As the attacks in this nation increase against Christianity and freedom, I keep hearing a variation of that familiar refrain: “Just wait until,” in this latest case, the 2014 elections. What, pray tell, are we waiting for?
We were waiting for the 2012, 2010 and 2008 elections too. Did anything change? Actually it did, and for the worse. Don’t blame the politicians entirely for the expanding wickedness. They’re a reflection of the population that elects them. Hear me. There is no political solution for moral and spiritual problems. You can’t elect godless men and women and expect righteous rule.
“Likewise every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit” (Matthew 7:17-18).
Evil advances through indifference, cowardice, ignorance and calculated indoctrination. Edmund Burke observed, “All that’s necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.” Christians, we’ve done very little in opposition due to indifference and cowardice. Those things important to God should be important to us: His laws, and His moral absolutes. Either we have more important things to do or we’re too scared to speak up.
So babies continue to be murdered and the homosexual agenda pushes forward with Sodom and Gomorrah fervor. We’ve allowed generations to be indoctrinated rather than educated in an atheistic public school system; young minds taught that there is no God, no morality, and encouraged to accept and participate in every kind of reprobate behavior. In sin they perish; our neighbors, friends and family. Strangers too, all created in the image of God. “Oh no, can’t risk offending someone by telling them, in a loving, tactful way, about biblical truth.”
Heaven forbid, we might be insulted. So by silence we assent.
“Be merciful to those who doubt; snatch others from the fire and save them; to others show mercy, mixed with fear—hating even the clothing stained by corrupted flesh” (Jude 1:22-23).
Or maybe you compromise. Maybe God didn’t really mean what the Bible says. I mean Pastor O or Politician O “interprets” the Bible to mean something other than what it seems to say.
“For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths” (2 Timothy 4:3-4).
Thus misled, some believers think that they’re helping a loved one by accepting, even encouraging, a sinful lifestyle that leads to eternal destruction. As if personal circumstance alters God’s immutable definitions of right and wrong.
“This people draweth nigh unto me with their mouth, and honoureth me with their lips; but their heart is far from me. But in vain they do worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men” (Matthew 15:8-9).
When you compromise with evil, what do you get in exchange? More evil. The process of searing the conscience has begun. Your precedent is one of giving in, retreating, when you should be standing firm; moral cowardice. As opposition wanes, the forces of evil press forward, meeting less and less resistance. Mark Twain noted, “It is curious—curious that physical courage should be so common in the world, and moral courage so rare.”
Where are you, oh salt and light, in the face of this onslaught?
“You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled by men. You are the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on a stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven” (Matthew 5:13-16).
You cannot win a war that you don’t fight, you can’t engage in a battle that you’re unaware of. What’s happening in the physical world is both symptom and consequence of what’s taking place in the spiritual realm. To our shame, only a minority of professing believers actively oppose Satan’s agenda as it spreads non-stop through his minions in education, media, entertainment and, of course, government social engineering.
Even fewer understand from whence these evils come.
“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” (Ephesians 6:12).
Satan desires the destruction and eternal damnation of every human being. That’s it. That’s what all of this is about and has ever been about. Whichever tentacle or tentacles of wickedness you recognize as a threat, all work together for this goal. If you’re ill equipped to war in the spiritual, your efforts in the physical are futile. Consider carefully and prayerfully how to be properly girded for the battle that’s upon us. Don’t just read these verses, absorb and apply them.
“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.
Stand therefore, having your loins girt about with truth, and having on the breastplate of righteousness; and your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace; above all, taking the shield of faith, wherewith ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked.
And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the spirit, which is the word of God: Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, and watching thereunto with all perseverance and supplication for all saints” (Ephesians 6:13-18).
As has been the history of Christianity, so will be the future. The heat of persecution will either temper your shield of faith, or melt it. You decide which it will be.
Our salvation doesn’t lie with a politician, political party or secular movement. It lays solely in the person of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Who or what do you wait for? As a servant, as an heir, as one redeemed through His blood, I wait for Jesus. All else is distraction and deceit. It doesn’t matter if you believe in a pre-trib, mid-trib or post-trib Rapture, or if you believe only in the Second Coming.
Until Jesus’ return, we have work to do. “Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and the son, and of the Holy Ghost: Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world” (Matthew 28:19-2).
The Great Commission stands. Now is not the time to coast as a Christian, waiting to be whisked away to heaven, oblivious to the battle for human souls as it rages around us. Nor has it ever been.
Winston Churchill stated the matter forthrightly:
If you will not fight for the right when you can easily win without bloodshed; if you will not fight when your victory will be sure and not too costly; you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a small chance of survival. There may even be a worse case: you may have to fight when there is no hope of victory, because it is better to perish than live as slaves.
A sobering moment of introspection here… How great is your faith if you won’t even contend for it in word? Right now, in other parts of the world, our brothers and sisters are being beaten, imprisoned, raped and martyred for their faith. They resist to blood. You see, when evil gains the upper hand, it has no mercy. That evil is here, now, in our country, and gaining in strength. You either defy it or submit to it, there are no other options.
The hour grows late.
“Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour” (1 Peter 5:8).
Are you ready spiritually, mentally and physically for the days ahead? I pray that you are. Because ready or not: Here they come.