Persecution is Not Coming, Persecution is Already Here
Excerpts from a longer article by Ray Gano, May 15, 2014
For the past 30 years Christians in America have been warned over and over again about coming persecution. Over the years Christians have been perceived as a “problem” to society in one form or another.
Many faithful Christians in America are now being identified as part of a “hate” group. They are vilified with labels such as “intolerant”, “Hatemonger”, “Racist”, “Unloving”.... The list goes on and on.
Because many Christians have accepted a compromised form of Christianity, Christians have lost the “high ground.” Instead of being leaders in today's moral, spiritual, and cultural war, we have been made to look exceedingly bad.
It is now the norm to marginalize Christians and to limit Christian expressions in schools and workplace. Christian "rights" are increasingly disregarded and the complaints of their ill-treatment are ignored.
Laws that favor leftist, humanists, socialist, communist, homosexuals, and statist mentalities are now used to restrict and oppress Christians.
Today we are a hairs width away for full and open state approved persecution. Already we are seeing various penalties for small Christian ventures that cannot, with a clear conscience, partake in gay weddings or serve the gay agenda.
For their personal faith, Christians are being mocked, fined, excluded, and fired from jobs. They face lawsuits, confiscation of property, and mockery.
All this is taking place today, right now in the good ol’ US of A.
The stereotyping first really began in the 1960s and 70s when Christians were portrayed in the media as Bible thumpers, simpletons, being backwards, mentally simple, haters of science, hypocrites, self-righteous, old-fashioned and so forth and so on.
Did we really do anything about it? No. We turned the other cheek.
Matt Slick of Christian Apologetics & Research Ministry (CARM) stated the following…
"We have been identified (i.e., Christians, fundamentalists, etc.) by society as a problem because we don’t support unbiblical views such as homosexuality, abortion, and moral relativism. We have been vilified with accusations of intolerance, committing hate speech, hatemongering, being against basic civil rights, that we are bigoted, fanatical, narrow-minded, etc. Christians are made to look like the unfair aggressors – with the help of the media.
"This leads to marginalization, where our rights are effectively ignored and a double standard is introduced so that socially acceptable groups like homosexuals, pro-abortionists, and the general non-Christian population are seen as being more worthy of the protection of the law than Christians.
"We are being attacked in the media and the educational system and portrayed as irrational, religious zealots, who want to oppress people, which conditions society to further marginalize us, disregard our rights, and ignore our objections.
"Finally, persecution is happening where Christians are penalized for not assisting in and supporting the liberal social agenda.
"Examples of this are when Christians are fired for expressing their disapproval of homosexuality (i.e., away from work on Facebook), or not accepting evolution (losing teaching jobs), their businesses sued for not providing services to homosexual weddings (i.e., baking a cake), physically assaulted for preaching the gospel (at pro-homosexual rallies), arrested for protesting against abortion mills, etc. And, it isn’t stopping there." (1)
I know that I sound like a broken record in saying this, but what we are repeating is man’s own horrible history.
Ancient King Solomon warns us of this in Ecclesiastes 1:9-11:
"The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun.
"Is there any thing whereof it may be said, See, this is new? it hath been already of old time, which was before us.
"There is no remembrance of former things; neither shall there be any remembrance of things that are to come with those that shall come after."
How many people really remember how Germany persecuted the Jews in WW II?
Early steps toward Nazi persecution of the Jewish citizens
1933 – Nazi brown shirts start to boycott of Jewish shops
1934 – Jews were banned from public places such as public parks and swimming pools. At the same time teachers, lawyers and servants were fired from their jobs if they were Jewish.
1935 – The Nuremberg laws are enacted. Jews are no longer allowed to be German citizens. Jews cannot marry non-Jews and Jews cannot have sexual relations with non-Jews.
1936 – Jews are banned from working, owning and running a business. They are also banned from having any German property.
1938 – Kristallnacht took place the nights of November 9th & 10th. It is known as “the night of broken glass”. What took place were a series of attacks from Nazi brown shirts, SA Stormtroopers and Nazi sympathizing civilians against Jews throughout Nazi Germany. This also bled over into parts of Austria and other German controlled lands. German authorities looked on without lifting a finger to stop it.
"The attacks left streets covered with broken glass from the windows of Jewish-owned stores, buildings and synagogues. At least 91 Jews were killed in the attacks and 30,000 Jews were arrested and incarcerated in concentration camps. Jewish homes, hospitals and schools were ransacked as the attackers demolished the buildings with sledgehammers. Over 1,000 synagogues were burned and over 7000 Jewish businesses destroyed or damaged.1939 – Warsaw Ghettos were opened and Jews living under the Nazi regime were forced to wear a white / yellow start of David armband or actually have one sewn onto the outside jacket. It was against the law to not identify ones Jewishness.
Five Steps Leading To Persecution
History shows that there are five general steps that are followed by a government or ruling power when they start harassing a group like Christians. These steps then lead to outright persecution which then lead to imprisonment, torture and eventually martyrdom - death.
The steps are as follows…
1. Identifying: This involves finger-pointing by the ruling authority for the purpose of placing the blame for the nation’s troubles on one particular group. In 1 Kings 18:17, King Ahab identifies the prophet Elijah as being the one responsible for the drought that took place in the land of Israel. He accused Elijah by asking the question, "Art thou he that troubleth Israel?" The true body of Christ and Biblical Christianity in America today are blamed for being the greatest obstacles to the liberal establishment’s plans for a totally humanistic "utopian" society.
2. Marginalizing: By this means, the "politically incorrect" portion of the Church is looked upon as not being part of the mainstream of society. This is done by an organized smear campaign conducted by the ruling authorities through the national news media. They do this by the use of such trigger words as radical, extremists, separatists, and fringe.
3. Vilifying: By this means, the persecutors employ such methods as uttering slanderous and abusive statements against targeted groups as to cheapen and debase their worth and significance in society. The accusers need no factual evidence for their accusations, but innuendoes, insinuations, hints and making associations with other previously known undesirables of society.
4. Criminalizing: In implementing this step of persecution, it gives the state "legal" justification for arresting and incarcerating the accused. Here the state charges the persecuted with accusations of alleged criminal wrong-doing. The state naturally picks on the most vulnerable segment of the Church in order to send their threatening message to all the rest who adhere to similar views and practices. Incarceration of a few means intimidation of the many. Victimization of a government- protected group is a direct result of the incrimination of the accused. This gives the state "legal" authority to take a heavy-handed control in "protecting" its citizens. Presently, our federal government has several groups which they deem as "victims" for whom they feel responsibility to protect.
5. Terrorizing. This is the blatant and outright acts of terrorism carried out by the police powers of the state against the persecuted. These are acts of coercion by threat or by violence and are intended to create anxiety and fear in the hearts of its victims, with the purpose of silencing and neutralizing the opponents of the tyrannical government in power. (2)
Like it or not, believe it or not, our nation has now reached stage 4. The state has begun to “criminalize” Christian beliefs.
Persecution is not starting, persecution is here. Stages one through four are pretty well in place and it looks like the stage is pretty well set for Stage 5.
As I have said in the past, the government is not going to spend billions of dollars on FEMA camps all for nothing, they plan on using them.
It is crystal clear that attempts to criminalize Christian behavior in the legal arena is on its way up. This also clearly signals that the steady erosion of religious liberty are entrenched and these liberties are on the way out.
The persecution has begun and the natural path is that it will increase.
Why?
Because we did not stand up to the labeling, marginalization, and criminalization. This in turn has created a “snow ball effect” which provides momentum for the persecution to increase.
I STRONGLY believe that the proper response for the true bible believing Christian should be the following…
1. Prayer based on reading and memorizing God' Word.
2. Mental, Spiritual, and Physical preparation.
3. Be Proactive -- always ready to follow God's guidelines.
Prayer & Being in The Word
We are given a wonderful promise found in Isaiah:
"Fear thou not; for I am with thee: be not dismayed; for I am thy God: I will strengthen thee; yea, I will help thee; yea, I will uphold thee with the right hand of my righteousness." (Isaiah 41:10)
God will see us through no matter what. His Grace is sufficient for us and His Grace will always be there for us to see us through the darkest of times.
But we need to pray. Prayer is one of the most critical tools we as Christians have.
We read the following…
"And this is the confidence that we have in him, that, if we ask any thing according to his will, he heareth us: And if we know that he hear us, whatsoever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we desired of him." (1 John 5:14-15)
God wants to know what is bothering us and He wants to help us. He is our loving heavenly father. But even though He knows all and sees all, He also likes to be asked for help when He knows that we are struggling.
"Blessed be God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies, and the God of all comfort; Who comforteth us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort them which are in any trouble, by the comfort wherewith we ourselves are comforted of God." (2 Corinthians 1:3-4)
By praying and seeking God’s help, we in turn are strengthened and are able to help others. Prayer and being in His Word is what will help equip us for these hard days ahead.
Endnotes
1- http://carm.org/steps-to-persecution-christians
2 - Historical Steps Toward Persecution - http://truthinhistory.org/historical-perspective-steps-toward-persecution.htm