STAND UP AND BE COUNTED…

“Therefore, dear brothers, stand firm.  Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain.” 1 Corinthians 15:58(NIV)

            Vance Havner has this as a title of a chapter in his little book, “In Times Like These.”  He says in effect, if you are not actively working for the Lord, you are working against Him.  He quotes Edmund Burke who said, “The only thing necessary to the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” In other words you cannot be neutral in the conflict between right and wrong, good and evil.  There is no such thing.  The Lord said, “He that is not with me is against me.” (Matthew 12:30a)  There is no such thing as an inactive Christian.  You are either working for Him or working against Him. 

            We can’t remain neutral when it comes to our beliefs.  We cannot be duped by the world that we should “tolerate” other belief systems.  We are in a life-and–death struggle between Christ and Antichrist, God who became man and the man who will claim to be God. Then Havner says something striking. “Our greatest problem is not the enemy without but the enemy within our gates.”  Will we be in that group or will we stand up and be counted for our Savior. Jeremiah the prophet could have hobnobbed with the royalty and placated the false prophets of his day and cracked ungodly jokes at the civic club luncheons.  He could have been a broad-minded, middle of the roader in a day of calamity.  Instead he asked, “Is nothing to you, all who pass by?” Look at Amos, Hosea and others who stood tall for the Lord amidst false teaching, calamity and strife.  God wants us to stand up and be counted for Him.  We need to be the church reaching out, confronting the false teachings of the day, resisting the efforts to change God into some insipid, cream puff who tolerates any belief or behavior.  As Havner says, “God help us to be among those present, enduring hardness as good soldiers of Jesus Christ, fighting the good fight. This is no time for professed Christians who attend the flag wavings and the bugle blowings but never show up for the battle.”