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Dripping Springs Weekly Bulletins
Homosexuality In: Ten Commandments Out
These thoughts could be discouraging, depressing and frustrating. Yes, it does seem that all that is degrading and wicked is winning the battles, and that God and His word are losing them all.
As most of us know, the United States Supreme Court recently struck down the “Texas Sodomy Law”. Then last week the Alabama Supreme Court told Judge Roy Moore that his Ten Commandments on stone had to be removed from the courthouse. Yes, it does seem that Satan is having a field day.
Now, I don’t want to diminish the significance of these and similar events of recent months, but we must not forget that we have seen such things before. This is not the first time that darkness seemed to blot out the light.
- In Noah’s day, repentance was preached for over 100 years, and the only converts came from Noah and his family, Genesis 6-9. But God was not through with the battle for righteous living.
- In the days of the prophet Samuel, God’s people seemed to lose every battle to the Philistines. Israel’s own king cared more for his power and position than for God’s commands, 1 Samuel 13-15. The people were hiding in caves from their enemies. But God wasn’t finished yet.
- What about the time Assyria took ten of the tribes into captivity? Then, over 100 years later Babylon took the remaining tribes into captivity. Israel may have asked, as we read in Psalm 73:11: “Does God know” this is happening? Yes, He knew, and when His people came back from captivity, the idolatry that had plagued them for years was diminished. They had been disciplined to be God’s people.
- Had you stood on that hill outside Jerusalem about 2,000 years ago, you might have thought God had failed, that all hope was gone. It appears that Jesus’ disciples thought that might be true. They hid in upper rooms, fearing for their lives and for the success of their Messiah. But, instead of defeat, the result was victory, 1 Corinthians 15:51-58. Satan had lost, and as Jesus’ disciples we are exhorted to: “…be ye steadfast, unmovable, always abounding in the work of
the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labor is not in vain in the Lord.”
- In the book of Revelation, when Rome and evil in general appeared to have put God in retreat, His people were implored to keep on keeping on. They were not given the options of discouragement or frustration, for ultimate victory was to be in God’s hands, not Caesar’s.
What then about today? Is there reason for dismay? Yes! Is there reason for disappointment and disgust? Absolutely! But is this the time to give in to these feelings? Is this the time to give up the fight? Do we now just go with the flow and quit the warfare given to us by God?
You already know those are not options. An old saying states: “Light shines brightest in the darkness.” We are warned that difficult times would come. We knew all along that the gospel would not be held in high esteem by all. These are the times in which our light must shine; time for us to reveal the only way to ultimate victory is through the very means often scorned so much.
This is not a time for despair! Noah is now one of God’s heroes, and Samuel lived to anoint a king with a heart like God’s. Peter, Thomas and Matthew lived to take God’s saving message to people all over the world, Colossians 1:6, 23. Rome fell, mainly because of the perversion they “enjoyed” through those years.
Why are we surprised that evil often wins? God did not create robots, but humans, and humans often make bad choices. We use free will to make our decisions, and many times those decisions violate the words of our Creator and Lord.
Don’t be shocked when that happens, or that many applaud the proceedings. Our citizenship is not here. We are here on temporary “papers,” bound for the promised land of God’s heaven. While we grieve at man’s condition, we recall the words of 2 Peter 3:13: “Nevertheless we, according to his promise, look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness.”
Jesus, preparing His disciples for the coming troubles, told them: “These things I have spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world,” John 16:33.
Take heart. The victory is ours if we but remain true to Him.
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“Disappointment to a noble soul is what cold water is to burning metal; it intensifies, strengthens, tempers, but never destroys it.”
“Some defeats are more triumphant than victories.”
“Defeat is a school in which truth always grows strong.”
“I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord,”
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Baptism Refused
One Monday morning recently I received a call from my parents. They called to ask if I would go to Parkview Hospital and visit the family of their next-door neighbor’s sister. The woman’s husband entreated them to contact me so that I could baptize her.
When I arrived at the hospital, I found her husband at his wit’s end because of his grief and the intense fear he felt from knowing that his wife was not baptized. Upon entering the room and striving to communicate with the woman, I realized that although I ached for her distraught husband of 50+ years, there was no way I could baptize her. She was near comatose; she could not swallow or talk; she had not eaten for a week; her left shoulder was fractured from a fall a couple of weeks earlier. There was no way she could confess with her mouth unto salvation (Romans 10:10), nor was it very likely that the hospital staff would permit me to immerse her even if she could talk. Sadly, she had had at least 60 years of adult life and she had not prepared herself for this earth’s one inevitability: death. Her window of opportunity to obey the gospel had apparently been shut.
The temptation to compromise and seek to offer false hope was definitely felt. Intense anguish of the human soul is a horrific sight. According to church historians, the practice of sprinkling and pouring as “baptism” began in the third century under similar circumstances as this one. Somewhere earlier in the stream of time, someone failed to resist this enticing temptation. What a flood of false assurance and hope has come as a result.
The purpose of baptism, though, is not to please others or to reassure their conscience. It is immensely more intimate and personal than that; it is the answer of (an earnest seeking for) a good conscience toward God (1 Peter 3:21). Sadly, this woman was in such a state that she could not do this. To baptize her now would be as meaningless and as ineffective as “baptizing” an infant.
The time to face the reality of death and the Judgment is now, not later. “TODAY if you will hear His voice, do not harden your hearts” (Hebrews 4:7). If you have not earnestly sought a good conscience toward God by being baptized into Christ for the remission of your sins, do not let today’s window of opportunity close on you. “Behold NOW is the accepted time; behold NOW is the day of salvation” (2 Corinthians 6:2).
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