Apr | 04 | A Day Of Silence

Dream Word – FEAR

Amos 5:20-27 At God's coming we face hard reality, not fantasy — a black cloud with no silver lining. "I can't stand your religious meetings. I'm fed up with your conferences and conventions. I want nothing to do with your religion projects, your pretentious slogans and goals. I'm sick of your fund-raising schemes, your public relations and image making. I've had all I can take of your noisy ego-music. When was the last time you sang to me? Do you know what I want? I want justice — oceans of it. I want fairness — rivers of it.T hat's what I want. That's all I want. "Didn't you, dear family of Israel, worship me faithfully for forty years in the wilderness, bringing the sacrifices and offerings I commanded? How is it you've stooped to dragging gimcrack statues of your so-called rulers around, hauling the cheap images of all your star-gods here and there? Since you like them so much, you can take them with you when I drive you into exile beyond Damascus." God's Message, God-of-the-Angel-Armies. (from THE MESSAGE: The Bible in Contemporary Language © 2002 by Eugene H. Peterson. All rights reserved.).

A Day Of Silence

I have been to Atlanta’s Ebenezer Baptist Church and to the King Center located nearby. Here homage is made to the man and to the actions of one of America’s best known citizens, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. who was assassinated in Memphis, today in 1968. King, a man with feet of clay, was never the less, a brave man, a man of great passion and a man of great courage, probably doing more for the destruction of atrocious racial laws and advancing the cause of Civil Rights than anyone else in America either before or since. I speak of course, merely as a little white man from Derbyshire.

It is of no surprise that the King’s Center lists Racism as one of the Triple Evils of vicious and cyclical violence. Interestingly though, underneath the general heading of Racism they list ‘Homophobia’ along with other actions, similar they say to racism, as a subset of one of the Triple Evils, so much so, that if the explanatory paragraph for racism has the word homophobia ‘understood’ into it, it just might read as follows, "Homophobia is a philosophy based on a contempt for life. It is the arrogant assertion that male and female are the centers of value and object of devotion, before which Gays and Lesbians, Bi-and Transexual persons, must kneel in submission. It is the absurd dogma that male and female gender practices and roles, are responsible for all the progress of history and alone can assure the progress of the future. Homophobia is total estrangement. It separates not only bodies, but minds and spirits. Inevitably it descends to inflicting spiritual and physical homicide upon the out-group."

Later this month, school children will be encouraged to engage in a day of silence in schools to highlight bullying and harassment against these so called alternative lifestyles. Hundreds of thousands are expected to participate and the number is growing. In the last four weeks, where I have first seen a woman, having previously undergone gender reassignment surgery yet electing to keep her reproductive organs, now, despite looking like a spotty, ugly, hairy-chinned geezer, pose naked, being full and fat with pregnancy and secondly seen a glove puppet being investigated by the Northamptonshire Police Hate crimes unit for a remark that ‘gypsies sold heather and clothes pegs,’ I can only say that the time is shortly coming when you shall visit me in prison! (By the way, my wife has gypsy blood running through her beautiful veins and when I was kid, gypsies did come to our door selling heather and clothes pegs, which my mother always bought, because she was frightened of being cursed by them! A different world maybe but factual never the less).

Darkness is very clever, in that to survive, no, even to proliferate itself, it will hitch its wagon to any good thing and then chameleon like, will try and cloth itself with goodness, affability and acceptability. God might be mocked in this respect but He is not deceived and though we humans even go contrary to nature and all creation, which in itself always forces that separation between night and day, darkness and light, sinfulness and holiness, God himself will step in soon to sort out these crimes against nature. Yes, what we see is contrary to nature and the universe itself will eventually eject it from its bowels, never mind the soon and coming intervention from a very angry God. Meanwhile, encouraged by the misleading mass media and marching folk touched at some point with all the madness of these abominations, the percentage of people practicing these sins increases every year. The big question for praying and loving Christians is this, how should we then live among them, with them? For them?

Firstly may I say that we need to note that in the Bible, light never accommodates the darkness. It is always separate from it. So then Christian, separate yourselves from such darkness.

Secondly, we must remember that we have been delivered from such darkness and indeed, many of us are still in that daily process of deliverance. Yes, such were some of us, but we have been washed and we have been made clean, no longer to live in these sinful ways. So don’t judge yourselves better! But rather forgiven, washed and delivered. So then Christian, separate yourselves from such darkness.

Lastly, I must tell you to prepare yourselves, for darkness is an active force which will always seek to extinguish the light. It does this, because it cannot stand to be seen for what it truly is. Evil. Evil never comes to the light but always tries to extinguish it. If you want to test the truth of this statement, then let your true light shine before these folks and see what happens. Never the less, our response to these things is in the truth trident of Proclamation, Separation and Reclamation. We must proclaim the truth of the Scriptures. We must then be a people of separation, as we cannot afford to be found to be associated with such sins that are bringing calamity upon our nations. We must however at all costs, through the power of the Gospel and repentance and faith in Jesus Christ, offer the Divine possibility of both redemption and reclamation from these most pernicious evils. I tell you now though, not many people want such redemption.

Darkness will always seek the silence of such Proclamation, Separation and Reclamation. Yes, darkness will always seek to choke the light, even if it is with a bullet through the throat.

Listen: - The earth was without form, and void; and darkness was on the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. Then God said,"Let there be light"; and there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good; and God divided the light from the darkness. God called the light Day, and the darkness He called Night. So the evening and the morning were the first day. Genesis 1:2-5 NKJV.

Pray:- Lord, as the earth once again moves towards a formless, dark and swirling void, once more O Lord, cry ‘Let their be light!” Then O Lord, may the darkness flee away and Your glory, Your grace and Your truth be clearly seen. In Jesus name we pray, amen.