Letter to Boys Varsity

To my Boys Varsity brothers, both from high school and college:

I hope this letter finds you well. This letter is to tell you the many things I wish I could have told you many years ago. First, I must tell you that I think of you all often, almost daily. I miss the camaraderie I had with you all. I miss the mutual respect that we all shared one with another. Swimming ran far deeper than just a sport; it was a part of my identity. I trust it was the same for many of you.

As many of you know, in my senior year in high school, the few point margin we lost at our final championship was because of my lack of performance. Likewise, my senior year in college was a washout, and I was the main contributing factor to the loss of the conference championship. I regretted these meets, especially the latter, for many years after graduating. I even attempted to continue swimming after leaving college for a short while because I believed somehow I could redeem myself from those failures, but I eventually decided not to do so.

I realize now that I could have been a better contributor to the teams, but after these many years at this point, I do not regret it any longer, and I also do not miss the sport like I used to. What I truly miss is that camaraderie that we had. That has never been replaced, and it is hard to envision that it ever could be. Saying that, I care deeply for you. It is not reasonable to ever think that I will ever see many of you ever again, and if I did, it would not be in the same capacity. But I feel compelled to write you to explain what has happened to me after the eight years of Boys Varsity, to the end that perhaps you too can have what I have, and that is to have eternal life, which is found only in Jesus Christ. I became a Christian the summer after graduating high school, and before beginning college. However, in college, I largely lived between two worlds: trying to live like a Christian in part, and living wickedly in part. But now I want to tell you the truth, if you are willing to hear it. You are intellectual people. Please read on and consider for a bit.

First, I want to tell you that there is a God. For some of you, this may sound absurd. The teachers that taught us may have taught otherwise. But you all know well that this world came from somewhere. Everyone knows the famous quote from Rene Descartes, “I think, therefore I am.” Let me take the obvious a step further: if we are, then something is. If I exist, then something exists. But where did I come from? I did not create myself. If we were to trace back our origin to a cause, namely, our parents, we would find that that cause also had a cause, and we can recursively try this process, but at one point, we hit a brick wall. There is an unmoved mover that is the father of all causes, and the same is God. This God is independent of time and space, for he created both. God is also a personal being, because it follows that rational and personal beings such as ourselves must have had an origin from a rational and personal God. Our innate sense of right and wrong originates from an objective right and wrong that exists independently from our experience.

Second, I want to tell you that God did not create the world to be like this. Suffering, hunger, murder, rape, drug addiction, potential nuclear holocaust, and all this world that we know and live in was not how God created our world. He created a paradise. But God created volitional human beings that eventually decided that they did not want to be ruled by God, and this nightmare world was the result. Lest we start saying that we are victims of some ancient ancestor, we know that we are no different from the initial rebels against God. Look in the mirror. If there is an ounce of wrongdoing in our mind, do you think that the perfect God would tolerate us? If God created the world, does that not make him the owner of it? If God is the owner of the world, wouldn’t you think he demands our allegiance in everything we do? But we do not serve him. Let us take for example something we all have done that God hates. We all have lied, and God has stated, “But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death” (Revelation 21:8). Read that last part again: all liars will be sent to a lake of fire forever. Every single person in the world has told a lie before, and guess what, most of us have done much of that list of evils in some form or another. We were an exceptionally wicked group, and I am definitely not excluding myself from this. And it is not just the things that we do that is sinful and rebellious; we are by nature sinful and rebellious. We were born at enmity with God, and unless God somehow saves us, we remain without hope.

God will destroy this world some day. Look around our society which hates God, which includes us, and it would be reasonable for him to do so. And whichever comes first, our deaths or God’s judgment on this planet, the result is the same: eternity in hell.

Third, I want to tell you that God is merciful. We would want him to be. He himself became a man, Jesus Christ, born of a virgin, and he lived among humankind long ago. He lived a perfect life. He performed many miraculous signs by healing the sick and the lame, raising the dead, and providing food for multitudes of people from a few fish and loaves of bread. Most importantly, though he did wonderful things in the sight of thousands, the government and the religious leaders got together, and tortured and murdered Jesus. They hated him because he was a threat to them. But God had something else in mind. Jesus suffered and died in our place. He was a perfect sacrifice for our sins and rebellion. He received the death penalty we should have received. The prophet Isaiah predicted this happening centuries in advance: “But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed” (Isaiah 53:5). Jesus rose from the dead after three days, which was also predicted in the Psalms: “For thou wilt not leave my soul in hell; neither wilt thou suffer thine Holy One to see corruption” (Psalm 16:10). After being seen by many hundreds of witnesses, Jesus ascended to heaven, and will return to judge the earth in the future.

Fourth, I want to tell you that this great salvation from hell is not automatic; you must believe on Jesus Christ. The Bible says that you must “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved” (Acts 16:31). Do you understand that you have rebelled against God, and that there is no way to save yourself from God’s coming judgment? Do you believe that Jesus died for your sins and rebellion against him, and rose from the dead? Then you are saved. If we believe the record that Jesus gave to us, then he “hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of his dear Son” (Colossians 1:13). We are not saved by going to church, performing sacraments, keeping holidays, or being a good person. We are not saved by the noble eightfold path, the five pillars, or any other religious formula. We are saved by believing that Jesus Christ died for our sins and rose from the dead. It is not what you have done or are doing that matters; it matters who you are. “Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new” (2 Corinthians 5:17). And nobody, not even you, can change that.

Fifth, I want to tell you the certainty of these things. You very well may have been brainwashed by your schooling or by somebody that flippantly dismisses the historicity of Jesus Christ and the power of his message. Understand that in a span of a few decades, Christianity had spread to the far reaches of the Roman Empire and transformed the world. Emperor Nero recognized the growth of this religion and felt threatened by it. He persecuted Christians during the A.D. 60s, which was a mere thirty years after the resurrection of Jesus. There was no technology to broadcast Jesus to the world like there is today, yet the Faith spread like wildfire. These Christians were not like the Catholics, and afterward, the Protestants, that came centuries later and took to the sword to convert people. These people grew in numbers by simply preaching the good news of Jesus Christ. How could Jesus’ followers, which were a bunch of fishermen and other simple men, launch a worldwide religion in such a short period of time with no technology and no violence?

Sixth, I want to tell you that Jesus could very easily come in our generation. You very well may start telling me that virtually every generation of Christians believed it could have been their generation, and you would be right. However, you should judge by the following evidence that it could be soon. The following things must happen before the return of Jesus Christ:

Israel must be an actual country with its Temple rebuilt. There was no Israel from A.D. 70 until 1948. The tensions in the Middle East are not coincidental. (2 Thessalonians 2:4)
There will be a one world government. We are basically there with the U.N., the E.U., NAFTA, etc., as geopolitical boundaries mean less and less. (Revelation 13:3)
There will be a one world religion. People have been pushing toward ecumenicalism for a very long time, stressing that contradictory religions are all somehow different roads to the same divine entity. (Revelation 13:4)
There will be a cashless society, and people will buy and sell using some kind of implanted device in their hands mandated by the government. The technology is there today. (Revelation 13:16-17)
There will be a great increase in knowledge and travel. The twentieth century was testimony to this. (Daniel 12:4)

Other things also must happen, but the above are the things that we see happening today.

Seventh, I beg you to consider what I have told you. Everything I have written flies in the face of everything you have been taught. You may believe I am mad! And guess what? I do not care. What I do care about is you. I want you to be saved. I do not want you to face the wrath of God and go to hell. I have been pondering for years how I would be able to tell you all about these things, as I have rewritten this letter three times over the past 11 years. I want you to put aside what you have been taught and think through that there is a God that has delayed judgment for so long because he wants everyone to be saved, or at least have the chance to hear this good news of Jesus Christ. But there is a hell, and he will execute judgment someday. I love you all. Please understand.

You may have been an Olympian, or you may have been just an average athlete like me. You may or may not have swum all four years, or maybe you did not even graduate. None of that matters in the scheme of eternity. Faith in the risen Lord Jesus Christ is the only thing that matters when you breathe your last breath on this earth.

If you would, read or watch this e-book: http://irruptiondays.org/everlasting-life. I wrote that book so that people who do not know anything about Jesus Christ or the Bible can understand the basics. If something is not clear in this letter, this book will go into all of the details. The presentations take about 2.5 hours.

Best wishes in the new year, and please keep in touch.