Chuck Baldwin, Christian writer and thinker
extraordinaire, is always a treat to read. But his two most recent columns, I found to be especially illuminating.
First there is this one from last week: "They Prefer Caviar, Even If It Comes With Chains", in which Baldwin articulates why too many Americans... including far too many American Christians... have given up the risks of liberty for the comfort of security and in doing so have ended up as slaves. To amplify the point he uses a story from the Book of Acts...
There is an Old Testament story that parallels with what is going on in America today. The story is found in Numbers chapter 11. God had delivered His people from great bondage. They witnessed His mighty hand of power and deliverance in defeating their oppressors and leading them toward a land of promise and liberty. He even dropped “angels’ food” (called manna) from Heaven to sustain them. But after being delivered from bondage, they began to yearn for a return to Egypt. In verse 5 of that chapter, the people are recorded as complaining, “We remember the fish, which we did eat in Egypt freely; the cucumbers, and the melons, and the leeks, and the onions, and the garlick.” (KJV)Can you believe it? After hundreds of years of floggings, imprisonments, beatings, chains, and slavery, they remember FISH? I don’t know if caviar was considered a delicacy back in those days. If it wasn’t, I suppose it’s possible that slaves ate fish eggs also. But can you believe it? After being delivered from the worst possible slavery, all they remembered was the fish? Holy Creepers, Batman!
Now, to understand what’s going on here, we have to read verse 4, “And the mixt multitude that was among them fell a lusting: and the children of Israel also.”
I have heard countless sermons on this passage, and in all honesty I cannot remember one that identified what they were lusting after. Lust here means “to covet greatly.” So, what were they coveting? Was it food? Was it the fish, cucumbers, melons, leeks, onions, and garlic? No! What they coveted, what they lusted after, was SECURITY!
In the wilderness, there was risk, uncertainty, and potential failure. They had to depend totally on divine Providence. They could not see what the morrow would hold. There were no guarantees, no entitlements, and no assurances. And even though God had delivered them with great power, sustained them daily with manna, and promised them a land of freedom of their very own, they lusted after security. To them, security was more important than liberty.
If this story does not parallel with what is happening in America right now, nothing does! God delivered the American people out of great bondage. He proved His power and might on our behalf. He gave us a land of liberty of our very own. And now all Americans seem to be able to think about are the fish, cucumbers, melons, leeks, onions, and garlic of bondage. They lust for, and greatly covet, SECURITY.
It seems that there is no usurpation of liberty so egregious that the American people, both churched and un-churched, will not gladly accept, as long as it is presented to them as a way to make them feel more secure. In truth, so many Americans–especially so many of those who call themselves Christians–are practicing idolaters. They are worshipping at the altar of safety and security. Big Government politicians and bureaucrats are the priests, the Department of Homeland Security is the temple, and the taxes, fees, and assessments are the tithes and offerings. Hallelujah!
There is much more that Baldwin writes, and
It's all well worth the time to read it.
And this week, Baldwin is asking "How Did Christians Become Warmongers?"
And I realize that right now the vast majority of evangelicals eat, breathe, and sleep only one mantra: “Get rid of Obama!” They would vote for anybody to beat Obama. Well, anybody except Ron Paul, that is. Evangelicals might hate Ron Paul more than they do Barack Obama. And after Mitt Romney is elected on November 6, these same “Christians” will go into a state of extended hibernation, ignoring every unconstitutional big-government decision that Romney makes. Not only that, buckle your seat belts boys and girls, because Romney is going to expand America’s foreign wars (and the emerging police state at home) like nobody’s business. And when he does, guess what? Evangelicals will be the ones who clap and cheer the most.Let me ask my Christian brethren some questions: does God give governmental leaders a pass on obeying His moral laws? If God will hold you and me accountable to His command to not murder, for example, will He not hold our civil magistrates accountable to His command to not murder? Or do you really believe that murder is justified on the word of a king? If so, had you been alive in Hitler’s Germany, you would have supported his atrocities, too, right? And is that whom you think occupies 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue: a king? Is murder justified simply because a magistrate orders it? And if that’s true, is it then justified that government forces pillage, plunder, and rape? If not, why not? After all, if it’s lawful for men to murder on the command of a magistrate, why can they not pillage, plunder, and rape? What’s the difference?
Accordingly, I personally believe that evangelicals owe Bill Clinton an apology. They excoriated him when it came to light that he had committed adultery. They then turned around and supported G.W. Bush’s unconstitutional, unprovoked, preemptive wars of aggression, which resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of innocents. Pray tell, if a President is exempt from the moral law against shedding innocent blood (Genesis 9:6; Proverbs 6:17) why should he not be exempt from the moral law against adultery?
Believe it or not, a local pastor here in the Flathead Valley of Montana recently preached a message to his congregation on Romans 13 with the typical erroneous “obey-the-government-no-matter-what” claptrap. When a member of his congregation later asked him personally to explain himself, he told the parishioner, “If government agents or troops came to my house and laid my wife on the kitchen table and raped her, Romans 13 tells me I cannot resist.” That’s what he said, folks. I’m not making it up.
Ouch! That's gonna leave a mark!
Read the rest of this most fine article here.
