Easy Street USA
By Jason Lovelace
Key Scripture:
“And I will say to my soul,
‘Soul…take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry.’”
-- Luke 12.19
“For the time will come when they will not
endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they
heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; 4And
they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be
turned unto fables.”
-- II Timothy 4.3~4
“For I know this, that after my departing shall
grievous wolves enter in among you, not sparing the flock.
Also of your own selves shall men arise, speaking perverse
things, to draw away disciples after them”
--Acts 20.29~30
“Woe to them that are at ease in
Zion, and trust in the mountain of Samaria,
which are named chief of the nations, to whom the house of Israel came!”
-- Amos 6.1
“And I am very sore displeased with the heathen
that are at ease: for I was but a little displeased, and
they helped forward the affliction.”
-- Zechariah 1.15
“Moab hath been at ease from his youth, and he
hath settled on his lees, and hath not been emptied from
vessel to vessel, neither hath he gone into captivity:
therefore his taste remained in him, and his scent is not
changed. Therefore, behold, the days come, saith the
LORD, that I will send unto him wanderers, that shall cause
him to wander, and shall empty his vessels, and break their
bottles. And Moab
shall be ashamed of Chemosh, as the house of
Israel
was ashamed of
Bethel
their confidence. How say ye, We are mighty and strong
men for the war? Moab is spoiled,
and gone up out of her cities, and his chosen young men are
gone down to the slaughter, saith the King, whose name is
the LORD of hosts. The calamity of Moab is near to come, and his
affliction hasteth fast. All ye that are about him,
bemoan him; and all ye that know his name, say, How is the
strong staff broken, and the beautiful rod!”
--Jeremiah 48.11~17
“And a voice of a multitude being at ease was
with her: and with the men of the common sort were brought
Sabeans from the wilderness, which put bracelets upon their
hands, and beautiful crowns upon their heads.”
-- Ezekiel 23.42
The United States
of America
has long been known as a nation in which religious freedom
is a guarantee protected under the Bill of Rights in the United States’ Constitution.
When the Thirteen British Colonies in North
America gained their independence, following the Treaty of
Paris in 1783 which ended the American Revolution, the
Founding Fathers of the USA made the decision to forever allow freedom of
religious expression in the
USA. Since that time,
more than 200 years ago, vast numbers of people from every
shore and nation have come to the USA seeking
freedom to worship God as is deemed best. For decades
after her founding, the Church of Jesus Christ stood strong
and supreme in the
United States, with those
filling the pulpits being men of renown and of utmost
character, preaching the Word of God with conviction and
authority. As we approach the second decade of the 21st
Century, how are things going for the US of A?
A Fighting Beginning
Though many modern historians both domestic and
foreign will debate the issue ad nauseam, the
glaring, crystal clear fact of history maintains that the
men and women who founded the United States of America were
believers in Jesus Christ as LORD and Saviour. Those
leaders who stood in revolt against King George III and the
British Empire knew that what they were doing was an
undertaking ordained by heaven, and they knew and were
convinced that only God could and would be their undying
help in their struggle against the world’s preeminent
military and economic power at that time. This courage
and this conviction were often the only things separating
them from an attitude of defeat and hopelessness and that of
victory and a bright, independent future. Especially
in the beginning, when things looked their bleakest - with
Washington and the Continental Army corked up and camped out
in Valley Forge in the Winter of 1777-78 - it was only by
miracles that the United States Army and Navy at that early
time in history, was sustained and kept going, dodging by a
hair’s breadth defeat and total subjugation by the British
and their until-then undefeated army and navy. It was
through these years and later, in the War of 1812, that the
faith of the founding fathers was tested, tried, and
cemented into the culture and traditions of the United States of America.
Down through the years, Presidents of the USA, military leaders, congressional
representatives, governors of states, and other prominent
government leaders paid due respect to God and his hand upon
the USA. Through the Constitution
of the United States, though government was forbidden to
establish a State Church, the freedom to worship as one chose and
chooses became an inalienable right for all who reside
inside the borders of the
USA. As such, Christ
was taught in public schools, state universities, welcomed
into discourse in the government and public forums.
Leaders revered God, his written word, praised him in times
of prosperity, and called upon him in times of national
despair. Settlers moving East to West carried their
faith with them, even so much as spreading the Gospel among
the Indians in the Central and Western territories and later
states. Faith and hope in God carried the USA through national calamities such as the
various economic troubles (especially the Stock Market Crash
of 1929), the United States’
Civil War of 1861-1865, two world wars, and cultural
challenges to the national identity.
Hardships…..but Persecution?
The USA went through many trials of
faith during her time as a nation. Through the Two
World Wars, the USA - despite facing enemies whose
military were superior to our own - faced down these threats
with faith in God, trust in the Bible, God’s Holy written
Word, and the truth that Good always overcomes. It was
this kind of faith that helped the
United States recover from
a crippling Economic Depression to become the most powerful
economy the world has ever seen. Through the
divisiveness of the US Civil War and the later racial
tensions that happened as a result, the USA found
herself united even more strongly by and through faith in
God than ever before. But as trying, as hard, and as
difficult as these times were for Americans, could they be
considered persecution or tribulation? The fact of the
matter is, persecution - while happening in local or
small-scale forms in the USA
throughout her history - has not been an equation that has
entered into the psyche of the USA and her
people. The reason for this is because any and all
residents of the
United States of America
are guaranteed the right of worship and the freedom of
religion. Even today, in the 21st Century,
people may not discriminate nor harass someone simply
because of their religious beliefs. While this has
made the USA not only
unique, but strong, it has also created an atmosphere of
which many writers in the Bible spoke the dangers of.
Could it be that the freedom to believe has become something
that - quite honestly and quite alarmingly - has made the
Church in America weaker, more wide-open to attack and
assault by the enemy?
A Nation Like No Other
It is true that the United States
has been and is a nation like no other that has ever existed
on the face of the Earth. At the time of her founding,
every other nation in the world was ruled by royalty as its
head of state. Yes, the British had their parliament,
and they were the first to have a prime minister, but even
at this late stage of time the British Crown (at that time
King George III) still had comparatively strong sway over
matters of government. A further discrepancy between
the USA
and European Nations was the absence f an established State Church.
It is because of these two facts of history that a third
fact of the USA
appears: There has never been a national persecution
of the Church of Jesus Christ inside the borders of the USA. There
has been no “American Inquisition” as there was a European
Inquisition as headed by the Roman Catholic Church up until
the 16th Century; there were no “Fires of
Arlington” as there were Fires of Ipswich in England during
the reign of Queen Mary I; there were no Crusades against
Nonbelievers as there were Crusades against “heretics” in
Europe in the Middle Ages; the USA did not have
concentration camps for Christians, as the Nazis in Germany
did for political dissenters, Jews, and other so-called “untermenschen”;
The United states did not create a series of gulags in
Alaska to detain Christians as the Soviets did in Siberia;
no president has ever edicted that Christians are to be
jailed if they did not register themselves, as is going on
in Red China; believers in Jesus Christ are not jailed,
starved, and executed as they are doing in North Korea;
Churches in the USA need not fear jack-booted thugs crashing
down the door, beating members and worshipers to a bloody
pulp, then hauling them off to prison, as is the case in
Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia; we have no arenas in the USA
where Christians are fed to wild beasts, pitted against
gladiators, or are crucified (with or without flames) as was
the case in Ancient Rome; and Believers in the USA have no
need to fear losing their heads or being stoned to death as
is the case in Muslim nations. We in the USA have had a relatively easy time
in our US History, and even before that, in the time of the
13 colonies. Even recent interventions in US Society
by the American Civil Liberties union (ACLU) People for the
Separation of Church and State, Agnostic Extremists, and
other far-left liberals cannot compare, nor are these all
combined more than a drop in the bucket in light of what our
Christian Brethren have suffered over the centuries in other
parts of the World. In fact, to date the USA is the only
nation in the world that has not had some form of government
sponsored persecution of Christians. Even Canada, the northern neighbor to the USA, forced French Christians and Catholics to
move out of
Canada
following the French and Indian War. Such has never
been the case in the United States of America.
The Danger of Being at Ease
While the freedom of religion and the freedom to
worship have been hallmarks of the USA, and have also been unimaginable blessings to
millions of immigrants to the shores of the
United states of America, it cannot be
helped but to point out that such freedoms have made living
life as a Christian in the USA a bit rather
easy. As a result, the Church in the
USA
has also been left wide-open to many and any number of
heretical, false, and unbiblical teachings. It can be
no accident that there are more religious cults in the
United States than anywhere else in the world, and that
major cults, such as the Church of Jesus Christ of
Latter-Day saints (Mormons), The Watchtower Society
(Jehovah’s Witnesses), The Church of Scientology, and the
Unification Church all had their start in the USA.
Being at ease as we are in the USA allows for
all sorts of dangerous teachings and false doctrines to
infiltrate and integrate themselves into the church.
Such has easily been the case in the USA. We have, nowadays,
accepted many false teachings such as the following:
The Prosperity Gospel -
a belief system that teaches Christians ought to be wealthy,
affluent, and rich…
“Name It/Claim It” -
Similar to Prosperity Gospel, this belief system states that
anything a believer wants - from money to nice cars to
houses to fame and power - can be attained merely be
speaking it aloud and claiming it verbally and believing it
will happen…
“The Power of Positive Thinking”
- a self-esteem belief, primarily espoused by Robert H.
Schuller of the Crystal Cathedral in
California, it uplifts self and
self-esteem as preeminent…
Speaking in Tongues and the so-called
“Heavenly” Language - Espoused by many
church denominations in the United States, this practice and
belief makes it quite clear that speaking in some
unintelligible language is a sign that one is filled with
the Holy Ghost, and that anyone who does not do such is
either not filled wt the presence of God, is not truly
Saved, or both…
Failure to Warn about Hell and the
Consequences of Sin - Many churches in
the 21st Century in the
United states
have openly questioned the doctrine of eternal damnation,
and have ceased to preach on the eternal consequences of
sin. Most churches that take this approach have ceased
to use the word “sin” altogether.
The Social Gospel - this
doctrine uplifts modern social ills and preaches out against
perceived injustice, rather than the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
While there are instances and situations where the church
needs to stand against social ills, to do so at the expense
of the Gospel of Jesus Christ is throwing the baby out with
the bathwater…
The Lack of Preaching on Holiness
- Back in the early centuries and decades of the United States,
the message of Holiness of Heart and Life were paramount and
very strong. Today, Holiness is almost unheard of,
even in Church denominations which based themselves upon the
truth of Holiness of Heart and Life. Whereas in times
past, pastors, evangelists, and teachers spoke and taught
that living a life free of sin was not only possible, but
available to all, we now hear preachers speaking of sin in
everything we say, think, and do (despite the gross lack of
Scriptural Basis for such theology and doctrine). In
fact, more and more preachers are making excuse for sin, and
giving room to it, rather than confronting it with the
loving, freeing power of the Gospel. The even more
tragic fact is that most Seminaries in the USA and the Western World have all
but cast classes on Holiness and Holiness Exposition to the
wayside. Students are nowadays more likely to hear a
self-esteem approach to sinners than the concept of teaching
them about holiness.
Alignment and Collaboration with
Non-Christian Entities - Many Churches
today are aligning themselves with any number of decidedly
non-Christian Entities in collaboration for this or that
work. Many Biblical Churches have re-aligned
themselves with the Roman Catholic Church, failing to
remember that it was the Church in Rome and her Pope which put to death - often
in grisly fashion - our forebears. Other Churches have
aligned themselves with the United Nations, Masonic Lodges,
other religions such as Islam and Cult Groups like the
Mormons, denying the scriptures which are crystal clear
concerning the joining together of un-Christians with
Christians:
“Be ye not unequally yoked together with
unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with
unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with
darkness? And what concord hath Christ with Belial? or
what part hath he that believeth with an infidel? And
what agreement hath the temple of God with idols? for ye are the temple of
the living God; as God hath said, I will dwell in them, and
walk in them; and I will be their God, and they shall be my
people. Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye
separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing;
and I will receive you. And will be a Father unto you,
and ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord
Almighty.”
-- II Corinthians 6.14-18
This list could go on and on, as many and sundry
types of doctrines and beliefs have cropped up in the last
few decades alone, insomuch that the Church that existed at
the beginning of the 20th Century looks very
little like the Church as we have entered into the 21st
Century…
Enter the Wolves
In our Key from Acts, the Apostle Paul warned his
hearers that he feared that wolves - people for whom the
Gospel means very little - would enter in and destroy the
church. Could it be, too, that Paul was warning the
post-modern church of the
United States of America?
Could it be that Paul of Tarsus was speaking not just to his
listeners of his day and age, but to us, as well, nearly
2000 years after his passing? We need only to take a
good, hard look at some of these wolves to know and
understand what they are preaching and who they are.
Possibly everyone knows the name Jimmy Swaggert.
Swaggert is a television evangelist, and had a high and
great following in the 1980s. His television preaching
and teaching programs were aired on as many as 3,000
television stations in the
United States,
and viewed by more than 500 million people worldwide.
In 1988 it was revealed that Swaggert had paid for the
services of a prostitute, rocking his ministry with scandal.
A later tearful confession in front of his viewers did
little to stop the major exodus of viewers, and cancellation
of his television program by most of the stations that
carried his shows. If that wasn’t bad enough, Swaggert
was again found in the company of a prostitute in 1991,
further causing great scandal to his ministry. Today,
despite the past scandals, Mr. Swaggert continues to have a
large following (some 80 million, according to his website).
Other televangelists and prominent Christians, such as
Robert Tilton, Paul Crouch, Benny Hinn, Ted Haggard, and
many others have continued to preach and teach doctrines and
beliefs that go against the Bible. Though some, such
as Haggard, have lost their ministries, others have
continued in them despite their hypocritical lifestyles, and
many have even prospered and continued on, unrepentant of
their sins. A blatant, glaring case of such is Rev.
Jesse Jackson. The so-called heir to the Civil Rights
movement initiated by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. has
continued on as a church minister, despite being found in an
adulterous affair in which not only was a child produced,
but the entire affair was covered up by Jackson himself.
Even Church denominations in the
USA are openly preaching
acceptance of homosexuality, the
Episcopalian
Church having consecrated
the first-ever openly practicing homosexual Bishop in Eugene
Robinson. As far back as the 1980s, as well, the
Presbyterian Church of the
United States of America
(PC-USA) began to question the validity of teaching and
preaching abstinence among youth, further calling into
question teachings on adultery and fornication. Again,
this list could go on and on…
The Ripple Effect
As if these weren’t bad enough, in the
United States, we now have
pastors and ministers who are actively teaching and
preaching on topics other than the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
In most churches nowadays, we hear less and less on the
dangers of sin, the mortal warnings by Christ to cease from
sin, the eternally lost estate of hell and the lake of fire,
and the immanency of Christ’s return. Instead, we hear
how Christ is our “best buddy” (but not necessarily our
Saviour), how other religions are another pathway to Christ
and to God (spoken by none other than Billy Graham on an
episode of “The Hour of Power” from the Crystal Cathedral
and Robert Schuller). We hear such Christian leaders
as Rick Warren, author of the best selling Purpose Driven
series, speak of how dictatorial despots such as Bashar
Assad is a Christian man, and how Syria and other repressive
countries are - in reality - open and free, when the truth
shows something completely the opposite (it is said that
even as Rev. Warren was visiting with Assad, Christians were
jailed in Damascus). The trouble with leaders
mentioned in the previous section and here is that such
teaching doesn’t just affect only the large churches, but
the smaller as well. When Joel Osteen - pastor of one
of the fastest growing churches in the United States -
declares on primetime cable television that he “just
do(es)n’t know” whether Christ meant what he said, when he
said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh
unto the Father, but by me,” it doesn’t just affect Lakewood
Church in Houston, Texas; it affects all churches, and
especially how the unbelieving, lost, secular world views
the Church of Jesus Christ as a whole, its leaders, pastors,
and teachers, The Bible, and Christians in general.
When we see Jim Bakker in handcuffs, being led to a police
squad car, or Jimmy Swaggert crying and begging for
forgiveness for committing adultery with a prostitute (after
having “exposed” two other ministers) only to turn around
and do the same thing a few years later, it isn’t just
Swaggert or his ministry that is affected; such actions
paint a very telling picture of how the world perceives
Jesus Christ and his followers. After seeing and hearing and
reading tale after tale, story after story, expose’ after
expose’ concerning Christian Leaders, Prominent Pastors, and
Church Fathers, is it any wonder that such movies as The
Last Temptation of Jesus Christ, The DaVinci Code,
and Angels and Demons - movies with not only
anti-Christian themes, but outright and blatantly
blasphemous towards Jesus Christ Himself - are not only box
office standards, but blockbuster movies seen and viewed by
tens of millions?
The Needle in the Haystack
The truly sad thing concerning this situation is
what is being drowned out in the flotsam and jetsam.
Whereas less than a couple of generations ago the written
word of God was preached with authority from the pulpit, we
now find that same Gospel being panted, tarred, and
feathered as “fundamentalist” ideals. We hear of
sincere Bible-believing-and-preaching pastors being declared
“intolerant”. We see in the news where Evangelists are
being decried as “bigots” if they dare preach the truth of
the Gospel of Jesus Christ. “Sin” is now an unfriendly
word not only in society, but in the church as well.
Tragically enough, the world is - little by little - making
serious headway, establishing firm beachheads, and building
solid bridges into the Church itself. Should we be
surprised when we hear statistics that show divorce being
more common inside the church than outside? Should we
be all that disgusted when we see teens in the church having
sex as often and more-so than those outside church doors?
Should we be shocked to know that teenage girls in the
church are getting and having as many abortions as those in
the secular world? Should we be astounded that
pornography is rampant among church leaders, and that more
and more each day give into the temptation to look at
pornography on a regular basis? There are many both
inside and outside of the church who try to explain away
these facts, but the truth is, we have these serious
problems simply because of what’s missing in the church:
we no longer call out and point out and describe sin for
what it is: sin - destructive, deviant,
death-containing sin. While psychologists and Christian
Therapists of every sort and stripe pound around the edges
and search for some other unseen problem with Christians and
the church, the simple fact is they and we are all missing
the forest for the trees. We are searching for a
needle in a haystack we ourselves created. That
“needle” is sin.
Symptoms of a Greater Illness
Just as every illness known to man has symptoms and
signs, so, too, are all of these problems and troubles in
the church of Jesus Christ in the United states merely
symptoms of something more sinister and devious. The
greater illness written of here is simply that we, the
church of Jesus Christ in the US of A have grown soft,
lethargic, and just plain, ol’ lazy. Because of the
freedoms we have, and that we Americans take for granted
each and every day, we have allowed damnable heresies to
enter into our places of worship, and we are systematically
being lulled into Spiritual Malaise to the effect that there
will be many who will be lost simply because they never
truly heard the Gospel of Jesus Christ. We as a nation
and as a people may wake up one day, as well, and find
ourselves in a situation not so dissimilar to what happened
in pre-World War Two Germany: with our rights
curtailed, the church effectively silenced, and parts and
people of our society being destroyed before our very eyes.
In fact, this is already happening. In 1973, the
Roe v. Wade decision denigrated one sector of US Society
as subhuman (untermenschen?). Since that
fateful day, more than 50 million innocents have been
killed, and the reason is even more heinous than the
reasoning behind the Nazi murder of 10-12 million
“subhumans” in Europe. While the Germans did it to purify the
continent, we Americans kill our unborn simply because we do
not want our lives inconvenienced. And during these
last 37 years since the Roe v. Wade decision was
handed down, what has the church done to cry out for the
unborn? Have we, as a Church Body, risen up en
masse to call for the ouster of the justices on the
Supreme Court who made this decision, or have we sat idly
by, doing next to nothing while the slaughter continues?
Have we elected leaders to public office who have defended
the unborn, supporting them in their efforts, or have we
cast a ballot in favor of a candidate who tells us “It’s the
economy, Stupid!” and “Change! Change! Change!” all the
while, glossing over their records concerning abortion and
abortion “rights”? Is this al not symptom and sign of
Spiritual Malaise, something the Bible warns us about time
and time again? Thomas Jefferson, 3rd
President of the United states
of America, and one of the
USA’s Founding Fathers,
said this:
“All tyranny needs to
gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain
silent.”
Can it not be said that the
very same thing has been happening with the Church of Jesus
Christ inside the USA? Have
we not sat silently by, for the most part, while grievous
wolves of every stripe have entered in, scattering the
flock? Have we not sat idly by while false doctrine
and heretical theology has become the norm and acceptable,
all the while the Gospel of Jesus Christ and the Truth of
the Written Word of God has become anathema?
“The Tree of
Liberty
must be Refreshed from Time to Time with the Blood of
Patriots and Tyrants.”
Yet another quote from
President Jefferson that sounds frighteningly similar to
another quote:
“The Blood of Martyrs is the Seed of the
Church.”
--Tertullian
As we have seen above, the Church of Jesus Christ
in the
USA
is undergoing some serious problems. It is said, too,
that nothing refines the church like persecution.
There is a story that comes out of the time of the
Soviet Union. A house church was gathered
together, and they were in the middle of worship when their
worst fears were realized: the door was kicked in and
there stood five heavily-armed secret policemen.
Speaking in a very loud and angry voice, the policemen’s
leader shouted, “Everyone who is not a Christian, you have
ten seconds to leave this house before we execute everyone
in here!” At that, several members of the church group
rose and left. The Police Commander waited until they
were completely gone, then repeated his order, adding, “All
those who are not serious about your faith in Jesus Christ,
this is your last chance, for we will open fire in the next
five seconds!” With that, several more members rose
and quickly departed. “Is there anyone else?”
Two more people left, and after another tense moment, the
Police Commander shut the door and locked it. With that, he
looked around on all of the members of the house church,
then ordered his men to lower their weapons. “We, too,
are Believers in Jesus Christ,” the Commander said to the
small group of home church members, now breathing a sigh of
relief. “The reason for our entrance and for our
threat was to see who really is and really is not a follower
of Jesus Christ. Those who are not believers, or are
not true to their faith will always be a source of treachery
to you!” In the USA, such is the
case. We have many, many people that come to church,
sing the songs, read the bible passages, listen to the
preacher and the message, who talk and speak all of the
words that people hear inside the church, but have no faith.
Essentially, they are “talking the talk” without “walking
the walk”. Perhaps what is needed in the USA is a good,
heavy dose of persecution? Perhaps we need what the
rest of the world has not had: life-or-death belief in
Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour, and believers who have to
face that choice each and every day. The reason is,
we, in the USA, have had it easy compared to other parts of
the world, and this life of ease has caused us, the American
Church, to become soft, to become lax in our vigilance, and
has allowed us to become wide-open for heresy and false
doctrine. Just as President Jefferson spoke of the
need for the blood of tyrants and patriots to be spilled for
the cause of freedom and liberty, so, too, Tertullian’s
words ring clear for the church, as well.
“Yea, and all that will live godly in Christ
Jesus shall suffer persecution…”
This passage from Paul’s Second Epistle to Timothy
(2nd Timothy 3.12) is not just a saying from the
Bible that really has no meaning today. Consider the
words of Jesus Christ and his prophets and apostles:
“But beware of men: for they will deliver you
up to the councils, and they will scourge you in their
synagogues; And ye shall be brought before governors and
kings for my sake, for a testimony against them and the
Gentiles.”
-- Matthew 10.17~18
“And the brother shall deliver up the brother
to death, and the father the child: and the children shall
rise up against their parents, and cause them to be put to
death. And ye shall be hated of all men for my name's
sake: but he that endureth to the end shall be saved.
But when they persecute you…”
-- Matthew 10.21~23
“And a man's foes shall be they of his own
household.”
-- Matthew 10.38
“…for when tribulation or persecution ariseth
because of the word…”
-- Matthew 13.21
“Then shall they deliver you up to be
afflicted, and shall kill you: and ye shall be hated of all
nations for my name's sake.”
-- Matthew 24.9
“…when affliction or persecution ariseth for
the word's sake…”
-- Mark 4.17
“And ye shall be hated of all men for my
name's sake…”
-- Mark 13.13
“…men shall hate you, and when they shall
separate you from their company, and shall reproach you, and
cast out your name as evil, for the Son of man's sake.”
-- Luke 6.22
“And ye shall be hated of all men for my
name's sake.”
-- Luke 21.17
“If the world hate you, ye know that it hated
me before it hated you. If ye were of the world, the
world would love his own: but because ye are not of the
world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the
world hateth you. Remember the word that I said unto
you, The servant is not greater than his lord. If they have
persecuted me, they will also persecute you; if they have
kept my saying, they will keep yours also. But all
these things will they do unto you for my name's sake,
because they know not him that sent me.”
-- John 15.18~21
“These things have I spoken unto you, that ye
should not be offended. They shall put you out of the
synagogues: yea, the time cometh, that whosoever killeth you
will think that he doeth God service. And these things will
they do unto you, because they have not known the Father,
nor me.”
-- John 16.1~3
“In the world ye shall have tribulation…”
-- John 16.33
“I have given them thy word; and the world
hath hated them, because they are not of the world, even as
I am not of the world.”
-- John 17.14
“Marvel not, my brethren, if the world hate
you.”
-- 1st John 3.13
“Who hate the good, and love the evil; who
pluck off their skin from off them, and their flesh from off
their bones; Who also eat the flesh of my people, and flay
their skin from off them; and they break their bones, and
chop them in pieces, as for the pot, and as flesh within the
caldron.”
--Micah 3.2~3
“…when he hath tried me…”
-- Job 23.10
“…we must through much tribulation enter into
the kingdom
of God.”
-- Acts 14.22
“And not only so, but we glory in
tribulations also: knowing that tribulation worketh
patience…”
-- Romans 5.3
“Rejoicing in hope; patient in tribulation;
continuing instant in prayer…”
-- Romans 12.12
“For verily, when we were with you, we told
you before that we should suffer tribulation…”
-- I Thessalonians 3.4
“…ye shall have tribulation…”
-- Revelation 2.10
“And the dragon was wroth with the woman, and
went to make war with the remnant of her seed, which keep
the commandments of God, and have the testimony of Jesus
Christ.”
-- Revelation 12.17
“And it was given unto him to make war with
the saints, and to overcome them…”
-- Revelation 13.7
You see friends, the Bible makes no bones about
Christians having and undergoing persecution, tribulation,
and hateful works of the enemy. It is not a whimsical
thing, but a promise from the Lord Jesus Himself that
persecution, trouble, and tribulation will come simply
because we identify with Him. This is true for
individuals, churches, and even nations, but there is one
nation where persecution on a large scale has not happened,
and that nation is the USA.
Early Signs of Coming Trouble
In the United States of America
we can see the early signs of hard trouble in the future.
For the last four decades, mainstream media in the
USA
has been virulent in their attacks, sarcasm, mocking, and
relegating anything traditionally Christian and Biblical to
the fringes. Whereas past TV shows, such as The
Andy Griffith Show (where even the town drunk had enough
respect for God not to drink on Sunday and to get cleaned up
and go to church), My Three Sons, Father Know Best,
and even programs into the seventies and eighties such as
Eight is Enough, Happy Days, and M*A*S*H
all portrayed God positively and with respect, nowadays
television serials, such as South Park, The Family
Guy, and The Simpsons, regularly mock and
blaspheme Jesus Christ. And if Television is bad,
movies are even worse, with production of The Last
Temptation of Jesus Christ, The DaVinci Code,
Angels and Demons, The Exorcist, Religulous,
Saved!, and Jesus Camp just to name a few.
In and among Stand-up comedy and Stand-up Comedians, Christ
is even treated more harshly, with comedians and their ilk
spewing any amount of blasphemy and mockery just to advance
themselves and their repertoire for a few laughs.
Already, to speak the Name of Jesus Christ in a positive
way, and to espouse Biblical truths and principles as
legitimate is cause for public media humiliation. The
words “Narrow”, “Narrow-minded”, “Bigoted”, “Phobic”,
“Haters”, “Intolerant”, and any other number of labels and
names which ultimately set public opinion decidedly against
Biblical Christianity. In the 1960s, prayer in public
school was effectively banned and outlawed, and the
homosexual movement has - in many cases - literally taken up
arms against Christianity and the Church. In times
past, when public schools of every stripe and level taught
the bible as the basis for man’s moral code, nowadays, the
bible has been banned, all the while, Islamic prayer and
readings from the Qu’Ran (including those deigned as orders
from “Allah” to eliminate “infidels”), Transcendental
Meditation, New Age “Meditation” and Philosophy, Hindu Yoga,
and many other forms of religious expression are all
welcomed with open arms, and on the taxpayer’s dime.
Hate Crimes legislation as being debated in Congress in
Washington would all but outlaw many parts of
the Bible, particularly those that speak out against
Homosexuality as sin, and street preaching has already come
under intense scrutiny in the
United States.
President Obama himself has declared that the
USA
is not a Christian nation, all but making it “open season”
on believers who happen to be American and live outside the USA. Worse…..MUCH worse…..is
on the horizon, and yes, it will happen in the
USA, despite our
Constitution (which, again, the President seems to ignore at
his prerogative)…
The Bottom Line - The
US
Church is a Mess Because We’ve Had It Easy!
The simple truth for the Church in the
United States of America
is that we have become exactly the same as the Laodicean Church
as Described by Jesus Christ in the Book of Revelation:
“And unto the angel of the church of the
Laodiceans write; These things saith the Amen, the faithful
and true witness, the beginning of the creation of God; I
know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot: I would
thou wert cold or hot. So then because thou art lukewarm,
and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth.
Because thou sayest, I am rich, and increased with goods,
and have need of nothing; and knowest not that thou art
wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked: I
counsel thee to buy of me gold tried in the fire, that thou
mayest be rich; and white raiment, that thou mayest be
clothed, and that the shame of thy nakedness do not appear;
and anoint thine eyes with eyesalve, that thou mayest see.
As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten: be zealous
therefore, and repent. Behold, I stand at the door, and
knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will
come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me.”
-- Revelation 3.14~20
The time is coming when we will be put to the test
as a nation and as a body of believers inside the United States of America.
The reason we are in such a mess, why we have allowed so
much heresy and false teaching into the church is because
we, as American Christians, have sat back and let it happen.
The reason why children are slaughtered in such a systematic
fashion (even the Nazis and Communists would marvel) is
because we have turned a blind eye and a deaf ear to the
truth of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. We have laid back
on our laurels, taken it easy under the protection of the
Bill of Rights in the United States’ Constitution, and as a result, the
Church in the
USA
is decaying like a rotten corpse. Unless the Church in
the USA
undergoes a Great Awakening such as we have not experienced
in nearly two centuries, bad times -- VERY bad times are in
the offing.
Conclusion - Persecution for the Church of Jesus
Christ-USA Is On The Way
We cannot avoid it, folks. God has promised
it for us, and already we are seeing the thunderclouds
forming above us. Persecution for the Church of Jesus
Christ in the United States of America
is on its way, and whether it comes sooner or later is up to
us, as a church. The Bible Says this:
“If my people, which are called by my name,
shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and
turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven,
and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.”
-- I Chronicles 7.14
“Whereupon the princes of Israel and the king humbled
themselves; and they said, The LORD is righteous. And when
the LORD saw that they humbled themselves, the word of the
LORD came to Shemaiah, saying, They have humbled themselves;
therefore I will not destroy them, but I will grant them
some deliverance…”
-- II Chronicles 12.6-7
If we, as a nation, and as the Body of Christ in
the USA, will repent of our lax, lackadaisicalness, and
mindset of ease, and get right, stand for the Gospel, and
ask for forgiveness for the heresy and false doctrine that
has entered, the day of persecution that will come upon the
USA does not have to be today: Christ will hold off
for a time. However, if we continue to allow error,
collaborate with the world, and turn a blind eye to sin, we,
along with the rest of the
USA, will go through the
fires of testing, and God has promised us that his testing
is hot (Job 23), and that testing will come sooner than we
think or know.
Prayer - Heavenly Father,
forgive us, the Church of Jesus Christ in the
United States of America,
for taking it easy. Forgive us, Lord, for becoming
lax, soft, and lackadaisical in the Gospel. Forgive us
for doing nothing while modernism and post-modern thought
relegates us to the fringes. Help us to repent of this
easy and this life on Easy Street
USA. Help us to
remain sober and vigilant, as you call on us to do in your
written Word (I Peter 5.8~9). Help us, we pray,
Father, to wake back up, to wait upon thee, and to walk as
you would have us walk. We bless Thy Name, in Jesus’
Name we pray, Amen.
Verse To Remember:
“Be sober, be vigilant; because your
adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about,
seeking whom he may devour: Whom resist stedfast in
the faith, knowing that the same afflictions are
accomplished in your brethren that are in the world.”
-- I Peter 5.8~9