Harry Ran from Sirens

Greetings Warriors and Scholars.

First off, a couple of announcements. Tomorrow is the deadline for the Cosplay Contest. Also, this Fall Nerd Chapel will begin a monthly game night at All Shores Wesleyan Church on the second Saturday evening of each month at All Shores Wesleyan Church. If you are in the area of Spring Lake, MI come and join us! Also, we will have a chapel service at Grand Con again this year and Tom Vassel from The Dice Tower will be preaching!

Found at www.comicvine.com

 Last night I watched a couple of episode of Star Trek Voyager with my Mom. One of these episodes focused on Harry Kim. Harry was a little crazy at first, firing on a ship that at first did not seem a threat. They later determined it had been powering up weapons so he was not altogether wrong. By this point he had started to feel sick, with his DNA actually changing. They went to a planet to try and get away from battle and to regroup. Here, they met a race of mostly women. These women tried to make Harry stay with them, using a lot of kissing and temptation in the process, even promising him 3 wives.

Soon he started to realize something was wrong. With 2 beautiful women offering themselves to them he tricked one into getting tied up and knocked out the other, only to find that another man they had lured to the planet was now dead. He finally joined back with his ship.

The Bible constantly warns us about deception and about sexual sin. We are even told in 1 Corinthians 6:18 to "flee from sexual immorality" and even told that sexual sin is against our own body. Admittedly, I have not always been amazing at keeping my thoughts clean. I have to battle every day and my best days are when I make sure I have things going on and have other things for my mind to focus on.

When I googled "deception and the Bible" I found a link with a list of many scriptures on the subject, including this:

"Who shall ascend the hill of the Lord? And who shall stand in his holy place? He who has clean hands and a pure heart, who does not lift up his soul to what is false and does not swear deceitfully. He will receive blessing from the Lord and righteousness from the God of his salvation." Psalm 24:3-5

 I find it interesting that the Psalmist here encourages us to receive righteousness. We don't have to earn it or find it on our own. God Himself will get in the dirt with us if we only trust Him.

We live in a time when we are told many things. We are told that fun will fulfill us. That family will fulfill us, that sex and money will fulfill us. The only thing that is MEANT to fulfill us is Jesus Christ. Don't feel like you have to give in to your desires or your fantasies. Remember how Joseph refused Potiphar's wife? You can read the full story of Joseph in the book of Genesis. Keep his example and Harry Kim's example in front of you. We do not need to follow the sirens of sin to find fulfillment.

Tuvok's Help or Jesus' Help?

Greetings Scholars and Warriors.

A few days ago my Mom and I were watching some Star Trek Voyager. We are slowly going through the series and currently in season 2. One of the episodes we watched was regarding a murder on the ship.

Found at tomdurham.com

As Tuvok was investigating it, he quickly found the evidence and got a confession from the murderer, a man who had been part of the Maquis crew. With all of this completed, something still bugged Tuvok. He could not understand why the man had done this atrocity. All the guy said was that the crewman had looked at him wrong. This troubled Tuvok so much that he actually chose to mind meld with the murderer. As a result of this, the murderer received more ability to control his impulses, but Tuvok was left rather off. Soon, the doctor had to get involved and complete a series of treatments on Tuvoks brain. These treatments left him with none of his mental shields around his emotions. At one point, he almost killed a man.

I found this to be an interesting view of sin. Ever since Adam we have struggled to make sense of a world filled with horrible atrocities. We often find ourselves asking "Why?" just like Tuvok was asking. And just like the Maquis man, we often get caught in sins we are not proud of and need some sort of repression help to deal with them.

Jesus came and spent time with people just like this Maquis man. People who were caught up in sins like drunkenness and non-marital sex. Unlike Tuvok, as Jesus helped them, He didn't fall prey to their sins. Hebrews 4:15 tells us:

For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but One who has been tempted in all things as we are, yet without sin.

We can get our help from Jesus with no worries. He has experienced temptation and won against it so He is able to lead us. When He was praying in the Gethsemane, He fought against temptation so hard he was sweating blood. To contrast that, his disciples were busy sleeping and not praying. Even after he had encouraged them to "pray so that you will not fall into temptation" (Matthew 26:41). Simply put, we were not there for Him when He both needed us and wanted to help us. We should be there for each other.

Acts quotes Proverbs 27:17 in this:

As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.

We saw the principal of cooperation and support throughout this episode. The Doctor did all he could to help Tuvok. Captain Janeway was more interested in seeing the murderer be reformed than in seeing him be punished (not that she ignored punishment). The next time you see someone struggling with a sin, be patient with them. If someone comes to you, just pray for them or with them.

No on should be afraid to ask for help dealing with sin. Often our strange Christian/American culture is good at shaming people over sins. Jesus isn't.  He is good at helping. We should follow in His steps. Maybe you need someone to pray for you. Maybe you need someone to bug you from time to time to get you on track.