2Peter 2:7, “And delivered just Lot, vexed with the filthy conversation of the wicked”(KJV).

Peter would call to our remembrance how Lot, the backslidden nephew of Abraham, living in Sodom, daily “vexed” his righteous soul over the lawless deeds that he saw and heard. The word vexed means to torment or grievously pain.

Lot had lived such a compromised lifestyle amongst these rebellious, sensuous, selfish, perverts, that he had no voice of any influence for God in the public square. His was a “voiceless vexation.” 

Jerry Bower asserts that if the trend continues, this will be the end for America as we know it: “America is done when God's people are done...speaking the truth, when we are too frightened, or too divided or too intimidated, or too compromised, when we are a vexed atomized speechless undifferentiated glob of pitch in the mortar of the Great Tower (Babel-Gen.11). We can survive wicked rulers: Israel did it for centuries. What we can't survive is voiceless vexation.”

Far too many believers are like the Israelites in Elijah’s day, when upon being confronted with a choice to stand up and speak up and show their true allegiance, they were voiceless: “And Elijah came near to all the people and said, “How long will you go limping between two different opinions? If the LORD is God, follow him; but if Baal, then follow him.” And the people did not answer him a word” (1Kings 18:21).

Lutheran pastor Martin Niemoeller was sent to Dachau for preaching against Hitler and his thugs. He later made a powerful observation about how most Germans found justification to do nothing throughout all of it. “First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out, because I was not a Socialist. Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out, because I was not a Trade Unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out, because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me, and there was no one left to speak for me.”

In an article, Larry Taunton tweaked those words about not speaking up for God and truth to fit our current socio-political context:

When they killed the unborn, I said nothing because it didn’t affect me.

When they opened the borders to every criminal element, I said nothing because I accepted the party line.

When they destroyed the economy, I said nothing because I had a job.

When they attacked and defunded the police, I said nothing because I believed the “police-are-evil” narrative.

When quarantines allowed lawless protests but barred synagogues and churches from meeting, I said nothing because I was neither a Jew nor a Christian.

When they began suppressing free speech and censoring conservatives, I said nothing because I was not a conservative.

When they committed voter fraud, I said nothing because I didn’t like Trump.

When they spoke of Marxism and then implemented it, I said nothing because I didn’t understand what it was until …

It was too late.

Larry finishes up the article by stating, “Some of you will think me unnecessarily alarmist. Indeed, many have already told me so, often hatefully. No one hopes you are right more than I do. But I have seen this movie before, and, throughout history, the ending is always the same. In a relatively short time, the United States population has become increasingly comfortable with the surrender of privacy, the suppression and censorship of political opponents, the rise of anti-Semitism, a grossly unequal application of the law, violence in the streets, a new kind of racism and injustice absurdly disguised as “social justice,” and, now, voter fraud on a scale that beggars the imagination. Can total disenfranchisement of whole swaths of the population be far away? I don’t think so.”

The favorite and most successful tactic of today's Marxist leftists is to shut up and shut down and silence all opposing voices and views by any means necessary. Since the secular left have very little intelligent arguments of their own, they resort to other means to win the public debate on hot potato issues. And the main means they use is bullying, intimidation, shouting, name-calling, mud-slinging, and simply preventing the other side from getting a hearing.

Using "Orwellian newspeak" language, these professing proponents of diversity, repeatedly expose themselves as hypocrites by not only opposing diversity of thought and belief, but by attempting to shut it up and out of the public square." 

Those who hold views that are not consistent with this settled left-wing, liberal worldview, are immediately and vociferously branded as racists, homophobic, bigots, fascists, and misogynists. All such malicious, and usually untrue, labels have one goal in mind - to shut up and shut down anyone who contest their positions and stifle free speech.

Regularly, harmful labeling and harassment are used on college campuses as go-to tactics for liberal students and administrators to shut down conservatives who disagree with them.

Instead of arguing on merits, these leftist bullies attempt to delegitimize dissenters of their liberal opinions using intimidation tactics and appalling labels like racist and right-wing extremist.

Their mission is to hush conservative dissenters of the settled liberal worldview to make examples of them and in turn silence other conservative dissenters.

For example, people who don’t support abortion are labeled as misogynists wanting to control women, instead of being seen as people who care about the unborn.

Furthermore, women who voice conservative views on campuses are treated despicably, immediately branded as mindless gender traitors who don’t care about women’s rights.

Black women who voice conservative views are treated even worse, not only labeled as gender traitors but also characterized as race traitors or sellouts, as people who could not care less about citizens of their own race and gender.

John C. Wright sums up the "Shut Up" position of the leftists: For the Left, all thought is thought-crime. Thought must be abolished. If thought it so be abolished, all must be browbeaten into a dishonesty not just of statements and thoughts, but of words themselves.

The leftist must advocate that all men never be allowed to call anything by its right name.

Clarity of thought depends on clarity of definitions. Instead of saying ‘infanticide’, say ‘pro-choice’. Instead of saying ‘sexual perversion’ say ‘sexual orientation’ and so on. The art of substituting a real and honest word for a false and deceptive one is called ‘lying’ but this art requires that lying itself receive a new name: Political Correctness.

A man who promotes chastity, that is, simple prudence and honor in sexual relations, is called a homophobe, and accused of having a phobia that is, a psychopathological disorder.

Sexual relations are called heterosexual, as if there were such a thing as sexual relations between two members of the same sex.

Common sense and obvious facts can and must be ruled out of bounds.

Thought is thought-crime. Reason is hate-crime. Free Speech is hate-speech.  

One who says marriage is between male and female is called a homophobe.

Once the argument merely ruling all questions out of bounds fails and all reason and logic has vanished, the Left is left with only one remaining tactic: to claim that speech is the same as violence, and therefore that the proper way to answer the curiosity of an unconvinced skeptic is with violence. If someone does not believe your words utterly and without question, don a facemask and bash them. Answer questions with riots. Burn cities. The police will step aside.

So, how then shall we as believers live? Will it be in a daily state of “voiceless vexation” or as those who speak the gospel of the kingdom truth in love?

In the first century, Peter and John were arrested for preaching the gospel. After consultation the councilman decided that they must no longer have a voice in public, “so they called them and charged them not to speak or teach at all in the name of Jesus”(Acts 4:18). 

“But Peter and John answered them, “Whether it is right in the sight of God to listen to you rather than to God, you must judge, for we cannot but speak of what we have seen and heard” (Acts 4:19-20). 

What’s the answer to our continuing loss of free speech here in America? We must recover the gospel of the kingdom of God with its attendant peace, power, and authority and stand up lovingly, publicly, and boldly and speak up like Peter as he announced, “an let it be known to all of you and to all the people of Israel that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead—by him this man is standing before you well. This Jesus is the stone that was rejected by you, the builders, which has become the cornerstone. And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.” Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were uneducated, common men, they were astonished. And they recognized that they had been with Jesus.”

Upon being released, Peter and John return to the fellowship of believers where they join in a prayer meeting. What they prayed is amazing and must become our prayer today if we are going to shed our voiceless vexation problem and impact our world with the King Jesus Gospel:

“And now, Lord, look upon their threats and grant to your servants to continue to speak your word with all boldness, while you stretch out your hand to heal, and signs and wonders are performed through the name of your holy servant Jesus.’ And when they had prayed, the place in which they were gathered together was shaken, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and continued to speak the word of God with boldness’” (Acts 29-31).

YES, LORD! May it be true in my life and that of all your people for the spread of the fame of the only Name by which we must be saved!