No Hatred Here...

Does this sound familiar?  “Man, I can’t stand those Bible thumpers, always trying to shove their religion down my throat.”  I hear it quite regularly, and wonder why those very same people will sit for hours and hours and peruse the internet media sites, or listen to the mainstream television media, or cable documentary channels that convey perspectives with which they may disagree, but still absorb the entirety of the message being delivered.

What is so objectionable that causes people to act so vehemently negative toward the very hearing of God’s Word?  Why do we get squeamish, angry, or put on guard when the name of Jesus Christ is invoked in average conversation other than being used as a curse?  This has always fascinated me, and as a young man it made me uncomfortable too until I trusted Jesus Christ as my Savior, then those situations weren’t a threat, but still fascinated me nonetheless.

I was recently in a conversation with several people talking about the idea that homosexuality as a predisposition opposed to a moral choice.  I put myself in this situation because I love discussion, (not that I am a good debater, I love to hear other people’s opinions) not thinking I would offend anyone.  The discussion was taking place on a popular social media forum which everybody knows, so people were popping in and out of the conversation.  A dear acquaintance joined in and was put off by the mention of my position, which is God’s position toward homosexuality.  Needless to say, I felt very bad that I had offended a person I care for dearly, so I bowed out; tail tucked firmly between my legs and left the exchange.  I am convinced God’s Word is undisputedly true, so forgoing a discussion for someone’s feelings seemed the better thing to do than continue on and risk alienating a friend.  However, (you knew this was coming…) there is a point where truth must clash with error, and finding an objection-free way to discuss it is becoming more and more difficult.

I will attempt to explain why I think speaking out against homosexuality, abortion, pornography, murder, adultery, promiscuity, or any other sin as defined in God’s Word is not hate speech, but love speech. 

Guilt.  We all feel guilt to some varying degree when we disobey God.  It’s hard-wired into our consciences for a reason, which is to make us accountable to the knowledge God has built into each and every one of us.  So long as we are striving to exalt and please God we will assuage our guilt by confessing our sin and repenting, and in turn, He will impute His righteousness to us.  If we want to disobey God more than guilt will let us, we must make a means of escaping the feelings of guilt, and at some point, we must suppress the truth of God’s Word and convince ourselves the behavior we are involved in is not bad, but good.  We can either say something ludicrous like “truth is subjective and can’t really be known”, or we redefine what sin is to soothe our consciences.

But that’s not enough, we still feel guilt because we are worried what others might think of us, so if we still want to try to escape feelings of guilt, we believe we must get others to agree with our position that God’s Word is not the truth (more suppression).  So, as in almost all sexual sin, and abortion, we have slowly over the years and decades convinced lawmakers, teachers, and some of the populace at large that sin is not bad, just misunderstood, and in some cases undeniably built in to us, so we must embrace and accommodate it, rather than shun and discourage it.

This dynamic is chronicled in the Bible in many places, especially in the book of Romans, where Paul is writing a letter to the church at Rome and explaining how God abandons a society that suppresses the truth and the resulting evidences that it is happening.  In chapter 1 verse 18, Paul is conveying to the church the consequences of unbelief. “18 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness…” 

Paul continued explaining what the results would be of rebellion and suppressing the truth:                         “25 For they exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen. 26 For this reason God gave them over to degrading passions; for their women exchanged the natural function for that which is unnatural, 27 and in the same way also the men abandoned the natural function of the woman and burned in their desire toward one another, men with men committing indecent acts and receiving in their own persons the due penalty of their error.”

And after enough suppression of the truth, and kidding ourselves that sin really isn’t sin, God allows our minds to become depraved, which is defined as: Morally corrupt, or evil, lacking good judgment:             “28 And just as they did not see fit to acknowledge God any longer, God gave them over to a depraved mind, to do those things which are not proper…”

But the good part is, in Paul's letter to the Roman church, he reminds them that some of them were just as corrupt, and it’s never too late to turn your face toward God and repent and He will restore you and even the society He has abandoned.  Paul reassures the believers in letter to the church at Corinth:                                ” ⁹ Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, ¹⁰ nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. ¹¹ And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.”

In short, this is why people are angered by the mere mention of God’s Word, and why disagreeing with our nations embracing of open sin has nothing to do with hate, but an act of love, wanting only to save our country and the people in it from ruin.  I will admit there are misguided believers that confuse God’s Word with a personal vendetta on sin, but that is to misconstrue the true intent of God’s relationship toward us.  It is my hope that in an open discussion about any controversial issue, that we can talk about the merits of the issue, rather than painting anyone as having hatred as a motivation for disagreement.

A different Approach

A different Approach

One of my mantras is railing against the forces that are eroding the traditional values that make these United States what they are.  Today after listening to a powerful message by none other than Grace Community’s own Pastor Roger Olson, I was moved to use his sermon as a point of reference to look at our nation in purely patriotic terms, and the effects of patriotism on our country.

American patriotism is what has given our country its own identity uniquely separating it from any other nation ever, and patriotism in the United States is indivisibly linked to the belief in being free to worship our Creator and give Him our full allegiance and acknowledgement of our freedoms here as being fully His work and blessing upon us.  Our rich history recounts our founding with a desire to be free from tyranny and an overbearing, over-reaching government’s rule.  Along with the desire to be free from a tyrant’s rule, was a desire to worship our God in freedom and in an uninhibited way in our daily lives. 

The freedoms we enjoy here are a product of the adherence and practice of keeping the very ideals our early founders fought for in the forefront of our daily existence.  Over the years, many selfless men and women have given their hearts and lives, even unto death to protect and ensure our free and liberty filled life style here by remembering the ideals and sacrifices those brave travelers envisioned when they made the trek from England so many years ago.  These soldiers are of the highest character, and believe God and country come before their lives, and strive to ensure the people back at home remain safe for generations to come.

In today’s age, there is a threat to our way of life, not from a foreign enemy, but one of a domestic nature.  There is, and has been a movement to uproot traditional values and replace them with values of a self-centered, humanistic nature that fly in the face of the ideals that have kept our country separate from the rest of the world.  It has many facets in its attack: It seeks to revise history, contaminate our young by infiltrating our schools; it rejects sound doctrine and applauds deceit and evil.  The movement seeks to strengthen its hold on our society by sleight of hand and deceitfulness.  It goes by many names, progressivism, liberalism, moderation, and “open-mindedness” (though it’s not) to name a few.

The idea bandied about today that true “tolerance” involves accepting all things and rejecting only those that disagree with the popular culture is a mistake of colossal proportion.  The idea of “discriminating” in today’s society has been assigned a negative connotation, and brings ideas of mistreatment, racial prejudice and oppression.  To discriminate is defined as recognizing or making identification between things, good or evil.  We make distinctions every day to try to do the very best we can for ourselves, why can’t we make those same choices for the embetterment of our culture? 

A noted philosopher once said “Those who don’t understand history are bound to repeat it.”  Many others have echoed similar warnings along the way.  These philosophical thinkers weren’t just adding to their repertoire of pithy sayings, some had lived in a time where it was coming true and others could see as students of history how the cycle repeats itself.  We are living in a time where past history is reliving itself as it did in other cultures of old.  The Roman Empire always comes to mind, and ironically our country adopted a lot of our governmental structure from it.  Rome was thought to be invincible at times and in many ways was very similar to our culture today.  It lasted for more than two millennia, depending on who the historian is, and was not weakened by external forces, but by moral decay.  It was eventually overtaken by a foreign enemy.

This same “progressive” movement that seeks to make an emotional plea to embrace all things based on our “feelings”, rather than what history teaches us, is an invitation to destroy the very culture we have grown to be and protected for so many years.  By allowing all things by the emotional sentiment attached to them we ignore the negative effects they may result in, and in some cases are returning our country to the very things our founders fled from.  We need to use what we know to be true rather than riding an emotional high that we are being coerced to believe is freedom.  True freedom must be fought for, and is a disciplined process to keep.

In the last several decades, our country as a whole has begun to take our great freedom for granted.  The biggest change that has come over our land is how our God, our Creator has been removed from our schools, and from our governmental institutions.  By legislating the removal of the very God that has blessed us, is to commit an epic mistake with regard to our future prosperity and freedom.  The United States is the most popular country immigrants flock to for the chance for a better life, and should tell us how truly blessed we are and we should cherish and meditate on the idea daily.  We should be ashamed for allowing our freedom to become something so trivial and assumed.  And shame on us for treating our God and Creator with such reckless abandon in our culture, some of us even railing against Him.  

History teaches that behavior like our culture is exhibiting doesn’t lead to improvement, and if your honest, you can already see the decline in our leadership, morality, lack of patriotism (love of country), and especially the willingness to commiserate one with another, on a personal level. In fact history teaches that the declines we see in our society are products of our abandonment of those ideas our founders pursued so vehemently.

I can’t end without recalling a historical event that is ending well:  From its beginning Israel has had its share of fighting, falling from Grace, and returning to good favor, and falling again, and even complete dissolution, but their favor in God’s eyes has brought them back into existence as a nation, and resurrected the Hebrew language again spoken today.  Though tiny and still plagued by hateful angry neighbors, Israel should be proof that by turning our collective faces to God, He will honor our praise and bless us.  I am using Israel as an example for anybody that would shun the Bible as evidence of historical proof of God’s blessing to those who turn to Him, as Israel is living proof in real time.

There is much more that can be said in reference to God blessing us as a nation, and the Christian influence upon the founding of our nation, but I will save that for another blog.  Suffice it to say, it’s never too late to change course as a nation.  Believer’s in Christ already know the battle has been won, and that is a great comfort in these times, but we want to take as many as possible with us when we go home.