"THE TRUTH IS..." Hogwash And Horse Spit!!! This column is produced to encourage, edify, teach and arouse the Christian community to the Almightiness of an Almighty God and the never-ending compassion and love of Jesus Christ. However, I do use this column from time to time to stir up the Christian community and to bring it to a much needed awareness – that of it’s responsibility as keepers of the faith. Christians often forget that as followers of Christ we are responsible to uphold the tenets of our faith in the face of all adversity. Therefore, if I occasionally deviate from teaching to admonishing, it is for shaking loose the shackles of silence and for the purpose of communicating a spirited wake-up call to be aware of a new or existing and ongoing battle. Knowing about the battle is our privilege for knowing opens the door for intercession. Actively engaging the battle is our duty… In the wilderness years, Moses told Joshua to “choose us out men” to go and fight the Amalekites. Joshua would “choose” men of valor, men of courage, men of vision to fight the adversaries of God. These men had not long ago been slaves of Egypt, now they were to be soldiers of the Most High God in a battle for the defense of their people (Exodus 17). The Israelites were always engaged in one battle or the other against paganism and idolatry. “Hear, Oh Israel: The Lord thy God is one Lord” (Deut. 6:4). This was their battle cry and the apex of a faith that brought victory after victory in their march to Canaan and through the years of conquest. Today, God himself is choosing out men and women of courage because most Christians prefer the enslaved silence of Egypt to the soul-stirring cry of the battle. A Joshua is not man-called, he is God-called, but there is not found a man today humble enough yet valiant enough for such a post. Hear this: Following the battle with the Amalekites: (Exodus 17:14) “And the Lord said unto Moses, Write this for a memorial in a book and rehearse it in the ears of JOSHUA…” The destiny of Joshua had been determined and now Moses would know it as well. But long years of discipleship had just begun… What man today is willing to be a servant to another man of God for forty years? Who do you know has enough faith to command the sun to stand still until the battle is won? Do you know a man today who, without fear, would lead two million souls into a strange land filled with giants? Do you know a man who would trust the instructions to encircle the walls of Jericho every day for six days? Listen to this: “And you shall compass the city, all you men of war, and go round about the city once. This you shall do every day for six days. And seven priests shall walk before the Ark of the Covenant, bearing seven trumpets of rams’ horns; and on the seventh day you shall compass the city seven times, and the priests shall blow with the trumpets. And it shall come to pass, that when they make a long blast with the ram’s horn, and when you hear the sound of the trumpet, all the people shall shout with a great shout; and the wall of the city shall fall down flat and the people shall ascend up every man straight before him” (Joshua 6:3-5). We are talking about approximately two million people here. The men of war were to encircle the walls then ALL THE PEOPLE were to shout a GREAT SHOUT and the walls would fall down FLAT and the people would enter the city STRAIGHT before them. There was no rubble. The walls did not fall down in heaps, they were pushed into the ground by holy angels of God at the precise moment the people shouted, and the valiant ascended the slope into the city straight before him. No one stumbled over rocks or bricks. The tops of the city walls were flat with the ground because the people believed Joshua, who believed God, who honored their obedience with a miraculous victory. Do you doubt it? Then listen to this: “And it came to pass, when Joshua was by Jericho, that he lifted up his eyes and looked, and, behold, there stood a man over against him with his sword drawn in his hand: and Joshua went unto him and said unto him, Art thou for us, or for our adversaries? And he said, Nay; but as captain of the host of the Lord am I now come. And Joshua fell on his face to the earth, and did worship, and said unto him, what saith my Lord unto his servant? And the captain of the Lord’s host said unto Joshua, loose thy shoe from off thy foot; for the place whereon thou standest is holy. And Joshua did so” (Joshua 5: 13-15) And this occurred just prior to encircling the walls, the blowing of the trumpets and the great shout. The Lord’s host was there, Joshua had a conversation with the captain of the host, a big man, with sword drawn, and Joshua didn’t know if he was friend or foe until he had challenged him. Do you know a man like Joshua today? Oh, Lord, if we had such a Joshua all of Christendom would rally behind him. If we had such a Joshua all of Christendom would engage the battle. And the Spirit of the Lord replied, “Would they? A greater one than Joshua is here. If they would follow Him, the Lord’s host would go into the battle with them as they did with Joshua.” Oh, Lord, increase our faith! We shout, we cry, we plead but no one hears… Oh, Lord, fewer and fewer souls are answering the call to face the threats of our determined enemies. The few who have answered the call are doing a valiant work but they are so few in number, Lord, that our enemies are not afraid of us. We are too few and our cause poses no threat to them. It takes money to fight battles in the courts and we give for this is vital to the cause. But a team of Godly attorneys need more than money, they need the voices of men and women who will give support by their presence, their battle cry, their Godly determination to arouse other fighters and fight to the finish and win. It is a battle of the heart and soul, Lord… And the Spirit of the Lord replied, “I have reserved to myself seven thousand men, who have not bowed the knee to the image of Baal.” Oh, Lord, call them to the battle, Lord... We need them, Lord… The American Center for Law and Justice fights our court battles today against the ACLU and all the others whose one aim is to destroy every thread of Godliness from off the land. Organizations that support traditional family values are also engaged in this battle. We need to rally behind them, not just through our purses, but through our own convictions that this is a battle we must be united in and enter into to win. I have heard that, in most of their court cases, there is not one Christian supporter in the courtroom to represent the Christian community. One attorney wept when he saw there was no caring soul to stand with them. Not one hearty thumbs-up for their fight, not one round of applause for a job well done or one tear of anguish for a victory lost. Soldiers of the cross had deserted the field of battle and left the valiant to fight alone…and we wonder why there is no Joshua… I was startled to read on the morning news that homosexuals make up only one half of one percent of the total population in this country. Yet we hear so much hullabaloo from this significantly small group that one would think they are vast in numbers. Then I read that this is their strategy - to make themselves look numerous through their brandishings, court battles, propaganda and their brazen attempts to change our schools, take over our churches, uproot our traditional family values and our fundamental moral codes. If they look big, sound tough and take a few to court and win, they can intimidate and frighten enough people to stay quiet and stay out of their way. It is especially significant that such a small percentage of our total population has brought such devastation to the Boy Scouts of America, the churches, the national school curriculum, Disney World and are even effecting and changing the law in some of our states as they dig in for the overall overhaul of this country. How can one half of one percent of the people pervert the dignities of an entire country and turn it upside down? The answer to that is easy - they have very few people opposing them! Oh, people sit around and complain about it, blame the government or blame Hollywood. They even blame divorce and single parent households. And yet the polls show that more than 80% of Americans believe in God and 45% profess to be active Christians. That makes us a Christian nation - so why are these 45% Christians letting one half of one percent hassle their kids and their state and local governments? It boggles the mind that this could happen in a day when technology is so available, when freedom of speech is ours, and when we have the right to vote and to have legal representation. I have not taken a poll. I have not asked anyone how this can happen. I know the answer already and if you will think about it - so do you. Christians are not speaking up and out. It is that simple! There are many reasons for this and we are going to talk about a few of these... Christians have long been taught to demonstrate meekness and gentleness with their neighbors. They have heard "tolerance" preached so often they are afraid that if they get mad enough to do something, God will hit them over the head. They have been taught that they are not supposed to get angry, rather they are supposed to pray and let God work it out. They have been told to be quiet and not make waves that could embarrass the Christian community, especially their local church, and they are taught that Christians should not engage political movements. Hog wash and horse spit!!! We can be ever grateful that someone failed to preach this lie to the founding fathers. And if Christians would read the Bible for themselves they would see that their Savior had a temper! He had no problem calling the Pharisees white washed tombs and hypocrites. He had no problem calling Herod a sly old fox and he demonstrated no hesitation driving the money- changers from the temple with a rope of cords, yelling rebuke after them. Don’t tell me we have no right to get angry. Don’t tell me we have no right to take up cords and drive out the wolves. If we don’t exercise the right to defend our faith, our enemies will take away ALL our rights… Our Lord preached more on hell than He did on heaven and didn't hesitate to tell the religious leaders of His day that prostitutes and thieves would enter the Kingdom of Heaven before they would. He was not concerned about protecting His reputation, but He was adamant in defending the truth. He taught us to have love and compassion for all, and indeed this is the Spirit of the Lord, but we can also see that He had zero tolerance for those who openly defied the laws of God. He was, and He is, our example… Read, dear friends, read and see the anger of the Almighty God who can take just so much of men's complacency and indifference until He can't take the stench anymore. When God gets angry, his children know it, and when he gets mad, which is a step up from anger, his wrath is going to fall. Just look at all the times he has punished Israel for her spiritual idolatries and disobediences. Look what He did to Sodom and Gomorrah for their abominable lifestyles. Remember the flood… Read about his coming judgment of the nations, his anger at their misdeeds, and realize that He is a God of wrath as well as a God of love. Like any loving parent, he judges and punishes for the sake of the child, and like any concerned parent who forbids unfavorable alliances, He will not tolerate disobedience and defiance. Oh yes, we have a free will, but that free will enables us to choose between the sovereignty of God’s Word or the seductive deceptions of a Godless world. That free will comes with a conscience and our conscience is kept alive and well through the Spirit or it is deadened through the flesh. Adam and Eve had a free will. It knew only the goodness and holiness of God until they disobeyed his command. When sin entered into them, their eyes were opened to both good and evil and their consciences became their tormentors. They had exercised their free will to question the authority of God and earth would never again be the same. From that moment on, a man’s conscience would be a protective guide or an ultimate accuser… “I don’t want to get involved” is an indifferent conscience. “I’m afraid to get involved” is a cowardly conscience that has no real intimacy with Christ. “I don’t have the time or the resources” is an appeased conscience, excused by the personal denial of any personal obligation. Time and resources are commodities we all do have. All day long we have social interactions either face to face or by telephone. We can speak out to others. As for resources, again there is the telephone, there are internet petitions one can sign, the PTA meetings, the local civic groups, the teaching of one’s own children and the connecting with one’s own neighborhood to get involved with us. Tell your pastor that your church needs to engage in this fight. Tell him that you want to call your peers and light a fire so your church can awake from her silent and complacent sleep. Tell him you want your church to stop being a loose brick in the House of God. Such a brick needs to be stabilized with responsibility and cemented with courage. It needs good pasture and fresh waters. It needs doors that open wide to the presence of the Savior and the precious unction of the Holy Spirit. It needs followers of Christ, not one-day-a-week religious pew-warmers. Encourage your pastor to be freed up from his own fear of offending with the truth and to speak it boldly as Christ did, as the Apostles did, for it is indeed the Word of God. If the religious are offended, remind them it is the Word and Jesus warned that many would be offended by it. Tell them to take it up with Jesus… America offers sea-to-sea and boundary to boundary pasture but the healthy flocks follow the fertile ground, the greener pastures, and they will not stay where there is no food to chew on or water to drink. They also need exercise, soul-stirring spiritual exercise as well as fat-burning physical. This challenge is laid at the feet of the shepherd pastors who need to trash the idea of tolerance for the lawbreakers and start using the staff of God’s Holy Word to drive out the devil’s wolves. Compromise should never be named in the House of God and spiritual indifference should never exist in the life of the believer. Without the cause of Christ there is no joy. Without joy there is no vision and without a vision, the people perish. People need a vision. People are stirred by a vision. People are moved by a vision. People fight for their vision. Vision brings a powerful presence of the Holy Spirit who brings the anointing and the anointing breaks the yoke. Give the people a vision and they will win it. Sit silently and trust someone else to do the job and you may some day languish through long days of sorrow. And what will you say to the Savior when he asks you “Why…? Think back and remember the 1967 six-day war in Israel. Such a victory was seemingly impossible in terms of manpower but God was not about to let a ganged-up bunch whip little Israel, and the miracle of that victory is the remembrance that cautions all of Arabia today. There was another time that God became angry because of Israel's much complaining while in the wilderness. They were tired of manna from Heaven, they wanted meat so God called in the quail and before they could swallow the bites in their mouths, thousands fell dead. God called them a stiff-necked people. I wonder what he is calling us today? We can get angry - we have a spiritual right to get angry at the sin and corruption around us. We just can't sin with false accusations, hateful slander or murderous thoughts. We have laws to handle these things, we have the voting booth, and we have congressmen to hear our voices. We have newspapers, radio and TV and we have petitions to sign and an open telephone line to the white house we can bombard. Our voices do make a difference and we need to lift them up and out for the rest of the country and even the world to hear. And we need to pray and believe God… We need to stand up and defend our Godly principles and stop hiding our lamps under a bushel. We need to hold fast to the truth and all that is right and good, and kick the wolves out of the camp. Decency and dignity should be the right of all men and women but when our Godly principles are threatened, we should snip it in the bud, cut it off at the root and dare it to rise again. Give no ear to liberal or deceptive arguments. The Godless bully us with accusations before the courts and the world that are intended to make us look and feel guilty and shamed for our so-called lack of tolerance. Too many Christians and churches are falling prey to this brazen and satanic manipulation of hearts and minds and many have already suffered the consequences of a cowardly retreat instead of the joys of a triumphant victory. They were challenged to be too tolerant too long. Then the wolves took over the pasture and their sheep were scattered. Healthy sheep do not lie down together with the wolves and sleep, nor can they drink side by side from the same watering hole. Unhealthy sheep (lukewarm Christians) don’t have a chance at the outset. These are doomed before the doors open and the wolves come in… The truth is, we are not supposed to have tolerance for those things that mock the Most High God of Heaven and earth. We should never feel guilty or ashamed for upholding the truth. And our genuine love for Christ and for others does not negate our responsibility to keep the church clean and defend the God-blessed heritage of this land. We may disagree among ourselves over denominational doctrines and differences but we need to unite against the predators who would destroy all our camps without conscience and without love of any. We need to be as vocal as they are. This brings us to another problem: Is it shyness or is it shame that hinders the Christian from speaking to others about Jesus? Why are we so hesitant and so intimidated that we either crawl carefully toward the subject or we retreat from it completely. It can't be because we feel too holy to mention his name. It can't be because we are merely shy. We can scream at a football game, laugh at a party, talk about our children and our work with neighbors and friends, so why this backward stance on discussing Jesus? I have noticed that even Christians balk at the mere mention of His name. “Don’t bring up His name during a social gathering, it isn’t a social issue!” “Don’t mention the Bible whatever you do, I don’t want my guests offended.” “Now, we are not going to talk about religion. We don’t want to go there!” And these are professing Christians!!! Let's be honest. We are afraid to talk about Jesus Christ with others because we don't want to be laughed at or mocked or put down by those who do not want to hear it. We run from the possibility of ridicule and offense because personal pride can't endure it. That’s living in the flesh my friends, and not in the Spirit. When one lives in the flesh he is concerned about what the world thinks. He is easily intimidated and offended. He wants to be accepted by his peers and if others reject him because he talks about Jesus, then he will not talk about Him. This person has just taken a defensive stand because he received a rejection as a personal one. He fails to understand that his friends did not reject him personally, rather they rejected the Christ he tried to represent. This brushed-aside rejection should fill him with compassion for his friends, stir up his need to pray for them, instead of retreating behind his damaged pride and saying, “Well, I’m not going to make that mistake again.” Jesus warned us that if they rejected Him – and they did – they would reject us also. It is part of the package deal. It isn’t possible to accept a little bit of salvation and skip the rest, we either accept Christ in his fullness or nothing. Some just want an insurance policy against hell, but they don’t want to pay the premiums. Others do want it all but pride gets in the way. Remember that pride came from Satan in the fall of man. If it is making you itch, you need a spiritual oil-bath and some quality time with the Savior… When one lives in the Spirit he is only concerned about what God thinks. Again, when one lives in the Spirit, Jesus is ALL he wants to talk about. The person who is bound with pride needs to spend time with people like this. Then when he is stronger, and free of his own bondages, he can go back to his one-time friends and win them over. Jesus warned that if we are ashamed of him before men, He WILL be ashamed of us before His Father in heaven. Oh, Lord, let us not be ashamed to speak or shout your name. Oh, Lord, if only in the shouting, the walls would again be pushed into the ground. Oh, Lord, give strength to our voices to shout so great a shout and keep shouting until the Lord’s host comes and the victory is ours…. And the Spirit of the Lord replied, "First you have to encircle the walls..." Shalom and God Bless, Joan Krempel |