WHAT IS THE CORRECT RESPONSE?

What is it to truly be longsuffering? I don’t know; that’s why I ask. I have a few ideas about it, but I’m not absolutely convinced about any of them. Are the sins of my enemies against me more heinous than my own sins against God? Just how longsuffering was God with me? I joke about now being the time to invest in precious metals, like brass and lead, referring to ammunition. With the coming revolution—whoops! – I mean with the almost certain coming civil unrest, what should I do to prepare? Do I stock up on food, firewater, and firearms? If the civil unrest becomes uncivil and turns into a shooting match, do I take part?

Politics has come between the so-called evangelical church and the glory of the Gospel. Oh, there’s plenty of outward hustle and activity among all the political action groups claiming to be fighting for God’s Kingdom and soliciting your “gifts and offerings.” Their pragmatism will attack my skepticism and ask, “So what should we do? Just sit around and do nothing?”

What about prayer? I know James tells us that faith without works is dead, but my skepticism concerns the works and the justification of those works. What are we building, the Kingdom of God, or the kingdom of men? Are we building the true Church?

The perceived low level of spirituality, the lack of fruit in the churches, ought to alert us to a possibly misguided vision. Some of the changes in the church are labeled progress, and the voice of the people becomes the voice of God. But do not the Scriptures tell us the whole world lies in wickedness? That would seem to indicate that if we rely too heavily on a majority of public opinion to shape our goals and objectives, we might just be adopting the ways of the world, which is also known as walking in the flesh. This is also why I often say, “Democracy sucks.”

Progress, if it is only in the flesh, will ultimately degenerate. Remember the so-called “good old days” of the fifties and the early sixties with Leave It to Beaver and The Andy Griffith Show. Where has that Hollywood morality taken us? Did it progress to an even greater virtue? No, the boomers of the fifties and early sixties went crazy with drugs, sex, and rock and roll. Their offspring produced the eighties, and now their children, grandchildren to the hippies, are giving us the new millennium and its new morality. Jesus told Nicodemus, “That which is born of the flesh is flesh.” And if it’s flesh, it’s only going to get worse.

So, back to my question about our response to the world as we know it ending before our very eyes: Do we jump on the “influence the culture” bandwagon, or do we hide in caves until the fallout settles and attempt to survive in a Mad Max apocalypse? Or instead of TEOTWAWKI, how about TEOAAWKI (the end of America as we know it)? Our Pilgrim forefathers left Rotterdam, Holland, and arrived on our shores in the Mayflower. The place where our “American adventure” began is now under Sharia law. Do we sit idly by and watch Islamo-facists change American culture as they have done in Holland? Again, the Scriptures tell us we don’t wrestle or fight against flesh and blood; rather, we fight against spiritual principalities and powers. Our difficulty comes because those spiritual principalities and powers meet us directly in the flesh and blood they possess. Also, are we to be about building an earthly kingdom or should we not be about building the Kingdom of God? I love my country, but are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness my life’s calling? What about twenty-year-old Sandul, a Pakistani, Christian woman jailed for “blasphemy” against the Quran (the unholy Muslim book). She lost her liberty. How about another Pakistani Christian, Shafia, who was kidnapped into sexual slavery? Shafia definitely lost her liberty and her pursuit of happiness. And what about the 10,000 Christians who have died in a supposedly democratic Nigeria since 1999? Now when this begins to happen in the USA, am I to take up arms and fight against the flesh and blood committing the persecution?

Anyone who wants to know can find statistics about the persecution of Christians around the globe. So why do we in America suddenly think we should be exempt? Do we really think God needs America? I am not asking for persecution—I fear it. But how can I expect to be exempt and still claim to be a member of the suffering body of Christ? If suffering is a gift from God (see Phil 1:29), should I prepare to fight against it with guns and bombs? I believe God wills the persecution of His people; if that causes you a problem, I suggest you read the book of Esther and then try to refute it.

I would suggest that possibly President Obama is a lot like Haman (in the book of Esther); that is, he is ignorant of God’s purpose. The President might be radically opposed to Christians and will attempt to gratify his own evil dispositions; all the while, he is fulfilling the plan of God. Allow me to close this rambling essay with the comments of Alexander Carson from 1853 in his study of God’s providence in the book of Esther called “Confidence in God in Times of Danger”:
“It is a curious fact, but not a singular one, that God raised up Haman to bring His people into danger, as well as Esther to deliver them. In this, as in other things, the Divine wisdom is distinguished from the human in a striking manner. No man would nurture the wretch whom he should know to be the future enemy of himself and his offspring. But God exalted Haman in the court of the great king, above all the princes of the empire, for the very purpose of giving him an opportunity of manifesting [Haman’s] enmity against His people, and of attempting the destruction of the whole nation. He puts His enemies in the most favorable situation to oppose Him, that He may show with what ease He can discomfit the utmost efforts of their malevolence; nay, He makes the very wrath of man to praise Him, and the plans of His enemies to destroy His cause are made to effect its establishment.”

IMPOSED NEW WORLD ORDER

“One man or an elite giving authoritative arbitrary absolutes” is the only humanistic social option left for our godless society. At least that is the conclusion Dr. Francis Schaeffer came to in his ten film episodes of “How Should We Then Live?” If you think about it, and it won’t take long to figure it out, when there is an absence of moral absolutes, society becomes the sole absolute for everything. But that brings us back to either “one man or an elite”; that is, society has to be led by either one authoritarian or a group of elite authoritarians.

For years I have jokingly said, “Technology is going to kill us.” It doesn’t take much of an imagination now to see how technology can be used by an elite to control the masses. With this control will eventually come absolute power, and that’s the contradiction Daniel Bell warned about; that is, “no absolute ethic to accompany absolute power.” What if the controllers wanted to spread panic? Could they not maybe use, say a man-made virus? Can you say, “Oink, oink”? Forced immunizations from a newly created national health-care system brought about by a recognized “pandemic” might just be the beginning of the end. I could go on with guesses about RFIDs being implanted in newborns, national ID cards, mandatory vehicle GPS devices, etc., but I’ll let your own imagination run wild.

But when you think of the new authoritarian leader, don’t think of a Hitler or a Stalin; that’s simply old school. No, the new leader will probably be more of a puppet ruler controlled by an elite. He might even be told what to say by…maybe a…teleprompter. This leader can also have great influence through an ignorant media who have been taught to have the same views as the manipulative controlling elite. The deaf, dumb, and blind media will cry out for civil liberties, yet they will see government, not just as the only solution to every problem, but government as having a responsibility to solve every problem.

What this new crop of socialists fails to understand is that they wish to have what are really Christian liberties without any Christian foundation. All they will reap is chaos. With this loss of a truly Christian consensus, since the Teleprompter Of The United States (TOTUS) has declared to the muslim nations of the world that the USA is not a Christian nation, there will be no reason for an apathetic population not to surrender their final liberties whenever TOTUS and the Federal beast promises them personal peace and affluence. As long as there is Monday Night Football, a six-pack, and a remote, who cares if TOTUS declares martial law. The fears being produced daily by the media announcements of economic collapse will out-weigh any concerns for liberty. TOTUS and his willing accomplices in the media are preparing the nation to accept a manipulative, authoritarian government.

Random violence, political terrorism, economic collapse, swine flu, fuel shortages, and finally food shortages will cause the apathetic majority to give up all liberty for the false promise of “security.” Let’s not forget the constant threats of wars and the rumors of wars. Nuclear missiles in the hands of rogue states and muslim nations intent on destroying Israel will cause people to see authoritarianism as a lesser evil.

So what’s the answer? Society needs to repent and acknowledge the true source of liberty and truth. The source is found in God’s revelation in the Bible and His revelation through His Son, Jesus Christ, the Way, the Truth, and the Life. As Dr. Schaeffer says, “Christianity is truth that gives a unity to all of knowledge and all of life.” All this comes from the personal God and Creator of heaven and earth. This means the true acceptance of Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord. It means men must bow the knee to the King of kings and submit to His Law and the absolutes found in the Bible. Both liberals and conservatives are guilty of suppressing God’s truth. Both liberals and conservatives must submit to the truth that only the Bible has the foundation for liberty in any society. The gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ is the only answer for all of man’s problems, and if our nation and the rest of the world continue to reject Christ as Lord, I suggest you prepare now for an imposed New World Order.
(adapted from an outline in the study guide to Schaeffer's How Should We Then Live?)
Trust in him at all times; ye people, pour out your heart before him: God is a refuge for us. Selah. (Psa 62:8)