Well, friends, you all just got a good chuckle out of that statement, I’m sure. WOW! As my ninety-one-year-old mentor continues to remind me, truly, we are in perilous times!
If you are not yet awake to the severity of world circumstances (and I am not speaking of the COVID -19 virus as the primary severe issue), we are in days of which we read biblically as leading up to or being a part of “the latter days.” Though not my nature, permit me to play the sceptic.
First, a caveat.
One, I am not an end-of-time doomsayer. Stating that biblical prophecy is unfolding before our very eyes does not make me an end-times alarmist.
Two, although I could, without hesitation, make this article politically charged, I will not.
Instead, because I fear that so many are accepting what they read on the Internet, believing what they hear (carte blanche) in nightly newscasts, and accepting every word of statements, mandates, and policy decisions espoused by “officials” as being equal to the gospel, raising an eyebrow to me and others if we question what has been handed down, I want to encourage you, the reader, to be sensible, practical, and rational in your thinking, planning and preparation.
Toward that end, I will share a couple of biblical parallels as perspective– perhaps a lens through which to view and evaluate all that is going on in America, and the world.
Stating the obvious, COVID-19 is real. Whether derived from an animal or created by a greedy philanthropist, the only way for our nation and the world to come out on the other side of this pandemic is by adhering to sound advice from medical professionals. However, we must not take these “professionals” at face value. If you were diagnosed with cancer, would you not seek a second opinion for the best outcome to what was spoken over you as a life-threatening disease?
World renowned physicians have been called in to advise our president, but can they be trusted? I’m not saying they can or cannot. I’m simply saying that too often a title or medical status attached to a person’s name causes many to take their words as the end-all cure-all.
What if our president is not being given true and accurate information? How can he rightly lead this nation? If you look back at the book of Esther, in the bible, King Ahasuerus buys into a dog and pony show put on by some of his leaders and chooses to put a shark in a high-ranking office. (Brother Royce paraphrase – the bible doesn’t call Haman a shark) HA!
On with the story. . . So, Haman gets a big promotion, and he hates Jews. He tricks the King into believing that the Jews are going to destroy the kingdom. Next thing you know, Haman has an order in his hand, signed by Ahasuerus, saying that all Jews gotta be dead to be good.
There is a lot more to the story, but at the end of the day, the king was being misled, a guy named Mordecai champions the cause of rescuing his people, and one of his family members (Queen Esther) risked her life to expose Haman and rescue her people.
Have you personally read up on the medical professionals (for example) who are advising Trump? Is he being fed information intended solely to advance someone else’s kingdom and destroy our nation? Holy Cow! At the onset, this nation began to make changes, but was the foundation for this state of emergency based on legitimate information or on the desires of a few (the Haman crowd of our day) who would desire to gain control of a free and sovereign people, legitimate citizens of this Republic, The United States of America?
I get hammered regularly for being politically outspoken on Facebook, but preachers were not called to be soft-spoken yes men! Heck, one particular political party spoke up this past week and said in no uncertain terms, “All who want to be aligned with our party need to fully endorse the murder of babies, unborn and newborn.”
I not only felt led to point this out because I value life, but there are those who have followed this party for tradition’s sake, blindly, for generations – they needed to know this! To be a Mordecai in my day, sounding the alarm about a group demanding that “their own” must promote the belief that infant children are worthless in our society doesn’t make me wrong for speaking up!
God’s word warns three times in the book of Romans that HE WILL give men (gender free term) over to a debased mind if they continue in a life of debauchery. We must acknowledge that there are individuals in leadership positions on the national and world stage TODAY who have sold their souls to Satan himself in return for temporary power and influence. We war not against only flesh and blood, but the real battle is in spiritual realms – (Ephesians 6) DON’T DISCOUNT THIS AS SOME FAR-FETCHED BIBLICAL METAPHOR!
Do you understand the parallel of how buying “professional advice” given to our president and thus our citizenry as absolute truth, wholesale, becomes extremely dangerous? Yet, if you question or even hint that you want a second opinion related to life-altering decisions which impact us all, you will likely be ostracized, but life is filled with risks. You are expected to sit down, shut up, and follow in lock step, even if the march is toward your own death. Those leading with ill intent (like Haman) will do anything to keep you from discovering the truth.
Let’s make another biblical parallel – go to the book of Numbers, about chapter thirteen. Two guys, Joshua and Caleb were sent out with ten other guys to spy out the land which God had already promised to the Children of Israel. Ten guys said, “We can’t.” Joshua and Caleb said, “It’s ours! We can’t let a promise of God be stolen from us out of fear.” At the end of the day, the ten persuaded the masses, and God’s people wandered in the desert because they were too fearful to take a risk. Based on biblical principle, I believe God does call His people to stand. We are to respect authority, but in every way, the principles, precepts and person of God should stir us to stand boldly when the actions of the forces around us fly directly in the face of what we know to be biblical truth. I will again say, these are perilous times!
I fear greatly that we are going to be a people who have MUCH stolen from us – freedom, resources, opportunities, and even life itself if we do not act with sound minds, refusing to accept, at blush glance, every word spoken as truth in public platforms.
Andy Andrews writes an eye-opening account of the Holocaust in his book, “How Do You Kill Eleven Million People.” I fear that we as a nation founded on a Judeo-Christian belief system will one day regret the desert we find ourselves in because we refused to take the risk of ferreting out and standing on truth. God’s Kingdom WILL NOT be shaken and our eternal existence has been sealed, as believers. However, we are called to be Kingdom warriors, not gutless wonders as we travel this earthly pilgrimage.
Thankful to be a
Sojourner,
Brother Royce
I Cor. 9:16
