"The War Inevitable" - I've been thinking ....

I’ve been thinking.

I’m an ardent fan of Patrick Henry. He was a brilliant person. Don’t think I’m crazy, but I read “The War Inevitable” from time to time – about every few months or so. I have for years. And I read it out loud – yes, to myself.

It’s a perfect speech – THE perfect speech. I’m providing a link below and I do wish on this 4th of July that you would take the time to read it, too. Carve out the time today – on purpose.

I can’t help but think when I read it that it’s the PERFECT mindset for today’s Christian in a more spiritual context. When I read it out loud – as I’ve done twice already this morning – I read it for patriotism’s sake and as also as a call to arms (SPIRITUAL arms) for the American Christian.

The men in Patrick Henry’s company at that Second Virginia Congress didn’t like Henry’s suggestion to raise a militia against the threat of the British navies and armies breathing down their necks – waiting for the inevitable attack. They wanted to wait for a reply from the King to their latest letter of appeal for him to be nice and treat them fairly.

Henry replies – “We have petitioned; we have remonstrated; we have supplicated; we have prostrated ourselves before the throne, and have implored its interposition to arrest the tyrannical hands of the ministry and Parliament. Our petitions have been slighted; our remonstrances have produced additional violence and insult; our supplications have been disregarded; and we have been spurned, with contempt, from the foot of the throne! In vain, after these things, may we indulge the fond hope of peace and reconciliation. There is no longer any room for hope. If we wish to be free-- if we mean to preserve inviolate those inestimable privileges for which we have been so long contending--if we mean not basely to abandon the noble struggle in which we have been so long engaged, and which we have pledged ourselves never to abandon until the glorious object of our contest shall be obtained--we must fight! I repeat it, sir, we must fight! An appeal to arms and to the God of hosts is all that is left us!”

He was right. There was no hope for peace. He also said - “They tell us, sir, that we are weak; unable to cope with so formidable an adversary. But when shall we be stronger? Will it be the next week, or the next year? Will it be when we are totally disarmed, and when a British guard shall be stationed in every house? Shall we gather strength by irresolution and inaction? Shall we acquire the means of effectual resistance by lying supinely on our backs and hugging the delusive phantom of hope, until our enemies shall have bound us hand and foot?”

When I read this, I think of the condition of my nation TODAY. This could be read in our churches and the tyranny of evil could replace the tyranny of Great Britain. The clanking chains of sin could replace the clanking chains of political oppression – the speech would resonant just as clearly and meaningfully.

It’s past time to fight. This spiritual war cannot be called inevitable – because it’s here NOW and has been for decades.

What do we do? Well, it can’t be what we as the church HAVE been doing – “lying supinely on backs and hugging that delusive phantom of hope”. We are going to have to do what King Josiah did in 2 Kings 22-23. God’s Word had been ignored in Israel for a long time and things were in spiritual chaos and nobody cared. God’s people were so entrenched in sin of their own making that God’s judgment was coming and nothing could stop it.

Someone brought an Old Testament scroll to King Josiah’s attention. He was so convicted of sin that he tore his clothes and repented, but he didn’t stop there. He went on a rampage all across his nation beginning with the Temple and destroyed EVERYTHING ungodly in his sight. The Bible says he pulverized some pagan altars so powerfully that nothing was left but POWDER.

What does this mean for you and me? We must start with ourselves – our personal self, our families, our homes, and our churches. We MUST destroy the sinfulness there. What’s in our houses and homes that’s an offense to God? What’s going on in our churches that an offense to God? What’s in our hearts, minds, and spirits that grieving the HOLY Spirit and choking the fruit out of us?

Are we weak? That’s an understatement. But, as Patrick Henry said, when are we going to be any stronger TO fight? When we aren’t ALLOWED to attend church anymore? When our children and grandchildren are all strangers to Jesus Christ? When our marriages have all crumbled? When we are so consumed with evil that we can’t even recognize the truth anymore and are spiritually impotent and dead?

We need to declare an independence from the clanking chains of sin today. TODAY. We need to – as King Josiah did to his countryside – PURGE ourselves from evil. Go through our own homes – every room in the house and cleanse it from sin. We need to re-examine our churches and prostrate ourselves and ask God if anything is going on there that is an affront to Him and to purge it. We need to purge our marriages, our relationships with family members, and our relationship with Almighty God from sin.

Pretending that we – as Christians – are “fine and dandy” is delusional. We’re not OK. And falsely pretending – in our present state - to be hopeful that it will all work out in the end is not spiritually sane.

Patrick Henry said, “….it is natural to man to indulge in the illusions of hope. We are apt to shut our eyes against a painful truth, and listen to the song of that siren till she transforms us into beasts. Is this the part of wise men, engaged in a great and arduous struggle for liberty? Are we disposed to be of the number of those who, having eyes, see not, and, having ears, hear not, the things which so nearly concern their temporal salvation? For my part, whatever anguish of spirit it may cost, I am willing to know the whole truth; to know the worst, and to provide for it.”

The chains of sin and evil have bound us, the church and Christian families/communities – if we are brave enough to admit it – to the point where we just don’t see it anymore. And our state of ineffectual living doesn’t convict us anymore.

There’s an old saying – God can and will use any vessel – large, small, broken, ugly, beautiful, fragile, insignificant, old, new, gilded, and dazzling. But God will not use a dirty vessel – it violates His holy nature.

I encourage you to read “The War Inevitable” today and King Josiah’s convicting story in 2 Kings 22-23.

http://www.history.org/almanack/life/politics/giveme.cfm