A Pilgrims Passage TDD#33

THE DAILY DE-VO  by Pastor Steven                         episode#33

A Pilgrims Passage
Today’s reading is from 1 Peter 2:11-12 

11 Dear friends, I urge you, as foreigners and exiles, to abstain from sinful desires, which wage war against your soul. 

12 Live such good lives among the pagans that, though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us.

I believe we are in a cultural shift unlike America has ever known before.  The actions and attitudes in our nation are growing more and more hostile toward the Kingdom of God.

While this should be expected, we in America have been largely sheltered from such hostility. That shelter is being attacked and removed, not so slowly anymore.

These attacks are bold and in our face.  I sense they will continue to become more and more so in the days that lie ahead.   Around World War II, a well-known Christian apologist Wilbur M. Smith observed that the world has opposed Christianity ever since Jesus’ day and believers should not expect things to be different today.    Read his words, they are worth your time:

“At first one would think that a religion which exalts and seeks to follow the only perfect and righteous man who has ever lived on this earth, who never harmed anyone, whose words delivered from superstition and fear, whose works redeemed from pain, and demons, and death, and hunger, whose life was as a great shaft of light shot into the murky darkness of the Roman world, in that sensual and skeptic century, who died because He loved us, and who always sought to bring men into communion with God, to bestow upon them eternal life and a home in heaven, one would have thought that such a character, and the religion which His life and work on earth established, would have been welcomed with open arms the first moment it was announced, and would, by its very message, the good works which flowed from it, and the hope which it established, never know opposition, or attack, or denunciation, except from the demons of hell, and Satan, who is a liar and murderer from the beginning. 

But such has not been its history. In fact, the New Testament, itself, from the records of the birth of our Lord down to the end of St. John’s vision of the era of anarchy and persecution to come, testifies in the most startling way to the fact that Christ Himself was most viciously and constantly attacked, that His apostles suffered the same opposition, and that it was predicted by these very apostles that Christianity would continue so to suffer, down to the end of this age.’’

Peter knows that opposition of the unbelieving world will arise; it will not be limited to gossip, slander, or hatred. Christians will be accused in the courts; false charges will lead to imprisonment and even death. At this point Peter had escaped the sword of Herod, but he would not escape the perverse hatred of Nero.

Yet in spite of Pagan injustice, the impact of Christian witness will not be lost!  It was not lost in Peter’s day, nor will it be lost in ours.  

I believe we are in a cultural shift unlike America has ever known before. The actions and attitudes in our nation are growing more and more hostile toward the Kingdom of God.

I stand concerned that we have slid down the slippery slope that leads to the persecution of the Saints and the Church.  I pray I’m wrong, but should I be right we would do ourselves a favor and truly begin to ask God to prepare us so that we would have the mind of Christ in such a cultural environment.

Should our culture grow more hostile it would be of utmost importance for those who are unbelieving to see within us:  a touch of joy that is real, a heart that is happy, a conviction that is clear,  a conversation that is consistent, and a behavior that is bold.  

If you read 1 Peter you will find Peter telling us to fear God but never telling us to fear people.