42

A friend once invited me over to his place to watch “42”, a biopic about Jackie Robinson. The title comes from the uniform number Jackie wore. When he became the first African-American to play Major League Baseball in the modern era, Jackie initially faced all kinds of discrimination and persecution. His courage and playing abilities opened the door for other black athletes to play on the professional level. Nowadays, Jackie’s uniform number is retired by every Major League Baseball team except during the annual “Jackie Robinson Day” on April 15th when every single player wears #42.

A couple weeks before seeing the movie “42”, I learned of another fact involving that number. One morning I made my usual trip to Caribou Coffee. They offer a 10-cent discount for correctly answering a trivia question. The question that day was, “What is the Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, The Universe, and Everything?” I answered “Jesus Christ.” That wasn’t the answer the Caribou employee sought. Instead, it was “the number 42.” This is according to the science fiction novel “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.”

Numbers in the Bible have symbolic significance. The number 42 is connected with the Antichrist. Revelation 13:5 says the Beast will hold dominion over the Earth for 42 months. In 2 Kings 2:23-24, bears mauled 42 youth after they mocked Elisha for his baldness. On the other hand, the Gospel of Matthew lists 42 generations in the Genealogy of Jesus. It’s also interesting to point out the Gutenberg Bible is known as the “42-line Bible” because it contained 42 lines per page.

Incidentally, I still received a discount on my coffee. I stated the number 42 wouldn’t help anyone get into heaven. The only true “Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, The Universe, and Everything” is Jesus Christ.

Jesus said to him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life.  No one comes to the Father except through Me.” – John 14:6

The Same Love

During my teens and early twenties, I was a regular listener of Casey Kasem’s radio show “American Top 40.” That inspired me to subscribe to Billboard magazine whose record charts Casey based his weekly countdown on.

Nowadays I avoid listening to most of today’s hits because of the increased amount of profanity and sexual content in the lyrics. Still, I occasionally log onto Billboard’s website to find out what’s happening with the pop music scene. There's now a song in the Top 20 by Macklemore & Ryan Lewis called “Same Love” that openly endorses same-sex marriage. Some of the song’s lyrics attempt to discredit the Bible’s prohibition of homosexuality…

The right wing conservatives think it's a decision

And you can be cured with some treatment and religion

Man-made rewiring of a predisposition

Playing God, aw nah here we go

God loves all his children, is somehow forgotten

But we paraphrase a book written thirty-five hundred years ago

While other Billboard.com readers wrote positive remarks about the success of this “gay anthem”, I wrote one that wasn’t. As a result, it got me blocked from adding future posts to the website. It’s sad how those who are the loudest to promote “equality” and “tolerance” are very intolerant of those opposing their views. My comments were not hateful. I simply stood up for biblically-based morals this nation was founded upon.

Philippians 2:2 talks about “…having the same love, being of one accord, of one mind.” The next verse goes on to say, “Let nothing be done through selfish ambition or conceit, but in lowliness of mind let each esteem others better than himself.” Same-sex marriage advocates don’t seem to care how their actions are affecting future generations especially parents who want to raise their children “…in the training and admonition of the Lord.” (Ephesians 6:4) People who demonstrate true agape love put the needs of others first instead of seeking to fulfill their own lusts.

A featured performer on “Same Love” is a woman named Mary Lambert who considers herself “a gay Christian.” In the chorus she sings, “I can't change even if I tried/even if I wanted to.” She also sings a portion of 1 Corinthians 13:4 (“Love is patient/love is kind.”) It would be helpful for Christians to remind themselves of that Scripture whenever they have the opportunity to minister to homosexuals. We should show the same love to them as to other sinners.

It’s also worth noting Mary was originally raised Pentecostal but then after her parents divorced, she became a lesbian as well as her mother. Let’s pray for laborers to cross the paths of both Mary and her mother so they receive inner healing from past hurts and deliverance from deception.

“Now the Spirit expressly says that in latter times some will depart from the faith, giving heed to deceiving spirits and doctrines of demons.” - 1 Timothy 4:1