My Heart is Not Set on You

                        One of the things that I love about Scripture is that I can read through it countless times and still read something that hadn't noticed before. Like Psalm 131 for example. Verses one and three have been my prayer for some time now and here I find that David prayed the same way. It's similar to what the Apostle Paul says in one of his letters, and I paraphrase, “I do what I know I shouldn't and don't do what I know I should.” In Gethsemane, Jesus told his disciples, “the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak.” Isn't that the truth? I know it is for me. I will continue to strive to put my faith, gain my joy, and find my assurance in Christ. What about you? 

Forbidden

                Forbidden, by Ted Dekker and Tosca Lee, is an intense, futuristic thriller about a man named Rom, his three friends and a dead world. Dekker and Lee do a fantastic job of keeping the reader’s fingers busy… meaning; this book is quite a page turner. Although set over five hundred years in the future, they paint the world as not having changed much. It almost seems more Victorian then modern.

            Rom is a young, handsome funeral singer. He has never known love, hate, or any other emotion because he is emotionless. But then so is everyone else on planet earth. The story goes that, in 2005, scientists found the DNA chemical that creates the emotion of fear. Over the next few years, they similarly found the chemicals that made up every other emotion that a human feels. A nuclear war broke out and thousands were killed, so the scientists realized the only way to save the human race from annihilation was to rid it of emotion. They released an airborne virus into the atmosphere that stripped humanity of all emotion… except for fear.

            On a certain overcast day, Rom is making his way home from a funeral when he finds an old man, or rather, an old man finds him. He gives Rom a package and tells him to take it and find a man called the Book. Before Rom can ask any questions, the man is killed by some police officers. Horrified, he runs for his life, not thinking that all will be well if he just gave the package up. When he arrives home, his mother asks why he has blood on him so he tells her what happened. She becomes equally scared and tells him to take it in, but he counters that, because he ran, they will still kill him. The argument is cut short when the police show up at the house. He runs, but not before he sees them but his mother’s throat. Running out of options for safety, he goes to his friend, Avra’s, house. He asks her to help him and she agrees. They run and in a church where Avra asks him what is in the package. Realizing that he doesn’t yet know, they open it and find a vial of blood wrapped in leather, which is covered in writing. The writing tells them that in drinking the blood, they will find life. Rom takes the vial, seeing that there is nothing left to lose, and drinks a portion of it. The energy that courses through him is so powerful that he passes out. While he is unconscious, Avra also drinks a portion of the blood and she collapses under the force of life. When they wake, they realize that they really never were alive and that the whole world is dead. Two more of their friends drink some of the blood and the foursome begin to uncover the past… in order to save the present and restore life to a dead race.

            With many twists and turns along the way, this book is virtually impossible to put down. Ted Dekker and Tosca Lee have written this in such a wonderful way that it is gripping yet not just entertaining. Smoothly woven into this novel is biblical imagery and beautiful description. The most interesting part is describing what emotion is like from the perspective of one who has just found it. I would recommend this book to a more mature audience because of the graphic nature of the murders and a detailed (rather bloody) fight sequence.

The Screwtape Letters

Have you ever wanted to know what the demons think? Have you ever wondered how they go about tempting you every day? Well, many years ago, C.S. Lewis penned a book that might give you a little glimpse into the other side.

            The Screwtape Letters is a fictitious assortment of letters written by Undersecretary Screwtape, a retired tempter, to his nephew, Wormwood, a beginning tempter. These letters are filled with tidbits of advice that are supposed to help Wormwood “secure” the soul of his “patient.” Although the reader never hears what Wormwood says or does, the attitude of Screwtape’s letters convey what is evidently happening. He is a blundering, clumsy idiot of a demon and Screwtape has much fun in telling him so. Whether or not the soul is captured I will leave up to you to find out…

         Although it is, as said before, a fictitious writing, C.S. Lewis brings up many good points throughout these letters. The wisdom written here should be heeded and spread so that less and less of Christians will fall into the devil’s clever, imperceptible traps.

Immanuel's Veins

Over the next few blog posts, I am going to post book reports that I have written. Here's the first...
Oh, and normally people save the best for last  but I can't, this is one of the BEST books ever written... ever. (Not counting the Bible, of course)

Immanuel's Veins 

            In the fictional tale, Immanuel’s Veins, author Ted Dekker explores the reason for the Cross in a roundabout way. Although I have had great pleasure in reading Dekker’s other novel’s,  I thoroughly enjoyed this story better than any other I have read. The amazingly weaved plot, spectacular imagery,  and the presentation of the gospel are the work of master wordsmith.

            Immanuel’s Veins takes place in Moldavia, in the late 1700s, following the character Toma Nicolescu and his companion. Toma is a soldier in Catherine the Great’s army and has been sent with his companion, Alek Cardei, to guard the Cantemir sisters. Against orders, Toma falls in love with Lucine, one of the sisters, but struggles between love and duty, knowing that he must fulfill the latter. Then, a suitor, Vlad van Valerik seeks Lucine’s hand, but neither she, nor Toma, feels comfortable around him. But, as Lucine feelings toward Vlad change, Toma is left at war with himself. Knowing that he loves her, he questions his motives for trying to expose Vlad. Is it jealousy or duty that is prodding him? What will he do now?

            Many of Ted Dekker’s books are dark. When asked about this, he said, “When you are trying to reach a culture that has watered down the line between good and evil, you need to paint evil with a very dark brush,” and Immanuel’s Veins doesn’t part from this trend. The plot doesn’t take as many twists and turns as he is known for writing, but that doesn’t make it  inferior to his other novels. He uses both first and third person as he penned this masterpiece.  The descriptions he presents are well-worded and not trite, “…now hot fingers snaked through her body, tingling and burning along her wounds, and then, deeper, through her veins to her extremities like molten lava finding its way through cracks and down narrow channels. It burned her fingers and her toes and it made her face hot.” Combined with these two elements of professional story writing, he presented the gospel as well, “All of the blood sacrifices, which I had always considered barbarous, suddenly made sense. That blood, however symbolic on the altar, had true power as much as evil had manifested itself in the blood of this beast. Surely this is why the Christ had bled out on that cross of torture. Not for a religion, not for Christianity or orthodoxy, but for the heart of man.”

            In conclusion, it is in my opinion that Immanuel’s Veins is a masterpiece composed of epic plot, skillful description, and beautiful gospel. I believe that it will become a classic among Christians, if not the world.