Grab Those Irons..
“But the worthless, every one of them will be thrust away like thorns,
Because they cannot be taken in hand..
But the man who touches them
Must be armed with iron and the shaft of a spear,
And they will be completely burned with fire in their place.”
A Presbyterian pastor friend manages to go vague, obvious, and just plain wrong this morning..
“The greatest injustice in the history of the world was being inflicted on the most innocent Man in that history. When armed men came to take Him and a friend pulled his sword to defend his Master, Jesus said, “Put it away!”
The second amendment would have given Peter the right to own and to carry that sword, but its use was to be subject to the will of God.
Is there message here for those who claim to trust Christ but speak of a second American revolution?”
Vague: In juxtaposing the means of self-defense with the worst crime against an innocent man in history, we are being invited here to conclude that because Jesus chose NOT to be defended, well, then, absolutely no one in history should either. After all, if a perfect life deserves no physical defense, why would any of our flawed lives be worth defending? See the 14 year old girl being raped by the Stalinist thug and you have a stick? “Put it away!” See one of Pol Pot’s goons suffocating teachers and you have a gun? “Put it away!” Stumble upon your neighbor next door, beating his wife silly and you have a cell phone to call the police? “Put it away!” After all, bro, Jesus was perfect and He didn’t defend Himself or ask anyone else to.
Obvious: would our use of swords and guns in our own defense be “subject to to the will of God?” Well, duh. Everything is subject to the will of God. We measure all of our actions, and the use of any tool, against His wisdom recorded for us in scripture. My pastor friend appears to think the disciples were half-wits who, upon being told to purchase swords, concluded, “hey, these things are cool; we can stick these into anybody! They’re not even subject to the will of God! Oh, wait. They are??”
Just Plain Wrong: On so many fronts, it’s hard to count. First, the only ones speaking about a “second American revolution” these days are those little goons who run around in black hoods under the #ANTIFA banner, and they have no affection for the Second Amendment whatsoever. Second, are “claiming Christ” and embracing justice at odds? Were those who fought in the first American Revolution, the ones who staked “their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor” wrong when they claimed “no King but Jesus?” When the Romans 13 magistrate uses his sword as an “agent of wrath” against the wicked, is he wrong to “claim Christ?” Third, can we send my pastor friend on a hurricane hunt and watch the ravaged neighborhoods guarded by armed dads? Why, when folks consider the Second Amendment do they run to a uniformly insurrectionist interpretation? Guns are used to keep the civil order, not destroy it. Fourth, are we being starry eyed teenagers when we expect higher theological standards for a Presbyterian minister? Please take notes: Jesus, pastor, was the lamb of God, the perfect and final sacrifice. He was sent to Earth to DIE for our sins. None of the rest of us qualify — and pretending we do is blasphemous.
Borrow some wisdom from scripture, Old and New Testaments: the wicked are thorns, and sometimes you need good iron in your hand to deal with them.
