wow. it has been a while since i posted on here. and looking at my other friends' blogs, it seems that i'm not the only one. it's not that i haven't had anything to say, it's just that i've been busy, as life seems to always get in the way of extra-curricular activities such as rambling on a blog just in case someone is listening. after all, that's all we are doing when we blog, talking into the air, just in case someone is interested. think of us as the street preachers on the corner with a box and a microphone.
so what has caused me to turn my microphone back on and step back up on my box with my "the end is near" sandwich board you ask? since you are reading this, you know i am about to tell you. one of the aspects of being in the military, is that it forces you to pay attention to world events. i was recently in britain, and i realized how much we see things through american eyes. while there, i saw various monuments referencing the "civil war," which confused me at first as i was wondering why the british would have monuments honoring a war overseas. then it hit me, it wasn't our civil war, but theirs, aka the "war of the roses." you would think i would learn, but then i saw another monument for world war 2, with the dates 1939-1945, i thought "1939? world war 2 didn't start until...oh yeah!" that being said, too often, we in america tend to focus on america, and neglect to remember that there is a big world outside of the united states.
a few months ago, in libya, a group of isis terrorists systematically beheaded a group of egyptian CHRISTians for no other reason than they were CHRISTian. a few of them sang hymns, and a few prayed, as they were beheaded on that shoreline. in syria and iraq, isis is killing CHRISTians by the hundreds, and destroying churches and sacred CHRISTian relics, leading to what some have called the "CHRISTian holocaust." why do i bring this up? because in the u.s., we've seem to become oblivious to this fact and are so comfortable in our own pews that we have become arrogant and complacent in our faith.
what do i mean? ever since the 1950's and the post world war 2 moral revival (i say that, because it was then that the greatest shift in church attendance occurred, and many people became moralistic deists, mistaking it for CHRISTianity) our nation has enjoyed a peaceful time for the church. however, in recent years, with the advent of political changes such as the legalization of homosexual marriage, religious pluralism, and islamic catering, a number of professing CHRISTians are crying "foul." some have even gone so far as to use the "persecution" word.
the problem is, that we have become so entrenched in our pseudo-CHRISTian moralistic lifestyles that we are shocked and appalled when we face any sort of opposition, and in our arrogance dare to put ourselves on the same levels as those who are paying the ultimate price for their faith right now. we've become no better than those on the left who are equating being denied a cake to the holocaust. how did we get here? what led to that arrogance?
ever since the phenomenon known as the "moral majority" took place, CHRISTians, or those who profess to be, have enjoyed living our lives in relative comfort, thanks to laws put in place to keep us that way. in doing so, we gloss over those passages in Scripture that tell us to expect opposition. they become a catch phrase, or something that happens in far off lands. sure, we reference those who have lost their lives in church on sunday morning, and we pray for those who are suffering, but we truly are removed from any such suffering ourselves and are hard-pressed to understand what it is really like. so when the laws that we've enjoyed for so long start to change, and we are forced to pull our heads out of the sand and look around, we don't like what we see. so what do we do? we attempt to frantically grasp for more sand to pile around us so that we can rebury our head.
we do this, because we like to be comfortable. we would rather continue to legislate morality and hope that it fixes the problem so that we don't have to deal with it. sure CHRIST loves those evil sinners outside of our circle of church wagons, and we'll pray for them, but we'd rather they just behave and stay in their little boxes and leave us be. we've tried it for years with divorce laws, "merry CHRISTmas" laws, heterosexual marriage laws, anti-abortion laws, prohibition laws, and any other moralistic pseudo-CHRISTian law we can find to keep our world neat and tidy. these laws have failed time and time again. sure, they fix the problem on the surface, but bootleggers still made moonshine despite prohibition, people still got back-alley abortions, people still had homosexual sex, etc. we were trying to put a band-aid on a bullet hole, give the patient a pat on the head, and then say, "go 'way kid, ya bother me!"
as i've spent time studying the Scriptures in my daily life, it has occurred to me that nowhere does it say we are to initiate change on a societal level. Jesus told us that we will be hated for His name's sake. He said to render unto caesar that which is caesar's, thereby affirming the oppressive roman government that was in place. He refused to be the militant Messiah that the people were hoping for to overthrow the roman government, and when He didn't, they turned on Him and had Him killed for it. Jesus even went so far to say that if you were struck on the cheek, to turn your other cheek to let them slap you on that one as well, and that if you were asked to carry a man's cloak for one mile, referring to the roman practice of a soldier grabbing a jew and forcing them to carry their gear for up to a mile, that you were to carry it for three miles. that message would be received today about as well as it was then. paul went so far as to say to be subject to the laws and authorities that were placed over you, and that they received their authority from God.
where does that leave us? and that's the rub that no one wants to admit. our practice of enacting laws to keep sin out of the culture is not only not sanctioned by Scripture, but is actually antithetical to it! we are told that all of the things that are happening are going to happen, so we should not be surprised. but we are not told to change society as a whole, but to preach the gospel and make disciples. you see, societal change does not happen on the whole, but with individuals. and that means you actually have to leave the safety of the country church club and go out and not just tell the gospel, but live it! that means loving people despite their sin. don't get me wrong, nowhere are we commanded to ignore people's sin, but to love them despite it and call them to repentance and faith in CHRIST. when Jesus encountered sinners such as the woman at the well, the woman caught in adultery, and the rich young ruler, He directly addressed their sin along with calling them to follow Him. we know that the rich young ruler left sadly, because his money had become his idol, but tradition tells us that the other two left their sin and followed Him.
this business of isolating ourselves from the world has resulted in the world's writing off our CHRIST and those who claim to be His followers. our critical disdain of people's sin has caused us to be labeled as bigots. and part of it is our fault. we have been setting our sights on sin targets for decades and then fired every moral weapon we have at them like heat seeking missiles, and countless souls have become the casualties of those attacks. here's the thing, we haven't been called to change people's behavior or to rid them of their sins. only CHRIST can do that. we are only called to point them to the One who can set them free from the bondage of sin that has enslaved their lives, many of them blind to the chains that they wear. only CHRIST can open their eyes to see them and only He can remove them. but our actions have so masked CHRIST from them that all they can see are white-washed tombs full of dead men's bones.
so what does that mean? are moralistic laws bad? it depends on the intent behind them. laws to protect the innocent babies that are slaughtered every year through abortion are needed, and we are ethically required to speak up for those who don't have a voice. however, to use the name of CHRIST to force people to behave is not only unbiblical, it is harmful to the gospel. when people are forced to do something, it is not love, it is slavery, and the last thing people need is another master controlling them. that's what CHRIST came for, to set us free from all forms of slavery, and to take His yoke upon us, which is easier and lighter than the ones we force on ourselves and others.
just because a government enacts a law, does it change the reality of the Bible? if a government calls something a marriage, does it redefine what the Bible has sanctioned as a marriage? (here's one to chew on, does the government have to be involved in Biblical, covenental marriage before God for it to be valid in the eyes of God? find that one in Scripture!) if the government enacted a law tomorrow that said there was to be no one god recognized, does it change who the real God is?
the point is, we need to stop expecting our world around us to conform to our Biblical worldview, and expect what CHRIST promised us, that we are strangers in a strange lands, aliens in a foreign country. we need to realize that in terms of persecution, we are not exempt from it, and ours by comparison to our fellow brothers and sisters in CHRIST pales when you take into account the price being paid only a plane ride away. we also need to decide which hills we are going to die on. we need to reevaluate our convictions and how we live them out and ask if those convictions are actually in line with CHRIST and His teachings to love others unconditionally, including those who are enemies, and decide what loving them actually means. if you can reconcile that conviction in light of the call of CHRIST, then you must be willing to pay that price, be it fines, imprisonment, or worse. one day, and i believe it will come and have been saying it for years, we will be asked to pay a far greater price for CHRIST than mere media attacks. the question then becomes, how will you fare when real persecution comes to your doorstep and you are no longer able to legislate it away? for now, enjoy the protections that our government provides, but for the sake of the gospel stop trying to control your little slice of heaven by hiding from and building walls to protect you from the world. the world needs the message you bring, and trying to launch it from behind the walls on spiritual trebuchets is not working. love God, love people. you can't claim one and not the other. my life verse is Romans 5:8, which states, "but God has shown us His love by Christ dying for us, even though we were miserable, wretched, hell-bound sinners, the very enemies of God" (paraphrased by me!) how do you love people? by risking your reputation, your safety, your financial stability, your life, to go to them in their sin and tell them that Jesus loves them and that you love them, and introduce them to the Saviour who set you free from your sins, which were many (and just as bad as whatever sin they happen to be engaging in!) because make no mistake, one day our meek and gentle Saviour will return not on a donkey, but on a white horse, with a double-edged sword, and those who are not covered by the blood of CHRIST, be they those we call sinners or those moralistic deists we mistakenly label as CHRISTians in the pew next to us, will be judged by Him. He is the only One qualified to judge the lost. we will then have to answer for what we have done with the gospel. will we say "i was scared of what the world would do to it, so i hid it?" or will He say to us, "well done My good and faithful servant"?
-C.
And so we pull
11 years ago
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