A Message to a Rebelious House

Unless someone else does, this is what I will say to the Bloomington City Council two weeks from tonight when they meet to vote on the disbursement of the Jack Hopkins Social Service Funds:

I was here last June during this same meeting. I sat paralyzed with fear at the thought of speaking. I thank God that He has preserved us to this day, that I may speak, and you may hear, that your soul may live!

You, councilmen, are in a high and lofty position and have weighty, as well as trivial, decisions in your hands. People look to you for wisdom; and this is a great burden, that I hope you regard with trembling. I know that you are concerned with pleasing those who have put you in this position. I hope that you are also concerned with justice and doing what is right.

I am not going to claim to think like the majority. I will not deny that I am part of what many would call the "fringe." The Bible calls us the "remnant."

Therefore, I will not try to convince you to make decisions that will make political friends; I will not give you advice that will make you successful in the public arena; and I will not encourage you to seek the good pleasure of the majority. In fact I have a drastically different message for you.

I would, rather, call you to righteousness, and justice. I call you to examine your hands, and see that they are stained with blood, and repent! I call you to recognize that the God who created heaven and earth and everything in it, also created you, and brought you here to hear these words, that you would turn from the evil that the world would call good. I will tell you that it is He who has put you in this position, and not you, yourself, and that to do right is not to do right in your own eyes, or the eyes of the public, or in the eyes of your fellow councilmen; but in the eyes of God Himself. I urge you: "Let justice roll on like a river, righteousness like a never-failing stream!" (Amos 5:24)

God holds judgment in store for those who rebel against Him, wrath for those who revel in their wickedness, and terror for those who disregard the plight of the helpless and show no mercy. However, we know from His profit, Ezekiel, that He does not delight in the death of the wicked, but rather He calls them to turn to Him to learn righteousness. He has provided His own salvation in His Son, Jesus Christ. Nowhere else will you find the Words of Life, but from Him. We have all together drank of the deceptive waters of our own selfish hearts, our society, our world. You, too, have been deceived; and have deceived yourselves. Why would your persist in your own way, and die?

 And now hear the Word of the One True God from His prophet, Amos:
Seek good, not evil,
       that you may live.
       Then the LORD God Almighty will be with you,
       just as you say he is.
Hate evil, love good;
       maintain justice in the courts.
       Perhaps the LORD God Almighty will have mercy
       on the remnant of Joseph.

Come now, Bloomington, let us reason together. Won't you take refuge in the Lord Jesus Christ with me? He is your only hope.

I welcome your comments.