4/12/2020

The question isn’t should I hold a church service in the parking lot. The question is, “Can I preach the gospel?” Presently, I still can. Going forward, I ever shall…regardless of consequences.

While I lean in the direction of Ron Paul’s perspective on what’s presently going on in my country and around the world, the truth is I cannot be certain.* Why? Simply this: the left and right in both DC and state governments, along with academia and think-tanks, have stripped the public’s ability to distinguish between fiction and truth, propaganda and news, duplicity and honesty, dishonor and honor. Our world is flooded with words and images gushing from institutions once considered trustworthy. Who can really know with certainty whether or not their vomit is true when flip-flopping, social agenda relativism is practiced on both sides? Read some C.S. Lewis, or even George Orwell for that matter, (no, not their stories, their essays) and you will see that the hideous strength of propaganda is the art of making lies seem like truth and truth seem like lies. Does that remind you of someone? It should if you believe in evil.

So, what can we do? We can look to that which has been confirmed before the word-mongers seized the airwaves and popular press. We sang about it in Sunday School, we can still sing about it in our comings and goings…”I stand alone on the word of God, the B I B L E.” Right now, you may not be trusting it, but you should. Both its reliability and veracity are chart toppers of the highest order.

My decisions today and tomorrow cannot be small. They cannot be held captive to the “tyranny of the urgent.” They must be faithful to the “truth of the important.” Jesus said, “Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s; and to God the things that are God’s.” When he went to the cross, he was a man of his words. His disciples, when in the face of extreme danger and when commanded not to preach in his name, were also men of his word when they said, “We must obey God rather than men. The God of our fathers raised Jesus, whom you killed by hanging him on a tree. God exalted him at his right hand as Leader and Savior, to give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins. And we are witnesses to these things, and so is the Holy Spirit, whom God has given to those who obey him.”

Today, across the globe, folks will celebrate this Jesus and memorialize his resurrection. They will do so under many diverse conditions. Some freely. Some through bondage. Some in a new kind of DMZ…standing while culture around them sways back and forth betwixt freedom and bondage. If you and I stand with eyes fixed beyond earthly things to things eternal, then, like Paul the Apostle, we can say, “For if I preach the gospel, that gives me no ground for boasting. For necessity is laid upon me. Woe to me if I do not preach the gospel! For if I do this of my own will, I have a reward, but if not of my own will, I am still entrusted with a stewardship. What then is my reward? That in my preaching I may present the gospel free of charge, so as not to make full use of my right in the gospel. For though I am free from all, I have made myself a servant to all, that I might win more of them” (1 Corinthians 16-19).

So stand…because “God so loved the world he gave his one and only Son that whoever would believe in him will not perish, but have everlasting life.”

“Be on your guard; stand firm in the faith; be courageous; be strong.” 1 Corinthians 16:13

*Ron Paul. End the Shutdown: It’s Time for Resurrection! https://bit.ly/2UZUL7h