Fight the good fight for what we believe....( I Timothy 6:12 NLT).
The
famous words of the title, spoken by Patrick Henry in 1775 were the fuse that
ignited The Revolutionary War. Today the
church is in a struggle. This conflict is not being fought with bullets and
cannons as in Henry's day, but with words and ideas. For Christians today,
though the terms of engagement are different, the consequence of defeat in this
war is the same, the loss of our liberty.
Whether
we want to believe it or not, you and I are in a war. Is the mentality of the church today to fight
or play? AW Tozer the prominent
twentieth century pastor and writer, once said this about the church of his
day. “People think of the world, not as a battleground, but as a playground. We
are not here to fight; we are here to frolic.” How much more is this true
of the church in our day. Dr. David Jeremiah said this in response to Tozer’s comment. “We need
to begin living like it’s the battle for our very lives, because in fact, it
is.”
The
church is being bombarded with anti-God cultural mindsets.. Alternative
lifestyles, same-sex marriage, the killing of the unborn, just to mention a
few. Our young people are being brainwashed in academia. Richard Dawkins, the brilliant naturalistic scientist from Oxford University who
wrote the book “The God Delusion”, says this.
“The reason we have religious or moral thought within our thinking, is
because something has gone wrong with the software of humanity, it s virus that
has entered our thinking, and we need
somehow to expunge this virus.” He even goes so far as to dismiss a
category called evil.
Ravi
Zacharias talks about what he calls privatization, which fosters a disconnect
between our private and public lives. It says you can be religious if you want,
but don’t bring it into the public arena.
You can believe what you want to believe, but just keep it to
yourselves. You are free to exercise
your faith, but don’t try to put that over on Jews, Muslims, or Hindus.
A
group of Brahmans from a part of India, due to the gains of Christianity among
Hindus, once decided that they would allow the Christians to practice their
religion but not propagate it. A wise
old Brahman spoke up and said, " you don't understand Christianity, to
practice it is to propagate it."
This gagging of Christianity pressures the church to hunker down in our
little Christian bunkers and wait for second coming of Christ. And all the
while the world is going to hell in a handbasket.
Of
course the world has good sounding justifications for their schools of
thought. In my country, the United
States of America, there are many trumpeting the so-called Constitutional cry
for the separation of the church and state.
Yes, our Constitution does guard against a state religion, but it was
never the intent of our founding fathers to have believers leave their faith at
the door when they exit their places of worship. Those who interpret the Constitution have
done so in a way that freedom of religion has become freedom from
religion. The men who penned this
document, mostly men of faith, would be dismayed at how the meaning of their
words have been distorted.
Listen
to what Steve Turner an English satirist has to say about the state of the
world in which we live.
We believe in Marx, Freud,
and Darwin. We believe everything is Ok,
as long as you don’t hurt
anyone, to the best of your definition of hurt
and to the best definition
of knowledge. We believe in sex before,
during, and after marriage. We believe in the therapy of sin. We believe
adultery is fun. We believe everything is getting better,
despite evidence
to the contrary. We believe Jesus was a good man just like
Buddha,
Mohammed, and ourselves. He was a good moral teacher, although
we think some of His good
morals are really bad. We believe all
religions are basically
the same, they only differ on creation, sin,
heaven, hell, God and
salvation. We believe that after death
there
is nothing, because we ask
the dead, they say nothing. We believe
Masters and Johnson who
said that what is selected is average,
what is average is normal,
and what is normal is good. We believe
in
total disarmament, because we
believe that there is a direct link between
warfare and
bloodshed. Americans should beat their
guns into tractors,
and the Russians will be
sure to follow. We believe that man is
basically
good, it’s only his
behavior that lets him down. This is the
fault of society.
Society is the fault of
conditions, and conditions are the fault of society.
We believe each man must
find the truth that is right for him and reality
will adjust accordingly.
We believe there is no absolute truth, except
the truth there is no
absolute truth. We believe in the
rejection
of creeds and the
flowering of individual thought.
Turner finishes with this
thought, “If chance be the father of all flesh, then disaster is its rainbow in
the sky. And when you hear a state of
emergency, sniper kills 13, youths go looting, bombs in schools, It’s the sound
of man worshiping his maker (Romans 1:25). We are reaping what we have sown.”
At this point it might be very tempting
for Christians to say that it's all too overwhelming. There's not very much
that I can do. But will this attitude
bring about God's redemptive purposes on this planet? Every Christian has a sphere of influence.
For some it may be our family, or our job, or neighborhood, for others a wider
impact.. The saving and transforming power of the Gospel of Jesus Christ in the
hearts of people is the only hope for this world. Mother Teresa was once asked how the world
could be changed with such massive
needs. Without hesitation she replied,
"one person at a time."
Our struggle is not against flesh and
blood ( Ephesians 6:12). We are called to hate sin but love the
sinner. Those who call us bigots are
just sinners in need of grace, just like you and I at one time. We make the
mistake of starting a battle in the Spirit and ending up in the flesh,
involving hurt feelings and egos. In
such cases, we always lose. We are
called to fight but our weapons are not carnal, but they are mighty for the
pulling down of strongholds (II Corinthians 10:4). Our double-barreled weapon is truth
administered through love. We take no
joy in exposing sin, but we do it because we love people enough to tell them
the truth. There is no person or society
that can be truly free that rejects the truth.
When
any society starts to say that good is bad and bad is good, it shows its moral
fiber is being ripped asunder. Christians have not only the right but the
responsibility to resist. Toward the end of Henry’s famous speech he said, “Why
stand we here idle? What is it that gentlemen wish? What would they have? Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be
purchased at the price of chains and slavery?”
I submit to you that when we are told that we can decide what we believe
and practice it in the pulpit but not in the marketplace and government, this
is a form of tyranny. It makes the church a toothless tiger.
Patrick Henry spoke of a death. For us it may not be a physical death, but
death to our reputation, death to our seeking the praise of man, resulting in
the freedom to serve and glorify God as our conscience demands. The Apostle Paul admonishes us to “Fight the
good fight for what we believe” (I Timothy 6:12a NLT). My dear brothers and sisters in Christ, I
know not what stance you may take, but I echo the words of that famous patriot
and follower of Christ from the state of Virginia “give me liberty or give me death.”
Image used with permission by Microsoft.
Ken Barnes, the author of “The
Chicken Farm and Other Sacred Places” YWAM Publishing
Email:
kenbarnes737@gmail.com
website: https://sites.google.com/site/kenbarnesbooksite/
