True calling

Posted by Jesus on March 19, 2007

Today’s topic is a little bit touchy. Over and over again I’ve pointed out examples of how you should all behave or not behave when spreading the Word, made it clear that we allow for some bending of the rules, and have even suggested that Americans might drop some of their more veiled language and just get right to the heart of the problem when confronting others about their sins. No one in your society is as dedicated to those causes as the man we’ll talk about today. If you’ve been reading here for a little while in the hopes that a great role model might get suggested, today is the day your prayers get answered…all four of them.

I’m talking of course of Micah Armstrong, who travels around the country preaching at colleges and telling it like it is. He’s been doing it for under a year now, but is already making quite a mark. Even Dad, who called him to this duty, agrees. There’s something about Micah that few of our past criers had. It’s difficult to explain, but he just has a way of telling the truth in a manner which causes people to listen. Don’t take my word for it though, even if I am the one and only Son of God, we can just as easily quote the authoritative source on the matter.

From the article:

Armed with the Bible, his wife and a backpack rigged to hold half a gallon of water, an open-air preacher descended on the Capstone Monday, intent on either converting or announcing the damnation the entire student body.

Micah Armstrong, once a schoolteacher in Dover, Fla., quit his job in June 2006, and now travels the country witnessing at colleges and universities, his wife, Elizabeth Armstrong, said.

“God told my husband to open-air preach,” she said. “God called him.”

Now how hard is it out there people, really? All I ask is that most of you ask yourself what I would do in a situation, which of course translates into better lives for you and everyone around you. I don’t ask many of you to sell everything you have and live in a truck, I only ask for ten percent of your cash, and I only really need to you pray now and then a couple of times a day. It’s not all that difficult for the vast majority of you, and yet you fail in droves, all the while chattering on about how wonderful Heaven’s going to be when you get raptured. News flash, people – not very many of you are going to make it. Seriously, here’s a guy and his wife who sold every single thing in their lives to go on the road and talk about me, and only because Dad told them they should. I can’t promise they’ll even make it to Heaven, but I can say that they’re on a heck of a lot better path than most of you.

More from the article:

Jonathan Kohan, a freshman majoring in philosophy, said he heard Micah denounce people based on their religious beliefs, sexual orientation and lots of other less obvious reasons.

“He said, ‘Any masturbator is not a Christian,’” Kohan said. “And he said the reason there aren’t any crack whores in downtown Tuscaloosa is because the girls at UA are putting them out of business.”

Micah also said he wouldn’t knowingly shake hands with someone who masturbated, or attend a church where Christian rock music was played.

“I just see the church as getting worldlier and worldlier,” he said. “There’s very little preaching against sin.”

Micah did plenty of preaching about sin, saying that sinners are selfish and in danger of going to hell.

“God is holy, and people are selfish,” he said.

Man, I just couldn’t put it any better myself. God is holy and people are selfish. Exactly. But let me ask you, how did people get to be selfish? Was there ever a time when people weren’t so? The truth is that there never has been such a time, that this while egotistical fascination with the self is not an entirely new phenomenon, and for so long as it continues very few of you will get through the Gates. There was a time, however, when many good people stood out from the crowd, pointing and waving their fingers at those who did wrong. Today there are so few people willing to actually call out the things that are evil that Dad has to go and appoint people like Micah to fill the posts.

And why shouldn’t he refuse to shake the hand of a masturbator? Why shouldn’t he call out the promiscuous college girls running around campus in their tiny little pajama bottoms. Why shouldn’t he put rock music where it belongs, outside of the church. I know, I know, but you said you liked music, Jesus! I do, rock music is awesome, but in a church it should be something everybody sings together to tell me and Dad how truly great we are. Jamming out is one of those activities we’d prefer you do at home.

Now Micah did make one minor mistake, which is understandable considering the fact that he is only human. In the process of pointing out the sins of the students and informing them that they’re going to hell, he suggested that he himself was not a sinner. The students knew this to be false, and more importantly I know this to be untrue, and even more importantly Micah knows it isn’t true, but this is the sort of thing that can get a person in trouble. You get lots of leeway when serving God, but be careful of thr claims you make. Only one of us can claim to have lived a sin-free life. Micah’s not that guy.

Still, I prefer to focus on the positive in a situation like this, when one man is doing so much to get the truth out there. His tossing around damnation is consistent with the times you live in folks, it’d probably serve you well not only to listen to what Micah has to say, but to start professing some of the same things yourself.

More from the article:

Laurel Sheffield, a freshman majoring in English and psychology, said she attempted to take him seriously with disastrous results.

“I was debating with him and he said, ‘Whoever owns this girl come claim her,’” she said.

Sheffield said when she told Micah that no one owned her he replied, “‘You just need a nice man to put you in your place.”‘

Seth Milo, a freshman majoring in psychology, said people should not take Micah’s message so seriously.

“I went to Catholic school for 12 years, and I’ve never heard anything like that, but I’ve just been blowing it off,” Milo said.

What really doesn’t surprise me is the guy who went to Catholic school for 12 years yet still doesn’t know the fundamental principles the Bible puts forth. The Pope and a few of his guys generally have the right idea, but somehow the message always breaks down at around the point that they begin incorporating all those pagan rituals.

It’s exciting to finally see someone else out there who understands the role of a woman in society too. We know the world has changed, and we’d like to think Christianity has changed a little with it, but the whole feminism thing is way out of hand. It’s one thing for a woman to debate a man so long as they’re married and in their home, away from the general population – we get that, it’s one of those little things we might have smitten you for once, but we’ll overlook it pretty much universally today. For a woman to challenge a man, specifically a preacher in the midst of his sermon though, well, that’s just unforgivable, unless of course the woman asks me to forgive her, then she’s forgiven.

All in all, I’d just like to close by saying that Micah is one of those rare people who took the calling of Dad to heart and really does his best to make an impact. His words are abrasive, his style rough and unpolished, and sometimes he can come across as downright rude. If you think he’s bad though you’d have absolutely hated Matthew when he got fired up.

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