Do Not Lose Heart
\nCopyright 2013 by Shea Oakley
\nAll rights reserved<\/p>\n
Those of us who are followers of Christ in America are beginning to see the first stirrings of a widespread antipathy towards Biblical Christianity that will most likely lead to real persecution at some point in the perhaps not too distant future. If and when this happens we will simply be joining our brothers and sisters in the persecuted church throughout the last two millennia as well as with tens of millions of God\u2019s people living in many other parts of the world today. Moreover it should not be a shock to us that our nation is rapidly abandoning its Judeo-Christian heritage. Without going into a history of secularization during the past half-century the fact is that the writing has been on the wall for at least that long a time.<\/p>\n
What is more important for Christians here is to realize that, apart from a genuinely supernatural and wide-spread revival, this trend is unlikely to be arrested. The news today appears full of evidence that \u201cthe tipping point\u201d has already been reached. We must prepare ourselves to live in a \u201cPost-Christian\u201d society that will increasingly view those individuals who espouse biblical convictions as being anathema to the new social order (the order in question being based on a particularly aggressive brand of Secular Humanism masquerading behind feel-good terms like \u201ctolerance\u201d and \u201cdiversity\u201d, the kind of tolerance and diversity that leads its adherants to openly hate those they consider to be intolerant) This will be more obvious in some parts of the nation than others, at least at first, but may well gain momentum throughout the U.S. given enough time and the increasing centralization of power in the hands of a more and more wholeheartedly secular federal government.<\/p>\n
For those of us who increasingly sense we are fighting a rearguard action against a national rejection of the God of the Bible it is becoming more important to remind ourselves regularly that He is still ultimately in charge of the affairs of man. One of the most effective ways of preparing for the apparent dismantling of \u201cAmerican Christendom\u201d as we once knew it is to affirm to ourselves, and to our brethren in the faith, that our Lord knows exactly what is going on and is ultimately using it to further His redemptive ends. He is supremely capable of glorifying His Name in the midst of the moral decline of this nation while working good in our lives, even in the face of real persecution. He is also capable of bringing many new truly committed believers into the fold even, and especially, in times like these.<\/p>\n
What we are beginning to see on our own shores is but a variation of the kind of systematic repression of true religious freedom that we have already faced for many years in places like the Islamic nations and what\u2019s left of the Communist world (Mainland China, North Korea, Cuba, et al.) In these areas true Christian faith can be a ticket to imprisonment, torture and death. It seems a bit incongruous to expect that those of us here should expect that we would forever avoid this kind of reality. Also, as mentioned earlier, in addition to present day oppression multitudes of Christians in various other parts of the globe have known severe persecution since the days of the Apostles. <\/p>\n
Beyond this we see in the Scriptures multiple prophecies concerning the times preceding the return of Christ, prophecies that confirm what we are seeing happen before our eyes, widespread apostasy and moral decay among them. Perhaps never before have so many human beings taken \u201cthe way that seems right to a man but in the end leads to (spiritual) death.\u201d So it is not as if the faithful student of the Word of God can claim that something strange is going on. These are signs of the times.<\/p>\n
Again it comes back to fighting any fear this may engender by believing the promises of God towards His hard-pressed children in any age. We are assured over and over in the Bible that He will uphold us with the power of His love and that, whatever we face in this life, He will make us \u201cmore than conquerors\u201d as we stay true to His Son. Beyond this our Lord will vindicate His people in the end and judge those who unrepentedly persecute them.<\/p>\n
In the meantime our job is to steadfastly hold true to Biblical truth while loving our enemies as Jesus called us to do. In places of persecution, both past and present, many of those who hated us were won over to Christ by our willingness to love them in sincere and practical ways, even as they were taking us to prison\u2026or to our deaths at their hands. May we who bear the name of Christ in America trust the same God those martyrs of the faith have and may we not love our own lives in this fallen and dying world so much that we spiritually falter if those lives are threatened. After all, this world, including this country, is passing away and our eternal homeland is not far away. Remember that truth always, put your life in the hands of God\u2026and do not lose heart. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Do Not Lose Heart Copyright 2013 by Shea Oakley All rights reserved Those of us who are followers of Christ in America are beginning to see the first stirrings of a widespread antipathy towards Biblical Christianity that will most likely lead to real persecution at some point in the perhaps not too distant future. If… <\/p>\n