davidbowerkingwood

Antagonism Toward Jesus Christ and His Church is Growing all over the World

Missionaries with Global Media Outreach are cautioned to avoid references to Christ and Christianity in their email subject lines when sending messages to disciples in what is referred to as “Sensitive Countries.” These are the countries where your Christian faith can bring persecution and even death.

I have printed up a copy of that list and refer to it before sending messages to individuals in dangerous areas of the world. I generally ask disciples if their Christian faith puts them in any danger in their communities and get reassurances from them of no danger before I start referencing Christianity in the subject line of their emails.

I have been told, by Christians who live in countries not on the list, that they must endure nasty comments when their Christian faith is revealed.

In North and South America there are only two countries on the list, Colombian and Mexico. While there is a serious deterioration in attitudes toward the Christian message in the United States and Canada; the response seems to be more of a yawning indifference to the Christian message combined with a general resentment of the exclusivity of that message.

The Bible is remarkably clear on what God expects of his creation; this clarity establishes very specific guidelines for behavior and completely closes the door on many lifestyle options popular today.

This becomes an intolerable exclusivity in the minds of those devoted to those popular options! Christians become narrow-minded and bigoted in the eyes of those desiring to follow them.

What is interesting to me, is the Bible predicted all of this would happen!

Bible Prophecy

Any examination of the Bible will produce many verses describing the situation we face today; one that immediately comes to my mind is 2 Timothy 3:1-5 where it is written:

3 You should know this, Timothy, that in the last days there will be very difficult times. ² For people will love only themselves and their money. They will be boastful and proud, scoffing at God, disobedient to their parents, and ungrateful. They will consider nothing sacred. ³ They will be unloving and unforgiving; they will slander others and have no self-control. They will be cruel and hate what is good. ⁴ They will betray their friends, be reckless, be puffed up with pride, and love pleasure rather than God. ⁵ They will act religious, but they will reject the power that could make them godly.

Another section of scripture is found in Romans 1:18-32 where it is written:

¹⁸ But God shows his anger from heaven against all sinful, wicked people who suppress the truth by their wickedness. ¹⁹ They know the truth about God because he has made it obvious to them. ²⁰ For ever since the world was created, people have seen the earth and sky. Through everything God made, they can clearly see his invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature. So they have no excuse for not knowing God.

²¹ Yes, they knew God, but they wouldn’t worship him as God or even give him thanks. And they began to think up foolish ideas of what God was like. As a result, their minds became dark and confused. ²² Claiming to be wise, they instead became utter fools. ²³ And instead of worshiping the glorious, ever-living God, they worshiped idols made to look like mere people and birds and animals and reptiles.

²⁴ So God abandoned them to do whatever shameful things their hearts desired. As a result, they did vile and degrading things with each other’s bodies. ²⁵ They traded the truth about God for a lie. So they worshiped and served the things God created instead of the Creator himself, who is worthy of eternal praise! Amen. ²⁶ That is why God abandoned them to their shameful desires. Even the women turned against the natural way to have sex and instead indulged in sex with each other. ²⁷ And the men, instead of having normal sexual relations with women, burned with lust for each other. Men did shameful things with other men, and as a result of this sin, they suffered within themselves the penalty they deserved.

²⁸ Since they thought it foolish to acknowledge God, he abandoned them to their foolish thinking and let them do things that should never be done. ²⁹ Their lives became full of every kind of wickedness, sin, greed, hate, envy, murder, quarreling, deception, malicious behavior, and gossip. ³⁰ They are backstabbers, haters of God, insolent, proud, and boastful. They invent new ways of sinning, and they disobey their parents. ³¹ They refuse to understand, break their promises, are heartless, and have no mercy. ³² They know God’s justice requires that those who do these things deserve to die, yet they do them anyway. Worse yet, they encourage others to do them, too.

These “sinful, wicked people who suppress the truth by their wickedness,” are the ones that stand in judgment against Christianity! Christian principles, as taught in the Bible, oppose and condemn these practices with great clarity and emphasis and that is intolerable to those who choose to practice them.

The Days of Noah and Today

If we compare the verses above with the verses describing the times of Noah we find a number of parallels in Genesis 6:5 where it is written:

⁵ The Lord observed the extent of human wickedness on the earth, and he saw that everything they thought or imagined was consistently and totally evil.

It takes minimal searching in the news and general advertising to find all the evidence needed to confirm there are striking parallels between Noah’s day and today.

Next time, “Dealing with the Challenge!”