‘You will be
hated by everyone because of My name. But the one who endures to the end will
be delivered,’ (Matthew 10:22).
In this
frightening verse Jesus is giving us the heads up: Expect persecution when you
become a Christian. While I am quite certain members of the body of Christ have
always suffered to some extent (10 of the original apostles were martyred),
fifty years ago—and for a century-and-a-half before that—a ‘good Christian man’
was normally treated with respect. Christians were considered upstanding
members of society, people who were honest and respectable, full of integrity
and good works. Most of the persecution that went on occurred behind the
scenes, in quiet, and only by the most hateful malcontents.
Today Christians
are being marginalized, with the full support of mainstream media and the
government. Disgusting spectacles are being made of the believer. Our God-given
and constitutionally-protected religious liberties are being trampled on.
Christian store owners are being forced to offer abortifacients (pills that can
cause abortions), ministers are pressured to perform same-sex marriages no
matter their Christian conscience; the right to pray or even acknowledge God in
public schools has been ripped away, replaced by compulsions to accept the
theory of evolution; and Christians
are mocked and caricatured in movies and TV as silly, ignorant, extremists. And
that’s just the tip of the iceberg. There is a government sanctioned machine
targeting Christians. It is called the IR-you-know-what, and it has for years
been delaying tax-exempt applications filed by Christian groups, launching
unlawful investigations into the exact nature and affiliations of these groups,
demanding to know not only what their activities entail (um, charity?), but
what exactly is said during their prayer meetings! Prompted by the nefarious
Freedom from Religion Foundation, with the goal of wrapping duct tape over the mouth of every Christian in America, the IR-you-know-what is attempting to prevent the
discussion of political issues—even from a biblical perspective—from the
pulpit, Sunday school, church websites, etc. Such is the fervent heat placed on
Christian organizations that pastors are now afraid to remark on anything even
remotely political, even subjects that are first and foremost moral, such as
abortion. They fear to discuss them even from a biblical standpoint!
I could be
wrong, but I suspect that the media and the government are only partially to
blame. We believers are—on the whole—not what we used to be.
Fear of
persecution, of revilement, of mere dislike has diminished the modern man of
God by prompting him to compromise certain tenets of his faith, one after the
other, making him a small believer. Big believers follow Paul’s admonition in
Galatians 1:10. ‘For am I now trying to win the favor of people, or God? Or am
I striving to please people? If I were still trying to please people, I would
not be a slave of Christ.’
As proof of
the extent to which fundamental Christian tenets have been compromised, look no
further than any interview with America’s number one ‘Christian’, the self-help
guru of Lakewood Church. Every step of the way this man negotiates with
unbelievers to strike best-life-now deals, rewriting whole sections of
scripture to make it fit into his reformed Christianity, the Doctrine of
Self-Glory.
What matters
more to you, the things of God, or the favor of fickle, ungodly people who not
only refuse to serve God, but try to convince you that their path to damnation
is the intellectual way to live? We will all
one day give an account to our Savior. Personally, when He asks me if I was
faithful or if I made compromises, I would hate to have to confess that ‘I was
weak; I valued their approval over yours, Lord.’
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