Today’s song is another song inspired by one of my Face Book friends, Pastor Timmy. As I said on my earlier posts I’m proud that Pastor Timmy has not unfriended me yet because with him as a friend I get to keep up with what the Trump base is being taught. A couple days ago Pastor Timmy posted a pro-gun story about how foolish people who oppose guns are. There were several comments praising the post. As one of those fools I’ll will explain how I see guns, in particular pistols because that’s what the post focus was on, it was justifying Christians carrying pistols. I thought of this song where the boy’s mother calls a pistol the Devil’s right hand. How should a Christian arm their shelves? Does the Bible say anything a follower of Christ should be armed with?
Way back in the 1900s, when I was a young boy on Wednesday’s night our church had a program called The Royal Ambassador’s . We played darts in the youth house but our lessons were about memorizing scriptures. I still have the patch I earned for saying the verses I call still say those same verses today. On Sunday nights during Church Training we would have Bible drills, we would stand with our Bibles in both hands then the teacher would call out a Bible verse the first kid to find it would take one step forward and read whatever scripture it was. One may say that this was just adults “tricking” kids into learning about the Bible. But I’m grateful that they did. We were taught that our Bibles were our swords that we would use in the battle of life. The Bible being viewed as a sword is something you might think was just made up but that’s comes straight from the Bible. In Ephesians 6 11-20 the Apostle Paul tells us to:
11 Put on the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil.
12 For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.
13 Wherefore take unto you the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand.
14 Stand therefore, having your loins girt about with truth, and having on the breastplate of righteousness;
15 And your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace;
16 Above all, taking the shield of faith, wherewith ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked.
17 And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God:
18 Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, and watching thereunto with all perseverance and supplication for all saints;
19 And for me, that utterance may be given unto me, that I may open my mouth boldly, to make known the mystery of the gospel,
20 For which I am an ambassador in bonds: that therein I may speak boldly, as I ought to speak.
I didn’t see anywhere in this scripture where The full armour of God includes a pistol. Some would come back with a cocky answer they didn’t have pistols in the Bible! Then what does verse 16 means when the Apostol Paul says:
16 Above all, taking the shield of faith, wherewith ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked.
So what would a “fiery dart” be in today’s terms? What about a bullet fired out of a gun. You might could say that God isn’t smart enough to inspire Paul to write a passage that applies today’s world, but I think so. You see the wicked do not have their loins girt about with truth, the wicked do not have the breastplate of righteous, the wicked do not have their feet shrouded with the gospel of peace, the wicked do not have the shield of faith, the wicked do not have the helmet of salvation, the wicked do not have the sword of the Spirit, the Bible, their you have it, the Bible is your sword. All the wicked have are their “fiery darts”.
Have you ever seen a sigh that reads “My property is protected by Smith & Wesson” it’s meant to be funny but when you think about it this is rather sad where people place their faith. Winston Churchill once said; ” It takes courage to stand and speak and also takes courage to seat down and be quit.”. In today’s Trump world it takes more courage to say no I’m not carrying a pistol the full armour of God is all I need. Sad to say but if you say that at church today instead of Amen you will be laughed at.
Then there are people that the Apostol Paul refers to as the “feeble minded”. I once heard a “feeble minded” man say “I bought the sawed off shotgun because it looked like the gun Arnold Schwarzenegger had in Terminator Two”. He said that when he was on the stand for murdering his friend. In the jury room someone said the gun did look like the one from the movie. Looking back on it now the man could had said “Nothing touched the trigger but the Devil’s right hand.”