While browsing through the markdowns section of Koorong today I spotted this book, "War on Terror" by Grant R Jeffrey. Looking for a chuckle, I picked it up and checked out the back cover. I was not disappointed. According to the jacket, 'key features' (yes, that's how it was described) include:

·Compelling evidence Iraq is behind Bin Laden’s attacks on America
·The war on terror against Iraq was prophesied by Jeremiah 2500 years ago
·The nations that support Islamic terror
·Why Islamic terrorists hate America, Israel, and Arab governments

blah blah blah. To read the rest of it check out the book's page on Amazon.

Unfortunately, despite Grant R Jeffrey styling himself as a "prophecy expert", it seems he is more of a Republican policy expert, and with the "compelling evidence" of Iraq being behind 9/11 now thoroughly debunked, I think his prophecies might be slightly off.

For those of you who wish to know more of Grant R Jeffrey's amazing powers of prophecy, I decided to do a little more checking and found he had previously written another prophecy book, "Millennium Meltdown: The 2000 Computer Crisis". The best bits from the official description:

"Grant Jeffrey's new prophecy blockbuster explores the potential of the disastrous Year 2000 computer meltdown that will set the stage for the rise of the world government of the Antichrist.
...
At midnight on December 31, 1999, millions of computers throughout the world will begin to crash.
...
This crisis may set the stage for the coming world government that was prophesied to arise in the last days. The Millennium Meltdown will document the extent of the computer collapse and how dramatically this will impact your life.
This book will outline practical strategies to protect your family from the greatest technological crisis in our lifetime."

It's quite amusing to read the Amazon reviews from before and after January 1, 2000. Strangely enough, the book is no longer for sale on Grant R Jeffrey's official site.

Although I considered laying down the $10 to take the War on Terror book home for a good laugh, I thought it really wasn't worth the cash.

Modern art

Full-on weekend

On Friday Ness & I drove up to the MTS Challenge conference in Ulverstone. It all went well, although the sound gear didn't make it that evening due to a car break-down. I was running visuals for the conference and got a nice little card to say thanks. Mikey and Dave both did an excellent series of talks. Didn't get much sleep though, as Ness didn't deal with the cold nights all that well and ended up getting a cold.

We left pretty much straight away on Sunday thanks to the fact that I was preaching at Kingston for the evening service. Left there at 1, was home by 4:30. I got to practice my sermon on the way down, and again in the church office right up until the service started. I was pretty happy with my delivery, and got some positive feedback. I wasn't 100% happy with the content though, but I guess that's what happens when you're pressed for time and still writing it while driving back down from Ulverstone.

Common fat loss myths: part 1!

1. If I exercise I can eat whatever I want.
This seems to be the most common one floating around there, and the reason why many overweight people sign up for the gym, go for a quick workout followed by consuming three chocolate bars, wonder why the don't lose weight, and then quit. The honest truth is that you aren't burning nearly as many calories as you think during an hour on the treadmill. Fat loss is 80% diet and 20% calories.

If you really want to lose weight then track your calories (use a site like Calorie King) and eat accordingly.

2. To lose weight I should do cardio only
Unless you are doing some form of high-intensity interval training (and you'd know if you were, trust me), the problem with cardio exercise is that you only burn calories while you do it. Once you finish, your heart rate returns to normal and you are back to the way you were before exercising.

Not so with weight training. Because you are working in intervals, lifting a weight then a short rest before another lift, your anaerobic system is worked harder. Your body's metabolism is then raised in order to supply enough oxygen to your body. This continues long after you work out, thanks to a process called excess post-exercise oxygen consumption. Any serious trainer will recommend that a combination of both is the best way to lose weight.

3. To lose weight I should just eat smaller portions of what I eat now
Although it's true that you need to eat smaller portions, you need to also change what you're eating if you're serious about losing weight. For example, if you only eat 1500 calories worth of corn chips, you're going to feel hungry pretty often because corn chips are calorie-dense and it doesn't take many of them to get you to 1500 calories.

Instead you need to do a few things. Eat lots of vegetables, because they are low in calories and you can have large servings without taking in many calories. Take in fruit and a fibre supplement to keep your digestive system working. Also increase the amount of protein you take in, because protein is great at making you feel satiated. Finally, instead of eating three larger meals a day, divide your daily food into six smaller meals. This will keep your metabolism going throughout the day and help you avoid snacking.

Strewth!

What happened to the word strewth? Why is it only used by people over 40? With a proud Australian heritage, I think we should push to bring this word back into common usage. Maybe they could start writing it into the scripts of Neighbours and All Saints. That could work.

Quote of the week

"In the 21st century, nations don’t invade other nations."

- John McCain, Republican presidential presumptive nominee and long-time supporter of the Iraq war, speaking about the Russian-Georgian conflict.

Source

Why is it...

...that some people eat off the back of their forks? It's shaped that way for a reason, folks.

Russia and Georgia

For some interesting reading on the two points of view:

"The War in Georgia is a War for the West" (by Georgian president Mikheil Saakashvili)


"Why Russia's response to Georgia was right" (by Russian foreign affairs minister Sergei Lavrov)

After reading the background on Wikipedia as well I am worried about two things:

a) John McCain's immediate support for Georgia. His top foreign policy advisor is a former lobbyist for Georgia. Also, he is friends with the Georgian president. How is this man impartial in the conflict?

b) The media's heavy anti-Russian bias in the west, particularly in the United States.

It's very difficult to get an unbiased account of what's going on, but I'll keep searching...

In other news...

My running preparations have taken a hit due to the rain (and snow). Hard to train in this sort of weather, and I can't standing running on a treadmill (not that I have one)...

Should we try to legislate the Bible in today's society?

Following on from yesterday's post on rebuking, John Piper was clever enough to make a very relevant Podcast a week before I posted. Although not specifically on rebuking, I think he sums up things really nicely.

Source

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Should we try to legislate the Bible in today's society?

It's not inappropriate to seek to apply the Bible, provided that we apply it wisely. And the wisdom lies in realizing that—since coerced faith and coerced obedience are unbiblical—the Bible itself provides the guidance and the ground for making space for a culture in which people have the right to choose which moral elements they will or will not obey. It sound almost contradictory. In other words, the Bible insists that there must not be coercion for every single moral command that it contains.

For example, "Thou shalt not covet." Are you going to make that into a law? No, because coerced non-coveting won't work. It's a self-contradiction. It's the same thing with belief in Jesus. The Bible clearly commands, "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved." Should we turn that moral religious command into a moral law? No, because a law-constrained faith in Jesus is unbiblical and has no validity. Therefore, in a sense, the Bible shows that we should not turn all of its commands into law.

So your question boils down to, Well, which ones then?

Don't kill? - We all agree on that one. Make that a law.
Don't steal? - We all agree on that one. Make that a law.
Don't commit adultery? - Hmm. Now what about that one?
Remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy? - We used to have laws about that.

The way it works practically is that for the laws where we can get overwhelming consensus in the culture we're going to use coercion. The irony is that we believe in using coercion as a culture for the things that don't seem to matter very much. For example, I've got to get all the dog poop out of my back yard or I'm going to get cited, and coercion will be used to make me cut my grass or clean my yard. And yet, we can't use coercion legally to save a baby's life if he is still in the womb.

What we need to do is find those things in the Bible that we believe should be lived by, and then try as Christians—through preaching, teaching, and prayer—to bring about as much consensus as we can. And yet we will not press for the legislating of things where there is massive unwillingness to do it, because we would wind up making coercion the ground of our morality.

Rebuking

At growth group we are going through the course "Six Steps to Encouragement" by Gordon Cheng. Last night we looked at the topic of rebuking.

One of the most interesting conversations to come up was whether we should rebuke non-Christians. Our conclusion was that while non-Christians need to be made aware of the fact that they are in rebellion against God, that message always needs to go hand in hand with the Gospel. We cannot rebuke a non-Christian for their sin against God because it means nothing to them without a) the Holy Spirit's conviction, and b) a belief that they are answerable to a higher power.

Why, then, are evangelicals with any power (thinking of the big US evangelical Christian lobbies) so keen to spread a brand of Christian moralism? One of the examples I used last night was abstinance education in the US. The evangelicals insist that schools need to teach abstinance instead of safe sex practices and the availability of birth control, thereby leading to the US having one of the highest teen pregnancy (and abortion) rates in the world.

And is it really that surprising? Why are these young people going to abstain without any reasons if they don't believe in God in the first place? Why do those people who are doing this lobbying think that they are doing Christ's work, when they could be proclaiming the Gospel instead?

I don't deny that we need to be sensitive of social issues. But surely teaching a brand of moralism does not endear these lobbyists, and now we see the confusion of non-Christians who have been mistakenly lead to believe that a) Christianity is all about trying to be good, and b) Christian try to tell others how to live their lives.

Isn't it much greater to be telling others about Jesus Christ?

Running

Never being one to shy away from a challenge, I'm going to train for the Burnie 10 too. Starting tomorrow I'll be running 3 times a week (provided that the weather holds out). The added benefit is that to continue bulking I'll need to eat even more food!!!

Bulking

It's time to get into a bulking phase again. Starting from next week I'll be doing a full body workout, three days a week (Monday, Wednesday, and Friday). I've also raised my caloric intake a bit - not by too much, to about 2,500 calories a day, to make sure that I begin growing. I'll probably raise that a bit more next week, maybe to 2,750 calories. Enough to feed the muscle without gaining too much fat.

I'm posting this here in the hope that it will keep me motivated. I'm shooting for about 8 weeks of bulking. For added motivation here are some maximum weights at the start of the program:

Squats - 40kg each side
Chest press - 27.5kg dumbells
Overhead shoulder press - 20kg dumbells
Bicep curls - 17.5kg each side
Tricep extensions - 73kg on the cable
Pull-downs - 68kg on cable

I'll compare numbers in 4 weeks and see if there's any progress!

Signs that won't make you want to go to church

Find them here

My favourite: "Go Bush Go, Praise the Lord, Pass the Ammo"!

WALL-E

I am really looking forward to this film.

Like?

Source

Democracy: Phillip Jensen

Just after I post about government, I notice the dean has a post up about democracy...

http://www.cathedral.sydney.anglican.asn.au/pages/posts/democracy209.php

Censorship

http://www.misaustralia.com/viewer.aspx?EDP://1217209400637

I think that as a good Christian I am supposed to be all for this kind of censorship. But I'm not.

1) It's unrealistic, because there is no way that all porn can be blocked. It's only ever going to be "good enough"
2) It doesn't fix the base problem (most kids don't "accidentally" stumble onto bad sites). It's a nanny state reaction rather than letting people make their own choices, and taking responsibility for those choices.
3) It's a way for the government to look like doing something about a problem without actually doing anything specific. Educate, don't censor.
4) I don't trust censorship like this, because there is always an option to take it further. Like if some national security issue comes up the government might decide to block anti-government content "for our protection", and so on. I guess I just don't trust government.

Yes porn is not good for Christians to be looking at. No this censorship will not solve the problem. Educate your children, make sure that them (and you) are not placed in a situation where you might compromise, and don't give such power to government. See also: China.