BibleSponge

Here is irrefutable proof that Santa is dead with scientific proof of the unfortunate account.  However, if Christmas was celebrated for the real reason (Luke 2:10-11), then this wouldn’t be such a big deal.  But, as with any secular idol, it will fail sooner or later.

(AP News Release) North Pole, Arctic Circle - There are approximately two billion children (persons under 18) in the world. However, since Santa does not visit children of Muslim, Hindu, Jewish or Buddhist (except maybe in Japan) religions, this reduces the workload for Christmas night to 15% of the total, or 378 million (according to the population reference bureau).

At an average (census) rate of 3.5 children per household, that comes to108 million homes, presuming there is at least one good child in each. Santa has about 31 hours of Christmas to work with, thanks to the different time zones and the rotation of the earth, assuming east to west (which seems logical).

This works out to 967.7 visits per second. This is to say that for each household with a good child, Santa has around 1/1000th of a second to park the sleigh, hop out, jump down the chimney, fill the stocking, distribute the remaining presents under the tree, eat whatever snacks have been left for him, get back up the chimney, jump into the sleigh and get onto the next house.

Assuming that each of these 108 million stops is evenly distributed around the earth (which, of course, we know to be false, but we'll accept for the purposes of our calculations), we are now talking about 0.78 miles per household; a total trip of 75.5 million miles, not counting bathroom stops or breaks. This means Santa's sleigh is moving at 650 miles per second-3,000 times the speed of sound.

For purposes of comparison, the fastest man-made vehicle, the Ulysses space probe, moves at a poky 27.4 miles per second, and a conventional reindeer can run (at best) 15 miles per hour.

The payload of the sleigh adds another interesting element. Assuming that each child gets nothing more than a medium sized LEGO set (two pounds), the sleigh is carrying over 500 thousand tons, not counting Santa himself.

On land, a conventional reindeer can pull no more than 300 pounds. Even granting that the "flying" reindeer can pull 10 times the normal amount, the job can't be done with eight or even nine of them-Santa would need 360,000 of them.

This increases the payload, not counting the weight of the sleigh, another 54,000 tons, or roughly seven times the weight of the Queen Elizabeth (the ship, not the monarch). 600,000 tons traveling at 650 miles per second creates enormous air resistance - this would heat up the reindeer in the same fashion as a spacecraft reentering the earth's atmosphere. The lead pair of reindeer would adsorb 14.3 quintillion joules of energy per second each. In short, they would burst into flames almost instantaneously, exposing the reindeer behind them and creating deafening sonic booms in their wake. The entire reindeer team would be vaporized within 4.26 thousandths of a second, or right about the time Santa reached the fifth house on his trip.

Not that it matters, however, since Santa, as a result of accelerating from a dead stop to 650 mps in .001 seconds, would be subjected to acceleration forces of 17,000 g's. A 250 pound Santa (which seems ludicrously slim) would be pinned to the back of the sleigh by 4,315,015 pounds of force, instantly crushing his bones and organs and reducing him to a quivering blob of pink goo. Therefore, if Santa did exist, he's dead now.

JS

The halls of the convention center rang with deafening silence as brother Paul Washer brought the Gospel as only he can. There were no catchy clichés or comforting ideas about how to receive your “best life now”.  No, the Gospel, the glorious, scandalous Gospel of Jesus Christ.  It was put in a manner that all in attendance could understand and began like this:

Your home-school education, nice clothes, and manners cannot save you. Flee to Christ!

He continued as the heavy, grievous Holy Spirit began to fill the room:

My desire is to strip you of every hope in the flesh, to shut you off from every hope whatsoever of somehow making yourself right with God by your own virtue and merit. If you repent of trying to clothe yourself in the filthy rags of your own righteousness and fall on Christ, He will save you. Then you will grow in Christ-likeness, and you will know His presence; this is the Gospel.

This is the way the Gospel was meant to be preached. Not the sugar-coated, safe, non-offensive gospel that pastors dish out either every Sunday either out of fear or for self-preservation of themselves and their churches.

Brother Paul also offered this sound advice…

Judge everything you do by this standard: is it really only for Him? If he took everything away and left you only with Him, would you still have joy unspeakable, because your hope is in Him?

Over 2,600 men, women and children were left in a wake, shaken to the core of our sinful soul in what ended in a somber, sobering revelation of just how messed up and how undeserving of His grace and mercy we really are.

Unlike the talking heads on TV or at mega-church circus revivals, there was no manipulative altar call ending or Biblically-ignorant reductions of salvation to 4 questions or any foolish prayers to repeat.  No, only a heartfelt proclamation that he would meet anyone afterwards and stay all night if necessary for those who wanted to deal with their sin and who had the Holy Spirit inside working on their hearts and drawing them to repentance.  He left us with these words…

Throw yourself on Christ, and you will not be disappointed.

 

JS

Well my mind is racing a thousand miles per second.  My body feels like all is in slow motion as the afternoon session with Paul Washer met with a rush of Starbucks. Between his anointing and the caffeine, let’s just say that I may have a sense of what an addict feels when they come off a high.

Holy smokes. Paul Washer just finished up a message on “Sufficiency of Scripture in Personal Evangelism” and completely destroyed the modern day 4 questions version of salvation.  His message was to the point and not only offered up a recognition of the problem, but a solution as well.

His scathing deliverance of the scriptures finished up in Romans 10.  He meticulously explained the context in which the book of Romans was written, and how the majority of so-called evangelical, Christian churches in the U.S. abuse and twist Romans 10:10 is twisted and ripped out of context and presented as a cheapened version of true salvation.

As with Voddie, I was able to chat with him after the message after waiting in a huge line. (There were so many people, that even the floor was covered with over 100+ folks after the seats filled long before he started.)

Paul and I conversed and I walked away with a few things.  1) I was finally able to thank him in person for his ministry and the work God has done in me through his preaching. 2) As Paul put it to me, “Man, you really married out of your league…” he said with a smile.  I know that I don’t deserve the wonderful wife I’ve been given.  It was a light-hearted moment that we both laughed. 3) Paul is also considering a church plant in WV.  He will be in the Fairmont area next week.  When I get my jaw off the floor, I’ll comment more.

He will be speaking again tonight, I can’t wait.