June 06

“Let your light shine before men; that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven” (Matthew 5:16).

Now, more than ever, we need to move ourselves in the direction of being distinctive from the zeitgeist, the world culture of this age, which, because we have refused to criticise it or call it to reform, despises any suggestion of influence from the Church. More than ever our faith needs to shine brightly and clearly in our churches and communities; and if a world now accustomed to great darkness calls our light harsh, so be it; for if our light doesn’t shine, there is no light at all. The gospel of Christ is the sole and last hope for this world. It has always been so.

Simply put, it is time for God’s people to prepare themselves for sacrifice; any possibility of compromise with this world is now unthinkable; our only recourse is to lance the boils; and those doing the lancing will be made increasingly to suffer. But we have to be willing to embrace and endure such suffering in increasing ways in the months and years ahead.

We are at war for our own souls and the souls of people we love. We are at war for the soul of this nation and its culture. And like any soldier, we must train to fight well. We must study our faith and be more committed than ever. We must also know our enemy and his tactics, and we must be prepared to suffer — and even to lose our life.

Christians have to seriously examine themselves against the standards of Jesus Christ, and make some choices about what, if anything they stand for; what is most important. We must gear up to battle for our own souls and to stop treating lightly the sinful disregard for God’s law in our lives, and those of our families and communities.

This must be the work of every believer who hopes to one day hear the words “Well done; good and faithful servant”. It is not something that is the responsibility of the Church, as such, but of each believer. The Church is more interested in protecting what it has left, than in summoning the faithful to battle; indeed, the Church seems loath to summon people to anything other than what is comfortable. Content with the trivial, meaningless role that the world has allocated to it, it is unable or unwilling to stand up and oppose evil laws that defy the Word of God and condemn our society to further degeneration and satanic domination. If financial penalties, or even jail, are enough to make them shrink from the God-given responsibility to be salt and light to the nation, and to preserve it from these evils, what possibility will there be of blood martyrdom when that becomes necessary?

The silence is deafening; our Church leaders are consumed with the management and daily administration of their corporate bodies, rather than being a prophetic voice to the Body of Christ and to the nation. They neither understand the times nor what the people of God should do; they speak hesitatingly because they do not hear the voice of the One warning from heaven; and they do not hear because they do not have ears to hear the Divine voice amidst all the worldly apologetics which they must take on to appease the spirit of the world.

No-one is following because no-one is leading, “For if the trumpet gives an uncertain sound, who shall prepare himself to the battle?” (1 Corinthians 14:8).

But its not just Church leaders who need to examine themselves; each believer must search their heart and let the Spirit of God shine a light upon the deeper recesses of the soul. Do we really believe, before God, that we are living as Christ has called us to live? Are our children truly protected from the evil influences that abound in the world? Are we ready, if called upon, to suffer for our faith? That suffering can be anything from social disregard, ostracism from corporate Christianity, being fined, jailed or even killed. Does our faith mean that much to us?

The scriptures unequivocally point to a time when persecution and martyrdom will burst upon those who seek to follows Christ unambiguously; clearly, these times are upon us and we cannot sit idly by and hope that somehow things will magically get better. “Comfort” Christianity has sown the wind; it must now prepare to reap the whirlwind.

It is now time to prepare for persecutions that will get bolder by the month and the year. The darkness that marched in under the banners of tolerance, never intended to be bound by it; and, having increasingly gained power, they are seeking to criminalise anyone who resists their vision.

We who gave them tolerance will find that there is no tolerance for us; religious liberty is eroding, and compulsory compliance is already here. Parliaments have defied the assertion in the Preamble that underpins our Constitution – We, the people, relying on the blessing of Almighty God –; the courts and tribunals increasingly shift to militantly secular and activist judges who legislate atheism from the bench; our education system from Kindergarten to University is totally corrupt, brainwashing the minds of our young with academic trivia, political fashions and unrelenting atheism.

When will we as a Church finally say to the politicians, bureaucrats and social engineers who demand we comply with evil laws: “We will not comply; if you fine us we will not pay; if you seek to confiscate our buildings, we still will not comply; if you arrest us, we will go to jail; but we will not comply with evil laws or cooperate with evil.”?

Alas, the Church is ill prepared for persecution; each believer will have to face the coming struggle on his own and, quite possibly, in the face of opposition and betrayal from Corporate Christianity; for the marriage of Church and State has always resulted in the persecution of those who choose to follow Christ Jesus.