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Faith or Presumption?

Faith or Presumption?
Taking God at His word
​I have lost count of the number of times my wife or I were involved in a discourse, online or otherwise, wherein someone chimed in with the objection that preparing for social disorder, economic collapse, disaster, famine or disease in the absence of establishment medical care, is a lack of faith.
​The objection usually runs along the lines of, “I’ll trust God to meet my needs when the grocery stores are empty,” or “what if Jesus comes for us early and all that stuff put away just goes to waste.”
​Obviously, these people don’t understand true faith or the parable about the ten virgins.
​Abraham was accounted righteous by God because he believed God and acted on what God told him. He took God at His word. We see here that Abraham’s faith was legitimate because he took present action in response to revelations of the future state; his future state.
​Abraham’s actions were not presumptions based on his general perception of God’s character. He did not say to himself, “God would not let this happen to me” or “God would certainly do this for me.” Abraham considered that God made statements and promises in reference to Abraham’s future and therefore, Abraham took action based on these promises.
​In the parable about the ten virgins, Jesus attributes foolishness to the virgins who were unprepared for the potential of the bridegroom’s delay. Their foolishness was based in presumption and a lack of preparedness.
​Jesus tells us in several places that these last days, this time of the “beginning of sorrows” would be marked by earthquakes (natural disasters), wars, famines and pestilence. Ought we not to take him seriously? Should we deliberately be foolish like the 5 virgins, unprepared for the possibility of the bridegroom’s delay?
​Many of these people make the case that we should use the current resources we are pouring into preparing for these events for ministries. My question is then: do you have cable? Or, do you watch TV? Do you waste the most finite resource we have staring at the TV programming that is designed to dumb you down, degrade your moral character or reinforce your normalcy bias? So my storing food to feed my own family and others in a crisis is waste but you paying $60 to $100 a month to bring soft-porn, moral relativism and illuminati programming to your children’s minds and hearts is not? Are you in debt? …paying full coverage on that big ride? …eating junk food? …fat and sloppy and burning that body God gave you like a torch? Can you really claim that you are pouring all the resources you could otherwise put into your future survival, into ministries? The truth is that this is a red herring and hypocrisy.
​The truth has more to do with cowardice, laziness, normalcy bias, discomfort, presumption and many other things that prevent positive action.
​The truth is that these people are making excuses for cowardice and indolence. They mask their unwillingness to pry themselves from their comfort zones with softheaded rationalizations. They replace faith in action, based on what our Lord has said, with vague expressions of self-righteous piety that are really a cover for presumption, laziness and an unwillingness to challenge their routines.
We will not act on His warnings they say. We will fold our hands and pray with lofty, pious looks of condescension and wisdom instead. We will preach that all things work for the good of those that love God. We will express our love for God with fluffy thoughts of angels, butterflies, rainbows and cotton.
​Would it not be better to believe what God has said? This smells of, “to obey is better than sacrifice.” Does it not?
​Would it not be better to prepare for the disasters, war, famine and disease Jesus told you are coming?
​I am sorry, but real faith is down here where the rubber meets the road, the shovel meets the dirt, the hands are bloodied from work, the sweat breaks out on the brow and the steel meets steel. Faith is down here in the mud where we push to act on what the Lord has said. Action does not save your soul, but it may save your life and the lives of others. The hard truth is that faith that doesn’t lead to action won’t save your soul either.
​If you are one of these people, will you justify yourself when your loved ones are hungry? Will you declare the efficacy of your position when someone close to you is being raped by raiders? (Yes it’s true. When societies collapse good Christian women and sometimes men get raped). Will you feel superior when you are dying of preventable disease and leaving those for whom you care to the mercy of the storm? Will you attempt to convince those that were wise, to burden themselves and their families with your needs because you choose presumption and to be a spiritual sluggard?
​All these things could befall any of us regardless of what preparations we make. However, if these things befall those who prepared, it will not be because they didn’t try or didn’t act on what the Lord told them.
​I promise you that when you are suffering from your foolishness, more than hunger will gnaw at you. When you consider what you could have done if you had taken the Lord’s word seriously, you will gnash your teeth in regret. Then you will die, and face the Lord whom you did not take seriously. At that point, your empty platitudes about faith will not comfort you.
​Or perhaps you are among those that can’t believe that these things could ever befall God’s people and that we will be swept away to the marriage supper of the Lamb before our comfortable lifestyles are ever disturbed.
​Aside from the fact that the Lord says that after these things we will be persecuted for His namesake, this expectation has never held for our brethren in Africa, Asia or the Middle East and is therefore, not worthy of discussion. This position is wholly centric to the stupefied, blind, miserable, wretched and naked church of the western world. …and judgment begins at the house of God.
​We suffer what the world suffers, because though we are not of it, we are still in it.
​Prepare for what the Lord has said is coming. A basic guideline for preparation consists of beans, bullets, bullion and water. Be wise and hear what the Lord has said. He said God’s people will need endurance. Plan to endure. Do not presume that God will exempt you from the reality of what He has told you will occur.
​There is an opportunity here for the followers of Christ to shine brightly one last time and bring glory to God in that we were the ones who planned for the sorrows and, therefore, comforted many and led them to the Lord.
​My prayer is that the Lord will make me wise and strong to protect those whom he brings to me. I pray that in those times He will enable me to protect the weak, innocent and unwary from the forces that would prey upon them: if only for a while.
​We will be overcome. The Lord has forewarned us. That does not mean, however, that we should not make a stand that brings glory to our God and the Lord that bought us. May you be prepared to make a stand that is worthy of our Lord who is a loving savior and a fearsome warrior.
​Having done all you can to stand; STAND therefore.
G. Keith Diepstra

Feb 6, 2013

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