What is it about nice people that attract total idiots?Nice people are martyrs. Idiots are evangelists.

SOCK IT TO ME BABY!!!

Monday, June 20, 2016

Monday message (Monday? What's this about?)

Well, it starts with me listening to Alistair Beg on the way home today, and he explained a simple thought in a way I never heard it brought up before.

This is going to be a post where non-Christian followers can say, "Gee I guess this stuff can be harder to get than it looks", while the Christian ones will say, "Boy, have I been doing that wrong!"  And it involves politics.  The Preacher started in 1 Peter 2 and the subject of what we are supposed to do in dealing with the world and its politics.  "Do we go out and demonstrate? Do we demand this or that?" he asked, then read from 1 Peter:

13 Submit yourselves for the Lord’s sake to every human authority: whether to the emperor, as the supreme authority, 14 or to governors, who are sent by him to punish those who do wrong and to commend those who do right. 15 For it is God’s will that by doing good you should silence the ignorant talk of foolish people.

Of course, there is a lot of FB talk about, "If you are a Christian, you MUST vote..." and Beg was really annoyed that the Church has brought this struggle into the sanctuary.  What should we be doing?  He pointed out Peter's example in Acts 12:


5 So Peter was kept in prison, but the church was earnestly praying to God for him.

6 The night before Herod was to bring him to trial, Peter was sleeping between two soldiers, bound with two chains, and sentries stood guard at the entrance. 7 Suddenly an angel of the Lord appeared and a light shone in the cell. He struck Peter on the side and woke him up. “Quick, get up!” he said, and the chains fell off Peter’s wrists.

8 Then the angel said to him, “Put on your clothes and sandals.” And Peter did so. “Wrap your cloak around you and follow me,” the angel told him. 9 Peter followed him out of the prison, but he had no idea that what the angel was doing was really happening; he thought he was seeing a vision. 10 They passed the first and second guards and came to the iron gate leading to the city. It opened for them by itself, and they went through it. When they had walked the length of one street, suddenly the angel left him.

11 Then Peter came to himself and said, “Now I know without a doubt that the Lord has sent his angel and rescued me from Herod’s clutches and from everything the Jewish people were hoping would happen.”


He then asked the question, "So what did the Church do to free Peter?  Did they gather a crowd in the streets of Jerusalem, to protest the unfairness of Peter's jailing?  Did they vote for the Conservative candidate from Bithynia?  No, they used the one weapon that God gave for them to use- THEY PRAYED."

And he went on, expressing how it was NOT by doing things the way the world would have done it that got Peter freed, but by doing the one thing the others would have thought was the stupidest thing of all to do- they got down on their knees.  And he also pointed out that this is NOT how the Church does things today.  No, we do FB posts, sign petitions, go to demonstrations, share memes with "like" and "ignore" options (which I think is by FAR the stupidest thing that ever comes across my FB feed)- in short, we use the world's weapons.  And as Beg said, (paraphrasing here), we cannot expect to be "nudged by the angel" if we are using the world's methods to do the Divine Will.


So here's a novel thought:  if you are worried about where our country is going, have you been praying- really praying- about it?  We did not get to the point of spending eight years under the man in the White House now, and we did not get to a point where the two choices we have actually look like choices a sane person would make, if we had spent as much time on our knees as we have eating chicken sandwiches, shopping at Hobby Lobby, and boycotting Target.

A Catholic FB friend just posted an article on why Catholics had to basically hold their noses and vote for Trump " to stop the great evil, Hillary."  As much as I agree with that, the Bible would tell us that there is nothing intrinsically more evil about Hillary than the Donald-  just the part about being pro-choice.  And frankly, Catholics since 1952 have voted for the pro-choice party in every presidential election with the exceptions of Nixon's 2nd term and both Reagan campaigns, per Gallup.  So even when we bring faith into it, it's not REALLY about faith.  And it shouldn't be.  Our "voting booth" should be our prayer closets, and our opinion should be expressed to God, more than on FB or a placard.

I know, nothing I haven't said before- some fights aren't the fight we need to be fighting.  And if our battleground isn't on our knees, we're wasting our time.

12 comments:

  1. Your post makes some good statements. In elections in the past some great men were forced out because they admitted to smoking a joint 30 years prior. Politics to the big Office sure has changed over the years. No more do they care whether or not a president smoked crack, meth or LSD yesterday. With all the terror attacks going on here (Like 162 of them to date) inside the USA instead of blaming the radical muslims and ISIS who are behind the attacks the politicians attack the NRA. Makes no sense to me.

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  2. Chris:
    This is something I wrestled with more times than I care to recall...and for the reasons you mention here.
    The tale about Peter hits home, but I do have to wonder what he thought after being taken from that cell and dropped off past the city gate...
    "Great, now the authorities will want me for ESCAPING captivity, too...sheesh!"

    Agreed that prayer works wonders, and that not enough followers are pursuing that course of action.
    And all the demonstrations and boycotts serve little purpose as long as the hearts of those doing evil cannot be swayed.

    If good news is to be drawn from this, it's that our PRESENT state (including that of our nation) will not be our FINAL state.
    There will come a time when people will (re)discover that the path they follow is NOT the proper one...nor a GODLY one.
    Therein lies the hope of mankind.
    (sorry to get a tad preachy)

    Good post.

    Stay safe up there, brother.

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    1. You know, I thought that was where he was going with this, and I said to myself, "Shouldn't he be using the story where Paul tells the jailer, 'Do yourself no harm, we are still here' ".

      As for the final state of the nation... I'm not sold here. At least not in a good way. I've read Revelation's description of the fall of Babylon the Great one too many times, and the parallels are too close...

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  3. Perfect post!! No sadly I don't think the people who are so adamant about protesting this and that are busy on their knees praying. I hope more people understand the great need for true actions and not lip service.

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    1. If it is a 'perfect post', then you KNOW I was just the schmuck at the keyboard...

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  4. Another interesting and thought provoking post for which I thank you

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  5. The world as we know it has changed, Chris. It's so much easier for people to hit "like" than it is for people to pray. It's easier to post a meme, then it is to turn to Faith because that takes a call to action within one's self. Not an easy task. I pray every night, and try to pray during the day. Am I successful? Not always. Do I pray for the right things? I don't know. But I have Faith, and that Faith tells me that God will lead this country in the right direction just as He's led me in the right direction. Thank you for posting this. Always making me think. Dangit!

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    1. We all need to stop and think sometimes. Today's the first day I've managed it in a while...

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  6. I honestly don't think you can equate your religious values with any political party. Period. At the end of the day, the person who represents you will ALWAYS vote his way, or the way that lines his/her pockets with the all mighty dollar. There's nothing religious about that.

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    1. Unfortunately, it doesn't stop the human animal from trying.

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