Many are they who want to cancel our beliefs and shut down our freedom to worship. How far are you willing to go if those in authority issue cease and desist orders in holding to and practicing our faith?
Suppose that you died in the next few moments and suddenly found yourself standing before the Lord. Suppose that He asked you this question: Why should I let you into My heaven? What would be your reply? How would you answer?
In Genesis 14 Abram is called the Hebrew. This term gives reference to someone from the opposite side or from beyond. It contains the idea of being semi-nomadic, a non-citizen and even that of being a warrior and/or rebel. As believers we do not belong to this world but our citizenship, as Paul wrote, is in heaven. Abram and Lot demonstrate the differences between believers, one who identifies himself as belonging to this world and one who belongs to the world beyond.
The synagogue leaders at Pisidian Antioch not only rejected the gospel, they also repudiated the gospel. How did Paul handle that repudiation? How would you handle it? Further, these same leaders attacked the gospel with round after round of blasphemy. What does that mean, and is blasphemy a serious sin in the 21st century? Finally, what made the Jews so special that Paul felt it necessary to speak to them first? Weren’t the non-Jews just as important?
For longer than 500 years the Jews had raised an impenetrable barrier between themselves and their northern neighbors, the Samaritans. They despised each other, did not speak to each other and had nothing to do with each other. Jesus, however, did not hold such hostilities in His heart. He loved and embraced the Samaritans. He even included the Samaritans in His last will and testament laid down in verse 8 of Acts 1: Don’t forget the Samaritans! When forced by tribulation to preach the gospel to the Samaritans, the walls of separation came crashing down. There were neither protests nor riots and no vigilantes from SLM (Samaritan Lives Matter) to make it happen. Perhaps America could use the model set forth in Acts 8. Perhaps we all could.
Jesus faced the original cancel culture, a problematic person who needed to be silenced and even eliminated. In Acts 9 Saul broadened the cancel-culture to include anyone – man or woman – who happened to follow Christ. There have been and will always be those who want to cancel His followers. It has now become fashionable in this nation to criticize, scorn or shut-out those who name the name of Jesus Christ. Do not be shocked if America, in the not too distant future, becomes a killing field with believers as the prize. Are you ready?