How much will it cost in America to be a faithful Christian? Consider the case of Dr. Eric Walsh a renowned public health expert who also serves as a lay minister. It is is his preaching from the pulpit that has led to the troubles he now faces. Back in 2014 he was invited to deliver the commencement address at Pasadena City College in California. But the homosexuals fiercely opposed him. They examined his sermons and accused him of being anti-homosexual.
Video of the Sermon
He was forced to back out of that commencement address, but with the power of the homosexual lobby against him, he was forced to resign his post as the city’s public health director. Then he was hired by the State of Georgia Department of Public Health. But as his attorney reports, “The reality is that it wasn’t anything [Walsh] did at work. It wasn’t anything he said at work. He was fired because the State of Georgia told four or more of their employees to spend hours, literally hours of time, digging through sermons line by line and finding stuff that they didn’t agree with – and then they fired him.” The sermons he delivered related what the Bible said on the issues of health, marriage, sexuality, world religions, science and creationism. He also preached on what the Bible says about homosexuality… First Liberty has accused the government agency of religious discrimination and retaliation…. The powerful Georgia homosexual lobby got their way.
They said, “Dr. Walsh’s public displays of anti-gay propaganda and religious rhetoric will become symbols of the department and will further isolate an already vulnerable population. We believe this hire is detrimental to the wellbeing of our community, as well as to the effectiveness of the Department to conduct meaningful outreach to LGBT Georgians,” executive director Ellis told the publication.[1] So there you have it, religious freedom supposedly secured by our First Amendment is trampled in the mud by a group of sexual anarchist who demand Christians be persecuted and the government complies by persecuting Christians all in the name of a tolerance that will not tolerate the truth of the Bible and a so called diversity that is actually a monolithic doctrinaire demand that everyone comply with its single vision of sexual anarchy.
The stark choice is becoming pointedly clear in our day, to follow the Lord Jesus Christ in a land that is controlled and dominated by homosexuals will mean being persecuted for that choice. Those who name the name of Jesus Christ must make a sober evaluation of the situation in our day. To boldly proclaim the whole counsel of God, to clearly tell the good news of the Gospel means that we must tell sinners that they are sinners. That abortion is murder, that all sexual sins are violations of God’s law and that sodomy, God the creator declares an abomination. That sins of theft, lying and coveting consign one to hell. That blasphemy, idolatry, and religious pluralism are not freedoms defended by the Founding Documents of our land – they are wicked sins which God will punish severely. That no one has the “right” to do anything which Creator of all things declares to be wrong.
Making this choice to be a true follower of Jesus Christ is becoming increasingly dangerous in America. How should we respond? Should we retreat? Should we cower? God’s Word tells us how we are to respond. In Exodus 23 the passage before us, is the answer to how we are to respond to the threats against us as followers of Christ.
How we are to think about the situation that confronts us that is parallel in significant ways to what the Israelites faced in crossing the desert to enter the Promised Land. They would be confronted with fierce pagan hostility to their faith in the One True God, they faced serious threats to their life, liberty and property from those same pagans who worshipped worthless idols. And it is no different in our day.
It was very easy for Israel to cower in fear, to desire to retreat, even to go back to slavery in Egypt, to shrink from the fight against paganism God had called them to. And by the way, that is exactly the problem here in America today, wimpy Christians unwilling to fight the good fight of faith against the pagan idolatries of our day.
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