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Under Attack By The Living Dead


For you have spent enough time in the past doing what pagans choose to do—living in debauchery, lust, drunkenness, orgies, carousing and detestable idolatry. They think it strange that you do not plunge with them into the same flood of dissipation, and they heap abuse on you.  But they will have to give account to him who is ready to judge the living and the dead. For this is the reason the gospel was preached even to those who are now dead, so that they might be judged according to men in regard to the body, but live according to God in regard to the spirit. (I Peter 4:3-6)
 

         Remember the story of Lot in Sodom? When he pleaded with the Sodomites to not harm people he had given hospitality, the Sodomites wanted to know who died and made him God... how dare he judge them. When Joseph refused to sleep with Potiphar's wife, she accused him of rape. When Mordecai, and when Daniel and his friends refused to bow down to worldly authority, they were sentenced to death. In fact, Mordecai's refusal  resulted in a death sentence on all Jews.  Early Christians were denounces as "atheists" because they rejected all the other gods.
           The moment you draw a line saying, "This far, no further," those who are on the other side of that line feel judged, and they resent it. That line means that we stand between them and happiness, fulfillment, completion and every other "good." They may even admit that they know the things they do won't bring them happiness, but they believe the alternative is worse. Why wouldn't they heap abuse, or worse, on us? Even if we are not actually a threat to everything they hold dear, we represent such a threat.
           As hard as taking that abuse may be, there's something we need to keep in mind. The abuse is at the hands of people who are dead. There is coming a day when God will judge the living and the dead. Generally, we assume this means physically living and physically dead, but there is spiritual life and death, too. Walking by you on a daily basis, there are people who are zombies and vampires, people whose bodies give every appearance of being alive, but who are not. In their deadness, they are driven by the compulsion to kill others, to make others as they are. 
        Our lives are spent in God's triage station. He checks each spiritual body - judges whether it has spiritual "airway, breathing and circulation" by presenting the gospel. Those who respond are alive. Those who don't respond are dead. As much difficulty as they may physically cause us,  their behavior proves that they are dead and for them there is no "rest in peace." They should be pitied even if they make us miserable for a while.

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In the sky:
New Moon

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