(Matthew 24:9) “Then they will deliver you over to be persecuted and killed, and you will be hated by all nations because of My name.”
According to the findings of the World Watch List 2023, recently published by the humanitarian organization Open Doors it reported that the global persecution of Christians remains higher than ever, with 360 million believers suffering high levels of discrimination and violence. According to the report it stated that perhaps the most disturbing trend is that, since 1993, the persecution of Christians has nearly doubled and has already increased by nearly 70% over the last six years, with no signs of abating.
In light of these disturbing trends related to the persecution of faithful Bible believing Christians we are confronted with this question, “How long before this seemingly irreversible trend metastasizes into even those nations currently celebrated for their religious freedom?”
Western Christendom by and large knows nothing of the type of persecution that is being experienced by our dear and faithful brothers and sisters in the Middle-Eastern part of the world and in China and North Korea being Communist countries. The Body of the Messiah in the countries traditionally and historically connected to Biblical Christianity is not prepared for the persecution that is coming to the west and that primarily at the hands of Islam.
One of the disturbing end-time doctrines that has been embraced by most evangelical and Charismatic Churches and denomination in the western democracies is the idea of a secret, Pre-Tribulation rapture of the Church which will see the rapture of the Church before the Man of Sin is revealed. This is a doctrine that sprung up in the middle to late 19th Century but was never held historically by the Christian Church, by the apostles and by the other writers of the New Testament.
In the Book of Daniel and in Revelation we are told that the beast empire of the Antichrist will, for three and a half years, persecute faithful New Covenant believers but also that for the sake of His elect saints and for the very survival of the human race God will cut those days short and send the Lord Jesus back to rescue His people who will inherit the Messianic kingdom on earth. (Daniel 7:20-22, 24-27; 8:23-25; 12:7) (Revelation 12:17; 13:5-7) (Matthew 24:21-22).
The freedoms and prosperity the western democracies have had over the past few centuries were due primarily to the revivals of the 18th and 19th Centuries under the ministries of such men of God like John Wesley, George Whitfield, William Wilberforce, William Booth, Jonathan Edwards, D.L. Moody and many others who all faithfully preached the Word of God giving people first the Law of God and then giving them the grace of God and that without compromise.
The prosperity and freedoms we have enjoyed in the west are disappearing in the rapidly rising tide of materialism, hedonism, paganism, socialism, and communism and through Islamic migration into Europe, the United Kingdom, America, and in Australia, all nations associated historically with Biblical Christianity. We are now living in a post-Christian world, a neo-pagan society!
At present in America and in Australia through government legislation laws are being passed to inhibit and restrict Bible believing Christians in exercising their faith. We see this for example in the areas of education in schools being designed to indoctrinate the upcoming generation with ideologies and lifestyles that are diametrically opposite to Biblical truth and living. Christian schools are gradually being forced by government policy to employ teachers who are not Christians and whose lifestyles run contrary to Biblical truth.
The time is coming when in every nation around the globe to a greater or lesser degree faithful New Covenant Bible believers will be persecuted, marginalised from society, restricted in their daily activities, imprisoned and even martyred. The Lord Jesus said this would be the case (John 15:18-21). While this has been happening for centuries in Islamic countries and more recently in countries like North Korea and China and in Russia, it will ultimately come to the post Christian western democracies.
We live in ‘a must have it now’ generation that has infested the Church with a fixation of instant blessings on demand, prosperity, abundant health and wealth, and having things so good in this world. God has become a kind of ‘spiritual blessing dispensing machine’ in many churches today at the beck and call of His people due to the hyper faith prosperity, Kingdom Dominion, seeker friendly, have things good in this world doctrines. All kinds of counterfeit miracles signs and wonders are the going thing in many churches today. Just look at what is coming to us over the internet related to this.
Our Lord Jesus said that because of the increase of wickedness the love of most professing Christians will grow cold but that he, or she, that has endured to the end will be saved! (Matthew 24:12). The context in which He said it was in relation to spiritual deception and that even the very elect will be in danger of spiritual deception in the last days (Matthew 24:4,9-13, 23-26). It also needs to be said that the New Testament warns us that all kinds of counterfeit miracles, signs and wonders perpetrated by Satan will precede the coming of the man of sin, the Antichrist (2 Thessalonians 2:9-11).
In all of these matters how does God want us to prepare ourselves for the coming persecution within the western democracies, especially when the beast empire of the Antichrist comes? There are no short cuts to this preparation. God is willing and able to strengthen us in persecution and He will when the time comes, make no mistake about that! (Luke 21:12-19) (1 Peter 4:14). However, it also needs to be said that we have our part to play in staying faithful to the end. How then can we prepare ourselves now for the coming persecution to Christians in the western democracies? Let’s briefly look at this…
1. We need to be seeking to love the Triune God with all of our heart, with all of our mind, with all of our soul and with all of our strength and our neighbour as we would love ourselves but, especially with our wills laid down and replaced with God’s will for our lives, and a heartfelt desire to do it faithfully to the very end by the grace of God.
2. We need to be praying continuously in the Holy Spirit (1 Thessalonians 5:17). We are not just praying in the context of life, but living daily in the context or prayer, praying about everything, whether great or small, praying for God’s will to be done on earth as it is being done in heaven, praying for the salvation of the lost, praying for our brothers and sisters in Jesus, especially those closest to us, and especially that we might walk in all the will for God for our lives. As we seek to do this then the peace of God that transcends all human understanding will garrison our minds and hearts in the Messiah our Lord Jesus (Philippians 4:7).
3. We need to consider taking personal communion every morning to bring our focus into line with the atoning work of the Lord Jesus for our sins, and by faith reaffirm our confidence in the power of His blood to cleanse us and to overcome Satan, to reaffirm our confidence in the power of his Word to sanctify us and in the strength of his Spirit to empower and preserve us to the very end.
4. We need to be putting on the whole armour of God piece by piece every day to be spiritually equipped to wrestle against the Principalities and powers of wickedness in the unseen spiritual realm (Ephesians 6:11).
5. We need to be reading and studying the Word of God as it will prove to be a lamp to our feet and a light to our path, and will keep us from spiritual deception and sin (Psalm 119:105).
6. We need to be maintaining fellowship in the Spirit with other brothers and sisters that will spiritually strengthen us as we stand together, shoulder to shoulder to face a common enemy on the field of the spiritual battle we experience every day. We are encouraged not to forsake the assembling of ourselves together for this express purpose (Hebrews 10:25).
Most of all we must constantly seek to stay close to the Lord Jesus, speak with Him constantly, walking moment by moment by faith and not by sight and keeping in step with the Holy Spirit (2 Corinthians 5:7) (Galatians 5:25). There must also be a willingness to obey His every command, His every prompting and to seek His guidance in all of the issues and areas of daily life, knowing that the Lord Jesus is the author and perfector of our faith (Romans 8:14) (Hebrews 12:2). That sanctifying work He starts in us spiritually He fully intends to finish.
This fact that will give us the assurance deep down on the inside of us that God Himself who has started a good work in us will bring it to completion on that day when Jesus the Messiah will return to take us to Himself to be with Him forever! (Philippians 1:6) (1 Thessalonians 4:16-18).
This is our blessed hope as New Covenant Bible believers that will not only keep us daily but will prove to be a spiritual anchor to our souls when the beast kingdom of the Antichrist rears its diabolical head to wear down the saints of the Most High God! (Daniel 7:25) (Titus 2:13).
With these things in view be encouraged brothers and sisters and let’s never forget what the Lord Jesus Himself said to encourage us. “I have told you these things so that in Me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take courage; I have overcome the world!” (John 16:33).
The apostle John also writes “Greater is He (the Lord Jesus) who is in you than he (Satan) that is in the world” (1 John 4:4b).
