Hugh Hefner died yesterday. A lot
of men wanted to live the life that he did, but possibly a lot of men despised
him for making it easy for their addictions to take over their lives.
I was talking with an older
gentleman who said of him, something along the lines of, “I don’t know how a
man could do such a thing with his life…” I immediately looked at him and said,
“I bet if most men were given the chance, they would do the same thing.”
Think about this... If you had the
ability to become invisible at your own command, what would you do with that
ability? Many readers might think that probably nothing would change. Then the
more you thought about it, the more fun you would have with the idea of it. I
bet, if you were honest with yourself, you would come to admit that you would find
yourself in the women’s locker rooms and Banks after hours or on airplanes traveling
the world free of charge, etc.
Eventually you would use this power
and ability to serve yourself. Even if you were older and married. The
accountability would leave and eventually you would come to serve only
yourself. Why?
The point here is that people are
inherently evil. All we have to do to know this is look at the comment section
of most of the posts on the internet. But seriously, Hugh Hefner was not a hero
or a model citizen by any means. He was self-serving. All of these women now
have to explain to their granddaughters that they sold their body for money.
What do we call that? Prostitution. What does that make Hefner? Nothing short
of a pimp. What is a pimp? Someone who exploits women. What does that make
women? Objectified.
What does the Bible say about this
kind of thing? Romans 1:21-25 seems to speak very clearly on the subject:
For although they knew God, they
did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their
thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they
became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling
mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.
Therefore God gave them up in the
lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among
themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped
and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.
Isn’t it interesting how such an
ancient text seems to have words which are timeless? God is such a gentleman
that He will step aside and let people do what they want. If they want to be
their own God, then He will let them for a time. Unfortunately, this comes with
consequences. The Bible also says that “It is appointed unto men once to die,
and then after this comes the judgment” (Hebrews 9:27). Listen to that claim!
How audacious can the author be!
Speaking of audacious claims, Jesus
makes the claim that He is “the way, the truth, and the life; no one comes to
the Father but by me” (John 14:6). Think about that for a moment. Would you
ever make a claim like that about yourself? Would anyone you know make a claim
like that about themselves in all seriousness? Definitely not. So either Jesus
was insurmountably crazy, or He is the Lord.
These kinds of things ought to
drive us toward researching the evidence of Christianity ourselves. With claims
like these, we can’t just let them go. We have to ask, how did a document with
claims like these survive the ages?
Lee Strobel was being interviewed
by John Ankerberg and Lee was asked to reflect on his meeting with Hefner:
I had a chance to go to the Playboy
Mansion, interview Hugh Hefner for a TV program that I was doing. And I asked
him about the resurrection. And he seemed confused. And I said, “What about the
evidence for the resurrection?” and he said, “What are you talking about?” And
I said, “What do you do with the historical data that support the return of
Jesus from the dead?” And he said, “I have never heard this before.” And I gave
him a copy of my book The Case for Christ. And he was looking through the Table
of Contents and said, “This is fascinating. Nobody has ever told me this
before.”
And then he said something very
interesting. He said, “If this is true, this trips a whole bunch of dominoes
that have a wonderful effect.” He said, “I am getting to be an old man. I wish
it were true that there were eternal life.” And I said, “You know what, look
into the evidence yourself. Come to your own verdict. But I am telling you
there is convincing, there is powerful, persuasive, compelling evidence that
Jesus did return from the dead. And when He tells His followers they will spend
eternity with Him, we can believe Him as a result” (https://www.jashow.org/articles/general/the-evidence-for-jesus-resurrectionprogram-3/).
We will never know the decision
that Hefner made that day, but we can be certain that Strobel’s words ring
true. We have to look at the evidence. We live in a world today where everyone
is a skeptic first and foremost. For good reason though. In a world of information
and technology, people who are inherently evil will publish false information
in order to get what they want. Manipulation is an easy way for people to serve
themselves and not look evil to the masses right off the bat.
Research requires real work for
real information. Don’t google sensational articles on the internet that an
irresponsible person has written, with a pink background and blue letters and
call yourself convinced. Examine the real facts. If you are up for the
challenge, do the research. Your eternal life depends on it.
Written by Nace Howell through the grace of the Lord Jesus.
Written by Nace Howell through the grace of the Lord Jesus.
© Nace Howell, 2017
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