Fight Evil With Righteousness
Word-of-the-Day: ‘(16) There are six things the LORD hates, seven that are detestable to him: (17) haughty eyes, a lying tongue, hands that shed innocent blood, (18) a heart that devises wicked schemes, feet that are quick to rush into evil, (19) a false witness who pours out lies and a person who stirs up conflict in the community.’ (Proverbs 6:16-19)
The war between Righteousness and its opposite form, Wickedness, continues as it has been since the fall of man in Eden in Genesis 3. The most current battle continues to be of the secular, ‘woke’ agenda. Though the ‘woke’ pillars of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) have somewhat subsided in energy since its apparent peak in the early 2020’s, they are still very much alive in our American culture today.
As with most attempts for Satan to achieve victory with wickedness, DEI sounds appealing; who would oppose inclusion of others into our culture, why wouldn’t we invite others of different cultures to come into ours, and don’t we want everyone to be equal to ourselves? The truth is we do want others to join us and be given the equal opportunity to become part of our culture.
It is a desire for those who want the fruits of our American way of life and culture, without the effort and change required to achieve it. There are three ways to acquire a good or service; one can earn it (working to earn the money to purchase it, for example), one can be given it (another can provide it on the behalf of the person desiring it), or one can take it (stealing it from one who already possesses it).
The Righteous understand the need to toil in order to earn the means to acquire such an item, and the courtesy to give an item in love and charity to someone in need of that item. It is the wicked or the evil that believes taking it is the only way to acquire what they need, and it is worse if it something they desire to have.
There is not only the method of physically taking the item to steal. Proverbs 6:16-19 discusses and lists all the ways – those actions God detests and hates – that someone can steal from another. The underlying linchpin of Righteousness is Truth, the facts of God, His Creation and His ways. The linchpin of wickedness is the lie, the falsehood that seeks to undermine God’s Truth.
The lie of the ‘woke’ agenda and of DEI is that it is not about Diversity but of the subjugation of what is right under the foot of what is wrong; Equity is not about equality but to take away from those who earned a reward to give that reward to another who did not earn it. Inclusion is not to join and adopt our culture but to take over and replace our culture with their own. Unfortunately, the ‘woke’ agenda for DEI is more of a ‘trojan horse’; it is a means to have our cultural standards lowered, the equality of opportunity replaced with the equity of results (while providing an inequality of the effort required to achieve those results).
Those of us who are Righteous must be wary of such actions. If it sounds good, we must ensure to be diligent and discern if it is truly good, or something that ‘tickles our ears’. That which seeks to destroy and bring conflict in an effort to sow division and conflict is not good but evil. Our secular society desires schemes to lower our standards to the lowest common denominator. We who are Righteous must hold onto and promote God’s high standards of morality and propriety, setting the Biblical worldview as the standard to achieve success through God and not in spite of Him.
It is Righteous to be intolerant on that which does not promote Godly attributes. That which is sinful can be correctly pronounced as such. As a Christian, however, we must be careful not to let this intolerance of sin as a tool of destruction, else we are guilty of the same sin. Instead, we must be constructive and teaching in our criticism of sin, and be ready to provide not only the Truth only why such sin is wrong, but a path of love and support for the individual to correct their wrongdoing and repent of their sin.
We need not and should not be ugly or do a ‘tit for tat’ reaction to evil actions. Instead, we use the examples of Jesus’ demeanor and love to provide this constructive criticism to encourage those to come to Faith, not to discourage them away from it. We need to be patient, affirming when Righteous actions are performed and progress toward Jesus is made.
Don’t tolerate sin, and speak up against that which is evil. But never let evil respond to evil; instead allow Righteousness, Truth and the Love of Christ to be our weapons of choice against evil, and know that the ultimate victory belongs to Him.
