Never back down, never compromise.

For the Christian reader, I have had a recurring thought for the past few weeks, "Never back down, never compromise!"  At first I did not give much reflection to this statement, until it continued to be repeated in my mind.  And then I was still left without knowing where exactly to apply this in my life.  Then, I began to re-read the books of Numbers and Joshua, completing my reading over the past two days.  The phrase "never back down, never compromise," began to make much more sense to me, as this is what God was calling the children of Israel to do.  However, they backed down and compromised on so many occasions, resulting in military defeats, death by the hand of God, a delay in entering the promised land, and ultimately the loss of promised land.

Now, last night while I slept, I found myself on the witness stand in a court hearing concerning the request that I made to the local board of education requesting that my children, now in 5th grade and in pre-K, not be taught evolution, a history of millions of years or any other topic that would expressly contradict that Holy Bible.  In this court hearing, as I sat there being questioned by the opposing lawyer I could sense the presence of the Lord near me, urging me not to back down, not to give room for compromise in my answers.  I was being reminded by the Lord that I had said in my opening statements that I looked upon the Bible as divinely inspired by a perfect all knowing God and all that was contained in it must be truth.  At present, the lawyer was trying to find anything in the Bible that I would compromise on, thus showing that I did not give full credence to the Bible.  Question after question the lawyer asked, but each was given objection to by the judge because of the fact that all of the questions held presuppositions in them.  He asked "How do you place dinosaurs in the Bible?"  The judge allowed me to object to the question on the grounds that "I don't place dinosaurs in the Bible, God already has since they would have been created alongside every other land animal during creation as recorded in Genesis and then expressly seen in Job 40."  Then, addressing the lawyer I stated "It was not until 1841 that this word was used when the word was coined by Sir Richard Owen.  The King James Bible, being made in 1611 predates this word by 230 years, and one of my favorite English translations, the Geneva Bible, which was published in 1560 predates the word dinosaur by 281 years.  Now, may I ask, what word would the writers of this time use to describe what we now know to be dinosaurs?  I would pose that one word would be 'dragon' used more than twenty times in the Old Testament alone, while at other times they may be referred to more precisely by their type, such as the behemoth mentioned in Job."

The main point I saw from this dream is that the lawyer was unable to justly put my faith in question 1)because I steadfastly stood on the Word of God 2)because I was unwilling to show compromise in my faith and 3)because the lawyer, not being a Christian, was unable to move outside of his worldview in order to intelligently question me. 

Now, please don't misunderstand me in this.  I am not trying to boast about my faithfulness, because I am human and I am subject to waiver just as anyone else, but this dream of myself in court is a representation of what God is calling us to do, just as He called the children of Israel to do so many years ago. 

In Joshua 24:22 Joshua sates "You are witnesses against yourselves that you have chosen the Lord for yourselves to serve Him."  Relate that to what I have been describing here.  I feel that he is saying that if you proclaim to be a servant of the Lord Jesus Christ then by that very statement we are testifying against ourselves when we follow our ways and not the ways of the Lord.  Keep in mind though, we no longer live under the Old Covenant but under the new, their has now been made a living sacrifice that is able to wash away all our sins, so that we shall not receive the same fate as the unfaithful Israelites.

As in the time of Judges

When all that generation had been gathered to their fathers, another generation arose after them who did not know the LORD nor the work which He had done for Israel.  Then the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord...  Wherever they went out, the hand of the LORD was against them for calamity, as the Lord had Said, and as the LORD had sworn to them.  And they were greatly distressed. Judges 2:10-15

I see a relation to today's times, where our forefathers wholly trusted in the Lord to defeat the greatest military power in the world at its time and to build a new country, a new government that would one day be able to lay claim to the greatest nation that ever existed, but now we are in a time where we struggle to find a leader who is willing to show such knowledge of and a fellowship with God.  America, and other great nations, seem to be "greatly distressed" in their current military efforts.  However good these efforts may seem to us, the Christian should pause to ask himself "are we doing this because we see it as good, or because we have been led by God?"  I am not anti-war, I simply urge our leaders in government to seek the will of the Almighty God in their decisions, it is only then that we can be confident in our success.

I would apologize for this post, as it is not of the typical style I foresaw for my blog, but I cannot.  I felt convicted to write as I have today, and even in reviewing I see what may be seen as rambling, but throughout the central theme I am led to stress is evident.  Never back down, never compromise the Word of God.