I served with a group of industry executives as a representative for the firearms industry in the ‘90’s.  This involved going to Washington, DC and meeting with various pro and anti 2nd Amendment congresspeople and senators.  Truly an enlightening and humbling experience.

In the 1990’s, several large cities across America aligned with the anti-gun lobby in a strategy to bankrupt the firearms industry.  Their mantra was, “if we cannot legislate them out of business by changing the 2nd Amendment that guarantees Americans right to gun ownership, we’ll litigate them out of business through massively expensive lawsuits.”  A strategy that proved frivolous but effective with liability insurance rising to firearms companies and retailers, which ultimately means the consumer (you), by several hundred percent.

One key element of these cities lawsuits was charging the firearms industry with negligence, suggesting the manufacturers and resellers knew that guns were dangerous and demanding a trigger lock be included with the gun sold.  Seems like a commonsensical argument doesn’t it?

I am so grateful for the members of that industry group who had decades more experience than I did and understood what was really happening.  The truth is that everyone agreed trigger locks were a good idea and today all guns come with a locking device, either external or incorporated into the gun.  I questioned to our group, “this makes sense, why are we fighting this mandate?”  And there it was.  We were fighting a mandate that chipped away at the foundational ‘right’ assigned by our Country’s Founders of the Right to Bear Arms.  This 2nd Amendment right came without clauses and I learned that if we surrendered even and inch to this basic right, that would create a crack in the dam holding back the flood of legislative and litigious strategies all waiting to be released.  Today called lawfare.

One particularly smart Senator from Mississippi said to me in one meeting, “Mr. Muuullllliiiins (trying to draw out for effect), I have been in Washington over 30 years and know that evil never comes through the front door.  It is always wrapped with an appearance of common sense and always has ulterior motives.”

This is a long introduction to get to the point of my thoughts.  God’s church is never at risk because God is omnipotent and everlasting.  He is the same today as he was millennia ago and eternally in the future.  The local church has never been more at risk because we celebrate growth in numbers at the expense of truth in scripture.  Why do I say this?  Simple, I am witnessing with my own eyes and ears the gentle, subtle, mob pacifying, context ignoring delivery of scripture through too many of our local churches, and many of our largest and fastest growing churches and denominations.  Now I know that I have just angered many of you.  Not my intent, but if truth angers then sin abounds.  

I have witnessed some of our great church organizations be dismantled because scripture was compromised.  I write ‘church organizations’ because even the verbiage ‘religion or religious’ has become toxic in today’s Christianity.  The question is are we (the local church) standing out from this broken and sinful World, as a light shining in darkness?  Or, are we allowing cracks in the dam of Biblical truth and inerrancy?  In Luke 22:31 (ESV) Jesus says, “Simon, Simon, behold, Satan demanded to have you, that he might sift you like wheat,”.  Satan knows that he does not have to destroy our faith, simply confuse it and by doing so, render us more noise in an already loud and confused orchestra of life.

2 Timothy 3:16 states that “All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness,”.  Some simple research finds the inerrancy, accuracy and absolute authority of every word in scripture being confirmed time and time again by Jesus and others.  The Bible is not conceptual, it is factual.  The fact that we don’t like certain things in the Bible does not mean it should change, it points out the change that need to occur within us. 

The United States does not have a gun problem, it has a moral, value and family problem.  God does not have a consistency problem, He has children confused or ignorant of his Word, or those claiming to be his children who see false teachings designed to sift the wheat like Jesus cautioned Peter.  God does not have an inconsistency problem, he has a lack of voices in the wilderness proclaiming his absolute and without error authority, limitless love and never changing instruction (His Word, the Bible).

I did some consulting work for Gov. Mike Huckabee and Aaron Tippin on a musical collaboration they did to benefit inner city schools by providing them with musical instruments.  I was able to spend a fair amount of time with Aaron Tippin.  Driving around middle-Tennessee and going to numerous meeting and events in Nashville, culminating in Megan and I going to NYC for the Mike Huckabee Show (since ended), for the rollout of their effort.

Aaron is a truly fascinating guy.  A man resolute in his beliefs.  100% behind America.  100% supporting of our military and troops.  100% sold out to Jesus and his faith.  100% flawed man.  100% right when he said to me, “you know, Myron, if some of us don’t stand firm, then we’re all going to get washed away!”  

My Christian brothers and sisters, if we don’t stand on the absolute authority of God’s Word and acknowledge that it is without error and true from cover to cover, we might as well just become a social club, committed to entertaining our constituents.  Wait.  What?  Evil never comes through the front door, it arrives in discontent and misdirection.  It wins by sifting our steadfastness into grains of confusion and our willingness to place cultural appeal over eternal truth.

The promises of God are marvelous and eternally true.  They are non-negotiable and with never-ending love.

“God is not human, that he should lie, not a human being, that he should change his mind. Does he speak and then not act?  Does he promise and not fulfill.”  Numbers 23:19 (NIV)

“Standing, standing, standing on the promises of God, my Savior.”

You’ve got this.