How should Christians respond to all that’s happening in our country today? Does the Bible have anything to say about race, redemption, social justice, theft, destruction of property, being unequally yoked with unbelievers, and endorsing things that contradict Scripture?
What about the lawlessness and rioting? [See Romans 1:32] How can Bible-believing Christians approve of these things? This is part of the depraved mind described in chapter 1 of Romans.
Obedience to God’s Law matters. Everything we do and say must spring from the foundation of loving Jesus first and loving our neighbors. We must stay grounded on the Rock of Christ and His truth:
“Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” 37 And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. 38 This is the great and first commandment. 39 And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. 40 On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.” Matthew 22:36-40
Let’s not be indifferent towards racism, discrimination, or bullying regardless of the form it takes. Pray, yes, but how else should we respond to injustice, lawlessness, and sin? With love and truth. Every single person is created in God’s image and has value as God is the Creator of us all.
And He has made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, and has determined their pre-appointed times and the boundaries of their dwellings; Acts 17:26
God is sovereign over when in history we live, how long we live, and where. Psalm 139:16 states: Your eyes saw my substance, being yet unformed. And in Your book they all were written, The days fashioned for me, When as yet there were none of them.
[Acts 17, cont’d] …so that they should seek the Lord, in the hope that they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us; 28 for in Him we live and move and have our being, as also some of your own poets have said, ‘For we are also His offspring.’ 29 Therefore, since we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Divine Nature is like gold or silver or stone, something shaped by art and man’s devising. 30 Truly, these times of ignorance God overlooked, but now commands all men everywhere to repent, 31 because He has appointed a day on which He will judge the world in righteousness by the Man whom He has ordained. He has given assurance of this to all by raising Him from the dead. Acts 17:26-31
We are living in the last days; times in which a generation is ignorant of truth (which has been redefined); times of lies being believed, evil is called good, open rebellion against the living God, and times of unrelenting lawlessness. And the godless are using every excuse under the sun to cultivate a crisis of chaos.
We must not lose our biblical worldview over race or any issue. But let’s be clear: There are two kinds of people in the world – forgiven and unforgiven. Saved or not saved. Let’s reinforce our biblical perspective.
After these things I looked, and behold, a great multitude which no one could number, of all nations, tribes, peoples, and tongues, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed with white robes, with palm branches in their hands, 10 and crying out with a loud voice, saying, “Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!” Revelation 7:9-10
All means all. Nations, tribes, peoples, tongues before the Lamb of God one day. The heart of the matter is a matter of the heart/the inner man. Not skin/the outer man. The gospel is our hope. We’re seeing some rotten fruit of a generation of people who don’t know God and who have little respect for authority and the rule of law.
But we know that the law is good if one uses it lawfully, 9 knowing this: that the law is not made for a righteous person, but for the lawless and insubordinate, for the ungodly and for sinners; 1 Timothy 1:8-9
WHY DO WE NEED THE LAW?
“The heart is deceitful above all things, And desperately wicked; Who can know it? 10 I, the Lord, search the heart, I test the mind, Even to give every man according to his ways, According to the fruit of his doings. Jeremiah 17:9-10
Revealed throughout Scripture is the fact the heart of man is wicked, deceitful above all things! The Bible completely rejects the notion that man is basically good. Rather, there are none who are righteous, not one.
Let’s establish a framework today regarding the heart of mankind; in World War II, 85 million people were killed. Talk about an indictment of the human race. Some estimates suggest 60 million of those deaths were civilians. Another 60 million human lives have been aborted since 1973 and Roe V. Wade.
This brings us to the question of how evil is to be mitigated in society? I’d like to share a few points from a sermon by Pastor John MacArthur.
GOD HAS GIVEN US FOUR RESTRAINTS TO MITIGATE EVIL IN SOCIETY
1. Conscience: the Law of God has been written on the heart of every human being, and we have the knowledge of right from wrong. The conscience is our warning device from God. A person overrides that law justifying immoral behavior by training the conscience to ignore it.
If you train the conscience to ignore itself because you don’t want to feel guilty, then you’ve just wiped out the personal restraint.
2. Family: raising godly children; parenting, passing down righteousness, goodness, truth, and discipline to the next generation. Remove the traditional family and its influence and you’ve wiped out the second restraint.
Think of adultery, abortion, divorce, gays and lesbians living together, Hollywood, pornography, poverty, fatherlessness, and today’s technology, gaming and social media. All these things negatively affect families.
3. Government: the government is an ultimate authority designed by God to protect those who do good – and punish those who do evil. When government becomes corrupt or rule of law is completely rejected, vilified, and assaulted as we’re seeing today, you’ve removed a major restraint of lawlessness. Whether government is attacked by criminals or enemies of good; or when politicians fail in their role to serve the people by pulling back those who protect the innocent and punish the evildoer, you’ve removed the third restraint. [ie: ‘stand down’ orders to police]
4. Church: there are many problems in today’s church beginning with weak leaders and false teachings that have infected biblical Christianity and have led people astray. The body of Christ was supposed to be an influential, preserving salt and a bright light exposing darkness and pointing to the hope in Jesus Christ, unapologetically preaching the gospel. What happened? Part of the cultural confusion today goes back to the church conforming to the world, backing out of culture, and some professing Christians not even believing the Bible!
This all results in evil no longer being restrained by the church. We have entertainment centers trying to help people feel good about themselves.
To sum up, the crisis that broke the camel’s back in 2020 wasn’t the Coronavirus, it wasn’t political division or the millions in taxpayer dollars spent on a failed impeachment of President Trump, or racial injustice. It goes back further: the decline of morality, the silencing of the human conscience, the destruction of the family, the attack on authority in government, and the weakness and capitulation of the Christian church.
With the removal of these divine restraints, we’re now seeing the fruit of these breakdowns.
After many decades, politicians in Washington either refuse or are unable to fix the problems. Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society failed to eradicate poverty and only hurt the black community, creating massive government programs and more issues for the poor.
Retired U.S. Army lieutenant, Col. Allen West said that when he was born (1961): “the traditional two-parent household in the black community was nearly 77%. There were thriving black-owned businesses throughout our community. Today, only 24% of black kids have mom and dad in the home. We can have all the conversations about racism you want, but we will just keep whistling past the graveyard.”
We need to have conversations about the gospel and the only true hope, Jesus Christ.
“But the Scripture has confined all under sin, that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe. 23 But before faith came, we were kept under guard by the law, kept for the faith which would afterward be revealed. 24 Therefore the law was our tutor to bring us to Christ, that we might be justified by faith. 25 But after faith has come, we are no longer under a tutor. 26 For you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus. 27 For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. 28 There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” Galatians 3:22-28
Remove God’s Law, Family values, Christianity, respect for authority, truth, and fixed moral absolutes? Anything goes. It just takes one generation. [see Judges 2:10]
Before the Law: the world’s first injustice was when Cain killed his brother, Abel.
Today’s modern cries for justice demand a mixture of unbiblical things, especially in the cultural upheaval including the protests and rioting that some people think were spontaneous reactions to the killing of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer. Reforms should be discussed, and new policies implemented. But the heart of man is still wicked!
We don’t have a skin problem, we have a sin problem.
BUT HOW HAS THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH RESPONDED?
I’ve observed plenty of Christians, even some pastors, in the past month promoting Black Lives Matter, even marching with them, and have been disappointed. Their response seems to come from a view of “social” justice or of a secular social theory held by many young people today. What do I mean?
We want to be compassionate, loving and empathetic. That’s good. But too many well-meaning people immediately jumped on social justice bandwagons not knowing where those wagons started and where they will lead. Christian friend, be careful who you align yourself with because it sends mixed messages to an already confused world.
In particular, I’m referring to Black Lives Matter (BLM). If you are defending this godless movement, you may unintentionally be espousing the values of a worldview in conflict with your own if you’re a Christian. Stay with me here. In essence, I agree with the obvious theme black lives do matter as all human life does, and yet at its root this organization is anti-authority, Marxist-driven, anti-Christian, and anti-American.
Did you do an internet search for information on the background of this organization? Where does their millions of dollars in funding come from? Prior to arguing your case on social media under the guise of being against racism, did you read their statement of faith?
Did you know Black Lives Matter (BLM) is a global movement supporting abortion, transgenderism, “environmental justice,” racism, homosexuality and the LGBT agenda as a whole? According to its own website, did you know BLM is working to dismantle white privilege, frowns upon male leadership roles, law enforcement, the traditional family, and aims to remove President Trump from office?
Before you champion BLM or any organization, be sure to read its statement of beliefs on their site. In this case you’ll find a far-reaching agenda going beyond black equality—their main goal is political power. The co-founder of BLM recently said in an interview they are trained Marxists. Another representative said they will “burn the system down.”
Now that you know some of this, do you agree Christians have to decide whether to follow this movement or follow Christ? Too simple? Let’s dig into the Marxist worldview a bit more. Here are some points from Joshua Lawson, managing editor of The Federalist.
“You Can Be A Christian, You Can Be A Marxist, But You Can’t Be Both”
Three reasons Christians are being pressured into repeating the beliefs of a neo-Marxist, collective guilt ideology that’s incompatible with the Gospel:
- Fear of not going along; peer pressure
- A misunderstanding of what they’ve signed onto
- An authentic conversion to the radical cause
Here are some excellent points made by Lawson reinforcing the fact you cannot be a Christian and a Marxist at the same time.
The grand unifying principle for the Marxists behind the Black Lives Matter movement is that everything—and they mean everything can be reduced to “oppressors” versus the “oppressed.”
Too many Christians are falling into a trap of expressing solidarity with an ideology that is completely antithetical to the teachings of Jesus. They need our prayers; and they need to wake up fast and get back to God’s Word!
4 Points that Christianity and Marxism Cannot Coexist. Ever.
1. REVENGE AND COLLECTIVE GUILT ARE NOT BIBLICAL
A part of the BLM agenda is to judge white people today for the sins of the past, even though we weren’t born yet and many of our ancestors weren’t even in America yet.
Whether the sins were committed yesterday, last week, 40 years or 400 years ago, all Caucasians are now told to bear the guilt for sins committed by other Caucasians; AND, if we remain silent, one new accusation is “silence is violence.”
But Christianity states you and I are accountable to God alone for our sins, individually. We must go to Jesus to atone for sin. Both the New and Old Testament agree on this.
“Yet you say, ‘Why should the son not bear the guilt of the father?’ Because the son has done what is lawful and right, and has kept all My statutes and observed them, he shall surely live. 20 The soul who sins shall die. The son shall not bear the guilt of the father, nor the father bear the guilt of the son. The righteousness of the righteous shall be upon himself, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon himself.” Ezekiel 18:19-20
Those who take Christ as Lord and Savior are saved personally, not collectively with others.
Universal guilt is not biblical; neither is universal salvation.
2. CHRISTIANITY REJECTS THE MATERIALISM OF NEO-MARXISM
Historical Marxism peddles the materialistic notion that if everyone could just be wealthy enough so that economic status is meaningless; Christ teaches us not to concern ourselves with questions of wealth, who has it, and how we can “reclaim” more of it for ourselves, and to seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness.
3. MARXISM ALSO FUELS COVETOUSNESS, ENVY, RESENTMENT
Instead of spreading peace and forgiveness, the neo-Marxists running the Black Lives Matter movement have cultivated anger and resentment. Instead of preaching thankfulness, the movement has caused many Americans to covet their neighbor’s status.
In the O.T. one of the Ten Commandments is ‘You shalt not covet…” (Exodus 20:17) anything your neighbor has. The New Testament teaches the same, and emphasizes contentment as we trust God to provide.
Philippians 4:11-12, 19 states:
Not that I speak in regard to need, for I have learned in whatever state I am, to be content: 12 I know how to be abased, and I know how to abound. Everywhere and in all things I have learned both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need. 13 I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me; …19And my God shall supply all your need according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus.
The Bible has answers for every need or problem about life including the four main questions of mankind: origin, meaning, morality, and destiny.
Marxism has no answer for questions of purpose, meaning, and what we’re to do here on earth. Everything is a struggle for power; to be resolved either by redistribution or the sword.
4. BOTTOM LINE: CHRISTIANITY SEEKS TO UNIFY; MARXISM DIVIDES
And that’s exactly what we’re witnessing across the nation. Division. Hatred. Victimology.
In Christianity, you are seen as an individual. Christ has already done the work of erasing all cultural or ethnic barriers to God. Grace is available to all those who put their faith in Jesus Christ, regardless of status, race, ethnicity, or sex. [Galatians 3:28]
Like Satan himself, Karl Marx claimed, “My object in life is to dethrone God.” This is not a man Christians should have anything to do with. And remember that in every nation that adopted Marxism as its ideological model, Christians have been oppressed, sin has been rampant, and millions have died.
God is just. And His judgment won’t be held back much longer. Let’s make sure we understand the times and know the Bible! Every human being will face judgment.
Then I saw a great white throne and Him who sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away. And there was found no place for them. 12 And I saw the dead, small and great, standing before God, and books were opened. And another book was opened, which is the Book of Life. And the dead were judged according to their works, by the things which were written in the books. 13 The sea gave up the dead who were in it, and Death and Hades delivered up the dead who were in them. And they were judged, each one according to his works. 14 Then Death and Hades were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death. 15 And anyone not found written in the Book of Life was cast into the lake of fire. Revelation 20:11-15
To endorse the talking points of BLM while claiming to walk with Jesus Christ does a gross disservice to the Good News of the Gospel. Now, look at our culture.
HOW DID WE GET HERE?
Think about this for a minute. In a recent poll of college-educated young people, 58% of them said protesting, vandalism, and even rioting are either partly or fully justified due to the injustice of racism. Wow.
Author and history teacher, Peter Heck recently pointed to the education problem in the U.S. by stating: “We are planting the root and then are surprised by its fruit.” After decades of teaching kids in America to hate their country, take a good look around because we’re now seeing some rotten fruit of the education system. This generation of young adults generally has more disdain for America, but knows far less about actual U.S. history.
Statues and federal monuments are being torn down and they’re trying to erase history. Where will this stop? It’s an insatiable lust for destruction and power. It’s a depraved mind:
What then? Are we better than they? Not at all. For we have previously charged both Jews and Greeks that they are all under sin. [See Romans 3:9-18] Verse 10 states: “There is none righteous, no, not one;” and verse 18, “There is no fear of God before their eyes.”
I wish they were just as passionate about all black lives. I was a premature baby and thank God my Mom chose life. Maybe you saw the headline recently that the youngest surviving preemie ever, born in GA at 21 weeks weighing 13 ounces, is going home.
Made in God’s image, this is a powerful story in support of birth, motherhood, pregnancy, humanity – and the fact every life matters! His name is Jemarius and he’s black. But more black babies are aborted than born in NYC for example. Abortion takes the lives of 360 black babies every single day. PP founder, Margaret Sanger was a racist and eugenicist.
What about black on black crime? This Summer, Chicago is breaking single-weekend records for the most shootings and murders in the city’s history.
Tactics of the left include ridicule, name-calling, guilt-projecting, and forced submission. But our identity is in Jesus Christ and our citizenship is in heaven, and we have the right to refuse to go along with the charade being promoted.
I’ve seen videos of people being asked to apologize for “white privilege,” slavery and other injustices of past generations. You may have heard of abortion survivor, Gianna Jessen. She refers to Cerebral Palsy as a gift from a loving God who helped her fight for life.
i will listen. but i will not bow and kneel in humiliation for injustice i am not guilty of. i will not apologize for the color of my skin. i will not be ashamed of the founding of this country. i will kneel before only One. i will bow before Jesus Christ. along with my brothers and sisters of all tribes, color and nations. we will magnify His Name together.
i will not kneel to agree with manipulation and control. i will not bow before the accuser of the brethren. i will stand, in Triumph, before the Lord of Hosts, who alone, weighs justly the Hearts of men.
The truth is that one day, every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord (Philippians 2:10-11). No other allegiance will matter.
We will all stand before the judgment seat of Christ and give an answer for what we did while on earth. The foundation of His throne is righteousness, justice, and truth (Psalm 89:14). A good God would be just, and would judge evildoers. He will not let sin go unpunished.
Let’s close with what Paul wrote to Christians in the church at Ephesus:
For this reason I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, 15 from whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named, 16 that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with might through His Spirit in the inner man, 17 that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; that you, being rooted and grounded in love, 18 may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height— 19 to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge; that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. 20 Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us, 21 to Him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen. Ephesians 3:14-21
*featured photo credit: Christian Science Monitor
