Well done.
John
In a message dated 6/24/2004 4:21:33 AM Pacific Daylight Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
Good Morning All:
Terry - I've given your question a lot of thought over the years since we were a military family when the Lord got my attention once more on Adak AK and I began to seriously study His Word in order to learn His ways.
We know that He hates divorce, yet he allowed Moses to give a bill of divorcement under the Old Covenant because of the hardness of men's hearts. So God is a realist and He knows our frame. We will not be free from wars and rumors of wars until Jesus returns and from that point on He (Jesus) will be the one ruling with a rod of iron - at which point in time there will be peace.
When we commit to follow Jesus and choose His Kingdom over the kingdoms of this world we do not become perfected immediately. Salvation is actually a walk of grace during which our minds are renewed and our behavior changed until we are conformed to the image of Christ (not just metaphorically, or figuratively, but literally) because He will not have a bunch of people who think like devils ruling with Him during the new millenium.
There are no exhortations to free slaves in scripture, and yet we can be sure that God does not endorse slavery. As you (Terry) point out there were also no lectures to Centurians to get out of the Roman Army by Jesus, Paul, or any of the other apostles. Our responsibility here (from what I understand) is to judge ourselves and to deal with our own issues, (so that He will not have to judge us in that day); and to be a light for Him to those around us. God (who knows the beginning from the end) can handle the world system; He has not made us responsible to fix it or to judge it... just to be lights in it, love people, and stay free from debt to both God and man.
Grace and Peace,
Judyt
