Ponderings, October 19, 2020

 

Here are two excepts from thoughts I shared with friends this morning:

 

I don't know why people talk about praying for our country and the election, when what they really mean is to pray that their party will win and that our nation - as ungodly as it is - will prevail over other nations. They don't talk about repentance, either as a church or a country. We worship the myth of the nation the way the society surrounding the Early Church worshipped the Emperor. Every day people absorb the mark of the beast and don't know it - it seems so natural to them, so American, so right, so practical. 

 

It is only through the portal of suffering that we can witness to the world.

 

If we are raised in a prison of pleasure, how can we know it? If one escapes and comes back to tell us, will we believe him? 

 

No Cross, no witness.

 

Galatians 2:20, 6:14.

 

 

I am appalled at what I see in the professing church in the midst of the election and cultural upheaval - both in terms of politicization and also silence regarding our spiritual promiscuity. This includes among those who should know better. The fact that many pastors who do have concerns dare not preach about them says volumes, though I suppose they are in the minority among "Evangelicals" - though I'm not sure what that term means anymore.

 

We dare not preach, "This is My Beloved Son, hear Him!" We must acquiesce to having multiple tents on the mountain.

 

Isn't this insanity? Spatial disorientation?

 

Where are those who are speaking "as the oracles of God" to His people? We react, and react, and react, but we do not provide direction. How can this be? Have our heads been shaved and our eyes blinded?

 

Dare anyone today begin a message, "The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God"? Mark wrote this, of course, in the face of emperor worship, can we preach it in the face of nationalism and politicization?

 

If we cannot, then what does this say about the soul of the church? I would not be offended if someone suggested that I owe Vickie my total love and devotion to the exclusion of all other women - and if I were to be offended then that would indicate that there is something amiss in my soul.