There was a good twenty years during the Communist rule of Romania where anyone who turned in an individual suspected of being a believer would get extra food rations as a reward. It may not seem like much to us today since, for the most part, a fully stocked grocery store is a few minutes drive away, but back in the day, the shelves of every store were bare, and all you had was what the government gave you as far as foodstuffs were concerned.
Those living in the country and the villages had an easier
time because they could raise chickens, goats, pigs, or cows, plant some
vegetables, or have a couple of fruit trees on their property, but even they
had to count on the system for things such as flour, sugar, oil, and other
essentials for survival.
There was no shortage of people being turned in to the secret
police for an extra ration of sugar or oil, many by their kin, by wives,
husbands, daughters, and sons, and though those individuals were only supposed
to be called in for questioning, if they remained faithful to Jesus, and did
not deny their faith, being put to death was not outside the realm of
possibility. When you get sent to a work camp where the survival rate is less
than half, you could say you were being put to death at least half the time.
People keep talking about the guillotine as though it were
the pinnacle of suffering, but there are far worse ways to go than by beheading.
There are countless souls whose names we will never know who endured to the
end, being slowly starved out of existence, beaten, tortured, and abused in
ways few of us can imagine. We may never know their names, but God does, and
one day, they will receive their martyr’s crown as is fitting.
Just because we have it easy doesn’t mean everyone else does,
nor does it mean that we will have it easy in perpetuity. There is such an
animus being fomented against the children of God currently that those turning
you in won’t need any incentive than to be rid of you to go and report your
anti-social activities. How dare you not stand on the street waving a rainbow
flag while perverts and pederasts perform lewd acts in public? How dare you try
to avert your children’s gaze when grown adults are walking other adults on
leashes naked as the day they were born? There’s got to be something wrong with
you. Why don’t you want to be loving and inclusive?
If you don’t participate in the experiment, you are
automatically against it. There is no neutral party, no conscientious observer,
not with something so important. Pick a side, and you better pick the right
one; otherwise, you’ll suffer the consequences of your actions. What is the new
narrative? Free speech is free, but it’s not consequence-free. You can say
whatever you want, but if you say the wrong thing, we’ll take away your bank
account, your platforms, your voice, and sooner than some might think, your
freedom and your life. Don’t say no one ever warned you because I just did. Do
with it what you will!
The sad reality is that most of the church has been cowed and
brought to heel even before the persecution has started. The holdouts will now
become the target, with the aid of those who name the name of Jesus but are not
of Him, and your persecution will be justified because you will be demonized,
ostracized, and branded an enemy of the common good.
If we have to prune the tree of a few bad apples, it would be
criminal not to, wouldn’t it? Even though the bad apples, the instigators, the
troublemakers they’ll be referring to are little old ladies who just want to be
left alone, the narrative will be spun in such a way that you’d think that
arthritic octogenarian was a blood-thirsty psychopath.
We can’t have you disrupting the indoctrination of the masses
with common sense and reason. That just won’t do! Little Billy is a poodle
because he says he is. Look at the little darling; he’s even trying to lick himself
clean and everything. How dare you, you unfeeling, uncaring, intolerant
monster?
Before you think it could never come to that, I would ask
that you look back and see how far we’ve come in the last decade. That should
put a hitch in your giddy-up. Understand that evil doesn’t have an end in mind.
It devours, corrupts, and destroys until there is nothing left to devour,
corrupt, or destroy. There is no end in sight to the depravity, and anyone who
believes otherwise is fooling themselves.
We’ve already seen the test runs, and they seem promising.
Generally speaking, for the most part, people will do what they’re told by
perceived authority, even if what they’re told to do makes no rational sense.
Shrink wrap grandma’s head so she doesn’t cough on you, stand six feet apart
because seven feet is one foot too far, become a shut-in, and have no contact
with the outside world. Churches are a danger zone, but liquor stores and weed
shops are as safe as a mother’s bosom. Need I go on? And people obeyed; they
submitted, and anyone who questioned any of the lunacy was summarily
ostracized.
During the peak of the craziness, I told the ministry staff
that I would agree to go and speak in any church, anywhere, that asked for me
to come and that was still holding live services. It would be on my own dime,
and although I never do, I would not require an offering or anything of the
sort. There was one church in Michigan that asked for me to come and speak, and
I did it gladly because I have the utmost respect for Shepherds who shepherd
not only when life is good, and the sun is shining but when times get hard and
the threat of reprimand for doing good looms large. Yes, there were others who
defied ordinances and rules created from whole cloth by petty tyrants, and they
proved their mettle by doing so.
At the risk of sounding conspiratorial, I would wager that
every one of those pastors and churches who kept their doors open and did not
obey without question are on a list somewhere for the next time an existential planetary
threat that has now been declared no more dangerous than the common flu arises.
After all, you must beta-test a program before going live and work out the bugs
along the way. What was pales compared to what will be, and those who folded
once will likely fold again.
With love in Christ,
Michael Boldea, Jr.
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