Preparing For Persecution VII

 It’s essential to know the character of those who stand beside you and that they share your convictions. This may not seem so important when everything is going swimmingly and when there is no opposition, persecution, or threats of violence and death. However, when you’re standing next to someone, and you’re both facing the most powerful religious authorities of your day, it’s important to know that they’re not going to throw you under the bus to try and save their own hide.

Before you say that could never happen, I would ask if you’ve ever been in such a position. If not, then you don’t know unless you know the character of the individual in question. In the season to come, one that will be marked by chaos and persecution, knowing those you stand with is a must.

Be judicious in whom you associate with, whom you lend your name to, who you congregate with, and who you call a brother or a sister in Christ. Fair-weather friends are just that, and when the day comes that a fair-weather friend sees a benefit in betraying you, they will.

It’s happened before, and it will happen again because those who follow Christ only for what they were told He will do for them will abandon Him when the going gets tough, and all those baubles and trinkets don’t materialize.

If you’ve ever wondered how dangerous the current crop of doctrine is to the individual believer, look no further than an entire generation being sold on prosperity and easy living only to be faced with persecution and privation.

I’m not saying that these doctrines don’t sound pleasing to the flesh; they do. Unfortunately, they are not Biblical, for while the Word tells us that the just will live by faith, they sell dreams of mansions and diamonds in the sky.

If those selling this doctrine can come up with one solid example of a follower of Jesus riding off into the sunset with saddle bags full of gold strapped to their saddles to live out the rest of their days in opulence and ease, I’d love to see it. If not, then take the words Jesus spoke to heart and prepare to endure to the end.

Peter and John, along with the core group of believers who learned from Jesus, knew what to expect. They didn’t know how it would come about or what would precipitate the persecution, but there was no doubt in their hearts that it would find them because Jesus warned of it over and over again.

The only thing Peter was dumbstruck by was that they fell under the lens of the ruling class because a lame man had been healed. That was the only part of their circumstance that was befuddling to him because it was so out of left field. They’d done a good deed, a noble deed, and this is why they were now being put to the question by the high priest.

When they begin to tighten the noose on the church, it will be for reasons that will be surprising. We will share Peter’s befuddlement because we will deem the things we are being ostracized, excluded, and threatened for as something good, noble, and of pure intentions. To the godless, it will be perfectly reasonable to seek your silencing and shunning, but to believers, it will likely be something out of left field that won’t make sense at the time.

I can think of ten things off the top of my head that the household of faith can become vocal about, stand against, and make their voices heard that might be the spark that sets off the powder keg of persecution in the West. I’m sure you can too if you apply yourself.

Even if they don’t have a valid reason, they’ll make one up because reasons don’t matter; only results do, and as long as they believe their efforts will lead to the destruction of the church, the ends will justify the means.

To persecute someone for a perceived crime, you must first establish a narrative that the people can get behind. It’s become easier to do this in our day and age because since the advent of the internet, cable news, and all manner of data-driven means of getting you to see and read what they want you to see and read, the world has gotten much smaller than in the days of the early church.

If you want to understand the drive behind some of the agendas being foisted upon the unsuspecting populace, you must view them through the prism of religious fervor rather than as the machinations of some benevolent force that wants equality for all, a tofurkey in every pot, and a trans kid in every home.

Time and again, when a certain corporation has pushed this agenda, the public has slapped it back down, and a nice chunk of their market share disappeared overnight, but they don’t care. They’re still at it, more fervent than ever, because to them, the cause is more important than the bottom line. That’s what zealotry is—an uncompromising pursuit of an ideology or religion.

Whether it’s the people making a nuisance of themselves because they want us all to live in caves and read the collected works of Karl Marx by candlelight while snacking on roots and bulbs or the child mutilators who want no child happy in their own skin but each one pumping hormones or hormone blockers into their bodies until they can’t take it anymore and try to find a final solution for their pain, the goal overrides everything including common sense. They are unconcerned about the harm they might cause to others because their ideology is preeminent in their actions, and they’ve already concluded that they are on the side of right, beyond reproach, with no limits placed on their actions as long as their actions have the desired effect.

The modern-day church still thinks it can reason with zealots, just as Peter attempted to reason with Annas and his lot. He attempted to point out that they were being judged for doing a noble thing, but alas, his argument fell on deaf ears.

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr.