You don’t get rid of your chains by rattling them – you just further enrage yourself and provide amusement for those who applied your chains.

The only way to get rid of chains is to repent and live the Gospel.

I mention this because there is currently a “Freedom Convoy” converging on Canada’s capital city, Ottawa. Thousands of truckers are rolling in from all points in Canada and the U.S., cheered on by roadside flag-waving supporters and a multi-million-dollar gofundme campaign. The participating truckers and their supporters are protesting Canada’s health-related mandates. The truckers plan to remain in Ottawa until all the mandates are dropped.

As a Canadian, I wish I could be happy about the Freedom Convoy. I wish I weren’t a party-pooper. I wish that regaining freedom were as simple as rolling into a nation’s capital in a big rig and waving a laundry list of demands like a magic wand. But that’s not how the world works because that’s not how God’s justice works.

The world is the way it is as the result of people’s thoughts and actions, mitigated by God’s mercy. The world is God’s justice playing out in real time. The mandates are part of it. The more godly the thoughts and actions of the people living in a particular place, the freer that place is. When I say “godly”, I mean treating other people as you want to be treated. I mean fearing God and following the Ten Commandments. I mean being honest, polite, and hard-working, and having integrity. This is the way most people in former Christian countries used to be, which is why those countries used to be free. The countries weren’t free because the citizens protested their way into freedom. Protesting brings only negative rewards, not positive ones. Moses very clearly explained that freedom is the reward of a godly society, which is why former Christian nations have now devolved into medical dictatorships. The mandates and those who decree them aren’t to blame for this state of affairs; the people living in the nations are.

You don’t gain (or regain) freedom by protesting the way the world is, because what you’re essentially doing is protesting God’s justice. When you protest, you’re fighting against God. This is why Jesus never protested the Roman occupation of Israel and Judah, like Barabbas did. Jesus’ only arguments were against people in positions of authority who misrepresented God and scripture. But the way the world was, Jesus let be. It was not his concern. He was not interested in fighting against the well-deserved Roman occupation of Israel and Judah because he wasn’t interested in fighting against God.

As born-again believers, we have to be very, very, very careful not to fall into the trap of believing that freedom and justice can be achieved by protesting and killing. This is a temptation of the devil, to believe that good can come from bad. Good can only come from good, just as bad can only come from bad. The trucker protest in Canada is a protest against the earned rewards of a society that has rejected God and his Way. Canada has fallen into a state of medical tyranny not because the country’s politicians and policy-makers have imposed draconian mandates, but because the thoughts and actions of the people now living there have earned the tyranny. The imposition of the mandates is the reward for Canada’s devolvement into an ungodly nation.

In other words, the worse the thoughts and actions of the people living in Canada, the worse the living conditions will be there. The politicians and policy-makers are only administering God’s justice. Even if the mandates were dropped, the negative rewards that are due would simply manifest as something else equally unpleasant. There is no escaping God’s justice. In fact, trying to escape it only makes the negative rewards worse.

I’m reminded of a young child who is told to go to his room as a punishment for being naughty, and he protests the punishment by throwing a tantrum. When you support protests, you’re participating in the tantrum. Born-again believers need to stay far, far away from supporting protests. We understand that the world is the way it is as the result of God’s justice playing out in real time, and that fighting against the way the world is, is fighting against God.

We need instead to be like Jesus and to focus on preaching and teaching the Kingdom. We need to treat others as we would want to be treated, and we need to fear God, keep the Commandments, and do our best to be honest, polite, and hard-working. We need to have integrity in everything we do. And we need to do all this in sufficient numbers, to make it count. That is how you make a nation free, not by protesting.