Off the chest

Sunday June 30th, my plan was to do what I do on Sundays, rest (which is the great thing about having a Saturday service), catch up (a lot happens during a week and there is always a need to finish that week and get ready for a new one) and back up all the information that I have on the computer to the flash drives, so that I don't lose any information (my usual end-of month activity)...

However, that plan got not only waylaid, but completely demolished when I received a notice on my cellphone (which is how I stay in contact with Facebook while the computer is being cleaned and backed up) and to say I was not pleased with what was said in those contacts would be a gross understatement.

There are certain things that will set me off and one of those things is statements made that while sounding sincere, in a sense show a naivety to what is going on in the world and what I try to express in this blog....

The first was about using this blog for politics....I have put (prior to this post) 137 blog entries...I looked at the 20 that I have done this year, and of them...at best, three might be considered political, the stat goes to 1 of 29 for 2012 (which if anything was a political year), 5 of 37 for 2011, and 2 1/2 out of 51 for 2010...so when you add it all up 11 1/2 out 137 which is 8% of the entries...If there is a problem that I have (and have been accused of-sometimes fairly), it is with making general statements without fact to back them up...

The next is about politics and the gospel not going hand in hand. When I comment on what is going on in the world, it is usually to raise awareness of what is going on in the world (usually what is happening is fulfilling the words that are found in the Word of God of what the end times will be like) and how that presents a danger to the ability that we have as believers to preach and live out the Gospel in our daily lives. There are many that seem to be under the impression that our lives should be compartmentalized and the areas in those compartments kept as far away from each other as possible. And also, if our leaders were to more often live and rule according to what is found in the Gospel, maybe things would be a lot better in our world.

There is also a passage in Ezekiel (chapter 33) where God talks to him about being a watchman on the wall, sounding an alarm to the people:
Again the word of the Lord came to me, saying, 2“Son of man, speak to the children of your people, and say to them: ‘When I bring the sword upon a land, and the people of the land take a man from their territory and make him their watchman, 3when he sees the sword coming upon the land, if he blows the trumpet and warns the people, 4then whoever hears the sound of the trumpet and does not take warning, if the sword comes and takes him away, his blood shall be on his own head. 5He heard the sound of the trumpet, but did not take warning; his blood shall be upon himself. But he who takes warning will save his life. 6But if the watchman sees the sword coming and does not blow the trumpet, and the people are not warned, and the sword comes and takes any person from among them, he is taken away in his iniquity; but his blood I will require at the watchman’s hand.’

7“So you, son of man: I have made you a watchman for the house of Israel; therefore you shall hear a word from My mouth and warn them for Me. 8When I say to the wicked, ‘O wicked man, you shall surely die!’ and you do not speak to warn the wicked from his way, that wicked man shall die in his iniquity; but his blood I will require at your hand. 9Nevertheless if you warn the wicked to turn from his way, and he does not turn from his way, he shall die in his iniquity; but you have delivered your soul.

 

When we as believers sound out about what is going on in the world, it is to fulfill our role as watchmen and we do so because we should be loving those in the world as much as Jesus loved us and if someone hears and be warning them that they are on the path to destruction unless they turn from their wicked ways. And then we can use that to share the Gospel with them. 

A verse that comes to mind is one that Jesus spoke about when He was commissioning the disciples in Matthew 10: 16:

16“Behold, I send you out as sheep in the midst of wolves. Therefore be wise as serpents and harmless as doves.

There are many who get the "harmless as doves" part down in their lives and that is great, but notice what He also said...to be wise as serpents and to be as wise as serpents means not to have our eyes closed to what is going on, but to be aware of things, whether it be arguments that are used by people to keep themselves from being convicted by the Gospel, trends that are going on in society that should make us aware of where we are going as a culture...of course the key is being in the world (and aware), but not of the world (being different by the fact that we are believers in Jesus).

And lastly "us vs. them"...this is a misnomer...what we should be  is what I remember reading quite often in the works of Chuck Colson: contra mundum (against the world). We should be against a world that is killing us in so many ways...killing in the womb before life begins...killing the mind by removing Godly principles and activities while endorsing lifestyles and philosophies that are vain and empty...killing us in creating a "ideal" in man and womanhood and saying that we have to get that ideal or we are nothing (and then changing that ideal so that we have to have the newest, latest and greatest), killing us by censoring viewpoints that lift up the name of God, while raising up those who believe in empty values, killing us by giving us "entertainment" that years ago, would have been called pornography and then lowering the standards of that "entertainment" and then killing by ending life early in the name of "mercy"....If there is an "us vs them" it should be us who are dedicated to living a Godly lifestyle in every area of our lives vs those who mock, defy and live their lives in a way that that shows they don't know God at all? 

I wonder if the prophets who were called by God were told not be so "hard" by associates so that others wouldn't be offended or if they were told that proclaiming God's word to kings was an improper mix of "religion and politics" or by pointing out sins in the world that they were "political"? 

This may have been a longer blog entry than usual, but I feel that there are times where brevity is not an ideal (which is why once again, I will never be a Twitter user)...