Our Life and Times : Biblical Reasoning for a Modern Age
BLOGGER · THEOLOGIAN · APOLOGIST
Norman Harold Patterson Jr.
If I Die…
Someone I’ve known for many years died the other day. It’s an interesting phenomenon that when people die, we eulogies them. We stop and pause and think about the messages they proclaimed throughout their life. It seems we find more meaning in things they may have said, done, or written only after they die.
I think we honor people more after they die because they are no longer a threat. They no longer are competition. They cannot rise and speak for themselves or defend themselves. Because of this, it is easier to say good things about them. We contemplate the mystery of their lives, passions, struggles, joys, and concerns.
I am positioning myself so that when I die (not “if” I die), people who knew me or heard about me will become nostalgic or curious and check out things that I have written. And I hope and pray that what I have written is a clear and consistent witness to the gospel of Jesus Christ.
When I die, I want people to read this article. I want the curious to know that there is only one way of salvation, and that is through a repentant heart having faith in Jesus Christ, the Second Person of the Trinity who died a substitutionary death on their behalf.
I want atheists to hear that atheism is entirely untenable. To deny the existence of the self-existing Triune God who has revealed Himself in His self-authenticating Bible means that you cannot prove anything. Without Him, reason, science, and morality are impossible. As Dr. Cornelius Van Til so aptly proclaimed, “Antitheism presupposes Theism.” By “theism,” he does not mean just any god, such as the false god of Islam, Mormonism, Jehovah’s Witnesses, or any other religion. Only the Christian God of the Bible mediated through the Second Person of the Trinity, Jesus Christ, is worthy of love, honor, praise, and thanksgiving.
When I die, I believe God will sovereignly direct the reader to read my words and be confronted with the truth of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. And I pray the Holy Spirit will breathe spiritual life into the core of your being so that you will become a child of God.
I pray those who read these words who are caught in the deception of our age where people, even pastors, are lying to you telling you that what God clearly calls sin is now, somehow miraculously made holy. I pray the Spirit would so convict those stopping by curious about my life, and my message will be so changed that no matter how difficult, how painful, how radical a change you have to make to get right with God, you will do it. Hell is real, and I want to see you again in heaven. I want you to tell me how God used what I wrote to change you for all eternity.
It doesn’t matter if you read these words before or after I die. What matters is that you respond to them by placing your faith in Christ.
We find the Dominion Mandate for Bible-believing Christians in Genesis 1:26-28:
Then God said, "Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth." So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. Then God blessed them, and God said to them, "Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it; have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth."
For Christians, this means that God has given us the responsibility to take dominion over the entire world. We have God's approval and authority to "fill the earth and subdue it." Add to this Christ's call in Matthew 28:19+20 to:
Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in[a] the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age."
And 2 Corinthians 10:3-6:
For though we walk in the flesh, we are not waging war according to the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds. We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ, being ready to punish every disobedience, when your obedience is complete.
While God called Christians to be separate from the world in holiness, He doesn't give us the option to isolate ourselves from the world physically. As Jesus said:
I have given them your word, and the world has hated them because they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one. John 17:14-15
Because of false piety and a lack of understanding of these and other Dominion affirming Biblical texts, Christians far too often vacate the world, leaving an "influence vacuum." As the old saying goes, "nature abhors a vacuum." Because of this, instead of taking Dominion over the arts, sciences, court systems, political offices, universities, and so on, Christians withdraw into isolated communities only to leave the world unoccupied.
As a result, anti-Christ people and philosophies have readily taken over virtually every facet of life. The greatest antithesis to Biblical Christianity has understood and intentionally implemented the Dominion Mandate for their own sinister ends.
The most dangerous of all are those espousing Cultural Marxism. Briefly, Cultural Marxism is an expansion of Classical Marxism, which focuses primarily on the economic philosophy of Karl Marx. Cultural Marxism is much more all-encompassing than Classical Marxism.
Ultimately, Cultural Marxism is about liberating humanity from the moral constraints of Biblical Christianity. The Bible prohibits same-sex intimacy, adultery in all forms, polygamy, bigamy, bestiality, pedophilia, and so on. God created man and woman in His image and commanded them to be fruitful and multiply; the Dominion Mandate!
The method Cultural Marxism employs to propagate its insidious agenda is through applying the Biblical Mandate. The plan has been and continues to be for those who oppose Biblical Christianity to infiltrate and dominate every known sphere of influence. As Voddie Bachem pointed out, their strategy is to take over the "robes" of society; professors, pastors, and judges, for example.
R.J. Rushdoony and the Christian Reconstructionists proposed the same tactic, taking over the "robes" of society. However, instead of a great "Amen" from the rest of the Church, Christian Reconstructionism has been vilified as patriarchal, extreme, and misguided.
In the meantime, Cultural Marxism is dominating the universities, media, churches, courts, arts, etc. They are putting Christians and Christianity to shame by their ardent intentionality to dominate the world for Self.
As the degeneration of our culture continues, so will the hostility toward Biblical Christianity. And just as Marxism tried to destroy Biblical Christianity through the reign of terror in anti-Christ regimes like the Soviet Union and Communist China, modern Marxists will not rest until Biblical Christianity is destroyed.
The good news, however, is the promise of Jesus Christ. He said that the "gates of hell" will not prevail against the Church. (Matthew 16:18) The image Christ was giving was not a Church that was cowering in the corner, battening down the hatches until the storm of hell subsided. Just the opposite. Hell is under attack, and its filthy gates are no match for the power and glory of the Risen Christ and His Bride.
Christians can no longer cower in corners. It is time for us to take up the battle cry and assault Cultural Marxism and any other "high place" (2 Corinthians 10:3-6) that dares to raise itself against the knowledge of God. Our weapons are not of the flesh (Ephesians 6), but they are weapons nonetheless and are worthless if left unused.
It is time for Christians to take back our country, our world for Christ. We must do it according to the means and methods of Jesus Christ and His Kingdom, which means we must take Dominion and occupy all walks of life for the glory of the crown rights of Jesus Christ.
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