Kicking Against the Norm

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“So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth,” Revelation 3:16.

 

One thing you can say about a large portion of the Christian Church today is that it is certainly lukewarm. Jesus speaking of the Church at Laodicea proclaims the following, “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,” Revelation 3:17. Just as Jesus was speaking to the Church at Laodicea, He is also admonishing many in today’s Church. Many of the attitudes in our society today are quite contrary to true Christian beliefs, and yet little if anything is being done by Christians to curtail this intruding evil. The Church today is filled with apathy and ignorance. The mind set of many Christians today is “I don’t know and I don’t care”. I heard a Christian brother say just the other day, “I just want to live in my own little world”. I believe this mind set is quite prevalent throughout the Christian Church today.

 

When we see what once might have been a fad flourishing and growing in size and substance such as the false doctrines invading the Church without much opposition at all, or the religion of evolution permeating every aspect of our society, including our Churches and public school system, or the homosexual agenda that is now force feed to children as young as four years old in our society, and of course the murder of the defenseless babies in the womb, the distribution of pornography over the internet worldwide, the following questions beg to be asked, is this our destiny? Is this where the U.S. is headed? My opinion is the U.S. isn’t headed in that direction, we have arrived.

 

Historically speaking, we have “evolved” in our society to the point that we aren’t too far from where most of the past major civilizations were just before their collapse. If you study the Roman Empire for example, it just fell apart, it sort of imploded from within. One of the greatest and most influential civilizations in the past 2000 years and it just wasted away into obscurity. Why? Well let’s take a look at their society’s norm. Child murder was carried out on a massive scale, homosexuality was commonplace, the decadent and depraved life styles of their populace and their government officials including their most exalted leader, Caesar, knew no limits. Wealth and power were strived for on every level of their society, but the heavy burden of taxation placed on their citizenry helped greatly toward the collapse of that once great empire.

 

The United States of America is at that precipice now. Can the U.S. as a nation be brought back to be a society of loving, giving, worshiping, humble, God fearing individuals filled with the joy of knowing our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and living our lives for Him? Personally, I doubt it. I’m not really a pessimist, but I do look at the big picture. As I see things unfolding before us, there is a very real and intense drive to rid the U.S. of God. In particular the push is to rid the United States of America of any semblance of the name of Jesus the Christ. God will not force Himself on any society or nation. If it is our desire to give God the boot, He will most assuredly comply with our wishes.

 

All this movement toward secular humanism didn’t just happen overnight. As in the Roman Empire it was a gradual decent. One that many of their citizenry weren’t aware of until it had completely engulfed them. The same has happened here in our country. It started out years ago as a small and innate movement. Little by little over a period of some one hundred years or so, it has now blossomed into a full fledge, overwhelming, and completely destructive anti-God movement with the most horrible of consequences imagined for every born again believer living in this country today.

 

Persecution of Christians is now becoming a mainstay in our society. We read of Christians taking their witness to the streets of late, also to the parks, and to the sidewalks and what do they get for their witness? They’ve been arrested, prosecuted, jailed, fined, and more just for witnessing to the lost. In some cases they were only praying in silence in a public park. Brothers and sisters do you see any resemblance to the early Church persecution here?

 

What is happening in our society is just this, many, and I mean many men and women in all walks of life have become totally depraved; their minds have become warped. Their hearts have been hardened and they have no desire to live any other way than in darkness. “And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil,” John 3:19.

 

All around us is the perception of evil, men hating men and killing each other, fathers and mother killing their own children, children murdering their parents and all this hatred for no reason it seems other than hearts turning cold and hard. We’ve probably all read or heard about a mother drowning her own children just because she couldn’t handle them any longer, we can see that the scriptures are coming true right before our very eyes. “And because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold,” Matthew 24:12.

 

What is happening in our society, and this great nation, where we were once a sincerely loving and caring country? Are we so concerned with obtaining our own fortune and acquiring everything we can to sustain us in the future that we give little or no credence to the evil that surrounds us? Maybe our minds and our hearts are now numb to any threat of losing our freedom to worship God, and to witness to the lost in our society. A man I had a conversation with recently told me he would not witness to many of the people he encounters because they are so cold and heartless that he believes they would only respect a good beating. I wonder how many feel the same way. Culturally speaking, have we stopped witnessing because we feel there is no use? Is that really up to us? Didn’t our Lord Jesus give us the commandment to spread the Gospel, His Gospel? Isn’t it the Holy Spirit that convicts a hardened heart?

 

The very fact that we Christians, as a whole, have stopped witnessing to the lost is exactly why some Christians are being arrested for doing just that throughout America, Who would have ever thought it possible? The authorities have no fear anymore of Christians raising up a rebellion against the tyranny and injustice coming down upon the followers of Jesus Christ. These same authorities have witnessed the apathy for themselves in the Christian Church and they know, for the most part, the coast is clear.

 

We attend Sunday services at our local Church, we fellowship with like minded brothers and sisters in Christ, we have potlucks, special meetings, but after all that we head home to our comfort zone, where we can hide in our own little world away from all the persecution brought by the followers of our enemy (Satan). This is not what Jesus was talking about when He said “…Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature,” Mark 16:15. He meant what He said. He commanded us. He did not simply make a request. If our bosses tell us to carry out a certain task at work and we refuse, won’t we suffer the ultimate consequences of our rebellion? Shouldn’t we therefore suffer the consequences of our rebellion against our Lord and Savior for our refusal to submit to His commandments?

 

As followers of Christ, we are all supposed to be ministers for Christ. Are we all following our Lord’s command? Not hardly. If we were, this society of ours would be one filled with Christian men, women, and children. This is not the case. No longer are we a nation under God, no longer do we hold our elected officials to strict ethical or moral standards. When we go to a polling station to vote for our favorite candidate, we now vote for the one with the least amount of moral failures. The idea of choosing a moral candidate, someone with character for example, for any office is basically nonexistent. One of my favorite Bible teachers made the statement that “Character is what you do in private when no one is looking.” Now days we vote for the candidate that might share at least one of the same moral issues with us. I can think of three candidates presently running for the office of the President of the United States of America that are diametrically opposed to the moral issues that I consider paramount.

 

So what of the future for Christians in the U.S.? What does the future hold for those of us with a belief in an almighty creator God in comparison to those with the mind set that there is no God? How do we react to those who believe that all truth is relative, and that people who still believe in that “antiquated book” (the Bible) written by men, should have little or no voice or value in our public arena today? If you are one of those who have given up witnessing to the lost, then you are part of the problem.

 

In conclusion, it is my opinion that all born again believers in Jesus Christ better start evaluating the consequences of a posture of silence against that of a posture of letting your voice be heard. The consequences of keeping silent in the face of what’s coming will be a complete loss of our right to worship openly. The persecution is coming no matter what, Jesus promises that. “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;” John 15:20.

 

If we Christians don’t take a stand now, we might just see in our lifetime the complete and total destruction of the most powerful country in the world as she falls from her most exalted position.

 

God bless you all,

 

Ron Graham