Saving there being a major intervention by Almighty God, we are facing four or more years of Socialist Democratic rule at the hands of the President, the Senate and the House of Representatives. We Bible Christians will find ourselves exactly where God planned for us to be 250 years ago, that just repeated what Jesus called for in Matthew 28:20ff, the Great Commission. We are to be a floating island of faithful believers in the raging midst of a mighty secular stream of a thousand different mores, political, religious, educational ideas. Those caught in the secular stream no matter their moral, political, religious belief are swiftly moving toward their eternal destiny.
In our island we are called to be honest, to live by strict moral standards. Our marriage goal is that one woman and one man would be married for life and rear a family that are taught to live by those same moral values. There will be grace and forgiveness for failure. However, on the island, the standards will be high, and self-regulated by the Elders of the island. Of course, we will be judged also by the standards of the raging pagan stream as well. This is where it gets tricky; we are not to judge the inhabitants of the raging pagan stream by our standards. This unequal legal status often presents to us some turbulent, rock-filled rapids to negotiate.
Our assignment as Christian believers on the island in the stream is to adventure out into the pagan stream, seeking out the pagan individuals and not judge them. We are to make disciples of them. That is, followers that are in love with Jesus. Then we baptize them. Following that, we then teach them everything our leader, Jesus, has taught us. It is then that we hold them accountable to obey those teachings of Jesus. At this point they are adopted as citizens of our island, and co-workers with us in reaching out into the pagan stream.
It is very important for the citizens of our island in the stream to realize we as an island are not a monastery or cloister of isolation; but the island is our home base. Our island citizens are expected to venture out into the main stream of our raging pagan river to work, to travel, to take part in the activities of government, and everyday life. We need to always remember that being in the world is not the same as allowing the world to be in us. We must constantly be on guard that we share our values with the world; but we do not absorb the values of the world. We are to be yeast, salt and light, not sponges.
As the secular stream tumbles its way from the high mountain country, there are times individuals from the Christian island seeks a place of leadership in the secular stream. When they do they find themselves in dangerous swift, white water rapids to negotiate.
In the governing office of the raging secular stream we from the island must live by the laws of the island, and the law of the pagan stream. We cannot do away with either of them for ourselves. However, we cannot enforce the laws of the island on all those in the stream. We are to know the laws of the secular stream. The secular stream has a law against murder. Thus, it is acceptable to work to solve the abortion problem; that is, murder of unborn babies. At the same time, we do not make laws for the secular stream based on our religious laws. We do not make laws based on our island laws or religious beliefs such as the blue laws of the last century, regulating trade on the Sabbath based on Jewish law. The only one of the Ten Commandments not carried over to the New Testament was to remember the Sabbath and keep it holy. The First Amendment makes such laws unconstitutional. There is nothing wrong with Sabbath keeping in your personal life, just don’t make it a law for the pagan stream.
If we seek to live by the rules of the island and the pagan rules of the secular stream, what can we expect in the coming four years? We had, from the island, a newborn baby Christian with a tainted and forgiven past as a leader in the secular raging stream’s government this past four years. No matter what you think of the presidential vote in 2020, that political group is out of control of the government now. Political and financial attacks on them, and us has begun. This will give us a preview of what we can expect in the four or more years to come.
The Left bank of the secular stream has decided they would financially punish the Trump administration by black-listing them with publishers and refusing to publish any books by them in the coming years. Publisher Simon and Schuster lead the way of a number of American publishers. This is the effort to take away free speech, and the American people’s right to receive a first-hand report of the other side’s point of view; then to make up their own mind.
Even the left of center A.C.L.U. is calling this wrong. Especially when the politically blacklisted included all lawyers that worked for President Trump or the election voting question. Those doing the blacklisting are seeking to restrict the blacklisted from being hired by others.
Again, from the Left bank of the raging stream, the Daily Beast editor, Rick Wilson, is calling for public humiliation, incarceration and even ritual suicide (whatever that is) for the Trump supporters. Others are calling for the “re-education of the same”. In reporting this in the Resipa Loquitur, Jonathan Turley stated all these platforms designed to offer free speech are in effect denying free speech.
The Epoch Times writer, Diane Dimond, wrote about censorship on social media. She stated there is a many level double standard in today’s social media: Twitter allows the Iranian Ayatollah Ali Khamenei to daily speak out threats against the U.S.A. and Israel with no censoring. But permanently bands President Trump for speaking his mind. Again, Twitter and Facebook as public platforms for free speech, in many ways becoming indispensable, are now denying free speech with which they do not agree.
We in the island are expected to take all of this with social good grace, and we do. We will abide by our laws and the laws of the secular raging stream. But we will form our own print journals, speak out in public, write letters to express our point of view. We will not be quiet. However, if we are true to our own island moral standards, we will abide by the laws.
We have 2,000 years of good and bad history of our being a Holy island in a raging secular stream. We know that just as in the past, there are good days, and hard days ahead of us. Our job is to stay faithful to our assignments from our Lord Jesus, to make disciples of those in the secular stream, and to be yeast, salt and light in that raging secular stream, even in the white-water rapids. Knowing this, that somewhere downstream, the secular stream will be sucked down into a fiery cavern, and our island will be transformed into an eternal heaven to share with all the saints, God’s angels, and God Himself. The riches of this eternal Kingdom with God will far out-value any suffering, loss—we must endure as islanders in the secular stream.
