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As I mentioned to you this morning, tonight I want to draw your attention to the 17th Chapter of the Book of Acts. And if you want to open your Bible to Act 17, particularly in Verse 22, we here find the Apostle Paul in the midst of the Areopagus. And he says in Verse 22, "Men of Athens, I observe that you're very religious in all respects. But while I was passing through and examining the objects of your worship, I also found an altar with this inscription to an unknown god, 'What therefore you worship in ignorance, this I proclaim to you.'"
Anybody who doesn't know God is in a desperate condition. Paul recognized that. And in fact, you man worship other than the true God. You may worship many gods. But if you do not worship the true God, you really are an atheist in the end. That's just how it works out. And if you do not worship the true God, you have cut yourself off from the very most important thing in all of life.
We live in a society that intellectually or ethically or pragmatically rejects God. There are religious societies that worship all kinds of non-gods, but not the true God. And theirs is another kind of religious atheism where they, too, are without the knowledge of God. The effect of this pervasive atheism is devastating, as we shall note in this introduction.
Let me begin with an account that comes out of a book entitled A Shattered Visage. It's a book written by Ravi Zacharias, who is a noted Christian apologist. Listen to how he begins the book: "On August 7, 1961, 26-year-old, Major Garmon Titof became the second Soviet Cosmonaut to orbit the earth and return safely, climaxing a monumental feat for mankind. Some time later, speaking at the World's Fair and savoring his moment of glory, he recounted this experience, vouchsafed to a privileged few. In a rather pre-textual pronouncement on a triumphilist note, he let it be known that on his excursion into space, he hadn't seen God.
"Upon hearing of his exuberant argument from silence, someone quipped, 'Had he stepped out of his space suit, he would have.'" (Laughter)"Evidently, reluctant to restrict the immediate gains of the moment to the disciplines directly involved in that endeavor, Titof attempted to draw theological blood. Thus, one great step for science became for him an immensely greater leap in philosophy.
"On Christmas Day, 1968, three American astronauts were the first human beings to go around the dark side of the moon away from the earth. Having fired their rockets, they were homebound on Apollo 8 and beheld our planet in a way that human eyes had never witnessed before. They saw earthrise over the horizon of the moon, draped in a beauteous mixture of white and blue, bordered by the glistening light of the sun against the black void of space.
"And in the throws of this awe-inspiring experience, they opened the pages of the Book of Genesis and read for the world to hear, 'In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.'"
Writes Zacharias, "Two similar experiences of awe and exhilaration. Two diametrically opposed conclusions about the nature of the world. Such a chasm is quite understandable, for these two incidents carried into space the most fundamentally debated question on earth, 'Does God exist? Has God created man? Or has man created God? Is God indispensable to any cosmological explanation? Or is He only a psychological necessary of men? Theism or atheism?'"
Well, unfortunately, our culture is controlled by atheistic thinking. Several years ago, Encyclopedia Britannica published a 55-volume series entitled The Great Books of the Western World. Mortimer Adler, a very noted philosopher and legal scholar, was the co-editor of that series. And the series itself marshaled the most imminent thinkers of the Western World, and their writings on the most important ideas that had been studied and investigated over the centuries.
This includes ideas about law, science, philosophy, history, theology, and love that have shaped the minds and the destinies of people -- fifty-five volumes to assemble all of this for comparison and contrast. And very striking to anyone who observes these volumes is that the longest essay in all 55 volumes is under the title God.
When Mr. Adler was asked by a reviewer why this theme merited such protracted coverage, his answer was uncompromising, "It is because," he said, "more consequences for life follow from that one issue than from any other," end quote. Nothing has more direct impact on life. Nothing has more direct effect on life than belief or disbelief in God. Whether we're talking about personal life, family life, national life, or cultural destinies, everything in the human realm is bound up by whether we believe or do not believe in the true God.
And frankly, belief in the true God, who is creator and sustainer and lawgiver and judge and Savior and King, is essential to the wellbeing of humanity. And even believing in false gods, gods of man's on making is only a form of atheism, because those gods do not exist and cannot have any meaning.
Our culture, as I said to you last week, is dominated by intellectual atheism at high levels, and by moral atheism at low levels. GK Chesterton was right when he said, and I quote, "God is like the sun. You cannot look at it. But without it, you cannot look at anything else."
We are in profound trouble without God. The atheism of our time really goes back to evolution. It was when Charles Darwin and those who followed him designed the concept of evolution that atheism took on a reasonableness. Although it is in every sense irrational and unreasonable, it has the faade of reason.
Henry Morris has written a very excellent book called The Long War Against God. Henry Morris, of the Institution of Creation and Research, noted scientist, who came out of the scientific world and has written perhaps more than anyone arguing against evolution, writes this: "Modern astrophysicists are currently speculating that the universe itself spontaneously evolved out of nothing."
Well, at least they're honest enough to admit that's the only option, as irrational as it is. "Further," writes Morris, "in this picture the universe came into existence," this sounds very scientific, "as a fluctuation in the quantum mechanical vacuum." (Laughter)"Such a hypothesis leads to a view of creation in which the entire universe is an accident."
In the words of one writer, named Trion, and I quote -- a scientific writer, writing in the Science Digest, June 1984, "Our universe is simply one of those things that happened from time to time." (Laughter) Well, that explains it. (Laughter)
This evolutionary lie, this elimination of God permeated everything. It permeates education. It permeates law, the courts, government, politics, sociology, morality, all areas of human life and endeavor, all areas of human relationship are polluted by the evolutionary lie. And evolution led almost sequentially to the worst in human life.
If you go back to the worst in human life, the worst from a sociological standpoint, you have to go back to Karl Marx and the writing of Das Kapital, atheistic communism's birthing philosophy. And you might not know it, but it is true that Karl Marx sought to dedicate Das Kapital to Charles Darwin.
When you go back to Sigmund Freud, you go back to a man who was so enamored with evolution he believed he had found the reality he needed, that man had to solve his own problems within himself because there was nobody outside. There was no God. Freud took the evolutionary concepts of Darwin and developed psychology from them.
Arrogant pseudo intellectual behaviorists, psychologists, psychiatrists, and philosophers who have come from Freud and Marx and their disciples have given us the world we have today; psychologists and psychiatrists and philosopher who have far more personal problems than is even reasonable for any single group. They even recognize how messed up they are, how corrupt they are, and how crippled they are.
Peter Brigen is a psychiatrist in the Humanist Journal November/December 1987; he wrote an article called Mental Health and Religion. This is what he said -- he is a psychiatrist: "The average psychiatrist has more power to do harm in the lives of individuals than most religious leaders on earth. Moreover, it would be hard to find a more unhappy lot than those clustered in the mental health field.
"Especially among psychiatrists, suicide, depression, drug addiction, and alcoholism are notoriously rife. Among non-medical mental health professionals," that would be psychologists and counselors, et cetera, "the situation doesn't seem much better. Not only are many mental health professionals unhappy, but they do not live ethically inspired lives. Too many, for example, prostrate themselves before the psychiatric establishment," end quote.
And yet, these same psychologists who are unhappy, embittered people who can't solve the problems of their own lives, yet the lives of others who are following this evolutionary Freudian union model are sure that the answer is not in Christianity.
Dr. Edward Wilson of Harvard, former southern Baptist in his early years, now having rejected all of that, also wrote an article in The Humanist Journal called The Relation of Science to Theology. And in it, Dr. Wilson said this, and I quote, "Bitter experience has taught us that fundamentalist religion," that means Christianity as we know it, "in its aggressive form is one of the unmitigated evils of the world," end quote.
They have not only rejected God and rejected religion and rejected fundamentalist Christianity, but they see it as a serious threat.
In another strain, you can go back to the philosopher, Nietzsche, who coined the idea that God is dead. Nietzsche was the one who, more than anybody else, influenced Joseph Stalin, Adolph Hitler, and Benito Mussolini. For example, Adolph Hitler took Nietzsche and ran the philosophy of Nietzsche to its logical conclusion. He drove the atheistic worldview to the very brink.
And Hitler said this, and I quote, "I have freed Germany from the stupid and degrading fallacies of conscience and morality."
Dostoyevsky, the Great Russian writer, was exactly accurate when he said, "If God is dead, everything is justifiable." There's no right and there's no wrong. There's no explanation for the universe, because it doesn't need one. It is just one of those things that happen from time to time. There is no hope. There is no meaning.
An English journalist by the name of Steve Turner sums it up in a very clever way. Listen to what he wrote. "We believe in Marx, Freud, and Darwin. We believe everything is okay as long as you don't hurt anyone, to the best of your definition of hurt, and to the best of your knowledge. We believe in sex before, during, and after marriage.
"We believe in the therapy of sin. We believe that adultery is fun. We believe that sodomy's okay. We believe that taboos are taboo. We believe that everything's getting better despite evidence to the contrary. The evidence must be investigated, and you can prove anything with evidence. We believe there's something in horoscopes, UFOs, and bent spoons. Jesus was a good man, like Buddha, Mohammad, and ourselves.
"He was a good moral teacher, although we think His good morals were bad. We believe that all religions are basically the same, at least the one that we read was. They all believe in love and goodness. They only differ on unimportant matters like creation, sin, Heaven, Hell, God, and salvation." (Laughter)
"We believe that after death comes nothing, because when you ask the dead what happens, they say nothing." (Laughter)"If death is not the end, if the dead have lied, then it's compulsory Heaven for everybody except perhaps Hitler, Stalin, and Genghis Khan. We believe in Masters and Johnson. What's selected is average. What's average is normal. What's normal is good. We believe in total disarmament. We believe there are direct links between warfare and bloodshed." That's deep. (Laughter)
"Americans should beat their guns into tractors, and everybody else would be sure to follow. We believe that man is essentially good. It's only his behavior that lets him down." (Laughter)"This is the fault of society. Society is the fault of conditions. Conditions are the fault of society. We believe that each man must find the truth that is right for him. Reality will adapt accordingly.
"The universe will readjust. History will alter. We believe there is no absolute truth, excepting the truth that there is no absolute truth. We believe in the rejection of creeds, and the flowering of individual thought."
He then concluded with a postscript. He called it Chance. This is what it says: "If chance be the father of all flesh, disaster is his rainbow in the sky. And when you hear, 'State of emergency. Sniper kills ten. Troopers on rampage. Whites go looting. Bomb blasts school,' it's but the sound of man worshiping his maker." Very true. If you don't have God, you don't have anything.
As Pascal said, "There is a God-shaped vacuum in man that only He can fill." And apart from God, there's no sense to anything. There's no life. There's no hope. There's no goodness. There's no meaning. There's no truth. There's no rules.
Well, moving into a little more familiar domain, on January 7, 1855, Charles Haddon Spurgeon addressed his congregation at New Park Street Church. This is what he said: "Would you lose your sorrow? Would you drown your cares? Then go plunge yourself in the godhead's deepest sea. Be lost in the immensity and you shall come forth as from a couch of rest, refreshed and invigorated. I know nothing which can so comfort the soul, so calm the swelling billows of sorrow and grief, so speak peace to the winds of trial, as a devout faith in God."
We need God in our society and in our lives. Today we're gonna hear about God from a far greater preacher than Spurgeon or me, from the Apostle Paul himself. And that brings us to Act 17. This is a message about God, that men must know and can know God. That's what it's about. How important is it?
John 17:3 sums it up. Listen to these words. "And this is life eternal that they may know Thee, the only true God." Knowing God is the way to eternal life. How important is knowing God? It is the only way to eternal life. It is the only escape from eternal death.
What is the best thing in life? What is the most comforting thing in life? What is the most securing thing in life? What is the most hope-producing thing in life? What is the profoundest truth in life? What is the greatest source of courage in life wherein lies the standard for living, for knowing what is right and what is wrong? All of it is in the knowledge of God.
In Jeremiah 9, it is wonderfully summed up. Listen to Verses 23 and 24 of Jeremiah 9: "Thus says the Lord, 'Let not a wise man boast of his wisdom, and let not the mighty man boast of his might, let not a rich man boast of his riches. But let him who boasts boast of this, that he understands and knows Me," what a great statement, "that I am the Lord who exercises loving kindness, justice and righteousness on earth; for I delight in these things,' declares the Lord."
If you're gonna boast, you don't boast about your wisdom. You don't boast about your power. You don't boast about your riches. You boast in one thing, that you understand and know God.
I will never forget as long as I live, I'm sure, sitting on that airplane -- and I told you about this months ago -- flying down to El Paso, Texas, starting up a conversation with a Muslim Arab from the Middle East. And he started asking me questions. And I said to him, "I know God," and it blew his mind. He said, "You know the God personally?"
Why would you boast of your human might and your human achievement and your human wisdom and your earthly riches, when you can boast that you know the God of the universe personally? And He provides the structure for all that you believe and know to be true. What pleases God most? He delights that we know Him.
Hosea 6:6: "For I desired mercy and not sacrifice and the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings." And what is the purpose of man? To know God, to glorify God, to enjoy Him. Paul knew well the plight of the Pagans. They didn't know God. Though they were religious, they didn't know God. Theirs was not technically a world of atheism. Theirs was not a world of evolution. They believed in gods all over the place, but not the true God.
As we find the Apostle Paul in Acts 17, he's on his second tour from the church in Antioch where he was a pastor -- Antioch in the country of Syria. He has come to Macedonia and he's come there to found those churches at Philippi, Thessalonica, and Berea. But in each case, while he was establishing churches in those cities, great opposition broke out. And every time, he had to run to save his own life because the false religious establishment and, of course, that included the Jews and the Pagans, were threatened so severely by the establishment of the Gospel and the church that Paul had to run for his life.
From Berea, which was the last of those three stops in Macedonia, he had been brought to Athens. And he came to Athens alone, waiting until Timothy and Silas, his companions on this missionary tour, could join him. So there he is in Athens. And I suppose it was everybody's intent that he would rest because he had been so embattled that he would get some refreshment and find some comfort and some quiet. But he didn't.
In fact, as soon as he got to Athens, he confronted a city completely given over to idolatry, and the consequent inequity that came with it. He was impressed that the city was full of idols, but without God. It was atheism couched as polytheism. He was all alone. How could he have an impact on that place?
Well, the way things worked in ancient times, there was an agura, a marketplace. And there would be a gathering of the populace of the people in that marketplace. And part of that gathering city center would be a place given over to the articulation of philosophy and religion. And so that's where Paul went.
The discussion of philosophy and theology and religion was in the public forum. It wasn't tucked into neat books and stuck on shelves somewhere. It didn't take place in private debates on television or radio; it was public. And so he went to the public place where he could meet the philosophers.
He stood in the middle of the Areopagus. That probably means "the council." They would be the supreme court of Athens. He went there and asked for a hearing. And by the way, that is the very court, the supreme court of Athens, called the Areopagus, that tried Socrates and condemned him about four centuries before.
Paul comes back to that very familiar place, to the inhabitants of Athens, where much had been argued and debated through the centuries, since Socrates. He is not there to defend a personal philosophy. He's not there to get in line with all the rest of the philosophers. He is there to introduce the Pagans to God, to the only true God whom they do not know.
And he has to start by finding some way to enter the subject. And so he says, "Men of Athens, I observe that you are very religious in all respects." And there's a certain amount of condescension in that, a certain amount of bridge building in that. "For while I was passing through and examining the objects of your worship, I also found an altar with this inscription to an unknown God." How perfectly suited that oblique, obscure, nondescript altar to nobody was in becoming the entry point for Paul to make his great sermon.
The title of his sermon might be Getting to Know the Unknown God. Now there are three things that must be known if we're to know God. One, we have to know that God is. Two, we have to know who God is; and three, what God requires. If we're gonna know Him, we have to know that He is, know who He is, and what He requires for those who would know Him.
So in Verses 22 and 23, Paul essentially says, "I'm going to introduce to this God." Hebrew 11:6 says, "He that comes to God must believe that He is." let me tell you something, folks, as long as people are atheistic, intellectual atheists, materialistic atheists, naturalist atheists, humanistic atheists, and will not acknowledge that God is, they cannot know Him at all.
The paper fortresses of atheism, the paper fortress of atheism have to be torn down. They can be torn down. From the intellectual standpoint, it is reasonable to believe in God. Romans 1. But even more importantly, they can be torn down by the revelational argument of Scripture. Let the Scripture do its powerful, powerful work.
In 2 Corinthians 10, Paul says, "We do not war according to the flesh." Now we're gonna do battle in an atheistic environment and an atheistic culture. And if you're on a university campus, it's even more heightened there. But we don't do battle according to the flesh. We're not just using human reason and human arguments and human debate, because the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but divinely powerful for the destruction of the paper fortresses of atheism.
How are you gonna tear down these paper castles, these paper fortresses? How are you gonna destroy speculation and every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God? How are you going to do that and then bring every thought captive to the obedience of Christ? The only way you can do that is with a spiritual weapon. And the only spiritual weapon we have is the Word of God.
That is why I am much more concerned with confronting the atheistic culture with the Scripture than I am with rational arguments. There's a place for that. But in the end, the spiritual weapon that rips down their fortresses is the Word of the Living God, energized by the Spirit of God.
In Psalm 14:1, familiar words, "The fool has said in his heart," what? "There is no God." The word "fool," by the way, could also be translated wicked, or even vicious. The root of that word, "fool," can refer to a plant that has lost all of its juice. So it could even be translated, "lifeless, drying, dry." The lifeless one, the wicked, vicious, foolish, lifeless one, shriveled up, dried up, is the one who says in his heart, "There is no God."
He says it in his heart. He's convinced himself inside. And I just remind you that men don't do that because it is intellectually reasonable. They do it because they love their sin. And if they acknowledge God, then they have to acknowledge morality, and then have to feel guilty because they violate it. They don't want that. They want to eliminate the guilt. They want to be free to sin as they will. And so they just eliminate God. They love sin. They shun accountability to a divine law.
And Athens, like the people of the Psalmists time, and like people today, it was full of fools who ran around saying, "There's no God." Athens had created all kinds of gods to accommodate their inequity, but not the true God. Rejection of the true God is not a result of superior intellect. It is not a result of scientific investigation. It is a result of stupidity. And more than that, it is a result of the love of inequity.
And it is summed up in Romans 1 where it says, "Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools." God planted the knowledge of His existence in creation. God planted the knowledge of His existence reason. the knowledge of Law is planted in thought and in conscience so that even Pagans, who have no written Scripture can discern that God exists, that God is powerful, that God is supernatural, that God has established a Law and judgment.
In fact, this revelation of God that is in man is so clear that every man is without excuse for rejecting God. The Ephesians, while very religious, were really atheists because they refused the true God. They did not know the true God. And so, they didn't know God at all. At least though, we could say they were supernaturalists. By virtue of their religion, they allowed for the existence of supernatural beings. And they were at least open to the fact that that was reality.
And Paul builds on that. He stood in the midst of the Areopagus. They got that name because they once met on the hill of Aries. And he says, "You men of Athens, I observe that you are very religious in all respects." And by the way, I suppose that could be taken as a compliment. I don't think he's being snide or caustic. But he's certainly being vague. He wants to say something that is at least kind. And they were very religious.
Posineous had written that the Athenians greatly surpassed others in their zeal for religion. Lucian had said, "On every side, there are altars, victims, temples, and festival." One of their writers, Petroneous, said, "It is easier to find a god in Athens than a man." They were addicted to the worship of their gods, but they didn't know the true God.
So just in case some deity got left out of their pantheon they made an altar to an unknown god. Now it's true from what we know historically and through archeology, that this would not be the only such altar. In fact, it is very likely that all over the City of Athens there were many, many altars to many, many unknown gods. They just wanted to make sure they scooped up every possibility.
Maybe there was just one other god out there. And if he didn't get recognized, he'd really get upset and then some disaster would come. And maybe there was one god out there that they didn't know yet who could fix the world. They sure hadn't found one who could up to this point. Six hundred years, by the way, before this, a terrible pestilence had hit the City of Athens and nothing could stop it.
A cretin poet, Epimedities, had come up with a plan. A flock of black and white sheep were let loose throughout the city from the Areopagus. Wherever each lay down, it was sacrificed to the nearest god; that the sheep that would lie down it would be sacrificed to the nearest god. If a sheep was lying down near no shrine, it would be sacrificed to an unknown god, and an altar to an unknown god would be built there. And maybe there was some deity floating around somewhere who could fix the world. This may have been one such altar.
Sad, all those gods and they're still without God. The love of sin had obliterated the truth. If they had desired to know the truth, they would have known the truth. Paul makes that clear when he says in Verse 27, that, "They should seek God, perhaps they might grope for Him and find Him, though He's not far from each one of us." In Him, we live and move and exist.
God was there, in its presence, not far away to their understanding if only they had sought Him properly. But they loved their sin and so they created a panoply of deities to accommodate their own ignorance and their own inequity. Paul uses this as a springboard to introduce them to the true God.
We certainly live in a culture that on the one hand is intellectually atheistic and morally atheistic, but on the other hand, has a faade of religion. And if you surveyed most of the people in America, they would believe in God or gods, as they would define them in their own human terms. In the midst of all of this practical atheism and all of this whimsical theism, they don't know the true God. And when a society doesn't know the true God, all Hell breaks loose.
And Paul then realizes how crucial it is for the heart of the individual to come to know the true God. And in Verse 23 he says, "I found this altar with the inscription to an unknown God." And then he adds this tremendous statement, and it must have grabbed their hearts, "What therefore you worship in ignorance, this I proclaim to you. I'm gonna tell you about the unknown God. I'm gonna tell you about this God that you've hoped was there, this God who can save you from your sins, this God who can give you peace and joy, this God who shows you what is right and what is wrong, who tells you how to live your life and gives you hopes for the future."
It is recorded that wistfully Albert Einstein, a man with an intellect hardly surpassed in our nation's history, Albert Einstein said, "There is a cosmic power. Not to believe that is foolish. But we could never know it." Oh yes, we can. That is the same dilemma of many people. "There is a God out there. They may be a God out there. If there is a God out there, how can we know Him and how can He touch our lives?"
And Paul simply starts by saying, "What therefore you worship in ignorance, this I proclaim to you. The God you need is there. God is," that's his first point. "God exists. The God that you so desperately need exists."
Listen to Paul's writing to the Galatians in Chapter 4, Verses 8 and 9. A powerful statement. He says to the Galatians Christians, "At that time when you did not know God, you were slaves to those which by nature are no gods. You had your gods. You had your deities. But you didn't know God. But now," Verse 9, "that you have come to know God," rather a better way to say it, "to be known by God, how is it that you turned back again to the weak and worthless elemental things to which you desire to be enslaved all over again?" And he's castigating them because they've come to know the true God, to be known by the true God, and they're drifting back to some of their former Pagan habits.
But the point that I want to draw out of that is that God can be known. And when you come to know Him, and He to know you, there's no need to ever go back. God is, and God is knowable. That is the message of Scripture. We could go into all kinds of reasonable arguments, the existence of God from the standpoint of cause and effect, of design, of personality, of ethics, of law, of conscience, all of those things. But in the end, the real weapon is the Word of God. That's what tears down the atheistic fortresses. God is, and God is knowable.
And secondly, they had to recognize who God is, not just that God is and that he is knowable, but who God is. Paul, knowing that to believe God is, and even to believe that He is knowable is incomplete. You have to identify who He is.
You have heard people speak of God as "the man upstairs," "the big man in the sky," one Hollywood personality said. "The man upstairs," is a common identification for God. But who is God? Well, it's not hard to figure out, because God has revealed Himself.
And Paul speaks directly and authoritatively in declaring who God is. And when he does that, he stabs right at the heart of atheism. He stabs right at the heart of polytheism. He stabs also right at the heart of Athenian pride. He stabs at the heart of social and racial superiority. He puts God at the center of the universe instead of man, and eliminates all other deities. His goal is to lead them to God.
Now let's pick it up in Verse 24. Here's how he introduces God. "The God who made the world and all things in it." First of all, you want to know who God is? God is creator. God is creator. He is the one who made the world and all things in it. Now they were living, obviously, in a pre-evolutionary era. Nobody had concocted anything as stupid as that the universe came out of nothing. Human reason wouldn't even permit it.
Because the human mind operates on a cause and effect premise, every effect requires a cause. That took them back to the greatest effect, which is the universe, which demanded a cause. And Paul says, "The cause is God." First of all, you want to know who God is. He is the creator who made the world and all things in it.
Now, this is very interesting if you get a little bit deeper into the philosophy that existed in Athens. There were a group of philosophers there known as Epicureans. They denied creation. You know how they denied creation? They didn't believe in evolution. They said matter was eternal. Matter was eternal. It never was created, so it didn't need a creator. That's how they solved the problem.
Stoics, the other major philosophical group, were Pantheists. And they said, "Everything is God. And God is everything," which, I suppose, is another way of saying the same thing. Paul says, "The eternal God is the creator of everything. There was creation and God made creation; therefore, God is not the creation, He is the creator."
The Scripture certainly affirmed this, and we could spend literally hours trekking through the Word of God affirming that God, Himself, is the creator. But listen, for example, to Psalm 146:5, "How blessed is he whose help is the God of Jacob, whose hope is in the Lord his God." Now if I'm gonna have a God to help me, and if I'm gonna have a God in whom to put my eternal hope, there's the God I want, the one who made Heaven and earth, the sea and all that is in them. I want the creator, because I want a God of great power.
The wonderful profit, Isaiah, in that great section of his prophesy, when he's talking about the character of God, for example, the 40th Chapter of Isaiah, Verse 12, "Who has measured the waters in the hollow of His hand and marked off the heavens by the span, and calculated the dust of the earth by the measure, and weighed the mountains in a balance in the hills in a pair of scales?"
He's talking about God, the creator measuring the water, marking off the heavens, calculating the dust of the earth, weighing the mountains. That's the science of Isosticy that makes the earth balanced so it rotates properly, the creator, God.
Over in the 45th Chapter of Isaiah, again another reference, and there are many of these, in Verse 18, "For thus says the Lord who created the heavens. He is the God who formed the earth and made it. He established it and didn't create it a waste place. 'I am the Lord and there is no one else.'" And so it goes again and again in Scripture, God is seen as the creator.
Zachariah 12:1, "thus declares the Lord who stretches out the heavens, lays the foundation of the earth, and forms the spirit of man within Him."
Read Jeremiah 10. Read Jeremiah 32, on and on. Matter is not eternal. And matter is not God. The Epicureans were wrong. The Stoics were wrong. God is God, and He created, and what He created is not Him, but His creation.
This basic truth of Christianity overthrows the claims of evolution. And by the way, evolution, of course, is indefensible anyway. One writer, name Kiercut says -- and this sort of sums it up -- "All evolutionary presuppositions are unsupported." Pretty comprehensive statement.
When you think about what the evolutionists have tried to say for over 100 years, the nebula theory on creation was accepted. And then it was discarded for the title theory, which gave way to the continual controversy between the steady state and superdense theories, then for 1,500 years, the Ptolemaic theory, then the Copernican theory, then the theory of relatively, then the big bang theory. And now they've got some kind of theory developed by Stephen Hawking, the negative vacuum theory. And on and on it goes.
And what is the faith of the evolutionists? Here it is: "No supernatural exists. No supernatural power created. All creation is a matter of chance. Living matter comes from dead matter. Intelligence, conscience, and moral judgment appear with no source and no cause." Sure.
The laws of thermodynamics, for one thing, show the opposite to be true. So Paul introduces the creator. But the Athenians really did not have a problem with believing in a first cause. If they weren't Epicureans and they had it all a mind, they knew there had to be a cause for that effect. And so he starts by saying, "God is creator. You want to know God? You start there. He's the creator."
Secondly, who is God? He is ruler. It says in Verse 24 that the God, who made the world and all things in it, is also Lord of Heaven and earth. He is the sovereign. He is the ruler. He is in charge of everything. Genesis 14 calls Him, "God most high, possessor of Heaven and earth." Psalm 24:1, "The earth is the Lord and all that is in it." He is proprietor, sustainer of Heaven and earth. He rules over everything. He is a universal king over the whole universe.
In fact, is nowhere better stated than in Daniel 4:34 and 35. You remember Nebuchadnezzar had imagined himself to be much more powerful than he really was. And, of course, God punished him severely. And finally, after seven years, he came to his senses. And at the end of that period -- Verse 34 of Daniel 4, "I, Nebuchadnezzar, raised my eyes toward Heaven," after living like a wild beast with his hair growing long and his fingernails like bird's claws and eating grass and having the dew on his body, this great king. He finally came back to his senses and he said, "I blessed the Most High and praised and honored Him who lives forever."
And then he goes on to describe Him, "for His dominion is an everlasting dominion and His Kingdom endures from generation to generation. And all the inhabitants of the earth are accounts as nothing. But He does, according to His will in the host of Heaven. And among the inhabitants of earth, and no one can ward off His hand or say to Him, 'What hast Thou done?' He is absolutely sovereign."
"We're talking," says Paul, "about the God who is the creator and the ruler. He is in charge of absolutely everything. He made it. He rules is. He determines its destiny. Such a God who is the creator and the ruler of the universe," listen, "is beyond the bounds of the physical."
Verse 24, "He does not dwell in temples made with hands." 1 Kings 8:27 says, "Heaven and the highest Heaven cannot contain Thee." He is a God that is way beyond the boundaries of time and space. Therefore, man cannot discover Him. Man can't leave a time/space world. God, Himself must reveal who He is. God is beyond the bounds of the physical.
Psalm 139 is an irresistible Psalm in this context, and we shared it this morning. It says in Verse 7, "Where can I go from Thy spirit? Where can I flee from Thy presence? If I ascend to Heaven, Thou art there. If I make my bed in Sheol, Thou art there. If I take the wings of the dawn, if I dwell in the remotest part of the sea, even there Thy hand will lead me and Thy right hand will lay hold of me. If I say, 'Surely the darkness will overwhelm me and the light around me will be night, even the darkness is not dark to Thee, and the night is as bright as the day. Darkness and light are alike to Thee. Thou didst form my inward parts. Thou didst weave me in my mother's womb." There's nowhere to go. There's nowhere that you can escape God.
He transcends the boundaries of the physical. No matter where you go, He's there. You cannot confine Him. You cannot contain Him. You can't put a building around Him. You can't confine Him to an altar. He is beyond all of that. In fact, idolatry consists not only in the worship of false gods, but attempting to confine the true God in some idol or some temple.
Any image of God corrupts the immensity of God. That's why John Calvin said, "A true image of God is not found in all the world." "To whom will you liken God?" asks Isaiah in Chapter 40, Verse 18, "What likeness will you compare to Him?" There's nothing that you can make that represents God, nothing.
God can't be worshiped in shrines. He can't be worshiped on altars. He can't be worshiped in statues. He's far too vast for that. Who is God? He is creator, and He is sovereign of the universe.
Listen folks, He made everything and He is in charge of it. He makes the rules. He calls the shots. He determines destiny. There's something more about Him, and this is quite amazing. Verse 25, "Neither is He served by human hands as though He needed anything." He is not only creator, not only ruler, but He is independent. He doesn't need us. He's not dependent on us for anything. We are, on the other hand, depend on Him for what? Everything.
Job 22:2 asks an interesting question. I don't know if you ever read it there. It says, "Can a man be profitable to God?" And the implied answer is, "No, what does God need?" You don't bring any benefit to God. You don't do for Him. He doesn't need anything done for Him.
You see, the Pagans believed that -- and that's probably what Job had in mind -- the ancient Pagans believed that the gods were somehow fed and nourished by offerings. Go down here to the Buddhist Temple, what do they do with all that food? They stick all that food in front of that fat Buddha. (Laughter) There's nobody home, folks. (Laughter) And then when it all rots, they throw it away. They're not feeding a god. They're not nourishing anything. There's nobody there. That's a nothing. That's an absolute zero. That's nothing. And they worship nothing. And they worship no one.
But the true God doesn't ever want to be worshiped in any way like that, as if we needed to feed Him or nourish Him. He is independent. Or we could say, "He is self-contained, self-fulfilled."
In Psalm 50:9, "I am God, your God," He says in Verse 7. "I do not reprove you for your sacrifices, and your burnt offerings are continually before me. I shall take no young bull out of your house, no male goats out of your fold. For every beats of the forest is Mine. The cattle on 1,000 hills, I know every bird on every mountain. And everything that moves in the field is Mine. If I were hungry, I wouldn't tell you. For the world is mine and all it contains. What do I need from you?"
God doesn't need anything from us. He is self-contained, self-fulfilled, independent. But there's something else about Him. He is a giver. He's creator, ruler, self-sustained, and a giver. I love this. Verse 25, "He, Himself, gives to all life and breath and all things." He doesn't take. He only, what? Gives.
This is the true God we're talking about here. This is the true God. He is a giver, not a taker. And what does He give? Life. Life. And where does life start? [Laughs) Somewhere down in a protein molecule made up of 3,000 atoms. God is author of all of it.
God is called twice in the Book of Numbers. The God of the spirits of all flesh. The God of the spirits of all flesh. That is, He makes everything live that lives. Boy, now we're really starting to know God, aren't we? He's the creator. He's the ruler, self-contained, and the giver.
Well, I want to say more about that, but time is gone. I thought this would happen. (Laughter) We'll pick it up next time. Let's bow in prayer.
Father, we thank You that You have revealed Yourself to us in Your Word. We thank You that we can know who You are, that we can know the one who created everything, the one who possesses, controls, and rules everything, the one who doesn't need us, because He has no needs.
And yet, we can know You as a giver of life and breath and all things. Father, we thank You that we have come to know You in the only way possible through the Lord, Jesus Christ. and our hearts are broken, Lord, as we look at this society around us who don't know You, atheists of all kinds, some rational intellectual, naturalistic, humanistic, materialistic, atheists at the high levels, and then those ethical atheists at the lowest level, those moral atheists who live as if there is no God, and then in the middle all of those religious atheists who worship the wrong gods or the right one in the wrong way, and thus, miss You completely.
Father, this nation, this world needs You. We need God; otherwise, we don't know why we're here. We don't know where we're going. We don't know what the rules are. We don't know what the truth is. We have no hope, no joy, no peace, no fulfillment, no meaning, no nothing.
But with You, we have everything, absolutely everything. How frightening the thought that all there is is chance. And chance is the father of all flesh, and disaster is His rainbow in the sky. How frightening. How comforting to know that you are the true God and that You are working history to Your own glory and the benefit of all those who know You.
How our hearts are filled with hope and gratitude. Lord, may we bring the truth of You to this religious and atheistic society, not unlike those Athenians with their many gods and not the true one, with all the wrong explanations and all the accommodations to their inequity and facing only hopelessness, meaninglessness, and damnation.
Our hearts grieve when we think about the millions of people who have been ground to powder in the evolutionary gears, who have fallen victim to the lies of Darwin and Freud and Karl Marx, and Hitler, and Mussolini, and Stallan, and Niche. How their philosophies even to this day pervade so much thinking in the world.
How we grieve that the elite among the scientists seek fundamental Christianity as one of the greatest evils of our time because it threatens their lifestyle. But, oh Lord, we would ask that you would allow us the privilege to proclaim the true and living God in the various Areopagus of this world in which we live. That we may, with the us of the revelation of You Word, tear down the paper fortresses that are lifted up by the vein speculation of human ideologies, and bring people to the knowledge of the true and living God.
Oh, what joy is found in knowing You, what satisfaction, what peace, what hope, what comfort, what security. Like Spurgeon said, "If you would find joy, lose yourself in the sea of God's immensity." And there we find our comfort and our peace, our hope, our direction. We think of the testimonies of these precious young people tonight who know You and whose life has such meaning, such value, such hope, such direction, and will be filled with such blessing and richness. We pray that for every soul.
We ask that You would work in the hearts of those who do not know You, to bring them the knowledge of the truth found only in Jesus Christ, in whose name we pray, Amen.
This article is also available and sold as a booklet.
This sermon series includes the following messages:
Please contact the publisher to obtain copies of this resource.Publisher Information


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In "The Tender Soldier: A True Story of War and Sacrifice," former Chicago Tribune reporter Vanessa M. Gezari looks at the Human Terrain System, an unusual program set up to help American soldiers understand the cultural context of information gathered as part of the U.S. counterinsurgency campaign in Afghanistan over the past several years.
Gezari focuses on the case of Paula Loyd, a member of one of the civilian Human Terrain teams who was attacked in a village market while on the job. What motivated the attacker? The answers to that question turn out to be as complex as Afghanistan itself.
Printers Row Journal caught up with Gezari while she was in New York City, where she recently moved to take up a new position as a visiting professor of journalism at Columbia University. Here's an edited version of our chat.
Q: Did you have the book planned out in advance, or did it just unfold organically as you did the reporting?
A: Nothing in my life is planned out ahead of time. (Laughs.) To give you a brief sketch: I went over to Afghanistan for the first time in 2002 as a young freelancer. I had moved to India right before Sept. 11, and I ended up staying in that region for about three years. I actually covered Afghanistan for the Chicago Tribune and other places. I had a chance to see the country at the very beginning of the war, and what the American effort looked like then. I then went away for a few years, lived back in the States, covered other things. And in 2007 I went back to Afghanistan for the first time in about four years.
Q: How had the country changed in the interim?
A: Everything that I could see was worse than I'd seen before. The insurgency was creeping back, though it wasn't at the level it has been for the last few years. The opium business was making a comeback. Earlier in the war, Afghanistan was stabilized, and there was a lot of optimism among Afghans that things could really turn around in the country.
But by 2007, a lot of those indicators had reversed. A lot of things were worse. The Taliban — we call them the Taliban, though it's a very inexact term — were taking over whole villages for weeks at a time. Opium growth was very high. And there was clearly this nexus that had developed between business people and drug dealers and politicians. And so I decided I would start paying a lot more attention to Afghanistan again, and try to figure out what went wrong.
Q: How did you land on the Human Terrain System as a subject?
A: In 2008, I left my job at the St. Petersburg Times and became a freelance journalist, moved to D.C. and wrote some pieces for the Washington Post. An editor there assigned me a story on this little program that had started recently called the Human Terrain System. It had seemed to me, the very first time I started hanging out with American soldiers in Afghanistan, that they didn't really understand the context in which they were operating. They didn't know how to read between the lines, culturally, to understand what Afghans were really telling them. And that wasn't surprising. They were infantrymen, and they weren't trained to be cultural experts. They were trained to destroy the enemy. And so they were having a tough time separating out who were the bad guys, as they called them, and who were not.
So I was very interested when I started learning about this Human Terrain program. The premise of the program was, "The Army is not very smart about the cultural context of Afghanistan, and they need to get smarter, and fast." These were civilians — social scientists, or people with social science backgrounds — who would go out with soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan, and would kind of operate as cultural translators. They taught the soldiers what you might call cultural etiquette. And they helped the soldiers understand, when they were getting attacked, that they shouldn't just assume that this was the Taliban out to get them. There's a lot of violence in Afghanistan that has more to do with the old arguments — between tribes, between families, even between neighbors — than it does with the Taliban versus the United States.
Q: But the story had an unexpected twist.
A: Yes. I started working on this story in 2008, and right about that time, an amazing and terrible thing happened. The first Human Terrain team was sent out into the field in Afghanistan, in west Kandahar. I was supposed to embed with them, spend some time with them, and then this terrible thing happened, which was that one of the team members, Paula Loyd, was attacked, very viciously, in a market where she was interviewing some villagers with the rest of her teammates. So I wasn't able to spend time with the team, because the military said I couldn't go anywhere near that unit for a while.
But I read about what had happened, and it struck me as a very unusual kind of attack. And I started asking questions about what had motivated this attack, and what happened, and why. And since that was a lot of what this program was set up to understand, I found it interesting that they didn't understand what had happened to one of their own. So I went to Kandahar and began trying to figure who this guy was, who had attacked Paula Loyd, and why he had done what he'd done. And in the process of writing the story for the Post, I realized that this program was such an interesting vehicle for talking about what America had tried to do in Afghanistan, and also what we had failed to do. I decided that it needed to be bigger than a magazine story, and that's how it became a book.
Q: The phrase "Human Terrain" is interesting, by the way.
A: General David Petraeus started using that phrase, "Human Terrain," in his speeches. He talked about the fact that it's the human terrain, the hearts and minds you want to win, in counterinsurgency. It's not so much about eliminating bad guys, although that's part of the equation. When I talked to him, he said you cannot fight a war without knowing what the economic situation is in the place where you're operating, what the tribal tensions are, who lives where, what the history is. And these were all things that the military hadn't been focusing on.
Q: I think some people might hear about the program and think it's kind of touchy-feely or New Agey.
A: Well, you're right, it is touchy-feely. But you have to put yourself back in the moment when this program was being developed. It was a moment of intense soul-searching for the Army, which had gone into Afghanistan and quickly ousted the Taliban and thought, "Well, we've won that conflict."
And then they invaded Iraq, and within a year, found themselves in a really horrific situation with insurgent attacks, soldiers getting killed. And they had no idea why it was happening at the time. They weren't even allowed to call it an insurgency; Donald Rumsfeld said it was a few bad apples or something. So it was a moment of second-guessing and second thoughts, for the United States and the military, particularly the Army. And Petraeus was looking for a way to make the Army more touchy-feely, to use your word. And there was an incredible surge of optimism about what the military could achieve if it could loosen up a little bit.
Q: I imagine some people didn't like the program.
A: It was very controversial among civilian social scientists, particularly anthropologists. Part of the problem for them was that the program had been developed by a cultural anthropologist who had moved away from anthropology and become more of a war theorist. Cultural anthropologists don't want to be involved in America's wars and have a lot of ethical concerns about going into the battlefield with the military to gather information about people that might be used in military operations. That's not why cultural anthropologists are doing their work. They don't do their work to further a particular policy. They do it because they don't understand the human condition.
Q: In the press release for your book, it's described as a "thriller." Is it a thriller? And how do you feel about that word in this context?
A: Well, I didn't write that copy. But the book is, in a way, a kind of murder mystery. Part of why I wanted to write it that way (is because that's how) it unfolded for me as a reporter. I also wanted to write it in a way that would draw readers who aren't necessarily experts on Afghanistan, and who may have been perplexed by our policy in Afghanistan and the shifts in that policy.
We've been very mercurial over there. I've watched it for over 10 years, and we have not maintained a constant policy at all. It's easy to be confused, because it's a complicated place and a faraway place. I fear that our journalism often hasn't conveyed the depth and complexity and intrigue of what's really going on over there, or what it means to us as a nation. I wanted to write the book in a way that people who don't know much about Afghanistan could be drawn to it on the basis of its story and the characters. I wanted to add to the conversation about the war, because this isn't the last time we're going to go to a place like Afghanistan and do the kind of things we've been doing there.
Kevin Nance is a Chicago-based freelance writer whose work appears in the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, USA Today, Poets & Writers Magazine and elsewhere.
"The Tender Soldier"
By Vanessa M. Gezari, Simon & Schuster, 336 pages, $25


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What's inside? Here are the questions answered in today's reader mailbag, boiled down to five word summaries. Click on the number to jump straight down to the question.
1. Retiring at age 50
2. Return to work or not?
3. Handling an inheritance
4. Christmas games
5. Money and relationships
6. Housing predicament
7. Pie options
8. 40/30/30 question
9. Wanting frugal gifts
10. Sleep remedies
The days leading up to Christmas are always filled with excitement and energy. There are tons of little things to remember, checklists to fulfill, items to wrap and prepare, and last-minute emergencies to handle.
I'm actually thankful that Christmas comes just a little bit after the shortest day of the year (December 21). It gives us something to occupy our minds when the days are grey and very short.
Q1: Retiring at age 50
I'm 31 and I have a goal of retiring at 50. Like any other goal, I have a realistic plan to make it happen, and metrics to track my progress.
We're a family of 5 and our monthly expenses are about $8k/month. I figure when the kids leave the house, it'll be around $5/month (in today's dollars).
Our current retirement savings are in the low 6-digits. 401k and Roth IRA, invested in Vanguard's Target Retirement 2040 Fund. I add about $25k per year, depending on how much I can bring in. The IRA is maxed out, and the 401k is funded well beyond my employer-match level.
My question is what investment strategies/products should I use to "bridge the gap" of about 15 years between when I retire and when I'm able to draw out of my 401k and Roth IRA? (I'm able to draw the principal out of the IRA at any time, right?)
– Cael
Yes, you can withdraw your contributions from your Roth IRA at any time.. That's certainly one possibility for bridging that gap.
It's also important to note that you can begin making "retirement" withdrawals from your Roth IRA at age 59 1/2, assuming you've had the IRA for five years or more (which you will have). This shortens the "gap" that you're trying to cross.
If I were you, I'd probably keep saving along the same path that you're on without changing much at all. If you do reach a point where you think you can make the leap into retirement before a traditional retirement age, then I'd rely on Roth IRA contributions to bridge that gap.
Q2: Return to work or not?
Here's our situation: our first child, a girl, was born with a rare bone marrow disease. I did not return to my work as an administrative assistant to take her to her many, many doctor appointments. We decided a year and a half ago to try to have a sibling, through in-vitro fertilization, who is a donor match for our daughter in case she needs a transplant (not a likely scenario for her since she's stable on drug treatments, but certainly a possibility). Insurance did not cover most of it. I am now pregnant and due in April. The enormous medical bills, even with the help of family, have left us with about $12,000 in debt and monthly payments we can't quite cover on my husband's salary. It seems like we're slipping behind, not cutting down the debt. We still allow ourselves very small luxuries (a Christmas present or two, an occasional evening out, even a two-day vacation this Christmas). Do we cut these out entirely, or should I look for work?? I don't want to leave a small infant with a nanny but hate paying the interest on all this debt. I think the stress of our debt is making me a less fun parent anyway. There is no guarantee I can find a job in this climate, but at least it would help a little towards dragging us out of this mess we're in. Or should we just try to get by, paying just the interest, on our debt for a year until I consider my son old enough to be left at daycare (much cheaper than a nanny)?
– Ellen
Unless you get a job that pays quite well, you'll be losing money on a nanny for your child. You'll have to make substantially more than you'd be paying a full time nanny to make that work.
Most people in your situation – a situation not too different than the one we were in not that long ago – usually wind up using some form of daycare for their child. Our experience with our daycare was overwhelmingly positive, but I would highly recommend spending plenty of time finding the right one before putting your child in.
One way to do this is to set yourself a "deadline" for when you plan to enroll the child, then start shopping for one now. Many of the good daycares have a waiting list to get in, so you'll probably want to get on some of those lists.
Q3: Handling an inheritance
When my father passed away last year, we found out that he had name me, not my mother, as the beneficiary to his IRA. I have a choice of small annual payments until retirement (I'm 37) or taking out all the money now and assume the tax hit. I know that he worked hard at building up the value of the account so that, if he should pass, my mother and I could pay off the mortgage on the house we own jointly and live in. We currently owe approximately $96,000 and his account, before I get hit with both federal and state taxes, is $105,000. After taxes, we expect what's left from my father's retirement account to be less than what we owe and will still have a couple year's worth of payments left to go.
The house is a split level with no bathroom on the main floor. My mother is 70, and we expect her not to be able to navigate stairs by the end of the next decade (as it is now she gets winded sometimes due to her asthema). Putting on an main floor addition of a master bedroom suite would make the house more comfortable for her. We've gotten some rough quotes, and such an addition would be between $70,000 and $100,000. Also, there are some other repairs and improvements which need to be done on the house. For example the roof will need to be replaced within the next 5 years, and some of the insullation needs to be replaced as well.
Here's my question(s):
Where should I invest this money my father left us?
Should we follow his wishes and put it all into the mortgage, and have only a few more years of payments, as opposed to over 20 years? (this would delay paying for any major repairs and/or additions for quite some time).
Should we pay to have an addition put on and make the house more comfortable and practical for her in the later years of her retirement, and take the risk that the addition could cost more than the money we have in hand? (and still have over 20 years of mortgage payments)
Or should we use the money to take care of those major repairs, and put any remaining money towards the mortgage?
I've asked friends, family and co-workers what they would do and the responses are all across the board, each with seemingly good rational.
What would you do if you were me?
– Jill
If your father wanted you to put it into the mortgage and you're sure of his wishes, you should follow them.
The question for me really is whether or not that was really the spirit or intent of his wishes. He wanted the money put into the mortgage, but why did he want that? What you should do with that money is fulfill the why part of the question, and that will probably take some soul-searching.
My guess, based on your story here and similar stories I've heard, would be that he wanted comfort and security for his wife and thought you were the best person to ensure that. If that's the case, you should do what will make your mother's life the best down the road. Adding a room like this will likely increase the value of the home significantly, so when you do eventually sell it, you'll be able to pay off the mortgage and have some left over.
Q4: Christmas games
In past years, our family has had Christmas at my mom and dad's house. This year, we made a family decision to have me and my wife start hosting Christmas to take some stress off of my parents.
One of our family's traditions is to play some board and card games in the afternoon on Christmas day. We usually play Monopoly or Risk or bridge. We have a deck of cards, but no other games. I thought it might be fun to have some different games to play with my family instead of these old classics. I know you play a lot of these games. Any suggestions?
– Randall
One interesting option might be to pick up a copy of Risk Legacy. This takes Risk and adds some interesting twists to it in that you actually customize the game as you play it. For the first fifteen games, everyone who plays it is involved with actually modifying the game through small gameplay changes, the naming of continents, and other such things. It's really fun – my wife and I are playing this with a group of our friends right now. This would take the classic feel of Risk and add a new twist to it.
There are a handful of really great games that I recommend to almost every family: Ticket to Ride, Carcassonne, and Settlers of Catan immediately come to mind.
Honestly, you might want to also just have copies of the classics, too. Games are really about socializing, and well-played games have a lot of nostalgia to them, which is a wonderful socializing spur. You can often get these classics at thrift stores for a dollar or two, though I suggest buying two copies just so you can be sure you have all of the pieces.
Q5: Money and relationships
You always seem to have similar goals to the ones I aspire to in life. And you seem to have found a perfect soul mate for this. I am French and live abroad, though I aspire to come back soon and start a life there, and a family. I am just over 30 now, and really envy people who found a perfect match at 23, have a mortgage and other financial goals together with a spouse, like fixing up a house or investing towards financial freedom. I sometime feel like when I save money or plan financial things it would be so much easier to be a couple.
I own two properties, and they rent nicely. I do freelance writing for a living but have come to a point where I do not need that income to live. My dream is to find someone like minded and be able to dedicate all this freedom to raising children, I am even considering homeschooling, and other activities that would be a real perk to a man who wants to invest in his career, like fixing up the house, optimizing meals, and so forth, so we could easily live on one income and have a happy family.
I have been on relationships before who lasted anything from a few months to a few years but every time I felt like the financial agreement would fail us and ended the relationship. Any advice on that? I read that every relationship success, whether business, family, friends, or love, was based on a sound economic agreement. Yet I have a hard time when I start dating someone putting the finances on the table to see if we are bound to have a future.
It is taboo over here, or when I say I dream of being a housewife and raising my children they look at me like a 50s wannabe wife or like I want to take advantage of their income to live for free (I am very independent, financially from my parents since I am 17, graduated debt free with grants, have about 200K net worth before turning 30, and able to maintain myself without incurring any debt, pay my credit card and loans in full each month and so on). I have thought about turning to church to find a christian man since those values are important, but not being very religious myself I am afraid we would have disagreements on that topic.
What are your thoughts?
– Susan
I don't think finances need to be on the table at the start of a relationship. However, when a relationship becomes serious enough that both parties are entertaining thoughts of joining their lives together, then finances should be brought up.
Communication is always the key. If you've communicated a lot with this other person and you feel your relationship is strong, bring up how you feel and talk it through. That's always the best approach in a relationship.
As for looking for someone who would respect you in the housewife role, you're right that a Christian church might be a good place to start. However, if you're finding that dating someone of a particular religion is going to bring up other problems, you probably shouldn't seek someone there. Seek out groups that match your values in some ways, then look for individuals in those groups that match your values in other ways. It's all about the filtering, and it takes time.
Q6: Housing predicament
My wife and I currently live in condo that we have a mortgage on. We purchased 4 years ago, rate is 5%. We purchased for $140,000 and have about $135,000 remaining on the mortgage. When we purchased the condo we took the $7,500 housing grant that we have to pay back over a 15 year time period or when you sell the house. The stipulation is if you do not make a profit then you don't have to pay this back. We have already paid back $1,000 of this. The purchase price is adjusted for any improvements or commissions you have paid in the process. We put in more than $10,000 of improvements so if we were to sell for anything over $143,500 we wouldn't have to pay back any of the remaining grant. We could also choose to rent, which is what I would do if we didn't take out the grant, but if we were to do this we would have to pay the remaining balance of the grant back at that time since it is no longer our primary residence. This was the $7,500 home buyer credit, not the $8,000 that you don't have to repay and can rent after 3 years.
So our current situation, my wife and I are both 27 have no debt (no credit card, no student loans) besides our mortgage and 2 car loans. Car 1 – 1 year remaining $250/month, Car 2 – 2 year remaining $350/month. We make a combined $115,000/year. We currently put about $1,000 a month in retirement (+ company match) and have a combined $40,000 currently saved in our retirement. We also have $10,000 in our savings for a future down payment on our house. We are expecting our first baby in February and at that time my wife will take off 12 weeks of work, she will get 50% pay during this time. I am going to lower my retirement to just the company match during this time period to make sure we have enough money, although I think we should be fine and and will increase the retirement once she goes back to work. We will be incurring day-care costs once she goes back to work of roughly $800 per month.
Here is our delimna. We have our condo currently listed at $144,000 however we may only be able to get $135K or even less for it, which after commissions would barely break even on our mortgage and could possibly even take a little loss. We want to continue to save and build our savings account up to around $15K before we buy our new place. For us to do this we can't really afford to lose that much when we go sell. The condo we are living at will probably be too small once the baby gets to about a year old so we are looking at houses in our area at around $200-$250K, (I realize we wouldn't have 20% down but this is what we are wanting for now). We also want to take advantage of the lower interest rates that are currently in affect right now (I personally believe they will be low until 2013).
Looking back I now realize we should have probably just rented 4 years ago but hindsight is 20/20. Anyway, I guess our options are stay in the condo until we can get a buyer that is willing to give us a decent offer, take a loss on our condo and not have as much to put in a downpayment, or pay out the remaining grant and rent out the condo ourselves until the market turns around in our area (this would also lower our down payment).
It is frustrating because I feel like we are responsible with our money and didn't necessarily do anything incorrect yet we may end up losing money on this decision to buy our first place, however I realize this is just the times we are living in and going forward I will think more indepth of our decisions. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
– Jim
You didn't do anything incorrectly other than not prophetically predict what the housing market was going to do. You made a move based on the information you had at the time and you're largely responsible with your money. Don't be frustrated with yourself.
If I were in your shoes, I would stay put for the time being and make it work with the child for as long as you possibly can. Sarah and I shared a very tiny apartment with our first child until he was almost 2 and our second was on the verge of arriving. If it weren't for that second child, we might still be living there.
This will allow you to not only save for the down payment for the house you want to buy, but will also allow you to get more and more above water on your condo. Even if you don't time the market perfectly, if it begins to rebound, your condo will also go up in value, meaning the rebound won't hurt you as badly as you might think.
Q7: Pie options
Is it less expensive to make your own pies or to buy them from a good baker? I don't like to buy some of the cheaper pies because they taste artificial but there are several bakeries around here that make good pies.
– Linda
Sarah and I have made quite a few pies over the years. My experience has been that a truly great homemade pie takes about two hours of work and uses between $10 and $15 in ingredients, assuming you have very little of the ingredients on hand. A simpler homemade pie – one with a pre-made crust – can be done in much less time, but isn't quite as good.
So, how does that compare to pies that you might purchase? There's a bakery here that sells pies that are roughly as good as the pies we can make with a pre-made crust for about $15. There's one bakery that supposedly sells mind-blowing pies (though I've never tried them) for about $20.
You'll save money by making it yourself, but not enough to make it worth the time unless you really enjoy the process of making pies. I actually do if I'm in the right mood.
Q8: 40/30/30 question
I have a question about the 40/30/30 rule you spoke of in November of last year. You say it basically means you should spend 40% of your income on basic bills, 30% on saving for the future and 30% on enjoying life. But how do you do the math? For instance, if I save $16,500 through my 401(k) at work, that's money that I never see in my bank account, but it is money that's going towards saving for the future. So do I just take my net bi-weekly pay, annualize it, add $16.5k to the total, divide by 12 months and then use the 40/30/30 formula on that number to figure out my monthly 'budget'?
– Regina
That's what I would suggest doing. I would simply ignore taxes entirely. If I used pre-tax money for savings, I'd just count that normally.
It's important to remember with things like 40/30/30 that they're just guidelines to get you moving in a healthy direction. They're not absolute rules that work perfectly in all possible situations. Almost all personal finance advice is just like that – everyone's specific situation is different.
If you're putting $16,500 into your 401(k), you're probably doing really well with your finances. Keep it up.
Q9: Wanting frugal gifts
I was just wondering if you could give some advice, it's only a small problem, barely a problem really but I thought you might have an idea that I haven't thought of. With Christmas coming up presents have been a topic of conversation here and there. My mum has always bought one or two big things for me for Christmas and then a few little stocking fillers (I'm an only child so she always goes a little overboard). The stocking fillers always used to be useful things, socks, underwear, occasionally toiletries. I always loved this, I went through a stage of about four years where I didn't have to buy my own underwear because I always got new ones at Christmas!
Of late though she's been buying more trinket type things that don't have any use. It's not that I mind her buying things like that, it's more that I feel bad that she's spending money on something that is just going to get (eventually) thrown out because I have no use for them. I think she's doing this because I've become more frugal over the past few years and she thinks I'm depriving myself, when the truth is I just laugh at the prices they put on things that have (in my mind) no value. Any ideas on how I could suggest to her that I much prefer the socks and undies route? I've tried commenting how awesome it was when she was doing the socks and underwear thing but that didn't work.
As I said, it's not a huge problem, it's not that I mind that much getting those sort of things, I know that the thought is there, it's more that I feel bad that she's essentially wasting her money.
– Lauren
I think the key is communication, but I wouldn't do it right in the face of the Christmas season.
Accept whatever you get this year, then have a conversation about this in April or in June or in September. Sit down with your mon and simply say that you actually do not want a lot of those "trinket"-type things. Reinforce it by simply not commenting on or even gently deriding the materialistic things you don't value outside of the context of gift-giving.
The key is to make sure that you're not bashing your mother's gifts. The purpose of this isn't to hurt her feelings but to make sure she understands what you actually value. Tell her what you value and make it clear to her through your actions.
Q10: Sleep remedies
You almost always seem to have great frugal ideas for life's problems. My big challenge as of late is insomnia. I often can't get to sleep until one or two in the morning and when I have to get up at six, I'm exhausted. Do you ever get like this and if you do, how do you deal with it?
– Evan
Whenever I'm having a hard time sleeping, I do two things.
First, I exercise a lot in the morning. Not in the afternoon or evening. The morning. I do something around the house that requires a lot of exertion or I'll go on a brisk walk or jog for a long while or I'll go on a bike ride. The key is to really wear myself out in the morning so the endorphins and other responses wear off before bedtime, leaving me with physical exhaustion.
My other tactic is my old standby of warm milk with nutmeg. I just take some milk, heat it until it's warm (bordering on hot), and sprinkle several dashes of nutmeg on top. This puts me to sleep really well, for some reason.
Got any questions? Email them to me or leave them in the comments and I'll attempt to answer them in a future mailbag (which, by way of full disclosure, may also get re-posted on other websites that pick up my blog). However, I do receive hundreds of questions per week, so I may not necessarily be able to answer yours.


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Program Memorandum - OVAE/DVTE FY 2000-4
|December 30, 1999
|State Directors of Vocational-Technical Education
State Directors of Community, Technical and Junior Colleges
State Tech-Prep Coordinators
|Patricia W. McNeil
|Transmittal of State Plan Guide
This memorandum transmits the State plan guide for the Carl D. Perkins Vocational and Technical Education Act of 1998 (Perkins III).
The framework for developing your State plans is the new vision of vocational and technical education for the 21st century and the legislative intent of Perkins III. The Act envisions that students will achieve challenging academic and vocational standards, be prepared for postsecondary education and further learning, and attain the skills needed to pursue high-skill, high-wage careers, not just entry-level jobs. The new law also redefines the relationship between the Federal government and the States, giving States greater flexibility in the use and administration of program funds in return for enhanced accountability for performance.
Signed into law October 31, 1998, Perkins III represents over four years of work on the part of Congress and the Department of Education, in cooperation with other Federal agencies and the States and local agencies affected by its policies, to modernize the Federal approach to supporting vocational education. Departures from the past approach include:Increased State Flexibility
The Act eliminates a number of prescriptive administrative requirements and restrictions as well as set-asides for specific activities. States now plan for basic grants, tech-prep, and State leadership activities, developing their own, State-specific strategies to determine how to best address the needs of specific populations or provide specialized services.Accountability
Perkins III builds on the 1990 Amendments performance measurement system to create a new performance accountability system. Each State must identify specific measures and targeted levels of performance to track its achievements in four specific outcome areas. The State may choose to add indicators to the four core indicators required by the Act. The State plan must include the State's proposed indicators and levels of performance.. The Act requires the Department to work with each State to reach agreement on the State's levels of performance. States that exceed agreed upon performance levels for Perkins III, the Adult Education and Family Literacy Act, and Title I of WIA are eligible for incentive grants. Prior to the third program year, the Department and each State will reach agreement on the levels of performance for the remaining years covered by the plan. Each year, the State will report to us on the levels of performance achieved on the core indicators, on additional indicators the State is tracking, and the levels of performance for special populations.
We recognize the difficulties inherent in launching this system: new data collections, new information management systems, and new methods to establish targeted performance levels for student outcomes that, as a system, vocational education has never been required to track. We expect the process of developing the national performance accountability system to be a "continuous improvement" process, and look forward to working with you to refine the process, in order to make this system a useful tool for the States, the Department, and Congress. The Department will continue to provide additional guidance on these issues over time.Program Quality and Improvement
Perkins III requires that Federal funds be invested in high-quality programs. The Act continues to emphasize reforms begun in the 1990 Act, such as integration of academic and vocational education, educating students in all aspects of an industry, and linking secondary and postsecondary education. The Act increases the emphasis of the Federal vocational education program on the integration of high-level academics and ensuring that students in vocational education are taught to the same challenging academic standards as other students. Other strategies emphasized by the Act include ensuring that students also achieve challenging vocational, and technical skill standards, improving and expanding the use of technology, involving parents and employers, and providing quality professional development. Finally, both the basic grant and tech-prep focus on ensuring that students are well-prepared for further education, including four-year postsecondary institutions and beyond when appropriate, as well as being prepared for careers, not just entry-level jobs.
Providing quality education for members of special populations continues to be a purpose of the Act. The method for achieving this goal has changed, giving States flexibility for designing services and strategies for ensuring that these students achieve high standards, but requiring States to track the progress of members of these groups in meeting the State performance levels. In the State plan, you will describe your State's strategies for providing access and services to students that will ensure their success in the areas of knowledge and skill attainment, employment, and further education. Similarly, your State plan will describe your plans for services to individuals in correctional institutions and for preparing individuals for nontraditional employment and training.
The tech-prep program has moved from a planning and demonstration program to an on-going effort, with the emphasis on program expansion and improvement. States are urged to continue to submit their Tech-Prep application with their State plans. Guidance on the Tech-Prep application is included in this package.Planning and Linkages
The Act contains significant requirements for the involvement of a variety of stakeholders in planning for the basic grant program and tech-prep and for identifying the State's indicators of performance.
One of the primary goals in streamlining the Perkins Act is to make it easier for States to provide vocational education services as part of coordinated systems in the State for school-to-work transition, for secondary education reform and improvement, and postsecondary workforce preparation, consistent with each State's goals and strategies for these systems. The Act promotes broad consultation in planning processes, and invites States to submit plans for Perkins III -- particularly postsecondary vocational education -- as part of unified plans under the Workforce Investment Act of 1998 (WIA). States are required to describe coordination and collaboration with other programs, including those authorized under WIA, and should give particular attention to describing the role of postsecondary vocational education in the one-stop career center delivery system established by WIA. The Improving America's Schools Act (IASA) allows States to apply for federal program funds, including Perkins III funds, through a single, simplified consolidated plan. We encourage States to use the new flexibility to create quality education opportunities in partnership with other State education and workforce development programs.
State plans are due no later than April 1, 2000. Each State must have a State plan for vocational and technical education. It may be a four-year unified plan under WIA or a four-year State vocational and technical education plan. For States with consolidated plans under the Improving America's Schools Act, another option is to apply for Perkins III funds through that consolidated plan.
You may revise your State plan annually, if necessary. Every State is required by the Act to review its State plan following the 2000-2001 program year, and make necessary revisions for the final three years of the Act. This requirement corresponds to the Act's provisions allowing States to adjust their performance levels following program year 2000-2001, the second year governed by the new law.
Carl D. Perkins Vocational and Technical Education Act State Plan Guide
Assurances - Non-Construction Programs
Certifications Regarding Lobbying; Debarment, Suspension and Other Responsibility Matters


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|Outside the Land Registry Office
Curious about the Land Registry Offices? The official website states:
"The Central Production and Verification Services Branch of ServiceOntario manages and operates 54 Land Registry Offices throughout Ontario which register, store and manage documents such as deeds, mortgages and plans of survey. Registration of real property is done under either the Land Titles Act or the Registry Act. All registered and deposited records are available to the public (for a fee) to search title or obtain information about the ownership of real property."
Part of my reluctance to visit my local Land Registry Office in Barrie Ontario was that I'd heard stories from other genealogists - not about the Barrie office but about Land Registry Offices in general - that genealogists were not welcome and that staff were reluctant to assist genealogists. But I'm here to tell you otherwise!
This past week I took the plunge and visited the Barrie Land Registry Office to look up records for the land that we own. It was a wonderful experience. The staff were amazing. The young woman at the desk was helpful, courteous and patient with my husband and I.
She explained how the services worked, asked questions to determine what we required, and took us to the exact book we needed to start the process. She explained all the steps we needed to take, and showed us to the drawer for the microfilm we needed, then proceeded to pull the film box for us.
|At the Reader-Printer
The general policy at the Land Registry Office is that no photographs are allowed. Mr. Small was very accomodating and agreed that as long as I did not photograph documents or maps or other materials, I could use my camera for pictures to illustrate this article.
It was very easy once we got started (thanks to the assistance of the LRO staff) and I want to share the steps with you. It was a fun project as we now know the name of the first time buyer of our land, the date (1839) and what it cost. We were curious as to when the original farmhouse was built on our property and who lived in it. We knew the house was built ca 1890-1910 but that was all.
While the building of a house was not listed in the land records, we were able to narrow down the family who lived there in 1911 and I later found them on the 1911 census for this area. We plan to go back to look up the history of other homes I have lived in over the past 40 years.
To find records you must know the proper designation of your land or home. In our case we needed Lot and Concession number plus Township. For a house in town you would need the designation on your deed of ownership.
|At the Computers
To use the computer you can search by name of the current owner or by street name and number or by the registration number which is a unique number assigned when documents, deeds and mortgages are registered. When you find a record of interest, you can pay by credit card or debit card online or by cheque or cash at the front desk, then print your record.
|Microfilm Drawers
To print records you need a $5.00 copy card which is refundable when you turn the card in when you're done. You can pay for a copy card with cash or a cheque. Each page you print costs 50 cents. We printed everything from 1839 to the present day - a total for us of about 20 pages.
It's been really interesting researching the family who lived in the original farm house in 1911. I'm looking forward to researching the early families of my last home which I suspect was built around 1870 or 1880.
There is much of value to genealogists in the land records. For example you might find mention of a spouse, and sometimes a first name is given which could be the answer to a brickwall. Often there is mention of an estate for an owner which is an indication that the individual has died. You can track the trail of ownership which may help determine relationships of individuals. The benefits to genealogists deserves a blog post of its own but that's for another day.
So don't hesitate - visit your local Land Registry Office and have a look at the history of your house! But please ask if photographs can be taken. Remember that repositories such as Archives. Libraries, Museums etc. have different rules. Find out what they are and follow them.
It's a little matter of courtesy and respect.


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Russian opposition leader and Duma deputy, Ilya Ponomaryov, has written a post on his blog that speculates Vladimir Putin and the Russian government created artificial rain to dampen the spirits (and bodies) of those taking part in an anti-Putin march this week.
Ponomaryov claims that he analyzed some rain water from the march in a laboratory and found "an abnormally high content of silver iodide" — a compound used to "seed" clouds for rain. His speculation gained over a thousand comments, many supportive of his theory.
Russian authorities are denying the charge, with Lieutenant Colonel Vladimir Deryabin telling Ria Novosti that clouds had actually been seeded in a bid to keep the sky clear for Tuesday, which is also Russia Day, a national holiday — so possibly this is just a result of the shaky nature of cloud-seeding technology?


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This is a delightful novelette that had me staying awake late, so I could continue reading – I just could not put it down once I started reading. It is a fast-paced story with a bit of mystery, that is well-edited and easy to read. The main characters are likeable with distinctive personalities. The beauty of the surrounding terrain is described succinctly, but each word seems to deftly convey the ruggedness of the remote area. If you enjoy a bit of mystery, and humor, mixed with sweet romance, and characters with whom you can connect, then this book will appeal to you. Read Full Review
Reviewer for Night Owl Reviews
Visit Jannine Gallant's Website


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Two brand new music-related events are being planned for venues in Okaloosa County this spring.
Blazefest 2013 will rock the Mullet Festival grounds in Niceville on May 25 with headliners Hellyeah and Sevendust. It�s the Saturday of Memorial Day weekend.
Presented by Apex Broadcasting radio station 103.1 The Blaze, the rock show will also feature the bands Filter, Drowning Pool, Saving Abel, Pop Evil, Eye Empire, 3 Years Hollow and more.
Other sponsors include the City of Niceville and Eglin Air Force Base, according to a press release.
Tickets go on sale March 1 exclusively online at the website blazefestrocks.com.
For the first 72 hours, the price will be $24 per ticket. After that, tickets will be $27.50 in advance and $35 day of show.
Tickets for active duty military with ID are $20, plus fees, on Eglin Air Force Base at the ITT Center.
The Mullet Festival grounds are at State Road 85 North and College Boulevard. For more details, visit the website or find BlazefestRocks on Facebook.
Before then, however, the first Okaloosa RevFest will take over KC�s Sandbar on March 23.
KC�s Sandbar is at 190 Miracle Strip Parkway S.E. in the heart of downtown Fort Walton Beach.
A press release describes Okaloosa RevFest as �a full day of art and music.� Doors will open at noon with music continuing until at least 2 a.m.
Rigel Forte of New Earth Army, one of the bands playing at Okaloosa RevFest, explained the mission behind the event in an email:
�The Rev is short for revolution, which we chose strategically to allude to the fact that we would like to reform how our community perceives quality regarding music and the arts.
�We have 10-plus bands attending and plenty of artists (paintings and crafts) who will be showcasing their talents via original works.�
Some of those bands are Hotel Oscar, Spiritual Rez, Nothing Short of Pure, Shoes & Laces, Rug, Funky Projekt and Too Many Humans.
�We are doing this for the community, and it is our intent to make this the premier annual event for local original artists and musicians in the Panhandle,� Forte said.
A limited number of advance tickets are on sale now for $5 each online at the website okaloosarevfest.com.
Door price for the festival is $10. Ticket price includes full day access. Food and beverages will be available for purchase.
The festival will take place rain or shine, the website says. Okaloosa RevFest also has a Facebook page or you may email firstname.lastname@example.com.
Looking for a last-minute, but still grand, gift for your valentine?
All you need to do is turn to the Music briefs and take your pick of events going on all weekend starting tonight. Look for details there and elsewhere in Showcase today, including the advertisements.
To get you started, here are a few ideas:
There�s a Valentine�s Party tonight at Beal Street Bottle Club in Fort Walton Beach.
Dance the night away Friday with the Moos Bros. at Club LA in Destin to benefit the Mattie Kelly Arts Foundation.
If it hasn�t sold out yet, Women of Ireland is Friday night at the Mattie Kelly Arts Center in Niceville. As of Wednesday, there were only a couple of dozen seats left.
For Saturday, Tony Dovolani from �Dancing with the Stars� will be the featured guest at Dance for Life at Crestview High School auditorium to benefit Covenant Hospice.
Also Saturday and in Destin, David Seering and the Michael Walker Band will perform at Village Baptist Church to benefit Children in Crisis.
And Souled Out brings the great sounds of Motown to the Mattie Kelly Arts Center on Saturday under the auspices of the Emerald Coast Concert Association.
Sunday, of course, there�s the International Food & Wine Tasting Festival at the Emerald Coast Convention Center.
Happy Valentine�s Day!