A Time to Stand Fast

by Maurice Pujol
Published September 25, 2006

If you’re the type of person who likes to win popularity contests, this is not a good time to be a Christian.

On the other hand, if you’re a true disciple of Jesus Christ, you know exactly what’s going on in the world today. You are being blessed because you are being persecuted for the sake of His precious name.

There is real and imminent danger for Christians all over the world from a portion of the Muslim population who have decided that their god, Allah, wants them to kill everyone who won’t convert to their religion. It is estimated that of the 1.2 billion Muslims worldwide, about 200,000 hold this extreme belief. That’s less than two per cent of the Muslim population, but 200,000 is still a lot of people – very dangerous people.

There’s another form of extremism a little bit closer to home. The secular humanism that has had Western Europe in its grip for decades is quickly overtaking American culture. When a person of limited intelligence such as Rosie O’Donnell draws spirited applause from her New York audience after equating fundamentalist Christians with Islamic terrorists, something is definitely going wrong in our country.

There’s a rising tide of intolerance for Jesus, the Bible and everyone who believes in Jesus and the Bible. It’s the same spirit that has always inspired discrimination against minority groups, and believers are fast becoming a minority in the United States, in spite of what the pollsters report.

Christians are stereotyped by celebrities such as O’Donnell as mean-spirited, backward thinking people possessing subhuman intelligence. Had her comments been about any other minority, the outcry for her firing from ABC would have led to her replacement by the next day.

But in the mainstream media and the entertainment industry, Christian bashing is an acceptable form of behavior.

It would be easy for believers to react negatively to these threats. We could be like Islamic extremists and call for the murder of all those who disagree with us. We could stoop to O’Donnell’s level and bash her for being a homosexual.

But that’s not who we are as believers. No matter how angry we may get on the human level, we have a Spirit dwelling in us that doesn’t want us to give in to petty emotions such as anger and revenge. We are called to be more than conquerors, world overcomers, but you don’t get that way with a bomb or a loud mouth. Our victory has already been accomplished in Jesus, and we are called to live it out in each of our daily lives.

Everything happening in the world today is unfolding exactly according to God’s plan. The cultural and spiritual persecution we are under was predicted in Scripture centuries ago. These are the times Jesus and the prophets warned us about. These are the times Paul warned Timothy about. These are the times leading to the fulfillment of the great prophecies in John’s Revelation.

Never before in history have believers been called so strongly to be lights in a dark world. Our struggle is not against actors and comedians. Our struggle is not against religious zealots. As Paul said in Ephesians, our struggle is against dark spiritual forces that are orchestrating all the evil we are witnessing in the world today.

Since the struggle is spiritual, our greatest weapons are spiritual. We don’t need guns; we just need more prayers. We don’t need to engage in debates; we just need to spend more time in praise and worship. We don’t need to understand everybody else’s opinions so we can all get along better; we just need to spend more time understanding God’s Word.

There’s more than just a silver lining to the dark clouds surrounding us today. The Bible tells us of a wonderful era that is close at hand. Evil spirits are trying to shake the world today because they know their time is short. Those who can endure in faith until the end will be delivered.

Read the back of the Book. The outcome has already been determined. All the sound and fury of today’s world can be ignored because of this, and the entire struggle can be summed up in four simple words.

We win; they lose.

So take heart, and stand fast. When you have done all you can to stand, as Paul said, just stand some more. Jesus is coming soon.

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