Today the news is saturated with reports of war. Ukraine has been invaded by Russia. We spoke with a close family friend who is from Ukraine and still has family there. She was telling us some of the horrors she has heard: The airport in her hometown was bombed, no casualties. 30 miles away is a huge military base, it was hit as well, 5 people hurt, 3 military 2 civilian women. One of her friends is from the north east. Her hometown was bombed, invaded and now there is a heavy fighting on the ground. Also, there is fighting near Chernobyl that disturbed some nuclear waste.
War has ravaged earth for centuries and many lessons can be learned from war. In the Bible, War makes an appearance time and time again. One of my favorite stories about war is found in 2 Samuel 5. After David is made king, the Philistines attempt to capture him. David speaks with the Lord and asks for his advice. Then he listens to the advice. Twice. In turn, David defeats the Philistines and strikes them down “all the way from Gibeon to Gezer”.
Like in the above story and in Ukraine, there is a war going on here in America. However this war is not covered on the news. But if you are like us and trying to raise children of God, you know about this war all too well. Paul spoke about it in Corinthians.
“We are human, but we don’t wage war as humans do. We use God’s mighty weapons, not worldly weapons, to knock down the strongholds of human reasoning and to destroy false arguments. We destroy every proud obstacle that keeps people from knowing God. We capture their rebellious thoughts and teach them to obey Christ. And after you have become fully obedient, we will punish everyone who remains disobedient.”
2 Corinthians 10 3-6, NLT
We are called to fight this war with one of God’s mighty weapons, the Word of God. When we are living in a world so eager to conform, it can be hard to destroy false arguments and live a Biblical life. Saint John Paul II said:
“. . . we are facing an enormous and dramatic clash between good and evil, death and life, the “culture of death” and the “culture of life”. We find ourselves not only faced with but necessarily in the midst of this conflict: we are all involved and we all share in it, with the inescapable responsibility of choosing to be unconditionally pro-life.”
Saint John Paul II
The war we are facing is the culture war. The culture war is not just the battle for life, but so much more. We are fighting for our traditional American values that were rooted in scripture and echoed in the constitution. The Founding Fathers intended for the Bible to be recognized as the foundation of American civilization. Values like belief in God, the Bible, morals, sanctity of life, family values, marriage between a man and a woman, Christian founding of America, and historic truth have become at odds with society. Culture is pushing a secular narrative including denial of God, belief in biological evolution, rejection of the Bible, faith in a relative moral code, abortion on demand, abolishing traditional family values, abolishing marriage as between a man and a woman, and denying our Christian heritage and religious freedoms.
There has always been a certain level of trust between parents and their children’s educators. Perhaps we thought that we both had the child’s best interest at heart. However, as the educational systems fall deeper into the secular rabbit hole, our children are the victims of this new Wonderland. In Wonderland, all truth is relative.
It is vital as Christians that we combat this relative truth with the absolute truth and authority of the Bible. We must teach our children about the Bible. We must teach them about this God breathed, divinely inspired compass that will always point towards truth and help them find their way in Wonderland.
Messengers of Mercy 