The Cost of Our Silence {Book Review and Giveaway}

   Wow! That is my word for this book. I know I requested to review this book thinking -"This might be a little dry but it sounds like an important message for our day." I was so pleasantly surprised to find this book super interesting and also filled with facts that I can use as I write and as I talk to others. This book taught me a lot about things that have gone on in history to bring our nation to the place it is today (I learned the background story of "Roe v. Wade" - things I never knew before) and it told me a lot about what is going on right now. A lot of those things could have left me feeling a little (no a LOT) depressed) but instead the author David Fiorazo did a great job of sharing scriptures and encouraging us to go forward from here. That we need to be unafraid, willing to tell the truth and to encourage others to learn God's truth as well.

   There is so much I would like to share from this book. I have little post-it-notes sticking out of my copy all over the place - things that I wanted to share with you. I am not going to be able to do all of that in this post as the book is 313 pages and so I simply cannot cover it all but I will share a little. Meanwhile I would recommend finding this book to read for yourself. If you are a Christian in America this book is for you. You can find it on Amazon. It is available in paperback and e-book.

  Mr. Fiorazo starts the book out by talking about the Christian heritage of our country. For me, a lover of history, this was quite interesting. One of the neat quotes from this section was by Jonathan Edwards. It is: "Resolution One: I will live for God. Resolution Two: If no one else does, I still will."
This is something that is so important to have decided in your life. In this day when less and less people will stand up for what is right we need to have the commitment that even if no one else will live for God - I still will!

  One thing that is very interesting about this book is the explanation of how this turning of our country to the un-christian principles that it now holds has been happening for years. The evil that is going on now did not happen overnight. It happened slowly while for the most part Christians have failed to stand up and say - "This is wrong!" Already in 1928 the Presbyterian Church of the United States rejected these beliefs:

• The divine inspiration of the Bible by the Holy Spirit and the inerrancy of Scripture.
• The pre-existence, deity, and virgin birth of Jesus Christ.
• The satisfaction of God's justice by the crucifixion of Jesus Christ (substitutionary atonement)
• The bodily resurrection, ascension, and intercession of Christ.
• The historical reality of Christ's miracles.

These beliefs are central to Christianity and to what the Bible teaches. It is absolutely amazing to me the a church that professes to be Christian should say that they don't believe these important doctrines.

  As we look at history it is amazing to notice the similarities between what happened in Germany under Hitler's leadership and what is happening in America today. The similarities can be pretty scary. I had recently been reading another book on WW2 history and had already been noticing similarities so reading what is written about it in "The Cost of Our Silence" just confirmed what I had already been noticing.

   Beyond sharing the history of our nation and how the decline has happened "The Cost of Our Silence" also goes into detail about Judicial Tyranny (explaining how the judges have started ruling from the bench and doing things that they aren't supposed to do), Abortion, The Rebellion against God Ordained Marriage, the War on a Biblical Worldview, Common Core and our Eroding Educational System, Witchcraft/Satan Worship and how that is being spread in our country and more. Mr. Fiorazo gives us details on some of these things that can help us to be more informed about what is going on and be able to speak more knowledgeably to others about why these things are wrong and opposed to the Truth of the Bible.

   Some of the things I really appreciated about this book is that though the author speaks very openly and clearly against sin he also explains very clearly that we are still to love (and share God's love with) the sinner. We are to hate sin but realizing that we are sinners too, we should love the sinner. Another of the things that I appreciated was that though he points out the horrors that are going on in this world he doesn't do it in a depressing way that makes us just want to run away and hide. He talks about them and then prompts us to go forward and do something about it. To be willing to speak out against sin and also to remember that we need to look at everything with an eternal perspective.

   Here is a quote that I especially like from this book: "Since we have received and accepted the gospel, we must reject the world because the two are in opposition to each other. This can present a problem for many of us. If we love Jesus, we will obey Him (John 14:15), but if we love the world, we will end up following anything else except Him. Because this temporary earth is passing away and we are faced with an eternity that will not wait, the choice should be clear."

  The book talks of how we should feel compelled to speak. If we as Christians have the message that can change the eternity of another in a very drastic way shouldn't we tell them about it? We do we so often remain silent? Mr. Fiorazo points out "I know it can be difficult and uncomfortable to share out faith, but we have nothing to lose; the unbeliever has everything to lose."

   This book over and over again speaks of the need to get back to the Bible and God's truth that is found in it and how we need to share that message with others. I totally agree! But in light of sharing God's truth with others I do want to point out one area that this author failed to share the whole truth of the gospel. On page 41 he speaks of how God sent His only Son, Jesus Christ, to give His life as a ransom for us. He says by believing, confessing Jesus is Lord, and repenting or our sins, we are saved and have everlasting life with God. I believe that this is correct too except that the author fails to mention the need for baptism which is an important step in our conversion - the point where we have our sins washed away and receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. (For more details and scriptures that cause me to believe this check out this post.) 

 Here is another quote from the book that again points out the importance of knowing God's word: "Let the word of Christ richly dwell within you, with all wisdom teaching and admonishing one another with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with thankfulness in you hearts to God (Colossians 3:16  

Notice the apostle Paul implies here that to have the wisdom of God and the ability to admonish others with psalms and songs, we must first allow the word of Christ to "richly dwell" within us. Believers become prone to fall for false teachings and susceptible to the cult of liberalism when we do not know the Word of God as well as we should. We can hardly expect less mature Christians to discern the error of subtle emerging doctrines."

There are so many other things that I would love to share from this book but this post is already getting quite long so I will quit for now and hopefully write more on the subjects this book brought up again soon. Meanwhile - I highly recommend reading this book.

The Exciting Part-

I have a cope of this book to give away to one of you! 

This giveaway is now over and Sheila is the winner! Congratulations Sheila!

Sheila - your e-mail does not seem to be working. If you should see this post would you please contact me with your mailing info? Otherwise I will choose another winner shortly.

If you would like to win a copy of this book please leave a comment with a way that I can contact you if you should win. I will choose a winner after September 13th and then I will contact the winner to get their mailing information and send it out to them.

I would love hearing your thoughts concerning our country, the challenges it is facing and what we can do about it? How can we more boldly share the truth with others?

Disclaimer: I did receive this book free for purposes of reviewing but all the opinions expressed are my own.