Isaiah 1:18 “Come now, and let us reason saith the Lord, though your sins be as scarlet they shall be as white as snow, though they be red like crimson they shall be as wool”.
In admonishing Israel for her sin, He extends an amazing three-part olive branch to the people:
• Repent of your sin and I will erase the stain of your sin.
• With that done we can re-establish our relationship.
• Then you and I can talk the situation over.
Imagine, The Great Creator is willing to discuss the issues of the day with His creation.
It boggles the imagination to think we have come to the point in American history when college campuses and in other major institutions those of us with Judeo-Christian traditions, values and a God-centered worldview are being censored and “canceled” from the public forum of ideas!
The precious right given under the first amendment to the constitution of free speech is being replaced by the Chinese and Russian approach to speech. Under those political systems, there is acceptable speech and unacceptable speech, and the government is the arbiter of what is acceptable!
If debate and discussion between man and God is promoted by God Himself what are secular progressives afraid of? Students at the university level have created safe spaces whereby they can avoid hearing ideas that may offend them. Consequently, the free speech of some is being over-run by the hurt or angry feelings of others.
In the 1960s as I was growing up secular liberals were protesting because profanity, vulgarity, and pornography had no place in main street America. They rallied under the banner of the first amendment’s protection of speech. When the supreme court eventually decided speech offensive to the traditional values of the majority was legal it opened the floodgates of depravity. But now 60 years later those same liberal folks are all in for banning, censoring, and canceling speech they don’t agree with.
Make no mistake, however, in my opinion, the real target and focus by government, social media, big business, big tech, and who knows who else stands in it shadows is directed on banning The Bible!!
Can you see a day when words in scripture will be judged “unacceptable”? Can you see the day when various doctrines will be deemed “offensive”? Let me give some examples:
“All have sinned”- offensive
“The only way to God is Jesus” – offensive
“Various sexual practices are sin” – offensive
“Hell is real” – offensive
Not only offensive they will be labeled “hate speech” politically incorrect and in time illegal!
Then we will be warned not to speak those words or teaching. We will not follow those because we have been given a command that spans 3,000 years – Psalm 107:2 “let the redeemed of the Lord say so.” That principle would be embraced some 2,700 years later in the first amendment to the U.S. Constitution – December 15, 1791. “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof or prohibiting the free exercise thereof or abridging the freedom of speech…”
But I wonder- have we come to that moment in time where our country is operating as did the fascist of Europe and the communist of China and Russia where the right can be arbitrarily removed. The scripture makes it clear the freedom of speech is an unalienable right given to all by God our Creator.
Do elected officials, titans of big business, big tech, and wild-eyed extremists on social media now believe they alone have the authority to rip that right from our lips?
I think in their arrogant rebellion against the Lord…. They think they do. Unlike with God, however, there is Comeno reasoning with those in power.