Look! Up in the Sky » gospel

An Old World of God and Monsters

garydrobinson — Sun, 26 Jul 2009 20:58:51 +0000

CLOVERFIELD. I’m sure you’ve heard of it–Godzilla for the You Tube generation. The whole thing was filmed via handheld camera. It took me a little while to get used to the jerky movement (a similar style was used in FLIGHT 93; Barb couldn’t stomach it), the milieu of storytelling from one visual perspective. But I got there. Man, did I get there! I tried to read my book and watch at the same time. Wasn’t happening. I was quickly drawn into the predicament of some shallow twenty-somethings, whose lives and loves become quite precious to them in the wake of sudden and unprecedented disaster.

It’s really an amazing piece of work, balancing terror, suspense, humor, and pathos. We don’t see the big ol’ monster full on until near the end. We don’t need to; there are plenty of nasty little monsters running around, jumping and clamping on people. A race through a subway tunnel, including a fight with these parasites (which apparently drop off the Big Thing) is truly edge-of-your-seat stuff.

Ironically, though the characters don’t seem to know from God, on the brink of death, they cry for His mercy: “I’msorryI’msorryohI’msorryohgodpleaseforgiveme!” I found this string of almost unintelligible prayer very telling, very realistic, and almost unbearably sad. Movie monsters come and go; passe one day, chasing your meat the next. But God–and human guilt before Him–remain.

Go preach that Gospel, kids. The monsters are still out there.

Delivered: The wrath of God, pt. 2

garydrobinson — Sat, 02 May 2009 13:39:58 +0000

My sister Patty and I used to write on my mother’s cigarettes: Smoke kills, etc. Bless her heart, Mom didn’t stop us. She actually let us get away with defacing her property. She didn’t want to smoke, but she couldn’t stop.

If you can see that a person is doing something to hurt himself, do you do anything about it? If you care about them, you’ll at least say something, won’t you?

We see the wrath of God at work in people all around us. We see them like flies trapped in the web, struggling, sweating, desperate. Why do we say nothing? We’re afraid of offending someone by saying something about Jesus. Why don’t we say anything? The wrath of God is here, working, and coming. But God so loved the world that He sent His only begotten son that whoever would believe in him would not perish but have eternal life.

What halts the course of the wrath of God in our lives? The Gospel. “Jesus…delivers us from the wrath to come” (1 Thess. 1:10).

God is just: The wrath of God, pt. 1

garydrobinson — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 12:00:41 +0000

Read 2 Thessalonians 1:6-9.

I know the idea of the preaching of the wrath of God isn’t popular these days. But, then, I don’t think it really ever has been. We’d much rather believe in a God of love who just loves because He is love and what the world needs now is love, sweet love and love is all you need.

God is loving, beloved, but He’s no fool. The fact is, without the wrath of God, what is the love of God worth? Can’t we do as well loving each other on our own? I mean, if there’s no wrath, no anger, no hell then we don’t need God to love, to forgive, to comfort. We can do as much for each other, can’t we? But if we are playing for higher stakes, if human life is a game it’s possible to lose and lose big time, then we need a love that will save us from wrath. We need the shed blood of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ upon the cross to blow the hatch and get us off this sinking’ ship!

Now, here comes good news that really is good news! Jesus will save believers from that wrath. That’s what we believe. That’s what we preach and teach. That’s our hope.