Quit Being a Frog

Last week I got to go to the Joel Rosenberg Implosion Simulcast. I have to admit that his talk began with some dismal and depressing facts:

• $0.40 of every dollar our government spends is borrowed
• we are $15 trillion in debt to foreign creditors
• we are $65 trillion in debt for government promised aide (ie medicare, social security, medicaid, etc.)
• the rate of violent crime has increased 46% since the 1960's
• the number of small town murders has increased 18%
• 53 million babies have been aborted since 1973....5 times the human lives that were murdered in the Holocaust
• the recent #1, #2, & #3 New York best sellers over the past weeks have been erotic novels, nicknamed "mommy porn." 

I think he listed more than this, but you get the picture. Things for our country and moral state of our society don't look good. What is most disturbing was the fact that there are 340,000 church congregations in the United States. With that many churches, why aren't we seeing more light in the darkness? Where are all these Christians and why aren't they making a difference?

Joel likened today's Christians to the frog in the kettle. If you place a frog in boiling water it will jump out. However, if you place a frog in cool water and increase the temperature to boiling, the frog adjusts with the increase of temperature and doesn't know what's happening until it is too late. The decline of our state as a country has not changed over night. Over the past several decades things have changed a step at a time and like the unsuspecting frogs, Christians have adjusted and accepted the comprising changes in our culture.

Part of the hope, lesson, and application of Joel's talk was applied from the Book of Jonah. God instructed Jonah to go and warn the people of Nineveh of His coming wrath and judgment. As Jonah tried to flee from God and His instruction by boat, a great wind came over the sea that endangered their boat. While Jonah slept down below, the other men were afraid for their lives. The text tells us "every man cried out to his god." Jonah 1:5. With no help from their gods, the captain came to Jonah and said “How can you sleep? Get up and call on your god! Maybe he will take notice of us, and we will not perish.” Jonah 1:6. 


The text goes on to tell us that after realizing this storm was caused by Jonah's God because of Jonah's disobedience, they ended up throwing him overboard, prayed to God for mercy, and as a result "feared the Lord, and they offered a sacrifice to the Lord and made vows to him." Jonah 1:16.

Are we like Jonah? 
Do we know the one true God, yet are sleeping in the bottom of the boat?
Do we have others around us who are crying out to false gods and then looking to us for the truth and we are just too concerned with ourselves to take notice?


We need to quit being like frogs and notice that the pot is boiling. God didn't tell Jonah he needed to condemn Nineveh for being evil, but He did tell him to warn them that God's judgment is coming.
I don't want to be a frog. 
I don't want to be asleep. 
I want to be the light Christ told me to be. Matthew 5:14