My husband and I were discussing the world events recently and we got onto the subject of so many people being so easily offended. ” I don’t know, ” he said, “but they must all have some kind of neck injury that prevents them from just looking the other way on some of these things.”
I laughed. “Moses and God both called the people of the Old Testament a stiff-necked people many times. Maybe we have the same problem now,” I said.
We both agreed that some things are too important to look the other way and do or say nothing about….especially when it comes to attempts to remove God and His word from our schools and society. It seems that Christians have maybe looked the other way too many times and society, as a whole, has gone way beyond any sensible bounds of being tolerant and permissive.
As Americans, when we see our flag being walked on, people being forced to take it down and our veterans being mistreated, it is time to take action. Our flag should be protected and allowed to fly anywhere within the United States. Anyone who serves or has served in our military in any honorable capacity should be treated with the utmost respect. They deserve our support as do their families who have all sacrificed so much to protect the freedoms we still have.
Next, we come to the problem of our police being made to look like the bad guys in so many instances, due to the actions of a few who made bad choices or failed to perform their duty properly. Every profession has some who fail to follow the rules or act inappropriately…. and most are fired, or at least disciplined. With the help of Facebook and other social media a lot of these situations are ridiculously enhanced and made to appear worse than actually was the case. For every story of a bad cop we could probably find ten stories of a good one. It’s time to accentuate the positive and attempt to eliminate the negative.
Recently, in Oklahoma, a monument containing the Ten Commandments was removed from the Capitol grounds because some found it offensive or felt it violated the rules of separation of church and state. This happened right here in our city a few years ago and the Commandments were removed from the grounds outside the courts building. It’s pretty sad when basic human laws, that we all should live by anyway, are removed from buildings where lawyers and judges work to dispense justice.
One of our local high schools have been threatened with a law suit unless they agree to remove a live Nativity scene from their annual Christmas program. So far the school administrator is standing firm in his decision not to remove the scene and uphold the tradition of keeping Christ in Christmas.
Just today one school decided to cancel Halloween because some find the holiday offensive. There has always been some who prefer not to celebrate Halloween and no one forced them to participate….as no one is being forced to now. Some are offended by those who serve pork and those who choose to speak their native language, be it Spanish or whatever. Most of us can always find something to be offended by…. or if it is something petty or of little significance, to look the other way about.
Most of the ones causing all the fuss and being offended are the ones who are not even citizens of our country or those who feel they have been oppressed and put-upon for way too long. The ones insisting that religious monuments and anything to do with God be removed are those who don’t even believe that our God exists. These people are not members of any majority by any means. It has become a matter of a few discontented people, who have been given the privilege of living here, trying to push their views and beliefs onto the American people whose ways and basic beliefs were determined centuries ago. So who can most correctly be called a stiff-necked people?
The dictionary defines stiff-necked with one word….stubborn…. refusing to yield or comply. God called the people Moses was leading ” stiff-necked” because they refused to comply to His way of leading them. They balked at every instruction God gave to Moses and insisted on doing things their way….the reason they had to wonder in the wilderness for forty years.
As Americans and Christians today I think we must remain stubborn in our efforts to stand up for our beliefs and what is right. Many times in His Word God tells believers not to turn to the left or to the right in our walk with Him. Too much progress has been made and too much is at stake for us to give in to those few who want to see our country destroyed and God removed from society. We must remain stiff-necked in our faith and pray fervently for our country and for each other, that God might continue to bless America and His people.
