Cowardice as a precursor to the lake of fire

[Bartato]

I've been thinking about Revelation 21:8 where we see that the cowardly will receive their just recompense.

"But the cowardly, unbelieving, abominable, murderers, sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars shall have their part in the lake which burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death.” (Revelation 21:8 NKJV)

It is interesting that cowardice is listed right next to unbelief (and a bunch of other evils).

I think cowardice is the flip side of unbelief. We can either fear God, and nothing else, or we will fear everything except God.

We are not justified by our courage. We are justified by the righteousness of Jesus Christ, and that righteousness is received by faith.

Christian courage in the face of evil is an evidence or fruit of faith in Jesus Christ.

The man who truly believes that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, that He has come in the flesh, fulfilled all righteousness, died in our place, rose from the dead, ascended to heaven, is seated at the right hand of the Father, has all power and authority, and will return to raise the dead, receive His bride, and judge the world, will not be characterized by cowardice, but rather by courage.

We have all sinned and fall short of the glory of God. At times, we have probably all feared man rather than God. We still stumble, perhaps including the sin of cowardice.

When that happens, let us turn our eyes to Jesus, the Author and Perfector of our faith. Let us repent by believing Him, and trusting His promises. Then, let us move forward in faith.

Faith crushes cowardice.

I think a lot of professing Christians really are LARPers, pretending to believe in, and serve Jesus Christ. I think this includes many (maybe most) pastors. Deep down, they really don't believe Jesus. They don't fear Him, don't really trust Him, don't hope in Him, and don't love Him.

I generally consider myself to be a "Reformed/Calvinistic Baptist", or perhaps a "Paleo Evangelical", in the stream of people like John Bunyan or Charles Spurgeon. As best I can tell, I think that tradition most accurately accords with the Biblical Faith.

I know a lot of you brothers are of differing traditions and would disagree, with me on points. I'm not trying to debate that stuff right now.

I just wanted to say that I think there will be "Reformed Baptist" pastors and church members with all the "officially right doctrine" in Hell. They know all the right stuff, but somehow Jesus doesn't know them. They have right knowledge, but lack true saving faith.

Sometimes this lack of true faith will be revealed by acts of cowardice.

This cowardice (unbelief) may come out when the subject of polygyny comes up.

Some pastors (and other Christians) are merely ignorant regarding this issue. That is a problem.

Others simply can't seem to grasp the truth for some reason. That's also a problem.

There are times however, when men know the truth, but fearing man rather than God, they suppress the truth in unrighteousness. Lacking true faith, they fear the disapproval of man rather than the displeasure of God. This causes them to lie about God's Law.

This is a much more serious evil. The people in this position really should fear the coming wrath of God, believe on Jesus Christ for salvation, and repent of their sin.

 

[Bartato]

Slow day at work for me today

Lot's of time for writing comments.on biblicalfamilies

 

[frederick]

I've been thinking about Revelation 21:8 where we see that the cowardly will receive their just recompense.

"But the cowardly, unbelieving, abominable, murderers, sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars shall have their part in the lake which burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death.” (Revelation 21:8 NKJV)

It is interesting that cowardice is listed right next to unbelief (and a bunch of other evils).

I think cowardice is the flip side of unbelief. We can either fear God, and nothing else, or we will fear everything except God.

We are not justified by our courage. We are justified by the righteousness of Jesus Christ, and that righteousness is received by faith.

Christian courage in the face of evil is an evidence or fruit of faith in Jesus Christ.

The man who truly believes that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, that He has come in the flesh, fulfilled all righteousness, died in our place, rose from the dead, ascended to heaven, is seated at the right hand of the Father, has all power and authority, and will return to raise the dead, receive His bride, and judge the world, will not be characterized by cowardice, but rather by courage.

We have all sinned and fall short of the glory of God. At times, we have probably all feared man rather than God. We still stumble, perhaps including the sin of cowardice.

When that happens, let us turn our eyes to Jesus, the Author and Perfector of our faith. Let us repent by believing Him, and trusting His promises. Then, let us move forward in faith.

Faith crushes cowardice.

I think a lot of professing Christians really are LARPers, pretending to believe in, and serve Jesus Christ. I think this includes many (maybe most) pastors. Deep down, they really don't believe Jesus. They don't fear Him, don't really trust Him, don't hope in Him, and don't love Him.

I generally consider myself to be a "Reformed/Calvinistic Baptist", or perhaps a "Paleo Evangelical", in the stream of people like John Bunyan or Charles Spurgeon. As best I can tell, I think that tradition most accurately accords with the Biblical Faith.

I know a lot of you brothers are of differing traditions and would disagree, with me on points. I'm not trying to debate that stuff right now.

I just wanted to say that I think there will be "Reformed Baptist" pastors and church members with all the "officially right doctrine" in Hell. They know all the right stuff, but somehow Jesus doesn't know them. They have right knowledge, but lack true saving faith.

Sometimes this lack of true faith will be revealed by acts of cowardice.

This cowardice (unbelief) may come out when the subject of polygyny comes up.

Some pastors (and other Christians) are merely ignorant regarding this issue. That is a problem.

Others simply can't seem to grasp the truth for some reason. That's also a problem.

There are times however, when men know the truth, but fearing man rather than God, they suppress the truth in unrighteousness. Lacking true faith, they fear the disapproval of man rather than the displeasure of God. This causes them to lie about God's Law.

This is a much more serious evil. The people in this position really should fear the coming wrath of God, believe on Jesus Christ for salvation, and repent of their sin.

I've often thought much the same as you express of the fear some have of standing for the truth because of the personal cost. Their fame and fortune is more important than faith and obedience.

 

[MeganC]

@Bartato

I love your topic! Thank you for posting it because it's been on my mind!

Eric Metaxas wrote a great book called 7 Men and that led me to another book he wrote called Letter to the American Church.

In the dust jacket notes of Letter to the American Church is this profound comment:

Decrying the cowardice that masquerades as meekness, Eric Metaxas summons the Church to battle.

"Cowardice that masquerades as meekness"

This to me is the downfall of the Church in the West. The Church has been endlessly feminized and emasculated starting with the demonic influence of the homosexuals who took over the Catholic Church and ending up with the militant lesbians and other deviants who have insinuated themselves into so many mainstream denominations. They convince boys that manhood and masculinity are wrong and that submitting to evil is somehow good. They have convinced too many Christian men that cowardice is a virtue.

I have been abused by evil men. I found myself being further abused when I sought out the help of cowardly men whose advice was to not complain about the evil men. I am anymore revolted by these creatures.

Then I met my husband and later got to know his friends. They are good men who have fought together, bled together, killed together, and prayed together. I got to see a completely different model of Christian manhood than the effeminate and pathetic creatures who all too often populate modern churches.

I feel safe with my husband. I feel even safer in the company of his friends. Because they are men.

One of Steve's friends is now a pastor and he says to me that one of the questions he often asks of the men in his church is:

"What are you willing to kill or die for?"

He says most of the time he gets shocked and nervous laughter in response. But he goes on to say that being able to answer this question defines what it is to be a man. Even if someone is not willing to kill for any reason are they willing to go to the Cross like Jesus did?

I learned from him that pacifism is a form of cowardice because pacifists benefit from the protection of violent men while acting as if they are somehow morally superior to the men who protect them.

Theodore Roosevelt spoke to the cowardice of pacifists who would claim moral superiority to the warriors who protected them:

It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself in a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat.

those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat are the cowards. They are the men who play it safe when the situation calls for bravery and sacrifice.

I often get hated on for what I am about to say and I will say it anyway:

During the Holocaust the Jews paid for their compliance and pacifism with their lives. Six million of them did what their government told them to do, they got on the train, they entered the camps, they took the shower, and they died.

Meanwhile a handful of poorly armed Jewish men in the Warsaw ghetto eventually awakened to the reality of their situation and this handful of warriors held back the combined might of the German Army. They were very much like the 300 Spartans who fought and died against impossible odds.

In an ironic turn of events Hitler IMHO did Judaism a favor by purging cowardice from the Jewish spirit. The Jews who live in Israel cannot afford to be pacifists or cowards. They must at all times be ready for war. And at the same time they can be gentle, meek, creative, artistic, and express all of the most wonderful attributes of the Jewish people while not heeding the insipid words of the cowards who would tell them to exchange one thing after another in the name of a temporary peace.

Never Again they say. And they will back it up with death and their enemies know it.

The past few years of the Covid tyranny have in some ways sorted out the men from the cowards in the Christian church. The men stood up and defied their governments and kept their churches open, spurned the not-a-vax, and in some cases they had to fight back.

The Church is faced with the tyranny of wokeness that demands homosexuality and deviancy not only be tolerated in the Church but that it be admired.

That tyranny is often enforced by evil men who carry badges and guns. And who will stand against them?

In 1780 as the Americans stood against the tyranny of their sovereign government the British Crown there took place this remarkable act of courage and defiance by a Christian pastor:

A famous incident occurred during the battle when a local parson, who was serving with Washington’s troops as a chaplain, the Reverend James Caldwell — whose wife was killed in cold blood two weeks earlier by some marauding British soldiers — rallied the New Jersey militia who were short on wadding for their rifles and muskets. He grabbed some church hymnals, the Watts Hymn Book, and began distributing them to the soldiers encouraging them to tear out pages of the book to use as wadding. He is reported to have said, “Give ’em Watts, boys! Pour Watts into them!”

This is courage. This is Christian manhood in action.

I hope that the young men who come out of my family will exemplify this kind of faith instead of the lie of a weak, pathetic, and emasculated faith that has become so popular.

When someone asks one of my sons, "What are you willing to kill or die for?" , I want them to be able to answer that question without a moment's hesitation.

 

[DawoodSaar]

I would hope the answer to such a question is also tempered by goodness. Plenty would be willing to kill for money and power. In and of itself, that isn't a good enough reason. Money and power may be subsequent results of killing for justice, or to eliminate some evil foe, or by killing innocents. The prince who kills the dragon gets the hoard of gold that the dragon got by killing innocents, and the assassin backstabs the rich king and so-on. Just having an answer to what is worth killing for is attractive and masculine, sure, but better to have a righteous answer.

 

[MeganC]

I would hope the answer to such a question is also tempered by goodness. Plenty would be willing to kill for money and power. In and of itself, that isn't a good enough reason. Money and power may be subsequent results of killing for justice, or to eliminate some evil foe, or by killing innocents. The prince who kills the dragon gets the hoard of gold that the dragon got by killing innocents, and the assassin backstabs the rich king and so-on. Just having an answer to what is worth killing for is attractive and masculine, sure, but better to have a righteous answer.

It is both sad and emblematic of the problems Bartato and I wrote about that your response tends to support those people who denounce masculinity and the manly virtues.

 

[DawoodSaar]

Satan has reasons to kill. He kills often, and with regularity. But he lacks righteousness.

Generally, I was agreeing with your post. How does promoting righteous reasons for killing support those who abhor masculinity?

 

[MeganC]

How does promoting righteous reasons for killing support those who abhor masculinity?

First, what in my post gave you any cause to think I was not advancing righteousness?
Second, what is in you that you think it's necessary to post what you did?

 

[DawoodSaar]

I'm pedantic and tend to massively over-clarify things in order to more accurately organize my thoughts into discrete values as close to binary as possible. I see nothing in particular which indicated you were promoting unrighteous reasons for shedding of blood. My main concern is the question "what are you willing to kill or die for" is merely one of precision.

 

[MeganC]

Then please assume I and others pose the question from a position of righteousness and then respond in kind.

 

[DawoodSaar]

I will say, as one raised in cowardice, to be a coward, by a cowardly feminist, that it is difficult to fight. Not only is there fighting the external, but cowardice creates an internal enemy as well. It is a struggle to attack that tendency toward appeasement, and that battle must be won BEFORE the external battle is even able to be waged and won.

Which is why I've taken to being the aggressor over the last several years. I try to force myself to impose upon others. Not excessively, beyond rightful bounds, and so far it hasn't led to physical altercations, but through forcing my cowardly self out there and to be offensive. I may never be as skilled at such as someone who has a natural bent toward dominance, but I seek to be more dominant myself despite decades of emasculation.

For example, I'm not a fan of always sitting alone at dinner, so sometimes I'll go to a food court and just find someone and sit down at their table. I don't ask... They will spend time with me because that is what I want. Thankfully, that benefits them too, because of the hundreds of times I've done so, only about two people have ever related that they hated me doing that to them.

I don't ask before I start talking theology and teaching people scripture, I make the conversation go that way because that is what I wish to talk about. And now my friends and the people in my circle all know that I basically have a one-track mind for life topics related to scripture. People chatting burgers? I'm bringing up the Bible's prohibition on bacon. People chatting about the weather? YHWH brings the rain. Once, a 'spiritual but not religious' lady got a long earful about how simply accepting spiritualism necessitates a Spirit from which we came. I did not allow her cowardly refusal to choose any ground to stand on. That is offensive, with manners.

So I recognize, as you, @MeganC and @Bartato, have both pointed out, that there is severe risk in not being willing to fight out of fear, out of appeasement, out of 'peace.' This happens to be a fight against cowardice which I regularly have to engage in.

 

[DawoodSaar]

Then please assume I and others pose the question from a position of righteousness and then respond in kind.

Aight. I ought to have been more clear on my agreement with your statements. My apologies.

 

[Bartato]

Sometimes cowardice masquerades as proper submission to authority.

Likewise belligerence and stubbornness is sometimes mistaken for courage.

 

[DawoodSaar]

I got kicked out of a college class once for mocking the mask rules. Each day I wore the mask a different way. A bonnet, an earing, a beard bib, a nightmask, blindfold, hairbun. That netted me "you are so childish" from a girl half my age! So yes, agreeability in the face of tyranny can often be, itself, tyranny against those who fight back. As everyone who was cowardly and simply went along suddenly feel the need to prove that they were in fact brave for giving up to their enemies. It is a delusion.

 

[Bartato]

I will say, as one raised in cowardice, to be a coward, by a cowardly feminist, that it is difficult to fight. Not only is there fighting the external, but cowardice creates an internal enemy as well. It is a struggle to attack that tendency toward appeasement, and that battle must be won BEFORE the external battle is even able to be waged and won.

Which is why I've taken to being the aggressor over the last several years. I try to force myself to impose upon others. Not excessively, beyond rightful bounds, and so far it hasn't led to physical altercations, but through forcing my cowardly self out there and to be offensive. I may never be as skilled at such as someone who has a natural bent toward dominance, but I seek to be more dominant myself despite decades of emasculation.

For example, I'm not a fan of always sitting alone at dinner, so sometimes I'll go to a food court and just find someone and sit down at their table. I don't ask... They will spend time with me because that is what I want. Thankfully, that benefits them too, because of the hundreds of times I've done so, only about two people have ever related that they hated me doing that to them.

I don't ask before I start talking theology and teaching people scripture, I make the conversation go that way because that is what I wish to talk about. And now my friends and the people in my circle all know that I basically have a one-track mind for life topics related to scripture. People chatting burgers? I'm bringing up the Bible's prohibition on bacon. People chatting about the weather? YHWH brings the rain. Once, a 'spiritual but not religious' lady got a long earful about how simply accepting spiritualism necessitates a Spirit from which we came. I did not allow her cowardly refusal to choose any ground to stand on. That is offensive, with manners.

So I recognize, as you, @MeganC and @Bartato, have both pointed out, that there is severe risk in not being willing to fight out of fear, out of appeasement, out of 'peace.' This happens to be a fight against cowardice which I regularly have to engage in.

I'm thinking about your courage training methods.

There is a real sense in which we can train for courage, or train for cowardice.

There are also external measures that we can take that help us move towards courage.

Ten years ago (at age 39), I started lifting weights. I'm now physically stronger than I've ever been (what a weak young man I was ). Having well above average physical strength helps give me confidence.

Likewise, my wife and I are very careful with money, always living well below our means. After doing that for twenty plus years, we are now in a more financially secure position than most. We aren't rich, but I have very little fear of potentially losing my job. That helped give me courage to reject the covid jab back when they were trying to make everyone take it.

I think those things are generally good.

Still, there is a spiritual angle to courage as well. A person might be weak, poor, and helpless, but still have courage motivated by faith in God.

 

[MeganC]

Ten years ago (at age 39), I started lifting weights. I'm now physically stronger than I've ever been (what a weak young man I was ). Having well above average physical strength helps give me confidence.

I agree. I started working out (hiking, yoga, weights, etc.) after my first pregnancy when I'd gained a LOT of weight and it made me feel better. Both physically and about myself in general. I've had martial arts training (military Krav Maga) and that added to my confidence level quite a bit.

Over the years I've learned to shoot and that does wonders, too.

Likewise, my wife and I are very careful with money, always living well below our means. After doing that for twenty plus years, we are now in a more financially secure position than most. We aren't rich, but I have very little fear of potentially losing my job. That helped give me courage to reject the covid jab back when they were trying to make everyone take it.

 

[Bartato]

I agree. I started working out (hiking, yoga, weights, etc.) after my first pregnancy when I'd gained a LOT of weight and it made me feel better. Both physically and about myself in general. I've had martial arts training (military Krav Maga) and that added to my confidence level quite a bit.

Over the years I've learned to shoot and that does wonders, too.




View attachment 4401

I thought about mentioning the firearm thing too. About the same time I started lifting, I started carrying a concealed pistol as well. There is comfort in that as well (even though I carry a wimpy 9mm, instead of a .45 like you ).

I also really need to start some martial art training.

 

[NickF]

(even though I carry a wimpy 9mm, instead of a .45 like you ).

I used to carry a .45 and recently I’ve switched to a 9mm. Better follow up accuracy, more rounds on target. Easier to conceal. Honestly the only plus to the .45 is if I lived where I’d need more stopping power for larger animals.

I also really need to start some martial art training.

Highly advisable. Sadly I live too far out in the sticks for classes or else I’d be in classes.

 

[Bartato]

I used to carry a .45 and recently I’ve switched to a 9mm. Better follow up accuracy, more rounds on target. Easier to conceal. Honestly the only plus to the .45 is if I lived where I’d need more stopping power for larger animals.

Highly advisable. Sadly I live too far out in the sticks for classes or else I’d be in classes.

Personally, I agree that the 9mm is fine. I was joking since I know Megan carries a .45 (but she does live in Wyoming after all). I sometimes even step down to a .38sp snubby revolver or even the lowly .380acp Ruger LCP .

Speaking of classes, several years ago I was fortunate to take a class with NC Scout from Brushbeater training and Americanpartisan.org on small unit tactics, ringing steel targets out to 300-400 yards with AR15s, conducting force on force ambushes (using blanks), camouflaging (including hiding from thermal and night vision), and night fighting (with and without NV gear - some of us had it and some didn't). It was a ton of fun and allowed us all to try using our "minute man" type gear. That was definitely confidence building as well.

Unlike some of you guys, I'm not a military veteran and in civilian life people rarely get any of that type of training.

The world is getting more and more dangerous all the time. Hopefully we will never need to make use of that type of training, but it might prove valuable if this country goes the way of Zimbabwe.

 

[Bartato]

Growing a substantial portion of your own food also seems to promote courage and confidence.