Sunday, January 15, 2012

MARTIN LUTHER KING

Monday is the national holiday to honor the work of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.  It took many years for the holiday to be fully accepted, but it now seems to me that it has been denuded of any of its power.  It seems that picking up trash and other community service has replaced the drive for complete justice.

Now we know that great strides have been made in the years since his death, but the work is hardly complete.  People are still not judged strictly on the basis of their character.   While some areas of life have become more integrated, the fact is that just one day before the holiday - Sunday - most Black people were in churches that are predominantly Black, and most white people were in churches that are predominantly white. Even in churches with a mixture of people, there is often a disparity in the level of intimacy among the different groups. The majority of people still like to be around what they are comfortable with and are slow to broaden their horizons or be totally without bias in their evaluations of people.

I encourage you this day to make a special effort to speak out for a breaking down of the remaining walls. When you hear someone say something insensitive, racist, or hateful, challenge them, and present the love of Christ.

To me, this day is not about honoring an individual.  I have found many of the celebrations to be idolatrous, elevating a man beyond where any man should be elevated or ascribing to him theological persuasions which he had long rejected.  It is also not the time to lay out all the flaws or inconsistencies of the man.  Few of us would look good under a high-powered microscope. All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.

Rather, inspired by the struggles of many to confront evil, let us be willing to pay the price to confront evil as well.  It is not simply racism. It is abortion, it is homosexuality, it is corruption, it is the unconstitutional grabs of power, it is calling right wrong and wrong right.  How many would risk a dirty look let alone time in jail?  The early Christians had that type of commitment.  I believe it will take that level of commitment now as we live in an evil day where men and women and inventing new forms of evil every day. Are you willing to pay the price? Jesus was, and he has asked us to as well.   Let us be resolved to be mouthpieces for our Lord among this evil generation.  We may not have a holiday named after us, but we will receive a "well done" from the Lord which we can celebrate forever.

Thursday, January 05, 2012

THE PROSPECT OF PROSPERITY

We have people at the highest levels of government, the educational system, the entertainment industry, the big business world, and the media who have TIRELESSLY dedicated their time, their energy, and their resources to making us total rebels against God.  “Prophets” of God have been declaring 2012 to be “the year of “recovery”, that prosperity will return, and so on and so forth – I am sure you have heard them.   I hope they are right because our area of commerce has suffered more than any and no one I have spoken to has a whole lot of hope it will come back anytime soon.  Yet NONE of the “prophets” I have heard have addressed even ONE of the many injustices that start before birth and don’t even end at death, of which the list below is just a portion - I am sure many of you could think of more:


1. Injustice to the unborn – abortion by pill, procedure, and partial birth atrocities.

2. Injustice to children – broken homes, foul TV, rampant profanity, gratuitous sex and violence, Godless schools who seek to indoctrinate with the values of an activist secular humanist minority.  Protecting sexual predators and attacking any group such as the Boy Scouts who seeks to separate homosexuals from young boys, even though 65% of homosexuals are initiated by older men.

3. Injustice to teens – promoting free sex, encouraging gender confusion, removing parents from pregnancy knowledge and decisions, false teaching on the scriptures and science, undermine confidence in the Bible, but no such scrutiny of any of the devil's many books, glorification of evil, endless “music” written in Hell itself to desensitize the minds of our youth.

4. Injustice to college students – no guidance on what pleases God, free sex, pagan education and destructive anti-Christian and political indoctrination teaching conformance with the world system with extreme pressure. It produced a generation largely unable to think critically and come to the knowledge of the truth, instead believing the big lies told by those who catered to fleshly desires. They are puffed up in their minds rejecting righteousness.

5. Injustice to young adults – pushing living together, foul media, and poor values.  Making divorce, which God hates, no bug thing. Making marriage something out of their world. Stressing being true to one’s fallen self as opposed to being true to God. Even forcing soldiers who are risking life and limb to live and work in intimate conditions with open homosexuals.

6. Injustice to adults – exploitation in the workplaces, pastors not preaching the true gospel of repentance from dead works but a feel good message devoid of the conviction of the Holy Spirit, often captive to one political persuasion or another.  Those with equal efforts and gifts get vastly different results.
   
7. Injustice to the poor  – not providing equal core services, enforced attendance at failing schools and removal of opportunities for students to do better, such as happened in the District of Columbia. Instead, making people dependent on meager payments that simply perpetuate poverty.  Policies that discourage businesses from providing jobs here in America. Churches with leaders who mine poor communities for money and instead of establishing storehouses to provide food for the poor, live in extreme affluence themselves.

8. Injustice to Seniors – people ion power have robbed social security, given it to people who never paid in even one cent, made laws that are encouraging live-in relationships, and tilting the health care system against them with what in practice have proven in other countries to be “death panels”, with the state determining who will l live and who will die. In the United Kingdom, I would be considered too old for many heart procedures. God forbid that happen here!

9. Injustice to the dead – taxing yet again (and very heavily at that) those who want to leave what they have earned to their children and grandchildren.

God help us!  A tidal wave of judgment is indeed coming unless the people repent.  Peter noted how people said, ‘It will be as it always was’, but God destroyed what we believe to be over one billion people in the days of Noah, saving only 8.  Today, with hundreds of millions “saved”, is there any doubt God will treat the world of this day in a more favorable fashion?   God changes not!  His standards of holiness are no lower today than they were then.  Remember, in the days of Noah there were no wars, people were getting married, and there is no record of homosexuality or ethnic conflict.  This was before Babel, and everyone spoke one language.   When loyalty to personalities and ideas that bring catharsis are put in subservience to the counsel of God, I believe things will change. Until then, our world has received exactly what it has deserved – actually less than it has deserved due to the grace and mercy of God so far. But if one doubts that God will indeed pour out his wrath, that person does not believe the clear true prophecy of the Word of God.  Only through repentance and faith toward God can we avoid his wrath.  That is why Jesus came and died. It will not come through human action, no matter how well-intentioned.  What is prophesied must agree with the Word!