Compromise

Today I feel like I'm being led to chat about "compromise". 

Compromise is an ambiguous word to me.  It never gives a tipping point for when too much is enough or not enough.  So let's start by looking at Webster's definition of "compromise".

1a : settlement of differences by arbitration or by consent reached by mutual concessions

b : something intermediate between or blending qualities of two different things

2: a concession to something derogatory or prejudicial <a compromise of principles

 

Let's talk about numbers 1b and 2 in the definition.   

 

Before my grandfather died in 1988 he warned me not to stand next to too many people that compromise.  He said, "A man that will compromise what he believes in is a man that will stand in the middle of a two lane highway straddling the yellow line.  Pretty soon you will go from the life you know to being a hood ornament on a Mack truck."

 

I think what he was trying to tell me was a) know what you believe; b) know why you believe it; and 3) be prepared to stand your ground and defend why you believe it.  

 

2 Timothy 4:2--Preach the word; be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke and encourage--with great patience and careful instruction.

 

That is a huge problem today.  Not everyone is willing to stand their ground for a myriad of reasons.  They are willing to go along with the societal and cultural winds that prevail whichever way they may blow, basically "yes men" to the tyrannical sycophants that scream about diversity.  

 

The one thing I've learned about diversity is if you're not willing to compromise what you believe to agree with someone who has a "diverse" belief, you're going to get seriously idealogically pummeled.  Some current examples are the homosexual agenda and "race relations".  As for me, because of my stiff beliefs and firm stance on most anything you want to talk about, I am used to being labeled a facist or a Bible thumper or a right-wing idealogue.  I am used to it and kind of accept it as being a badge of honor, particularly the "Jesus freak" thing.  The Bible even talks about compromise but in the scriptures, it's called the "double-minded man".

 

James 1:8--A double minded man is unstable in all his ways.

 

So to amplify that or bring it into the modern context, I know that all of you can relate to what I'm about to say because we have all had it happen to us.  Here's the scenario:

 

You're working at a new job, you haven't been there long, you're doing everything you can to try and impress your bosses because you know it's tough to find a job and you just happen to be a person that gives 110% of yourself 110% of the time.  From out of nowhere you start getting other employees dropping little hints about you being really gung ho and you're going to burn out.  You need to learn to find your stride.  Basically, you're being told, "Knock it off!  You're making us look bad."

 

And then enters that most wrong of philosophies:  I'll just go along to get along.

 

And there you have it, compromise.  You've compromised what you believe in to be approved of by riff-raff that doesn't sign your paycheck and would rather suck the treasury dry.  

 

I am reminded of a great line from John Wayne in the movie McClintock.  When GW McClintock (John Wayne) is being begged for the third time by a young man for work (his real life son, Patrick Wayne) because his father had just died and he was left to support his momma and his sister, GW took pity and gave the kid a job.  The kid rewarded him by knocking him off his horse because he didn't like begging.  This is the A side of compromise.  The kid was pissed at himself but took it out on the Duke because he finally broke down and begged for the job and compromised his values as to what he felt a man was.  Rather than beat himself up over it, he took a bite at the hand that was about to feed him.  

 

The B side to this is the way John Wayne reacted.  He said, "Son, I don't give handouts, I hire men.  You give me a good day's work I'll give you a good day's wage.  Nothing more, nothing less.  And no compromises.  I don't owe you and you don't owe me.  We get from each other."  

 

To which both sides shook hands and the movie continued on.  But my point is, when you compromise your values, it makes you feel low inside, dirty.  I can't imagine the way a prostitute feels when she turns her first trick.  That's got to be a horrid feeling, selling your soul and your body to make a few bucks, whether it be to feed a habit or a child.  Don't get me wrong, starving a kid to stick to your values is pride.  What I'm saying is have faith.  If your values are good, and your morals are true, you will get something as a reward sooner than later and besides, we do have a social net to protect the most vulnerable, including children.  I've never seen a government agency turn down a parent wanting to feed their child.  Matter of fact, the government can't wait to drop every program on you possible to take care of your children.  They don't care if you are sincere or not, but more on this down the page.  Do not walk away from what you believe to be true and righteous.

That translates into today's world, particularly politics.  Way too much compromise going on in the halls of government.  Way too many pro-lifers settling for limits on abortion to 20 weeks to stop abortion-on-demand any time, any place.  Is the baby any more alive?  Did you save any more children with that?  If you're pro-life, pro-life means the MINUTE conception occurs as referenced by the Lord's statement:

Psalm 139:14--I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well; and

Jeremiah 1:5--"Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you; I have appointed you a prophet to the nations."

 

Now, if THAT doesn't tell you that your life began the moment of conception in plain, bold, capitalized letters, then there is nothing to save you.  You're going to compromise everything to be part of the in-crowd.  Problem is, the in-crowd is likely on its way to hell.  That's a super highway there.  Just as it says in the Bible, 

 

Matthew 7:13--"Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the way is broad that leads to destruction, and there are many who enter through it.

All in the name of COMPROMISE.

Here's are some of my favorite compromises:

1.  Well, that's the Old Testament!  You can't take that as truth because it's all allegorical (sound familiar, Bill O'Reilly?)!

 

John 1:1--In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

 

2.  That was written thousands of years ago!  Man's changed since then!

 

Yeah, man may have changed.  His heart may be far from Christ, but according to Hebrews 13:8--Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.

 

3.  "Well, it's legal and everyone else is doing it."  See scripture above.

 

I knew a pastor once and I asked him a question, just theoretically, because I didn't believe what I was about to ask him any more than I believed he did, but you get to talking with friends and debate and sometimes you get asked a question.  This question for me was, "Ok, so you live a clean life, you believe in Jesus and the Bible, and you even give your heart to the Bible and the things the Bible says you're to believe in.  What are you going to do when you die and you find out that it's all just a fairy tale--that none of it's real.  That you wasted all that prime party time and bedding all those hot chicks for something that was just a fairy tale?"

I remember the look that came across the pastor's face as he looked at me and grinned, and said, "I'd rather life the life you just described, forsaking all those earthly pleasures, being a good person, caring for my fellow man, and got to the next life and find out that the bible was no more than a Dr. Seuss book.  Really, what have I lost?   To live like there's no tomorrow with no judgment and no accountability only to die and find that Jesus is everything he said he was and more and by dying in my sins, I just confined myself to an eternity doing laps in the lake of fire?" 

John 8:24--"Therefore I said to you that you will die in your sins; for unless you believe that I am He, you will die in your sins."

 

Back to government.

 

We have a president, or a so-called president, who is more of a mobster or bookie than a president.  He's trying to get Congress to compromise itself into irrelevancy, and they're doing a darned good job of it.  The one thing I am glad for about the president is he's stripping the mask of propriety off the faces of those who claim to be conservatives, but are really progressives.  These are the guys in the party leadership positions, or the "heir apparents", the guys that want to reach across the aisle to make a deal, you know, Tammy Faye Boehner and Dingy Harry Reid, shaking hands while reaching into the treasury for their districts to stuff tax payer money into their pork packages for their home districts.  How many "Bridges to Nowhere" do we need?  How many airports named in their honor that only land THEIR airplanes at tax payer expense?  Remember John Murtha?  

 

Compromise is the first step on the path to corruption.  Compromise is the drug that loosens the inhibition on moral clarity, that allows you to be like that girl at the party after the football game.  Give her enough beer and before too long she's surrendered her self-respect and dignity for popularity.  What we need are more of the Tea Party-type leaders like Ted Cruz, Mike Lee, Trey Gowdy, John Barrasso, and Rand Paul.  These men are constitutional pitbulls.  These are men of integrity.  They haven't gone the way of Rubio and Christie and Flake and become polluted by the old guard and politics as usual.  These are guys that stand for the Constitution.  We need more of them.  We need even more in the Senate.  The senate is just a bunch of old douchebags sipping their Dewars and Jim Beam, making deals out of compromise that are driving the finishing nails in the coffin of the American experiment.  

 

It was John Adams, a man of LITTLE compromise, who said, "This form of government is meant for a moral and upright populace.  It is wholly inadequate for anything less."  

 

What he meant by that was, you cannot have a country like America, a political system of self-governance like America, if you are infected with the disease of compromise and other like-illnesses that not only infect the body politic but the very inhabitants of the country.

 

"When the people find that they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of the republic."  Ben Franklin.  

 

In other words, when you compromise self-reliance and hard work for filthy lucre and a lazy lifestyle, you wind up taking money from the government that isn't yours to take and the country collapses from within.

 

Here's another good example:

 

In 1965, just after doing the right thing and passing the Civil Rights Act of 1964, LBJ turns around and kicks in the balls the very people the Civil Rights amendment was meant to help through compromise.  We call it the No American Left Behind Act.  He called it The Great Society.  For those of us that have to support it, we call it The Welfare State.  It started off good.  It started off on a Biblical principle:

 

James 1:27--Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world. 

The idea being that we help our fellow man when he or she is down until they can get back up and do for themselves.  Welfare KEEPS him down and dependent on a government check.  Even satan can appear as an angel of light.  This was about the time that leftists and communists like Cloward and Piven and Saul Alinsky were screaming for the overthrow of the American way of life and to have a Communist state instead.  They knew that to do that, one of the first things to do was create a permanent generational underprivileged class dependent on the government for their very existence, from cradle-to-grave.  These people were demons twisting a biblical principle to create demonic outcomes in a country that I believe was given to the world as a shining example of how God meant for man to live:  Free from tyrrany, ruled by self-control and responsibility.  He also said:

2 Thessalonians 3:10--For even when we were with you, we would give you this command: If anyone is not willing to work, let him not eat.

 

This goes hand-in-hand with an old African tribal proverb:  Give a man a fish and he eats for today but is hungry tomorrow.  Teach a man to fish and he will never be hungry again.  

 

Amazing how this comes from Africa, but look at how disproportionately this segment of society or ethnicity has benefitted by cradle-to-grave welfare, but is it really a benefit?  I dare you go to the south side of Chicago, Washington, DC, East St. Louis, or any place there is an inner-city ghetto with government housing and government checks and government assistance and find anything benefitting or positive.  

 

Ronald Reagan said it best:  "The nine worst words you can hear are, 'I'm from the government and I'm here to help.'"  You hear those words, you turn and run for your garlic necklaces, wooden stakes, and crosses.  The blood suckers are at the door.

 

So, here we have well-meaning people trying to do good by the less fortunate and all they've done is create a gilded cage class of humanity.  They are not free.  Trapped in Section 8 housing, they live by the rule of the jungle and not by the rule of law, they become baby mills to plump up the welfare check, and use the fact that they don't know who the baby daddy is as fodder for stand-up comics and their form of entertainment, gangsta rap and hip-hop.  This is modern slavery.  This is what the democratic party stands for.  The people that are willing to COMPROMISE your soul for votes, for power, for wealth, for control.  Make you dependent on the check so they don't have to become dependent on earning your vote.  You compromise a little and say, "I'll only be in Section 8 housing or on food stamps until things get a little bit better," but after a while, better never comes, and you have compromised yourself into the moral pigpen and you can't find the way out.  When the government comes along and says, "We made a mistake, we can't keep this up," the slaves scream and raise hell that we're going to starve to death and you're responsible for us and you hear things like, "I want my Obama money!"  "I want my Obama phone!"  "I want my Obama home!"  They are so desperate to hold on to what they perceive as theirs that they don't understand that it never really was theirs to begin with.  It was the inducement to go along with the experiment of social engineering.  It was a big compromise.  The soul of man in exchange for the intoxication of power. 

 

I imagine this is probably going to be my most unpopular blog ever.  I imagine there's a lot of you out there reading it that are probably going to call me a racist, you'll lump me in with all the other great hated conservatives of our current age but that's alright.  If you do, then that means YOU have compromised YOUR belief in diversity, the freedom of thought, the marketplace of ideas, for your radical stance.  And that's a compromise that very few people ever wake up from.  For those of you who have read this and are curious on how to live without making compromises and how to stand on the right side of the highway, or the fence, or the aisle, then I would recommend you do what I and millions of others have done.  Don't listen to Rick Warren and 70% of evangelicals that say there are other ways to John 14:6.  Listen to what the Bible says.  Listen to the words of Jesus.  Like I said before the Bible will read YOU, you won't read it.  It will convict your heart if you allow it.  

 

Read Psalm 51:

 

"Be gracious to me, O God, according to Your lovingkindness; According to the greatness of Your compassion blot out my transgressions. 2     Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin.     3     For I know my transgressions,And my sin is ever before me.     4     Against You, You only, I have sinned and done what is evil in Your sight, so that You are justified when You speak and blameless when You judge.     5     Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin my mother conceived me.     6     Behold, You desire truth in the innermost being, and in the hidden part You will make me know wisdom.     7     Purify me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.     8     Make me to hear joy and gladness, let the bones which You have broken rejoice.      9     Hide Your face from my sins and blot out all my iniquities. 10     Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me.     11     Do not cast me away from Your presence and do not take Your Holy Spirit from me.     12     Restore to me the joy of Your salvation and sustain me with a willing spirit.     13     Then I will teach transgressors Your ways, and sinners will be converted to You.  Deliver me from bloodguiltiness, O God, the God of my salvation;  Then my tongue will joyfully sing of Your righteousness.  15 O Lord, open my lips, that my mouth may declare Your praise.  16 For You do not delight in sacrifice, otherwise I would give it; You are not pleased with burnt offering.  17 The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; A broken and a contrite heart, O God, You will not despise.  18 By Your favor do good to Zion; Build the walls of Jerusalem.  19 Then You will delight in righteous sacrifices, In burnt offering and whole burnt offering; Then young bulls will be offered on Your altar."

 

Consider this your focusing point before coming to Jesus and asking His forgiveness of your sins, and allow Him to do the rest, not you.  Leave it all up to the Holy Spirit to change you, but be open to that change.

 

You cannot compromise with the Living God.  He doesn't play "Let's Make A Deal".  He says, "This IS the deal."  

 

God doesn't compromise because He is holy and righteous and wrote the law, and in all things of spiritual importance, neither should you compromise, but be conformed to His will for your life.  Then use the Holy Spirit to keep you from making bad compromises in other areas of your life.  Remember, a bad compromise is like sitting on a picket fence.  All you get are slivers in your butt and a huge proctologist bill.