all up to religious doublethink.

However, in my fascination with the book of ecclesiastes as a book considered to be inspired literature, I considered not that it was merely some contradiction or limited human musing as many biblical teachers often lazily claim (my thinking was and is that if the bible is true, ALL of it must be true–infallibility is nonnegotiable).

Now, for many other reasons, the book of Ecclesiastes was the book that led me to salvation in the resurrected Son of God, the Jewish Lord Jesus Christ of Nazareth. However, this verse was the wrecking ball that shattered my criticism.

How so?

Well, as the late Dr. Chuck Missler was fond of claiming, whenever you find a supposed contradiction in the bible our reaction ought to be to rejoice because we are about to learn something!

Therefore, I turned to the only way of solving it that I could think of: making an equation.

Solomon as laid out the following dynamic: To be dead is better than being alive, and better is the one who experienced neither. Therefore I wrote the following:

Life < Death < Unbirth

However, the one who has died has also experienced life with evil, therefore death includes within it life with evil. So, I amended the equation as such:

Life < (Death + Life) < Unbirth

However, with not much else to go on, I left that to continue reading the rest of the book. When I got to the final verse, I found the following:

“For God will bring every deed into judgment, with every secret thing, whether good or evil.” (Ecclesiates 12:14, ESV).

Since I knew from childhood bible studies that Revelation described this judgment as a second death (Revelation 20:6; 20:14; 21:8), I realized that I could then amend the equation for those all man as the following:

Life < (2 x (Death) + Life) < Unbirth

However, all these really proved to me was that the situation was even worse than I originally contemplated. Not did evil make life not worth living, but this was death compounded on itself when all of us are eventually judged for the evil we ourselves did. I felt my despair and cynicism vindicated, but I still didn’t solve how in the right mind any Christian could happy believing this was true!?? And clearly they existed, but I could not find an answer that I found satisfying.

Discontent, I shelved it…and it wasn’t until I found myself reading the words of the Lord himself did I get my answer like a punch in the gut:

“Jesus replied, ‘Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again.’” (John 3:3, ESV).

Aha! My equation, Solomon’s equation, was incomplete.

I quickly amended it:

Life < (2(Death) + Life) < Unbirth < (2(Death) + 2(Life))

It was the second birth that changed the math in favor of God’s impetus to create. The second birth was the death of the old wicked sin, and the promise of eternal life in the presence of the Holy. It was the same crucifixion of Christ that made the second birth possible that also paid the cost of the wickedness that tarnished life. Therefore, it is the Christian life alone that is worth living.

Bonus:

In case you are a math nerd like me and need proof that this is even possible, you can also plug in numbers whose value represents moral betterness:

Life = 2

Death = 3

Unbirth = 9

Life < (2(Death) + Life) < Unbirth < (2(Death) + 2(Life))

2 < (2(3) + 2) < 9 < (2(3) + 2(2))

2 < (6 + 2) < 9 < (6 + 4)

2 < 8 < 9 < 10

Living Life < The Judged Life < The Lifeless < Life in Christ

 

The Christian Life Alone Is Worth Living

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Double Portion for the Firstborn

Double Portion for the Firstborn

by | Apr 5, 2023 | Apologetics, Easter, Passover

Double Portion for the Firstborn

The concept of permanence is difficult for creatures as locked into temporal nature as human beings to comprehend.

The entirety of Ecclesiastes comments on the vaporous vain vexations of life under the sun, and it is not without its points.

However, even the wise old king Solomon had to admit that there was one unique exception to what is otherwise the agonizing reality of the entropy of all things and that is that is this:

“I perceived that whatever God does endures forever; nothing can be added to it, nor anything taken from it. God has done it, so that people fear before him.” (Eccl. 3:14).  

David’s son goes on to conclude,  

“The end of the matter; all has been heard. Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man.” (Eccl 12:13). 

The Fear of God is an important thing, and at the center of these coming holidays.

Passover and the feast of unleavened bread are commemorative event instituted by God to remember Israel’s salvation from Egypt, but we must remember that these things are prototypes of the future anti-type of Christ.

Paul says it another way:  

“These are a shadow of the things to come, but the substance belongs to Christ.” (Colossians 2:17) 

The original Passover is the climax of the event of salvation in the redemptive story of God over Egypt’s gods.

The background of this entire ordeal is the Spirit of God moving through Moses to bring curses and plagues.

This was a gross display of power to destroy any opposition to the rebellious angelic and demonic forces that were at work in that area— Pharaoh’s magicians were able to replicate multiple of the plagues at first!

This was hostile enemy territory controlled by powerful and malevolent powers, both earthly and within the realm of spirits.

And Passover was the ultimate blow: God takes the firstborn of Egypt (livestock included!). 
 
Let’s first remember the religious context: Pharaoh was a man treated and believed to be a god. One way to understand it was that Pharaoh was an incarnation of the God Horus, or at least his legal representative. Never forget that Satan loves to mock the Lord. 

So, in this marriage of religion and government, Egypt losing her firstborn son completely desolated her.

And because it is so easy for us vaporous creatures to forget, God has instituted a  permanent celebration of this holiday; a permanence on par with the tree of life’s fruit, the rainbow, God’s promises to Abraham, or the Sabbath.

It was this Holiday that the Lord Jesus Christ was celebrating and was crucified directly prior to. There are countless similarities, the counting of which extends much farther than the scope of this blog.

However, I believe the most important is the cost of the life of the firstborn. This is why God declares ownership of all firstborn when He declares that the tribe of Levi fulfill this roll, which was why John the Baptist had to baptize Jesus.

Moreover, He requires the people to redeem their firstborn sons.

However, Israel’s ultimate firstborn was not be spared. 

Jesus is firstborn in the traditional sense, but He is also the first man to be born of the Spirit, exemplified by His miraculous birth by a virgin. Jesus, on the night of his betrayal, was celebrating this holiday. 
 
This firstborn of Israel was not spared, but there was even more spiritual warfare going on in the midst of this Passover.

The first good Friday (or Wednesday if you are like me and consider a Wednesday crucifixion more likely) marks the beginning of the 3 days and nights act as the turning point of all creation, the moment that God made checkmate against the old spiritual forces He defeated back in Moses’s day.

Easter Sunday was Jesus’s birthday as not just Israel’s firstborn, but the firstborn of the new Creation that he might be pre emanate in all things.  

The ultimate firstborn was not spared, but can never die.

 

Double Portion for the Firstborn

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The Crown Has Ecclesiastes Episode on Netflix

The Crown Has Ecclesiastes Episode on Netflix

by | Nov 26, 2019 | Apologetics, John Tarr, Movie Review

The Crown Has Ecclesiastes Episode on Netflix

I have been a big fan of the Netflix series called, The Crown. There was much I did not know about the present-day English Monarch and this series was informative and compelling, as well as the great acting and photography, as it moved through the 20th century.

I have always been a fan of history, so this show was right up my alley. It follows the lives of Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip from the beginning and how Elizabeth became the Queen of Great Britain. 

Much of the history of the Crown is very compelling because of not only what is going on behind the castle walls but also, what is happening to England and the world in general. 

How all this turmoil affected these people who, for the most part, did not want this position in life, how it has made their lives a goldfish bowl, with everyone watching their every move.

The Netflix series seems…

…to have gotten much of the historical facts correct even though they may have embellished a bit. So much was going on in the 20th century with the two world wars, which put enormous stress on these people, their relationships with each other, the rest of the people in England and, the leaders of the world. 

At the end of season two, I was looking forward to season three with much anticipation. I had heard how they had made one episode about the first moon landing by the United States in July of 1969 and how it affected Prince Philip. 

I got much more than I bargained for.

The Crown Has Ecclesiastes Episode on Netflix

Tobias Menzies, right, has assumed the role of Prince Philip.

Without giving to much of the story away I will put it into context about what the Ecclesiastes Episode means. The book of Ecclesiastes from the Old Testament is like no other book of the Bible! It can strip away much of what we consider important in our lives and make them seem meaningless. 

Ecclesiastes is written from the perspective of a King who has sampled everything in his life and found it empty and void. Chapter one starts with him writing “Meaningless! Meaningless!” says the Teacher. “Utterly meaningless! Everything is meaningless.” The rest of the book goes on in a dark perspective from there. 

Ecclesiastes can seem very depressing until the book tells you and you fully realize that without God, all of life on this planet is meaningless. You live a few years and “poof” it is gone. Life is but a vapor.

Episode 7 of Season 3 is Called “Moondust”

It’s about Prince Philip and his fascination with the 1969 moon landing which is at the heart of the seventh episode, which “The Crown” uses to explore the duke’s midlife crisis.

Here is a man that has done and been a part of many things in his life that most people can only dream of. He does not understand what is missing in his life until after he meets with the astronauts from Apollo 11 at Buckingham Palace. 

Because Prince Philip was in the military in Great Britain and a pilot himself, he thought he had a lot in common with these three astronauts. The Prince thought these men could give him some insight into life itself because they had done something out of this world. 

The Crown Has Ecclesiastes Episode on Netflix

He was very disappointed with the meeting.

The astronauts had no special understanding of “life,” just because they had walked on the moon and viewed earth form this cold, desolate place that was void of all color. They wanted to know more about Prince Philip’s life and, what it was like to live in Buckingham Palace.  

What I found interesting was how the show sandwiched the astronauts meeting between two meetings that he had with new pastor. Dean Robin Woods had just taken over at the small church that was set up for the people that lived and worked at Windsor Castle including the Royals.

With one of the empty cottages on the property, Pastor Woods started a renewal center called St. Georges House for the exploration of faith and philosophy. It was at this location where Prince Philip met him and about eight other ministers that were in search of something more in their lives.  

The first meeting did not go well.

He accused the ministers of being weak men and in need of grabbing life up by its bootstraps and “get on with it” like the astronauts did. You could tell Phillip had been agitated in his life before the meeting. 

Right after the disappointing audience with the astronauts, is when he had his Ecclesiastes moment. He met once again with Dean Woods and the small group of men and apologized for what he said at the first meeting. He then proceeded to spill his soul to the group of men on how he was feeling about his life. 

He had realized that he had lost his faith and all life seemed meaningless. He wanted help.

The words he used in the episode were very powerful, coming from a lost man who had everything and no place to go for answers. Turns out that Dean Robin Woods and Prince Philip became lifelong friends for over fifty years after this.

I was not ready for this program to go…

…into such a deep philosophical and emotional direction. It came as a surprise because I do not find many programs on Netflix or other TV shows that will ask such heavy questions for people to ponder. Ask they did, but they also kept it highly interesting. The script was powerful and so was the photography.

Since I am deeply involved in Christian Apologetics, I understood what was happening to Prince Philip and the ministers that he met with. These are deep questions that humans have been asking since the beginning of time. I have been here myself. 

I believe God buries these questions in our souls to be asked at different times in our lives. We have need to connect with the creator of the universe that goes beyond simple human understanding.

Are we alone? Is this all there is? Is life meaningless?

How would you answer those questions?

 

The Crown Has Ecclesiastes Episode on Netflix

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Two Measures Foolish are a Christian Apologetics group of writers that write from a Christian Perspective and Christian World View using the Bible as our core.

We all travel on an individual journey on this planet earth that God has put into motion from the day we were formed in our mothers’ body. We all have deep questions that need to be answered. Why are we here? Is this all there is?

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When the Levee Breaks

When the Levee Breaks

by | Oct 2, 2019 | Apologetics, John Tarr, Music

When the Levee Breaks

If it keeps on rainin’, levee’s goin’ to break
If it keeps on rainin’, levee’s goin’ to break
When the levee breaks I’ll have no place to stay
Mean old levee taught me to weep and moan
Lord mean old levee taught me to weep and moan
It’s got what it takes to make a mountain man leave his home
Oh well, oh well, oh well

Don’t it make you feel bad
When you’re tryin’ to find your way home
You don’t know which way to go?
If you’re goin’ down South
They got no work to do
If you don’t know about Chicago

Cryin’ won’t help, you prayin’ won’t do you no good,
Now cryin’ won’t help, you prayin’ won’t do you no good.
When the levee breaks mama you got to move
All last night sat on the levee and moaned.

All last night sat on the levee and moaned.

 

When the Levee Breaks, was originally written and performed as a country blues song by Kansas Joe McCoy and Memphis Minnie. It was made famous in 1927 when the Mississippi river flood occurred. Later, in 1971, the rock group Led Zeppelin did a remake of the song with the same lyrics, but a much different rock edge beat and guitar riffs. The message is still the same.

 

You can tell the song was penned…

 

… by someone that is feeling very down and depressed by the destruction that was headed their way. Besides the fact that the author really did not have a relationship with God which made it even sadder and more depressing with him lamenting, “prayin’ won’t do you no good”.

When the ‘Levee Breaks’ can also be a real metaphor for when things go wrong in our lives. Yes, it’s a real occurrence if you live along a river or near the ocean when storms blow in or rivers overflow their banks and the dike or barricade gives out. The destruction of flooding can be devastating for many people losing their homes and businesses and possibly lives.

 

When our Personal Levee Breaks…

 

..the destruction we leave behind can be just as devastating when our personal levee breaks. Sometimes God puts a lot of pressure on our own individual river or body of water until our human levee gives out. Water is spilling out over the top of the dam and we do not notice. Many times, that is the only way God can get our attention when he lets our levee burst. Sometimes we feel the pressure building up but many times we are oblivious.

Our behaviors, unchecked over time, through our addictions or selfish desires, will bring water to the top of the dike and over. God will turn us over to our cravings and let us have what we so desperately think we want. He lets us come to the end of ourselves. It never ends like we think it will. These secret desires sing to us in such beautiful melodies and fool us that this is the ticket to be punched and the train to take. It’s all vanity or empty promises. Cotton candy in the end with no true lasting substance.

When the Levee Breaks

When the Levee Breaks

 

Is it all meaningless?

 

What is your measuring stick for meaningful?

Ecclesiastes from the Old Testament of the Bible, talks about this very thing. To me it’s the hardest and most eye-opening book of the Bible. It wastes no time getting down to the nitty-gritty, to the most essential questions that have plagued mankind from the beginning. Is this all there is? What does all this mean?

King Solomon is named as the author but, there is some dispute who really wrote it. Textually, the book is the musings of a King of Jerusalem as he relates his experiences and draws lessons from them, often self-critical. He was someone who had it all in his life like no one else through out history. He was rich beyond all measure. He had many wives and concubines. He took worldly pleasure when every he felt like it. God had given him wisdom so he understood things that most people could not. He was king over one the most powerful countries and armies of the time. Needless to say, he wanted for nothing.

He finally came to the conclusion, emphatically proclaiming all the actions of man to be inherently meaningless or futile. Because inherently the lives of both wise and foolish men, end in death. In light of this perceived senselessness, he suggests that one should enjoy the simple pleasures of daily life such as eating, drinking, and taking enjoyment in one’s work, which are gifts from the hand of God. The book concludes with the injunction: “Fear God, and keep his commandments; for that is the whole duty of everyone” 12:13

In light of what is written in Ecclesiastes you could become very depressed because the writer is really getting at the heart of exitance and life on planet earth for all humans if they have an easy life or hard. How long does life last for a typical person? 30, 40, 60 or 80 years. Remember a long life is denied to many. But what is a long life and is it just a few more years tacked on?

 

My dad used to say…

 

…to me before he died, I do not know how I got here so fast. Now that I am in my 6th decade of life I understand what he meant. All those years behind me are but a distant memory now. Like the Bible says, life is but a vapor.

If you do not think there is a God then life here is a very cold and empty thing. In fact, the whole universe with all its billions of galaxies and trillions of stars is a very cold and empty thing. All life that has existed on this little tiny blue planet inside of this universe is meaningless and without purpose or meaning. When you die does your existence just wink out and then forgotten within a generation of being put into the ground? All the billions of souls that have ever walked and breathed and had families and had dreams is nothing but empty vapors.

I think this is why God allows our levee to break. Why would God give us pressure in our lives? Why does He let us experience death, pain, sadness or loneliness. What does it take for us to think outside of our little box we call life. Deep in our hearts we know that there is more to life, even when this life has many good aspects to it, it still does seem empty especially without Jesus. Everything grows old, withers and dies. God designed all life to do this very thing.

 

“God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pains. It is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world” C.S. Lews  

 

Kansas Joe McCoy and Memphis Minnie on YouTube When the Levee Breaks

Led Zeppelin on YouTube When the Levee Breaks

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