Thursday, May 30, 2013

The silence tapers off

God says to Isaiah: "For a long time I kept silent; I did not answer my people. But now the time to act has come; I cry out like a woman in labor. ... I will lead my blind people by roads they have never traveled. I will turn their darkness into light and make rough country smooth before them. These are my promises, and I will keep them without fail."

I think, in this wonderful prophecy, the key phrase is "I will lead my blind people by roads they have never travelled."

Oh, are not the paths we're traveling so new to us?

About an hour and a half west of us, in Beaumont, Texas, a Southeast Texas school district is appealing a court ruling that allowed high school cheerleaders to display banners that featured Bible verses at football games.

State district judge Steve Thomas ruled the banners were allowed under the U.S. Constitution. But the school district's lawyer, tom Brandt, said the cheerleaders' legal advocates were reading into the court's decision rights that weren't there, or shouldn't be.

One of the banners used to spread between the goal posts so that football players could run through the paper featured the words, "Let us run with endurance the race God has sat before us."

Well, there you go. The world must be coming to an end, huh?

This fight won't stop, friends. It will pick up the pace each year until God is forcefully removed from the public square. That's simply true. We are going to be waging spiritual battle until we surrender.

How one views these battles will be governed by how one views freedom in this regard. Well-meaning folks on both sides of this will continue to squabble and fight until, well, until the battle is decided. I suspect that one day any quoting of scripture will be outlawed in these types of situations.

I read this week that in Kentucky, a one-sentence prayer at a graduation caused another of these fusses. ACLU folks came running from the hills to join the fight. How dare a senior in high school thank The Lord for making it through his studies?

For a long time we've all sat silently. Now is the time to act, to speak, to pray loudly. Now is the time to be led by a God who will not be silenced. Now is the time to seek out the one who loves us most. Now ... is ... the .... time.

Isn't it?

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