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From all oppression, conspiracy, and rebellion, from violence, battle and murder….Good Lord, Deliver Us.
Habakkuk 1:2-3 (NIV)
How long, Lord, must I call for help, but you do not listen? Or cry out to you, “Violence!” but you do not save?
Why do you make me look at injustice? Why do you tolerate wrongdoing? Destruction and violence are before me; there is strife, and conflict abounds.
Proverbs 4:16-17 (The Message)
Evil people are restless unless they’re making trouble. They can’t get a good night’s sleep unless they’ve made life miserable for somebody. Perversity is their food and drink, violence their drug of choice.
Isaiah 33:14(b)-16 (The Message)
‘Who among us can survive this firestorm? Who of us can get out of this purge with our lives?’”
The answer’s simple: Live right, speak the truth, despise exploitation, refuse bribes, reject violence, avoid evil amusements.This is how you raise your standard of living! A safe and stable way to live. A nourishing, satisfying way to live.
On January 6, 2021 I was walking and talking on the phone with an old friend about the luckless Tennessee Volunteers, who at the time had fired their coach, gotten in trouble with the NCAA and were generally awful. (They got better.) My friend suddenly stopped mid-sentence and said “ You need to get home and watch T.V., They are storming the Capital ! I gotta go ! Call me later !”
Now it was a fine, warmish day and although I was aware of the big kerfuffle happening about approving the Electoral College results from the 2020 election, I didn’t think it rated over the woes of Tennessee football. However, heeding my friend’s alarm, I walked slowly home thinking of him as being a bit hysterical. I got home, turned on my television and there it was, in full bloom, the monstrous evils of oppression, conspiracy, rebellion, violence, battle and even murder. It was here right here in my country on full display and fury. The poor Vols no longer mattered so much.
I never realized until I began to prepare these devotionals that this litany had been warning us to pray against these terrors for centuries. Moreover, one evil follows another and another until we murder all that is good, even people. These evils stop all discussion for the common good, all hopes of compromise, all good plans to ensure life, liberty and happiness. No good government would have or could have ever come from what we witnessed on January 6, 2021.
Fast forward a few years. The rebels of 1/6/21 have received their pardons, yet there is no change of hearts, minds or attitudes from those days. We have only doubled down on blaming “the other” for the ills our society faces, instead of dealing with the rebellion in our own hearts and its consequences or finding common ground to find some goodness, kindness and mercy.
So how do we deal with these divisions, these hatreds and evil, as a people and as individuals ? How do we go forward ? First, pray. Then pray some more. First for deliverance; please God, stop this type of madness in our homes, our hometowns and in our States and Nation. Next pray for all the actors, that everyone involved from villains to victims – and however you define them – would come to a saving knowledge and relationship with Jesus. Finally, if you can get to that point, not pointing fingers but holding up hands to God, then deal with the rebellion in your own heart and mind. Repent of the conspiracies that you engage in to overthrow Jesus as King of your soul and your heart. Remember that Sin, in all its forms, is Rebellion against God.
Once we deal with our own rebellions, and our rebellious hearts, our divided consciences, our moral duplicities, our conspiracies of sin, our own oppressive spirits, then maybe then we can speak peace into a rebellious world.
