Posted August 01/08
Persecution Will Reveal the True Condition of the Churches
Will the real Baptist Christians please stand up? Has it dawned on anyone else that what is passed off as Christianity today is sickening. Walk into the average "Christian bookstore" and you will see things that are put forth as Christian that are absolutely unbelievable. The popular "Christian radio stations" are no different. Am I the only one who can't tell the difference between the secular and the "Christian" stations? Even many of the ones that are called "conservative" have gone the way of the southern gospel industry. Then we have many that claim to be born again that show absolutely no fruits of repentance. Make no mistake, you will sin as a believer, but I know personally that the Holy Spirit will whoop you if you won't repent. We sometimes wonder what it will take to wake up the churches. I have been in Baptist churches in the past year with more flesh showing than spring break at Daytona! I preach for men that will not evangelize near enough. After all, "the Holy Ghost will bring them." Then others have you doing their annual soul winning for them. They have you out 8 or more hours a day with little or no prayer and no dependence on Christ. They expect you to be fresh in the pulpit after having spent no time with God at all. Others I preach for can get them saved in large numbers and have never heard of discipleship it seems. To quote my friend Mitch Canupp, "We are in a flat-footed mess!" We wonder if the churches will ever be pure and holy like they once were.
Make no mistake, my friends, by the time the first year of real persecution hits our churches only the dedicated, holy Christians will be left. If Jesus doesn't come soon we will see churches pulling down their signs with the name Baptist on it quicker than Benny Hinn's staff opens "seed check" envelopes. The hate speech laws the God haters want on the books, if passed, will put the faithful behind bars as menaces to society. The first to go will be the false professors, then those who are saved but love family and the world more than they love Christ. Judgment will begin right where God said it would-the house of God. I believe the Baptist name, Baptist doctine, the KJB, and holiness will be turned away from by the vast majority of those we believe to be good people today. It's easy to live for God now. What will you do when it costs you something you love? What if it costs you your children? What if it costs you your life?
Consider the following passage about the persecution of the Paulicians. This excerp is taken from my Baptist Heritage Conference Syllabus:
{To become a Paulician pastor was the equivalent of wearing a target on your chest. When they entered the ministry they were asked, “...Art thou then able to drink the cup which I am about to drink, or to be baptized with the baptism with which I am about to be baptized?” To which they would reply, “...I take on myself scourgings, imprisonments, tortures, reproaches, crosses, blows, tribulation and all temptations of the world...” (Broadbent, Op. Cit. pp. 53, 54.)
All Eastern emperors persecuted the Paulicians. The worst were those initiated by the empress Theodora and her son Michael III. (842-867 A.D.) During these 25 years over 100,000 Paulicians were slain. They were drowned, beheaded, burnt, and killed in many other merciless ways.}
The truth is that if most men knew they would probably die if they entered the ministry, we would have very few men in our pulpits today. And yet this is how it was throughout the Dark Ages. Multiplied millions died for Him. Why do we think we are never going to see persecution? I am simply trying to cast out a warning that if you are not saved, when persecution comes and it costs something to be saved you'll probably take the easy road and die and go to hell. You better turn from your sin to trust Christ as Saviour and Lord today! If you are saved, you had better learn to love Him now. If we are not dedicated now, when persecution comes, we may deny Him like Peter. Before you say, "I would never do that," be careful! I think I hear a cock crowing in the distance.
Deut. 6:4-5
Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God is one LORD: And thou shalt love the LORD thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might.
Like it or not, please THINK about it!
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