As believers in a country that is fast becoming ungodly, we are at that point where we are wondering what freedom will actually look like in the near future.\u00a0 It is difficult to follow all the details in the news about how the government works and what the issues are that affect us.\u00a0 What seems to be obvious is that the leaders of government who are in control of things feel they can do whatever they want regardless of what the constitution says and that those who disagree cannot oppose them, even if they follow the constitution, without being unloving and uncaring.<\/p>\n
Right now our governmental leaders are giving people whatever they want.\u00a0 This is how they get elected and stay elected.\u00a0 And right now people want the most selfish and immoral things they can get.\u00a0 So if women (and men) want to be promiscuous, they need to be able to kill the babies they produce rather than quit being immoral or they insist it is their right to have society pay for their birth control.\u00a0 If anyone disagrees he\/she is un-American.\u00a0 Why?\u00a0 Because he\/she would be denying someone what they want.\u00a0 To be American today is to be free to do whatever one wants and have whatever one wants to have.\u00a0 The constitution is irrelevant.\u00a0 If a law exists that would limit this freedom, it must be opposed.\u00a0 If someone objects, he must be opposed.<\/p>\n
Liberal thinkers in government are spending so much it can only be considered dishonest if not immoral.\u00a0 No honest individual could spend his own money in such a way.\u00a0 If\u00a0 the constitution says they should make a budget and live by it, it really doesn\u2019t matter.\u00a0 If the constitution says the debt must be paid before entitlements, it doesn\u2019t matter.\u00a0 It is more important to make sure people are getting things they want from government than to pay our debt.\u00a0 If conservatives point out that the constitution demands the debt be paid first, even and especially if only one of the two can be paid, they are considered un-American.\u00a0 Why?\u00a0 Because they want to do something that limits someone\u2019s freedom even though it is \u201cconstitutional.\u201d<\/p>\n
It is interesting how people see their own desires as trumping all other laws or morals.\u00a0 The rule of law can only be the law of the land if people are humble and see their own fallibility and need of law.\u00a0 In a country like ours (at least these days), people cannot tolerate the rule of law because that would put a limit on their desires.\u00a0 Politicians who feed those desires in people become patriotic and those who oppose them become unpatriotic.\u00a0 The constitution is irrelevant.<\/p>\n
Benjamin Franklin is the one who protested that if people sacrificed liberty for freedom they deserved neither.\u00a0 If that is true, then Americans do not deserve the freedom they insist upon nor the liberty that brings it to them.\u00a0 It was Alexis de Tocqueville who said that America is great because America is good, and when America ceases to be good America will cease to be great.\u00a0 At this point it seems that America is good only in theory because, as a democracy, it can vote to fund its most base desires.\u00a0 A minority might object, for various reasons, but basically America is what the majority of people say it is.<\/p>\n
The Christian response in such a time of national turmoil is varied.\u00a0 There are the hawks and the doves.\u00a0 There are those who name anyone a coward who doesn\u2019t believe he should become more politically involved.\u00a0 These usually believe that if the American ship of state goes down, our Christian compartment goes down with it.\u00a0 Others are very aloof in their concern over America\u2019s problems and don\u2019t seem to care what happens.\u00a0 I believe that there is some leeway for disagreement.\u00a0 But I also believe that the Scripture is clear about how a Christian should be living and reacting in the secular culture in which we find ourselves.<\/p>\n
The believer is a citizen of two worlds.\u00a0 He has a foot in each one.\u00a0 This is simply because, though a regenerated child of God, he must live out his time in the flesh as a pilgrim and stranger passing through a world that has now become a wilderness to him.\u00a0 Yet at the same time, he is looking for a city that has permanent structure for him whose builder and maker is God.<\/p>\n
This is a life-style change for the believer.\u00a0 The change happened when we were converted.\u00a0 Rather than being at home here, we\u2019ve become foreigners.\u00a0 Even Abraham, after God called him away from his earthly home, became a traveler until his death.\u00a0 When Sarah died he had to beg for a burial plot.\u00a0 \u201cI am a stranger and a sojourner with you,\u201d he said, \u201cgive me a possession of a burying place with you, that I may bury my dead out of my sight\u201d (Gen. 23:4).<\/p>\n
Peter \u201cbeseeched\u201d his readers as \u201cdearly beloved\u201d to consider themselves as \u201cstrangers and pilgrims\u201d even though they were also elect. (1 Pet. 2:11)\u00a0 \u201cStrangers\u201d (paroikous) are people\u00a0 \u201cwithout a house,\u201d the same word translated \u201csojourners\u201d in 1:17.\u00a0 \u201cPilgrims\u201d (parepidemous)\u00a0 are people\u00a0 \u201cwithout kin.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0 Though conversion changes everything for the believer in wonderful ways on the inside, it is not always wonderful on the outside.\u00a0 Depending on the country and people around us, we can either be accepted or rejected.\u00a0 This does not change our pilgrim standing with God.<\/p>\n
In this journey, the new believer finds that he has become an adversary to his former friends rather than a partner, \u201cWhereas they speak against you as evildoers\u201d (1 Pet. 2:12).\u00a0 \u201cEvildoers\u201d here means criminal.\u00a0 The early Christians were considered enemies of the state and therefore potentially harmful to the peace of the country.\u00a0 They were enemies politically because they spoke of another King, Jesus; they were enemies religiously because they could not participate in the ubiquitous idolatry; they were enemies ethically because they would not live the immoral lifestyle so common in a Greek\/Roman world.<\/p>\n
Peter again says, \u201cFor the time past of our life may suffice us to have wrought the will of the Gentiles, when we walked in lasciviousness, lusts, excess of wine, revellings, banquetings, and abominable idolatries:\u00a0 Wherein they think it strange that ye run not with them to the same excess of riot, speaking evil of you\u201d (1 Pet. 4:3-4).\u00a0 Again, they consider you to be an enemy of the state and of society.<\/p>\n
Peter and Paul make it especially plain that such is our new lot in life and, rather than look at this new situation as a detriment, we should consider it an open door for witness.\u00a0 \u201cThey may by your good works, which they shall behold, glorify God in the day of visitation\u201d (1 Pet. 2:12).\u00a0 This conversion of the unbeliever will most likely happen through the believer\u2019s willing submission to the very people who are hostile to him.\u00a0 To the believer, there is no such thing as \u201ccivil disobedience.\u201d\u00a0 That is an oxymoron in Christian vernacular.\u00a0 \u201cWhosoever therefore resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God: and they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation\u201d (Rom. 13:2).\u00a0 To \u201criot\u201d is never a Christian option.\u00a0 Not to do so is to witness of the grace of God.<\/p>\n
The Lord\u2019s admonition to be salt and light comes in the Sermon on the Mount (Matt. 5:13-16) and is open to various applications.\u00a0 No doubt Israel failed in their stewardship as a nation to have such effect on themselves and the nations around them.\u00a0 Jerusalem was the city set on a hill, Zion, to which all nations will flow one day in the presence of their King.\u00a0 Yet the Christian believer is also to let his \u201cspeech be always with grace seasoned with salt\u201d that he may how he ought \u201cto answer every man\u201d (Col. 4:6).\u00a0 The believer was also \u201csometimes darkness\u201d but now is \u201clight in the Lord\u201d and he is (we are) to \u201cwalk as children of light\u201d (Eph. 5:8).<\/p>\n
\u00a0G.K. Chesterton wrote, \u201cThe saint is a medicine because he is an antidote.\u00a0 Indeed, that is why the saint is often a martyr; he is mistaken for a poison because he is an antidote. . . . Salt seasons and preserves beef not because it is like beef; but because it is very unlike it.\u201d1<\/sup>\u00a0 Separatists have often been accused of retreating into a monastic type of life rather than affecting the culture as they should.\u00a0 But this is not verified by history.\u00a0 Separatists have always known they cannot escape the world but must be in it and walk through it.\u00a0 Paul admonished the Corinthians, \u201cI wrote unto you in an epistle not to keep company with fornicators.\u00a0 Yet not altogether with the fornicators of this world, or with the covetous, or extortioners, or with idolaters; for then must ye needs go of the world.\u00a0 But now I have written unto you not to keep company . . . \u201c (1 Cor. 5:9-11).\u00a0 The problem is not when the ship is in the sea, but when the sea is in the ship.\u00a0 Then the salt no longer seasons but is mere sand that must be thrown out and walked upon.<\/p>\n In Bunyan\u2019s Pilgrim\u2019s Progress, Christian travels through the town of Vanity which is having a Fair.\u00a0 The people at the Fair look with disgust at Christian and bid him to leave for two reasons:\u00a0 his speech and his clothes, neither of which fit in with the others at Vanity\u2019s Fair.\u00a0 Bunyan, writing from prison himself, would not have considered having his pilgrim change his clothes and speech in order to appease the crowd.\u00a0 Rather Christian kept pressing toward the Celestial City.<\/p>\n With all the talk about worship today, it is a wonder that this perspective could be missed.\u00a0 Some have proposed that God acts as the audience while He watches us perform worship; that our artistic abilities open the door to God\u2019s throne and bring His smile upon us.\u00a0 But the whole point of the book of Hebrews is that our Advocate, Jesus Christ the Righteous, ever lives to make intercession for us (7:25).\u00a0 By His own blood He is before the throne of God forever so that we may have eternal redemption (9:12).\u00a0 This is why Paul emphasized to the Ephesians that we are a heavenly people, \u201cseated together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus\u201d (Eph. 2:6).\u00a0 Charles Wesley expressed it this way,<\/p>\n Five bleeding wounds He bears, Received on Calvary.<\/p>\n They pour effectual prayers; they strongly plead for me.<\/p>\n \u201cForgive him, O, forgive,\u201d they cry.\u00a0 \u201cForgive him, O, forgive,\u201d they cry,<\/p>\n \u201cNor let that ransomed sinner die.\u201d<\/p>\n The Father hears Him pray, His dear Anointed One;<\/p>\n He cannot turn away, the presence of His Son.<\/p>\n His Spirit answers to the blood, His Spirit answers to the blood,<\/p>\n And tells me I am born of God.2<\/sup><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n \u00a0I have often said to my folks, \u201cWe do not come together to worship, we are worshipers who come together.\u201d\u00a0 We must remember that Jesus is continually performing the true worship within the true tabernacle, and we are observers of that in our daily lives.\u00a0 Corporate worship is not our performance but His.\u00a0 For us, when we come together, it is a recognition in Spirit and Truth of what we know to be the case through Jesus Christ.<\/p>\n We recognized, as noted above, that the whole Church of Jesus Christ is constantly dependent on the atonement made by Him, and that we will all make up the Bride of Christ in the rapture and at the bema seat.\u00a0 Yet, the New Testament speaks more about the gathering of ourselves together with other believers of like faith in the place where we live.\u00a0 The word for \u201cchurch,\u201d ekklesia, appears 115 times in the New Testament and well over 100 times it refers to the local church.<\/p>\n Hebrews 10:25 commands us to not forsake the assembling of ourselves together even though that is the manner of some, even some who may name the name of Christ.\u00a0 One such command is all we need, if we understand it in its proper context.\u00a0 The purpose of such gathering is the subject of most of the New Testament written to the local churches.\u00a0 In Hebrew 10:21-25, it is for drawing near to God in assurance with a clean conscience; for holding forth the profession of our faith; and for provoking one another to love and good works.<\/p>\n In this \u201cbrotherhood\u201d of believers, we are to do what believers do.\u00a0 We invite any who would come to stand beside us and try to understand what it all means, but we do not do it for them.\u00a0 We often make the mistake of thinking that we will lose the person if they are not happy, or entertained, or comfortable.\u00a0 In actuality, that would be a detriment rather than an asset.\u00a0 If it dawns on the lost man what we are doing, he will, by Holy Spirit conviction, be the most uncomfortable man in the room.\u00a0 Our nervousness about that shows our lack of trust in the Spirit\u2019s work.<\/p>\n We would not be good pilgrims if we did not have more thought of our destination than of our present circumstances.\u00a0 \u201cFor they that say such things declare plainly that they seek a country.\u00a0 And truly, if they had been mindful of that country from whence they came out, they might have had opportunity to have returned\u201d (Heb. 11:14-15).\u00a0 It is not possible to be too heavenly minded to be any earthly good.\u00a0 Jonathan Edwards said,<\/p>\n We ought to be continually growing in holiness; and in that respect coming nearer and nearer to heaven.\u00a0 We should be endeavoring to come nearer to heaven, in being more heavenly; becoming more and more like the inhabitants of heaven, in respect of holiness and conformity to God; the knowledge of God and Christ; in clear views of the glory of God, the beauty of Christ, and the excellency of divine things, as we come nearer to the beatific vision.3<\/sup><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n C.S. Lewis wrote, “Those who want Heaven most have served Earth best.\u00a0 Those who love Man less than God do most for Man.”4<\/sup>\u00a0 We are to be looking unto Jesus because He is the \u201cauthor and finisher of our faith\u201d (Heb. 12:2).\u00a0 In a race, the starting line is often also the finishing line.\u00a0 We start out at that point with energy, but we approach it at the end almost spent.\u00a0 But if we will look at Jesus, Who endured His cross, we will finish our pilgrimage well.<\/p>\n The premise for Peter\u2019s first epistle is built on this proposition, \u201c[Live] as obedient children, not fashioning yourselves according to the former lusts in your ignorance: but as he which hath called you is holy, so be ye holy in all manner of conversation; because it is written, Be ye holy; for I am holy\u201d (1 Pet. 1:14-16).\u00a0 In some cases we have the English word \u201cconversation\u201d as our politics (Phil. 1:27, 3:20).\u00a0 Here, however, the word means our citizenship or deportment (anastreph\u014d, to turn back, to settle).\u00a0 While we are on this earth, we must be as He was when He was on this earth.\u00a0 As short as we may come of that objective, it is the only worthwhile and justifiable goal.<\/p>\n There are those who cringe at the word holiness.\u00a0 For them, it is too often used as a hammer to punish people who lack expectations.\u00a0 But if we see our own unworthiness, and we realize the depth of our own sin, and how utterly hopeless we would be in our own effort, how wonderful the holiness of Jesus Christ becomes!\u00a0 He is our righteousness.\u00a0 He is our standing before a holy God, and not we ourselves.\u00a0 We are pilgrims to that end.<\/p>\n As believers in a country that is fast becoming ungodly, we are at that point where we are wondering what freedom will actually look like in the near future.\u00a0 It is difficult to follow all the details in the news about how the government works and what the issues are that affect us.\u00a0 What seems […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_crdt_document":"","episode_type":"","audio_file":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","filesize_raw":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[123],"tags":[167,139],"class_list":["post-2782","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","tag-christian-living-cross-discipleship","tag-democracy-government-politics"],"yoast_head":"\nWe are to be worshipers in a heavenly tabernacle.<\/h2>\n
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We are to be church members in our locality.<\/h2>\n
We are to be heavenly minded if we would be any earthly good.<\/h2>\n
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We are to be holy as He is holy.<\/h2>\n