It is He who says, with power, “Behold the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world.”
It is He who convinces of sin, who wounds, and probes the wound, and lays open the evil of our nature—causing us to know that we are corrupt within and without.
But He not only thus discovers the malady—He also applies the remedy. He abases the sinner; and exalts the Saviour. He gives the deep sense of sin–that the great salvation may be more appreciated and enjoyed.”
“We glorify God by working out our own salvation. God has twisted together his glory and our good. What an encouragement is this to the service of God, to think, while I am hearing and praying, I am glorifying God; while I am furthering my own glory in heaven, I am increasing God’s glory.
Would it not be an encouragement to a subject, to hear his prince say to him, You will honour and please me very much, if you will go to yonder mine of gold, and dig as much gold for yourself as you can carry away? So, for God to say, Go to the ordinances, get as much grace as you can, dig out as much salvation as you can; and the more happiness you have, the more I shall count myself glorified.”
—Thomas Watson, A Body of Divinity (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 1997), 13-14
Margaret and I went to the christening/ baptism of Caleb Loder this morning and enjoyed a very pleasant lunch and afternoon at the Loders' place.
It's the first time I've heard Father Vic preach, although we've talked informally numerous times. He very carefully explained the symbols of water, light, oil and white clothing. He also explained that baptism is a sacrament which carries the grace of Christ to the baby and represents the start of a walk with Christ. Just as enrolling in a school does not guarantee that you finish, baptism does not guarantee that you get to heaven.
Nicely done, I thought, and a sermon which would be at home in any evangelical church that practises infant baptism (or even adult baptism for that matter).
“The gospel does not say, ‘There is a Saviour, if you wish to be saved’; but, ‘Sir, you have no right to go to hell — you cannot go there without trampling on the Son of God.’”
—John Duncan, quoted in Iain H. Murray, Spurgeon v. Hyper-Calvinism, 97.
Ryan Cordle writes this excellent piece about evangelical theology, death and the sacraments:
Death: Why Evangelicals are Missing the Sacraments
Michael Spencer wrote a thought-provoking piece on the things that Evangelicals make sacraments besides the sacraments. Growing up in an Evangelical church, we "had communion" twice a year: Good Friday and the Sunday before Thanksgiving. Also, I had to request to be baptized, because for my church "getting saved," was the key, not baptism. That is not an atypical story for anyone growing up in that kind of church.
A lot has been said and written about why Evangelicals just "don't get it," when it comes to the sacraments. These reasons usually point to the Evangelical gnostic tendencies or the fear of Roman Catholicism, which are both valid critiques of what is going on. You can check out Michael Horton's books for a very good exposition of what is going on there.
Yet, I have had a suspicion that there is a slightly different psychology of the thinking going on in modern Evangelical churches about the sacraments. I think that American Evangelicals haven't embraced a sacramental theology, because they haven't accepted mortality. Evangelicals have dealt thoroughly with what it means to be "Pro-Life," but have they consciously dealt with death? I believe that they have just accepted the current Western position on death, which is to invest as much money as possible in postponing it as long as possible. The modern attitude is to choose avoidance rather than acceptance. For example, ask most moderns if they would rather have a quick, unexpected death or a more drawn out death, and they will almost all choose the former. Just ask an Evangelical, "What do you expect to happen when you die?" or "What does it mean to die with dignity?" Evangelical churches largely do not have a coherent narrative or a language for facing death.
The uncertainty about death can be explained away in several ways. One could point to the fact that Evangelicals rose to power at the same time as modern medicine. It is much easier to avoid death around us than it would have been 300 years ago. Also, there is no liturgy/ritual Evangelicals share concerning death. Orthodox, Catholics, Anglicans all have liturgies and language that demonstrate the continuing fact that we all die. What words do Evangelicals have to offer about death? Finally, Evangelicals don't embrace the martyr narratives like the older traditions do. The narratives about the early Christian martyrs give us an insight into what it means to die with hope and faith in Jesus.
There is a lot of confusion, and perhaps denial and anxiety, about death for the typical Evangelical. This attitude about death takes much of the power of the sacraments away, because the sacraments force us to face death. The story in baptism and the Eucharistic meal is that we all will die, but Jesus has given us the hope of the Resurrection. Yet, if we first refuse to understand our own deaths, then we miss the good news of the sacraments. It's much easier to just "get saved" and then I don't have to think about death any longer, because it is basically all taken care of. However, if we are to grasp the power of the gospel story, then we must somehow grasp that death is part of our own story.
For the early Church, participating in the Eucharist was also a call to (literally) die with Christ. The Eucharist was explaining the reality that to be a Christian is to expect to die for Christ. One can find this attitude all over early Christian literature. A very memorable narrative of this sort can be found in the Martyrdom of Polycarp, where Polycarp is put into the executioner's fire, and his burning skin was like "bread that is baked," an allusion to the Eucharist.
Have Evangelicals accepted death, and the call to die for Christ? I think that they have yet to work such a theology out, and in not doing so, they have missed the power of the Eucharist.
Posted by Jacob in Miscellaneous. Tagged: Christ, prayer, salvation. 11 Comments
This list was made by Todd Friel of Way of the Master Radio, not me. I simply found it and would like to share it with you. Enjoy
Ten Reasons To Not Ask Jesus Into Your Heart By: Todd Friel
The music weeps, the preacher pleads, “Give your heart to Jesus. You have a God shaped hole in your heart and only Jesus can fill it.” Dozens, hundreds or thousands of people who want to get their spiritual life on track make their way to the altar. They ask Jesus into their heart.
Cut to three months later. Nobody has seen our new convert in church. The follow up committee calls him and encourages him to attend a Bible study, but to no avail. We label him a backslider and get ready for the next outreach event.
Our beloved child lies in her snuggly warm bed and says, “Yes, Daddy. I want to ask Jesus into my heart.” You lead her in “the prayer” and hope that it sticks. You spend the next ten years questioning if she really, really meant it. Puberty hits and the answer reveals itself. She backslides. We spend the next ten years praying that she will come to her senses.
Telling someone to ask Jesus into their hearts has a very typical result, backsliding. the Bible says that a person who is soundly saved puts his hand to the plow and does not look back because he is fit for service. In other words, a true convert cannot backslide. If a person backslides, he never slid forward in the first place. “If any man is in Christ, he is a new creation.” (II Cor.5) No backsliding there.
Brace yourself for this one: with very few if any exceptions, anyone who asked Jesus into their hearts to be saved…is not. If you asked Jesus into your heart because you were told that is what you have to do to become a Christian, you were mis-informed.
If you have ever told someone to ask Jesus into their heart (like I have), you produced a false convert. Here is why.
1. It is not in the Bible. There is not a single verse that even hints we should say a prayer inviting Jesus into our hearts. Some use Rev. 3:20. To tell us that Jesus is standing at the door of our hearts begging to come in.
“Behold, I stand at the door and knock.” There are two reasons that interpretation is wrong.
The context tells us that the door Jesus is knocking on is the door of the church, not the human heart. Jesus is not knocking to enter someone’s heart but to have fellowship with His church. Even if the context didn’t tell us this, we would be forcing a meaning into the text (eisegesis). How do we know it is our heart he is knocking at? Why not our car door? How do we know he isn’t knocking on our foot? To suggest that he is knocking on the door of our heart is superimposing a meaning on the text that simply does not exist.
The Bible does not instruct us to ask Jesus into our heart. This alone should resolve the issue, nevertheless, here are nine more reasons.
2. Asking Jesus into your heart is a saying that makes no sense. What does it mean to ask Jesus into your heart? If I say the right incantation will He somehow enter my heart? Is it literal? Does He reside in the upper or lower ventricle? Is this a metaphysical experience? Is it figurative? If it is, what exactly does it mean? While I am certain that most adults cannot articulate its meaning, I am certain that no child can explain it. Pastor Dennis Rokser reminds us that little children think literally and can easily be confused (or frightened) at the prospect of asking Jesus into their heart.
3. In order to be saved, a man must repent (Acts 2:38). Asking Jesus into your heart leaves out the requirement of repentance.
4. In order to be saved, a man must trust in Jesus Christ (Acts 16:31). Asking Jesus into your heart leaves out the requirement of faith.
5. The person who wrongly believes they are saved will have a false sense of security. Millions of people who sincerely, but wrongly, asked Jesus into their hearts think they are saved but struggle to feel secure. They live in doubt and fear because they do not have the Holy Spirit giving them assurance of salvation.
6. The person who asks Jesus into his heart will likely end up inoculated, bitter and backslidden. Because he did not get saved by reciting a formulaic prayer, he will grow disillusioned with Jesus, the Bible, church and fellow believers. His latter end will be worse than the first.
7. It presents God as a beggar just hoping you will let Him into your busy life. This presentation of God robs Him of His sovereignty.
8. The cause of Christ is ridiculed. Visit an atheist web-site and read the pagans who scoff, “How dare those Christians tell us how to live when they get divorced more than we do? Who are they to say homosexuals shouldn’t adopt kids when tens of thousands of orphans don’t get adopted by Christians?” Born again believers adopt kids and don’t get divorced.
People who ask Jesus into their hearts do. Jesus gets mocked when false converts give Him a bad name.
9. The cause of evangelism is hindered. While it is certainly easier to get church members by telling them to ask Jesus into their hearts, try pleading with someone to make today the day of their salvation. Get ready for a painful response. “Why should I become a Christian when I have seen so called Christians act worse than a pagan?” People who ask Jesus into their hearts give pagans an excuse for not repenting.
10. Here is the scary one. People who ask Jesus into their hearts are not saved and they will perish on the Day of Judgment. How tragic that millions of people think they are right with God when they are not. How many people who will cry out, “Lord, Lord” on judgment day will be “Christians” who asked Jesus into their hearts?
So, what must one do to be saved? Repent and trust. (Heb.6:1) The Bible makes it clear that all men must repent and place their trust in Jesus Christ. Every man does have a “God shaped hole in their hearts,” but that hole is not contentment, fulfillment and peace. Every man’s heart problem is righteousness. Instead of preaching that Jesus fulfills, we must preach that God judges and Jesus satisfies God’s judgment…if a man will repent and place his trust in Him.
If you are reading this and you asked Jesus into your heart, chances are good you had a spiritual buzz for a while, but now you struggle to read your Bible, tithe, attend church and pray. Perhaps you were told you would have contentment, purpose and a better life if you just ask Jesus into your heart. I am sorry, that was a lie.
If you think it's just about you and Jesus, read this very slowly and carefully:
“The object of the work of redemption is not limited to the salvation of individual sinners, but extends itself to the redemption of the world, and to the organic reunion of all things in heaven and on earth under Christ as their original head.
The final outcome of the future, foreshadowed in the Holy Scriptures, is not the merely spiritual existence of saved souls, but the restoration of the entire cosmos, when God will be all in all under the renewed heaven on the renewed earth.”
—Abraham Kuyper, Lectures on Calvinism (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson 2008), 105-106
“Be sure you see this most wonderful and astonishing of all truths: God took the record of all your sins that made you a debtor to wrath . . ., and instead of holding them up in front of your face and using them as the warrant to send you to hell, God put them in the palm of his Son’s hand and drove a spike through them into the cross. It is a bold and graphic statement: He canceled the record of our debt . . . nailing it to the cross (Col. 2:14)."
- John Piper, This Momentary Marriage (Wheaton, Ill.: Crossway Books, 2009), 45.
“Imagine that your prayer is a poorly dressed beggar reeking of alcohol and body odour, stumbling toward the palace of the great king. You have become your prayer. As you shuffle toward the barred gate, the guards stiffen. Your smell has preceded you. You stammer out a message for the great king: ‘I want to see the king.’
Your words are barely intelligible, but you whisper one final word, ‘Jesus, I come in the name of Jesus.’ At the name of Jesus, as if by magic, the palace comes alive. The guards snap to attention, bowing low in front of you. Lights come on, and the door flies open. You are ushered into the palace and down a long hallway into the throne room of the great king, who comes running to you and wraps you in his arms.
The name of Jesus gives my prayers royal access. They get through. Jesus isn’t just the Saviour of my soul. He’s also the Saviour of my prayers. My prayers come before the throne of God as the prayers of Jesus. ‘Asking in Jesus’ name’ isn’t another thing I have to get right so my prayers are perfect. Is it one more gift of God because my prayers are so imperfect.”
—Paul Miller, A Praying Life (Colorado Springs, CO: NavPress 2009), 135
“At the root of all our disobedience are particular ways in which we continue to seek control of our lives through systems of works-righteousness. The way to progress as a Christian is to continually repent and uproot these systems the same way we become Christians, namely by the vivid depiction (and re-depiction) of Christ’s saving work for us, and the abandoning of self-trusting efforts to complete ourselves. We must go back again and again to the gospel of Christ-crucified, so that our hearts are more deeply gripped by the reality of what he did and who we are in him.”
- Timothy Keller, Paul’s Letter to the Galatians (Redeemer Presbyterian Church, 2003), 61.
I saw a river of blood forming in pools in judgment on the White House lawn, on the tarmac, and on the steps of the Supreme Court. This river of blood is the slain blood of the innocent, of the unborn. Even as God judged the gods of Egypt with blood, so he will judge America with blood. This river of blood will sweep over this nation until we confess our sin of sacrificing our unborn on the altar of materialism and convenience, and we confess that we have murdered the innocent. The cries of the blood of the slain innocent have reached the ears of God. The very ground is cursed because mothers and fathers have slain their unborn children. And the fruitful land will produce crops of thistles and thorns because of the curse of innocent blood is on this land. They scorned Life Himself and so shall reap death. As they caused the womb to be barren, so shall their fields be barren. I saw another river of blood, the blood of Christ, rising up as a river that is beginning to break out of her banks and flood to overflow. Many who hold to a form of religion shall try to dam, dam, and dam again to stop the flow of this river of blood. They shall be swept away. Many, many, many will cry out to God repulsed by their sin, and the sins of this nation, and the blood of Jesus will flood over their souls and they shall find forgiveness, and cleansing, and wholeness under the cleansing fount of Calvary. Those that the enemy tried to “dam” by denying them the blood of Christ shall find healing and rest for their souls. As it was in Egypt, so shall it be in America. For some, the blood sacrificed to demon gods meant the angel of death will call. For others who take the blood of Christ, the blood shall mean LIFE! Chooses this day America for your God has roused Himself to deliver His people - and to smite His enemies. Which river of blood shall overflow you? That of the slain Lamb of God which takes away sin, or that of the slain innocent? Shall you be baptized in a river of blood that leads unto Life, or in a river of blood that leads unto death? Choose this day whom you will serve! As the gods of Egypt fell before the Lord, so shall the gods of America fall. And great shall be the deliverance of His people!
Two Rivers of Blood on America :: Sheeptrax Xpress
This is a long video, but worth watching. It tells the story of Mary's conversion from atheism to Jesus in a nominally Muslim community in central Asia.
Found By God in a Dream from Grace Compass Church on Vimeo.
Encounter with God in a Dream
As a young nursing student, for the first time in her life,
Mary encounters the name of Jesus Christ. She is irresistibly drawn to the name and the Book on which it is printed. From that point on she encounters the call of the Lord through dreams and other experiences as some (her own family) attempt to bring her into submission under Islam – even seeking to take herlife.
Mary’s is really a testimony of the simplicity that is found in Christ. Her journey exposes some realities about the fear-filled Muslim religion; the weight its followers must bear; and rekindles hope in the hearts of Christians that our God is huge! It has challenged this North American believer to throw off some of the trappings of sophisticated Christianity insulated through affluence and modernity and long for a simple, expectant faith.
"dreams of God", "God Encounter", "coming to Jesus Christ in
a Dream", "Dreams of Jesus in Muslim World", "Supernatural"
It was just a small black spot, a minor blip on her beauty radar, certainly nothing to worry about. She dabbed some blush over the spot, smiled confidently back at herself in the mirror, and went on about her fabulous life.
Another day. With pre-dawn, desperate-for-java annoyance, she noticed it again. The black spot was still there. Had it grown? But it was such a minor skin imperfection she again dabbed on the blush and viola!, it was dealt with. Again, she smiled and got on with her beautiful life.
The third day came and she dragged her hung over, near lifeless self to the mirror to face a sobering horror; now several black spots had appeared, and not just on her otherwise flawless face. The biggest one was over her heart. Worse than an infected pustulation, the black spots were beginning to ooze a tar-like black streak across her features.
Maybe it was the excessive drinking or the parade of nameless men. Maybe both. Maybe… God, who knows? She shook her weary head and vowed sobriety and abstinence, at lest till the weekend. She showered in blistering steam then carefully applied blush over the oozing black sores. Perfect. She threw on her designer black sunglasses and sauntered into the din of the world.
While she was used to men ogling her, were people… looking at her?
Self-conscious, she rubbed a nervous fingertip over the shame of her camouflaged blemishes hoping they would just go away as she desperately reached for her blush, waving it as if it were a magic wand that had the power to make things better; make her better.
She threw furtive, sidelong glances over her wonderfully chintz lunch wondering nervously if anyone noticed the oozing blackness now running from her head, hands and heart. Worse, now she could smell it like burning sulpher or rotting garbage. She grabbed for the courage of her dirty martini only to shriek in horror at the black stains seeping from her hands staining her drink tumbler, poisoning all she touched.
The ooze grew. It festered. It slimed. It ran like bitter rivers behind her eyes darkening her sight. It boiled beneath her fingernails till they appeared black. And no matter how hard she tried, she could not stop the effervescently evil flow of the ooze. Painting over it, disguising it, bathing in hot steam, even perfume did nothing to abate its stench or stain. The sores continued to spread.
She was afraid to leave her apartment for fear of being discovered. It was surely some kind of ravaging plague. She was diseased, infected. She was a carrier of the oozing blackness. Perhaps they would isolate her from the world for fear of contamination. Perhaps she would simply dissolve being finally consumed by it. Maybe they would burn her.
Was there a cure?
She sought out doctors who assured her it was imaginary, a disease of the mind, a baseless crippling guilt. Take a pill and make it stop. Yet the ooze ran like an unrelenting stygian river cascading into ever deepening darkness.
She tried to ignore it, tried to compromise with it, cursed and pleaded for relief from it but the ooze seemed hell-bent on devouring her. Finally there was nothing left but despair. She threw away her useless blush that could not cover the seeping stains, and wept. Her eyes were growing narrower, darker as the blackness filled every cell, every pore and space, poisoning her very soul like a suffocating artesian well of death.
From a place deeper then she knew, broken words formed on her blackened lips, “Please come find me, God.”
There was no hiding the stain. The ooze besmirched all she touched. She crawled out of her refuge hanging her head in shame certain everyone could see her decaying from this nameless plague. She was going to find a hospital where they might mercifully kill her and end her suffering when, in a moment of clarity, she looked beyond her own misery and saw through the thin veil of civility that masked the sheer horror of the world as it really is.
The ooze was everywhere. On everyone, everywhere she looked, the ooze was pandemic, pulsating, as if it was alive, dripping like sewage after a flood, tainting all in its path. Her likeable neighbors were dripping with festering ooze as they bar-be-cued. Her spiteful neighbors were dripping with ooze as they sneered in isolated, proud contempt. And most seemed oblivious to the presence of the sickening black ooze cascading from their mouths, and tearing from their very eye sockets.
Against this disgusting backdrop that seemed destined to drown the whole world in slimy blackness, she suddenly saw her; a stranger untainted by ooze. No pox, nor plague, no running sores on her soul, just a gentle radiant light that seemed to fill her every cell, her every pore and space, overflowing as an endless waterfall of effervescing… life!
In her was no darkness or shifting shadow. None at all. It was as if she were a new kind of creature immune, untainted by the ooze.
The passing stranger noticed her slack-jawed stare and, with a kind smile, asked, “Can I help you? You look a little lost.”
Lost. Yes, that she was. Fearing the loss of her last shreds of sanity but willing to risk discovery for even the hint of freedom from the encroaching darkness that was the ooze, she quietly asked, “I see oozing blackness everywhere, everywhere except on you. Please, why?”
“You can see the ooze?” the surprised stranger gently asked.
“Yes. I am infected with it. Why aren’t you? I see a purity and light within you. No shadow, no darkness, no ooze. How are you clean?”
“I used to be as filthy with the ooze as anyone,” said the smiling stranger. “The light you’ve been allowed to see is called Righteousness and it is a gift from God. ‘He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.’ It’s what God gives you when you renounce sin. That’s what the ooze really is, sin. And Sin always pays its wages in death. Now, let me tell you some good news about all things becoming new in Jesus…”
“Do not rely on your own efforts, but on the grace of Christ. ‘You are,’ says the apostle, ‘saved by grace.’ Therefore it is not a matter of arrogance here but faith when we celebrate: we are accepted! This is not pride but devotion.” —St. Ambrose, On the Sacraments 5.4.19
Here's a very provocative cartoon from ASBO Jesus. It's a reference to Richard Dawkins the aggressively evangelistic atheist and author of "The God Delusion."
So where does grace end and judgement begin? Is it possible for someone to come to genuine repentance after they die and realise they got it all wrong? Sometimes I think that as I get older I ask too many hard questions to which I once thought I knew the answers.
"The shattered relationship between Father, Son, and Holy Spirit at the cross provides the basis for our reconciliation.
No other relationship ever suffered more than what Father, Son, and Holy Spirit endured when Jesus hung on the cross and cried, ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’
Jesus was willing to be the rejected Son so that our families would know reconciliation.
Jesus was willing to become the forsaken friend so that we could have loving friendships.
Jesus was willing to be the rejected Lord so that we could live in loving submission to one another.
Jesus was willing to be the forsaken brother so that we could have godly relationships.
Jesus was willing to be the crucified King so that our communities would experience peace.”
- Paul David Tripp, Relationships: A Mess Worth Making (Greensboro, NC: New Growth Press, 2006), 13.
What we see at the cross is the white-hot revelation of the character of God, of his love providing the price that holiness requires. The cross was his means of redeeming lost sinners and reconciling them to himself, but it was also a profound disclosure of his mercy. It is, in Paul’s words, an ‘inexpressible gift’ that leads us to wonder and worship, to praise and adore the God who has given himself to us in this way.” - David F. Wells, The Courage to be Protestant (Grand Rapids, Mi.: Eerdmans, 2008), 129.
Jesus talked a lot about the unpredictability of God's timing. "No one knows the hour or the day" he would say. Last week we read in church the parable of the wise and foolish virgins with its warning that nobody knew when the bridegroom would come but he would certainly come.
In our highly chronological society with watches synchronised to within minutes, we don't have that sense very often, but this afternoon we experienced this. Grant came around to our place with a message that Woolworths are tossing out some shop fittings and we were welcome to collect them. The only proviso was that the truck was coming soon and when it comes the offer expires. It could be this afternoon, tonight or tomorrow.
Even though I was feeling tired after a busy day, we went over there pretty much straight away. We discovered that the stands were exactly what we need for church, and to our great joy that pull apart easily to store flat. We fitted five in the van with little effort then brought them back to the church.
We moved quickly for an offer of free produce stands. How much more should we react quickly for a free gift of eternal salvation?
“In the religious approach, repentance separates you from the source of your power and your hope and your confidence - because thats a good record.
But in the gospel, repentance reconnects you to the source of your power and your confidence and your joy. Why? Because the source of your self image, the source of your power, the source of your confidence is not your record, but his record. Not what you have done, but what he has done.”
- Tim Keller, “He came to himself” (message given at Redeemer Presbyterian Church)
By the third time that I’d had this dream (in my early twenties), the details were very firmly etched in my mind. It was always the same. In the dream I was walking on a hot day along a dusty rough vehicular track, dodging the muddy potholes—evidence of past rain (I guessed), though not for a while it seemed, as the sides of the potholes had dried out and caked hard. The air smelt of a curious mixture of dry dust and drying mud.
Apart from the bare wheel ruts, the track was overgrown with weedy plants, many of which were in flower—their fragrance along with the smell of mud and airborne dust was unforgettably distinctive. It was obviously a rural area, as to my left and right, i.e. on the other side of each of the barbed wire fences lining the road, cattle—a beautiful chestnut-coloured type, with white legs, which I’d never seen before—were grazing. The air was so still and quiet in the midday heat that I could very clearly hear the cattle crunching on the stubble they were grazing.
At that exact moment, a cloud suddenly provided me with some welcome shady respite from the fierce heat of the midday sun directly overhead. At this point in the dream, I remember noting: the sun was indeed directly overhead—something I’d never seen before, having spent all my life (up to that point) at southern latitudes (I grew up in Adelaide, South Australia, which is where I had this recurring dream) the cloud was obviously very small and the only cloud in the sky, because the land just a short distance away from me (in all directions) was still bathed in sunlight, including in front of me just off to my left a cluster of small greyish white concrete buildings constructed in a style I’d never seen before.
While I was absorbing all this, the silence was suddenly broken by the sound of a chainsaw, coming from a distant stand of trees off to my right.
After all (I reasoned at the time), we’re just a collection of chemicals.
It was always at this point in the dream that I woke up to find it was morning, in Adelaide, and time for me to go off to school/university. Given that I was an atheist at the time, I simply dismissed the recurring ‘dream’ as an involuntary product of my brain doing whatever it is that brains do to process and file away information picked up from what our eyes, ears, etc., saw, heard or read during our waking hours. After all (I reasoned at the time), we’re just a collection of chemicals, and our brain is really just a bunch of chemical reactions—so our sleep is an opportunity for the body to reorganize/reverse the brain’s chemical reactions ready for a new day—akin to recharging batteries overnight.
WIDGETIZE