THE CHURCH: Between Two Opinions

45 Days of Praying for the Elections - DAY 22

The question from Elijah to the people of God is upon us, even to this day and time we are living between the conflict of two opinions. The fact that God has in His sovereignty and in the orchestration of His predestination has put us here for such a time as this. The decisions we make about what we are to do for God and where we are to stand for God, ultimately is determined by where He is in terms of priority and authority in our lives. God has always had a righteous witness of the truth in the midst of the heathen, unbelieving world to proclaim that He is the true God. Israel and those who believed in the Old Testament and us who have believed on the Christ in the New Testament are in the world for that very purpose. Our account for devotional meditation is written and preserved for us that we through the comfort and patience of the scriptures might have hope and encouragement in our faithful obedience to the true and living God (Romans 15:4).

When God saved us through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, He did not save us to live in the middle between life and death, light and darkness, good and evil, but His people were to live unto Him in obedience to His Word. Always to live in the light or always to be moving in that direction (I John 1:5). In this world we are often faced with the trials and testing that require that we make the right decisions and choose God’s ways in the face of those who oppose His authority. In a time when Israel was under the rule of King Ahab and his notorious Queen Jezebel, who by force and murder forced Israel to embrace Baal and Ashtaroth worship. God’s prophet Eijah was called to remind God’s people that they were not to live in the middle of indecision, idleness or fear of any authority that opposed God’s. He asked them the question that is a good question for so many of God’s professing people today. How long will you waver?  Dr. Warren Wiersbe describes the people’s condition as an attitude or spiritual state of “limping” between two opinions trying to serve both Jehovah and Baal. It is this place of wavering that resulted in a silence from God’s people. Our silence is becoming more and more deafening because it gives the unbelieving world the false idea that God, approves of ungodliness, and He has no answers through the people that He has chosen to speak for Him, stand for Him as the salt of the earth, to which we have been called.

The people and Elijah faced what we face today. Two opinions, God’s alone or the demonic, humanistic, atheistic lies that seek to intimidate, silence, and control any opposition or destroy life as it should be for us under God’s authority. Not only the misuse of governmental authority to enforce a corrupt authority that opposes God’s authority, but Ahab and Jezebel enlisted their own prophets who opposed what God’s true servants were saying. There is a fine line between a society’s political ideology and its religious and superstitious beliefs that are used to give an appearance of righteous and true. So, people use the phrase, MY TRUTH, and YOUR TRUTH, which means if it seems right to us, then that makes it right, good, truth when it is embraced by the majority despite what God has said. If God is the true God, whom you say you believe, how do you believe and conform to the spirit of Jezebel? A spirit that hates God, rejects and twists His Word, hates His children, and murdered His prophets cannot be the choice of God’s people. This fear that has paralyzed the faith of God’s people to be silent and submissive is the same impact that we see in the New Testament Book of Revelation 2:20. Jesus rebuked the Elders because, “you allowed it”, in other words, they submitted to this spirit in a similar manner that undermined the authority of God in the church of Thyatira.

Silence is another form of compromise and unfaithfulness as this same spirit, which comes from Satan and demonic hordes on many levels in our government and society, is still hating Jews and it is allowed and promoted by the political party in power now. It is this same political party that promotes legislation for the death of babies, not through Baal worship as was in Elijah’s day, but through making it lawful upon request through the government’s authority. This is the same party that denounces God’s authority in the designation of two genders only. It simply rejects God’s authority and seeks to impose upon us a kaleidoscope of gender designations that threaten and undermine the continuity of the family, and the model of Biblical fatherhood and motherhood.

Both political parties are made up of sinners, but they are not to be a substitute for the church, the true body of believers in our responsibility to make the voice of God heard in matters while we are here on earth. There is a difference in serving the interest and wellbeing of the society we live in as opposed to legislatively taking power to transform where we live to a society that diametrically opposes the Word of God. We cannot be silent, nonchalant, uninvolved because it involves our vote to preserve our homes and the future generations that come through our loins into this world. This present age is our time to uphold the chain of a righteous witness for our God. When Joshua said, “But if serving the LORD seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve…as for me and my house we will serve the LORD” (Joshua 24:15). The testimony and witness you make for the Lord’s Word as our source of authority is not just for you, but for the witness of your household now and for generations to come while we wait faithfully upon the return of our Lord Jesus Christ. Let us agree today with Dr. Tony Evans, “There is no such thing as neutrality when it comes to the true God and His demand for the exclusivity of His worship and authority from His people.” I further agree that it was then as well as now, shocking that the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob couldn’t even affirm that the Lord was the one true God.

What about you? Will you remain silent while the ideology that that seeks to make ungodliness the law of this nation wage war against the Word of God and His people?

Prayer: Father, I know sinners cannot defeat You, but help us to see what our part is as those You have called to be Your faithful witnesses to Your ways. Teach us to see Your ways in these perilous days we are living with a vision for the future of our children’s children to the third and fourth generation for Your glory. In Jesus Name, amen.
By Pastor Wayne Cockrell