and you will hear what far smarter people than I have to say on this matter. I agree with them.
Harry Kroto
Nick Gathergood, David-Birkett, Harry-Kroto
I have attempted to respond to all of Dr. Kroto’s friends arguments and I have posted my responses one per week for over a year now. Here are some of my earlier posts:
In the first video below in the 15th clip in this series are his words and my response is below them.
50 Renowned Academics Speaking About God (Part 1)
Another 50 Renowned Academics Speaking About God (Part 2)
A Further 50 Renowned Academics Speaking About God (Part 3)
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In the popular You Tube video “Renowned Academics Speaking About God” you made the following statement:
“M-Theory doesn’t disprove God, but it does make him unnecessary. It predicts that the universe will be spontaneously created out of nothing without the need for a creator.” –Stephen Hawking, Cambridge theoretical physicist
Larry had a passion for the study of scripture. He had assurance of his salvation because he had a conviction of his sin and he had repented.Nothing focuses us on the afterlife more than times of death. What is the chief end of man?A. Man’s chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy him forever.Romans 1, 2,3CSICOPCT STUDDDavid Hodges“For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul?” Mark 8:36 (Christ’s words)Eccl 12 Conclusion My three sons and I were pallbearers at Larry’s funeral today. Larry and I got to know each other during the 2 1/2 years I dated Jill. Then he would visit with us while our family was growing. Jill had known Larry her whole life while I knew him the last 34 years. All 4 of our kids loved Larry and he treated them like they were his own kids. Just in March we had dinner with him at Dixie Cafe in Cabot, Arkansas.
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Larry Joe Speaks pictured above his pastor Pastor Kirk Wetsell pictured below:
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Nelson Price pictured above and Adrian Rogers pictured below
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may 14 christina perri and david hodges on stage during bmi’s 61st annual pop awards at the beverly wilshire four seasons hotel on may 14 2013 in beverly hills california
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SEPTEMBER 23, 2013“See You Again” No. 1 party BMI’s Jody Williams presents (l-r) Carrie Underwood, Hillary Lindsey and David Hodges with their commemorative BMI cups, lauding the success of “See You Again.” Hodges, as it was his first No. 1 as a songwriter, also received the traditional BMI black acoustic guitar. (Photo by Rick Diamond)
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Daughtry frontman Chris Daughtry with opening act David Hodges at Pure in Caesars Palace.
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Three founding members of Evanescence, Amy Lee, Ben Moody and David Hodges
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April 14, 2017
Dr. Stephen Hawking, c/o Centre for Theoretical Cosmology Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics Centre for Mathematical Sciences Wilberforce Road, Cambridge CB3 0WA, UK
Dear Dr. Hawking,
My admiration for you as an intellectual is very high indeed, and that is why I read your book THE GRAND DESIGN. I especially enjoyed the movie THE THEORY OF EVERYTHING. I have also enjoyed reading your autobiography. In it you noted, “When you are faced with the possibility of an early death, it makes you realize that life is worth living and that there are lots of things you want to do.”Today was Larry Speaks’ funeral. It was known that Larry loved watches, knives, firearms and fine jewelry, but when he died he could not take any of his possessions with him. Moreover, Larry wasn’t depending on those things to get him to heaven. Larry’s heart did not concentrate on luxuries but on serving Christ. Larry often went to the Mall to hand out free CD’s of the message WHO IS JESUS? by Adrian Rogers.I wanted to share with you what was said by Pastor Kirk Wetsell about Larry’s life. Kirk knew Larry very well because he was not only Larry’s pastor but also his brother-in-law. Over the last few days I have got to know Pastor Kirk Wetsell since we both were frequent visitors to the hospital after Larry’s stroke in early April. Kirk made some opening comments then he read several verses from Romans chapters 1, 2 and 3:Larry had a passion for the study of scripture. He had assurance of his salvation because he had a conviction of his sin and he had repented.Nothing focuses us on the afterlife more than times of death. Is there life after death? Is there any higher power or are we just a product of chance? Does my life have any meaning or purpose? The WESTMINSTER CATECHISM states, What is the chief end of man?A. Man’s chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy him forever.
Romans Chapter 1
18 For [God does not overlook sin and] the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who in their wickedness suppressandstifle the truth, 19because that which is known about God is evident within them [in their inner consciousness], for God made it evident to them. 20 For ever since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through His workmanship [all His creation, the wonderful things that He has made], so that they [who fail to believe and trust in Him] are without excuse and without defense.21 For even though they knew God [as the Creator], they did not honor Him as God or give thanks [for His wondrous creation]. On the contrary, they became worthless in their thinking [godless, with pointless reasonings, and silly speculations], and their foolish heart was darkened.
Chapter 2
14 When Gentiles, who do not have the Law [since it was given only to Jews], do instinctively the things the Law requires [guided only by their conscience], they are a law to themselves, though they do not have the Law. 15 They show that the essential requirements of the Law are written in their hearts; and their conscience [their sense of right and wrong, their moral choices] bearing witness and their thoughts alternately accusing or perhaps defending them 16 on that day when, as my gospel proclaims, God will judge the secrets [all the hidden thoughts and concealed sins] of men through Christ Jesus.
Chapter 3
23 since all have sinned and continually fall short of the glory of God,24 and are being justified [declared free of the guilt of sin, made acceptable to God, and granted eternal life] as a gift by His [precious, undeserved] grace, through the redemption [the payment for our sin] which is [provided] in Christ Jesus…
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Now let me interject another insight. Romans 1:18-19 says, “For [God does not overlook sin and] the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who in their wickedness suppressandstifle the truth,19because that which is known about God is evident within them [in their inner consciousness], for God made it evident to them.”
Nelson Price in THE EMMANUEL FACTOR (1987) tells the story about Brown Trucking Company in Georgia who used to give polygraph tests to their job applicants. However, in part of the test the operator asked, “Do you believe in God?” In every instance when a professing atheist answered “No,” the test showed the person to be lying. My pastor Adrian Rogers used to tell this same story to illustrate Romans 1:19 and it was his conclusion that “there is no such thing anywhere on earth as a true atheist. If a man says he doesn’t believe in God, then he is lying. God has put his moral consciousness into every man’s heart, and a man has to try to kick his conscience to death to say he doesn’t believe in God.”
It is true that polygraph tests for use in hiring were banned by Congress in 1988. Mr and Mrs Claude Brown on Aug 25, 1994 wrote me a letter confirming that over 15,000 applicants previous to 1988 had taken the polygraph test and EVERY TIME SOMEONE SAID THEY DID NOT BELIEVE IN GOD, THE MACHINE SAID THEY WERE LYING.
Two little lines I heard one day, Traveling along life’s busy way; Bringing conviction to my heart, And from my mind would not depart; Only one life, ‘twill soon be past, Only what’s done for Christ will last.
Only one life, yes only one, Soon will its fleeting hours be done; Then, in ‘that day’ my Lord to meet, And stand before His Judgment seat; Only one life, ‘twill soon be past, Only what’s done for Christ will last.___Can we all agree with C.T. STUDD that after we die we can’t arrange to take our possessions with us?
Solomon had it all and especially gold but he said all the fame and fortune is vanity and a chasing of the wind because it will NOT bring satisfaction or even last.
Back in 2001 our friend David Hodges was in a struggling rock band named EVANESCENCE in Little Rock but then they hit it big. Not only did Evanescence sell 20 million records but afterwards David wrote #1 smash singles: Kelly Clarkson’s“Because of You,” Daughtry’s “What About Now,” Carrie Underwood’s “See You Again” and many others. My personal favorite is A THOUSAND YEARS sung by Christina Perri.
In October of 2016 David Hodges spoke to a meeting I attended in Little Rock. He said the 15 years he lived in Los Angeles had taught him a lot of lessons and the MOST IMPORTANT is the lesson from the BOOK OF ECCLESIASTES that TRUE JOY and HAPPINESS does not come from MONEY and POSSESSIONS.
I have been writing you the last few times on Solomon. He was searching for meaning in life in what I call the 6 big L words in the Book of Ecclesiastes. He looked into learning (1:16-18), laughter, ladies, luxuries, and liquor (2:1-3, 8, 10, 11), and labor (2:4-6, 18-20). After searching in area of luxuries Solomon found them to be “vanity and a striving after the wind.”
Ecclesiastes 2:7-11 English Standard Version (ESV)
7I had also great possessions of herds and flocks, more than any who had been before me in Jerusalem. 8I also gathered for myself silver and gold and the treasure of kings and provinces. 9 So I became great and surpassed all who were before me in Jerusalem…10 And whatever my eyes desired I did not keep from them.11 Then I considered all that my hands had done and the toil I had expended in doing it, and behold, all was vanity and a striving after wind, and there was nothing to be gained UNDER THE SUN.
“For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul?” Mark 8:36 (Christ’s words)
God put Solomon’s story in Ecclesiastes in the Bible with the sole purpose of telling people like you that without God in the picture you will find out the emptiness one feels when possessions are trying to fill the void that God can only fill.
Then in the last chapter of Ecclesiastes Solomon returns to looking above the sun and he says that obeying the Lord is the proper way to live your life. The answer to find meaning in life is found in putting your faith and trust in Jesus Christ. The Bible is true from cover to cover and can be trusted. If you need more evidence then go to You Tube and watch the short videos “Francis Schaeffer – The Biblical Flow of History & Truth (1),“(3 min, 5 sec) and “Dr. Francis Schaeffer – The Biblical Flow of Truth & History (part 2),” (10 min, 46 sec).
The John Lennon and the Beatles really were on a long search for meaning and fulfillment in their lives just like King Solomon did in the Book of Ecclesiastes. Solomon looked into learning (1:12-18, 2:12-17), laughter, ladies, luxuries, and liquor (2:1-2, 8, 10, 11), and labor (2:4-6, 18-20). He fount that without God in the picture all […]
By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Current Events, Francis Schaeffer | Edit | Comments (0)
__________________ Beatles 1966 Last interview I have dedicated several posts to this series on the Beatles and I don’t know when this series will end because Francis Schaeffer spent a lot of time listening to the Beatles and talking and writing about them and their impact on the culture of the 1960’s. In this […]
By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Francis Schaeffer | Tagged George Harrison, John Lennon, Paul MacCartney, Peter Blake, Ringo Starr | Edit | Comments (1)
Francis Schaeffer pictured below in 1971 at L Abri
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Dr. Francis Schaeffer at L’Abri Conference, Urbana, 1981
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Punk tells us that “there is no future”… I’m fed up There’s no hope I wanna puke I’m a worm man Gonna crawl in a hole Nobody’s my friend I’m no good to anyone I want some dirt ‘ll never be happy I hate myself I wish I was dead I wish I was dead I wish I was dead (Worm Man, 1987)
Blondie grew up with punk, which began in the mid‐70’s as a loose movement of bands wanting to recycle the raw, high‐powered energy of 50’s and early 60’s rock‐and‐roll. They were reacting against the overproduced, too‐slick sound of most pop music — the mindless, repetitive rhythms of disco and the bland creaminess of studio‐created pop, both of which monopolized the airwaves.
Bands like the Ramones toured England, where their punk attitude — they behaved onstage like truculent street toughs — was adopted by English pub bands as a vehicle for the political outrage expressed by the theater’s “Angry Young Men” two decades earlier. Punk music was minimalist, some said chaotic; its lyrics emphasized alternating currents of nihilism and sentimentality. When more musicianly and cerebral groups, such as Talking Heads, came onto the scene, English music writers invented the umbrella term “new wave” to encompass all late‐70’s groups, however disparate, which were aiming to restore gut feeling to rock‐and‐roll.
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Francis Schaeffer taught young people at L Abri in Switzerland in the 1950’s till the 1980’s (pictured below)
Francis Schaeffer noted:
They can’t find any meaning to life. It’s the meaning of the words “punk rock.”
Francis Schaeffer pictured
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“They are the natural outcome of a change from a Christian World View to a Humanistic one… The result is a relativistic value system. A lack of a final meaning to life — that’s first. Why does human life have any value at all, if that is all that reality is? Not only are you going to die individually, but the whole human race is going to die, someday. It may not take the falling of the atom bombs, but someday the world will grow too hot, too cold. That’s what we are told on this other final reality, and someday all you people not only will be individually dead, but the whole conscious life on this world will be dead, and nobody will see the birds fly. And there’s no meaning to life.
As you know, I don’t speak academically, shut off in some scholastic cubicle, as it were. I have lots of young people and older ones come to us from the ends of the earth. And as they come to us, they have gone to the end of this logically and they are not living in a romantic setting. They realize what the situation is. They can’t find any meaning to life. It’s the meaning to the black poetry. It’s the meaning of the black plays. It’s the meaning of all this. It’s the meaning of the words “punk rock.” And I must say, that on the basis of what they are being taught in school, that the final reality is only this material thing, they are not wrong. They’re right! On this other basis there is no meaning to life and not only is there no meaning to life, but there is no value system that is fixed, and we find that the law is based then only on a relativistic basis and that law becomes purely arbitrary.
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JOSÉ DE SEGOVIA The Ramones, 40 years on It would be a mistake to think that their story was nothing more than the nihilism of hopeless youth. Their rage was a cry of rebellion against an empty life. BETWEEN THE LINES AUTHOR José de Segovia TRANSLATOR Esther Barrett 19 OCTOBER 2016 11:50 h GMT+1 It is now forty years since the Ramones published their first album. None of them are now left following the death of the four founding members of the band that gave rise to punk in the New York of 1974. Ramon wasn’t their real name, but they pretended that they were brothers, wearing the same clothes and getting their hair cut in the same style. One of the values that young people at that time most admired was the sense of belonging that brought these lads together into a kind brotherhood. Rock music has often given expression to these kinds of feelings, but never so clearly as in the music of the Ramones. For Spanish people who lived through the “Movida Madrileña”[1], the Ramones’ music was a point of reference. Their short hectic songs, based on a couple of chords and insistent choruses, were the inspiration of many Spanish bands. Popular culture was deeply affected by the punk movement that was born in England in 1976, but which in reality had its origins in New York. Bands like the Sex Pistols and the Clash drew inspiration from the provocation of Iggy Pop and the Stooges, the scandalous New York Dolls, but above all, from the sound of the Ramones. In those days, not only did people make their hair stand on end and paint themselves in colours, but anyone could be a “rock and roll” star. Boys like the Ramones were proud of the fact that, although they had never been taught to play, they could nevertheless play their guitars at high speed, singing infectious songs like Gabba Gabba Hey, which got stuck in your head, repeating itself over and over again. 40 years ago the Ramons published their first album. THE LAST SURVIVOR The dirty, fast and furious sound of the Ramones was not born out of the margins of society, but was the product of a bunch of fairly well educated boys, who lived in the well-to-do area of Queens. They started out in a club of legendary fame, the CBGB, which is close to the street that bears the name of the singer, Joey Ramone. Joey died of cancer in 2001; the base player, Dee-Dee died of an overdose the year after; and the guitar player, Johnny, died of cancer in 2004. Tommy was of Jewish origins, like Joey, the only one to be born outside the United States, in Budapest. He was the band’s first drummer and later became their producer, using his real name, Erdelyi. His successor, Marky, left the band, to return just before the Sao Paolo tragedy, when three people died and another thirty people were injured in a shooting at the Ramones’ concert. Punk tells us that “there is no future”… I’m fed up There’s no hope I wanna puke I’m a worm man Gonna crawl in a hole Nobody’s my friend I’m no good to anyone I want some dirt ‘ll never be happy I hate myself I wish I was dead I wish I was dead I wish I was dead (Worm Man, 1987) APPEARANCES CAN BE MISLEADING Johnny Ramone’s effigy plays his guitar in a cemetery in Hollywood. The band finally broke up in 1996. Behind their façade of brotherhood, they were continually falling out. Johnny stopped speaking to Joey after he stole his girlfriend in 1980, and then got married to her. As a result, he didn’t visit him before he died. He thought that it would have been hypocritical, even though they both trod the same stage for 22 years, with the same haircut, the same leather jackets and the same surname. There is no doubt that appearances can be misleading. It’s not me It’s not me It’s not me Don’t wanna die for your sins Got no special powers Sacrifice and sacrilege Hey man, I wanna live I’m not Jesus I can’t heal you (I Am Not Jesus, 1987) It is clear that neither the Ramones, nor any other music, can save anyone. What’s more, punk was inevitably destined to have a very short life, as it is impossible to be so destructive, without ending up self-destructing. But it would be a mistake to think that their story was nothing more than the nihilism of hopeless youth. Their rage was a cry of rebellion against an empty life. ROCK AS RELIGION The music of the Ramones was something more than just a means of entertainment at a time when rock had become mainstream. Their songs were a true expression of their dreams and frustrations. Behind their studied boredom, the Ramones showed a passion that truly saw rock as their only means of redemption. Stiv Bators – the singer of Lords of the New Church, a band that brought together what remained of four of the last punk bands in England – once said that young people no longer had anything to believe in. In his opinion you could believe in rock’n’roll with the passion that people felt for football or religion. For them, let’s not forget it, music was a spiritual experience. Joey Ramone is buried in a Jewish cemetery in New Jersey. He saw a parallel to gospel music in that it also established a spiritual link: “rock’n’roll is the Western’s civilization voodoo”. The Ramones, however, remind us that music cannot heal us, as it has no special powers. There is only one sacrifice that can save us. And that is the sacrifice of He who died for our sins. In that light, who would want to live for music? [1] A hedonistic counter-cultural movement that took place mainly in Madrid during the Spanish transition after Francisco Franco’s death in 1975. See more: http://evangelicalfocus.com/blogs/2007/The_Ramones_40_years_on
Francis Schaeffer also observed:
The peak of the drug culture of the hippie movement was well symbolized by the movie Woodstock.Woodstock was a rock festival held in northeastern United States in the summer of 1969. The movie about that rock festival was released in the spring of 1970. Many young people thought that Woodstock was the beginning of a newand wonderful age.
Jimi Hendrix (1942–1970) himself was soon to become a symbol of the end. Black, extremely talented, inhumanly exploited, he overdosed in September 1970 and drowned in his own vomit, soon after the claim that the culture of which he was a symbol was a new beginning. In the late sixties the ideological hopes based on drug-taking died.
After Woodstock two events “ended the age of innocence,” to use the expression of Rolling Stone magazine. The first occurred at Altamont, California, where the Rolling Stones put on a festival and hired the Hell’s Angels (for several barrels of beer) to police the grounds. Instead, the Hell’s Angels killed people without any cause, and it was a bad scene indeed. But people thought maybe this was a fluke, maybe it was just California! It took a second event to be convincing. On the Isle of Wight, 450,000 people assembled, and it was totally ugly. A number of people from L’Abri were there, and I know a man closely associated with the rock world who knows the organizer of this festival. Everyone agrees that the situation was just plain hideous.
In his book HOW SHOULD WE THEN LIVE? Francis Schaeffer noted:
This emphasis on hallucinogenic drugs brought with it many rock groups–for example, Cream, Jefferson Airplane, Grateful Dead, Incredible String Band, Pink Floyd, and Jimi Hendrix. Most of their work was from 1965-1958. The Beatles’Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (1967) also fits here. This disc is a total unity, not just an isolated series of individual songs, and for a time it became the rallying cry for young people throughout the world. As a whole, this music was the vehicle to carry the drug culture and the mentality which went with it across frontiers which were almost impassible by other means of communication.
Together with the advent of the “drug Age” was the increased interest in the West in the religious experience of Hinduism and Buddhism. Schaeffer tells us that: “This grasping for a nonrational meaning to life and values is the central reason that these Eastern religions are so popular in the West today.” Drugs and Eastern religions came like a flood into the Western world. They became the way that people chose to find meaning and values in life. By themselves or together, drugs and Eastern religion became the way that people searched inside themselves for ultimate truth.
Along with drugs and Eastern religions there has been a remarkable increase “of the occult appearing as an upper-story hope.” As modern man searches for answers it “many moderns would rather have demons than be left with the idea that everything in the universe is only one big machine.” For many people having the “occult in the upper story of nonreason in the hope of having meaning” is better than leaving the upper story of nonreason empty. For them horror or the macabre are more acceptable than the idea that they are just a machine.
Francis Schaeffer has correctly argued:
The universe was created by an infinite personal God and He brought it into existence by spoken word and made man in His own image. When man tries to reduce [philosophically in a materialistic point of view] himself to less than this [less than being made in the image of God] he will always fail and he will always be willing to make these impossible leaps into the area of nonreason even though they don’t give an answer simply because that isn’t what he is. He himself testifies that this infinite personal God, the God of the Old and New Testament is there.
Instead of making a leap into the area of nonreason the better choice would be to investigate the claims that the Bible is a historically accurate book and that God created the universe and reached out to humankind with the Bible. Below is a piece of that evidence given by Francis Schaeffer concerning the accuracy of the Bible.
TRUTH AND HISTORY (chapter 5 of WHATEVER HAPPENED TO THE HUMAN RACE?, under footnotes #97 and #98)
A common assumption among liberal scholars is that because the Gospels are theologically motivated writings–which they are–they cannot also be historically accurate. In other words, because Luke, say (when he wrote the Book of Luke and the Book of Acts), was convinced of the deity of Christ, this influenced his work to the point where it ceased to be reliable as a historical account. The assumption that a writing cannot be both historical and theological is false.
The experience of the famous classical archaeologist Sir William Ramsay illustrates this well. When he began his pioneer work of exploration in Asia Minor, he accepted the view then current among the Tubingen scholars of his day that the Book of Acts was written long after the events in Paul’s life and was therefore historically inaccurate. However, his travels and discoveries increasingly forced upon his mind a totally different picture, and he became convinced that Acts was minutely accurate in many details which could be checked.
What is even more interesting is the way “liberal” modern scholars today deal with Ramsay’s discoveries and others like them. In the NEW TESTAMENT : THE HISTORY OF THE INVESTIGATION OF ITS PROBLEMS, the German scholar Werner G. Kummel made no reference at all to Ramsay. This provoked a protest from British and American scholars, whereupon in a subsequent edition Kummel responded. His response was revealing. He made it clear that it was his deliberate intention to leave Ramsay out of his work, since “Ramsay’s apologetic analysis of archaeology [in other words, relating it to the New Testament in a positive way] signified no methodologically essential advance for New Testament research.” This is a quite amazing assertion. Statements like these reveal the philosophic assumptions involved in much liberal scholarship.
A modern classical scholar, A.N.Sherwin-White, says about the Book of Acts: “For Acts the confirmation of historicity is overwhelming…Any attempt to reject its basic historicity, even in matters of detail, must not appear absurd. Roman historians have long taken this for granted.”
When we consider the pages of the New Testament, therefore, we must remember what it is we are looking at. The New Testament writers themselves make abundantly clear that they are giving an account of objectively true events.
(Under footnote #98)
Acts is a fairly full account of Paul’s journeys, starting in Pisidian Antioch and ending in Rome itself. The record is quite evidently that of an eyewitness of the events, in part at least. Throughout, however, it is the report of a meticulous historian. The narrative in the Book of Acts takes us back behind the missionary journeys to Paul’s famous conversion on the Damascus Road, and back further through the Day of Pentecost to the time when Jesus finally left His disciples and ascended to be with the Father.
But we must understand that the story begins earlier still, for Acts is quite explicitly the second part of a continuous narrative by the same author, Luke, which reaches back to the birth of Jesus.
Luke 2:1-7 New American Standard Bible (NASB)
2 Now in those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus, that a census be taken of all [a]the inhabited earth. 2 [b]This was the first census taken while[c]Quirinius was governor of Syria. 3 And everyone was on his way to register for the census, each to his own city. 4 Joseph also went up from Galilee, from the city of Nazareth, to Judea, to the city of David which is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and family of David, 5 in order to register along with Mary, who was engaged to him, and was with child. 6 While they were there, the days were completed for her to give birth. 7 And she gave birth to her firstborn son; and she wrapped Him in cloths, and laid Him in a [d]manger, because there was no room for them in the inn.
In the opening sentences of his Gospel, Luke states his reason for writing:
Luke 1:1-4 New American Standard Bible (NASB)
1 Inasmuch as many have undertaken to compile an account of the things[a]accomplished among us, 2 just as they were handed down to us by those whofrom the beginning [b]were eyewitnesses and [c]servants of the [d]word, 3 it seemed fitting for me as well, having [e]investigated everything carefully from the beginning, to write it out for you in consecutive order, most excellentTheophilus; 4 so that you may know the exact truth about the things you have been[f]taught.
In Luke and Acts, therefore, we have something which purports to be an adequate history, something which Theophilus (or anyone) can rely on as its pages are read. This is not the language of “myths and fables,” and archaeological discoveries serve only to confirm this.
For example, it is now known that Luke’s references to the titles of officials encountered along the way are uniformly accurate. This was no mean achievement in those days, for they varied from place to place and from time to time in the same place. They were proconsuls in Corinth and Cyprus, asiarchs at Ephesus, politarchesat Thessalonica, and protosor “first man” in Malta. Back in Palestine, Luke was careful to give Herod Antipas the correct title of tetrarch of Galilee. And so one. The details are precise.
The mention of Pontius Pilate as Roman governor of Judea has been confirmed recently by an inscription discovered at Caesarea, which was the Roman capital of that part of the Roman Empire. Although Pilate’s existence has been well known for the past 2000 years by those who have read the Bible, now his governorship has been clearly attested outside the Bible.
Over and over I have read that Hugh Hefner was a modern day King Solomon and Hefner’s search for satisfaction was attempted by adding to the number of his sexual experiences.
Chris Thurman wrote:
If anyone had it all, the great King Solomon did. Our man Solomon was the John D. Rockefeller, Albert Einstein, and Hugh Hefner of his day all rolled into one
Many of the sermons that I heard or read that inspired me to write Hugh Hefner were from this list of gentlemen: Daniel Akin, Brandon Barnard, Alistair Begg, Matt Chandler, George Critchley, Darryl Dash, Steve DeWitt, Steve Gaines, Norman L. Geisler, Greg Gillbert, Billy Graham, Mark Henry, Dan Jarrell, Walter C. Kaiser, Jr., R. G. Lee, C.S. Lewis Chris Lewis, Kerry Livgren, Robert Lewis, Bill Parkinson, Ben Parkinson,Vance Pitman, Nelson Price, Ethan Renoe, Adrian Rogers, Philip Graham Ryken, Francis Schaeffer, Lee Strobel, Bill Wellons, Kirk Wetsell, Ken Whitten, Ed Young , Ravi Zacharias, Tom Zobrist, and Richard Zowie.
In this post today and several posts that follow this will be based on a sermon series I heard at FELLOWSHIP BIBLE CHURCH in Little Rock in 1996 on the Book of Ecclesiastes. The pastors back then were Robert Lewis, Bill Wellons, Bill Parkinson and Dan Jarrell. Below is the letter I wrote based both on Robert Lewis and Bill Parkinson sermons from the same series.
Dan Jarrell pictured below:
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Robert Lewis pictured below:
Bill Wellons pictured below:
Bill Parkinson pictured below
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April 9, 2016
Hugh Hefner Playboy Mansion 10236 Charing Cross Road Los Angeles, CA 90024-1815
Dear Mr. Hefner,
HAPPY 90th BIRTHDAY TODAY HUGH!!!!! I feel like I know you very well since I have studied I think every interview you have ever given and I have written you every week since October last year. Today again I am going to take a quote from you and make an observation and today’s observation is concerning your long life.
When I examine your life I have concluded that you are the exception and not the rule. Most people who take the path of womanizing end up with consequences such as financial ruin and a shortened life.
Hugh Hefner, the Playboy founder – who celebrated his 85th birthday on April 9 with a joint party in Las Vegas with his son Marston, who turned 21 on the same day – wasn’t worried about reaching the milestone age because he is looking forward to his forthcoming wedding to 24-year-old Crystal Harris on June 18.
He said: “You’re as young as the girl you feel, I’m a very lucky cat and I know it, age is just a number if you’re healthy.
Today I want to tell you to please accept the wisdom of King Solomon and tell your sons MARSTON and COOPER to likewise consider the wisdom Solomon gave us in the Bible. In the Book of Song of Solomon he talked about the wife of his youth. In his 40’s he gave us wisdom in his advice as to his son in the Book of Proverbs, and in the Book of Ecclesiastes as an old man he looked back upon his life and concluded that life UNDER THE SUN is meaningless without God in the picture.
King Solomon is a person that should interest you HUGH. He had a lot in common with you.
Ecclesiastes 2:8-10 The Message (MSG)
I piled up silver and gold, loot from kings and kingdoms. I gathered a chorus of singers to entertain me with song, and—most exquisite of all pleasures— voluptuous maidens for my bed.
9-10 Oh, how I prospered! I left all my predecessors in Jerusalem far behind, left them behind in the dust. What’s more, I kept a clear head through it all. Everything I wanted I took—I never said no to myself. I gave in to every impulse, held back nothing. I sucked the marrow of pleasure out of every task—my reward to myself for a hard day’s work!
1 Kings 11:1-3 English Standard Version (ESV)
11 Now King Solomon loved many foreign women, along with the daughter of Pharaoh: Moabite, Ammonite, Edomite, Sidonian, and Hittite women, 2 from the nations concerning which the Lord had said to the people of Israel, “You shall not enter into marriage with them, neither shall they with you, for surely they will turn away your heart after their gods.” Solomon clung to these in love. 3 He had 700 wives, who were princesses, and 300 concubines. And his wives turned away his heart.
(Francis Schaeffer pictured below)
Francis Schaeffer observed concerning Solomon, “You can not know woman by knowing 1000 women.”
Bill Parkinson on 5-5-96 as a teaching pastor at FELLOWSHIP BIBLE CHURCH in Little Rock delivered a sermon entitled AND NOW SOME NOT-SO-COMMON SENSE which was based on Ecclesiastes chapter 7. Here is a portion of that sermon below that applies to your life Hugh since you are celebrating your 90th birthday today:
(Bill Parkinson pictured below)
When you live life from God’s perspective, when you begin doing that first then he provides you with spiritual discernment about life. Ecclesiastes 7:15 “In my vain life I have seen everything. There is a righteous man who perishes in his righteousness, and there is a wicked man who prolongs his life in his evildoing.” You know what someone who did not have wisdom would conclude from that? They would take the exceptions and make it the rule. Solomon said that in his life he had seen these things. The righteous sometimes do die young and sometime the wicked people do live to be old. Some people conclude that it doesn’t make any difference how you live. Maybe you can live an evil life and live to 99!!!!! Solomon says wisdom doesn’t take life and rule it by the exception. It takes life and rules it by what is true.
Solomon also wrote in Proverbs 10:27, “The fear of the Lord prolongs days, but the years of the wicked will be shortened.” It is not true you can do anything you want to do. It does matter how you live.
In the History Channel TV Special “HOW PLAYBOY CHANGED THE WORLD” at the 49 min mark the narrator says “The so-called WAGES OF SIN were now paying off.” This was referring to the growth in profits at your magazine PLAYBOY. The narrator turned Romans 6:23 totally around when it really says, “FOR THE WAGES OF SIN IS DEATH; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.” Adrian Rogers below discusses the verse Galatians 6:7, “Be not deceived, for God is not mocked. Whatsoever man soweth, that shall he also reap.”
The narrator acts like financial wealth is the only measure of success. Shouldn’t Godliness and Integrity be some of the qualities you want to pass down to your children HUGH? At the min 1:13 mark when you speak of your marriage in the 1990’s and you say the truth is that it was one of the most lonely and unhappy times of your life. Is your only criteria the amount of sex you had?
(Adrian Rogers pictured below)
Let me explore this phrase “WAGES OF SIN” more by quoting from Adrian Rogers’ message THE PLAYBOY’S PAYDAY and keep in mind King Solomon wrote this as wise advice handed down to his son:
Proverbs 5 New American Standard Bible (NASB)
5 My son, give attention to my wisdom, Incline your ear to my understanding; 2 That you may observe discretion And your lips may reserve knowledge. 3 For the lips of an adulteress drip honey And smoother than oil is her speech; 4 But in the end she is bitter as wormwood, Sharp as a two-edged sword. 5 Her feet go down to death, Her steps take hold of Sheol. 6 She does not ponder the path of life; Her ways are unstable, she does not know it.
7 Now then, my sons, listen to me And do not depart from the words of my mouth. 8 Keep your way far from her And do not go near the door of her house, 9 Or you will give your vigor to others And your years to the cruel one; 10 And strangers will be filled with your strength And your hard-earned goods will go to the house of an alien; 11 And you groan at your final end, When your flesh and your body are consumed; 12 And you say, “How I have hated instruction! And my heart spurned reproof! 13 “I have not listened to the voice of my teachers, Nor inclined my ear to my instructors! 14 “I was almost in utter ruin In the midst of the assembly and congregation.”
15 Drink water from your own cistern And fresh water from your own well. 16 Should your springs be dispersed abroad, Streams of water in the streets? 17 Let them be yours alone And not for strangers with you. 18 Let your fountain be blessed, And rejoice in the wife of your youth. 19 As a loving hind and a graceful doe, Let her breasts satisfy you at all times; Be exhilarated always with her love. 20 For why should you, my son, be exhilarated with an adulteress And embrace the bosom of a foreigner? 21 For the ways of a man are before the eyes of the Lord, And He watches all his paths. 22 His own iniquities will capture the wicked, And he will be held with the cords of his sin. 23 He will die for lack of instruction, And in the greatness of his folly he will go astray.
___
Look if you will in verse 23. “He shall die without instruction: and in the greatness of his folly he shall go astray.” To die without instruction, to die without knowledge, is to die in a sin. It is to die and go to Hell! The Bible says, “Be not deceived, for God is not mocked. Whatsoever man soweth, that shall he also reap.” And the Bible says, “Be not deceived, for neither idolaters nor fornicators nor adulterers nor effeminate nor abusers of themselves with mankind shall inherit the kingdom of Heaven.” If you’re living this kind of a lifestyle, the Bible says you’re lost. You’re going to Hell.
You say, Well, Pastor, does that mean if I’ve done any of these things, I can’t be saved? No. For Paul goes on to say in 1 Corinthians chapter 6, And such were some of you, but you’re washed, you’re justified, you’re sanctified. Hallelujah! Amen. Oh, listen ,there’s no sin that He can’t forgive – not a blot, not a blemish, not a blur, not a stain. The blood of Jesus Christ, God’s Son, makes the vilest sinner clean. And ‘if we confess our sin, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sin and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
Death! Death! Death! That’s the Playboy’s Payday. And this is a message that needs to be heard across America today. I mean, across America! Young people today are getting information from everyplace except the Word of God. I must close this message, but finally, the design that we should follow. Look if you will in verse 15: “Drink waters out of thine own cistern, and running waters out of thine own well. Let thy fountains be dispersed abroad, and rivers of waters in the streets. Let them be only thine own, and not strangers’ with thee.” What’s he talking about? He’s saying get a wife, marry that wife, be faithful to her, have a lasting marriage, have a monogamous marriage. God’s plan is one woman for one man until death do them part.
But not only is it a lasting marriage, there’s a loving mate. Look in verse 18: “Let thy fountain be blessed: and rejoice with the wife of thy youth. Let her be as the loving hind and pleasant roe; let her breasts satisfy thee at all times; and be thou ravished always with her love.” What’s he saying? He’s saying God wants you to be fulfilled. God wants you to have sexual fulfillment. God wants you to have real joy.
When God says, “Thou shalt not,” He’s saying, “Don’t hurt yourself.” When God says, “Thou shalt,” He’s saying, “Help yourself to happiness.” God here is talking about satisfaction. God here is talking about joy! I wouldn’t trade my Christian home for anything in this world! The joy that the Lord Jesus has given us – I thank God that I came to the marriage altar pure! I thank God I married a pure girl. I thank God for the joy and the happiness. And you’ll forgive me for this, but kids, you eat your cake now, you’ll have a crummy tomorrow. This is God’s plan.
(Robert Lewis pictured below)
You see HUGH your life is really the exception and not the rule as Bill Parkinson pointed out above. Now I wanted to ask you a simple question: HAVE YOU KNOWN PEOPLE WHO HAD THEIR LIVES DESTROYED BECAUSE THEY LEFT THEIR FAMILY LIFE TO EMBRACE HEDONISM?
Robert Lewis on 4-14-96 as a teaching pastor at FELLOWSHIP BIBLE CHURCH in Little Rock delivered a sermon entitled LIFE UNDER THE SUN which was based on Ecclesiastes chapters 1 and 2. Here is a portion of that sermon below:
Solomon wanted to know the meaning of life beyond God in this world. So he tried to live life at the edge or the extreme so to report not like a philosopher in a ivory tower, but he wanted to do that by putting himself personally into these pursuits to see IS THERE ANY OTHER MEANING IN LIFE BESIDES GOD. This is really what he tries to do. Ecclesiastes 1:13, “And I set my mind to seek and explore by wisdom concerning all that has been done under heaven.” The word SEEK means to do rigorous research and that is what he has done.
The word EXPLORE means to examine all sides of things and he didn’t do that just as Lab Technician, but Solomon did it the old fashion way. He got personally involved. He researched every category as far as it could go in order to know everything about life. So he didn’t talk about materialism but he became the ultimate materialist...He became the ultimate hedonist. You want to know about sex? Solomon can tell you everything about it….UNDER THE SUN there is no real meaning in any of it. The best life can do is keep delivering to you the empty promise that if you have something else then you will be happy, but the curse is when you get it. Ecclesiastes 2:17, “So I hated life, for the work which had been done under the sun wasgrievous to me; because everything is futility and striving after wind.”
I befriended a man several years ago who was a kind of real Little Rock PLAYBOY. In fact, his lifestyle and sexual escapades were legendary around the city. He was rich, single, hansom and very sophisticated. He told me, “A woman any night and anything your mind can imagine.” Where did it lead him? Ultimately it led him to a hotel in Little Rock where he put a gun in his mouth because to have it all is to find out it is empty.
Ecclesiastes was written to those who wanted to examine life UNDER THE SUN without God in the picture and that is what Robert Lewis said in his sermon LIFE UNDER THE SUN. But the story doesn’t end there. Solomon’s conclusion in the final chapter was found in Ecclesiastes 12 when he looked at life ABOVE THE SUN and tells us to bring God back into the picture and make our relationship with God the main purpose of our life:
13 The end of the matter; all has been heard. Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man. 14 For God will bring every deed into judgment, with every secret thing, whether good or evil.
Let’s go back to Romans 6:23, “For the wages of sin is death; but the GIFT OF GOD IS ETERNAL LIFE THROUGH JESUS CHRIST OUR LORD.” The meaning of this verse was distorted in the film about your life. Did you know that Romans 6:23 is part of what we call the Roman Road to Christ. Here is how it goes:
Because of our sin, we are separated from God. For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. (Romans 3:23)
The Penalty for our sin is death. For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Jesus Christ our Lord.(Romans 6:23)
The penalty for our sin was paid by Jesus Christ! But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. (Romans 5:8)
If we repent of our sin, then confess and trust Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior, we will be saved from our sins! For whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved. (Romans 10:13) …if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. (Romans 10:9,10)
PS: I have written you every week since October of 2015, and again I have taken an aspect of your life and responded with what the Bible has to say on that subject. HUGH your quote is, “You know, from my point of view, I’m the luckiest cat on the planet.” I can think of a couple of ways that is partially true. First, you are still alive at age 90 after sleeping with over 1000 women. Second, you still have an opportunity today to follow the Roman Road to Christ and Jesus will forgive your sins if you will repent. Thank you for taking time to read this letter on your 90th birthday.
Florian Maier-Aichen
Florian Maier-Aichen was born in 1973 in Stuttgart, Germany. He studied at Högskolan för Fotografi och Film, Göteborg, Sweden; the University of Essen, Germany; and earned an MFA from the University of California, Los Angeles. Alternately romantic, cerebral, and unearthly, Florian Maier-Aichen’s digitally altered photographs are closer to the realm of drawing and fiction than documentation.
He embraces difficult techniques, chooses equipment that produces accidents such as light leaks and double exposures, and uses computer enhancements to introduce imperfections and illogical elements into images that paradoxically “feel” visually right, though they are factually wrong. Often employing an elevated viewpoint (the objective but haunting “God’s-eye view” of aerial photography and satellite imaging), Maier-Aichen creates idealized, painterly landscapes that function like old postcards.
Interested in places where landscape and cityscape meet, he chooses locations and subjects from the American West and Europe—from his own neighborhoods to vistas of the natural world. Looking backwards for his influences, Maier-Aichen often reenacts or pays homage to the work of the pioneer photographers of the nineteenth century, sometimes even remaking their subject matter from their original standpoints. Always experimenting, he marries digital technologies with traditional processes and films (black-and-white, color, infrared, and tricolor), restoring and reinvigorating the artistry and alchemy of early photography.
Maier-Aichen’s work has appeared in recent major exhibitions at Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid, Spain (2008); the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (2007); and the Whitney Biennial (2006). Florian Maier-Aichen lives and works in Cologne, Germany, and Los Angeles.
I started this series on my letters and postcards to Hugh Hefner back in September when I read of the passing of Mr. Hefner. There are many more to come. It is my view that he may have taken time to look at glance at one or two of them since these postcards were short and from one of Hef’s favorite […]
By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Atheists Confronted | Edit | Comments (0)
I started this series on my letters and postcards to Hugh Hefner back in September when I read of the passing of Mr. Hefner. There are many more to come. It is my view that he may have taken time to look at glance at one or two of them since these postcards were short and from one of Hef’s favorite […]
By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Atheists Confronted | Edit | Comments (0)
I started this series on my letters and postcards to Hugh Hefner back in September when I read of the passing of Mr. Hefner. There are many more to come. It is my view that he may have taken time to look at glance at one or two of them since these postcards were short and from one of Hef’s favorite […]
By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Atheists Confronted | Edit | Comments (0)
I started this series on my letters and postcards to Hugh Hefner back in September when I read of the passing of Mr. Hefner. There are many more to come. It is my view that he may have taken time to look at glance at one or two of them since these postcards were short and from one of Hef’s […]
By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Francis Schaeffer | Edit | Comments (0)
_ I started this series on my letters and postcards to Hugh Hefner back in September when I read of the passing of Mr. Hefner. There are many more to come. It is my view that he may have taken time to look at glance at one or two of them since these postcards were short and from one of […]
By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Atheists Confronted | Edit | Comments (0)
_____ I started this series on my letters and postcards to Hugh Hefner back in September when I read of the passing of Mr. Hefner. There are many more to come. It is my view that he may have taken time to look at glance at one or two of them since these postcards were short and from one of Hef’s […]
By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Atheists Confronted | Edit | Comments (0)
_____ I started this series on my letters and postcards to Hugh Hefner back in September when I read of the passing of Mr. Hefner. There are many more to come. It is my view that he may have taken time to look at glance at one or two of them since these postcards were […]
By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Atheists Confronted | Edit | Comments (0)
_____ I started this series on my letters and postcards to Hugh Hefner back in September when I read of the passing of Mr. Hefner. There are many more to come. It is my view that he may have taken time to look at glance at one or two of them since these postcards were […]
By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Adrian Rogers, Atheists Confronted | Edit | Comments (0)
|I saw this on the internet on June 20, 2017 _ Playboy’s Hugh Hefner on board a boat with Barbi Benton and friends sporting a striped navy shirt and a pipe in mouth and a real catch in hand during the 70s. ____________________________________ Below is the last letter I ever wrote to Hugh Hefner. […]
By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Adrian Rogers, Atheists Confronted, Francis Schaeffer | Edit |Comments (0)
I learned yesterday that Hugh Hefner had passed away. Just last year I visited Chicago and drove by his Chicago Playboy Mansion pictured below. ___ Playboy after dark filmed in Chicago Playboy Mansion During the 1990′s I actually made it a practice to write famous atheists and scientists that were mentioned by Adrian […]
By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Atheists Confronted, Francis Schaeffer, Milton Friedman | Edit| Comments (0)
STARMUS panel announces ground-breaking Stephen Hawking Medals for Science Communication at the The Royal Society Featuring: Professor Sir Harry Kroto, Alexei Leonov, Dr Richard Dawkins, Dr Brian May, Professor Stephen Hawking, Professor Garik Israelian
and you will hear what far smarter people than I have to say on this matter. I agree with them.
Harry Kroto
Nick Gathergood, David-Birkett, Harry-Kroto
I have attempted to respond to all of Dr. Kroto’s friends arguments and I have posted my responses one per week for over a year now. Here are some of my earlier posts:
In the first video below in the 15th clip in this series are his words and my response is below them.
50 Renowned Academics Speaking About God (Part 1)
Another 50 Renowned Academics Speaking About God (Part 2)
A Further 50 Renowned Academics Speaking About God (Part 3)
_________________________________
In the popular You Tube video “Renowned Academics Speaking About God” you made the following statement:
“M-Theory doesn’t disprove God, but it does make him unnecessary. It predicts that the universe will be spontaneously created out of nothing without the need for a creator.” –Stephen Hawking, Cambridge theoretical physicist
Sean Michael preaching on April 9, 2017 Palm Sunday at Calvary Chapel in Bauxite, Arkansas and he preached on II Corinthians chapters 4 and 5:
17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation.[f]The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. 18 All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; 19 that is, in
Picture of Sean preaching here
Christ God was reconciling[g] the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. 20 Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. 21 For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
The sermon WHO IS JESUS? was preached by Adrian Rogers (pictured below) and my good friend Larry Speaks (pictured above) gave out hundreds of CD copies of it before he died on April 7, 2017 at the age of 69.
Dr. Stephen Hawking, c/o Centre for Theoretical Cosmology Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics Centre for Mathematical Sciences Wilberforce Road, Cambridge CB3 0WA, UK
Dear Dr. Hawking,
My admiration for you as an intellectual is very high indeed, and that is why I read your book THE GRAND DESIGN. I especially enjoyed the movie THE THEORY OF EVERYTHING. However, today I want to ask you to match your wit with King Solomon’s words from 3000 years ago.
In my last letter I told you that the loss of my good friend Larry Speaks has got me thinking a lot about the meaning of life. In this letter today I want to do 3 things.
First, I will tell you what the sermon and music was about today on Palm Sunday at the church service I attended.
Second, I want to take a short look at the message WHO IS JESUS? by Adrian Rogers and Rogers interaction with a scientist from NASA. This sermon was Larry’s favorite sermon.
Third, I want to start looking at the 6 L words that Solomonpursued UNDER THE SUN to try to get meaning and satisfaction in this life without God in the picture in the Book of Ecclesiastes. Today’s word is LEARNING. Can one find a lasting meaning to life in the area of education? Solomon had a lot to say about that in the Book of Ecclesiastes.
Today I was invited by our family friend Sean Michelto come hear him preach at Calvary Chapel today in Bauxite, Arkansas. Not only did Sean Michel preach but he also helped provide some of the music. In fact, one of the songs they played was my favorite and it is called “This is Amazing Grace,” by Phil Wickham and you can check it out on You Tube. In Sean’s sermon we discover that it is NOT an uneducated head that is the problem to finding God but an UNWILLING STUBBORN HEART.II Corinthians 4:3-4 (Amplified Bible)
3 But even if our gospel is [in some sense] hidden [behind a veil], it is hidden [only] to those who are perishing; 4 among them the god of this world [Satan] has blinded the minds of the unbelieving to prevent them from seeing the illuminating light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.
This verse is clarified even more by Matthew 11:25 (AMP)
25 At that time Jesus said, “I praise You, Father, Lord of heaven and earth [I openly and joyfully acknowledge Your great wisdom], that You have hidden these things [these spiritual truths] from the wise and intelligent and revealed them to infants [to new believers, to those seeking God’s will and purpose].
Here we must observe that many people don’t want to find the truth just like a thief doesn’t want to find a policeman. I now want to share a portion of the sermon WHO IS JESUS? by Adrian Rogers because this very point is made:
Years ago Adrian Rogerscounseled with a NASA scientist and his severely depressed wife. The wife pointed to her husband and said, “My problem is him.” She went on to explain that her husband was a drinker, a liar, and an adulterer.
Dr. Rogers asked the man if he were a Christian. “No!” the man laughed. “I’m an atheist.” “Really?” Dr. Rogers replied. “That means you’re someone who knows that God does not exist.” “That’s right,” said the man. “Would it be fair to say that you don’t know all there is to know in the universe?” “Of course,” the man admitted. Dr.Rogers asked,“Would it be generous to say you know half of all there is to know?” “Yes!” Then Dr. Rogers inquired,“Wouldn’t it be possible that God’s existence might be in the half you don’t know?” The man acknowledged, “Okay, but I don’t think He exists.” Dr. Rogers replied, “Well then, you’re not an atheist; you’re an agnostic.You’re a doubter.” The man asserted,“Yes, and I’m a big one.” Then Dr. Rogers popped the question, “It doesn’t matter what size you are. I want to know what kind [of doubter] you are.”
“What kinds are there?”
“There are honest doubters and dishonest doubters. An honest doubter is willing to search out the truth and live by the results; a dishonest doubter doesn’t want to know the truth. He can’t find God for the same reason a thief can’t find a policeman.”
“I want to know the truth.”
“Would you like to prove that God exists?”
“It can’t be done.”
“It can be done. You’ve just been in the wrong laboratory. Jesus said, ‘If any man’s will is to do His will, he will know whether my teaching is from God or whether I am speaking on my own authority’ (John 7:17). I suggest you read one chapter of the book of John each day, but before you do, pray something like this, ‘God, I don’t know if You’re there, I don’t know if the Bible is true, I don’t know if Jesus is Your Son. But if You show me that You are there, that the Bible is true, and that Jesus is Your Son, then I will follow You. My will is to do your will.”
The man agreed. About three weeks later he returned to Dr. Rogers’s office and invited Jesus Christ to be his Savior and Lord.
_________
WHAT DOES SOLOMON HAVE TO SAY ABOUT PURSUING LEARNING in the Book of Ecclesiastes?
Francis Schaeffer noted that Solomon took a look at the meaning of life on the basis of human life standing alone between birth and death “under the sun.” This phrase UNDER THE SUN appears over and over in Ecclesiastes. The Christian Scholar Ravi Zacharias noted, “The key to understanding the Book of Ecclesiastes is the term UNDER THE SUN — What that literally means is you lock God out of a closed system and you are left with only this world of Time plus Chance plus matter.”
As you know Solomon was searching for for meaning in life in what I call the 6 big L words in the Book of Ecclesiastes. He looked into LEARNING (1:12-18, 2:12-17), laughter, ladies, luxuries, and liquor (2:1-2, 8, 10, 11), and labor (2:4-6, 18-20).
Here is his final conclusion concerning LEARNING:
ECCLESIASTES 1:12-18, 2:12-17 LEARNING
12 I the Preacher have been king over Israel in Jerusalem. 13And I applied my heart to seek and to search out by wisdom all that is done under heaven. It is an unhappy business that God has given to the children of man to be busy with. 14 I have seen everything that is done UNDER THE SUN, and behold, all is vanity and a striving after wind.
15 What is crooked cannot be made straight, and what is lacking cannot be counted.
16 I said in my heart, “I have acquired great wisdom, surpassing all who were over Jerusalem before me, and my heart has had great experience of wisdom and knowledge.”17 And I applied my heart to know wisdom and to know madness and folly. I perceived that this also is but a striving after wind.
18For in much wisdom is much vexation, and he who increases knowledge increases sorrow.
12So I turned to consider wisdom and madness and folly. For what can the man do who comes after the king? Only what has already been done. 13 Then I saw that there is more gain in wisdom than in folly, as there is more gain in light than in darkness. 14 The wise person has his eyes in his head, but the fool walks in darkness. And yet I perceived that the same event happens to all of them. 15 Then I said in my heart, “What happens to the fool will happen to me also. Why then have I been so very wise?” And I said in my heart that this also is vanity. 16 For of the wise as of the fool there is no enduring remembrance, seeing that in the days to come all will have been long forgotten. How the wise dies just like the fool!17 So I hated life, because what is done UNDER THE SUN was grievous to me, for all is vanity and a striving after wind.
Ecclesiastes was written to those who wanted to examine life UNDER THE SUN without God in the picture and Solomon’s conclusion in the final chapter was found in Ecclesiastes 12 when he looked at life ABOVE THE SUN:
13 The end of the matter; all has been heard. Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man. 14 For God will bring every deed into judgment, with every secret thing, whether good or evil.
In an earlier letter to you I quoted Psalms chapter 22. Why not take a few minutes and just read the short chapter of Psalms 22 that was written hundreds of years before the Romans even invented the practice of Crucifixion. 1000 years BC the Jews had the practice of stoning people but we read in this chapter a graphic description of Christ dying on the cross. How do you explain that without looking ABOVE THE SUN to God.
PS: Like I promised I will continue to write you and go through these 6 L words that Solomon was pursuing UNDER THE SUN in the Book of Ecclesiastes in order to find a lasting meaning to our lives.
The John Lennon and the Beatles really were on a long search for meaning and fulfillment in their lives just like King Solomon did in the Book of Ecclesiastes. Solomon looked into learning (1:12-18, 2:12-17), laughter, ladies, luxuries, and liquor (2:1-2, 8, 10, 11), and labor (2:4-6, 18-20). He fount that without God in the picture all […]
By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Current Events, Francis Schaeffer | Edit | Comments (0)
__________________ Beatles 1966 Last interview I have dedicated several posts to this series on the Beatles and I don’t know when this series will end because Francis Schaeffer spent a lot of time listening to the Beatles and talking and writing about them and their impact on the culture of the 1960’s. In this […]
By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Francis Schaeffer | Tagged George Harrison, John Lennon, Paul MacCartney, Peter Blake, Ringo Starr | Edit | Comments (1)
Blondie grew up with punk, which began in the mid‐70’s as a loose movement of bands wanting to recycle the raw, high‐powered energy of 50’s and early 60’s rock‐and‐roll. They were reacting against the overproduced, too‐slick sound of most pop music — the mindless, repetitive rhythms of disco and the bland creaminess of studio‐created pop, both of which monopolized the airwaves.
Bands like the Ramones toured England, where their punk attitude — they behaved onstage like truculent street toughs — was adopted by English pub bands as a vehicle for the political outrage expressed by the theater’s “Angry Young Men” two decades earlier. Punk music was minimalist, some said chaotic; its lyrics emphasized alternating currents of nihilism and sentimentality. When more musicianly and cerebral groups, such as Talking Heads, came onto the scene, English music writers invented the umbrella term “new wave” to encompass all late‐70’s groups, however disparate, which were aiming to restore gut feeling to rock‐and‐roll.
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Lyrics
Color me your color, baby
Color me your car
Color me your color, darling
I know who you are
Come up off your color chart
I know where you’re comin’ from
Call me (call me) on the line
Call me, call me any, anytime
Call me (call me) my love
You can call me any day or night
Call me
Cover me with kisses, baby
Cover me with love
Roll me in designer sheets
I’ll never get enough
Emotions come, I don’t know why
Cover up love’s alibi
Call me (call me) on the line
Call me, call me any, anytime
Call me (call me) oh love
When you’re ready we can share the wine
Call me
Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, he speaks the languages of love
Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, amore, chiamami, chiamami
Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, appelle-moi mon cherie, appelle-moi
Anytime, anyplace, anywhere, any way
Anytime, anyplace, anywhere, any day-ay
Call me (call me) my love
Call me, call me any, anytime
Call me (call me) for a ride
Call me, call me for some overtime
Call me (call me) my love
Call me, call me in a sweet design
Call me (call me), call me for your lover’s lover’s alibi
Call me (call me) on the line
Call me, call me any, anytime
Call me (call me)
Oh, call me, oh, oh, ah
Call me (call me) my love
Call me, call me any, anytime
“Call Me” is a song by the American new wave band Blondie and the theme to the 1980 film American Gigolo. Released in the US in early 1980 as a single, “Call Me” was No. 1 for six consecutive weeks on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, where it became the band’s biggest single and second No. 1.[1] It also hit No. 1 in the UK and Canada, where it became their fourth and second chart-topper, respectively. In the year-end chart of 1980, it was Billboard‘s No. 1 single and RPM magazine’s No. 3 in Canada.[4][5]
“Call Me” was the main theme song of the 1980 film American Gigolo. It is played in the key of D minor. Italian disco producer Giorgio Moroder originally asked Stevie Nicks from Fleetwood Mac to help compose and perform a song for the soundtrack, but she declined as a recently signed contract with Modern Records prevented her from working with Moroder. It was at this time that Moroder turned to Debbie Harry and Blondie. Moroder presented Harry with a rough instrumental track called “Man Machine”. Harry was asked to write the lyrics and melody, a process that Harry states took a mere few hours.[6] The lyrics were written from the perspective of the main character in the film, a male prostitute.[7] Harry said the lyrics were inspired by her visual impressions from watching the film and that “When I was writing it, I pictured the opening scene, driving on the coast of California.”[8] The completed song was then recorded by the band, with Moroder producing. The bridge of the original English-language version also includes Harry singing “Call me, my darling” in Italian (“Amore, chiamami”) (Love, call me) and in French (“Appelle-moi, mon chéri”) (Call me, my darling).
In the US, the song was released by three record companies: the longest version (at 8:06) on the soundtrack album by Polydor, the 7″ and 12″ on Blondie’s label Chrysalis, and a Spanish-language 12″ version, with lyrics by Buddy and Mary McCluskey, on the disco label Salsoul Records. The Spanish version, titled “Llámame”, was meant for release in Mexico and some South American countries. This version was also released in the US and the UK and had its CD debut on Chrysalis/EMI‘s rarities compilation Blonde and Beyond (1993). In 1988, a remixed version by Ben Liebrand taken from the Blondie remix album Once More into the Bleachwas issued as a single in the UK. In 2001, the “original long version” appeared as a bonus track on the Autoamerican album re-issue.
Harry recorded an abbreviated version of the song that was backed by the Muppet Band for her guest appearance on The Muppet Show in August 1980. It was first broadcast in January 1981.
The single was released in the United States in February 1980. It peaked at No. 1 and remained there for six consecutive weeks until it was knocked off by Lipps, Inc.‘s worldwide smash hit “Funkytown” and was certified Gold (for one million copies sold) by the RIAA. It also spent four weeks at No. 2 on the US dance chart. The single was also No. 1 on Billboard magazine’s 1980 year-end chart. The song lists at No. 57 on Billboard’s All Time Top 100.[9] It was released in the UK two months later, where it became Blondie’s fourth UK No. 1 single in little over a year. The song was also played on a British Telecom advert in the 1980s. 25 years after its original release, “Call Me” was ranked at No. 283 on the list of Rolling Stone’s 500 Greatest Songs of All Time. In 1981, the Village Voice ranked “Call Me” as the third-best song of the year 1980 on its annual year-end critics’ poll, Pazz & Jop.[10]
In 1981, the song was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Rock Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal, as well as for a Golden Globe for Best Original Song.
Blondie has now been a band for over 40 years. The punk-inspired New Wave group came together in New York City in 1974, founded by singer Debbie Harry and guitarist Chris Stein, and has since become known around the world for their music and, importantly, their style. The band will embark on a lengthy North American tour this spring, which kicks off June 27 in Manhattan’s Madison Square Garden. Stein also recently unveiled an exhibition of his photographs at Paul Smith in Los Angeles in celebration of the band’s 40th anniversary (the exhibition runs until May 24). Harry and Stein, who are just as cool as ever, recounted some of Blondie’s most memorable moments for Esquire during an interview at the Hollywood Roosevelt hotel in LA, reminding us just how impressive the band’s career has been.
1. Blondie’s First Ever Show
CHRIS STEIN: “Somehow I have a photograph of the first show. It was at one of those places on Third Avenue. It was right near where they shot Taxi Driver. My memory is enhanced by the photograph. For some weird reason I would give my camera to people in the audience so I have one frame of us playing, which was that first show with Gary and Clem.”
DEBBIE HARRY: “Back then I was always nervous. We were winging it a lot. We didn’t know what was going to happen, whether it was crap. It was all new and it was pretty exciting so we would just go for it.”
CS: “It took me 40 years to get rid of the nerves.”
2. First Radio Hit
CS: “I first heard one of our songs on the radio on 17th Street. It was one of our first singles.”
DH: “One time that really stuck out in my mind was when somebody went by in a car and ‘Rip Her to Shreds’ was on. I didn’t know exactly what it was at first but I really liked it. And then I realized it was ‘Rip Her to Shreds.’ I thought, ‘Well, gee, that sounds really good.'”
Related Story
Blondie Photos: The New Wave Years
Chris Stein/Negative, Rizzoli New York
3. How Their Best Songs Came About
CS: “When I first started ‘Maria’ I knew that was going to be successful, even though we had been on this long hiatus. I really thought ‘Tide Is High’ was going to be a hit. We had already had hits and been in that position, but I knew with that one before we even recorded it that it had the potential. I like to think I’m inspired all the time.”
DH: “I can tell over time in a period of years that there have been moments where something will be so synchronistic. You’re working with other people and all of a sudden it all just comes together. That’s a very exciting moment. There have been several. One was ‘Heart of Glass.’ It was a moment like that initially. Also ‘X Offender’ happened like that. It’s kind of amazing and everybody knows it when it’s happening. ‘Heart of Glass’ came from Chris noodling with the guitar. We’d be sitting around and he’d be noodling with the guitar. I remember him repeating that phrase.”
CS: “There’s one bit that’s on the demo version that didn’t make it into the final version. We did a lot of [the song] in an apartment on First Avenue with a little multitrack tape recorder.”
4. Their Beatlemania Moment
CS: “It was all very fast. It was quick and a lot of things happened so there wasn’t one moment [where we felt successful]. When ‘Heart of Glass’ was No. 1 in the U.S. that was a big deal. Then we did this in-store appearance in London and all these kids showed up and traffic was stopped. It was incredible. It was a total Beatlemania thing.”
DH: “One of the early times that happened was a CBGB show. We were just about to go out on the road and they oversold the club. It was so crowded. You couldn’t walk from one end to the other. If you got in there, you stood there. Somebody called the fire department and they came. We were playing and all of sudden we saw these helmets trying to wade through this crowd. It was pretty funny.”
CS: “I always thought it was Rod Swenson [who called the fire department] because he was filming and it just made for good footage. I’ve always suspected that.”
Debbie Harry with David Bowie.
Chris Stein/Negative, Rizzoli New York
“Bowie was very charmed by the New Wave stuff.”
5. Hanging Out with David Bowie and Iggy Pop
CS: “It happens all the time that you meet your idols. It still goes on. I just met RuPaul and that was totally exciting. But when we did the Idiot Tour [in 1977] with Iggy [Pop] and David Bowie that was a real big deal for us. We had been playing around and we heard that they wanted us to open for them on the tour. It was really exciting. I remember we did a show in the city at Max’s and we got into this really shitty RV and drove to Canada. I think it was Montreal. Everybody was very tired and we staggered out into the hall and the two of them were just waiting for us in the hallway. It was mind-boggling.”
DH: “[Bowie] was in his more natural sort of period. He had his natural hair color. He was very low-key.”
CS: “He was very charmed by the New Wave stuff. I remember he talked about Tom Verlaine’s hairdo a lot.”
DH: “They were really interested in having a dynamic show. [Bowie] gave me advice on working the stage. I moved around but it was about delivery as an actor. Inevitably you have to take the advice. If he’d said ‘Get out of town’ I probably would have done that too.”
6. Traveling Around the Globe
DH: “Initially Bangkok was the coolest place we went. It was very primitive. Where we were staying there were open sewers and lepers on the street begging and stuff like that. The curfew from the Vietnam War was still in place. The atmosphere was much, much different then.”
CS: “We played there on New Year’s Eve in 1977, into 1978, and they lifted the curfew and everyone went crazy. That was exciting. We played in the Ambassador Hotel.”
DH: “That was also a very interesting experience because they had a magnificent PA and soundboard but they had never set it up before. They had hundreds of guys and they didn’t have any of the cables marked for their compatible ports where they were supposed to go. So every time they would run a cable they would have to go through every test to see where it went. It took them like three days to set up the PA. It sounded okay.”
CS: “It sounded fine. They had a gigantic flower arrangement that said ‘Blondie’ in the font from the first record, too. We did several more shows there later.”
7. Near-Death Experiences
CS: “There was this great moment where we were in the U.K. city of Dunstable and a huge bunch of skinheads jumped up onstage. They were doing this Dawn of the Dead dance. I remember physically dragging [Debbie] offstage while they were there. I don’t know how scary it was, but it was incredible and did stop the show.”
DH: “One time that was scary was in Belgium and they had this old system of electricity. It didn’t really have a ground so we couldn’t touch anything. You couldn’t touch the microphone stand. Everything was live. It was very funny because there’s only two places in the world where this kind of system existed and one was in Belgium and one was in Thailand. We had been through both. You don’t touch anything.”
CS: “There were a couple people who had been electrocuted. Most famously the guy from a band called Stone the Crows, who had been electrocuted dead onstage.”
“When all the guys are beating the shit out of each other, we play better.”
8. Best Performances
DH: “I liked that one we did recently where we got the iPhones.”
CS: “iTunes Festival. That was a good one. I liked Riot Fest in Chicago. Wherever there’s a mosh pit. We don’t usually get mosh pits, but occasionally, when we do, it’s inspiring. When all the guys are beating the shit out of each other, we play better. When we first started there was no rock dance in New York at all. It just didn’t exist.”
DH: “That was one of our goals: to bring dancing back into music.”
CS: “Going to the U.K. and doing our very first show there, which was a warmup show in Bristol. Everybody was going crazy physically. That was a great moment. There’s a tribal element in concerts, even now, even if you go to see Skrillex. There’s a tribal element going on there.”
Chris Stein/Negative, Rizzoli New York
9. How They Invented a Look
CS: “The boys always embraced the British mod sensibility. We liked that, even more than the punk, ripped-up aesthetic. We never went much into the torn shirts and stuff. I don’t know how calculated it was—it was just what we liked doing. We certainly never had a stylist.”
DH: “It was what was available to us. If everybody could agree on it and we felt like it was cool and it was affordable and we could lay our hands on it, that was pretty much what we did. It was a real amalgamation of some leather jackets, tee-shirts, and the peg-leg pants. Somebody showed up with this bright blue suit once and said, ‘Oh yeah, they’re up there on 14th Street for $5. You’ve got to go up there. They have all different colors.’ That kind of thing would happen.”
CS: “When we first came to Melrose [in Los Angeles] there were about three stores.”
DH: “There was a junk store way down on Sunset that was good. I found my motorcycle jacket out here on Melrose. Up until then all the motorcycle jackets were so big and so heavy so it was a child’s motorcycle jacket.”
CS: “It was a couple hundred bucks! It was expensive. I remember debating with you because it was so expensive. There were no designer motorcycle jackets at the time.”
“We were part of the great tradition of rock and roll.”
10. Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Induction
DH: “I couldn’t believe that it was true. I had always been scoffing the whole thing. I thought ‘Who cares about that?’ But I think it made a lot of difference for us becoming credible in a lot of people’s minds. We were credible to a small degree, but I think it launched us into being considered a real part of the shift in music. When music took a directional change and that put us there and we became identified with that and more legitimate. For a long time that music was considered a joke and not to be taken seriously, but in a way we were part of the great tradition of rock and roll in that the best aspects of it have always been counterculture.”
EMILY ZEMLEREmily Zemler is a freelance writer based in London.
Francis Schaeffer noted:
I have lots of young people and older ones come to us from the ends of the earth. And as they come to us, they have gone to the end of this logically and they are not living in a romantic setting. They realize what the situation is. They can’t find any meaning to life. It’s the meaning to the black poetry. It’s the meaning of the black plays. It’s the meaning of all this. It’s the meaning of the words “punk rock.”
–
“They are the natural outcome of a change from a Christian World View to a Humanistic one…
The result is a relativistic value system. A lack of a final meaning to life — that’s first. Why does human life have any value at all, if that is all that reality is? Not only are you going to die individually, but the whole human race is going to die, someday. It may not take the falling of the atom bombs, but someday the world will grow too hot, too cold. That’s what we are told on this other final reality, and someday all you people not only will be individually dead, but the whole conscious life on this world will be dead, and nobody will see the birds fly. And there’s no meaning to life.
As you know, I don’t speak academically, shut off in some scholastic cubicle, as it were. I have lots of young people and older ones come to us from the ends of the earth. And as they come to us, they have gone to the end of this logically and they are not living in a romantic setting. They realize what the situation is. They can’t find any meaning to life. It’s the meaning to the black poetry. It’s the meaning of the black plays. It’s the meaning of all this. It’s the meaning of the words “punk rock.” And I must say, that on the basis of what they are being taught in school, that the final reality is only this material thing, they are not wrong. They’re right! On this other basis there is no meaning to life and not only is there no meaning to life, but there is no value system that is fixed, and we find that the law is based then only on a relativistic basis and that law becomes purely arbitrary.
—
OUTLINE OF ECCLESIATES BY SCHAEFFER
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William Lane Craig on Man’s predicament if God doesn’t exist
Read Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett. During this entire play two men carry on trivial conversation while waiting for a third man to arrive, who never does. Our lives are like that, Beckett is saying; we just kill time waiting—for what, we don’t know.
Thus, if there is no God, then life itself becomes meaningless. Man and the universe are without ultimate significance.
Francis Schaeffer looks at Nihilism of Solomon and the causes of it!!!
Notes on Ecclesiastes by Francis Schaeffer
Solomon is the author of Ecclesiastes and he is truly an universal man like Leonardo da Vinci.
Two men of the Renaissance stand above all others –Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci and it is in them that one can perhaps grasp a view of the ultimate conclusion of humanism for man. Michelangelo was unequaled as a sculptor in the Renaissance and arguably no one has ever matched his talents.
The other giant of the Renaissance period was Leonardo da Vinci – the perfect Renaissance Man, the man who could do almost anything and does it better than most anyone else. As an inventor, an engineer, an anatomist, an architect, an artist, a chemist, a mathematician, he was almost without equal. It was perhaps his mathematics that lead da Vinci to come to his understanding of the ultimate meaning of Humanism. Leonardo is generally accepted as the first modern mathematician. He not only knew mathematics abstractly but applied it in his Notebooks to all manner of engineering problems. He was one of the unique geniuses of history, and in his brilliance he perceived that beginning humanistically with mathematics one only had particulars. He understood that man beginning from himself would never be able to come to meaning on the basis of mathematics. And he knew that having only individual things, particulars, one never could come to universals or meaning and thus one only ends with mechanics. In this he saw ahead to where our generation has come: everything, including man, is the machine.
Leonardo da Vinci compares well to Solomon and they both were universal men searching for the meaning in life. Solomon was searching for a meaning in the midst of the details of life.His struggle was to find the meaning of life. Not just plans in life.Anybody can find plans in life. A child can fill up his time with plans of building tomorrow’s sand castle when today’s has been washed away. There is a difference between finding plans in life and purpose in life. Humanism since the Renaissance and onward has never found it and it has never found it since. Modern man has not found it and it has always got worse and darker in a very real way.
We have here the declaration of Solomon’s universality:
1 Kings 4:30-34
English Standard Version (ESV)
30 so that Solomon’s wisdom surpassed the wisdom of all the people of the east and all the wisdom of Egypt.31 For he was wiser than all other men, wiser than Ethan the Ezrahite, and Heman, Calcol, and Darda, the sons of Mahol, and his fame was in all the surrounding nations.32 He also spoke 3,000 proverbs, and his songs were 1,005.33 He spoke of trees, from the cedar that is in Lebanon to the hyssop that grows out of the wall. He spoke also of beasts, and of birds, and of reptiles, and of fish.34 And people of all nations came to hear the wisdom of Solomon, and from all the kings of the earth, who had heard of his wisdom.
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Here is the universal man and his genius. Solomon is the universal man with a empire at his disposal. Solomon had it all.
Ecclesiastes 1:3
English Standard Version (ESV)
3 What does man gain by all the toil at which he toils under the sun?
Schaeffer noted that Solomon took a look at the meaning of life on the basis of human life standing alone between birth and death “under the sun.” This phrase UNDER THE SUN appears over and over in Ecclesiastes.
(Added by me:The Christian Scholar Ravi Zacharias noted, “The key to understanding the Book of Ecclesiastes is the term UNDER THE SUN — What that literally means is you lock God out of a closed system and you are left with only this world of Time plus Chance plus matter.” )
Man is caught in the cycle
Ecclesiastes 1:1-7
English Standard Version (ESV)
All Is Vanity
1 The words of the Preacher, the son of David, king in Jerusalem.
2 Vanity of vanities, says the Preacher, vanity of vanities! All is vanity. 3 What does man gain by all the toil at which he toils under the sun? 4 A generation goes, and a generation comes, but the earth remains forever. 5 The sun rises, and the sun goes down, and hastens to the place where it rises. 6 The wind blows to the south and goes around to the north; around and around goes the wind, and on its circuits the wind returns. 7 All streams run to the sea, but the sea is not full; to the place where the streams flow, there they flow again.
8 All things are full of weariness; a man cannot utter it; the eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear filled with hearing. 9 What has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done, and there is nothing new under the sun. 10 Is there a thing of which it is said, “See, this is new”? It has been already in the ages before us.
_____________
Solomon is showing a high degree of comprehension of evaporation and the results of it. Seeing also in reality nothing changes. There is change but always in a set framework and that is cycle. You can relate this to the concepts of modern man. Ecclesiastes is the only pessimistic book in the Bible and that is because of the place where Solomon limits himself. He limits himself to the question of human life, life under the sun between birth and death and the answers this would give.
Ecclesiastes 1:4
English Standard Version (ESV)
4 A generation goes, and a generation comes, but the earth remains forever.
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Ecclesiastes 4:16
English Standard Version (ESV)
16 There was no end of all the people, all of whom he led. Yet those who come later will not rejoice in him. Surely this also is vanity and a striving after wind.
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In verses 1:4 and 4:16 Solomon places man in the cycle. He doesn’t place man outside of the cycle. Man doesn’t escape the cycle. Man is only cycle. Birth and death and youth and old age. With this in mind Solomon makes this statement.
Ecclesiastes 6:12
12 For who knows what is good for a man during his lifetime, during the few years of his futile life? He will spend them like a shadow. For who can tell a man what will be after him under the sun?
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There is no doubt in my mind that Solomon had the same experience in his life that I had as a younger man. I remember standing by the sea and the moon arose and it was copper and beauty. Then the moon did not look like a flat dish but a globe or a sphere since it was close to the horizon. One could feel the global shape of the earth too. Then it occurred to me that I could contemplate the interplay of the spheres and I was exalted because I thought I can look upon them with all their power, might, and size, but they could contempt nothing and I felt as man as God. Then came upon me a horror of great darkness because it suddenly occurred to me that although I could contemplate them and they could contemplate nothing yet they would continue to turn in ongoing cycles when I saw no more forever and I was crushed.
THIS IS SOLOMON’S FEELING TOO. The universal man, Solomon, beyond our intelligence with an empire at his disposal with the opportunity of observation so he could recite these words here in Ecclesiastes 6:12, “For who knows what is good for a man during his lifetime, during the few years of his futile life? He will spend them like a shadow. For who can tell a man what will be after him under the sun?”
Lack of Satisfaction in life
In Ecclesiastes 1:8 he drives this home when he states, “All things are wearisome; Man is not able to tell it. The eye is not satisfied with seeing, Nor is the ear filled with hearing.” Solomon is stating here the fact that there is no final satisfaction because you don’t get to the end of the thing. THERE IS NO FINAL SATISFACTION. This is related to Leonardo da Vinci’s similar search for universals and then meaning in life.
In Ecclesiastes 5:11 Solomon again pursues this theme, “When good things increase, those who consume them increase. So what is the advantage to their owners except to look on?” Doesn’t that sound modern? It is as modern as this evening. Solomon here is stating the fact there is no reaching completion in anything and this is the reason there is no final satisfaction. There is simply no place to stop. It is impossible when laying up wealth for oneself when to stop. It is impossible to have the satisfaction of completion.
Pursuing Learning
Now let us look down the details of his searching.
In Ecclesiastes 1: 13a we have the details of the universal man’s procedure. “And I set my mind to seek and explore by wisdom concerning all that has been done under heaven.”
So like any sensible man the instrument that is used is INTELLECT, and RAITIONALITY, and LOGIC. It is to be noted that even men who despise these in their theories begin and use them or they could not speak. There is no other way to begin except in the way they which man is and that is rational and intellectual with movements of that is logical within him. As a Christian I must say gently in passing that is the way God made him.
So we find first of all Solomon turned to WISDOM and logic. Wisdom is not to be confused with knowledge. A man may have great knowledge and no wisdom. Wisdom is the use of rationality and logic. A man can be very wise and have limited knowledge. Here he turns to wisdom in all that implies and the total rationality of man.
Works of Men done Under the Sun
After wisdom Solomon comes to the great WORKS of men. Ecclesiastes 1:14, “I have seen all the works which have been done under the sun, and behold, all is [p]vanity and striving after wind.” Solomon is the man with an empire at this disposal that speaks. This is the man who has the copper refineries in Ezion-geber. This is the man who made the stables across his empire. This is the man who built the temple in Jerusalem. This is the man who stands on the world trade routes. He is not a provincial. He knew what was happening on the Phonetician coast and he knew what was happening in Egypt. There is no doubt he already knew something of building. This is Solomon and he pursues the greatness of his own construction and his conclusion is VANITY AND VEXATION OF SPIRIT.
Ecclesiastes 2:18-20
18 Thus I hated all the fruit of my labor for which I had labored under the sun, for I must leave it to the man who will come after me.19 And who knows whether he will be a wise man or a fool? Yet he will have control over all the fruit of my labor for which I have labored by acting wisely under the sun. This too is vanity.20 Therefore I completely despaired of all the fruit of my labor for which I had labored under the sun.
He looked at the works of his hands, great and multiplied by his wealth and his position and he shrugged his shoulders.
Ecclesiastes 2:22-23
22 For what does a man get in all his labor and in his striving with which he labors under the sun?23 Because all his days his task is painful and grievous; even at night his mind does not rest. This too is vanity.
Man can not rest and yet he is never done and yet the things which he builds will out live him. If one wants an ironical three phrases these are they. There is a Dutch saying, “The tailor makes many suits but one day he will make a suit that will outlast the tailor.”
God has put eternity in our hearts but we can not know the beginning or the end of the thing from a vantage point of UNDER THE SUN
Ecclesiastes 1:16-18
16 I said to myself, “Behold, I have magnified and increased wisdom more than all who were over Jerusalem before me; and my mind has observed a wealth of wisdom and knowledge.”17 And I set my mind to know wisdom and to know madness and folly; I realized that this also is striving after wind.18 Because in much wisdom there is much grief, and increasing knowledge results in increasing pain.
Solomon points out that you can not know the beginnings or what follows:
Ecclesiastes 3:11
11 He has made everything appropriate in its time. He has also set eternity in their heart, yet so that man will not find out the work which God has done from the beginning even to the end.
Ecclesiastes 1:11
11 There is no remembrance of earlier things; And also of the later things which will occur, There will be for them no remembrance among those who will come later still.
Ecclesiastes 2:16
16 For there is no lasting remembrance of the wise man as with the fool, inasmuch as in the coming days all will be forgotten. And how the wise man and the fool alike die!
You bring together here the factor of the beginning and you can’t know what immediately follows after your death and of course you can’t know the final ends. What do you do and the answer is to get drunk and this was not thought of in the RUBAIYAT OF OMAR KAHAYYAM:
Ecclesiastes 2:1-3
I said to myself, “Come now, I will test you with pleasure. So enjoy yourself.” And behold, it too was futility.2 I said of laughter, “It is madness,” and of pleasure, “What does it accomplish?”3 I explored with my mind how to stimulate my body with wine while my mind was guiding me wisely, and how to take hold of folly, until I could see what good there is for the sons of men to do under heaven the few years of their lives.
You know, my Friends, with what a brave Carouse
I made a Second Marriage in my house;
Divorced old barren Reason from my Bed,
And took the Daughter of the Vine to Spouse.
from the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam (Translation by Edward Fitzgerald)
A perfectly good philosophy coming out of Islam, but Solomon is not the first man that thought of it nor the last. In light of what has been presented by Solomon is the solution just to get intoxicated and black the think out? So many people have taken to alcohol and the dope which so often follows in our day. This approach is incomplete, temporary and immature. Papa Hemingway can find the champagne of Paris sufficient for a time, but one he left his youth he never found it sufficient again. He had a lifetime spent looking back to Paris and that champagne and never finding it enough. It is no solution and Solomon says so too.
Ecclesiastes 2:4-11
4 I enlarged my works: I built houses for myself, I planted vineyards for myself;5 I made gardens and parks for myself and I planted in them all kinds of fruit trees;6 I made ponds of water for myself from which to irrigate a forest of growing trees.7 I bought male and female slaves and I had homeborn slaves. Also I possessed flocks and herds larger than all who preceded me in Jerusalem.8 Also, I collected for myself silver and gold and the treasure of kings and provinces. I provided for myself MALE AND FEMALE SINGERS AND THE PLEASURES OF MEN–MANY CONCUBINES.
9 Then I became great and increased more than all who preceded me in Jerusalem. My wisdom also stood by me.10 All that my eyes desired I did not refuse them. I did not withhold my heart from any pleasure, for my heart was pleased because of all my labor and this was my reward for all my labor.11 Thus I considered all my activities which my hands had done and the labor which I had exerted, and behold all was vanity and striving after wind and there was no profit under the sun.
He doesn’t mean there is no temporary profit but there is no real profit. Nothing that lasts. The walls crumble if they are as old as the Pyramids. You only see a shell of the Pyramids and not the glory that they were. This is what Solomon is saying. Look upon Solomon’s wonder and consider the Cedars of Lebanon which were not in his domain but at his disposal.
Ecclesiastes 6:2
2 a man to whom God has given riches and wealth and honor so that his soul lacks nothing of all that he desires; yet God has not empowered him to eat from them, for a foreigner enjoys them. This is vanity and a severe affliction.
Can someone stuff himself with food he can’t digest? Solomon came to this place of strife and confusion when he went on in his search for meaning.
Oppressed have no comforter
Ecclesiastes 4:1
Then I looked again at all the acts of oppression which were being done under the sun. And behold I saw the tears of the oppressed and that they had no one to comfort them; and on the side of their oppressors was power, but they had no one to comfort them.
Between birth and death power rules. Solomon looked over his kingdom and also around the world and proclaimed that right does not rule but power rules.
Ecclesiastes 7:14-15
14 In the day of prosperity be happy, but in the day of adversity consider—God has made the one as well as the other so that man will not discover anything that will be after him.
15 I have seen everything during my lifetime of futility; there is a righteous man who perishes in his righteousness and there is a wicked man who prolongs his life in his wickedness.
Ecclesiastes 8:14
14 There is futility which is done on the earth, that is, there are righteous men to whom it happens according to the deeds of the wicked. On the other hand, there are evil men to whom it happens according to the deeds of the righteous. I say that this too is futility.
We could say it in 20th century language, “The books are not balanced in this life.”
Pursuing Ladies
If one would flee to alcohol, then surely one may choose sexual pursuits to flee to. Solomon looks in this area too.
Ecclesiastes 7:25-28
25 I directed my mind to know, to investigate and to seek wisdom and an explanation, and to know the evil of folly and the foolishness of madness.26 And I discovered more bitter than death the woman whose heart is snares and nets, whose hands are chains. One who is pleasing to God will escape from her, but the sinner will be captured by her.
27 “Behold, I have discovered this,” says the Preacher, “adding one thing to another to find an explanation,28 I have looked for other answers but have found none. I found one man in a thousand that I could respect, but not one woman. (Good News Translation on verse 28)
One can understand both Solomon’s expertness in this field and his bitterness.
I Kings 11:1-3 (New American Standard Bible)
11 Now King Solomon loved many foreign women along with the daughter of Pharaoh: Moabite, Ammonite, Edomite, Sidonian, and Hittite women,2 from the nations concerning which the Lord had said to the sons of Israel, “You shall not associate with them, nor shall they associate with you, for they will surely turn your heart away after their gods.” Solomon held fast to these in love.3 He had seven hundred wives, princesses, and three hundred concubines, and his wives turned his heart away.
An expert but also the reason for his bitterness. Certainly there have been many men over the centuries who have daydreamed of Solomon’s wealth in this area [of women], but at the end it was sorry, not only sorry but nothing and less than nothing. The simple fact is that one can not know woman in the real sense by pursuing 1000 women. It is not possible. Woman is not found this way. All that is left in this setting if one were to pursue the meaning of life in this direction is this most bitter word found in Ecclesiastes 7:28, “I have looked for other answers but have found none. I found one man in a thousand that I could respect, but not one woman.” (Good News Translation on verse 28) He was searching in the wrong way. He was searching for the answer to life in the limited circle of that which is beautiful in itself but not an answer finally in sexual life. More than that he finally tried to find it in variety and he didn’t even touch one woman at the end.
—-
Last letter I wrote to Hugh Hefner seen below:
Larry Joe Speaks (August 20, 1947 to April 7, 2017)
I started these series of letters on the meaning of it all on April 7, 2017 when my good friend Larry Speaks died. Larry’s favorite sermon was WHO IS JESUS? by Adrian Rogers and he gave hundreds of CD copies of that sermon away. I actually ran the copies off for him and since the sermon was only 37 minutes long and the CD went 60 minutes, I also put on there another sermon by Bill Elliff too called WHAT WILL HAPPEN AT THE END OF TIME? Later in this letter I want to share a portion of that message with you. All of these letters I have written you have dealt with what Solomon had to say concerning the search for satisfaction in life UNDER THE SUN (without God in the picture.) Probably his most disappointing discovery was that being a ladies man left him unsatisfied.
Ecclesiastes 2:8-10The Message (MSG)
I piled up silver and gold,
loot from kings and kingdoms.
I gathered a chorus of singers to entertain me with song,
and—most exquisite of all pleasures— voluptuous maidens for my bed.
9-10 Oh, how I prospered! I left all my predecessors in Jerusalem far behind, left them behind in the dust. What’s more, I kept a clear head through it all. Everything I wanted I took—I never said no to myself. I gave in to every impulse, held back nothing. I sucked the marrow of pleasure out of every task—my reward to myself for a hard day’s work!
1 Kings 11:1-3 English Standard Version (ESV)
11 Now King Solomon loved many foreign women, along with the daughter of Pharaoh: Moabite, Ammonite, Edomite, Sidonian, and Hittite women, 2 from the nations concerning which the Lord had said to the people of Israel, “You shall not enter into marriage with them, neither shall they with you, for surely they will turn away your heart after their gods.” Solomon clung to these in love. 3 He had 700 wives, who were princesses, and 300 concubines. And his wives turned away his heart.
Francis Schaeffer observed concerning Solomon, “You can not know woman but knowing 1000 women.”
King Solomon in Ecclesiastes 2:11 sums up his search for meaning in the area of the Sexual Revolution with these words, “…behold, all was vanity and a striving after wind, and there was nothing to be gained under the sun.”
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In fact, the Book of Ecclesiastes shows that Solomon came to the conclusion that NOTHING in life gives true satisfaction without God including knowledge (1:16-18), LADIES and liquor (2:1-3, 8, 10, 11), and great building projects (2:4-6, 18-20). You can only find a lasting meaning to your life by looking above the sun and bring God back into the picture.
Solomon’s experiment was a search for meaning to life “under the sun.” Then in last few words in the Book of Ecclesiastes he looks above the sun and brings God back into the picture: “The conclusion, when all has been heard, is: Fear God and keep His commandments, because this applies to every person. For God will bring every act to judgment, everything which is hidden, whether it is good or evil.”
Keith Hefner and Hugh Hefner
According to the Bible God will bring every act to judgment!!! Below is a portion of Bill Elliff’s message that deals with this:
WHAT WILL HAPPEN AT THE END OF TIME? I want to look at this picture of what will happen to everyone of us at the end of time. Let’s read our scripture passage.
Luke 12:1-10 English Standard Version (ESV)
Beware of the Leaven of the Pharisees
12 In the meantime, when so many thousands of the people had gathered together that they were trampling one another, he began to say to his disciples first, “Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy. 2 Nothing is covered up that will not be revealed, or hidden that will not be known. 3 Therefore whatever you have said in the dark shall be heard in the light, and what you have whispered in private rooms shall be proclaimed on the housetops.
Have No Fear
4 “I tell you, my friends, do not fear those who kill the body, and after that have nothing more that they can do. 5 But I will warn you whom to fear: fear him who, after he has killed, has authority to cast into hell. Yes, I tell you, fear him! 6 Are not five sparrows sold for two pennies?[b]And not one of them is forgotten before God. 7 Why, even the hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not; you are of more value than many sparrows.
Acknowledge Christ Before Men
8 “And I tell you, everyone who acknowledges me before men, the Son of Man also will acknowledge before the angels of God, 9 but the one who denies me before men will be denied before the angels of God. 10 And everyone who speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but the one who blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven.
___________
What will happen at the end of time?
FIRST OF ALL, Jesus says it will be a time of the revelation of the secrets of your life.
A great time of revealing and uncovering, when unknown things to some become known to all. There is coming a day when what you really are will be revealed.
There is something inside us that thinks we can hide things from each other and hide things from God. Have you ever played HIDE AND SEEK with a group of young children? They will hide in plain view but in their mind they are hidden. My smallest children will put their hands over their eyes and they think that since they can’t see me that they are hidden from my sight. But the truth of the matter is that I can see them so clearly and sometimes we think that because we can’t see God that He can’t see us. Last week we read Hebrews 4:13 that says, “And not a creature exists that is concealed from His sight, but all things are open and exposed, and revealed to the eyes of Him with whom we have to give account.” One day the secrets of our heart will be revealed. In the brief days of our life, 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, 70 years that God may give you, or maybe a few years beyond that, we may do a good job of hiding those secrets, but one day the secrets of our lives will be revealed before God.
NEXT after the revelation of the secrets of your life there will be a great revelation of God’s authority.
Do you know what a sovereign is? A sovereign is one who has complete authority. He has the authority and he has the authority to carry it out.
There are 3 kinds of authority. First, voluntary authority such as you choosing to work for an employer. Second,seized authority like a murderer. Third, God is an absolute authority and He is the sovereign and He is over everything. It is right for Him to be over everything because He made everything. He is a God of perfect love, a God of perfect mercy, a God of perfect grace, a God of perfect compassion, but He is a God of perfect righteousness. If He was any less than that then He wouldn’t be God. He is a God of perfect holiness and authority. He has wooed us and called us and given us every opportunity to come, but He is a God who one day who will reveal. He has absolute authority over your life.
Look again at verses 4 and 5:
4 “I tell you, my friends, do not fear those who kill the body, and after that have nothing more that they can do. 5 But I will warn you whom to fear: fear him who, after he has killed, has authority to cast into hell. Yes, I tell you, fear him!
God has the authority to do that. There is coming a day when there will be a great separation and a great dividing. It is all over the scriptures. God has given us the moment of grace to come and trust in Him and give our lives to Him, but one day the door will be closed and then the division will come. He will say to some come into my kingdom that I have prepared for you and he will say to others you are headed to an eternity separated. You have chosen your fate for all eternity. There will permanent separation from God in hell.
FINALLY, it will be a day of the revelation of the substance of your relationship to God.
Look at verses 8 and 9:8 “And I tell you, everyone who acknowledges me before men, the Son of Man also will acknowledge before the angels of God, 9 but the one who denies me before men will be denied before the angels of God.
The Pharisees said they had a relationship with God but they were hypocrites and there was no substance to their relationship. Jesus is saying that when the secrets of your heart are revealed God will determine the substance of your relationship to God and whether it is real or not.
In 1978 I heard the song “Dust in the Wind” by Kansas when it rose to #6 on the charts. That song told me thatKerry Livgren the writer of that song and a member of Kansas had come to the same conclusion that Solomon had. I remember mentioning to my friends at church that we may soon see some members of Kansas become Christians because their search for the meaning of life had obviously come up empty even though they had risen from being an unknown band to the top of the music business and had all the wealth and fame that came with that. Furthermore, like Solomon and Coldplay, they realized death comes to everyone and “there must be something more.”
Livgren wrote:
“All we do, crumbles to the ground though we refuse to see, Dust in the Wind, All we are is dust in the wind, Don’t hang on, Nothing lasts forever but the Earth and Sky, It slips away, And all your money won’t another minute buy.”
Both Kerry Livgren and Dave Hope of Kansas became Christians eventually. Kerry Livgren first tried Eastern Religions and Dave Hope had to come out of a heavy drug addiction. I was shocked and elated to see their personal testimony on The 700 Club in 1981 and that same interview can be seen on youtube today. Livgren lives in Topeka, Kansas today where he teaches “Diggers,” a Sunday school class at Topeka Bible Church. Hope is the head of Worship, Evangelism and Outreach at Immanuel Anglican Church in Destin, Florida.
The movie maker Woody Allen has embraced the nihilistic message of the song “Dust in the Wind” by Kansas. David Segal in his article, “Things are Looking Up for the Director Woody Allen. No?” (Washington Post, July 26, 2006), wrote, “Allen is evangelically passionate about a few subjects. None more so than the chilling emptiness of life…The 70-year-old writer and director has been musing about life, sex, work, death and his generally futile search for hope…the world according to Woody is so bereft of meaning, so godless and absurd, that the only proper response is to curl up on a sofa and howl for your mommy.”
The song “Dust in the Wind” recommends, “Don’t hang on.” Allen himself says, “It’s just an awful thing and in that context you’ve got to find an answer to the question: ‘Why go on?’ ” It is ironic that Chris Martin the leader of Coldplay regards Woody Allen as his favorite director.
Lets sum up the final conclusions of these gentlemen: Coldplay is still searching for that “something more.” Woody Allen has concluded the search is futile. Livgren and Hope of Kansas have become Christians and are involved in fulltime ministry. Solomon’s experiment was a search for meaning to life “under the sun.” Then in last few words in the Book of Ecclesiastes he looks above the sun and brings God back into the picture: “The conclusion, when all has been heard, is: Fear God and keep His commandments, because this applies to every person. For God will bring every act to judgment, everything which is hidden, whether it is good or evil.”
You can hear Kerry Livgren’s story from this youtube link:
(part 1 ten minutes)
(part 2 ten minutes)
Kansas – Dust In The Wind
Ecclesiastes 1
Published on Sep 4, 2012
Calvary Chapel Spring Valley | Sunday Evening | September 2, 2012 | Pastor Derek Neider
Over and over I have read that Hugh Hefner was a modern day King Solomon and Hefner’s search for satisfaction was attempted by adding to the number of his sexual experiences.
Have you made any New Year’s resolutions to lose weight and get into shape? Many Americans have great intentions at the start of a new year. Perhaps you have already purchased a gym membership or a piece of exercise equipment. If so, good for you! It’s important to get in shape and be healthy. I own a recumbent bike…and I love it. I work out on it nearly every day. I cycle miles on this bike and burn calories and increase my heart rate. The cool thing is: I don’t even have to leave my house…and in the rainy Pacific Northwest, this is a blessing. But if I am honest, it is a terribly boring and tedious way to exercise. When I look down at the odometer and it says I’ve cycled five miles, I’ve actually gone nowhere. I work up a sweat and ride until I am weary, yet I know that I am going to have to hop back on the bike all over again tomorrow. It is rather depressing!
Life is like riding on a recumbent bike. It is a boring, tedious, and repetitive ride. A thoughtful person will ask, “What is the purpose in life?” Have you ever asked this question? Most people have. For some of us, this question has plagued us over the course of our lives…even our Christian lives. A few years ago, scientists at John Hopkins University surveyed nearly 8,000 college students at forty-eight universities and asked what they considered “very important” to them. What do you think these college students said? Make a lot of money? Get married? Get a job? Buy a home? I can tell you this: only 16 percent answered “making a lot of money.” But a whopping 75 percent said that their first goal was “finding a purpose and meaning to my life.”3 This is a staggering piece of research, isn’t it?
In this New Year, maybe you are seeking to discover a purpose and meaning to your life. If so, the book of Ecclesiastes will guide you in this endeavor…but not in the way you might think.4Ecclesiastes has been dubbed, “the strangest book in the cannon [Bible].”5 It is an enigma for many Christians, for the bulk of this book is the memoirs of a man that is sharing his observations about what is wrong with life. In Eccl 1:1-11, we learn that life is fleeting and disappointing.
1. Life is fleeting (1:1-7).
In this first section, we will come to grips with the temporary nature of life. Inthe first three verses, the author introduces himself and his theme. Verse 1 begins: “The words6 of the Preacher,7 the son of David, king in Jerusalem.”8Although our author chooses not to identify himself, his titles or pen names give him away as Solomon.9 Solomon’s story is recorded for us in the first eleven chapters of 1 Kings. Although King David had many sons, it was his son Solomon who was chosen to be heir to the throne. God so favored Solomon that He appeared to him in a dream offering Solomon whatever blessing he desired. Solomon astutely asked God for wisdom to lead the nation well. He asked for wisdom instead of riches and fame. God honored Solomon’s request, granting him not just unparalleled wisdom, but wealth and recognition as well.
Solomon wrote three books of the Bible: Proverbs, Song of Solomon, and Ecclesiastes. He is considered the wisest and perhaps richest man that has ever lived. He had a fleet of ships that would bring gold to him every day from far off lands. Tragically, Solomon married a foreign woman, which was forbidden by God because of the temptation to be led astray spiritually. Ironically, it was this unwise decision to gain favor from different nations by taking foreign wives that diverted Solomon’s eyes from the one true God. Scripture records that he had 700 wives and 300 concubines. Truly, this diverted Solomon’s devotion, so that it is often said of him that he had a divided heart.
If we were to depict Solomon as someone more modern, he might be considered a mix between Albert Einstein, Bill Gates, HUGH HEFNER, and Brad Pitt. In Ecclesiastes, what philosophical conclusions does this rich powerful genius come to after living a life with everything at his fingertips? We would expect Solomon’s sermon to be entitled “Seven Habits of Highly Successful Kings.”10 In 1:2, Solomon gives the theme of his book.
“‘Vanity of vanities,’ says the Preacher, ‘Vanity of vanities! All is vanity.’”
[Solomon has argued that life is fleeting. In 1:8-11, he shares a second problem with life.]
2. Life is Disappointing (1:8-11).
In these next four verses, Solomon demonstrates that everything and everyone in life will ultimately disappoint us. There are three basic reasons for this: There is no satisfaction under the sun, there is nothing new under the sun, and no one is remembered under the sun.
No satisfaction under the sun (1:8). Solomon states that nothing is truly fulfilling. He writes, “All things are wearisome; man is not able to tell it. The eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor is the ear filled with hearing.”27The Rolling Stones made famous the song, “I Can’t Get No Satisfaction.” Sadly, this song could have been written by Solomon himself. Just like Mick Jagger and the rest of the Stones, Solomon had it all…and then some, yet everything was wearisome to him since one can never say, see, or hear enough. Man just can’t get NO satisfaction! Have you seen a good movie? Read a good book? Listened to a great song? Enjoyed a restful vacation? Delighted in a special experience? It is never enough. It never satisfies, for ultimately you want MORE.
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Many of the sermons that I heard or read that inspired me to write Hugh Hefner were from this list of gentlemen: Daniel Akin, Brandon Barnard,Matt Chandler, George Critchley, Darryl Dash, Steve DeWitt, Steve Gaines, Norman L. Geisler, Greg Gillbert, Billy Graham, Mark Henry, Dan Jarrell, Walter C. Kaiser, Jr., R. G. Lee, Chris Lewis, Kerry Livgren, Robert Lewis, Bill Parkinson, Ben Parkinson,Vance Pitman, Nelson Price, Adrian Rogers, Philip Graham Ryken, Francis Schaeffer, Lee Strobel, Bill Wellons, Kirk Wetsell, Ken Whitten, Ed Young , Ravi Zacharias, Tom Zobrist, and Richard Zowie.
In the letter I base most of what I had to Mr. Hefner on a sermon I heard from Ken Whitten. I also quoted Francis Schaeffer too.
April 18, 2016
Hugh Hefner Playboy Mansion 10236 Charing Cross Road Los Angeles, CA 90024-1815
Dear Mr. Hefner,
Over and over again I have written you and compared your life to that of King Solomon the writer of the Book of Ecclesiastes and today I am at it again. If there was one word to describe your life the word PLEASURE is probably that word. As you know I have written you every week since October of 2015 in the hope that you will be willing to reflect back on your life of pleasure UNDER THE SUN like King Solomon did and see what proper reflections your life has rendered. Francis Schaeffer has rightly noted concerning you that your goal with the “playboy mentality is just to smash the puritanical ethnic.” In fact, in your own personal life you definitely have gone the opposite direction of Puritanism.
King Solomon
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Today we will look at the last chapter of the Book of Ecclesiastes and also look at the sermon on that chapter by Ken Whitten of Idlewild Baptist Church in Tampa, Florida. The sermon today is very appropriate for you since you are approaching your deathbed. In the article, “Hugh Hefner: 10 Truths Behind the Playboy Legend, 6:22 PM PDT 9/21/2011 by THR Staff the article notes:
8. HEFNER DOESN’T TALK ABOUT DEATH
He hardly ever talks about death, a close colleague says: “Even when [a longtime assistant] died, after the memorial, he never mentioned her again.” Is he afraid of the prospect? “No,” insists Hefner, an agnostic who professes no faith in any afterlife. “My mother lived to 101.”
Below is a portion of the Ecclesiastes sermon by Ken Whitten delivered in December 1998:
The conclusion of the whole matter. Solomon has been a philosopher instead of a preacher. God had called him as a preacher but even preachers can get to the place where they think they are smarter than God. Solomon has left his first love. Solomon is the Old Testament prodigal. Solomon is the preacher who we get to gain from his mistakes. He has chased all the pretty bubbles in life. He has tried to find his life in wisdom and education but found it not. He tried to find his wealth and he thought like the world thinks and like Madison Ave teaches that if you get more than you are more, and if you are more then you will be more, and he tried that but came up empty. He tried women. He tried lust. He had some many wives and so many concubines that even the beautiful gift that God gives to a husband and wife, he lost the treasure of that.
(Hugh you gave up your family to chase the skirts)
One by one he checks off his life and says “That’s not, that’s not, that’s not and he is coming back to God and Solomon wants us to understand as he remembers his life previously and where he is now. He goes back to the beginning of his life and he starts out by saying in Chapter 12:
Remember God in Your Youth
12 Remember [thoughtfully] also your Creator in the days of your youth [for you are not your own, but His], before the evil days come or the years draw near when you will say [of physical pleasures], “I have no enjoyment and delight in them”; 2 before the sun and the light, and the moon and the stars are darkened [by impaired vision], and the clouds [of depression] return after the rain [of tears]; 3 in the day when the keepers of the house (hands, arms) tremble, and the strong men (feet, knees) bow themselves, and the grinders (molar teeth) cease because they are few, and those (eyes) who look through the windows grow dim;4 when the doors (lips) are shut in the streets and the sound of the grinding [of the teeth] is low, and one rises at the sound of a bird andthe crowing of a rooster, and all the daughters of music (voice, ears) sing softly. 5 Furthermore, they are afraid of a high place and of dangers on the road; the almond tree (hair) blossoms [white], and the grasshopper (a little thing) is a burden, and the [a]caperberry (desire, appetite) fails. For man goes to his eternal home and the mourners go about the streets and market places. 6 Earnestly remember your Creatorbefore the silver cord [of life] is broken, or the golden bowl is crushed, or the pitcher at the fountain is shattered and the wheel at the cistern is crushed; 7 then the dust [out of which God made man’s body] will return to the earth as it was, and the spirit will return to God who gave it.8 “Vanity of vanities,” says the Preacher. “All [that is done without God’s guidance] is vanity (futility).”
Purpose of the Preacher
9 Furthermore, because the Preacher was wise, he still taught the people knowledge; and he pondered and searched out and arranged many proverbs. 10 The Preacher sought to find delightful words, even to write correctly words of truth.
11 The words of the wise are like [prodding] goads, and these collected sayings are [firmly fixed in the mind] like well-driven nails; [b]they are given by one Shepherd. 12 But beyond this my son, [about going further than the words given by one Shepherd], be warned: the writing of many books is endless [so do not believe everything you read], and excessive study and devotion to books is wearying to the body.
13 When all has been heard, the end of the matter is: fear God [worship Him with awe-filled reverence, knowing that He is almighty God] and keep His commandments, for this applies to every person. 14 For God will bring every act to judgment, every hidden and secret thing, whether it is good or evil.
Life is moving forward not backward. You are heading somewhere. Give attention to your salvation is what Solomon is saying here. FEAR GOD is the Old Testament way of saying BELIEVE ON THE LORD JESUS CHRIST AND BE SAVED. You are come to the place where you face God and make sure of your salvation. FEAR GOD AND KEEP HIS COMMANDMENTS. The word of God is a road map to our life. The word of God says FEAR GOD AND KEEP HIS COMMANDMENTS this is the whole of man. The word DUTY is in italics and this means the whole of man. Our whole what? Our whole body our whole soul, our whole body, our whole spirit.
The word of God has something to say to your body, your soul to your spirit. To your health, to your holiness, to your happiness. Fear God and keep his commandments. You know what I think Solomon is saying. If I had to do it over again I would have a little more fun, a little more faith and a little more fear in life. I would have feared God more and Ecclesiastes 12:14 “For God will bring every act to judgment, every hidden and secret thing, whether it is good or evil.” All of us have secrets in our life that we probably would be ashamed of if you knew what we were thinking.
Someone asked John Quincy Adams how he is doing. “John Quincy Adams is quite well. But the house where he lives is becoming dilapidated. It is tottering. Time and the seasons have nearly destroyed it, and it is becoming quite uninhabitable. I shall have to move out soon. But John Quincy Adams is quite well, thank you.”
John Quincy Adams
Stuart Hamblen wrote:
It is no secret what God can do What He’s done for others, He’ll do for you With arms wide open, He’ll pardon you It is no secret what God can do
There is no night for in His light You never walk alone Always feel at home Wherever you may go
There is no power can conquer you While God is on your side Take Him at His promise Don’t run away and hide
Stuart Hamblen
___
Stuart Hamblen also wrote another song called THIS OLD HOUSE:
This ole house is a-gettin’ shaky This ole house is a-gettin’ old This ole house lets in the rain This ole house lets in the cold On my knees I’m gettin’ chilly But I feel no fear or pain ‘Cause I see an angel peekin’ Through a broken window pane
Stuart Hamblen is talking about our body.
If you take 24 hour day and compare the minutes to a life’s span then when you are 15 years old it is 8:51am and when when you are 20 yrs old then it is 11:05am and 30 yrs old 1:25 pm and when you are 40 yrs old and it is 4:16pm and when you are 60 it is 10:11 pm and when you are 70 yrs old it is near midnight.
Solomon closes his Book of Ecclesiastes after saying to fear God is the final conclusion. ARE YOU READY TO MEET GOD TONITE?
Let me share with you the gospel according to the Book of Romans. Here is how it goes:
Because of our sin, we are separated from God. For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. (Romans 3:23)
The Penalty for our sin is death. For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Jesus Christ our Lord.(Romans 6:23)
The penalty for our sin was paid by Jesus Christ! But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. (Romans 5:8)
If we repent of our sin, then confess and trust Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior, we will be saved from our sins! For whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved. (Romans 10:13) …if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. (Romans 10:9,10)
PS:This was the 31st letter that I have written to you and many of those letters have been on the Book of Ecclesiastes. Again it today is was responding to a quote from you.
Basim Magdy was born in 1977 in Assiut, Egypt. He now lives in Basel and Cairo. His interest in the unconscious and memory is at the root of his often-surreal works on paper, film, photography, and installation.
Growing up with an artist father, Magdy was influenced by such artists as Joan Miró, Paul Klee, and Marc Chagall, as well as Hamid Nada, Abdel Hadi El-Gazzar, and Ragheb Ayad. Magdy has produced work that deals with both the imagined future as envisioned in the 1960s and the reality that ensued, exploring the space between reality and fiction and the role that media systematically plays in filling up that space. Since reading Samuel Beckett, Eugène Ionesco, and Jean Paul Sartre as a teenager, the artist has honed his use of absurdity to make visually arresting works.
I started this series on my letters and postcards to Hugh Hefner back in September when I read of the passing of Mr. Hefner. There are many more to come. It is my view that he may have taken time to look at glance at one or two of them since these postcards were short and from one of Hef’s favorite […]
By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Atheists Confronted | Edit | Comments (0)
I started this series on my letters and postcards to Hugh Hefner back in September when I read of the passing of Mr. Hefner. There are many more to come. It is my view that he may have taken time to look at glance at one or two of them since these postcards were short and from one of Hef’s favorite […]
By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Atheists Confronted | Edit | Comments (0)
I started this series on my letters and postcards to Hugh Hefner back in September when I read of the passing of Mr. Hefner. There are many more to come. It is my view that he may have taken time to look at glance at one or two of them since these postcards were short and from one of Hef’s favorite […]
By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Atheists Confronted | Edit | Comments (0)
I started this series on my letters and postcards to Hugh Hefner back in September when I read of the passing of Mr. Hefner. There are many more to come. It is my view that he may have taken time to look at glance at one or two of them since these postcards were short and from one of Hef’s […]
By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Francis Schaeffer | Edit | Comments (0)
_ I started this series on my letters and postcards to Hugh Hefner back in September when I read of the passing of Mr. Hefner. There are many more to come. It is my view that he may have taken time to look at glance at one or two of them since these postcards were short and from one of […]
By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Atheists Confronted | Edit | Comments (0)
_____ I started this series on my letters and postcards to Hugh Hefner back in September when I read of the passing of Mr. Hefner. There are many more to come. It is my view that he may have taken time to look at glance at one or two of them since these postcards were short and from one of Hef’s […]
By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Atheists Confronted | Edit | Comments (0)
_____ I started this series on my letters and postcards to Hugh Hefner back in September when I read of the passing of Mr. Hefner. There are many more to come. It is my view that he may have taken time to look at glance at one or two of them since these postcards were […]
By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Atheists Confronted | Edit | Comments (0)
_____ I started this series on my letters and postcards to Hugh Hefner back in September when I read of the passing of Mr. Hefner. There are many more to come. It is my view that he may have taken time to look at glance at one or two of them since these postcards were […]
By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Adrian Rogers, Atheists Confronted | Edit | Comments (0)
|I saw this on the internet on June 20, 2017 _ Playboy’s Hugh Hefner on board a boat with Barbi Benton and friends sporting a striped navy shirt and a pipe in mouth and a real catch in hand during the 70s. ____________________________________ Below is the last letter I ever wrote to Hugh Hefner. […]
By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Adrian Rogers, Atheists Confronted, Francis Schaeffer | Edit |Comments (0)
I learned yesterday that Hugh Hefner had passed away. Just last year I visited Chicago and drove by his Chicago Playboy Mansion pictured below. ___ Playboy after dark filmed in Chicago Playboy Mansion During the 1990′s I actually made it a practice to write famous atheists and scientists that were mentioned by Adrian […]
By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Atheists Confronted, Francis Schaeffer, Milton Friedman | Edit| Comments (0)
and you will hear what far smarter people than I have to say on this matter. I agree with them.
Harry Kroto
Nick Gathergood, David-Birkett, Harry-Kroto
I have attempted to respond to all of Dr. Kroto’s friends arguments and I have posted my responses one per week for over a year now. Here are some of my earlier posts:
In the first video below in the 15th clip in this series are his words and my response is below them.
50 Renowned Academics Speaking About God (Part 1)
Another 50 Renowned Academics Speaking About God (Part 2)
A Further 50 Renowned Academics Speaking About God (Part 3)
_________________________________
In the popular You Tube video “Renowned Academics Speaking About God” you made the following statement:
“M-Theory doesn’t disprove God, but it does make him unnecessary. It predicts that the universe will be spontaneously created out of nothing without the need for a creator.” –Stephen Hawking, Cambridge theoretical physicist
The Visit of the Queen of Sheba to King Solomon’, oil on canvas painting by Edward Poynter, 1890
Adrian Rogers pictured below
The Passion of the Christ: The Crucifixion.
_____
April 7, 2017
Dr. Stephen Hawking, c/o Centre for Theoretical Cosmology Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics Centre for Mathematical Sciences Wilberforce Road, Cambridge CB3 0WA, UK
Dear Dr. Hawking,
Since next Sunday is Easter I wanted to mention a few churches that would really benefit you spiritually if you tried them out. I got to see John Stott speak back in 1979 at ALL SOULS CHURCHin London and I believe that church is very close for you. I have also been blessed by listening to the sermons from HIGHFIELD CHURCH in Southampton but I don’t think that church is as near for you.
I discovered that on this morning of April 7, 2017 my good friend Larry Speaks has died and gone to heaven. Let me tell you a little about him. After Larry put is faith in Christ alone for his salvation over 20 years ago he got started on a hobby of listening and discussing some of the great sermons that he heard. One of those sermons was WHO IS JESUS? by Adrian Rogers. In fact, he asked me to run off some cassette tapes of that message so he could give it to people who used to come into his store SOUTHERN FRUIT & GROCERY. After he sold the store he continued to give out this message and over the years I switched to putting it on CD’s for him to give out. Even the last years of his life he would go to McCain Mall and walk through the mall and give out the CD’s. He was thrilled that so many people were glad to get them, and he was disappointed when occasionally someone would decline to accept his gift.
I loved the movie THE THEORY OF EVERYTHING and read your book THE GRAND DESIGN . In the book I noticed that you wrote:
Another problem that mo del- dependent
realism solves, or at least avoids, is the meaning of
existence. How do I know that a table still exists if
I go out of the room and can't see it? What does it
mean to say that things we can't see, such as
electrons or quarks— the particles that are said to
make up the proton and neutron— exist?
I am glad that you are asking the big questions of life. That is what people at times like this. After Larry’s death I started thinking about death a lot.
In the last years of his life King Solomon took time to look back and then he wrote the BOOK OF ECCLESIASTES. Solomon did believe in God but in this book he took a look at life “UNDER THE SUN.” Christian scholar Ravi Zacharias has noted, “The key to understanding the Book of Ecclesiastes is the term ‘UNDER THE SUN.’ What that literally means is you lock God out of a closed system, and you are left with only this world of time plus chance plus matter.”
Francis Schaeffer comments on the Book of Ecclesiastes and the subject of death:
Ecclesiastes 9:11
11 Again I saw that under the sun the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, nor bread to the wise, nor riches to the intelligent, nor favor to those with knowledge, but time and chance happen to them all.
Chance rules. If a man starts out only from himself and works outward it must eventually if he is consistent seem so that only chance rules and naturally in such a setting you can not expect him to have anything else but finally a hate of life.
Ecclesiastes 2:17-18a
17 So I hated life, because what is done under the sun was grievous to me, for all is vanity and a striving after wind. 18 I hated all my toil in which I toil under the sun…
That first great cry “So I hated life.” Naturally if you hate life you long for death and you find him saying this in Ecclesiastes 4:2-3:
2 And I thought the dead who are already dead more fortunate than the living who are still alive. 3 But better than both is he who has not yet been and has not seen the evil deeds that are doneunder the sun.
He lays down an order. It is best never have to been. It is better to be dead, and worse to be alive. But like all men and one could think of the face of Vincent Van Gogh in his final paintings as he came to hate life and you watch something die in his self portraits, the dilemma is double because as one is consistent and one sees life as a game of chance, one must come in a way to hate life. Yet at the same time men never get beyond the fear to die. Solomon didn’t either. So you find him in saying this.
Ecclesiastes 2:14-15
14 The wise person has his eyes in his head, but the fool walks in darkness. And yet I perceived that the same event happens to all of them. 15 Then I said in my heart, “What happens to the fool will happen to me also. Why then have I been so very wise?” And I said in my heart that this also is vanity.
The Hebrew is stronger than this and it says “it happens EVEN TO ME,” Solomon on the throne, Solomon the universal man. EVEN TO ME, even to Solomon.
Ecclesiastes 3:18-21
18 I said in my heart with regard to the children of man that God is testing them that they may see that they themselves are but beasts. 19 For what happens to the children of man and what happens to the beasts is the same; as one dies, so dies the other. They all have the same breath, and man has no advantage over the beasts, for all is vanity.[n]20 All go to one place. All are from the dust, and to dust all return.21 Who knows whether the spirit of man goes upward and the spirit of the beast goes down into the earth?
What he is saying is as far as the eyes are concerned everything grinds to a stop at death.
Ecclesiastes 4:16
16 There was no end of all the people, all of whom he led. Yet those who come later will not rejoice in him. Surely this also is vanity and a striving after wind.
That is true. There is no place better to feel this than here in Switzerland. You can walk over these hills and men have walked over these hills for at least 4000 years and when do you know when you have passed their graves or who cares? It doesn’t have to be 4000 years ago. Visit a cemetery and look at the tombstones from 40 years ago. Just feel it. IS THIS ALL THERE IS? You can almost see Solomon shrugging his shoulders.
Ecclesiastes 8:8
8 There is no man that hath power over the spirit to retain the spirit; neither hath he power in the day of death: and there is no discharge in that war; neither shall wickedness deliver those that are given to it. (King James Version)
A remarkable two phrase. THERE IS NO DISCHARGE IN THAT WAR or you can translate it “no casting of weapons in that war.” Some wars they come to the end. Even the THIRTY YEARS WAR (1618-1648) finally finished, but this is a war where there is no casting of weapons and putting down the shield because all men fight this battle and one day lose. But more than this he adds, WICKEDNESS WON’T DELIVER YOU FROM THAT FIGHT. Wickedness delivers men from many things, from tedium in a strange city for example. But wickedness won’t deliver you from this war. It isn’t that kind of war. More than this he finally casts death in the world of chance.
Ecclesiastes 9:12
12 For man does not know his time. Like fish that are taken in an evil net, and like birds that are caught in a snare, so the children of man are snared at an evil time, when it suddenly falls upon them.
Death can come at anytime. Death seen merely by the eye of man between birth and death and UNDER THE SUN. Death too is a thing of chance. Albert Camus speeding in a car with a pretty girl at his side and then Camus dead. Lawrence of Arabiacoming up over a crest of a hill 100 miles per hour on his motorcycle and some boys are standing in the road and Lawrence turns aside and dies.
Surely between birth and death these things are chance. Modern man adds something on top of this and that is the understanding that as the individual man will dies by chance so one day the human race will die by chance!!! It is the death of the human race that lands in the hand of chance and that is why men grew sad when they read Nevil Shute’s book ON THE BEACH.
__________
By the way, the final chapter of Ecclesiastes finishes with Solomon emphasizing that serving God is the only proper response of man. Solomon looks above the sun and brings God back into the picture. I am hoping that your good friend Woody Allen will also come to that same conclusion that Solomon came to concerning the meaning of life and man’s proper place in the universe in Ecclesiastes 12:13-14: 13 Now all has been heard; here is the conclusion of the matter: Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man.
14 For God will bring every deed into judgment, including every hidden thing, whether it is good or evil
NOW BACK TO MY FRIEND LARRY SPEAKS. If Larry was here now he would urge you to listen to the message WHO IS JESUS? by Adrian Rogers. Therefore, I wanted to give you a little part of that message. Under the point THE PROPHETIC WITNESS OF THE SCRIPTURES Adrian Rogers talks about Psalm 22:
Psalm 22 is an incredible chapter. Perhaps more than any other chapter in the Bible, you cannot read it and come away not loving the Bible and the Lord Jesus Christ.
Turn to Psalm 22. Just below the name of a psalm, often the name of the one who wrote it is given. Who is the human author of Psalm 22?
Through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, almost half (73) of the Bible’s 150 psalms were written by King David.
One thousand years before Jesus Christ, David prophetically foretold His crucifixion.
Since crucifixion was a Roman, not Jewish, form of execution, how is that possible? Crucifixion was completely unknown to the Jewish culture. It would be another 800 years before crucifixion came into the Jewish world. But here we find by divine inspiration a portrait of the cross.
The John Lennon and the Beatles really were on a long search for meaning and fulfillment in their lives just like King Solomon did in the Book of Ecclesiastes. Solomon looked into learning (1:12-18, 2:12-17), laughter, ladies, luxuries, and liquor (2:1-2, 8, 10, 11), and labor (2:4-6, 18-20). He fount that without God in the picture all […]
By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Current Events, Francis Schaeffer | Edit | Comments (0)
__________________ Beatles 1966 Last interview I have dedicated several posts to this series on the Beatles and I don’t know when this series will end because Francis Schaeffer spent a lot of time listening to the Beatles and talking and writing about them and their impact on the culture of the 1960’s. In this […]
By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Francis Schaeffer | Tagged George Harrison, John Lennon, Paul MacCartney, Peter Blake, Ringo Starr | Edit | Comments (1)
The Beatles were “inspired by the musique concrète of German composer and early electronic music pioneer KarlheinzStockhausen…” as SCOTT THILL has asserted. Francis Schaeffer noted that ideas of “Non-resolution” and “Fragmentation” came down German and French streams with the influence of Beethoven’s last Quartets and then the influence of Debussy and later Schoenberg’s non-resolution which is in total contrast with Bach’s resolution. Finally you have Stockhausen’s electronic music and concern with the element of change and his influence can be seen on the Beatles in several songs but the first one was TOMORROW NEVER KNOWS.
KarlheinzStockhausen pictured below on the cover of Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band:
_________
Tomorrow never knows – making of
Uploaded on Jan 5, 2008
John, Paul, George H. and George M. tell the story.
From Beatles Anthology DVD.
Tommorow Never Knows -The Beatles (Lost 1967 Music Video)
Uploaded on Jul 11, 2010
In 1967 Neil Aspinall was asked to put together a video for the beatles 3rd movie which was in early devolpment. The concept was going to be a collection of promotional videos all bunched together from the albums Rubber Soul, Revolver and Sgt Pepper. The Beatles dimissed the idea and decided to go with pauls idea of the Magical Mystery Tour. Only 4 videos are known to exist which where Eleneor Rigby&A Day In The Life (as seen in the anthology) along the lost videos for Within You And Without You ( which was supposed to be a montage of an office building) and Tommorow Never Knows. However I was able to find the Tommorow Never Knows Video through a lot of researching. The clip is simply put together from clips of John (14 hour technicolour dream), Paul (His 1966 trip with mal Evans), and George (arriving in india with pattie).
All rights belong to The Beatles and Apple Corp not me!
Enjoy comment and subscribe!
_____________
Francis Schaeffer pictured below:
Francis Schaeffer correctly observed concerning the Beatles:
In this flow there was also the period of psychedelic rock, an attempt to find this experience without drugs, by the use of a certain type of music. This was the period of the Beatles’ Revolver (1966) and Strawberry Fields Forever (1967). In the same period and in the same direction was Blonde on Blond (1966) by Bob Dylan….No great illustration could be found of the way these concepts were carried to the masses than “pop” music and especially the work of the BEATLES. The Beatles moved through several stages, including the concept of the drug and psychedelic approach. The psychedelic began with their records REVOLVER, STRAWBERRY FIELDS FOREVER, AND PENNY LANE. This was developed with great expertness in their record SERGEANT PEPPER’S LONELY HEARTS CLUB BAND in which psychedelic music, with open statements concerning drug-taking, was knowingly presented as a religious answer.
The Beatles were looking for lasting satisfaction in their lives and their journey took them down many of the same paths that other young people of the 1960’s were taking INCLUDING THE PATH OF PSYCHEDELIC MUSIC AND FRAGMENTATION. No wonder in the video THE AGE OF NON-REASON Schaeffer noted, ” Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band…for a time it became the rallying cry for young people throughout the world. It expressed the essence of their lives, thoughts and their feelings.”
How Should We then Live Episode 7 small (Age of Nonreason)
George Martin:
It was on Revolver that we have the track Tomorrow Never Knows
which was a great innovation
John Lennon:
That’s me in my Tibetan Book of the Dead period
and the expression Tomorrow NeverKnows was another of Ringo’s
I was self-conscious about the lyrics of Tomorrow Never Knows
so I took one of Ringo’s malapropisms like Hard Day’s Night
to take the edge off the heavy philosophical lyrics
Paul McCartney:
John had a song which was all on the chord of C
which we thought a perfectly good idea, like Indian music is all on one chord
I wondered how George Martin would take it-it was a radical departure
At least we’d had three chords and maybe a change for the middle eight
Suddenly this was just John strumming on C rather earnestly
George Harrison:
In those days there was no technology like there is now
There were two guitars, bass and drums, and that was it
If we did stuff in the studio with the aid of recording tricks
then we couldn’t just reproduce them on stage
Nowadays you could do Tomorrow NeverKnows,have all the loops on a keyboard
You could have as many pianists, drummers and orchestras as you wanted
But in those days we were just a little dance hall band
and we never thought of augmenting ourselves
One of the most ambitious and influential of all Beatles recordings is “Tomorrow Never Knows” from the 1966 Album Revolver. Primarily written by John Lennon, there are numerous examples of creative recording and mixing techniques from the production of this song.
To help reinforce this Indian-influenced song, which relies almost entirely on a steady C-chord, George Harrison added a droning Tambura, which is often confused with a sitar.
Ringo’s repetitive but unique drum performance which was arguably similar to “Ticket to Ride” from 1965, was close miked and heavily compressed, and provided an excellent backdrop for the organized chaos of tape loops and vocal experimentation.
Lennon wanted the vocal for this LSD-influenced song to sound like a hundred chanting Tibetan monks, and although The Beatles at this point could do essentially whatever they wanted at the famed Abbey Road Studios, this was not possible.
Ultimately, Engineer Geoff Emerick creatively ran Lennon’s vocal through a Leslie Speakerand re-recorded it. Lennon showed a general disdain for doubling his own vocal, so Ken Townsend developed automatic double tracking or ADT, a process in which the signal from the sync head of one tape machine was delayed through a second tape machine. The tape speed and therefore the pitch was modulated slightly, allowing the engineers to simulate a doubled vocal or other performance. Waves now has a plugin version of this effect.
McCartney, who had been influenced by Karlheinz Stockhausen and other Musique concrete composers, brought in a selection of quarter-inch tape loops he had recorded at home. The infamous “seagull sound” is actually a sped up recording of someone (perhaps McCartney) laughing. The other Beatles provided home recorded tape loops which were ultimately played through various tape machines in Abbey Road, each supervised by technicians, with the band and Producer George Martin manning the faders as the loops were recorded on top of the existing arrangement. This was quite a departure in terms of production technique not only for the Beatles, but for any popular music group at the time.
Although later the hyper-critical Lennon expressed disappointment that the song lacked due to not having the chanting monks he originally envisioned, that didn’t stop this recording from being revolutionary and the perfect centerpiece for what is perhaps the bands’ most experimental album.
It has been covered by dozens of artists, and its influence can be heard in artists ranging from hip-hop to electronic.
In 2012, the popular AMC series Mad Men, in an unprecedented event, was able to obtain the recording and publishing rights for the song, allowing it to be used in an episode of the show for the hefty fee of $250,000.
Sgt. Pepper’s footnote: Karlheinz Stockhausen passes [Posted by Dave Haber on Tuesday, 12/18/07 7:34 am] [Full Blog] [Tweet] [Facebook]It was announced last week that Karlheinz Stockhausen , one of the most important and controversial postwar composers, passed away on Friday, December 7 at his home in western Germany. He was 79.So taken were the Beatles by Stockhausen’s music that he was included among the Beatle’s other heroes and idols on the cover of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band in 1967.
See this page on our sister-site, The Internet Beatles Album, for more about the Sgt. Pepper’s cover.
The song has a vocal put through a Leslie speaker cabinet (which was normally used as a loudspeaker for a Hammond organ). Tape loops prepared by the Beatles were mixed in and out of the Indian-inspired modal backing underpinned by Ringo Starr‘s constant but non-standard drum pattern.
It is considered one of the greatest songs of its time, with Pitchfork Media placing it at number 19 on its list of “The 200 Greatest Songs of the 1960s”.[5]
Lennon bought the book, went home, took LSD, and followed the instructions exactly as stated in the book.[10][11] The book held that the “ego death” experienced under the influence of LSD and other psychedelic drugs is essentially similar to the dying process and requires similar guidance.[12][13] This is a state of being known by eastern mystics and masters as samādhi (a state of being totally aware of the present moment; a one-pointedness of mind.).
The title never actually appears in the song’s lyrics. In an interview Lennon revealed that, like “A Hard Day’s Night“, it was taken from one of Ringo Starr‘s malapropisms.[14] The piece was originally titled “Mark I”.[9]“The Void” is cited as another working title but according to Mark Lewisohn (and Bob Spitz) this is untrue, although the books The Love You Make: An Insider’s Story of the Beatles and The Beatles A to Z both cite “The Void” as the original title.[7]
When the Beatles returned to London after their first visit to America in early 1964 they were interviewed by David Coleman of BBC Television. The interview included the following exchange:
Interviewer: “Now, Ringo, I hear you were manhandled at the Embassy Ball. Is this right?”
Ringo: “Not really. Someone just cut a bit of my hair, you see.”
Interviewer: “Let’s have a look. You seem to have got plenty left.”
Ringo: (turns head) “Can you see the difference? It’s longer, this side.”
Interviewer: “What happened exactly?”
Ringo: “I don’t know. I was just talking, having an interview (exaggerated voice). Just like I am NOW!”
(John and Paul begin lifting locks of his hair, pretending to cut it)
Ringo: “I was talking away and I looked ’round, and there was about 400 people just smiling. So, you know — what can you say?”
McCartney remembered that even though the song’s harmony was mainly restricted to the chord of C, Martin accepted it as it was and said it was “rather interesting”. The song’s harmonic structure is derived fromIndian music and is based upon a high volume C drone played by Harrison on a tamboura.[16] The “chord” over the drone is generally C major, but some changes to B flat major result from vocal modulations, as well as orchestral and guitar tape loops.[17][18] The song has been called the first pop song that attempted to dispense with chord changes altogether.[16] Here, the Beatles’ harmonic ingenuity is nonetheless displayed in the upper harmonies- “Turn off your mind”, for example, is suitably a run of unvarying E melody notes, before “relax” involves an E-G melody note shift and “float downstream” an E-C-G descent.[19] “It is not dying” involves a run of three G melody notes that rise on “dying” to a B♭, creating a ♭VII/I (B♭/C) ‘slash’ polychord.[19] This is a prominent device in Beatles songs such as “All My Loving“, “Help!“, “A Hard Day’s Night“, “Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)“, “Hey Jude“, “Dear Prudence“, “Revolution” and “Get Back“.[20]
A cross-section showing the inner workings of a Leslie speaker cabinet
Lennon first played the song to Brian Epstein, George Martin and the other Beatles at Epstein’s house at 24 Chapel Street, Belgravia.[21][22]
The 19-year-old Geoff Emerick was promoted to replace Norman Smith as engineer on the first session for the Revolver album. This started at 8 pm on 6 April 1966, in Studio Three at Abbey Road.[9] Lennon told producer Martin that he wanted to sound like a hundred chanting Tibetan monks, which left Martin the difficult task of trying to find the effect by using the basic equipment they had. The effect was achieved by using a Leslie speaker. When the concept was explained to Lennon, he inquired if the same effect could be achieved by hanging him upside down and spinning him around a microphone while he sang into it.[9][23] Emerick made a connector to break into the electronic circuitry of the cabinet and then re-recorded the vocal as it came out of the revolving speaker.[24][25]
A 7-inch reel of 1⁄4-inch-wide (6.4 mm) audio recording tape, which was the type used by McCartney to create tape loops
As Lennon hated doing a second take to double his vocals, Ken Townsend, the studio’s technical manager, developed an alternative form of double-tracking called artificial double tracking (ADT) system, taking the signal from the sync head of one tape machine and delaying it slightly through a second tape machine.[26] The two tape machines used were not driven by mains electricity, but from a separate generator which put out a particular frequency, the same for both, thereby keeping them locked together.[26] By altering the speed and frequencies, he could create various effects, which the Beatles used throughout the recording of Revolver.[27] Lennon’s vocal is double-tracked on the first three verses of the song: the effect of the Leslie cabinet can be heard after the (backwards) guitar solo.[28][29]
The track included the highly compressed drums that the Beatles currently favoured, with reverse cymbals, reverse guitar, processed vocals, looped tape effects, a sitar and a tamburadrone.[23] The use of these ¼-inch audio tape loops resulted primarily from McCartney’s admiration for Stockhausen‘s Gesang der Jünglinge.[30] By disabling the erase head of a tape recorder and then spooling a continuous loop of tape through the machine while recording, the tape would constantly overdub itself, creating a saturation effect, a technique also used inmusique concrète. The tape could also be induced to go faster and slower. McCartney encouraged the other Beatles to use the same effects and create their own loops.[18] After experimentation on their own, the various Beatles supplied a total of “30 or so” tape loops to Martin, who selected 16 for use on the song.[31] Each loop was about six seconds long.[31]
The tape loops were played on BTR3 tape machines located in various studios of the Abbey Road building[32] and controlled by EMI technicians in Studio Two at Abbey Road on 7 April.[33][23] Each machine was monitored by one technician, who had to hold a pencil within each loop to maintain tension.[31] The four Beatles controlled the faders of the mixing console while Martin varied the stereo panning and Emerick watched the meters.[34][35] Eight of the tapes were used at one time, changed halfway through the song.[34] The tapes were made (like most of the other loops) by superimposition and acceleration.[36][37] According to Martin, the finished mix of the tape loops could not be repeated because of the complex and random way in which they were laid over the music.[38]
Five tape loops are audible in the finished version of the song. Isolating the loops reveals that they contained:
A “laughing” voice, played at double-speed (the “seagull” sound)
An orchestral chord of B flat major (from a Sibelius symphony) (0:19)
A fast electric guitar phrase in C major, reversed and played at double-speed (0:22)
Another guitar phrase with heavy tape echo, with a B flat chord provided either by guitar, organ or possibly a Mellotron Mk II (0:38)
A sitar-like descending scalar phrase played on an electric guitar, reversed and played at double-speed (0:56)
The opening chord fades in gradually on the stereo version while the mono version features a more sudden fade-in. The mono and stereo versions also have the tape-loop track faded in at slightly different times and different volumes (in general, the loops are louder on the mono mix). On the stereo version a little feedback comes in after the guitar solo, exactly halfway through the song, but is edited out of the mono mix.
Lennon was later quoted as saying that “I should have tried to get my original idea, the monks singing. I realise now that’s what I wanted.”[40] Take one of the recording was released on the Anthology 2 album.[40]
Harrison questioned whether Lennon fully understood the meaning of the song’s lyrics:
You can hear (and I am sure most Beatles fans have) “Tomorrow Never Knows” a lot and not know really what it is about. Basically it is saying what meditation is all about. The goal of meditation is to go beyond (that is, transcend) waking, sleeping and dreaming. So the song starts out by saying, “Turn off your mind, relax and float downstream, it is not dying.”
Then it says, “Lay down all thoughts, surrender to the void—it is shining. That you may see the meaning of within—it is being.” From birth to death all we ever do is think: we have one thought, we have another thought, another thought, another thought. Even when you are asleep you are having dreams, so there is never a time from birth to death when the mind isn’t always active with thoughts. But you can turn off your mind, and go to the part which Maharishi described as: “Where was your last thought before you thought it?”
The whole point is that we are the song. The self is coming from a state of pure awareness, from the state of being. All the rest that comes about in the outward manifestation of the physical world (including all the fluctuations which end up as thoughts and actions) is just clutter. The true nature of each soul is pure consciousness. So the song is really about transcending and about the quality of the transcendent.
I am not too sure if John actually fully understood what he was saying. He knew he was onto something when he saw those words and turned them into a song. But to have experienced what the lyrics in that song are actually about? I don’t know if he fully understood it.[41]
“Tomorrow Never Knows” is one of those songs that’s in the DNA of so much going on these days that it’s hard to know where to start. Its tape collage alone makes it one of the first tracks to use sampling really successfully. I also think that Brian Eno‘s idea of the studio-as-instrument comes from this kind of recording.[47]
The song was featured during the final scene of the 2012 Mad Men episode “Lady Lazarus.” Don Draper‘s wife Megan gives him a copy of Revolver, calling his attention to a specific track and suggesting, “Start with this one”.[53] Draper, an advertising executive, is struggling to understand youth culture, but after contemplating the song for a few puzzled moments, he shuts it off.[54] The song also played over the closing credits.[55]The rights to the song cost the producers about $250,000,[54] “about five times as much as the typical cost of licensing a song for TV.”[53]
While the title, like A Hard Day’s Night, was a Ringoism particularly liked by Lennon, the lyrics were largely taken from The Psychedelic Experience, a 1964 book written by Harvard psychologists Timothy Leary and Richard Alpert which contained an adaptation of the ancient Tibetan Book of the Dead.
Lennon discovered The Psychedelic Experience at the Indica bookshop, co-owned by Barry Miles. In late March 1966 Lennon and McCartney visited the bookshop.
John wanted a book by what sounded like ‘Nitz Ga’. It took Miles a few minutes to realise that he was looking for the German philosopher Nietzsche, long enough for John to become convinced that he was being ridiculed. He launched into an attack on intellectuals and university students and was only mollified when Paul told him that he had not understood what John was asking for either, and that Miles was not a university graduate but had been to art college, just like him. Immediately friendly again, John talked about Allen Ginsberg and the Beats, laughing about his school magazine the Daily Howl: ‘Tell Ginsberg I did it first!’ Miles found him a copy of The Portable Nietzsche and John began to scan the shelves. His eyes soon alighted upon a copy of The Psychedelic Experience, Dr Timothy Leary’s psychedelic version of the Tibetan Book of the Dead. John was delighted and settled down on the settee with the book. Right away, on page 14 in Leary’s introduction, he read, ‘Whenever in doubt, turn off your mind, relax, float downstream.’ He had found the first line of ‘Tomorrow Never Knows’, one of the Beatles’ most innovative songs.
Paul McCartney plays Las Vegas’ MGM Grand on Friday, but we’ll have to wait longer to hear his new tape-loop project, which utilizes machines used on The Beatles’ proto-electro classic ‘Tomorrow Never Knows.’ Image courtesy MPL Communications Ltd./MJ Kim
Beatles Cartoon – Tomorrow Never Knows
PAUL MCCARTNEY IS working on a new project utilizing vintage gear he once used to make tape loops for The Beatles’ landmark track “Tomorrow Never Knows.”
“I’ve dusted off the same two old machines that I used for ‘Tomorrow Never Knows,’” McCartney said during a wide-ranging phone interview to be published soon by Wired.com. “We’re having trouble finding spare parts. But my man Eddie Klein, who works in my studio and is an oldAbbey Road guy, is a real boffin and has got the machines working again.”
Inspired by the musique concrète of German composer and early electronic music pioneer KarlheinzStockhausen, McCartney’s recombined found sounds for “Tomorrow Never Knows” created an aural sensation utterly new to pop music when the song appeared on The Beatles’ epochal 1966 album Revolver.
Combined with The Beatles’ other technical and stylistic experiments — including John Lennon‘s transcendental lyricism, engineer Geoff Emerick‘s studio innovations,George Harrison‘s Eastern drone and Ringo Starr‘s proto-hop percussion — “Tomorrow Never Knows” helped plot the coordinates of future music.
‘”Tomorrow Never Knows’ is one of those songs that’s in the DNA of so much going on these days that it’s hard to know where to start,” said DJ Spooky, electronic music virtuoso and author of Sound Unbound: Sampling Digital Music and Culture. “Its tape collage alone makes it one of the first tracks to use sampling really successfully. I also think that Brian Eno’s idea of the studio-as-instrument comes from this kind of recording.”
McCartney’s early technological and musical experimentation is often overshadowed by Beatles classics like “Hey Jude.” But spend any time researching his resume, and it quickly becomes clear that the pioneering composer’s wide-ranging interests helped lay the foundation for music that many would rarely associate with him.
“Electronic music is something I’ve always been into,” said McCartney, whose recently remastered and reissued solo releases McCartney and McCartney II, arriving June 14, paved trails for everything from home recording to hip-hop.
“What’s often said of me is that I’m the guy who wrote ‘Yesterday‘ or I’m the guy who was the bass player for the Beatles,” he added. “That stuff floats to the top of the water, you know? But I’m also a guy who was really interested intape loops, electronics and avant-garde music. That just doesn’t get out there on a wide level, but it’s true. I’ve really been fascinated by this stuff.”
Revolver made music history thanks to the innovations of songs like ‘Tomorrow Never Knows.’ Image courtesy EMI
The mind reels, pardon the pun, at what McCartney might come up with after tinkering around with the same tape machines that skewed “Tomorrow Never Knows” strange. His 2008 electronic-music effort Electric Arguments, composed with The Killing Joke’s Youth under the aliasThe Fireman, was an alternately incendiary and captivating exercise. But according to the always-busy McCartney — who playsHP’s 2011 Discover conference Thursday as thanks for Hewlett-Packard digitizing the one-time Beatles’ exhaustive library of 1 million items — his current tape-loop recombinations are still in the formative stage.
“The new project is going to take a couple years,” said McCartney. “It’s very long-range. I’ve no idea when it is actually going to happen, but I’m really into it.”
Once it does happen, renewed interest in The Beatles technocultural influence, which I’ve been compiling on Wired.com and elsewhere in the continuing series Geek The Beatles, will likely follow. The Beatles reached their 50th birthday last year, and rarely has a band from the past so securely locked a foothold in the future.
The experimental nature of “Tomorrow Never Knows” is a major reason why.
“‘Tomorrow Never Knows’ is the ultimate future moment for The Beatles,” Autolux guitarist Greg Edwards told Wired.com last year, before the band’s drummer, Carla Azar, revised the song with The Kills’ Allison Mosshart for Zack Snyder’s techno-fantasy film flop Sucker Punch. “That song basically transcends time. It still lands years ahead of us, no matter when we hear it.”
The song exerts widespread influence decades after its recording, said DJ Spooky, who cataloged a star-studded list of artists who have used the song in their own music or generally been shaped by its sound.
“Flaming Lips? Check,” he said. “Beastie Boys’Check Your Head? Check. Anything from Radiohead? Check. Sonic Youth? A Tribe Called Quest? Check. The song has one of those kind of cinematic breakdowns that artists like Danger Mouse and David Lynch could check out again and again. The only thing that the record didn’t affect was Jamaican dub, but the Jamaican scene was smoking something different than John Lennon’s LSD trips, so that’s another story.”
Regardless of the drug in question, McCartney’s tape-loop experimentalism was a mind-blowing musical exercise for the artist himself, as well as for Beatles fans.
“When I made my first tape loops, man was it a buzz!” McCartney said. “Bringing tape loops into the studio as I did, finding out that John has got a really funky tune called ‘Tomorrow Never Knows’ that needed a solo…. Well, what was better than the crazy stuff I was doing?”
Percussionist Stuart Gerber is one of Atlanta’s most skilled and influential musicians. One of the original cofounders of new music ensemble Bent Frequency, Gerber is an associate professor at Georgia State University. He also has performed extensively throughout North America, Europe and Australia as a soloist and chamber musician, often premiering new compositions, including works by icons of contemporary music such as Karlheinz Stockhausen.
The New York Times has praised Gerber as a musician of “consummate virtuosity.” ArtsATL recently spoke with Gerber about his career as a percussionist.
ArtsATL:Where are you from originally, and how did you get started on your musical path?
Stuart Gerber: Wisconsin. A small town just about 30 minutes north of Milwaukee called Grafton. I grew up and even went to school there [at University of Wisconsin] before transferring to Oberlin Conservatory of Music.
I started playing drums in fifth grade. The band director asked what I wanted to play, and of course I said drums. He said, “Well, what about the saxophone?” and my father said, “No, he needs to play the drums.” So I almost became a saxophone player but it’s probably better I didn’t. I played drums in rock bands and jazz band in high school, then I got interested in [other] percussion. For a while, I thought I would become a timpanist for an orchestra [like] Milwaukee Symphony.
I continued my orchestral studies at Oberlin, but Oberlin has such a rich tradition of chamber and contemporary music, I got really interested in playing music where the percussion was more of a focus. Then I went to Cincinnati to study with Percussion Group Cincinnati, a fantastic percussion trio [at the College-Conservatory of Music of the University of Cincinnati].
ArtsATL:How and when did you begin working with the eminent German composer Karlheinz Stockhausen (1928–2007)?
Gerber: While doing graduate studies in Cincinnati, I went to the Stockhausen Festival [in Germany] for the first time, just as a performer. I was able to work with him closely, but it wasn’t until after coming to Atlanta that I really solidified my relationship with Stockhausen.
I completed my doctoral work, “Stockhausen: Solo Percussion Music,” and I sent my thesis to him after it was done. I will never forget: I was on MARTA coming home from the airport when I got a message from him saying, “I read your thesis and every percussionist should read this.” That was around Christmas in 2003. He asked me to come back to the 2004 festival as a faculty percussion teacher. That was when I really started working with him seriously, and did a number of premieres with him before he passed away.
ArtsATL:He wrote some significant music for you.
Gerber: One in particular, his last solo percussion piece called “Heaven’s Door” (“Himmels-Tür”). I premiered it in 2006 and it was dedicated to me. It’s written for a giant wooden door. That was the culmination of our work. Having his massive work, both in scope and also the instrument itself, written for me by him, is important.
Heaven’s Door Lugo
Published on Mar 17, 2015
This is a video recording of the world premiere of HIMMELS-TÜR at the Rossini Theater in Lugo, Italy, June 13th, 2006.
Copyright: Stockhausen-Stiftung für Musik, Kürten, Germany (www.karlheinzstockhausen.org)
The score to HIMMELS-TÜR can be ordered directly through the Stockhausen-Verlag (www.stockhausen-verlag.com)
And the official CD recording (Stockhausen Complete Edition no. 86) can be ordered from (www.stockhausencds.com)
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ArtsATL:I know there are actually two specially built doors for “Himmels-Tür,” the one in Europe that you played in the world premiere, but also one that you had built for the North American premiere in June 2007 at the Spoleto Festival USA in Charleston. That was also the door you were supposed to play in the White Light Festival, at Alice Tully Hall in New York City, back in October 2012, but the concert got canceled due to Hurricane Sandy.
Gerber: I was actually in New York. I took an earlier flight and made it up there. The people who were transporting the door moved it up early because I didn’t want [the festival] to cancel the concert just because I couldn’t get there. We were there, stranded, and couldn’t do the show. The piece hasn’t been done yet in New York, which is a shame.
ArtsATL:Backing up a bit, when did you move in Atlanta?
Gerber: September of 2001, during the week after September 11. I was in Australia when September 11 happened. I’d won the job as percussion professor at Georgia State [and] found out about it in August, but I was already scheduled to be in Australia through the second week of September. We got waylaid about two extra days because of 9/11. I flew home, went to Cincinnati and got my stuff, then drove down to Atlanta about the third week of September. Pretty quickly, I realized what a great scene it was musically.
ArtsATL:You”re the sole remaining original founding codirector of contemporary music ensemble Bent Frequency. I remember being at the group’s first concert.
Gerber: When I came to town, I thought, well, what I do is contemporary music, and I wanted an avenue in which to do that. I met Alexander Micklethwaite who was, back then, assistant conductor of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, and we talked about how there should really be a really vibrant new music ensemble in Atlanta. That was part of the initial discussions when I started having coffee with Alexander in the fall of 2002.
At the same time, there were discussions with colleagues of mine, Nick Demos and Robert Ambrose, about starting a new music group. Rather than competing we just decided to pool our resources. So the first concert was the following May 2003 with a pretty diverse program.
ArtsATL:Aside from what Robert Spano was beginning to do at the ASO, how did you view the state of the new music scene at that time?
Gerber: Bent Frequency was by itself for a couple of years. But since then, Sonic Generator, Chamber Cartel, Terminus Ensemble — all these groups are also doing contemporary chamber music as their primary focus. So there’s quite a lot of it now in the city.
ArtsATL:You’ve directly influenced some of the newer groups through your example and through teaching. It was one of your former students, Caleb Herron, who started Chamber Cartel. Another, Olivia Kieffer, created the Clibber Jones Ensemble — more of a kind of rock-influenced minimalist fusion group.
Gerber: That’s pretty great, though, and it definitely adds to the scene. The other thing that is amazing to me, too, is the kind of “underground” scene — I don’t like that term — [Atlanta has] as well: improv, rock-based, free improv. Not just pop music but more a real deeper kind of rock music that embraces art music, and contemporary music. I’m thinking Faun and a Pan Flute and some of these other groups.
ArtsATL:Klimchak, with whom you have done some local performances, has noted that you’re really great at improv, but the public still doesn’t know you for improvisation the way they know you for taking a written score and doing really incisive performances of it. What’s your relationship to improvisation as a part of your own professional aesthetics?
Gerber: I was trained to be [a] “classical percussionist” — which means you get a score, you learn the notes, you interpret it, you bring your personality to it, but the music is pretty much a set thing. I still do that quite a bit.
I’d actually done some improvisation prior to moving to Atlanta, but after getting here and seeing how a lot of wonderful players in town do the sort of thing primarily, I was drawn to it, so started exploring that more deeply. I fell in love with it because I feel like it’s a real one-on-one connection with the other players and the audience and what I want to express at that moment. It really helps me as an artist. It’s a different dimension of my art.
Maker’s Dozen is an annual series that spotlights a dozen creatives whom we think you ought to know or know more about. The profiles will run on Tuesdays and Thursdays through April 16.
Karlheinz Stockhausen in his garden on 20 April 2005, two weeks before the premiere of the First Hour of Klang
Klang (pronounced [klaŋ])—Die 24 Stunden des Tages (Sound—The 24 Hours of the Day) is a cycle of compositions by Karlheinz Stockhausen, on which he worked from 2004 until his death in 2007. It was intended to consist of 24 chamber-music compositions, each representing one hour of the day, with a different colour systematically assigned to every hour. The cycle was not yet finished when the composer died, so that the last three “hours” are lacking. The 21 completed pieces include solos, duos, trios, a septet, and Stockhausen’s last entirely electronic composition, Cosmic Pulses. The fourth composition is a theatre piece for a solo percussionist, and there are also two auxiliary compositions which are not part of the main cycle. The completed works bear the work (opus) numbers 81–101.
Heaven’s Door, depicted on the main entrance of the Milan Cathedral
Himmels-Tür (Heaven’s Door), for a percussionist and a little girl, 2005 (ca. 28 mins.). Work number 84. The specified colour is bright blue [Hellblau] (Stockhausen 2007f, cover;Stockhausen 2008b, cover).
Himmels-Tür was commissioned by the Italian concert organisation Angelica, and composed in 2005. It was premiered on 13 June 2006 in the Teatro Rossini in Lugo, Italy, by the American percussionist Stuart Gerber and Arianna Garotti as the little girl. Gerber gave the German premiere a few weeks later at the Stockhausen Courses in Kürten (Stockhausen 2006b, 21 & 41; Toop 2012, 425).
The only overtly theatrical piece from Klang, the idea for Himmels-Tür came to Stockhausen in a dream, in which he found himself at the gates of heaven, which are locked against him. (Several of Stockhausen’s earlier theatrical compositions—such as Trans, Musik im Bauch, and the Helicopter String Quartet—also had their origins in dreams.) Because of the indefinite pitches of the instruments (a large double-panelled door and an assortment of cymbals and gongs), Himmels-Tür is the only work in the Klang cycle that does not use the 24-note series extrapolated from the all-interval “Gruppen” row (Kohl 2008, 17; Toop 2008b, 199–200).
“A percussionist beats with wooden beaters on a heaven’s door made of wood. It is divided from bottom to top into six fields. Sometimes he (she) stomps on the floor with his (her) nailed shoes.” There are fourteen main sections defined by moods, such as “cautious”, “entreating”, “agitated”, and “angry”, until finally, the door opens. “After a moment of silence, the percussionist cautiously steps through the doorway and disappears. A terrifying noise of tam-tams, hi-hats, and cymbals bursts out”, not to mention sirens. “A little girl comes out of the audience onto the stage, and disappears through the doorway. The metallic sounds become increasingly rare and gradually cease. Finally, the siren stops” (Stockhausen 2006b, 41).
It is probably no coincidence that many years earlier, in Kontakte, Stockhausen had associated metallic sounds with the “heavenly”, in contrast to the “earthly” sounds of skin percussion (entirely absent in Himmels-Tür), with wooden sounds functioning as a transition between them, like the door to heaven here. Although the graphic notation is unconventional, the improvisatory appearance of both the performance and the score is deceptive. Every stroke, every gesture is precisely specified in its rhythm, dynamics, and timbre (Kohl 2008, 17).
Although originally planned to occupy twenty-four pages (a number found generally throughout the cycle, reflecting the number of hours in a day), the final score consists of just twenty-two. The first sixteen are performed on the door, the remaining six behind the door, out of sight of the audience. In the first, larger section of the work the number of strokes, types of strokes, and door panels on which the percussionist performs are controlled by global serial factors, but the details are not serially determined. By contrast, the closing section, with the metal percussion instruments played backstage, is serially organised using number squares, including a version of the source square for the second set of Klavierstücke from 1954–55 (Toop 2012, 431–32, 463–65).
In just two days in October 2006, Stockhausen realised a 13-minute electronic work to accompany Himmels-Tür on its first CD recording. The title Türin combines the names of the two sound sources used, the door (German: Tür) from the percussion piece, and a chromatic set of rin—Japanese bowl-gongs that Stockhausen had previously used in several compositions, such as Telemusik, Inori, Lucifer’s Dance from Samstag aus Licht, and the orchestra version of Hoch-Zeiten from Sonntag aus Licht, as well as in Himmelfahrt (Hour 1) and the twenty-second piece of Natural Durations (Hour 3) from Klang. The recorded sounds of strokes on the door are electronically processed to focus their pitch and extend their resonance, and a rin stroke of the corresponding pitch is added to each attack (Kohl 2008, 17).
The composition, written in September 2006 and realised on 7 and 8 October, consists of a single, stately presentation of the 24-tone Klang row in its original transposition, in rhythms derived from the pitches. Within each of these long tones, Stockhausen’s voice intones a different “noble word” (such as “hope”, “fidelity”, “balance”, “generosity”, etc.). The utter simplicity of this piece puts it at the opposite extreme from the hyper-complex Cosmic Pulses, work on which was already in progress at the time Türin was created (Kohl 2008, 17; Kohl 2012b, 478–79).
There are two versions of Türin, one with the words spoken in German, the other in English. According to the composer, these “noble words” are meant to keep the Himmels-Tür open (booklet accompanying Stockhausen Complete Edition CD 86, pp. 12 & 24). This composition was not assigned a work-number by Stockhausen, but is now included in the official catalogue of his works as “Nr. 84 extra”.
STOCKHAUSEN WAS A VERY RELIGIOUS MAN AND HE THOUGHT LONG AND HARD ABOUT THIS QUESTION BELOW:
Let’s suppose for a moment that you died today and stood before the Lord God and He asked you, “Why should I let you into My heaven?” What would you say? What do you think you would say?
Let’s suppose for a moment that you died today and stood before the Lord God and He asked you, “Why should I let you into My heaven?” What would you say? What do you think you would say?
That is one of the most important questions you can ask a person regarding their salvation. James Kennedy got the idea from Donald Grey Barnhouse who asked the same questions in a slightly different wording. “What right do you have to come into God’s heaven? What would be your answer?”
I like those questions because they force us to clarify our thoughts about salvation.
One thing is sure, one day you will die. You will be suddenly thrust into the face of God and He will ask the question, “Why should I let you come into My heaven?” “What right do you have to enter into the holy of holies?”
Your reply could be, “I am a religious person. I am trying to live a Christian life the best I can. I give to the poor, and try to help people in need. I an not a notorious sinner. I read religious books, my Bible, and I try to love people. I am serving God the best I can.” But no one will be justified before God on the basis of his good religious works. “The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked” (Jer. 17:9). The apostle Paul said wrote, “For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast” (Ephesians 2:8-9).
The only way a religious person will ever be saved is by faith in Jesus Christ who died on the cross paying the penalty for our sins. Jesus Christ offers His own perfect righteousness in the place of our self-righteousness, which can never save us. When we stand before the judgment throne of God no one will be able to offer any good works as the basis for their right relationship with God. Our sins and our guilt will stop our mouths because God demands perfect righteousness, and that we do not have on our own.
“Why should God let you into His heaven?” “Whatright do you have to enter into My heaven?” You may say, “I am a good Jewish person. I have been circumcised. I have fulfilled the requirements of the covenant.” Or you may say, “I have been baptized by immersion into the Christian faith.” Or “I have fulfilled the requirements of confirmation. I take the sacraments, and I give to the poor.” But God’s Word, the Bible, still says, “There is no one righteous, not even one. . . There is no one who does good, not even one.” No one will be declared righteous in God’s sight by his good works because the purpose of the Law is to make us conscious of our sins. “For no one is declared righteous before him by the works of the law, for through the law comes the knowledge of sin”(Rom. 3:20 NET).
The purpose of the Law is to bring us under conviction of our unrighteousness and point us to the perfect righteousness of Jesus Christ that alone can save us.
My only claim to heaven is the Lord Jesus Christ. He died for me. He took the punishment for my sins. He is my right to heaven, because He has become my righteousness.
The only answer that will satisfy God is one that focuses on the finished atoning work of Jesus Christ. If we are saved it is not on the basis of anything we do, but entirely on what Jesus Christ did for us on the cross in His death and resurrection. He suffered for our sins. He died for us. “The wages of sin is death.” He died my death. He bore my punishment for my sins in His death. There is no other way to come to God. Only the individual who comes to God trusting in the Lord Jesus Christ will enter into God’s presence in heaven.
Let’s suppose you died today and stood before God. What would be your answer to the question, “Why should I let you into My heaven?” “By whatright should God let you into His heaven?”
I pray that you will declare, “My only right to heaven is the Lord Jesus Christ. He died for me. He took my punishment for my sins. He is my righteousness. He is my only hope to enter into God’s holy presence. There is no other name given among men whereby I must be saved. Jesus alone can save me.”
Selah!
Message by Wil Pounds (c) 2006
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Francis Schaeffer’s favorite album was SGT. PEPPER”S and he said of the album “Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band…for a time it became the rallying cry for young people throughout the world. It expressed the essence of their lives, thoughts and their feelings.” (at the 14 minute point in episode 7 of HOW SHOULD WE THEN LIVE? )
How Should We Then Live – Episode Seven – 07 – Portuguese Subtitles
“Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, became the rallying cry for young people throughout the world. It expressed the essence of their lives, thoughts and their feelings…” Francis Schaeffer (1912-1984). We take a look today at how the Beatles were featured in Schaeffer’s film. How Should We then Live Episode 7 small On You Tube […]
Below my good friend Byron Tyler from my old days in the Bellevue Baptist Youth Group interviews our former music director Jim Whitmire. I respect both of these gentlemen tremendously.
This was the average sanctuary crowd when I was growing up at Bellevue Baptist in Memphis. Now take what you see and multiply it by three, because they had three morning services. This photo was taken sometime in the early 1980’s
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Adrian Rogers was my pastor from 1975 to 1983. I was amazed at he would teach the Bible and relate it to current events such as abortion. For instance, he stated, “Secular Humanism and so-called abortion rights are inseparably linked together.”
I took what he said and sent it to Carl Sagan and Sagan responded on December 5, 1995:
Thanks for your recent letter about evolution and abortion. The correlation is hardly one to one; there are evolutionists who are anti-abortion and anti-evolutionists who are pro-abortion.
(Carl Sagan and his third wife Ann Druyan pictured above)
In fact, I took excerpts from Dr. Rogers’ sermons and sent them out to many skeptics, and received responses back from Nobel prize winners such as Milton Friedman, George Wald, James D. Watson, and Nicolaas Bloembergen. Other scholars who took time to respond were Ernest Mayr (1904-2005), Robert Shapiro (1935-2011), Brian Charlesworth (1945-), Francisco J. Ayala (1934-) Elliott Sober (1948-), Kevin Padian (1951-), Matt Cartmill (1943-) , Milton Fingerman (1928-), John J. Shea (1969-), , Michael A. Crawford (1938-), Paul Kurtz (1925-2012), Sol Gordon (1923-2008), Albert Ellis (1913-2007), Barbara Marie Tabler (1915-1996), Renate Vambery (1916-2005), Archie J. Bahm (1907-1996), Aron S “Gil” Martin ( 1910-1997), Matthew I. Spetter (1921-2012), H. J. Eysenck (1916-1997), Robert L. Erdmann (1929-2006), Mary Morain (1911-1999), Lloyd Morain (1917-2010), Warren Allen Smith (1921-), Bette Chambers (1930-), Gordon Stein (1941-1996) , John Hospers (1918-2011), and Michael Martin (1932-).
Then we attended the European conference in Belgium and we first flew to Paris and rode in the back of a truck across France to Belgium. My good friend David Rogers and I were the only ones from the Bellevue Baptist youth group to go with OM that summer to go on missions in Europe. David went to Austria and I went to Manchester, England. David later served several years with OM.
Also during our trip David’s father was elected President of the Southern Baptist Convention. I was sitting next to David when he took the call from his father that he had decided to place his name into the election.
Adrian Rogers stood up for the inerrancy of the Bible and he did that during his time as President of the Southern Baptist Convention. This story below discusses that key part of Southern Baptist history.
KATHERINE BURGESS | MEMPHIS COMMERCIAL APPEAL | 6:00 am CDT July 9, 2019
Joyce Rogers speaks about her husband, Memphis pastor Adrian Rogers, an influential Southern Baptist conservative.KATHERINE BURGESS, THE COMMERCIAL APPEAL
Forty years ago, a pastor from Memphis was elected president of the Southern Baptist Convention.
He didn’t know it at the time, his wife said, but the election of Adrian Rogers would launch the “Conservative Resurgence” — called the “Fundamentalist Takeover” by its opponents — that solidified conservative control of the largest Protestant denomination in the country.
For Rogers, the debate centered around how the Bible was viewed, said his wife Joyce Rogers, who recently spoke with The Commercial Appeal about her late husband.
“He would like to be remembered as a man of God, one who stood for the Bible,” she said. “He would have died for his belief about the Bible.”
Adrian Rogers speaks at the 1988 annual meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention.SOUTHERN BAPTIST HISTORICAL LIBRARY AND ARCHIVES
By 1979, Southern Baptists had been fiercely divided for years, with particularly heated debates occurring in the seminaries, where many professors were accused of holding liberal views of the Bible.
Southern Baptists were divided among two camps called “conservatives” and “moderates.” The conservatives believed in the doctrine of inerrancy, which Baptist Press, the news arm of the convention, describes as “the doctrine that the Bible is completely free from error regarding theology, history, science and every other matter to which it speaks.”
Many of the moderates, according to Baptist Press, also believed in inerrancy but were comfortable with a variety of beliefs within the Southern Baptist Convention.
Bill Leonard, professor emeritus at Wake Forest University who used to chair Baptist Studies, said it’s “academically impossible” to disengage politics from theology.
Memphis pastor Adrian Rogers was a three-term president of the Southern Baptist Convention.SOUTHERN BAPTIST HISTORICAL LIBRARY AND ARCHIVES
For example, many leaders in the conservative resurgence were closely allied with the Republican Party, Leonard said.
“Many of them were Southern Baptist in ways that would move the denomination as much as possible into becoming a consistent Republican base, a consistent voting block,” Leonard said. “We know now that 40 years later, that was also successful.”
Moderates in the convention had also advocated in favor of abortion access and the ordination of women.
Rogers was a reluctant candidate, seen as a ‘rising star’
Even as Southern Baptists began to gather in Houston for the 1979 annual meeting, Rogers hadn’t agreed to run.
That didn’t stop well-known pastor W. A. Criswell from telling pastors days before the election that, “We will have a great time here if for no other reason than to elect Adrian Rogers as our president.”
The statement caught Joyce Rogers off guard.
“At first I was so mad at him, because I thought he (hadn’t) got permission to say that or anything,” she said. “But it became obvious that God was in it.”
Memphis pastor Adrian Rogers was a three-term president of the Southern Baptist Convention and a leader in the denomination’s conservative resurgence.BAPTIST PRESS
Some moderates were also watching Rogers.
According to Baptist Press, moderate C.R. Daley later said, “Some of us saw the rising star out of Memphis named Adrian Rogers — in my mind the most brilliant of his group, the one who poses the gravest threat to the Southern Baptist Convention. It was obvious that he was to be the king. It was obvious to some of us that he wasn’t the kind of king we wanted.”
Southern Baptist leaders Paige Patterson and Paul Pressler developed a strategy of how to take control of the Southern Baptist Convention.They determined that if conservatives won the presidency for 10 consecutive years, they could use the president’s appointive power to gain majorities on all Southern Baptist boards and agencies. That included the six seminaries and the two mission boards, said Barry Hankins, professor of history and department chair at Baylor University.
Patterson, who was later president of the Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, the Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, has recently been discredited and removed as seminary head for his handling of sex abuse claims. Last year, Pressler was accused of rape and other sexual misconduct. He has denied the allegations, according to Baptist News Global.
But in 1979, Patterson and Pressler were influential and respected leaders. Pressler was a former state representative and a judge in Houston while Patterson was president of Criswell College in Dallas.
“What they needed was a good candidate, so they recruited Adrian Rogers to be the candidate they would run in 1979 to try and win,” Hankins said. “He was a winsome personality with a great preaching voice. He was staunchly conservative in his theology, in favor of conservatives having a sort of test for leadership in the convention, but he was not in any way a hard-edged personality type.”
If Rogers hadn’t been a pastor, he would have had to become some kind of orator, Hankins said, with his “golden voice.” In 1987, Rogers would go on to found “Love Worth Finding,” a television ministry that extended to 194 countries.
At the time, Rogers was also pastor of one of the largest churches in the convention, Memphis’ Bellevue Baptist Church. The church was located in downtown Memphis, and rapidly growing.
By Rogers’ retirement in 2005, the church had grown from 9,000 members to more than 29,000 members and relocated to its campus in Cordova.
Hankins said his sense is that Rogers was able to “stay above the fray” during much of the division. He didn’t take on leadership because of politics, Hankins said, but because he believed the inerrancy of the Bible was necessary to furthering evangelism.
On the day of the election, Rogers was chosen with 51% of the vote.
Rogers was a pastor first
Raised in West Palm Beach, Florida, Rogers met his wife in the fourth grade. He liked to joke that they didn’t get serious until the sixth grade.
Joyce Rogers, who still lives in the Memphis area, said she isn’t sure how her husband developed his views about biblical inerrancy.
“I always say he was a man of conviction and courage,” she said. “He’d just sit with his Bible in his hand and see that (something) didn’t agree with what the Bible would say.”
Adrian Rogers stands with his wife Joyce Rogers in a photo from before they were married. The couple were childhood sweethearts.SUBMITTED
Rogers became pastor of a small church during his freshman year of college at Stetson University in DeLand, Florida. The couple married at the beginning of their second year of college.
Later, Rogers pastored a church in Merritt Island, Florida, but agreed to visit Bellevue Baptist Church in Memphis when they said they wanted him as pastor. He told his church in Florida that he didn’t think he’d take on the job in Memphis, Joyce Rogers said, but when they arrived, “there was almost electricity in the air.”
Surprising the couple, leadership at Bellevue voted to approve Rogers then and there — before he said yes to accepting the position. The couple ended up agreeing and moving to Memphis, where Rogers remained until his death in 2005.
“His great desire in life was to be a pastor,” said the Rev. Bob Sorrell, who was associate pastor at Bellevue for many of Rogers’ years there. “That took first place in his life after his family. I think the service, as far as the convention was concerned, was an opportunity that was provided to him and for him, but his greatest desire was to be the pastor of the church.”
Even with speaking duties and other requirements as president of the Southern Baptist Convention, Rogers made sure to almost always be in the pulpit at Bellevue on Sundays, Sorrell said.
A plan with no compromise
Joyce Rogers holds a photo of her late husband Adrian Rogers, who was a key leader in the Southern Baptist Convention’s conservative resurgence.KATHERINE BURGESS
Ultimately, Pressler and Patterson’s plan for the convention worked.
Rogers was the first in a long line of conservative presidents — culminating in a mid-1980s meeting in which 45,000 Southern Baptists showed up in Dallas to try to elect either a conservative or moderate candidate.
“By that time everyone realized what was at stake and both sides were recruiting, putting the word out, (saying to) go to the convention and vote,” Hankins said.
By the early 1990s, the convention was “fully in conservative hands,” Hankins said. Some moderate congregations left and formed the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship.
Rogers later held two more terms as president in the 1980s.
There’s a quotation from her husband that was placed on a plaque and gifted to Joyce Rogers that now hangs on the wall outside her Memphis area home.
It’s known as the “no-compromise” statement that he made at the height of the struggle over the future of the Southern Baptist Convention.
“We don’t have to get together. The Southern Baptist Convention doesn’t have to survive,” Adrian Rogers said. “I don’t have to be the pastor of Bellevue. I don’t have to live. But I’m not going to compromise the word of God.”
Katherine Burgess covers county government, religion and the suburbs. She can be reached at katherine.burgess@commercialappeal.com, 901-529-2799 or followed on Twitter @kathsburgess.
Twenty years I had the opportunity to correspond with two individuals that were regarded as two of the most famous atheists of the 20th Century, Antony Flew and Carl Sagan. I had read the books and seen the films of the Christian philosopher Francis Schaeffer and he had discussed the works of both of these men. I sent both of these gentlemen philosophical arguments from Schaeffer in these letters and in the first letter I sent a cassette tape of my pastor’s sermon IS THE BIBLE TRUE? You may have noticed in the news a few years that Antony Flew actually became a theist in 2004 and remained one until his death in 2010. Carl Sagan remained a skeptic until his dying day in 1996.Antony Flew wrote me back several times and in the June 1, 1994 letter he commented, “Thank you for sending me the IS THE BIBLE TRUE? tape to which I have just listened with great interest and, I trust, profit.” I later sent him Adrian Rogers’ sermon on evolution too.
The ironic thing is back in 2008 I visited the Bellevue Baptist Book Store and bought the book There Is A God – How the World’s Most Notorious Atheist Changed His Mind, by Antony Flew, and it is in this same store that I bought the message by Adrian Rogers in 1994 that I sent to Antony Flew. Although Antony Flew did not make a public profession of faith he did admit that the evidence for God’s existence was overwhelming to him in the last decade of his life. His experience has been used in a powerful way to tell others about Christ. Let me point out that while on airplane when I was reading this book a gentleman asked me about the book. I was glad to tell him the whole story about Adrian Rogers’ two messages that I sent to Dr. Flew and I gave him CD’s of the messages which I carry with me always. Then at McDonald’s at the Airport, a worker at McDonald’s asked me about the book and I gave him the same two messages from Adrian Rogers too.
Dr. Rogers on Evolution
With the steadfast support of friends like you, Love Worth Finding will continue to hold high the banner of Jesus Christ.
THREE TELLING ARGUMENTS AGAINST EVOLUTION
1. The fossil record. Not only is the so-called missing link still missing, all of the transitional life forms so crucial to evolutionary theory are missing from the fossil record. There are thousands of missing links, not one! 2. The second law of thermodynamics. This law states that energy is winding down and that matter left to itself tends toward chaos and randomness, not greater organization and complexity. Evolution demands exactly the opposite process, which is observed nowhere in nature.
Dr. George Wald of Harvard:
“When it comes to the origin of life, we have only two possibilities as to how life arose. One is spontaneous generation arising to evolution; the other is a supernatural creative act of God. There is no third possibility…Spontaneous generation was scientifically disproved one hundred years ago by Louis Pasteur, Spellanzani, Reddy and others. That leads us scientifically to only one possible conclusion — that life arose as a supernatural creative act of God…I will not accept that philosophically because I do not want to believe in God. Therefore, I choose to believe in that which I know is scientifically impossible, spontaneous generation arising to evolution.” – Scientific American, August, 1954.
3. The origin of life. Evolution offers no answers to the origin of life. It simply pushes the question farther back in time, back to some primordial event in space or an act of spontaneous generation in which life simply sprang from nothing.
________________________________
I actually had the chance to correspond with George Wald twice before his death. He wrote me two letters and in the first one he suggested that he was just using hyperbole when he made the assertion that is quoted by Dr. Rogers. He also suggested the religion of Buddhism although he said he was not a Buddhist himself, but he thought that would be closest to the truth which he thought was atheism.
During the 1990′s I actually made it a practice to write famous atheists and scientists that were mentioned by Adrian Rogers and Francis Schaeffer and challenge them with the evidence for the Bible’s historicity and the claims of the gospel. Usually I would send them a cassette tape of Adrian Rogers’ messages “6 reasons I know […]
7News : Web Extra: Ricky Gervais on God Published on Mar 23, 2014 He’s not shy about sharing his opinion with 5 million social media followers so Ricky Gervais was happy to clear a few things up for us too. __________________________________ Discussion (2 of 3): Antony Flew, N.T. Wright, and Gary Habermas ___________ The Bible and Science […]
Piers Morgan Tonight : CNN Official Interview: Ricky Gervais says atheism shouldn’t offend Uploaded on Jan 20, 2011 Ricky Gervais tells CNN’s Piers Morgan why he’s an atheist, and why his jokes about God shouldn’t offend believers. The Bible and Science (Part 01) __________________________________ Antony Flew tells what the book THERE IS A GOD: “How the world’s most […]
Over 3,000 years ago, King Solomon wrote poignantly about his life and about the purpose and meaning of life in general “under the sun.” His observations could be an appropriate epitaph for Hugh Hefner, the founder of the Playboy empire:
1 I said in my heart, “Come now, I will test you with pleasure; enjoy yourself.” But behold, this also was vanity.2 I said of laughter, “It is mad,” and of pleasure, “What use is it?” 3 I searched with my heart how to cheer my body with wine—my heart still guiding me with wisdom—and how to lay hold on folly, till I might see what was good for the children of man to do under heaven during the few days of their life.
. . . 10 And whatever my eyes desired I did not keep from them. I kept my heart from no pleasure, for my heart found pleasure in all my toil, and this was my reward for all my toil.11 Then I considered all that my hands had done and the toil I had expended in doing it, and behold, all was vanity and a striving after wind, and there was nothing to be gained under the sun. [Ecclesiastes 2:1-3, 10-11 (ESV)]
Perhaps as a metaphor for his pleasure-filled life, Hefner paid $75,000 for a crypt next to Marilyn Monroe, where presumably he will be buried.
As one evaluates the legacy of Hugh Hefner, it is difficult to say anything positive about that legacy. Columnist Tim Morris observes that “Hefner didn’t love women [which he claimed]. He lusted for them. He loved only himself and a hedonistic life that was mostly an adolescent fantasy.” Jill Filipovic of Time argues, “What Hefner and Playboy never did was present women as human, or consider us anything like men. Hefner made female sex objects more relatable and accessible . . . . Brilliantly, Hefner attached himself to the sexual revolution and the feminist gains that precipitated it. From his vantage point, publishing a magazine full of naked women was just one part of the new culture of ‘free love.’” In short, he built an empire on male desire!
New York Times columnist Ross Douthat offers the most honest evaluation of Hugh Hefner’s legacy I have read. Permit me extensive quotation from his essay:
“Hef was the grinning pimp of the sexual revolution, with Quaaludes for the ladies and Viagra for himself—a father of smut addictions and eating disorders, abortions and divorce and syphilis, a pretentious huckster who published Updike stories no one read while doing flesh procurement for celebrities, a revolutionary whose revolution chiefly benefitted men much like himself.”
“Hef the vanquisher of puritanism, Hef the political progressive, Hef the great businessman and all the rest . . . What a lot of garbage . . . the things that were distinctly Hefnerian, that made him influential and important, were all rotten, and to the extent they were part of stories that people tend to celebrate, they showed the rot in larger things as well.”
“The social liberalism he championed was the rotten and self-interested sort, a liberalism of male and upper-class privilege, in which the strong and beautiful and rich take their pleasure at the expense of the vulnerable and poor and not-yet-born.”
“And his appreciation of male-female difference was rotten, too—the leering predatory sort of appreciation, the Cosby-Clinton-Trump sort, the sort that nicknames Quaaludes ‘thigh openers’ and expects the girls to laugh, the sort that prefers breast implants to female intellect and rents the charms of youth to escape the realities of age.”
“But in every way that mattered he made those changes worse, our culture coarser and crueler and more sterile than liberalism or feminism or freedom of speech required. And in every way that mattered his life story proved that we were wrong to listen to him, because at the end of the long slide lay only a degraded, priapic senility, or the desperate gaiety of Prince Prospero’s court with the Red Death at the door.”
“Conservatives should ask how their crusade for faith and family and community ended up so Hefnerian itself—with a conservative news network that seems to have been run on Playboy principles and a conservative party that just elected a playboy as our president.”
As many have observed, Hugh Hefner validated the objectification of women. But he did so by embracing and championing libertinism and materialism which hid the reality of philandering, licentiousness and exploitation–all in the name of freedom! Hefner viewed himself as a moral revolutionary, one who “opened up the floodgates” of sexual libertinism which Playboy encouraged, commercialized and symbolized. He thereby transformed American sexual morality by intentionally breaking down the Judeo-Christian sexual ethic that once defined American civilization.
Theologian Albert Mohler maintains that Hefner not only advocated a lifestyle of sexual libertinism but he also advocated a theology. In an interview, Hefner declared that he was a “spiritual person, but I don’t mean that I believe in the supernatural.” He believed in God as creator but not in “the God of the Bible.” He championed that “I urge one and all to live life as if there is no reward in the afterlife and to do it in a moral way that makes it better for you and those around you, and that leaves this world a little better place than when you found it.” Hefner’s moral philosophy and “theology” of libertinism and exploitation are now mainstreamed in American culture. That is his legacy.
Hefner was not a moral revolutionary but a peddler of smut in the name of freedom. His “freedom” produced bondage and enslavement to a sexual fantasy that has destroyed both men and women. He died a pathetic, debauched, degraded old man who personified decadence not liberation.
King Solomon concluded his sobering evaluation of life with this observation about death:
3 This is an evil in all that is done under the sun, that the same event happens to all. Also, the hearts of the children of man are full of evil, and madness is in their hearts while they live, and after that they go to the dead. [Ecclesiastes 9:3 (ESV)]
13 The end of the matter; all has been heard. Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man.14 For God will bring every deed into judgment, with every secret thing, whether good or evil. [Ecclesiastes 12:13-14 (ESV)]
Hugh Hefner has now experienced the great equalizer—death. He also now realizes that there is a God, the God of the Bible, and he will need to give an account of the life he has lived. What a tragedy; what a waste!
See Ross Douthat in the New York Times (1 October 2017); Jill Filipovic in www.time.com (30 September 2017); Tim Morris in www.nola.com (2 October 2017); and Albert Mohler in www.albertmohler.com (14 October 2015). PRINT PDF
Many of the sermons that I heard or read that inspired me to write Hugh Hefner were from this list of gentlemen: Daniel Akin, Brandon Barnard,Matt Chandler, George Critchley, Darryl Dash, Steve DeWitt, Steve Gaines, Norman L. Geisler, Greg Gillbert, Billy Graham, Mark Henry, Dan Jarrell, Walter C. Kaiser, Jr., R. G. Lee, C.S. Lewis, Chris Lewis, Kerry Livgren, Robert Lewis, Bill Parkinson, Ben Parkinson, Blaise Pascal, Vance Pitman, Nelson Price, Ethan Renoe, Adrian Rogers, Philip Graham Ryken, Francis Schaeffer, Lee Strobel, Bill Wellons, Kirk Wetsell, Ken Whitten, Ed Young , Ravi Zacharias, Tom Zobrist, and Richard Zowie.
In this letter below I quote extensively from an article by Ethan Renoe. I also use quotes from Blaise Pascal and C. S. Lewis. I also quoted Ravi Zacharias when I wrote, “The key to understanding the Book of Ecclesiastes is the term UNDER THE SUN — What that literally means is you lock God out of a closed system and you are left with only this world of Time plus Chance plus matter.”
The Visit of the Queen of Sheba to King Solomon’, oil on canvas painting by Edward Poynter, 1890
Hugh Hefner with the movie maker Woody Allen below:
February 8, 2016
Hugh Hefner Playboy Mansion 10236 Charing Cross Road Los Angeles, CA 90024-1815
Dear Mr. Hefner,
You have made it known how much you love your movie nights and also that you are a big fan of Woody Allen movies. I have also seen you talk of your glorious past. However, did you know that you may have overlooked some of the negative things that happened in your past. On CBS THIS MORNING 4-9-14 you said you don’t deserve the label of “womanizer” but you are just a “hopeless romantic.” Is this just spinning the past to remove all the negative so you have a golden period? This is what people sometimes call GOLDEN AGE THINKING. People try to either glorify their past in comparison to the present or they try to visualize a time in the past that was golden and they would have been happy in that period.
Marion Cotillard plays Adriana and Owen Wilson plays Gil Pender
Woody Allen’s film MIDNIGHT IN PARIS is brilliant and I am sure you enjoyed it HUGH!!!!
__
Later in this letter I share some words from Ethan Renoe and he talks about a summer that he had a lot of great experiences and anytime he thinks back on that summer his memory is influenced by nostalgia and a longing to go back. He doesn’t recall the negative aspects. YOU MY FRIEND CAN NOT GO TO BED WITH 1000 WOMEN WITHOUT BEING A WOMANIZER.
In this series of letters I have written to you I have often compared you to King Solomon who was the 2nd most wise person mentioned in the Bible behind only Jesus. You should find it intriguing that I have noticed that many hundreds of preachers have mentioned you also in comparison to Solomon. In this letter I want to look both at the Woody Allen movie MIDNIGHT IN PARIS and the final conclusion that Solomon gives in the Book of Ecclesiastes.
In MIDNIGHT IN PARIS Gil Pender concludes there is no GOLDEN AGE, but people dream of a GOLDEN AGE because they find the PRESENT AGE unsatisfying. Actually Solomon said a long time ago, “[God]has placed eternity on the hearts of men.” Scientist Blaise Pascal put it this way, “There is a God-shaped vacuum in the heart of every man which cannot be filled by any created thing, but only by God the Creator, made known through Jesus Christ.” No wonder life is unsatisfying to Gil since he is an agnostic that is not seeking a relationship with God. King Solomon wrote 3,000 years ago in the Book of Ecclesiastes that attempting to find satisfaction in life UNDER THE SUN is equal to CHASING THE WIND. Take a look at a portion of an excellent article by Ethan Renoe:
I have this new theory. It’s not based in anything really, but tell me if you agree. This post is going to be rather extensive in its scope, as I attempt to critique a Woody Allen film, present a theory on memories, and include a Biblical basis for all of it.
The theory is this: Every time you think back to a memory from your own past, you are not thinking directly back to the event itself; you are thinking of the last time you thought of it. You are recalling the feelings, emotions, and colors present the last time you thought of the previous memory. For example, the summer of 2007 was the greatest time of my life. Every day was painted with scenes from the best romantic comedies, mixed with endless East coast adventures, and wrapped in the blanket of my three best friends and I doing everything together.
Now, for the sake of explanation, let’s say I have thought of this summer five times since it happened. By that, I mean I really thought about it and everything that happened over those three months. So, whenever my mind glances in the rear view mirror to that time period, I have to access it through the tunnels of the previous five times I thought of it. In other words, my mind must take a detour through all the times I have recalled it before, rather than taking a highway directly to the events themselves. When this occurs, I also see the summer of ’07 through the fog of all the emotions I had the other five times I thought of it. In this situation, the typical emotion held toward that summer is nostalgia and a longing to go back. In reality,I am sure that there were parts of the summer that were not so great, but because of the detours through my other memories, I can’t see them now. I am convinced that there were things happening in my life that were not enjoyable, or decisions that did not turn out my way, or some other longings I was entertaining at the time. In this way, the memories only get blurrier and blurrier as an icon from my life of a time when things were perfect.
Woody Allen explored this phenomena in his film Midnight in Paris, and dubbed the occurrence ‘Golden Age Thinking.’ Now some readers of my blog may see this review as an excuse to talk once more about the dazzling Marion Cotillard. You would not be wrong. However, Allen presents a few compelling ideas in this piece. Owen Wilson plays Gil; a romantic screenwriter who daydreams about seeing Paris in the 1920’s when it is raining. Somehow, he gets his wish when on a walk one night in Paris and a cab full of old-timey people pulls up and invites him in. He enters and is taken back to the time of Hemingway, Dali, Picasso, and Cole Porter. He is in love with the time. Every night, he returns to the enchanted time of the 20’s, and every morning returns to his drag of a fiancee. Soon after the time travels begin, he meets the mysteriously beautiful Adriana (Cotillard), the supposed muse of Picasso and Hemingway, and is smitten. After a couple nights spent wandering in and out of parties and the streets of Paris in the 1920’s, Adriana reveals that she would much rather live in the time of la Belle Epoque; about a century earlier. They travel back in time even further, this time by magical horse drawn carriage, to the 1890’s. Adriana is overjoyed and wants to stay there rather than in her own time; the 1920’s.
One of the main ideas Allen is conveying here is that everyone has a time they view as the ‘Golden Age;’ the time when nothing was wrong and everything was perfect and alive and beautiful. Even people living in our own personal golden ages. I’m sure that the Ethan living in the summer of 2007 was longing for some time other than the one he was in then, just as the Ethan writing this now does.
Someone else took note of this empty yearning that every human has, several millennia prior to Woody. The wisest man alive, in fact. I know I have used this scripture before, but that’s because I find it so central to the human experience that to overlook it is pure foolishness. Ecclesiastes 3:11 says that “He has placed eternity on the hearts of men.” How many of you long for THAT? How many of you have ever said to yourself, “Boy, I wish I could just go back to forever, when everything was good and okay?” We can’t even fathom eternity, therefore, we cannot even comprehend longing for it. C.S. Lewis is famously quoted in his short piece “The Weight of Glory” for writing, “It would seem that our Lord finds our desires, not too strong, but too weak.” The kind of desire that each one of us has is placed in us for a reason–not to bring us to satisfaction in the promising, yet empty, objects of the world, but in Him [Jesus] alone! There’s a reason that every human being has an unquenchable thirst for another time period, place, or group of friends. We have eternity planted in our hearts. We wants things we can’t even comprehend.This is why the past looks perfect to us only from one side, hindsight, and the present is always left unsatisfied…
FRANCIS SCHAEFFER PICTURED BELOW:
Solomon wrote the Book of Ecclesiastes and he penned the words, “[God] has placed eternity on the hearts of men.” Solomon is pursuing satisfaction in life UNDER THE SUN in the Book of Ecclesiastes. FRANCIS SCHAEFFER noted that Solomon took a look at the meaning of life on the basis of human life standing alone between birth and death “under the sun.” This phrase UNDER THE SUN appears over and over in Ecclesiastes. The Christian Scholar Ravi Zacharias noted, “The key to understanding the Book of Ecclesiastes is the term UNDER THE SUN — What that literally means is you lock God out of a closed system and you are left with only this world of Time plus Chance plus matter.” However, even though Solomon is finding all these pursuits are dead ends he also has this eternity that has been placed in his heart.
BLAISE PASCAL pictured below:
Again this brings me back full circle to Pascal. BLAISE PASCAL, a famous French mathematician and philosopher, put it like this: “There is a God-shaped vacuum in the heart of every man which cannot be filled by any created thing, but only by God the Creator, made known through Jesus Christ.” That ties in nicely with with Ecclesiastes 3:11 “He has placed eternity on the hearts of men.”
PS: This is the 17th letter I have written to you and again I have taken an aspect of your life and responded with what the Bible has to say on that subject. HUGH you may look back on the 1000 women that you slept with and try to rationalize that you are a HOPELESS ROMANTIC but just like Solomon you must admit that your pursuits at womanizing was like an effort of CHASING THE WIND. Don’t you see that Solomon was an old man when he wrote Ecclesiastes and just like you he had also slept with 1000 women but he had not found satisfaction UNDER THE SUN. In fact he exclaimed, GOD HAS PLACED ETERNITY ON THE HEARTS OF MEN!!!! Don’t you think it is time that you take Solomon’s advice in the last chapter? “The end of the matter; all has been heard. Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man. For God will bring every deed into judgment, with every secret thing, whether good or evil.”
Featured artist is Tala Madani
Tala Madani was born in Tehran, Iran in 1981. She skewers stereotypes in her sharply satirical paintings that evoke clashes of culture: men and women, the rational and the absurd, Western and non-Western. Madani’s figurative paintings often feature a riotous cast of middle-aged men, balding and stocky, whose libidinal mayhem wreaks havoc on any situation the artist thrusts them into. Acerbic caricatures of both machismo and a childlike desire for mischief, the physical comedy at work in Madani’s paintings is anchored by intense pleasures, pathos, and a pervasive sense of violence.
The history of painting itself is also a target in Madani’s witty works, with spread-eagled characters resembling Color Field paintings, or characters wearing stripes appearing to be both prisoners and Minimalist abstractions. Painted with quick gestures, where oozing paint often doubles as bodily fluids, food, and stains, Madani’s compositions are derived from sketchbooks where countless studies provide the skeleton for her speedy execution. Madani’s pictures are also transformed into stop-motion animations where the artist photographs a freshly created scene over time—wet paint still glistening—resulting in stories of small calamities that are once hilarious, tender, and ghoulish.
Tala Madani attended Yale University (MFA, 2006) and Oregon State University, Corvallis (BFA, 2004). Madani’s awards and residencies include a Tiffany Foundation grant (2014), the Catherine Doctorow Prize for Contemporary Painting (2013), ArtPace Residency (2013), De Volkskrant Art Award (2012), Future Generation Art Prize (shortlisted, 2012), British School of Rome (2010), and The Rijksakademie, Amsterdam (2007). Madani has had major exhibitions at the MIT List Center for Contemporary Art (2016); CAM, St. Louis (2016); Nottingham Contemporary (2014); Taipei Biennial (2014); Marrakech Biennale (2014); Hammer Museum, Los Angeles (2014); Moderna Museet, Stockholm (2013); Moderna Museet, Malmö (2013); Göteborg Biennial (2013); Stedelijk Museum (2011); Venice Biennale (2011); MoMA P.S. 1, New York (2010); Liverpool Biennial, (2010); and The New Museum, New York (2009). Tala Madani lives and works in Los Angeles, CA, USA.
I started this series on my letters and postcards to Hugh Hefner back in September when I read of the passing of Mr. Hefner. There are many more to come. It is my view that he may have taken time to look at glance at one or two of them since these postcards were short and from one of Hef’s favorite […]
By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Atheists Confronted | Edit | Comments (0)
I started this series on my letters and postcards to Hugh Hefner back in September when I read of the passing of Mr. Hefner. There are many more to come. It is my view that he may have taken time to look at glance at one or two of them since these postcards were short and from one of Hef’s favorite […]
By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Atheists Confronted | Edit | Comments (0)
I started this series on my letters and postcards to Hugh Hefner back in September when I read of the passing of Mr. Hefner. There are many more to come. It is my view that he may have taken time to look at glance at one or two of them since these postcards were short and from one of Hef’s favorite […]
By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Atheists Confronted | Edit | Comments (0)
I started this series on my letters and postcards to Hugh Hefner back in September when I read of the passing of Mr. Hefner. There are many more to come. It is my view that he may have taken time to look at glance at one or two of them since these postcards were short and from one of Hef’s […]
By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Francis Schaeffer | Edit | Comments (0)
_ I started this series on my letters and postcards to Hugh Hefner back in September when I read of the passing of Mr. Hefner. There are many more to come. It is my view that he may have taken time to look at glance at one or two of them since these postcards were short and from one of […]
By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Atheists Confronted | Edit | Comments (0)
_____ I started this series on my letters and postcards to Hugh Hefner back in September when I read of the passing of Mr. Hefner. There are many more to come. It is my view that he may have taken time to look at glance at one or two of them since these postcards were short and from one of Hef’s […]
By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Atheists Confronted | Edit | Comments (0)
_____ I started this series on my letters and postcards to Hugh Hefner back in September when I read of the passing of Mr. Hefner. There are many more to come. It is my view that he may have taken time to look at glance at one or two of them since these postcards were […]
By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Atheists Confronted | Edit | Comments (0)
_____ I started this series on my letters and postcards to Hugh Hefner back in September when I read of the passing of Mr. Hefner. There are many more to come. It is my view that he may have taken time to look at glance at one or two of them since these postcards were […]
By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Adrian Rogers, Atheists Confronted | Edit | Comments (0)
|I saw this on the internet on June 20, 2017 _ Playboy’s Hugh Hefner on board a boat with Barbi Benton and friends sporting a striped navy shirt and a pipe in mouth and a real catch in hand during the 70s. ____________________________________ Below is the last letter I ever wrote to Hugh Hefner. […]
By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Adrian Rogers, Atheists Confronted, Francis Schaeffer | Edit |Comments (0)
I learned yesterday that Hugh Hefner had passed away. Just last year I visited Chicago and drove by his Chicago Playboy Mansion pictured below. ___ Playboy after dark filmed in Chicago Playboy Mansion During the 1990′s I actually made it a practice to write famous atheists and scientists that were mentioned by Adrian […]
By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Atheists Confronted, Francis Schaeffer, Milton Friedman | Edit| Comments (0)
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The Daily Hatch 