Top of the Week: When God Couldn’t Find Enough Bold Pastors, He Called the Truckers, Part 2
Editor’s Note: This is Part 2 of a two-part article. For Part 1, click here. To read a previous story by Pastor Jim Garlow on the Canadian truckers singing Martin Luther’s most famous hymn, click here.
In Part 1 of this article, I contended that while there are some faithful and bold pastors, there are simply not enough. I am fully aware of the aphorisms “God can work with one” or “One with God is a majority,” but the reality is that the social movements God has most often blessed happen when “critical mass”—not always easy to define—is reached.
If there were enough “biblical applicationalists” (understanding what the Word says on all public policy issues), and pastors who are governmentally astute (recognizing that God created government), sophisticated and articulate (winsomely preaching the Word on God’s view of governmental issues) in the United States, we would not be in the condition we are. If Canada had enough courageous pastors, God would not have needed to spark this movement with truck drivers.
As Russia continues an unprovoked invasion into the sovereign nation of Ukraine, political warnings abound.
Ukraine Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba told the United Nations on Wednesday an outright war with Russia would be the “end of the world order.” Others are pondering what Russian President Vladamir Putin’s obstinate and dangerous acts mean for the future of international affairs more broadly.
Amid all this dismay, though, is a lingering theological conversation that has unfolded for decades around the biblical end times and Russia’s theoretical involvement in it.
Few understand that the wars of the 21st century have been economic wars, media wars, ideological wars and ultimately proxy wars—virtual and invisible. By the time the war is won or lost, democracies respond and are, in essence, irrelevant.
Russian President Vladmir Putin has fought an economic war and he’s won. The price of oil has skyrocketed thanks to Putin. He is making hundreds of billions of dollars of profit off of this Ukrainian crisis. Whatever sanctions are put on Putin will be minor compared to the profits he’s making and will continue to make if he presses Ukraine harder.
Putin has also won an ideological war. He has become perceived as the most powerful leader on the planet at this present moment. He has control of virtually all the media and the governments of the world as they submit in an attempt to appease him.
Last Friday evening, Judge Steven Merryday issued a stinging rebuke to the military for violating the federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act by denying the Religious Accommodation Requests of service members. I will share what happened and what comes next for religious freedom for our heroic service members.
Merryday issued a powerful order protecting the first two of our clients, Lt. Col. Mary* and Commander Charles,* both of whom were about to be disciplined by their respective military branches after their religious accommodation requests were denied.
We previously won a temporary injunction protecting these two distinguished service members. On Friday, Merryday extended the injunction for the duration of the case. He will soon rule on our remaining 29 plaintiffs and the entire class of service members.
California Pastor Samuel Rodriguez warned this past Sunday against the “atmosphere of deconstructionism, anarchy, chaos, and relativism” that has gripped the present age, urging ministers to speak truth from their pulpits.
People today “live in a world where influencers, politicians, sports figures, government officials truly believe—driven by the real culprit, the enemy of light—that they have the power to wake up in the morning and make radical changes,” said Rodriguez, pastor of New Season Church in Sacramento.
“Very powerful forces believe … that they have the power and authority to change whatever they want, even the truths, definitions, institutions and realities ordained, anointed and established by God almighty,” he added. {eoa}
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