Preliminary To Armageddon - 2nd Timothy 4:3-4

For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths. - 2nd Timothy 4:3-4

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” - Opening Lines of the Declaration of Independence

    No where in the Declaration of Independence does it even mention or allude to the unalienable RIGHT to abortion, homosexual acts, or euthanasia. The word “Life”  itself, precludes even the notion of murder, whether it be of the innocent unborn or the aged of our nation. And the vile crassness of any kind of sex outside the bonds of holy matrimony as Biblically defined, one man and one woman, represents a death of its own sordid variety. Certainly, according to the Declaration, God Almighty never endowed anyone with any such “rights!” The very idea that a holy God would present mankind with such a depraved set of individual “options” is obscene in itself. These sinful notions are indeed the stuff that un-Godly myths are made of.
    As Christians we are daily faced with repugnant ideas, “laws,” and positions that we simply cannot agree with or kowtow to. And while it is true that our enemy, Satan, the Accuser, is a spirit of darkness, he often uses his minions in the physical world to wreak havoc upon our sensibilities and our lives. Just as our Heavenly Father used human agents to do His bidding throughout Holy Scripture it is not beyond the scope of consideration to believe that He still does so. Ask any Bible-believing Christian; no, ask anyone who has even the slightest knowledge of Scripture to name a person in the Bible. Abraham, Noah, Moses, David, Esther, Mary, Joseph will be among those noted and the list goes on of the “human agents” that God has used to achieve His holy will. Are we to assume that God no longer uses human agents in the 21st Century? Even in our recent past we know that prayer alone did not, could not, stop the Nazi Holocaust. Human agents had to be employed and empowered by God almighty to end the horrendous slaughter of the European Jewish communities. There are thousands of nameless martyrs who can no longer spread the Gospel . . . because they are dead! And while I am not suggesting that there is new revelation from God, could the authority to physically defend life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness (within the Scriptural definition) already exist in the Bible along side of our spiritual weapons of warfare? After all, was it not Jesus Christ Himself, who on the eve of His crucifixion commanded His disciples, “ . . .“But now, he who has a money bag, let him take it, and likewise a knapsack; and he who has no sword let him, sell his garment and buy one.” - Luke 22:36. Liberal Christian theology would love to redact this verse from Luke because a Christ-centered command to self-defense flies in the face of their “easy going, all love and mercy Jesus.”
From the beginning God has demanded physical justice in response to physical evil. “Whoever sheds man’s blood, by man his blood shall be shed; for in the image of God He made man.” - Genesis 9:6. We are called to “provide” for our own, our households, and our faith or be considered “worse” than unbelievers. Doesn’t providing for our own include the act of physically defending them in the face of violence? “But if anyone does not provide for his own, and especially for those of his household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.” - 1 Timothy 5:8. Didn’t David declare, “Blessed be the Lord my Rock, Who trains my hands for war, and my fingers for battle-” - Psalm 144:1. Even the wisdom of the Proverbs indicates that “A righteous man who falters before the wicked is like a murky spring and a polluted well.” Proverbs 25:26.
The time is no longer coming . . . the time is here! We simply cannot continue to ignore or refuse to train ourselves to protect our faith, our families, our nation, and our lives any longer. The writing IS on the wall - “Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour.” - 1 Peter 5:8.
May we all wake up before the impending persecutions that will indeed become common place if we refuse to be engaged physically as well as spiritually and may the hand of God guide us in our defense of the faith.