The righteous detest the dishonest, the wicked detest the upright.

Proverbs 29:27, NIV

One of our political candidates for president was holding a rally the other day. She was in the middle of extolling the "virtues" of abortion when a pro-life protester in the audience called out, "Jesus is Lord". She turned to him and said, "You're at the wrong rally" and the crowd roared with delight. Now, in her defense, I don't know if this modern-day Jezebel was responding to the comment or to the fact that there were pro=life people in her crowd. It really doesn't matter, for the point is the same: These people were at the wrong rally because the righteous and the unrighteous have nothing in common. In fact, as the inspired passage above reveals, they detest one another.

Here, then, is the crux of the problem of our modern times in a nutshell. It cannot be denied that there are some people who believe in God and believe that He must be obeyed. On the other side are those who seem to hold God's authority (and therefore His commands) in complete disdain. The two sides cannot co-exist because they have nothing in common. Here is how the Apostle Paul put it:

Do not be bound together with unbelievers; for what partnership have righteousness and lawlessness, or what fellowship has light with darkness? Or what partnership has Christ with Belial (the devil), or what has a believer in common with an unbeliever? 

II Corinthians 6:14-15, NASB

I believe one of the great struggles that Christians have is that they very much want to convince people to repent who either do not want to repent or who do not see the need for doing so. Sometimes this leads the Christian to want to compromise in order to get along - but we must understand that this is a mistake that will prove to be fatal. The fact is that God will not compromise with Satan, and this necessarily means that God's children cannot compromise with those who have chosen (at least for the time) to follow in the ways of this wicked world. 

It is quite true that Christians have the duty to love their enemies and pray for those who persecute them - this is an unchangeable commandment. However, we must never get to the point that we think we then have a duty to "meet them halfway" in their pursuit of sin. Loving and wanting the best for someone does not require that we compromise with them in their evil. In fact, we are to avoid even being in close fellowship with those who have chosen to follow Satan's ways rather than those of God.

Understanding these truths are critical to knowing how to proceed. We may be tempted to go after a "united states" or a "united church" when this very type of pursuit has already been forbidden by God if the requirement of this uniting is to go along with sin. I'm not saying that we don't try to keep our nation the United States, nor am I saying that we should not try to be united as a church. What I am saying is that we cannot pursue this through compromise in areas of sin. We can indeed pursue unity, and it is in fact highly desirable to do so, but it has to be with the insistence that those who are promoting evil repent of their sins prior to our being able to be a people who are one in direction and purpose. 

Otherwise, sadly, we will have to admit that we are at the wrong rally!

It is time for Christians to decide who they are going to follow. Our founders left us with a nation that was to be united under God's principles. We seem to have forgotten that in recent years. I'm not certain as to exactly why that is the case, but maybe it has something to do with this: Many Christians have ceased being students of the Word. Because of that, we have morphed into a type of religious belief that allows us to think that going along with sin is equivalent with loving our enemies and praying for them. We do not read the passages that tell us that the righteous and the wicked detest one another, and even if we do, we really don't believe it.

We have come to a point where we actually think that we can associate with the wicked to the extent that we give our tacit "stamp of approval" to their wicked conduct. Christians then think that they can tolerate sexual immorality, perversion, and even abortion and still be pleasing to God. This is a notion that we are going to have to disabuse ourselves of if we are ever to become obedient to our Father in Heaven. It is true that we are to love the sinner - this we must never forget. But at the same time, we cannot forget that the righteous are to have nothing in common with the wicked. We have to, in a loving manner, insist that they repent of their wicked ways if they are ever to enjoy the fellowship that they desire to have with Christ and His followers.

If we don't, we might find out on that final Day that we have been at the wrong rally... and what do we think might be the result of such an error when we appear before God at the Judgment? It is something to think about, wouldn't you agree?