Sermon - CoSMI - 1.0.0 - Can a Christian Be an Influencer part 1

Sermon - CoSMI - 1.0.0 - Can a Christian Be an Influencer part 1

1 Corinthians 12:4

There are different kinds of gifts, but the same Spirit distributes them.

In trying to prepare sermons for this particular series, I have had reactions from different people that this is impossible.  It is impossible, inherently impossible, for a Christian to be an influencer.

Obviously I don't agree with this position, but I think it's important to address the points that these people have made.

Jesus said that in order to follow him, we have to deny ourselves.  Paul says to the Philippians that they should do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit.  I think those who feel that it is inherently impossible for a Christian to be an influencer see influencers as primarily self-centred.  Not necessarily solely selfish, but definitely centred on themselves.  Their opinions, their reputation, their brand, and the way they present themselves to the world.  However, if that position is accurate, then it is impossible for a Christian to be an actor or a popular singer or really any position that puts them at center stage.  That would seem to include the position of a mass evangelist.  Was Billy Graham wrong in being an evangelist?

As a matter of fact, in taking this position, it would seem to be the case that one could not be a preacher of any kind or a song leader.  And there are, after all, certain denominations who take that position.  Quakers, or the Society of Friends, do not have anyone at all leading their services.  The Brethren do not go quite this far, but they do not have professional ministry or those who lead the singing on a regular and professional basis.

But these groups are in the minority.  Most of us, in most denominations of Christianity, accept that we have a professional clergy and professional song leaders.  Therefore, we are having people who take center stage and do so on a regular basis and do it to the glory of God.  Gloria was a soloist.  She knew, from the age of twelve, that her voice was a gift from God and was to be used in God's service.  She frequently said that she considered God to be her booking agent.  When she was asked to sing, she always said yes.  She said that the requests came from God and that her voice was to be used in God's service.  She said that when she sang in Christian service, she always knew and felt strongly that there was at least one person in the audience who needed to hear that song.

So, can you be an influencer on social media if you are a Christian?  Can you be a Christian social media influencer, apart from trying to be a SMevangelist (social media evangelist)?

It would seem to me that we not only can, but that we must.  We are told to go into all the world and preach the gospel.  Cyberspace is now part of our world.  Therefore, it would be not merely careless, but negligent, to abandon cyberspace to those who are either opposed to, or apathetic about, Christianity.

There is, of course, always a danger, as there is with any aspect of life.  Vanity and conceit cannot be allowed to rule, and it would seem that pride and overconfidence are definitely dangers and sins that are not merely present in any activity on social media, but particularly the province of those who have ambitions as influencers.  Envy is definitely one of the sins that is going to be associated with social media.  Anger is also a sin that is omnipresent in our current social media platforms.  Therefore, yes, there is a great deal of danger for anyone who has any ambitions to be an influencer on social media platforms.  But, as I have said, we may be negligent if we simply concede it to those who do not wish Christianity to thrive.

I have mentioned Billy Graham.  He very definitely achieved a very large measure of fame, and used that fame to influence people, and even politics.  The same can be said of Mother Teresa.  Of course, for every Billy Graham that we have, we can find a number of counter examples in televangelists who have achieved fame, and riches, and have then achieved notoriety, as they fell into sin.  There is a definite danger, and anyone who works in any area where fame and celebrity are part and parcel of the activity must beware of the dangers, and definitely take strong preventative action against them.

In regard to keeping yourself safe from the dangers of sin, in approaching the ambition to become a social media influencer, it would seem that the first and most effective preventative is honesty.  Be honest with those that you are influencing; your followers on social media.  But definitely be honest with yourself.  Are you doing this for the right reasons?  Are you willing for your reputation to suffer as a result of identifying yourself as a Christian?  Are you willing to trash or diminish your social media and influencer reputation in order to share the gospel with someone who hasn't heard it?  Are you willing for your influence, as an influencer, and your own celebrity to be secondary to your responsibility to follow what God would have you do, and say, rather than what may be popular on social media?

This issue of honesty is something that we have to examine very specifically in the next sermon, on authenticity.

Sermon - CoSMI - 1.1.7 - Can a Christian Be an Influencer part 2 - TBD

Sermons: https://fibrecookery.blogspot.com/2023/09/sermons.html

Sermon 15 - Iisaak

Sermon 15 - Iisaak

Romans 13:7

Give to everyone what you owe them: If you owe taxes, pay taxes; if revenue, then revenue; if respect, then respect; if honor, then honor.

1 Peter 3:15

But in your hearts revere Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect

I'm trying to learn the Nuu-chah-nulth language.  To learn a new language is not simply to learn vocabulary, syntax, and grammar.  The language, in many ways, carries the culture.  What words mean, and the emphasis and priority putting put on certain of those meanings, tells you a lot about the people who use that language.

I learned a new word recently.  It's called iisaak.  It means "respect."

But, as is usual, it doesn't just mean respect: it has other meanings as well.  Translating from one language to another is like that.  The word Naas, for example is the word for God, but it's also the word for creator, and it's also the word for sky, and it's also the word for heaven.  Multiple meanings for the same word, at least in terms of what we think a word should mean.

Anyway the word iisaak means respect.  But it also means observe.  And it also means appreciate.  And it also means to take wise and thoughtful action.  All in one word.

And, if you think about it, isn't that what respect is?  If we respect someone or something, do we not observe it?  Do we not note the behavior of the person that we respect, and even try and emulate it?  Do we not observe what they do and say, and learn what we can from it?

And if we respect someone, don't we appreciate them?  Don't we appreciate every minute we can spend with them?  Do we not resent when other people take their attention from us?

And taking wise and thoughtful action.  Isn't that in there as well?  If you respect someone, do not you consider your own actions in comparison with theirs?  Do we not try and emulate their thoughts, and their wisdom?

Kelly, who taught me this word, uses the variety of meanings to make a framework for conflict resolution.  And for dealing with a variety of problems.  I think it's an excellent idea.  For one thing, conflict resolution should always be based on respect.  But the additional meanings do allow you to build a framework, and a process, that can be very effective for resolving conflicts and problems: first observe, and make sure that you understand what the problem actually is; then appreciate the valid points on the other side; and then take wise and thoughtful action to resolve the issue.  I think it's a terrific framework.

And, of course, it also makes for a terrific sermon.  We need to respect God.  And that means that we need to observe, and appreciate, and take wise and thoughtful action with regard to God.

First off, we need to observe.  God has revealed himself to us in a variety of ways.  To begin with, there is God's word: the Bible, the scriptures.  We get to hear God speaking directly to us.  We get to hear, pretty plainly, what God wants to tell us.  How he expects us to act.  What it is that he expects of us.  And, of course, even within the scriptures, God has revealed  himself to us, very particularly, in the person of Jesus Christ.  This is a revelation, a very special revelation, for those of us who believe.  It is the most direct, personal, and plain revelation to the world.

But God reveals himself in all kinds of ways.  The heavens declare His handiworks.  The Earth is full of his glory.  The atheists like to raise the problem of pain as a proof for the non-existence of God.  The problem is, we say that God loves us, and that he is all powerful.  Well then, say the atheists, why does pain and suffering exist?  If God was good he would want his creatures to be happy, and yet there is suffering.  So, either God is not good, or he is not all powerful.  This is the problem of pain.  Well there are a number of answers to the problem of pain.  But the atheists have another problem: the problem of beauty.  If God doesn't exist why is the world so beautiful?  What is the purpose of having such amazing glory all around us for no particular reason?  Why is there an absolutely gorgeous sunset pretty much every day.  And, since I tend to be up most earlier than most of you, I can also tell you that the day starts off pretty much the same way: absolutely glorious.

And observe the provisions that God makes for us, and for every living creature as well.  God provides for us in so many ways; such prolific ways; such a variety of ways.  God takes care of us.  But there is such beauty in the universe!  The wonders of the orbits of electrons in the smallest atom and the structure of the cosmos overall like a giant soap foam, made up of galactic clusters.  Look at the smallest weed wildflower growing in your patch of lawn.  Consider how beautiful it is, just as it is.  And then take a lens, and look at it more closely.  Consider the structures in veining and the amazing design of the individual pedals themselves.  And then go even deeper, if you can find a powerful enough microscope, and consider the beauty and art that goes into the cells, and the channels that fluids flow through in order to nourish the plant and give it life.  And all of this beauty, that could have been just simply functional, for no particular reason at all.  At least no reason if there is no God who does not want us to see the beauty of his creation.  And all of this may be provided for one single planet of people: us.  All this amazing provision, just to keep us alive.  And entertained?

And do we appreciate it?  Do we appreciate the beauty, the grandeur, and the provisions?  Are we properly grateful for the fact that God keeps us alive minute by minute?  He maintains the world.  He maintains the universe.  He maintains us.  He feeds us.  He feeds everything, and in some weird and wonderful ways.  He provides us with life.  And then, even though we are ungrateful, and selfish, and disobedient, he saves us.  He provides salvation, as well as life.

Do we appreciate the beauty?  Do we appreciate the provision?  Do we appreciate that God, the creator of the entire universe, and any other universes that there are if you believe that there are other universes, wants to be your best friend?  Wants you to live with him forever?

Do we respect God enough to appreciate all that he has done for us?

And then there is the thoughtful and wise action.  Give thought to the respect that is due to God.  Give thought to all that we have to appreciate, which is provided by God.  And then, give thought to the fact that our respect for God, the appropriate respect for God, and our appreciation for all that he has done for us, must prompt us to action.  And that action must be thoughtful.  Yes, our appreciation may prompt us to throw our hands in the air and praise.  That is all well and good.  But is that all that we owe God?  Thoughtful action would indicate that we need to do something more for God.  Therefore, we need to determine, or at least try to determine, what it is that God would have us do.  What action God would have us take.

Fortunately, God has provided us some help in this regard.  He has given us his word, the bible, the scriptures.  He has shown you, oh man, what it is that he requires of you.  God has provided us the law.  God has provided us the words of the prophets.  God has provided us with stories and histories and wisdom, and even his son as an example for us as a rabbi for us, as a direct statement to us of what it is that we are to do.  And so, we should emulate that example.  We should look into those stories and give them careful thought, and then take action based on what we read there.  We need to take action.  We need to, as closely as we can, do, and act, in the way God would have us act.  This is the thoughtful action that we would take we need to take.

And we need to take action, rather than doing nothing.  Failing to take action is not wise.  But, in addition to action, and addition to giving thought to what actions to take, we need to study wisdom.  We need to be wise in our actions.  We need to give thought, we need to ponder wisdom, we need to ponder the words of God and consider and root them deeply into the way we work and the way we think, and we need to use that wisdom to guide our actions.  It is not enough simply to observe.  It is not enough simply to appreciate.  It is not enough to give thanks, no half matter how effusive.  And, it is not enough to take action, simply any action.  The action must be thoughtful, and the action must be wise.  And, given all that God has done for us, the wisdom must be the best that we can give.  The thought must be the best that we can give, so that the action is the best that we can give.  God deserves the best.  To do anything less is to lack respect for God.  To demonstrate a lack of respect for God.  To demonstrate that we have failed to show the proper respect for God.

Sermons: https://fibrecookery.blogspot.com/2023/09/sermons.html

A couple of firsts

As previously noted, I have known Carl even longer than I knew Gloria.  So I went to his birthday party.  It was a bit of an adventure.

It was suggested that I check out the Hullo ferry.  The Hullo people tend to market their service as an adventure.  It's not really that kind of an adventure.  Basically, it's a bus.  I am confident in that assessment, because, after I got off the Hullo ferry in Vancouver, I took a bus out to UBC.  It's basically the same experience.

Admittedly, I was on the lower deck.  The "Comfort" class.  If you pay more, you can get the "Premium" class or the "Business" class.  If you do that, you get to bring an extra bag, you get a bigger, more comfortable seat, you get to board and disembark first, and you get to sit on the upper deck.

(The lower deck is not exactly crowded, but, if you are on a full transit, as one of mine was, you had best pay heed to their suggestion to stay in your seat for the trip.  The aisles are easy to move around in, when empty, but even a few extra people moving around tends to result in blockages.  I would really hate to see an emergency on board.)

The Hullo office and lounge on the Nanaimo side is quite nice.  It's got a washroom, it's got a snack bar, and it's got a bunch of very friendly staff waiting for the next departure.  There is a rather large parking lot on the Nanaimo side.  I was traveling mid-week, in early spring, and there was plenty of parking available.  I shouldn't have worried about it, although I did, and I went way too early.  But they have guest wifi available in the lounge area, so I was okay.

Of course, you don't embark from the lounge area, and nobody mentioned this.  You actually embark from a set of lineups that are outside the office.  Because I didn't know this, I was one of the last to board, because everybody else who does know this goes directly to the lineups and skips the lounge.

Of course, it doesn't really matter, because if you buy your ticket in advance, you choose your seat.  So I had assigned seating.  Apparently, I was charged for assigned seating.  I wasn't really given an option.

There appears to be massive confusion about what counts as luggage on the Hullo ferry.  I haven't seen such confusion over bringing massive suitcases onto a journey since the last time I was on a flight to Nigeria.  I suspect that an awful lot of people are traveling from Nanaimo to get a day of shopping in Vancouver and want large suitcases to bring back their purchases.  And apparently everybody wants to avoid the extra $25 you get charged for a checked suitcase.  Carry-on luggage is free, but what counts isn't exactly spelled out.  There is one place on the Website that mentions a twenty-two inch limit.  Even in the Nanaimo lounge there is no explanation of this, nor one of those racks that the airlines have so you can measure your bags.  Actually, in terms of the allocated space on board, you could bring a medium-sized purse, or a fairly small backpack, and that's about it.  Even a briefcase is a little bit much in the comfort class area.

The seats, even in comfort class, are starting to look a bit depressed, but are comfortable enough.  So, was the ride.  The day that I happened to travel was pretty much a flat calm, although some recent high tides had apparently pulled an awful lot of flotsam off the beaches, which may have accounted for some odd movements in the travel.  The captain was probably avoiding drifting logs.  Each trip is about an hour and twenty minutes.  The view, en route, is not exactly great, but it definitely could be improved if anybody would wash the salt spray off the windows.  Actually, when I went to embark on the ferry for the return trip, I noticed that they do, occasionally, wash the salt spray off the windows, both on the upper and lower decks.  With a hose.  On one side only.  The side that I was on was not cleaned for either of the voyages that I was on.

During the trip they run various ads on screens throughout the cabin.  The safety video also ran on these screens.  Every once in a while, there was an announcement that all systems were operating smoothly.  I would have had more confidence in this announcement had it not also been immediately followed by,(and sometimes preceded by) another announcement that the guest wifi on board was not available because of system upgrades.

It's too bad that the return trip has to be from Vancouver.  The Hullo infrastructure on the Vancouver side is pretty much non-existent.  Apparently, there is a VIP lounge in a nearby restaurant, but neither arriving in, or departing from, Vancouver did I have the time to go and explore and find out where it was.  The arrival and embarkation on the Vancouver side is attached to the new convention center.  The new convention center is rather an enormous complex, with multiple levels, and a whole bunch of attached infrastructure.  The Hullo ferries arrive at, and depart from, the Harbour Air seaplane dock.  If you are not an aficionado of the harbour area in Vancouver, you can be forgiven for not knowing where this is.  The Hullo departure area can be identified from the rather squiggly handwritten word 'Hullo' that has been added in Sharpie marker to the elevator buttons.  If you can find the area where the seaplane dock is, and if you can find the elevator.  Basically, when you arrive in Vancouver, you are two blocks from anything other than the new convention centre complex.

So I had to hoof it about five blocks up to the bus loop at the Bentall Centre complex.  God was good to me, in that one of the first buses at the stop I eventually decided on was an express bus out to UBC.  Mind you, then I was at the bus loop at UBC, and, because of various areas of construction, both the sidewalks between the bus loop and Regent College were closed.

I worked the room at the birthday party.  This was basically in Gloria's honour.  Gloria always insisted that I did very well at working a room, and was quite capable at it, regardless of the fact that this is definitely not my comfort area.  I met a few nice people, and a couple of people who I wasn't quite sure why they were there.  They seemed to be not quite sure why they were there, either.  I was able to talk, briefly, with both Carl and with Betsy.  I was also able to meet a couple of members of the family.  It's interesting that, given the time that I've known both Carl and Betsy, I, over the years, had multiple reports on the accomplishments of various of their kids and family.  But this is the first time I've actually met them.

I had to leave early in order to get back to the ferry for departure time.  This led to the second first of the day: I rode in an Uber.  One of the people that I had contacted, in regard to being at the birthday tea, indicated that they would get me back to the ferry on time, and apparently this was their solution.  It was fine.  I am still not going to sign up for Uber.

Sermon - TLIS - 2.3.2 - Covert Channel

Sermon - TLIS - 2.3.2 - Covert Channel

2 Kings 4:27

When she reached the man of God at the mountain, she took hold of his feet. Gehazi came over to push her away, but the man of God said, “Leave her alone! She is in bitter distress, but the Lord has hidden it from me and has not told me why.”

Psalm 9:15

The nations have fallen into the pit they have dug; their feet are caught in the net they have hidden.

Mark 4:22

For whatever is hidden is meant to be disclosed, and whatever is concealed is meant to be brought out into the open.

Jeremiah 33:3

Call to me and I will answer you and tell you great and unsearchable things you do not know.

A covert channel is a communications channel or medium which is not supposed to be a communications medium.  It's a communications channel which isn't supposed to be there, a communications channel that isn't supposed to exist.  So, by and large, no access controls exist on the channel because nobody ever thought that it would be used as a communications channel.

In information technology terms, covert channels are generally either timing channels, or storage channels.

A timing channel is some indication, usually of a completely different function, which can be used to signal someone outside the system, or outside the controls of the system.  This might, for example, be a cooling fan which will run faster, or slower, depending upon the load place upon a computer or other information technology device.  When the load is heavy, the device runs hot, and the fan will that speed up in order to compensate and try to keep the system cool.  Some attacker may be able to submit extra jobs to the system in order to make the fan run hot or cold, and can have this submission of jobs controlled by information that is only available inside the system.  Then, the sound of the fan running faster or slower will indicate the data, and can be recorded outside the access control of the system.

Because of these sorts of complications, timing channels are usually fairly low bandwidth, and cannot broadcast too much information.  However, if the information is sufficiently important, even a few bits will do.

Storage channels tend to hold information, and then, when the information is no longer needed, are abandoned or discarded.  Recycled hard drives from business computers, for example, are very seldom wiped or zeroed out in order to erase the data that's on them.  Therefore, people who go to recycling facilities are able to purchase hard drives and glean surprising amounts of very sensitive information how about certain companies.

As you might suppose, from these examples, covert channels are very often the stuff of spies.  An example of a timing covert timing channel might be the opening and closing of a window blind in a certain window or house providing information.  Another example is the famous "one if by land, two if by sea" of the American Revolution.  A dead drop is a type of covert storage channel.  It isn't supposed to be a mailbox, but it is, and people will leave bundles of information which can be retrieved by somebody else later on.

A covert channel can be used to get information out of a system.  The thing is, it can also be used to get information *into* a system.  Not always plainly, but sometimes surprisingly deeply.

With respect to the Christian life, where I am going with this shouldn't be too hard to figure out.  The world has all kinds of ways to get its messages, as opposed to God's messages, through to us.  The world does not need to directly attack us, and to overtly state that God doesn't exist.  The world can just fail to mention God at all.  In this way, the message soon comes through that, well, maybe God isn't that important after all.

There are other ways that the world can get its message through to us.  For one thing, God should "stay in His lane."  God is all very well on Sunday, and in dealing with issues of personal morality, but God shouldn't talk about politics.  God shouldn't talk about economics.  After all, God didn't invent these things, we did.  (At least we think we did.)

So we say that God doesn't have any particular knowledge of, or awareness of, or interest in, or expertise in public policy.  Or making laws.  Or running a society.  (Tell that to anybody who is reading their way through Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy.)

So, God should stay out of politics.  God shouldn't have any opinions on homelessness, or on minimum wages, or on guaranteed annual income, or welfare, or anything of that sort.  As far as the world is concerned, God really shouldn't have anything to do with that.

God shouldn't have anything to do with business, either.  God shouldn't have any opinions on capitalism, or efficiency.

In another sermon, I speak about the concept of a reference monitor.  The reference monitor can be used to check for some of the information that may be coming to you via a covert channel.  Again, as with other aspects of life, if this information doesn't pass through the Christian reference monitor, then it may be coming to you via a covert channel.  If it comes to you by a covert channel and doesn't go through the reference monitor either, then you should be looking at any beliefs or behaviors that this information is setting up in you.  Make sure to use the Christian monitor reference monitor to protect you against covert channel type attacks against you, and feeding you information that is not to your benefit.

The covert channels that the world uses against us are, once again, means of communication that we may not see as means of communication.  There is, for example, all the material all the communication that the world does to us, but on a recreational basis.  Movies, and television shows, and plays that you just use to relax will also have all kinds of messages that the world can repeat and repeat and repeat until you simply come to accept it.  The world will keep on telling you that your own pleasure is a good thing, the world will tell you not to worry too much about other people's problems.  The world will tell you that you need a nice house, or a nice car, or a vacation, or something else that is going to use up your time, attention, and resources, rather than allowing you to put them at the service of God.

The world, of course, uses advertising to get you to buy things.  But the specific things that advertising gets you to buy are somewhat secondary to a constant barrage of messages that you need to buy something, anything, anything other than what you already have.  You deserve better.  You need something else in your life, or your life has no meaning.  You need something else in your life so that other people will like you and have relationships with you.  The world also uses advertising to get you to believe things.  (I'll buy that.)

And there are other messages coming through covert channels.  Just simply the structure of our lives, forced upon us by our society.  You have to have a job.  You must have a job and make money.  You must have money in order to live.  You cannot work, for God, for God's purposes, and rely on the fact that God will provide for you, as he provides for everyone.  Without requiring you to choose a job, and work at a job which, possibly you do not like, simply so that you can have the money to live in our money oriented society.

All of these are messages that the world sends to us through channels that we don't even recognize as communications channels.

Sometimes the messages are deeper, more hidden, and more insidious.  Recently, a technical discussion on ethics and the use of artificial intelligence had one of the participants ask an AI chatbot to contribute.  The contribution was interesting primarily because of the number of rhetorical tricks that the chatbot included in its response.  However, when the response was analyzed, it could be seen that the basis of a number of the arguments boiled down to an assessment that ethics really did not exist except as an emotional or internal state in human beings.  This, of course, is tantamount to saying that ethics do not actually exist and that any decisions on moral behavior are subjective at best.  I'd say this argument is wrong.  Hidden within it is the assumption that "ethics" is basically based only on emotions.  I would go so far as to say that the argument is immoral, and an AI that would *make* the argument is immoral.  (And the company that would make an AI that would make the argument is immoral?)

What is the world telling you that it isn't even telling you?

Sermons: https://fibrecookery.blogspot.com/2023/09/sermons.html

Vega Discover, world's most unstable library software

Vega Discover, a product related to a company called Clarivate,  has got to be the world's worst and most unstable library catalog software.

The layout and design is graphics intensive, consumes enormous amounts of bandwidth, and must require an awful lot of processing on the backend.   This makes the thing pig slow in operation.

However, it is the instability of the system that is the real annoyance.  Vega Discover forgets your identity and login information with startling regularity.  In the middle of a search, everything disappears since Vega Discover has forgotten who you are.  Signing on to Vega Discover is also problematic.  Maybe it will sign on for you, but probably it won't.  Most of the time I have to sign on at least six times before I get a stable connection.  I have just given up at my local library, having tried to sign on for two dozen successive attempts in a row, none of which was remotely successful. 

Sermon 83 - The Years the Locusts Have Eaten

Sermon 83 - The Years the Locusts Have Eaten

Joel 2:25

I will restore to you the years which the locust, and the bruchus, and the mildew, and the palmerworm have eaten; my great host which I sent upon you.

Joel 1:4

What the locust swarm has left

    the great locusts have eaten;

what the great locusts have left

    the young locusts have eaten;

what the young locusts have left

    other locusts have eaten.

Joel 1:15

Alas for that day!

    For the day of the Lord is near;

    it will come like destruction from the Almighty.

Many years ago I read a book with this title, "The Years the Locusts Have Eaten."  It was based on this verse, Joel 2:25, "I will restore to you the years which the locusts have eaten."  I don't remember what the story was actually all about.  I don't really remember very much about the book: I have a vague recollection that it was a story set sometime in the late 1800s.  But over the more than five decades between that time and this, that verse has stayed with me: "I will restore to you the years which the locusts have eaten."  I can't say that, over the years, I have always believed it.

But in terms of a sermon, I am getting ahead of myself.  We should really cover this in order.  The order starts with the destruction, not the restoration.

Joel is a prophet, and like all the prophets, he is either telling what is going to happen, or explaining why what has happened, has happened.  In this case, he is explaining why what has happened has happened.  The ravaging hordes have come.  The armies have invaded Israel, and plundered everything.  And the Israelites are wondering why the day of the Lord doesn't come.  Joel is explaining that the day of the Lord *has* come.  Like Amos, who follows him in the Bible, Joel is explaining that the people got it wrong: the day of the Lord is not simply a time when everything will be set right.  It will be a time when all injustices, and unfaithfulness, will be punished.  And Israel has been unfaithful.  This is, in fact, the day of the Lord.  The Lord has finally gotten tired of the people being unfaithful to him and failing to follow his commands, and has finally decided to give them a gentle reminder in the form of their being completely overrun and exiled to a foreign land.

And when an army comes, it is not just the army that comes.  The great swarm of the army comes and fights, and kills, and plunders.  The infrastructure supporting the army comes around and plunders once again, sometimes just to resupply the army.  The camp followers come along and they do some plundering themselves.  And then various opportunists come and strip off anything left behind that they can pick up.  It's like a bunch of different styles and species of locusts coming through.

And just to establish the point, go back to the plague of locusts in Egypt and look at it in context.  The plague before the locusts was the plague of hail.  The hail came and destroyed the flax and the barley, which ripen earlier than wheat.  *Then* came the locusts, and the locusts destroyed the wheat crop, and also destroyed and ate the leaves on all the fruit trees.  This is passed over very quickly in the Bible, without comment, so it is hard to see the level of destruction and devastation that this means.  This is the complete destruction of all agriculture for the entire year.  The early grain crop is gone.  The main grain crop is gone.  Also, all of the fruit for the year is gone.  The entire year's produce is gone.  Well, you say, in full ignorance of all the agricultural requirements of what comes to your grocery store, they can just eat the animals.  Well, what are the animals going to eat?  All of the fodder stocks are gone as well.  Unless there is grain in reserve, everything, and everybody, is going to starve.

Everybody loves the blossom festivals.  The cherry blossom festival, and the shorter, but even more fragrant, apple blossoms.  Those blossoms are beautiful in and of themselves and are also the promise of the crop for the year.  If there is a late frost at the wrong time, or even just a heavy rain, and those blossoms get washed away, there isn't going to be any crop.

And yet there is that promise: if the pollinators have had *just* enough time, then, yes, there will be a crop that year.  Even if the rain washes away the blossoms, the fruit is already set, and the crop will grow.

When God makes that promise, "I will restore the years that the locusts have eaten," it is interesting to look at the ways that verse is translated in different versions of the Bible.  Sometimes the word "years" gets translated as "ears."  Obviously, since the original was in Hebrew and not in English, this can't just be the problem of a single letter being missing in some transcriptions of the verse.  So, yes, sometimes God is talking about crops, but he is also talking about the years.  God is talking about the time that is lost.  The years that are wasted in various ways.

Sometimes the translation says that the years will be restored.  Sometimes the translation says that the years will be repaid.  I came across one that said that the years would be paid back *double*.  This is a reference to parts of the law, where, if you have done something wrong and defrauded or stolen something, then, in terms of making restitution, you have to pay back more than you stole in order to restore or repay and make right the wrong that you did before.

We all have our own years that the locusts have eaten.  So how do they get paid back?  For us physicists, we have a standing joke that there is no difference between space and time except that you can't reuse time.  Once time is gone, it's gone.

I have probably mentioned elsewhere that I never had a girlfriend before Gloria.  I never had a girlfriend in school.  I never had a girlfriend in high school.  I never had a girlfriend in college.  I never had a girlfriend when I was starting out in my working career.  You don't have to feel sorry for me.  I could have married any girl I pleased.  I just never pleased any.

So that's a possibility for years that the locusts ate.  Years that I was alone.  Years of loneliness and unproductivity.

And then I met Gloria, and we knew each other for a while, and then we got married.  Somehow we seemed to skip that whole stage of boyfriend and girlfriend and dating, but we had a really good marriage.  And a few years after we got married, Gloria admitted that she really appreciated the fact that I never had a girlfriend.  Never.  The fact that Gloria didn't have to worry about me comparing her with anyone else, because I had no one else to compare her to.

You see, other people had compared other women to Gloria, and unfavorably to Gloria.  There was a husband who decided that it wasn't worth being faithful to Gloria.  There was a boyfriend who never really did decide whether it was worthwhile sticking with Gloria and committing to her.  There were even family members who made unfavorable comments in terms of Gloria's physical attractions in comparison to those of other women.

And suddenly all those years that the locusts ate became a gift, a gift that I could give to Gloria.  Even though I had never intended to, and didn't even really realize it until long after the fact.

Of course, it took twenty years ...

I definitely have mentioned elsewhere about being fired from teaching, and the long years of not teaching or teaching very little.  But eventually I did get to teach again, and in the best teaching gig in the world.  There were definitely some years that the locusts ate, but I don't remember much about the years of non-teaching, or seldom teaching.  I do remember, and have lots and lots of stories about, the years of teaching the best teaching gig in the entire world.

Mind you, it took twenty years to happen.  And another ten for me to figure out that it *had* happened, and *how* it happened ...

Sometimes, in terms of restoring the years the locusts ate, the illustration is used of women in labour.  There's an awful lot of pain involved, but there's a baby at the end of it.  In view of the value of babies, yes, this has got to be a pretty good compensation, regardless of the pain involved beforehand.

Sometimes the years of the locust are more problematic.  I am a member of a very small group that is dealing with the idea of reconciliation (and, yes, truth) in regard to the residential institutions that our government forced upon the First Nations of this country.  In this case, it is painful to have to accept that it is my culture that are the locusts: the European invaders, the settlers.  We, as the locusts, ate the language, and therefore the culture, and therefore the families, and therefore the teachings, and therefore the structures of lives for the First Nations.  Quite apart from the fault, there is the simple fact of pain, and distress, and hurt, that has descended down not only the years but also the generations.  There is a First Nations name for these meetings, a reference to the fact that it is important that we keep these meetings as a safe space for anyone to say anything.  There is another name for these meetings: "The Road to Reconciliation."  We are not at reconciliation yet.  We are not even anywhere near it.  But we are on the road, a pathway that will, hopefully, with good will and a lot of hard work, eventually bring us to reconciliation.  To find the way.  To restore the years that we have eaten.

But you don't have to go that far, and you can have a more generic example.  Any major accomplishment is accompanied by a lot of work.  The work, particularly hard mental work in solving a problem, is very difficult indeed.  There are all kinds of efforts involved in building structures of logic and ideas and concepts, putting them together, getting distracted so that the whole thing comes crashing down in your head, and it has to be rebuilt all over again and rechecked to make sure that you haven't forgotten anything that will make the whole thing worthless.  Then finally testing it out, finding that you have missed something, and fixing that problem, putting it back together again, testing it again, and finally it works!  And all of that effort, and all of that worry, and all of that work, and everything else is forgotten in that sense of accomplishment and productivity when you finally make it work.

So, we have to consider these small accomplishments.  We have to consider that, yes, there is the possibility of restoring the years that the locusts have eaten.  It is possible, as *impossible* as the wasted years that we are in now seem, in terms of any compensation ever making them worthwhile.  God has promised that He will, and He can.

As hard as it is to wait patiently while He does.

Sermon - Garden series

Sermon 2 - Broad Beans

https://fibrecookery.blogspot.com/2023/01/sermon-2-broad-beans.html

Sermon 3 - Blackberries

https://fibrecookery.blogspot.com/2023/01/sermon-3-blackberries.html

Sermon 33 - Transplanting

https://fibrecookery.blogspot.com/2025/02/sermon-33-transplanting.html

https://open.spotify.com/episode/5Fr2al8f0bNT9fTo1nYzwV

Sermon 57 - Leaven

https://fibrecookery.blogspot.com/2025/02/sermon-57-leaven.html

https://open.spotify.com/episode/3oguUslGkpVxkiFlCjxeAj

Sermon 59 - Corn

https://fibrecookery.blogspot.com/2025/03/sermon-59-corn.html

https://open.spotify.com/episode/1XxT0do4aFywpZPwPWrvHv

Sermons: https://fibrecookery.blogspot.com/2023/09/sermons.html

Sermon - TLIS - 3.1.2 - Christian Architecture

Sermon - TLIS - 3.1.2 - Christian Architecture

2 Peter 1:3

His divine power has given us everything we need for a godly life through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness.

Micah 6:8

He has shown you, O mortal, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.

No, we are not going to be talking about how to build churches.

When I started to teach about security architecture, and business architecture, most people misunderstood the term architecture.  Most people seemed to see architecture as a mere plan, or diagram, or outline of how you would put together security.  The architecture is much more than that.  The architecture is not a plan or a diagram or an outline.  The architecture is what allows you to develop and put together a plan or diagram or outline.

So I started to come up with an illustration for the students and candidates.  What if you were going to build a house?  For a house, everybody understands that you need an architecture.  Generally speaking, you would try and find an architect.  So let's design a house.  What do we need to build a house?

And, generally speaking, someone would almost immediately jump in by saying four walls.  And I would jump on that.  "Aha!" I would say, "but this house is in the South Pacific Islands.  We actually don't *want* four walls.  We live in a very humid environment.  We want the breezes to blow through as freely as possible.  If we don't, we are gonna have a problem with mold.  So we don't want walls.  We might want drapes of some kind, or screens, to give us privacy.  But we don't want anything to impede the air flow.  We do want a roof, because we have a lot of rainfall which contributes to the humidity.  But we don't want walls because it's generally warm enough that we are not going to be uncomfortable.  So all we need is a roof, and some screens or other curtains.

The point of this exercise is to get you to think bigger about what an architecture is.  The architecture is so big that it is really just a set of the requirements.  What is it that we need?  For a security architecture, what is it that we need in terms of security?  For a business architecture, what is it that we need in terms of our business?  The requirements are, basically, our architecture.

You also need to learn to think smaller.  The policy, for a business, is, generally, just a few sentences.  It looks more like a mission statement than the five hundred page manual that most people think about when you talk about business policy.  In terms of our house, our architecture really should only mention the need to keep the rain off, the need for some privacy, and the need for an airy feeling, and actuality.  That is the architecture, and it allows us to create something that is appropriate in terms of an actual design and implementation.

So, when we turn to trying to design an architecture for our Christian life, We only need a few basic outlines.  Love God.  Love your neighbor.  Spread the good news.  That's it.

Anything beyond this is extraneous, and actually risks becoming an impediment.  Just like our four walls in our South Pacific home.

Many people think too small with regard to security architecture.  That is, they look at it too closely.  They think that it should be a design that is to be implemented.  They think that it should specify particular vendors and particular products.  The problem with that is that when the business grows, you may outgrow that particular design, or those particular products, or even that particular vendor.  Security architecture should be able to support the business as it grows.  You should be able to expand the business, and expand your infrastructure, without violating the security architecture.

Similarly, the security architecture should be able to accommodate new business models or business plans.  If you have a small business and you are doing business as a storefront, then, as your business expands, are you able to accommodate electronic commerce or online commerce and online business?  Are you able to accommodate that within the structure of what you have been calling your security architecture?  If not, then what you have is not a security architecture, but simply a design.

So it is with the Christian life.  Our Christian architecture should be able to accommodate our concept of God growing larger.  After all, there is that wonderful book title "Your God Is Too Small."  Our God, any idea that we have about God, no matter how large, is not large enough to accommodate the reality of God.  God is just simply bigger than we think, and bigger than we could *ever* think.  If our idea of God is not able to grow and expand as we experience more of God then our Christian architecture is too small.  It cannot accommodate all of God.  As our understanding of God expands, we are going to have to change our idea of who God is, and possibly abandon everything that we have thought and considered and planned up to that point.

And just like security architecture, in terms of Christian architecture, less is more.  In order to have a Christian architecture that is able to accommodate expanding ideas about God, we have to have less specific detail and more openness.

Karl Barth's work is wonderful and has contributed greatly to theological understanding.  John Calvin's "Institutes of the Christian Religion" is a marvelous work and has provided comfort and assurance to many Christians and theologians over hundreds of years now.  (When it was first published in French, beyond the original Latin, it immediately became the world's first best seller in a popular language.)  But in terms of utility and accessibility to the everyday Christian, I assume that many, many more people have read C. S. Lewis's less than two hundred pages that are published as "Mere Christianity."  The very title, "Mere Christianity," indicates that Lewis is considering the simplest and most basic aspects of Christianity.  Lewis is not interested in defining the differences and distinctives.  He simply wants to define what he wants to define what all Christians can agree to.  Therefore, his work is more basic and more applicable to more people.  Just about anyone from any denomination can agree to it and learn from it.

And it can stand the test of time as well.  A "mere" Christianity will be able to address the challenges of the Internet, where everyone in the world is now your neighbor.  A mere Christianity would be able to assess, evaluate, and direct the lives of Christians who are influencers on social media.  John Calvin, as smart as he was, might have had a bit of difficulty with that.

Architecture security architecture includes items such as your hardware and your software.  Christian architecture includes things like your beliefs, your philosophy, your perspective and worldview in seeing how reality actually works when there is a God behind it.  It includes other aspects as well.

The infrastructure of your life includes your resources, such as your money, your house, your car.  It also includes your very life itself: your health, your physical strength, your physical abilities, skills, and talents.  Are you willing to use all of these, as necessary, in the service of God?  Are you willing to still dedicate your life to the service of God if you start to lose some of these resources?  The architecture allows you to give a cohesive design to how you use all of this in terms of God's service.  The architecture gives you guidance as you are making decisions and makes sure that these decisions will be strategically consistent across time.  It's designed to be strategic, in that it has a longer life than any immediate blueprint or design or plan for your life in the short term.  This is one of the reasons that you don't want the architecture itself to be too specific because it can't become constrained by current or changing circumstances.  It's not going to be invalidated by changes in your understanding of the nature of God.  It should allow multiple implementations and plans for your future.  Depending on how situations change, if you don't have a Christian architecture then you will have trouble being able to quickly and effectively support needs that you see popping up in front of you, with the understanding that God has presented them to you as opportunities to help.

At a Christian meeting one time, one woman was giving her testimony, and said that she had accepted the Lord as her savior when she was four years old, and that her faith had not changed from that day to this.  I appreciate that we are supposed to have faith as little children.  I appreciate that faith is supposed to have an element of constancy to it.  But I couldn't help but think how sad it was, that her faith had not developed at all since she was four years old.  What can we know of God at four years old?  Yes, we can love him and trust him.  But we can go little further than that.  And as she had grown, evidently her faith had not.

It is this kind of issue that I seek to address when I say that we must minimize our Christian architecture, in order to accommodate a God who is large enough for the universe.  As we understand more and more of the world, God's creation of it, and the marvelous planning that went into preparing it for us, grow more evident the more you know.  Our humility, in the face of this magnificent planning, must also grow.  The more we know, the more we know that we do not yet know.  And our structure around our Christian faith must be such that it can withstand a sudden twist or shock.

I also recall another time, when I was quite alone, studying, for the first time, higher textual criticism of the Bible.  I remember the anger that I felt that I had been lied to all these years.  What was being presented to me in terms of higher criticism was obviously true, and yet all these years I had been presented with ideas and concept that were in direct contradiction to it, and were, therefore, wrong.  My faith had to withstand that kind of a shock and twist.  It did, with only a little residual anger involved.  But I can certainly understand those who have been presented with equally false information, provided by the church and the Christian society around them, and were suddenly awakened to the evidence that so much of what they believed had, in fact, been fairy tales.  And so many of them have, in that moment, turned away from the faith.

CS Lewis's mere Christianity is basic.  It emphasizes what God is, and what God is not.  It concentrates on the most basic and common elements of Christianity.  It lays out the dangers, to us, that are present in the world and in opposition to God.  For the most part it stays away from any controversial aspects and divisions between denominations of Christianity.  It sticks with the basics, the fundamentals, the most foundational concepts that we need to know to understand and follow God.  This is what our architecture needs to be.  It is no wonder that the Bible so often warns us not only that we must believe everything that is in it, but not to add anything to it.  Adding anything, as much as we may want to, carries with it the danger that this additional baggage may result in a loss of faith in the extra that has been added, with the added danger that faith itself may be lost.

Sermons: https://fibrecookery.blogspot.com/2023/09/sermons.html