End Times – Page 18 – Growing 4 Life

The Win (and what to do until then)

Leave a Comment / May 7, 2015 May 7, 2015

Isn’t it interesting how schools cycle through their glory years? One year the guys’ basketball team or girls’ soccer team is undefeated and there is enthusiastic school spirit supporting them. And then a season or two later all the glory has ended. Key players or a coach moves on and the dynamics change and suddenly they aren’t the team on top anymore.

The same dynamic plagues most professional sports teams, as well. I am a Philadelphia Phillies fan–no matter if they win or lose. But right now it is bad. Let’s just say that we aren’t watching a lot of baseball this year. It’s just not near as much fun as when they were really doing well and headed to the World Series.

And we are left with one conclusion–

Winning is glorious and losing is not.

A lot of the stories of King David are tales of victory over enemies. Just yesterday, we read of how the Ammonites asked the Syrians to fight with them and after being soundly defeated, we read that the Syrians were afraid “to save the Ammonites anymore” (2 Samuel 10:19). I guess I would have been, too. David had a reputation of being victorious. But King David doesn’t win every battle. We will soon read of his battle with lust that he loses in a big way (2 Samuel 11). And let’s not forget that just a few years earlier he was fighting for his life as he was chased down by Saul. He eventually became King, but it certainly wasn’t without grief and struggle.

This is what makes life so hard. We win some and we lose some. But some battles are so much more important than others. And what are we to do when we feel like we are losing such critical battles? The battles for–

Our country

Our churches

Our freedom

The hearts of our kids

Our marriages

We are losing some of these battles pretty soundly right now. Have you read the news lately?

But we know that we win the war. That is worth repeating: We are going to win this war between good and evil.

We can’t lose sight of this. No, God does not promise us that our kids will be saved or that our spouse will stick around. He doesn’t promise that our churches will preach sound doctrine or that our country will return to its Christian roots. But what we do know– without a shadow of a doubt– is that God will reign victorious in the end. Every knee will bow to the King and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord (Isaiah 45:23; Philippians 2:10-11).

When we consider this very important truth, we naturally come to the conclusion that the only thing that really matters is whether or not those around us are going to confess Jesus Christ as Lord before it’s too late.

So often, we worry so much about the outward stuff that indicates serious problems– the bad grades, the drug and alcohol abuse, the debt and materialism, the false doctrines, the laws, the liberalism. And we try to fix things. We try to fix our kids and spouses. We try to fix our churches and our government.

But is anything truly fixed without a changed heart? A child can change behavior without ever changing his heart. A government can make laws that are more compatible with our beliefs, but will that really solve our country’s problem?

I don’t think so. Because the reason we are having such deep, heart-breaking issues– both in our families and beyond– is that people believe in a lie. They have chosen to reject the Word of God and they believe the lies of the world. They believe these lies of the devil–

–That their purpose and fulfillment is what matters (which leads to self-centered, self-absorbed individuals only out for themselves)

–That their kids’ happiness reigns supreme (which leads to spoiled brats who think the world revolves around them and want the world but are not willing to work for it)

–They believe unity is more important than biblical integrity and that loves trumps holiness (which leads to a shallow, fake religion pretending to be Christianity)

–They believe that the Bible is just partly true. That it has errors. They believe that God just got the ball rolling and then put the creation of the world into the hands of some kind of evolutionary process (placing doubt on The Bible removes the foundation for true Christianity)

–They believe that you get to heaven for doing good things. That they simply need the good to outweigh the bad (this is a insidious and very old lie — that your righteous works will win your salvation)

–They believe that God would never want them to be unhappy (this leads our faith to become me-centered rather than centered on the almighty God of the universe)

–They believe that man is basically good and that sins are simply diseases and disorders (the sinfulness of man is a key component of true Christianity and cannot be overlooked without forfeiting biblical salvation completely)

–They believe that their happiness will be found here on this earth (but Jesus said “blessed are you when you are persecuted, for your reward will be in heaven”. See Matthew 5:11-12)

I challenge you to talk to someone that calls him or herself a “Christian” but doesn’t live like it. Somewhere in their thinking is a lie (or two or three) that they are believing.

It is impossible to fight the battle for someone’s soul if they are believing lies. We have to start at the beginning. And that beginning is the Word of God. For that is where we find the truth. This means that we need to know it and study it and understand it ourselves.

And so while we wait for The Win, let’s fight the battle for the truth–God’s Truth. Let’s fight for the hearts of our kids, for our marriages and families. Let’s fight for it in our churches and in our country. Do it sweetly and kindly and gently. But let’s never, ever forget that we are in a war.

And never forget– we win!

The Happiness Agenda

8 Comments / April 30, 2015 April 30, 2015

I read someone’s comment on a blog post promoting gay marriage the other day. It was the typical “God is loving and love is the only thing that matters” type of thing that we are so used to hearing these days.

I can’t help but wonder if the person who made this comment ever read the Old Testament? Or the New Testament, for that matter! Ever hear of Ananias and Sapphira?? (Acts 5:1-11)

All through the Bible men reap serious consequences for their evil choices. God’s love never trumps His justice. Never. This is so clear throughout all of scripture.

And, if we are a believer reading the Word of God, even though we don’t always understand the harshness of God’s judgment or the seriousness of what we would call “minor” sins, we do get the cause and effect kind of logic. Most of us understand the need for punishment when there is blatant and intentional sin involved.

But today’s Bible Challenge reading (2 Samuel 6) holds a rather disturbing story.

This is the story of Uzzah–the poor guy who reached his hand out to steady the Ark of the Covenant and was killed immediately on the spot for touching it.

This just doesn’t seem fair, does it? The guy was just trying to help. He didn’t mean any harm.

We can go to Numbers 5:15 for help in understanding this:

And when Aaron and his sons have finished covering the sanctuary and all the furnishings of the sanctuary, as the camp sets out, after that the sons of Kohath shall come to carry these, but they must not touch the holy things, lest they die. These are the things of the tent of meeting that the sons of Kohath are to carry.

So perhaps Uzzah wasn’t ignorant, after all? God had warned them that touching the holy things could mean death.

And so it did in the case of Uzzah.

Perhaps, when it comes right down to it, there is no unintentional sin. We like to view our sinfulness as mistakes and diseases, but God has provided each one of us with a conscience that lets us know that we are sinning against Him (Romans 1:19-20) and we are held accountable to Him for this sin.

This is not the God that most people want to hear about today. This does not appeal to the commenter I mentioned above or to most anyone else–even those who call themselves Christians.

There is a massive war waging right now. It is the war of who is on the throne– God or man? This war is being fought on the battle fields of our minds, in class rooms, on church boards, and in court rooms across this land. People are in sinful rebellion against a God who would make them accountable.

This, in essence, is what keeps us from God.

And, so this battle is being fought fiercely and it would appear to us that God is losing.

But here’s what we need to remember–even though the snowball of the worldly system is picking up mass and speed at an alarming rate — you and I know who really wins. We know the ending. And we know the risk of disobeying God on such a massive scale.

No matter what laws are changed, what brainwashing is done in our schools, or how many news broadcasters and sitcoms promote the happiness agenda (happiness is the only thing that God cares about) we know that, in the end, it just won’t matter what man thinks or believes.

It will only matter what God says. This is the only thing that has ever mattered, matters now, or will matter in the future. And we believe that God has told us all we need to know in the Holy Scriptures– the Bible we hold in our hands and treat so casually.

But in the meantime, life is going to get very hard for us true believers.

Are you ready for this? We are going to be known as bigots, haters, evil, intolerant, and wicked. Some of us will have ruined reputations, be “set up” to take a fall, treated like we are in some kind of weird cult, and marginalized. We will be hated and we will be mocked. This will even take place in some of our churches, as the happiness agenda takes over there, too.

If you are reading through the Bible with me, I wonder if you, like me, are gaining much greater insight into the flaws of the happiness agenda? Are you, too, understanding that God just doesn’t care all that much about our happiness? He cares much more about our holiness.

Studying God’s Word makes all the difference in how we view God. For when we read stories like Uzzah and Ananias and Sapphira, we start understanding that God will not tolerate any sin–even unintentional sin (if there is even such a thing).

This is the whole reason Jesus died on the cross. He paid for our sins. Only when we understand our wretched sinfulness and rebellion can we understand the incredible grace and mercy of God in providing a way for us to be reconciled to Him.

So let’s keep reading and studying our Bibles. Let’s keep standing firmly on the Word of God. I am quite sure that we are going to need this anchor in the upcoming days more than we have ever needed it before.

Wednesday Wisdom: Unwelcome Changes

Leave a Comment / April 22, 2015 April 22, 2015

I haven’t done a Wednesday Wisdom post in a very long time. And I don’t plan on picking it up regularly again, at least not for awhile. But, I heard this today and I just had to share it. It is so profound and describes our current Christian culture so well, that I had to revive Wednesday Wisdom, if just for this week!

This was shared in John MacArthur’s sermon Why We Believe the Bible is True. (By the way, this is the same sermon which I linked to in April’s Bible Challenge Newsletter.) He quotes J.I. Packer from his introduction for Puritan Theology. I hope that you will take the time to read this whole thing. It is so insightful and helps us to understand just exactly what is wrong with this modern day Christianity we find ourselves in.

J.I. Packer (as quoted by MacArthur) says this–

He said this. “It does not seem possible to deny that the Puritans were the strongest just where evangelical Christians today are the weakest. Here were men of outstanding intellectual power in whom the mental habits fostered by sober scholarship were linked with a flaming zeal for God and a minute acquaintance with the human heart. All their work reveals this unique fusion of gifts and graces. Where the Puritans called for order, discipline, depth and thoroughness, our temper is one of casual, haphazardness and restless impatience. “We crave for stunts, novelties and entertainments. We lost our taste for solid study, humble self-examination, disciplines, meditation and unspectacular hard work in our study.

“Again, where Puritanism had God and His glory as its unifying center, our thinking revolves around ourselves as if we were the hub of the universe.” And so he writes, “In evangelizing we preach the gospel without the Law and faith without repentance, stressing the gift of salvation and glossing over the cost of discipleship. No wonder so many professed conversions fall away. “And then,” he writes, “in teaching on the Christian life, our habit is to depict it as a path of thrilling feelings rather than of working faith and of supernatural interruptions, rather than of rational righteousness.

“And in dealing with the Christian experience, we dwell constantly on joy, peace, happiness, satisfaction and rest with no balancing reference to the divine discontent of Romans 7, the fight of faith in Psalm 73, or any of the burdens of responsibility and providential chastenings that fall to the lot of the child of God. The spontaneous jollity of the carefree extrovert comes to be equated with healthy Christian living, and jolly extroverts in our churches are encouraged to become complacent in carnality while saintly souls of less sanguine temperament are driven almost crazy because they cannot bubble over in the prescribed manner.” End quote.

“Why Do You Post So Much About God?”

18 Comments / April 13, 2015 April 13, 2015

I had the strangest dream the other night. For some reason, I was holding a high school class reunion at my house. The organizers of this reunion had brought everything along and didn’t need anything from me except for my back yard. I was happy for them to use it.

But, as the afternoon wore on, I realized that not one of them liked me at all. They were frustrated because I wasn’t allowing alcohol at the picnic and they were even more disgusted when I put on Christian music. So much so, that they all got in their cars and left.

But in the midst of that afternoon, one classmate had come up to me who was a believer and shared with me that her husband had been reading my blog and it was making him think.

The End.

I don’t normally remember my dreams when I wake up. But this one stuck with me, for some reason. I think it’s because I hated the feeling of being unliked that I had in that dream. I tried to talk with people and they just ignored me. They wouldn’t even let me be in the class photo!

Now, on behalf of my classmates, they have never treated me so unkindly nor would they. I have no idea from what hidden depths of my mind this dream came from. But the highlight of that dream {nightmare} was that I had made a difference. Being disliked was a small price to pay if this blog was making one person think about eternity.

While, in the real world, people are generally not so cruel as to ban me from a photo, I do know that I have been blocked and hidden and even unfriended on Facebook because I am constantly posting things that few people want to read. I have had people unsubscribe from this blog because they don’t like what what I wrote. Seriously. I do know this. I am not naive.

I know that people think I am over-the-top, or strange, or perhaps even a little titched. And sometimes– every now and again– I am really tempted to just stop posting about God and His Word. I grow weary of writing the stuff that most people don’t want to hear. I’d rather write the sentimental stuff that is so appealing to the masses. Or how about a fun home blog where I get to post recipes and home decorating ideas? Can’t I just focus on that, Lord, and try to weave Your Truth in there occasionally?

And He has consistently made it clear that His answer to that question is NO.

So why do I do it? Why do I post so much about God?

I thought it might be time to fill you in. Just so you know. Because, honestly, I don’t like being unpopular and annoying. I don’t want to be the person that makes your eyes roll when you see my posts on Facebook. Actually, I hate it. I want people to like me. I want to be popular and sought after as a speaker and writer. But then I remember…

If I really believe God’s Word in its inerrant entirety then I have to recognize a couple of things–

1. When we become genuine believers, then God’s glory becomes more important than my glory. Knowing God will become a greater treasure to us than the praise of men or worldly riches. Notice I use the word “become” because I think this is a battle that most of us fight against almost every day. It is certainly not an overnight process where suddenly we don’t care about riches and our reputation. But we know it this is a battle we can’t afford to lose when we read the words of Jesus in Matthew 16:24-25–

Then Jesus said to His disciples, “If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me. For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it. For what profit is it to a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul?

2. The way is narrow, which means the majority of people in this world are going to go to hell when they die. This is what the Bible teaches. If someone tells you that it isn’t, then they have not studied the Bible very much.

I don’t like this any more than you do. Seriously. It is not one of my favorite things about Christianity. In fact, it is cause for great mourning and occasionally a lot of questions, if I think too hard. But there it is, in black and white, in Matthew 7:13-14–

Enter by the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it. Because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it.

If this is true, then most people are not going to have any desire at all to hear the gospel. Paul puts it like this–

For we are to God the fragrance of Christ among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing. To the one we are the aroma of death leading to death, and to the other the aroma of life leading to life. And who is sufficient for these things? (2 Corinthians 2:15-16)

So when I keep this in mind it helps me to understand that, while some people are going to love thinking and reading about God’s plan for man to be reconciled to Him and what our life looks like after we are, so many others are going to be annoyed and desire to ignore it completely. It makes sense, in light of scripture.

3. The time is short. Every day we can see more pieces to the puzzle of the end times coming together in an amazing and unbelievable design. It’s fascinating and frightening all at the same time. But what it adds up to is that — whether through the rapture or coming persecution on believers– I just have to believe that the time to share our faith freely is going to end rather soon.

These three things compel me to use blogging and Social Media as a tool to share the Truth with as many people as possible!

It reminds me of this analogy my dad uses–

If I see you standing on the train track with a train headed towards you at full speed, my love for you as a fellow human being compels me to shout out a warning or perhaps even push you off of the track. I could never live with myself if I didn’t do something.

And so it is with the gospel and the Truth of God’s Word. My love for you and your eternal destiny compels me to get the word out. I don’t know why the Lord has laid it on my heart to use Facebook. While I think perhaps a few more of us should use social media to post about the things of God rather than constantly bringing attention to ourselves and our accomplishments, I am certainly not suggesting that there is anything wrong if you choose not to post about God. That is between you and God. Every Christian is given opportunities to witness and to evangelize, and most of those opportunities are not through social media– so there is no condemnation coming from me if you aren’t using social media to spread the gospel.

But now perhaps you can understand why I do what I do. I do want to be liked. I really do. But if me being liked means someone not hearing the message of the gospel, then I choose to be unliked. I choose to be talked about and ostracized if it means even one of you comes to saving knowledge of Jesus Christ. I choose to be unpopular if it means that you are challenged and convicted to grow in your walk with God.

Seriously.

So now you know.

The Problem with Predictions

Leave a Comment / March 2, 2015 March 2, 2019

It was 2:30am when my husband got home last night. Snow does that to his schedule. The problem with yesterday is that this one wasn’t really predicted. At least not in the way it turned out.

The predictions started out by calling for 1-3″ and then turning to rain with rising temps. A couple of hours later it was supposed to be less than 1″ before changing over. What ended up happening was over 3″ followed by some freezing rain and sleet with temperatures that never did really rise above the freezing mark.

That changes everything for a snow removal guy.

The night before this snow event, my husband was scanning through all of the weather forecasts — on tv, online, and using apps on his iPhone, trying to discern which one was correct. He usually goes with the one that is most popular. After all, if three or four weather forecasters are saying the same thing, they must be right, right?

Wrong.

Because no one really knows.

I often have to laugh about weather forecasts. Doesn’t it sometimes seem as if God is showing us how really out of control we still are? We are busy building our modern day technological Tower of Babel and He keeps knocking it down. We will never reach Him–at least not in that way.

But eventually, if you watch a lot of weather forecasts, you realize that they really are only educated guesses about what a certain weather pattern is going to do.

Because no one really knows.

The same could be said of what happens after we die. Where do we go?

There are a lot of theories about this. Some more popular than others. The most popular — at least here in the states is that we all go to heaven. That is, by far, the most pleasant option, isn’t it?

But the problem with predictions is that–

No one really knows.

And there’s another, much bigger, problem–

Truth is rarely found in the majority.

So how do we know what’s coming? What should we base it on?

As you probably already know, I base my answers on a Book. God’s Book. Sure, I don’t always like everything I read there. I would love to believe in a world where heaven is the final resting place for everyone and love is all that matters. But if that’s not the Truth, then it doesn’t really matter what I believe, does it?

Just because I believe it doesn’t make it true. I have to confess that this view on truth is really one of the strangest phenomenons in today’s world. Well, if you believe it, then it’s true for you. No, it isn’t! Just because you believe 2+2=5 doesn’t make it true. (Sometimes when I listen to people talk about truth I almost feel like I’ve landed in a parallel universe. This surely can’t be the same world I grew up in? It has changed that much.)

Truth isn’t subjective. It never has been and it never will be. What is true is true and what is false is false. You can be surrounded by a whole world telling you it doesn’t matter what you believe, but the fact remains that it absolutely does matter what you believe.

So why the Bible? How do I know that the Bible is true?

I could give you a lot of reasons (and will list a few articles after this post to get you thinking) but at the end of the day, I have chosen to believe that the Bible is God’s Word. Period. And, oh, how it has been confirmed for me in a myriad of ways– from how I see the end times scene coming together to how I’ve seen Him work in my life and in lives around me. It all makes so much sense.

From this, I base my whole belief system with confidence. It doesn’t really matter what other people think or believe, because I am standing on the Word of God. People can ridicule and mock me, but I cling to the Bible. I am standing on a foundation that will not move. As that old, beloved, hymn says–

How firm a foundation, ye saints of the Lord,
Is laid for your faith in His excellent Word!
What more can He say than to you He hath said,
You, who unto Jesus for refuge have fled?

In the end, it really just doesn’t matter what you believe or what I believe, does it? It doesn’t matter what has been predicted or what the majority says. The only thing left will be the Truth.

And that changes everything for all of us.

Here are some helpful and reliable resources–

How Do We Know that the Bible Is True?

How Do You Prove the Bible is True?

What evidence is there that the Bible is in fact God’s Word?

Can You Prove the Bible is True?

What must I do to be saved?

Divisions Are Not Always Bad

2 Comments / February 23, 2015 February 24, 2015

As believers, we have seen great effort in these recent years to unite all religions that use the name of Jesus. We are told that if we do not agree with this, we are divisive and that we are committing perhaps the worst sin of all. Of course, it doesn’t seem to matter if the religion is based off the Bible alone or not, as long as they use the name of Jesus. This has been a struggle these past twenty years or so as we listen to popular pastors encourage us to partner with faiths that aren’t truly Christian.

In fact, the other day I even heard Rick Warren recommend we partner with Muslims, since we serve the same God. His mouth spoke those words. On the radio. Really?! And, yet, many people still look to this man as a godly leader. Let me state first that we, unequivocally, do not serve the same God as the Islam faith. Just because they serve one God and so do we, does not mean it is the same one.

So why this push for unity? Personally, I believe it is a puzzle piece that fits right into the end times scenario. The future power of the Antichrist will come much more easily with a global, one-world religion and we are seeing this take place right before our very eyes quite literally. Fifty or a hundred years ago, believers couldn’t have ever imagined joining with all different religions while ignoring major differences. And, yet, here we are today, being encouraged to join with other religions that don’t even use the Bible as the foundation of their faith. I wrote a post a little while ago about how easy it is for us to discern if a religion is true or false, so If you are wondering about that, you can find that post here.

Paul tells us in in 2 Corinthians 6:14–

Do not be unequally yoked together with unbelievers. For what fellowship has righteousness with lawlessness? And what communion has light with darkness?

This seems to make it pretty clear. But, if that isn’t enough convincing for you, I am including this by A.W. Tozer. How discerning he was way back when and how appropriate this is for us today–

Divisions Are Not Always Bad, A.W. Tozer

{italics are mine for emphasis. His insight is truly amazing!}

When to unite and when to divide, that is the question, and a right answer requires the wisdom of a Solomon.

Some settle the problem by rule of thumb: All union is good and all division bad. It’s that easy. But obviously this effortless way of dealing with the matter ignores the lessons of history and overlooks some of the deep spiritual laws by which men live.

If good men were all for union and bad men for division, or vice versa, that would simplify things for us. Or if it could be shown that God always unites and the devil always divides it would be easy to find our way around in this confused and confusing world. But that is not how things are.

To divide what should be divided and unite what should be united is the part of wisdom. Union of dissimilar elements is never good even where it is possible, nor is the arbitrary division of elements that are alike; and this is as certainly true of things moral and religious as of things political or scientific.

The first divider was God who at the creation divided the light from the darkness. This division set the direction for all God’s dealings in nature and in grace. Light and darkness are incompatible; to try to have both in the same place at once is to try the impossible and end by having neither the one nor the other, but dimness rather, and obscurity.

In the world of men there are at present scarcely any sharp outlines. The race is fallen. Sin has brought confusion. The wheat grows with the tares, the sheep and the goats coexist, the farms of the just and the unjust lie side by side in the landscape, the mission is next door to the saloon.

But things will not always be so. The hour is coming when the sheep will be divided from the goats and the tares separated from the wheat. God will again divide the light from the darkness and all things will run to their kind. Tares will go into the fire with tares and wheat into the garner with wheat. The dimness will lift like a fog and all outlines will appear. Hell will be seen to be hell all the way through, and heaven revealed as the one home of all who bear the nature of the one God.

For that time we with patience wait. In the meanwhile for each of us, and for the church wherever she appears in human society, the constantly recurring question must be: What shall we unite with and from what shall we separate? The question of coexistence does not enter here, but the question of union and fellowship does. The wheat grows in the same field with the tares, but shall the two cross-pollinate? The sheep graze near the goats, but shall they seek to interbreed? The unjust and the just enjoy the same rain and sunshine, but shall they forget their deep moral differences and intermarry?

To these questions the popular answer is yes. Union for union’s sake, and men shall brothers be for a’ that. Unity is so devoutly to be desired that no price is too high to pay for it and nothing is important enough to keep us apart. Truth is slain to provide a feast to celebrate the marriage of heaven and hell, and all to support a concept of unity which has no basis in the Word of God.

The Spirit-illuminated church will have none of this. In a fallen world like ours unity is no treasure to be purchased at the price of compromise. Loyalty to God, faithfulness to truth and the preservation of a good conscience are jewels more precious than gold of Ophir or diamonds from the mine. For these jewels men have suffered the loss of property, imprisonment and even death; for them, even in recent times, behind the various curtains, followers of Christ have paid the last full measure of devotion and quietly died, unknown to and unsung by the great world, but known to God and dear to His Father heart. In the day that shall declare the secrets of all souls these shall come forth to receive the deeds done in the body. Surely such as these are wiser philosophers than the religious camp followers of meaningless unity who have not the courage to stand against current vogues and who bleat for brotherhood only because it happens to be for the time popular.

“Divide and conquer” is the cynical slogan of Machiavellian political leaders, but Satan knows also how to unite and conquer. To bring a nation to its knees the aspiring dictator must unite it. By repeated appeals to national pride or to the need to avenge some past or present wrong the demagogue succeeds in uniting the populace behind him. It is easy after that to take control of the military and to beat the legislature into submission. Then follows almost perfect unity indeed, but it is the unity of the stockyards and the concentration camp. We have seen this happen several times in this century, and the world will see it at least once more when the nations of the earth are united under Antichrist.

When confused sheep start over a cliff the individual sheep can save himself only by separating from the flock. Perfect unity at such a time can only mean total destruction for all. The wise sheep to save his own hide disaffiliates.

Power lies in the union of things similar and the division of things dissimilar. Maybe what we need in religious circles today is not more union but some wise and courageous division. Everyone desires peace but it could be that revival will follow the sword.