The Luxury of Principles

 (Note: I, along with several dozen others, were recently put on a leave of absence from our mutual employer over vaccine mandates. We banded together and created a substack newsletter called 'Unvaccinated Employee of the Month'. This was originally posted there, and is addressed to that audience.)

Early on in the movie 'The Patriot', Mel Gibson's character Benjamin Martin is called to a conference of prominent citizens in order to address the deteriorating situation with the  British Crown. Martin casts a dissenting vote and when his reputation as a man of principle is challenged he says "I'm a parent. I don't have the luxury of principles."

  It's an interesting and layered statement. It has more than one application in the film as well as more than one application in our current situation. Let me explain.  

  When this whole unpleasantness rolled out there were people who understood the situation for what it was.  They didn't like it, they didn't agree with it, they even saw it as tyranny, but various powers presented to them a seemingly impossible choice--the vax or the bread line. These people looked their families in the face and got the shot.  I know some of you are reading this, and let me say--I get it more than you know. I still consider you our allies in all this. You exercised the principle of taking a sacrificial risk for the well-being of others. It is , on one level, the same stance Martin took, understanding that his push-back might endanger his family. Frankly, it's a weighty thing to ask others to suffer for the consequences of your principles.  You have nothing to be ashamed of, and I would appreciate it if you stand with us going forward.

  Of course the movie doesn't end there. It turns out that Benjamin Martin is a profoundly dangerous man; the sort of fellow who will do anything to be left alone, do anything not to have to fight you,but if it comes it comes. He spends the rest of the movie reigning sorrow on those who would not leave him and his alone.  I think those of us outside the gate looking in fit nicely into this aspect of Benjamin Martin’s sentiment.

  I sat in my room the other night figuring out bills and looking at the rapidly depleting income. I still don’t have that figured out,by the way. I asked my wife if she was certain I was doing the right thing.  At that moment it didn't seem particularly hopeful, but then I remembered we are some profoundly dangerous people.

  Listen, tyrants.We wore your silly masks, we observed your silly rules. We got our temperature taken every morning. We answered those silly questions. All we wanted to do was work, to feed our families, to be left alone.  And yet here we are.

 What has happened to us is not only wrong, it is, in my opinion, illegal, and when we win it will not just be a victory for us; it will be a victory for our allies who threw themselves on the vax grenade for their families.  When we win, nobody will dare try to make you get a booster, nobody will dare require your family to be vaccinated. We will 'peacefully and patriotically' make them turn tail and run. We will make it painful enough and embarrassing enough and career-ending enough that they never dare try this again. When we win, they will leave us alone.  All of us.

See, as it turns out, I'm a parent . I don't have the luxury of no principles.

Assembling Together: A Guest blog

 (Note:This treatise was penned by my longtime friend, mentor and honest-to-goodness hero Gerald Sutek, who, for the last several years has been laboring in the Philippines and as of late has been holding church in the midst of martial law-like conditions)

 This thesis will not win me any new friends and God knows I do not need any more enemies but I feel I am old enough to insert my comments on a bad, very bad habit developing within the body of Christ.

Heb 10:19  Having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus, 

Heb 10:20  By a new and living way, which he hath consecrated for us, through the veil, that is to say, his flesh; 

Heb 10:21  And having an high priest over the house of God; 

Heb 10:22  Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed with pure water. 

Heb 10:23  Let us hold fast the profession of our faith without wavering; (for he is faithful that promised;) 

Heb 10:24  And let us consider one another to provoke unto love and to good works: 

Heb 10:25  Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is; but exhorting one another: and so much the more, as ye see the day approaching. 

 

Yes, Hebrews 10:25 is STILL in the Bible and dispensationalizing the book of Hebrews out of the church age won’t convince the Holy Spirit.  The context alone speaks to the last days New Testament Christian and verse 25 is probably the most neglected and disobeyed verse in the New Testament.  It is also interesting that the verse has a very profound prophecy concerning 2021 or the year we live in and even future from that.

 We hear more and more from comfort-loving Christians that this verse “doesn’t have to mean actually bring-your-body-to-a-church-building”.   Well, you need to read it carefully again and remember the Bible says of Itself.

 Pro_30:5  Every word of God is pure: he is a shield unto them that put their trust in him.

Luk_4:4  And Jesus answered him, saying, It is written, That man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word of God.

 My life has spanned from pencil and paper and landline phone all the way unto manual typewriter, word processor, voice mail, email, cell phone, facebook, zoom and Youtube.  Yes, I am that old.  When I was little I sat in front of the seven inch TV and stared at the test pattern until the first program of the day came on at 4PM.  Howdy Doody did not know how to spell anything beyond innocent, childish, fun. 

 The only “religion” on TV in that era was Bishop Fulton Sheen who was never worth any time.  What I am trying to say (beyond revealing my age) is that what a Bible believing Christian should know to be CHURCH cannot remotely be replaced by a zoom/Youtube TV program.

 

My family got up early on Sunday morning and put on our finest duds.  My dad had the car clean and mechanically ready lest we miss Sunday school.  We carried an actual paper version of God’s Word to class and communed with similar aged warm bodies and listened to a prepared teacher teaching from a paper version Bible.  We gathered again in an auditorium with the main body of the church.  We found a seat closest to the front next to other smiling/hand-shaking brothers and sisters who loved God and His Word enough to rise early on their day-off in order to fellowship (remember that word) with other beings who were created in the image of God.  We also experienced the full affect of the presence of God among His great congregation and sensed the genuine tug of the Holy Spirit wooing us to the altar to settle a certain matter with our Maker and Saviour.  We enjoyed our individual classes but we also had the familial union of the whole family sitting in church together and submitting ourselves one to another under the fire and brimstone laced spit of the man of God in the pulpit.  We could not just push a button and try another ecumenical entertainer to see which one we liked better.

 Can you imagine the testimony of a young child in our web-world describing sleeping in until five minutes after the TV service began and then jumping in mom and dad’s bed in our jams while mom serves dad his coffee and us hot chocolate.  Dad looks at TV guide to find the zoom service of First Convenient Baptist Church.  We all zoom in together and plump our pillows for ultimate comfort to be entertained by the latest and best-to-offer pop choir song titled Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus…..Oh, yes Jesus…Amen.  The sermon is homiletically perfect and is so powerful that dad white-knuckles his coffee mug while little sister snores in her plumped pillow. 

 

 

 I fully understand the convenience of today’s internet church and I would truly appreciate this spiritual crutch if I were in a hospital bed locked in by some dreaded disease of discomfort.  But the Laodicean Christian had turned this crutch into a skateboard to speed past Heb. 10:25.   I also understand the opportunity of minstering on this media into an area where there truly is no “good church”. But I have also heard about Christians who take a promotion in their career that requires a relocation.  They jump to the money and position but when asked if there might be a “good church” nearby,  they plump their pillow and lean back comfortably on “We can always find something on Youtube”.  This violates “Seek ye first the Kingdom of God”.  Thank God for every pastor who has the availability to minister to his flock during Covid 19.  But any Bible believer ought to know that Hebrews 10:25 certainly transcends any temporary prohibition given by local authority.

   When the good Lord inspired Paul to write Hebrews 10:25 He clearly had your best spiritual interest in heart.  Unless you twist your mind to accept the perverted version of Heb. 10:25 found in Zoom-channel-11,  there really is a universe of difference between the  bodily attendance in a local NT  Baptist church and  Zoom-Web-TV-Pajama-Baptist. There can be little thought and less prayer put into grabbing  your phone and punching in your offering rather than to put cash or check in the plate as it passes by.  The call into service by the Holy Spirit, although not necessarily destroyed by the internet is certainly softened and surely easier ignored.  Even the invitation to be saved or get right with God loses much altar-tug-power through the long distance of radio signals.  It’s just not the same and you know it.

   Then add the prophetic aspect of Hebrews 10:25 and how the Lord so perfectly foresaw the electronic era of our day. and so much the more, as ye see the day approaching.   How the devil, by a multiple-thousands of ways could insert himself and, indeed minster to his audience.   God designed the ministry of the local church so He might draw and deal with His bride in a very personal way.  Through the air waves the prince of the powers of the air can now salve the consciences of the guilty and clothe the preacher’s message in a garb much prettier than the rough garments of Bible preachers. 

   Judge me “old fashioned” and I confess to that.  But, don’t be lulled into slumber on the subject of Hebrews 10:25.  Read it again and realize that God said what He meant and meant what He said.