The Obamacare vote is looming, with the outcome anything but certain. If I were to bet, which I don’t, I would bet on passage. In fact, one of the betting prediction markets, intrade.com, has the chance of passage at 80/20 in favor.
There is great angst in our land over this thinly-veiled attempt to steal 1/6th of our economy and place it under government control. I am in that group. Also, it is clear the government would pay for the abortion business which is evil upon evil.
I’m not going ito details of the bill, except to say it’s effect will be worse than anyone can imagine.
I would like to focus on the great cloud of witnesses who have gone before us and what they faced, because, even if this monstrosity passes, we will still be able to speak our mind, assemble freely, worship, educate our children and generally be salt and light to an increasingly hostile and evil world.
Other saints faced much worse.
Paul was repeatedly jailed and beaten for speaking out. Peter was crucified upside-down. Athenasius, instrumental in defending the deity of Christ and writing the apostle’s creed, was hunted, exiled several times and tried in kangaroo courts. Martin Luther’s life was threatened. He hid for more than a year to avoid capture. William Tyndale, who translated most of the Bible from the original Greek and Hebrew, had to leave England and live in exile in France, until betrayed by a close friend. He was jailed for about 2 years before being burned at the stake. The executioners had mercy and killed him before the fire started. John Bunyan, author of the Pilgrim’s Progress, one of the most read books in the world, was jailed for many years because he would not bow to the king’s religious puppets. David Brainerd, contemporary of Jonathan Edwards, brought the gospel to many Indian groups in New England. His commitment as a very young man and his zeal for the Lord was cut short by tuberculosis contracted from his travels. Adoniram Judson, missionary to Burma, lost three wives and many children to the diseases of the country, and then, he lost his life on a boat in the Indian ocean, no friends, no relatives, trying to make it to the US for help with his illness.
Today, speaking for Christ can mean the death sentence in Muslim lands. Christians across the globe who speak the name of Christ are persecuted, jailed, kidnapped and killed.
Yet we in the US, have every opportunity to speak his name and face little persecution.
So, before we give up hope and wail with despair, we need to take inventory of the blessings from our Sovereign God and bring glory to His name.
MDWrites 