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Giving us freedom is a dubious blessing from God without teaching us how to take full advantage
of it. That involves knowing what freedom is, why we have it, how we apply it, and how we
perpetuate it. Oh, yes, and how it is destroyed. "Knowing" is key word here..."You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free". When we speak of knowing we inevitably look to the source of knowledge; God's Word. This is the "technical manual" for life on earth, everything we need to know about life, happiness, security, our eternal future, and the victorious Christian life. We can sum up all these, and many more principles, under the heading "Harmony with God". This is the sweeping concept that is perfected when we assimilate Divine communication. That is God's design. Touching on the negative concept first; destroying freedom, look around. The United States is in the process of doing just that. Not everyone, but enough of us that it will be very difficult to turn the tide. In fact, it's too late for a human solution, only God can pull our national bacon out of the fire. He is working to help us recover our liberty, but with great opposition, and His solutions, as always, do not necessarily display the Divine stamp that is easily recognizable to non- functioning Christians. The war with Iraq, which is raging as I write, is 100% God's solution! Our war against terrorism, the same. But thousands flock to the streets and wave their asinine banners, fling insults at an honorable President, and contribute to the greater problem of opposition to God. Without God, we're sunk! I've heard so many ludicrous statements from the clergy about what God's view of the war is that I'm disgusted. These men, professing to be men of God, have such a myopic understanding of God and His will that it amounts to no understanding at all. Listening to their harping about God's love, and the constant stream of worries about humane concerns, I am led to wonder what Bible they have been reading? How do they spew these moronic views when God's Word is riddled with hundreds of passages about war, exhorting his people to fight, establishing the military as a critical factor of national sovereignty? The preincarnate Christ holds the record for killing the enemy in battle; the Assyrians that amassed at the gates of Jerusalem in Hezekiah's reign, when He wiped out 65,000 men in one night, including their horses. But that event will pale in comparison to The Second Advent when He will slaughter millions of unbelievers prior to kicking off the Millennium. The valley of Meggedio will be a sea of blood, 100 square miles, 4 feet deep. What do pollyanna Christians have to say about that? How do these acts of God fit into their railing about peace and appeasement of an evil enemy? Even those of us who tend to see the rectitude of fighting evil on the battlefield are many times devoid of any substantial knowledge of God. For instance; Many Christians don't have the knowledge to reconcile the love of God and His aggressive stand on war. His love is manifest in all He does, but understanding how this is does not come of reading a Bible for oneself, and certainly not from listening to a lot of braying jackasses. I won't attempt to explain the phenomenon of Divine will, and the constituent aspects that pertain to His attributes, in this short space. Suffice it to say that God is infinitely greater than we are, and one dimension of His glory is the ability to carry out judgement while, simultaneously, He loves those He punishes with a love we cannot even begin to grasp in its entirety. Not one American with a brain loves Saddam Hussein, but God does. Jesus Christ died for his every heinous sin, yet He advocates killing this evil man and every one of his lackeys. Don't try to rise above your human station and emulate God in this wonder. We aren't designed to process what we know of the world through infinite love. We are, however, to understand the principle of infinite love, and carry out God's will with the full confidence that His will is inviolate, above reproach. The best we can do is look to God for guidance, and do the best we can to have compassion, offer kindness where it is possible, and take no particular pleasure in war. If it doesn't seem possible to any reader of this article to fight, and kill the enemy, and yet maintain an attitude which embraces humane motives, then you don't have harmony with God. Only He can give us this complex ability. This is why the average liberal, or degenerate Christian, will never fathom the rectitude of righteous might. For them, there is only doing "good", or doing "bad", and those concepts are childish in their scope and application. They are opposed to God, and the result is a loss of freedom. |