Here is an article that David Brown, missionary to South Africa wrote.  Thank you David for the permission to share this.

 

EVIL LEADERS IN BIBLE TIMES

Firstly, I believe that the New Testament passages about how God’s people should treat government were written under the evil administrations of several Caesars, all but one of whom were bisexual, threw lavish orgies, had a military that allowed open homosexuality, taxed their citizens heavily, used tax monies for horrible immoralities and idolatries, were heavily and increasingly in debt, were increasingly anti-Christian, and had an over-expanded military, fighting rebels in foreign lands who were attacking the Roman army because they were in their territories.  Sound familiar?

 

Virtually all governments and their leaders have been evil over time; fallen and broken people create fallen and broken systems and use them for their own advancement. Romans 13:3 says that the government’s role is to punish evil – that has to mean the punishment of universally recognized criminal evil through the enforcement of the crimes code (the sword).  The passage doesn’t address philosophically-based evil on which societies differ, such as homosexuality, slavery, and abortion, which were all practiced by the Roman government.  Francis Schaeffer failed to address this sufficiently in his A Christian Manifesto.  Paul knew those evils existed, and were supported by tax monies, but didn’t exhort Christians to rise up against it because the Roman government was endorsing evil.  So, according to Romans 13, our God has worked through the American people to give them a President they deserve.  Obama is the servant of the Lord; perhaps unwitting as were Cyrus and Nebuchadnezzar, by nonetheless His servant.

 

AMERICA IS NOT ISRAEL

Secondly, America is not Israel.  America is not God’s country.  America is not “my people called by my name.”  American pastors are not Old Testament prophets who receive messages and ultimatums from God (other than the written Word) and have a divine right to command kings.  Further, the US government is not leaving Christians without options or forcing us to do evil; we don’t have to worship idols, we are not forbidden to pray, or to meet, or to share our faith, or to have a float in the parade, or to have concerts.  Pastors don’t have to officiate gay marriages.  Our churches still enjoy all kinds of tax benefits from local, state, and national governments.  That may all change in decades to come, but we are not there yet.

 

WHO WILL HELP THE POOR?

Side point: Sodom’s sin wasn’t just sexual.  Although it isn’t popular to say so, one could argue that even the American Church has committed one of the sins of Sodom (Ezekiel 16:49).  Our affluent white suburban churches have often neglected the poor and yet don’t want a government that does either.  When compassion dies in the Church (or the Church itself dies), socialism will rise in culture.  We are in an era where caring for your fellow man is a core value in Western culture.  America is being increasingly influenced by the collectivist values of its third-world immigrants, and by the “Progressive” ideas of intellectuals and youth who believe, pursuant to evolution, that social collectivism is the highest evolved form of economic-political philosophy (and no, Obama is very far from being anything like a communist).

 

WE HAVE THE VOTE AND REPRESENTATION

Thirdly, today’s Americans are not in a similar situation to our colonial forefathers.  In the mid-1700s, they had a demented king and a timid Parliament in which they had no representation.  Americans have chosen their current President; Americans have chosen their current Senators, Representatives, and Governors.  We have full representation and the American political process is still a stunning model for the world to see – it works so well (take it from one who lives in Africa!).  I was privileged to be in America as the process took place November 6.

 

The colonials were in a position where King George had abdicated government by declaring the colonies out from his protection in 1775.  They were moving swiftly to create governments and militias to avoid being overthrown by a foreign British power.  The term “revolution” was given to us by the French when they pursued their mindless debacle decades later.  American Christians don’t rise up and throw off a leader they disagree with – they vote (how many of you know what percentage of true believers voted this time?).  And if your man is never elected because his views and yours are in the minority, what can you do?  That leads to the last point …

 

THE ROOT TROUBLE & SOLUTION

We mustn’t be angry with Barak Obama.  He is a reflection of what the American people want … times two.  We might be angry with the way American society is heading, but ultimately that falls right back into the laps of Christians, doesn’t it?  The salt has lost its savor; our light is barely shining.  Ask Barna.  America used to have a strong Judeo-Christian consensus, even though you could argue that they were simply God-fearing people rather than actually Christian.  With the rise of Liberalism in the 1800s, America moved to a moralist model based on notions of love and the Golden Rule.  In the 1950s we began to lose even the moralist model.  Now the great moralist-capitalist middle has all but disappeared, and America is sharply polarized. 

 

I think perhaps we have failed to do the hard thing, the right thing, and one of the first things.  We have failed to live in a contagiously refreshing way in our communities (but have isolated ourselves from it in our churches and schools, and are known for political anger more than being socially helpful), and we have failed to share our faith one by one.  The gospel alone changes people and society; as many individuals change from the inside out, the whole is made right. 

 

I am glad for this wakeup call for the church … although we heard it four years ago and I am not sure much has changed.  I think a Republican President would make the Church even more comfortable and more apathetic.  This wakeup call is not a call to political action – to oppose the President and those aligned with him.  It is a call to mobilize God’s people to relational evangelism – from the common man up to elected officials.  You simply can’t elect good Christians to office when the public despises Christians and their ideas; or if they make it into office, they won’t stay there long if they have good principles.  I think that this is why some politicians resist conversion; it would cost them everything.  Until the Church repents and begins to function, American politics will reflect our impotence.

Behind the Curtain

The Veil of Twilight

One night, while taking a walk at nightfall, I saw an object in the field that I identified as a coyote.  Having to walk past that ghostly creature to get back to my house, I cautiously and fearfully, continued my walk.  I kept my eye on the critter the whole time. The more I watched I realized the animal was not only a coyote but also a coyote that was intently tracking me.   Needless to say, this was unsettling.  When I got right up on the animal, I was shocked; what I had moments before been certain was a coyote was not even an animal.  Though I was certain of what I saw, the quickly spreading veil of darkness had obscured reality to the point that I believed a lie. The lie led to fear and the fear almost led to irrational behavior – calling my wife to pick me up.   I Corinthians 4:3 speaks of a similar curtain of darkness. It is a covering that leaves spiritual reality hidden and a lie substituted for truth.  

2 Corinthians 4:3–4 (NASB95)   ³ And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing, ⁴ in whose case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelieving so that they might not see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.

The Veil of Hurricane Sandy

As ‘Sandy’s’ aftermath is contemplated, discussion has again permeated the world as to the cause and meaning of such storms.  Once more surfacing among the powerful politicians, agnostic scientists and persuasive media is the hypothesis that all this is caused by ‘global warming.’  This premise that has gained traction over the last 20 years proposes that we as human beings have destroyed our planet by using or misusing our natural resources in such a way that catastrophic changes have taken place in our atmosphere.  These changes have caused warming to our atmosphere that consequently have triggered dangerous changes in our weather patterns.   After experiencing Sandy, Michael Bloomberg, the mayor of the world’s most powerful city, endorsed a presidential candidate based on this hypothesis. An election that never really spoke of climate change is being altered in the last week by this single concept. But it is not global warming or the effects it has on the election, that are the veil.  It is something much more sinister.   

The Veil of An Interactive God

It is a veil that removes the supernatural from consideration and seeks a natural answer to everything.   It is a veil that sees man as the cause and the solution to problems formerly understood to be acts of God.   The veil covers the thoughts that there could be a God who notices and cares about human actions. It hides the fact that this God could be angered by our actions and could act in judgment.   It veils that He says He created and sustains our earth.   The veil is so thick that even the possible consideration that these storms could be related to God, are laughed to scorn.  When religious leaders such as Pat Robertson, Chuck Colson, and Hal Lindsey (no endorsements intended) suggested that God’s judgment might be involved in Hurricane Katrina, they were attacked as Christians who were not merely lacking in credibility but also were verging on dangerous insanity.   The veil is falling fast and the veil is being dropped by, ‘the god of this world.’

Here are the facts! The climate is changing. It was predicted to change long before the global warming theory came to be.   Natural storms are growing in frequency and strength.  But they are very much connected to God.  The Bible makes clear that nature is both controlled and directed by the Lord (Col 1).  Matthew 24 speaks of the divine plan to increase earthquakes ahead of Jesus Second coming.   Revelation describes the judgment of God that will be unfurled during the tribulation. Natural disasters are among those judgments.  Listen to these words from Revelation 6:12–14 (NASB95)    ¹² I looked when He broke the sixth seal, and there was a great earthquake; and the sun became black as sackcloth made of hair, and the whole moon became like blood; ¹³ and the stars of the sky fell to the earth, as a fig tree casts its unripe figs when shaken by a great wind. ¹⁴ The sky was split apart like a scroll when it is rolled up, and every mountain and island were moved out of their places.

Not only will our world be shaken by earthquakes but huge atmospheric changes will occur that will dramatically alter our exosphere and the weather we are used to.  All of these things will come from the hand of God as judgment to the world.  

The Veil of God's Purposes

 

What is the point of this judgment?   God will send this pre-judgment to mankind with mercy in his heart.   His merciful goal: to show a preview of His eternal judgment so that we would repent and trust Him as our salvation from this certain judgment ahead.  He desires us to detour from our human answers to His divine truth. 

While we cannot know certainly what God had in mind with Sandy, there is one thing we can know with certain.   God is involved in ‘natural’ disasters.  One of his goals in every one of these events is to awaken us to the reality of our spiritual condition.  Veiling the source of major storms is Satan’s plan to hide the truth of an interactive God, the truth of our sin, the truth of God’s wrath and the truth of the gospel.  

Rather than turn to Jesus when this veil falls, people will again follow after the god of this world’s deception that eliminates God from their memory.   In this day, when the veil labeled ‘natural’ disaster obscures our world’s view of God, be courageous in telling the truth of God’s connection to nature.   Don’t be muzzled.   If you allow yourself to be muzzled, you are allowing God’s mercy to be muzzled.  God intends these events to mercifully unsettle and warn our world so that they turn from their sin, their humanistic tendencies and to Jesus who wishes to be their Savior and Lord.   May God lift the veil on those around us so that they can know the Savior that we have been privileged to see.  

 

The Product of an Over ‘Politcalized’ Church

Recently, I have been asked a lot of political questions.    I have been encouraged to be more political in my messages - to preach against or for issues, to encourage people towards information that would help them to get more involved politically, to stand up for their rights, to recognize the doom that could come to their American dream and to speak openly against political parties.  Let me explain why this is not on my Sunday morning agenda.  

In the 1950 & 1960’s a dramatic change took place in many of the southern black churches in America.   At one time, they were an ethnic group whose churches most capably laid out an example of what true Christianity and the true gospel entailed, but in the face of great mistreatment and injustice, they were derailed.  How did it happen?  It came in the face of deep and hateful persecution and injustice.   While slavery had ended, a landscape of racism still clearly marked the culture, sadly even the religious culture.  The Black community was not treated humanely or given any sense of the dignity that a person created in God’s image should receive.    This injustice clearly deserved action, but the action that was taken erroneously moved from the community halls to the church buildings.

What happened next was unfortunate.   Sunday in some black churches slowly digressed from being a time for equipping people to live in this world - with all its unfairness, all its trials and all its persecution - in a way that would allow the light of Jesus to shine out of darkness.   No longer was the day centered on the worship of a sovereign God “Who’s got the whole world in his Hands” and Who could be trusted to cause the rise and fall of kingdoms as best met his loving and divine purposes.  The proclaimed purpose of believers shifted from rescuing lost and unrepentant sinners from eternal bondage and punishment for sin, to “let’s free ourselves from social injustice.”  Clearly, many of those unrepentant and unsaved sinners that needed saved could be found filling the racist religious gatherings down the road who were fueling the injustice. As a regretful response, compassion was replaced with self-preservation. 

The change sent the church down a slippery slope.  Rather than being infused with love for their enemies, churches began to breed the bitterness that their enemies were pouring out on them.  Rather than lifting up Jesus’ right to reign in hearts, parishioners were told to focus on their rights.  Sunday became a time to strategize, to motivate and to move people against the injustices of this world.  It became a time when liberation from injustice - right now, today, on this planet became the objective.  When this took place, the mission of the church was undermined and generations were infected with a mindset that thwarted their spiritual growth and disregarded the mind and heart of God.

Here is the problem. While Christians should be concerned about social injustice, while they should be good citizens and vote and while they should be proactive in their communities, this should not be what obsesses them. Most importantly this should not be the focus of their Sunday worship.   

The focus of our corporate gathering is to worship the God Who is constant and Who transcends this world.  As we gather, we are to recognize that this God might have injustice on tap for us as He did for His Son, in order to help more vividly shine His love through us against the backdrop of our own persecution.    The body of Christ, formed from those of every nation, ethnicity, tribe and tongue, all have one thing in common, we have a heavenly citizenship and a heavenly mission.   The changing of society is not God’s primary goal here and now. In fact, this world is promised to be dark, unfair and unruly.  Fairness and or ease for ourselves is not to be our focus at all, and certainly not in church body gatherings.   Instead, our focus as we gather is to be equipping one another to shine the light of the gospel and share the truth of the gospel into the darkest and most hateful corners of our communities.    It is to encourage each other to the mind of Jesus as we relate to a world that increasingly hates us, not to breed bitterness against that world, the government or its enemies. 

If we lose focus on what God has in mind for us, what will happen?   The gospel by which we are saved - and for which we are to be ambassadors - will be lost.   What we talk about will be us, our freedom in this life, our dreams and goals for the here and now.  In its wake the gospel of Jesus will be lost and the fruit of the spirit will disappear.   Don’t be fooled!  The product of an overly politicalized church is not nearly as divine as one might initially think.    Let’s be the best citizens we can be.   Let’s pray much for our nation.   Let’s follow our political conscience as framed by biblical principles.   BUT, let’s not lose sight of the goal as given to us by Jesus.  Let’s make spiritual disciples our primary goal not political ones. If we lose focus, the game will be lost.   

 

 

The Powerful Medicine in God’s Word

With the upsurge of the internet, self-diagnosis and self-medicating of illness appears to be at an all-time high. It seems that fewer people are apt to accept a doctor’s diagnosis or follow a pharmacist’s direction than ever before. You are probably not surprised by this. At some point you probably have taken this same approach to managing your health. I confess; I have.

Why self-medicate?

Perhaps:

·         The medicine prescribed is expensive and so in weighing up the costs you figured the financial cost to your wallet was greater than the physical repercussions. 

·         The original condition is perceived to be more acceptable than the requirements or side effects. 

·         There is a lack of trust in the doctor or the directives he or she has given.

·         The taste or the way the medicine goes down (GULP) is disliked. 

·         The loss of personal freedom to determine one’s own path seems unacceptable.

Self-medicating is also common in the spiritual realm. In Proverbs 4, a father is seeking to teach his son to trust scriptural decrees to manage his spiritual health. Proverbs 4:20–22 says, (NASB95)  ²⁰ My son, give attention to my words; Incline your ear to my sayings. ²¹ Do not let them depart from your sight; Keep them in the midst of your heart. ²² For they are life to those who find them and health to all their body.

A common commercial today is for anti-aging cream that is said to both protect and restore your skin.   This is the picture that Proverbs 4 provides us of God’s Word as it is applied to the soul. The word translated ‘life’ speaks of nourishment that promotes good health. The word translated ‘health’ speaks of a remedy for the sin sick soul. The declaration is that God’s Word provides the elements necessary to increase our spiritual vigor and at the same time has elements to restore a poor spiritual condition caused by the effects of sin. Who wouldn’t want perfect skin or perfect spiritual health? Believe it or not, many of us! Here is the hitch. This health can only be found by accepting the diagnosis of God’s Word as to our problem, trusting the solutions and carefully, willingly following them regardless. Often, we simply do not want to do this.

Please recognize there is a real cost to following God’s Word. It may cost the way of life that is familiar to us. At times it will be uncomfortable, unpalatable, and hard to swallow. It will require that we yield the final say to God’s Word rather than our inclination.

Discipleship in all our lives is met at some point with a crisis of decision. At that moment, we are confronted by God’s truth in an area very personal where it is hard to accept the diagnosis of sin and the prescribed action from God’s Word to see that soul-contaminating issue eradicated. What we do in those moments determines what will happen next in our spiritual lives. It is a crucial, crossroad like, moment! At that point we must acknowledge that God’s Word is only useful if His directions are read carefully and adhered to strictly. Moreover, we must concede that a personally made cocktail of principles that we will and will not follow are dangerous, even deadly.   

The inspired Word of God, through the pen of the proverb writer here, says that we must give careful attention to and not ‘depart’ or wander from their directions to a self-made plan of our own choosing.  Instead, we must treasure, memorize, and meditate (“keep them in the midst of our heart”) on them so it becomes second nature to know and obey them. This means we must trust God’s Word unequivocally with an understanding that it is completely trustworthy.

Friends, our discipleship is dependent on trusting and obeying God’s Word at those crucial moments. Let’s pray for and admonish one another in those crucial moments to trust and obey God’s Word. Let’s pray for God and the Holy Spirit’s conviction and unction to do the same.   

Note: While you are praying, pray for the biblical counseling ministry (biblical counseling is simply intense discipleship) as they meet the same crisis points with each counselee that comes through our door. The description above is common to what each of our counselees face. Pray that God’s Holy Spirit will provide the conviction and the unction for life change to take place.

Grinding it out or Grinding to a Halt?

I used to enjoy road races; distant races, races that required endurance and outlasting those around me.   What a joy to grind out a race and at the end slowly pass those whose endurance had ran out.   It was a powerful feeling.  Those days are gone.   It is not that I am not competitive.  The competitive juices still are pretty strong in me.   The reason is simple; I just don’t win many races anymore.   I have no endurance.   And the reason for that is pretty simple.   But before I explain it to you, listen to what Hebrews 12:1 (NASB95) says,   ¹ Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us also lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us.

The Christian’s life is likened to a foot race that everyone who knows the Lord participates in.  And the reasons for failure that come in that race are astonishingly similar to the reasons we fail in real life races.     You have to giggle at Wuest’s definition of the Greek word translated encumbrance. “The word is ogkon (ὀγκον) “bulk, mass,” hence, “a swelling, superfluous flesh.” ¹    Why don’t I have endurance to run anymore?   I have ‘swelling superfluous flesh.’ Anyone else have that problem?     Jesus says that if we wish to run the race of God with endurance we have to lay aside every encumbrance or every bit of swelling flesh.  

Five years ago, Ben and I went on a backpacking trip.   Whatever we felt necessary to take on the trip, including our food, our tent and our sleeping bag, had to be carried on our back.   It didn’t take long to realize that not everything one might normally take on a long trip was worth having on this trek.    Expositor’s says: “The Christian runner must rid himself even of innocent things which might retard him. And all that does not help hinders. It is by running he learns what these things are. So long as he stands he does not feel that they are burdensome and hampering.” ²   The items in mind were not necessarily bad things but they were things that if carried too long, made running with endurance nearly impossible (- a busy schedule, a time and resource consuming hobby, a preoccupation with a career or a relationship, etc.).  Good things along the road of life, when picked up and carried, can keep us from running the race of endurance. 

But the Bible also says that we are to “lay aside the sin which so easily entangles us.”    In Bible times people often wore longer robes that, when running, could easily get tangled around their legs and feet tripping them up.  They would deal with those robes, getting them up out of the way, before they set out running.   Sin has to be dealt with or it will trip us up and keep us from running.  The sin in this passage seems to be unbelief, or a lack of faith, but the truth of sin’s entanglement stretches from unbelief onward into all types of sin.  

Here is the problem, once we get weighed down, tangled up, and tripped; it isn’t always easy to get up, cut away the tethers of the vines of sin and rid ourselves of the weights that are keeping us from effective Christian running.  This is the point of biblical counseling.   It is to help another person up, unburden and untangle them from those things holding them back, and get them back to the race.   Can I encourage you that if you are weighed down by your lifestyle or life circumstances, if you are tied down and tripped up by a particular sin that is keeping your bottom on the pavement more than your Christian running shoes, let someone help you.   Through prayer and careful training assignments from God’s Word, they can help you ditch the items holding you back and allow you to run again, with endurance, the race set before you.  Tri County has counselors right now in the process of getting certification in counseling and they want to help you, your co-worker, your family member or your friend, get back to successful running.  

¹ Wuest, K. S. (1997). Wuest's word studies from the Greek New Testament: For the English reader (Heb 12:1). Grand Rapids: Eerdmans.

² Wuest, K. S. (1997). Wuest's word studies from the Greek New Testament: For the English reader (Heb 12:1). Grand Rapids: Eerdmans.

Do You Like Your Surgeon?

I like surgeons; really I do!  I like that they are knowledgeable about the human body.  I like that they help people.  I like that they are able to go in and fix organs for us.   I like surgeons; really … I …do.  At least I am trying to convince myself that I do.  Why do I need convinced?  Well it has nothing to do with who they are and everything to do with who I am.  I hate the idea of needing a surgeon.   To admit I need a surgeon means to admit that I am sick.    Furthermore, to meet a surgeon means that I am not going to get better without some risky, painful invasion into my body.  Who wants that?  

Perhaps my thoughts on surgeons correlate to most people’s thoughts about God’s Word. Often we struggle with spending much concentrated time with God’s Word.  A 10 minute devotional here, an inspirational thought there, but concentrated and careful study, that’s painful.   It is painful because we admit our need.  It is painful because God’s Word is invasive. 

Consider Hebrews 4:12 (NASB95)   ¹² For the Word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing as far as the division of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart.

When you read this verse what you see is a spiritual surgeon. The Bible is not just another book, it is a book that is alive (living)!  It is not merely alive; it is constantly active (active).   These qualities are a part of its supernatural nature.   God breathed out his Word in such a way that it carries on the characteristics of a surgeon.  Not a surgeon reading a medical journal somewhere but one who is always in the operating room.  The Word of God never stops actively and energetically effecting lives.  

Furthermore the Word of God carries a sharp knife with it (sharper than any two-edged sword).   Vincent says it this way,  “The word of God has an incisive and penetrating quality. It lays bare self-delusions and moral sophistries.”  It cuts right through all the tissue of outward appearances and digs into the core of our being where the real nature of our heart is found. 

How adept is the Bible?  It has the ability as Wuest says “to sift out and analyze evidence.”   What evidence?   The evidence found in what we think (thoughts) and why we think it (intentions)?   It can tell what our brain is hatching and the danger that the plan conceived can bring. Then it can deal with what it finds decisively.

Denial and fear may keep us from the surgical abilities of God’s Word for our soul just like they do from physical surgeons.  However, without the intervention of physical surgeons diseased bodies will live hindered lives and die more quickly. Without the intervention of the Word of God spiritual souls will never see life. 

One of the ways TCBC is attempting to help us all be willing to meet more regularly with our spiritual surgeon, God’s Word, is to step up its biblical counseling.  We have individuals getting certified right now to help in this endeavor.  Understand; Biblical counseling puts its faith solely in the surgical ability of God’s Word to sift and analyze the evidence of our hearts and then cut out what is destroying our life spiritually, relationally and emotionally.   

Regardless of how we look at it, surgeons are our friends and are necessary.  The pain they inflict begins the healing process necessary for us.  So too, God’s Word’s is essential.  Do you have areas in your soul that have long gone unaddressed?  Are they affecting not only your life, but the lives of others?   Can I encourage you to go to God’s Word and allow it to work in your life?  Are you depressed, fearful, anxious, lonely, overwhelmed, or addicted?   Is your home or employment life rocky?  Can I encourage you to seek a biblical counselor to help you in seeing God’s Word correct your life?   You and I should like this process, as painful as it is.   Really, we should! 

The right to overrule God?

Anyone, spiritually minded or not, is aware that the moral fiber of our country has been on a steady and currently very rapid decline. What are now debated issues, (sanctity of life, sanctity of marriage, gender roles, etc.) were once ideals commonly held by the vast majority of our citizens. 

Last week, the state of North Carolina voted overwhelmingly to affirm that marriage is between one man and one woman. On that same day, President Obama openly declared his personal belief that homosexual “couples” should have the right to marry. Since then, he is proposing the repeal of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA). In effect, he has called on our nation to embrace the homosexual lifestyle as “equal” to what God ordained as marriage (one man, one woman in a lifelong monogamous relationship). The real question is not about what the citizens of NC voted, or about the personal opinion of the President. There is a much deeper, much more serious issue at hand. That issue is the right for humanity to overrule the authority of God. Biblical Christianity calls for all genuine believers to be subject to the authorities God places over us. (Col. 3:18-25; Romans 13:1-7; Heb. 13:7, 17). Every sincere follower of Christ will seek to be submissive to his authority. Familial, governmental and spiritual. However, our ultimate authority is God and His authoritative Word is the final measure of our submission. No man, no leader, political or spiritual, EVER has a right to seek to overrule God; to do so places oneself in the role of God. Dangerous and scary indeed. 

Though the reshaping of our nation’s moral framework may come as a shock, this idea of the right to overrule the authority of God is not foreign to us. We struggle with it as well. 

Okay, okay, back up the wagon PJ. We certainly hold to the sanctity of life, the sanctity of marriage and the gender roles as outlined in God’s Word. What are you suggesting by saying we struggle with overruling God’s authority? It is quite simple actually. Each and every time we choose our way over God’s will; our plans over His purpose; our desires over His design, we are placing ourselves in the role of God. 

Here is the point of application. Before we look at a lost and unsaved world and stand appalled at the overt rebellion against God’s unchanging truth, let’s examine ourselves and our own hearts to see what the Spirit desires to change in us. I know for me there is much. **Note I said “before” we look at a lost world, not “instead of” looking at a lost world. We have a responsibility to proclaim at every opportunity, with love and grace, the truth of God’s Word for the salvation of mankind through the sacrifice of Christ. We have the responsibility to oppose any teaching or philosophy that rejects God’s truth. 

Let’s look at ourselves. What would the Lord have us to change? 

May the Lord move in our hearts as individuals and thereby move in our culture as a whole. We are in desperate need of His grace and mercy, which He has freely offered through the cross of Christ.