Preparing For Persecution XVI

 Their problem was Jesus. It had been from the beginning, and they thought they’d solved their problem by conspiring to have him crucified. Now, it was His followers doing miracles in His name and teaching that there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved. Simple men were doing what the most learned men of the time couldn’t, and that ate at them.

This couldn’t be of God; surely it couldn’t; if God were going to use anybody, it would surely be someone like a Pharisee, a member of the Sanhedrin, or even the high priest. They weren’t special enough to be used by God in such a manner. They were naïve in the ways of the world and didn’t have the first clue about marketing their gift, starting a television ministry, growing the fanbase, and monetizing. The gift of miracles was being wasted on people who had no inkling of how they could use it to elevate their own names and positions—doing good just for the sake of doing good? How quaint.

If being nice was all Christianity was about, Peter and John would never have gotten in trouble. For that matter, if helping the poor, or being charitable, leaving big tips, or not complaining when the service is sub-par was all Christianity was about, Peter and John still wouldn’t have gotten in trouble.

It wasn’t even so much that the lame man had been healed; it’s who they attributed the healing to. It doesn’t matter what the devil claims his problem is with the children of God. When you boil it down and you strip away all the isms, feelings, new science, and nonsense, the devil hates God’s children because of Jesus and His name’s sake.

The Pharisees could have even lived with Peter and John, healing the odd person here and there, but what they couldn’t abide was that they taught men of Christ and Him crucified and risen from the dead.

A few weeks back, one of the most popular churches in America declared that during resurrection Sunday, there would be no mention of Calvary, the blood of Jesus, or the resurrection. Not that they mention these things regularly the rest of the year; it’s one of those self-improvement clubs masquerading as a church, but to go out of your way to declare to one and all that you won’t be mentioning the resurrection on resurrection Sunday is a new level of cowardice. Congratulations! You’ve done what the Pharisees demanded of Peter and John without even being threatened or given a dressing down by powerful people.

That’s the troubling thing with the over-inflated sense of self that most churchgoing folk in the West have. You’re voluntarily censoring the message of the cross, the name of Jesus, His resurrection, and His ascension without ever being threatened by the agents of darkness. I wonder what they would omit if real threats by individuals who had the wherewithal to follow through on them were ever leveled against such people. You’re telling me they’ll finally discover they have a backbone? An amoeba in the sun will be an amoeba in the snow, just a shivering one.

You’ll know it when you see it, and you’ll remember someone warned you about it, but when the sifting comes, the greatest enemies the true followers of Jesus will have to contend with are the social justice congregations masquerading as true believers. They’ve already capitulated, stopped preaching Christ and the cross, and see you as an affront to their sensibilities because you are unwilling to cower and surrender as they have.

While the godless will raise them up as examples of what they believe a real Christian should be: docile, inoffensive, easily swayed, malleable, and compromised, they will point to you as the roadblock standing in the way of unity. What they fail to mention is that for there to be unity between the light and the dark, the light must die out. Yes, you, too, can avoid being persecuted; just deny Jesus, and we can be friends. But if we deny Jesus, what is left of our faith? If we marginalize the Christ and refuse to boldly declare that He is the risen savior of mankind, what sets us apart from all the other religions of the world that are just trying to be good and kind and accepting of the most depraved of practices?

When Communism took root in the old country, the first thing those in power did was make a list of government-approved churches. The leaders of those churches were vetted to ensure that what they taught was obedience to the motherland and nothing more. There was no talk of Jesus, His power, the Holy Spirit, or the way of righteousness, just general tropes about how the greater good was the paramount goal and how refusing to comply would be deemed rebellion against God.

The churches the government approved of were left alone, neither harassed nor persecuted. Nobody was showing up in the wee hours of the morning to arrest their pastors, nobody was terminating the employment of their parishioners, nobody was showing up to church with a black eye or missing teeth, and because those in authority had been compromised, they pointed to their absence of persecution and sacrifice as a grace and a blessing from on high rather than the fruit of their betrayal of Jesus.

Eventually, the narrative became that it served those people being persecuted right because they didn’t know when to keep their heads down and go along to get along. Does that particular narrative ring any bells? It should. Whether it’s abortion, homosexuality, transgenderism, or any of a dozen aberrant practices, whenever a church, a pastor, or a believer gets run through the mud by the godless, has their livelihood threatened and painted as the worst human since Hitler, and in some instances even worse than Hitler, there’s always some non-binary pastor of some Unitarian church showing up on television insisting that it serves them right. Jesus is all about love and acceptance, after all, so those people talking about sin and righteousness or holiness unto God are just not being very Christ-like and deserve to be shunned by society.

The message of the cross has been twisted by the wolves who have crept in unnoticed, the character of Jesus has been redefined, and those who continue to cling to truth and pursue righteousness continue to be vilified and demonized by those claiming to be of the household of faith. It only adds fuel to the fire and emboldens the godless to take ever-increasing violent measures. How do you think this is going to end?

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr.