Freeform Friday Week 10

This week a man in Oregon was sentenced to, and has begun serving thirty days in jail for collecting rainwater on his own property. Yes, you read that correctly…thirty days for collecting rainwater.

In and of itself, although disturbing on some freedom loving level, this news doesn’t really affect the general populace. We tend to overlook far graver things, pretending as though they never were, because we don’t like that sinking feeling in the pit of our stomach, or the conscious realization that the nation, and the world has changed around us, and not for the better. We rationalize the heinous, and at best shrug our shoulders and think to ourselves, ‘it’s not my fight…I guess I’ll just stay out of it.’

No, I’m not asking to start a petition on behalf of this man, or write a letter to your congressman, truth be told, most of you will be wholly unaffected by one man’s incarceration. I mention this event however, to put before you a different supposition, a different hypothetical situation, just so you could gauge what is not only possible, but very probable in the near future.

Imagine that you were not accused of something as inoffensive as collecting rainwater, but something far direr, such as being an enemy of progress. Imagine that overnight, what you believe, and what has become the foundation of your existence, will suddenly be outlawed and deemed as offensive to the state. The truly draconian thing in this supposition is that progress is now subjectively defined by those who would do away with the very memory of God, never mind His servants.

Is the wholesale murder of unborn babies progress? Many today would shout a resounding ‘yes’ to that question. Is the forsaking of basic morality progress? Once again, many would say ‘yes.’

Is the fact that rebellion against parents has become common place, teen pregnancies are spiking and out of control, hedonism has reached an all-time high, and the church is looking more like the world every day progress? It all depends on who you ask, but more and more individuals are embracing lawlessness as though it were some new and heretofore unexplored facet of human existence.

What do you think will happen to you, if at some point, some individual or other has the epiphany that if they got rid of all the Bible bangers, all the rigid, unbending moralists, they could finally have the utopia they’ve been dreaming of?

The pattern is evident for those who know what to look for, and I’ve been talking about it for the past few years now. First you marginalize a certain segment or group, then you demonize them, then you criminalize them. In three easy steps you have the scapegoat for every bad thing that is happening, and you can do away with a group of individuals that frankly stick in your craw.

Even though I’ve been in Romania for the past few weeks, I still keep abreast of what is happening in America, and things seem to be escalating quicker than anyone thought possible.

Both the media and governmental agencies seem to be on an all-out campaign of pin the tail on the bigot, and if you happen to disagree, or see a certain practice as immoral, well, then you’re it!

I fear things will only escalate, and what will be allowed to go on in the land of the free and the home of the brave under the guise of the greater good, is as yet, for many, unimaginable.

Matthew 10:21-22, “Now brother will deliver up brother to death, and a father his child; and children ill rise up against parents and cause them to be put to death. And you will be hated by all for My name’s sake. But he who endures to the end will be saved.”

The world will hate you not for what you believe, but for whom you believe in. It is the name of Jesus that stirs ire. It is the name of Jesus that fuels an uncharacteristic rage in certain individuals, because they hate God and anyone who loves Him. You don’t see this kind of vitriol leveled against Buddhists, or Muslims, or Hindus…just the followers of Jesus.

Hopefully by now we are beginning to understand that Jesus was not exaggerating. One of the most dangerous things we can do as believers is take the words of Jesus, and the forewarnings of the Bible concerning the days we are living in, and write them off as embellished, inflated, or exaggerated.

God forewarned His children for a purpose, but if His children will not believe Him at his word because pre-established denominational dogma contradicts the words of God, then when the hammer drops and the lights go out, we have no one to blame for our spiritual unpreparedness but ourselves.

With love in Christ,
Michael Boldea Jr.