Why do you boast of evil, O mighty man? The steadfast love of the LORD endures all the day. Your tongue plots destruction, like a sharp razor, you worker of deceit. You love evil more than good, and lying more than speaking what is right. You love all the words that devour, O deceitful tongue. 

But God will break you down...

Psalms 52:1-5, ESV

 

Have you seen what is planned for June 14, 2025? By the time you read this article, the day will probably have come and gone, but not the consequences. They are calling it, "A National Day of Defiance" and "No Kings Day" and are advertising it as a patriotic day of protest. But make no mistake, it has nothing to do with patriotism, and it certainly has little to do with a protest against an abuse of power

 

I don't want you to misunderstand, there is plenty of abuse of power in America during our present day and age, and both sides of our warring political parties must shoulder their share of blame for these abuses, but this is not at all what the day of defiance is about. It is about powers on a world level trying to challenge the sovereignty of a nation, and it should not go unnoticed.

 

For the past several years, many of our politicians on both sides of the political aisle have been taking part. Borders have been opened, illegals have literally been flown into various airports, and criminals have been actively recruited and brought into our country. It is true that there have also been many families coming in during these times, legitimately seeking a better life for themselves, but this has no relation with what is about to take place. We have already seen the riots going on in Los Angeles, and many more riots have been planned which are about to take place beginning on June 14. People are being recruited with offers of $6,500 and up to come take part. In Texas, a line of 25 chartered busses is being monitored as they make their way to our state's capital for this day of protest. And with promises of $1,500 per day and $6,500 to $12,000 until the job is done to take part, you have to assume that these people are not being brought in to simply carry protest signs and wave flags.

 

And speaking of flags, these protestors who say they love America so much that they want to stay here illegally are burning the American flag in the streets, while proudly waving the flags of Mexico. The President of Mexico calls them heroes for their exercising their rights to protest on foreign soil, while at the same time knowing it is illegal for foreigners to protest in Mexico. 

 

Meanwhile in California, the Governor protests at the thought of American troops being brought in to stop foreigners from burning his largest city. 

 

America has a problem, and it goes far beyond the political squabbles that we see in the news. A concerted effort has been made (and accomplished) to bring large numbers of military aged men into our country. Wise people will ask, "for what purpose has this been allowed?" Wise people will also ask why our so-called "unbiased news sources" have been engaged in political sides for the past number of years. Why has America allowed this to come to this point? Do we really hate the other political side so much that we would rather see our cities burn than to admit that we have a problem?

 

I know that this is somewhat of an unusual topic for this platform, but I believe Christians in America need to wake up before they lose the country that has done so much to allow religious freedom for so many years. Too many Christians are more concerned with their favorite political party than they are with the righteousness of the church and this nation, and as a result are in danger of losing both. America is currently on life-support, and our enemies can sense our weakness. That, I believe, is why they are mobilizing now for this National Day of Defiance. I am afraid that this defiance has little to do with those who are concerned about our nation, but much to do with those who hate America, and are looking for clever ways to bring it down.

 

So, what can we do? By the time you read this, June 14th will likely have been here and gone, but the trouble has just begun. This effort is well financed, and many of our politicians have been well paid to fan the flames of its aftermath. I believe that it is time for Christians to admit that they have turned a blind eye to sin in our nation, and to beg God's forgiveness for doing so. Once having made our lives right with God, we then need to be praying for wisdom as to how we should respond to these open attacks on America's sovereignty. The reason should be clear: America has been the world's leader in promoting the free exercise of religion. In recent years, we have ignored our courts and our political leader's efforts to diminish this freedom. After all, we thought it the "Christian" thing to do. What I believe we are finding is that by allowing our religious freedoms to be infringed upon, we have slowly begun to enslave ourselves to the devil.

 

And if you don't believe that, just turn on the evening news and watch our cities burn. We can disagree on the root of the problem, we can even argue over which political side is most responsible for the problem, but we can no longer claim that we don't have a problem. Alexis de Tocqueville once wrote that America was great because America was good, but should she ever cease to be good, America would cease to be great. I believe we are witnessing first-hand the accuracy of his prediction. The question is what will we do about it? 

 

The first step is repentance, The second is to humbly entreat God for His help. If we have a righteous cause, God will indeed help. The third step is for us to begin to take a righteous stand. This step could cost us something, I know, but sometimes good people just have to take a stand regardless of consequence, or evil people will take over. What will we do, I wonder, if the side of evil wins? It is time for good people to wake up and return to God. I think our time is very limited, so we better make that start soon. 

To do righteousness and justice is more acceptable to the LORD than sacrifice. Proverbs 21:3, ESV

I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice, the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings. Hosea 6:6, ESV

And Samuel said, " Has the LORD as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices. as in obeying the voice of the LORD? 

Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to listen than the fat of rams. For rebellion is like the sin of divination, and presumption as iniquity and idolatry.

Because you have rejected the word of the LORD, He has also rejected you from being King. I Samuel 15:22-23, ESV

 

In the 15th chapter of I Samuel, we have one of the most important and consistent principles of service to God: God desires obedience, rather than sacrifice. Why is that? 

 

To understand this important teaching, it is helpful to look at exactly what has been occurring. The Amalekites had been oppressing Israel for many years, and the time of their punishment had come. God had ordered Israel under the leadership of King Saul to bring that judgment. It was to be so thorough, that they were to even wipe out every head of sheep and oxen that belonged to the Amalekites. But Saul and the people saw it differently. It must have seemed a shame to slaughter perfectly good livestock, so they decided to keep back the best for themselves.

 

Then along comes the prophet Samuel with a message from God. He confronts King Saul for not obeying God's instruction, but Saul insists that he has. Samuel then asks Saul what this bleating of sheep and lowing of oxen that he can obviously hear is if Saul has in fact wiped them out. Saul explains that these cattle have been spared, but only for the purpose of offering a sacrifice to God. Oh, you might be thinking, that's different! If the people spared the best of the cattle to make a special offering to the LORD, then that must have been acceptable to God... right? 

 

But King Saul and the people of Israel were about to find out different, and the punishment that ensued should be a lesson to all who might be thinking of tweaking the commandments of God and then claiming that the only reason they did so was to honor Him in the first place.

 

Perhaps an example to illustrate this principle would help:

Suppose when you were five years of age that you had developed the unfortunate habit of picking flowers from your neighbor's garden. After all, the neighbor had so many flowers and they were really very pretty. Surely, they wouldn't miss one or two flowers from such a large collection. And so you would pick these flowers and enjoy them from time to time and everything seemed just fine. The neighbor didn't seem to notice and as has been previously established, the flowers were very pretty indeed.

 

But one day you Mom finds out what you have been up to and insists that you go to the neighbor to apologize for your petty thefts, and that's exactly what you do. The neighbor is quite decent about the whole thing, understanding that kids will be kids, and she lets you off with a word of thanks for your honesty in admitting what you have done. You feel wonderful to be unburdened by the guilt that you had for your childish indiscretion and proceed to make your way back home. 

 

Then, it happens! As you are passing by the garden, you just cannot resist taking another small bouquet... but mother sees! It turns out she has been watching from a short distance to make sure that all has gone well and in doing so she sees your return to crime. You, my friend, are busted!

 

In your five-year-old brain you quickly fabricate a defense for your high-handed act of wanton crime. You explain to Mom that you were merely gathering these roses for her, as a tribute to her own great beauty and as a testament to your love for her. Of course, you put this in the vocabulary of a five-year-old, but you get the picture. You have been caught red-handed and are desperately searching for an escape. 

 

So, let me ask you this: Will your mother accept this explanation? Will she thank you for the touching gesture and commend you for your beautiful gift? Not your mother! Not my mother! In fact, there is not a single decent parent who would fall for such an audacious explanation, and our parents were decent. In the case of my mother, corporal punishment would have been involved. She probably would have subjected me with the humiliation of being marched back to the neighbor's house for a confession and additional apologies. Dessert would have probably been off the table - both literally and figuratively - for the rest of the week. Even worse, Dad would've have had to be informed. More corporal punishment would have likely followed, and I could have likely kissed my allowance goodbye for a few weeks.

 

I suspect if you had good parents, the outcome would have been similar... but why? The answer is obvious. Your parents and mine did not dare tolerate dishonesty nor disobedience. They knew that such actions were wrong, and if allowed to become a habit would lead to a lifetime of dishonesty and disobedience. So they took of these ugly characteristics as soon as they reared their ugly heads.

 

And now maybe we can understand why God was so hard on King Saul. He literally took the kingdom away from him for his act of indiscretion - even though he claimed to be doing it for God. But what if he had been sincere in his reasoning? What if the only motive in disobeying God's instruction was to honor Him with a sacrifice? And, of course, the answer should be obvious for God made it clear: To obey has always been more acceptable than sacrifice! 

 

This lesson is one that would be valuable for each one of us to learn. There are so many times that we are tempted to tweak God's commandments. Perhaps it is in the area of our everyday lives where we are tempted to indulge in immorality. Maybe it's not even us who are doing so, maybe it's just a friend who we don't want to offend, so we act as if their immoral lifestyle, though forbidden by God, is really okay. After all, our motivation is only that we do not offend or hurt the feelings of a friend. So, we fool ourselves into thinking that "love is love is love" and we normalize what God has defined as deviant. 

Then, there are the areas of worship and salvation. Surely God wouldn't mind if we added something special to His instruction on the worship as long as we were doing so to honor Him. And in the area of His commandments concerning salvation? Surely He wouldn't mind if we "eased up" a bit on His commands if we were doing so to be more inclusive and bring more people into the fold... would He?

 

Of course, the answer is the same as it was for King Saul, and it is the same that our parents tried to teach us: Obedience is always better than sacrifice and punishment! Obedience is one of the ways we demonstrate our love to God. Disobedience, even when we say it is for noble reasons, always demonstrates a lack of love for God. It is one of the most consistent teachings ever, and it is one that we would do well to heed if we are to ever have a hope of being pleasing to God.

 

The good news is that though we may have already "blown it" that God will permit us to repent on His terms and thus return to Him. Our parents did the same for us when we stopped doing what was wrong and returned to obedience, and so will our loving Father in Heaven. But if we have been living a life of disobedience, return we must, and we must do this on God's terms. Anything short of such a repentance may very likely find us on the outside looking in, when it comes to God's Kingdom.  

He who overcomes shall inherit all things, and I will be his God and he shall be My son.

Revelation 21:7, NKJV

 

I like the book, "The Richest Man in Babylon". It tells the story of a man who has made so many wicked choices that he is eventually sold into slavery in a faraway country. He lives a life of deprivation and misery and settles into a resigned acceptance that all he will be for the rest of his life is a slave. Then comes the day when he realizes that he could be so much more. He was, after all, born free, and he still is confident that he has the soul of a free man despite the chains he wears. So he bides his time until finally comes the day when he spies his opportunity and makes good his escape. Stealing two camels from his master, he then sets out across the wide desert towards Babylon.

 

At first the journey is a wild race, for he knows all too well the fate that awaits the slave who steals from his master and runs away. However, the deeper he goes into the desert, the more he realizes that pursuit from an angry master is the least of his problems, for he has run out of food and water! But he stumbles forward for several more days, alternately riding and leading his miserable camels who are also without food and water. Finally, on the last morning, he no longer has the will to even rise. His throat parched with thirst and his body ravaged from hunger, he decides that it would be best to just remain lying down on the ground to die - a fitting fate for a man who sinned his way into slavery and then tried to escape.

 

But then something happened! "Do I have the soul of a slave or the soul of a free man?" he asked himself. For if he had the soul of a slave, then he should just lie upon that hot sand and die. However, if he had the soul of a free man, he would get up from his wallowing in self-pity and continue on. What mattered hunger? What mattered thirst? For a person with the soul of a free man, these were but incidents on the road to Babylon!

 

And, of course, herein lies the choice that every man and woman who suffers the consequences of past mistakes must make. Will we simply give up and dumbly accept the fate of the sinner, or will we rise from our sin and leave it as far behind as humanly possible? Will we accept the defeat brought on by our own error, or will we repent, leave the lifetime of sin and enslavement to the devil, and start living for God? We must be cautioned that it is much easier to just "lie there" and await our eventual doom - this is in fact is the choice that the majority of people will make, for they have the soul of a slave. And make no mistake, they are nothing more than slaves. Slaves to sin, and slaves to the devil!

 

But, for those with the soul of a free man - or more accurately, those who desire to free themselves from the clutches of Satan and turn their lives over to the one true Master - these are the people who will realize that the difficulties of life are but incidents on the road to heaven. These are the people who will accept the consequences for their own sin, changing what they can and adapting to what they cannot, and then move on to serving the Lord as best they can for the rest of their lives. These are the ones who will refuse to give up, regardless of the obstacles before them, and press on towards the goal to win the prize that God has in store for the faithful.

 

Have you made mistakes in the past that are now costing you dearly? Welcome to the club, for we all have erred greatly in the past and sin very often has terrible consequences that must be faced. The question is, what will you do now? Will you get up and boldly face the challenges that lay ahead, both those brought on by yourself and those that are perhaps even a bit unfair and undeserved, or will you simply lay there and wallow in your own remorse? These are fair questions and ones that each man and each woman must ask themselves.

 

We must be forewarned that Satan, our former master, will not give us up without a fight. But we can take great encouragement from the fact that the One who is in us is greater than the one who is in this world (I John 4:4) and that we will win if we will begin to live for Him. We of course will have great difficulties ahead, but we will survive, and we will win if we can only remember that these are but incidents on the road to heaven!

 

Do you... have the heart of a free man? If so, it is time to get up and get busy with your new life for God and Christ! 

 

But concerning that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but the Father only.

For as were the days of Noah, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving up in marriage, until the day when Noah entered the ark, and they were unaware until the flood came and swept them all away, so will be the coming of the Son of Man... Therefore, stay awake, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming.

Matthew 24:36-42, ESV

 

Procrastination! It is one of the greatest vices of mankind, as well as one of the most common. Now it's not always that bad. Sometimes it's just hitting that snooze button for five extra minutes of sleep or waiting until the night before the big test to begin your studies. These things cost us something, but we usually come out all right.

 

However, there is another type of procrastination that is fatal. It's that putting off of the things of importance where it comes to our eternity. We all have done it, at one time or other. Perhaps there is a sin in our life that we really do know we should take care of. Maybe we have put off becoming a Christian in the first place. Maybe we are already a Christian, but we just haven't gotten serious about it yet. Whatever the spiritual flaw is, we are simply waiting for a more convenient time. But I think we all know, deep down in our hearts, that there never will be a more convenient time.

 

Service to God was never intended to be convenient...

 

The Lord is not slow to fulfill His promise as some count slowness, but is patient towards you, not wishing that any would perish, but that all should reach repentance.

But the Day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a roar, and the heavenly bodies will be burned up and dissolved, and the earth and the works that are done in it will be exposed.

Since these things are thus to be dissolved, what sort of people ought you to be...?

II Peter 3:9-11, ESV

 

Suppose for a minute that the Lord really did come, today. Right now! Would you be saved? This is a question that we all like to put off, but we need to give serious thought to: Are you saved? Are you sure? This is not a question that a "I'm pretty sure" or "I think so" answer will do. The Scriptures tell us that we can know we have salvation, so we need to know. I don't mean that we presumptuously take God's place in the Judgment. I'm just saying that as far as is humanly possible we must know whether or not we are in a saved condition.

 

Far too many of us have sin in our lives that has yet to be taken care of. Either we have failed to have our sins washed away in baptism, or we have failed to repent of a sinful lifestyle since that moment. We live our lives pretty much as we always have, it's true, and we do ask God for forgiveness when we think to. But we really don't have any sincere intentions of turning away from our sins just yet. We truly mean to get serious about our service to God, someday, just not this day. It's like that old country and western song that says. "We all want to go to heaven, but we don't want to go tonight". The implication is that we are comfortable in our sin to the point that we just don't see the need to do anything about them - at least not just yet.

 

But we do really need to think about it!

 

You really could die today - what then? The Lord really could come back in the next five minutes - what then? Have we ever seriously thought what it means to be lost? What if you were to go before the Judgement today? What if you heard the words you never wanted to hear? What if Jesus really did say, to His great sorrow and ours, "Depart from Me, I never knew you."? The fact is that these very things will happen to many people. The sad thing is that they know in their hearts that this is so. They just thought there would be more time! But there will come a point when there will be no more time... what then?

 

The point of all this is that we all need to sober up and realize that the end will come for us someday, whether on that Great Day when our Lord returns, or on a lesser day when you and I simply breath our last breath. It will come! The inspired question that Peter asked above is something we all need to be asking ourselves right now: "Since these things are thus to be dissolved, what sort of people ought you to be...?"

 

The answer is clear! If we need to change, then we need to understand that this change cannot wait another minute. And it's not just because we might end up in Hell someday, though that is a big enough reason for most. The bigger reason is that God and Christ are worthy of our best efforts! They are worthy of our ceasing to do evil and seeking Their forgiveness. God has given us life in the first place, and Jesus has given us a second chance at eternal life through His shed blood on the cross. They are worthy!

 

And we have been procrastinating.

 

If that is the situation you find yourself in, then do something about it. If you are not sure what that something is, then get busy finding out. The New Testament has all the information we need for salvation - but we must be warned: There are no shortcuts! It will take real work on our part, and many religious leaders have already convinced some of us that work is not required, but only faith and grace. If that were really true, the New Testament would be reduced down to the simple sentence: Believe in Jesus and we'll see you in Heaven. 

 

But this is not the case. We are called servants for the simple reason that we are here to work. That work will never be enough to save us (That's where grace and faith come in) but the Word of God is clear that we are here to serve, so serve we must. So, get busy reading the Word. Find out what God expects of you, and then do it! We cannot afford to be living our lives of sin thinking that we are okay, that there is plenty of time remaining, only to hear those trumpets sound on that last day and find out that we are simply... too late!

 

What if you died today? Would you be ready? What if the Lord really did return at this very hour? These things are for sure going to happen someday. Again, the question must be asked, are you ready? 

 

The fact is that God has an eternity so beautiful for His faithful servants that we could not possibly even begin to imagine it. But, for those who are putting off their most important, yet unfinished business, there is another eternity. The wise man and woman will do something about these realities before it is too late. The good news is that God is patient with us, in fact, He has already been more than patient because of His great love for us. Let us do something in return for these great gifts. Let's live for Him starting right now!

 

It's something we all should consider while we still can, wouldn't you agree?