From Today's Tennessean:
"True Christians Should Prepare for Difficulty in Coming Years"
It's time to prepare for hard times, my friends. And, if you're a Bible-believing, Christ-following Christian, I'm convinced the coming years will be particularly troublesome.
I say "Bible-believing, Christ-following Christian" because our corrupt culture and compromised churches have all but stripped the biblical definition of the word "Christian" from today's collective conscience so that it has lost much of its scriptural meaning.
The enemies of Christ have clearly risen to great power in this country and are, as I write, busy endeavoring to finish off what remains of the church as we know it for the purpose of replacing it with a god and religion more suitable for global government.
Making matters worse, with hate crimes legislation now awaiting Senate approval, it's looking more and more like faithful Christians could soon be viewed as enemies of the state for no other reason than having believed, proclaimed and obeyed the Word of God.
I believe Christians will again and again be called upon to choose whom we will serve in the coming days in ways that will bring more persecution and suffering than we are accustomed to, requiring a spiritual farsightedness and desire for the eternal things of God over the temporal rewards of this world. Ironically, this will do more to grow and mature the church than any program or strategy manufactured and promoted by the Southern Baptist Convention and its leadership.
We need to be ready. We need to be willing. And we need to be empowered, not by the mere passion of patriotic zeal, but by the Holy Spirit of God and His Word. It is not us against them — it is an angry and rebellious world against God, and we would do well to remember that when the devil comes knocking at our door demanding more tolerance, diversity and unity.
Home churches and Bible studies are already being raided in various parts of the country for such things as alleged zoning violations, in spite of the First Amendment's provision for "the free exercise of religion" and "peaceable assembly."
When our Constitution and Bill of Rights are eventually discarded altogether to appease and advance the global community, there will be no going back to the way things were here in the United States. There will only be the Word of God to edify, encourage, inspire and sustain each of us through the hard times ahead.
Best we get into His Word now more earnestly and take it to heart in preparation for a time when Bibles are no longer allowed or even legal, than get caught spiritually ignorant and scripturally unarmed when temptation and tribulation come.
Paul Proctor is a free-lance writer who lives in Franklin.
(Janet, thanks for calling my attention to this article.)
It's time to prepare for hard times, my friends. And, if you're a Bible-believing, Christ-following Christian, I'm convinced the coming years will be particularly troublesome.
I say "Bible-believing, Christ-following Christian" because our corrupt culture and compromised churches have all but stripped the biblical definition of the word "Christian" from today's collective conscience so that it has lost much of its scriptural meaning.
The enemies of Christ have clearly risen to great power in this country and are, as I write, busy endeavoring to finish off what remains of the church as we know it for the purpose of replacing it with a god and religion more suitable for global government.
Making matters worse, with hate crimes legislation now awaiting Senate approval, it's looking more and more like faithful Christians could soon be viewed as enemies of the state for no other reason than having believed, proclaimed and obeyed the Word of God.
I believe Christians will again and again be called upon to choose whom we will serve in the coming days in ways that will bring more persecution and suffering than we are accustomed to, requiring a spiritual farsightedness and desire for the eternal things of God over the temporal rewards of this world. Ironically, this will do more to grow and mature the church than any program or strategy manufactured and promoted by the Southern Baptist Convention and its leadership.
We need to be ready. We need to be willing. And we need to be empowered, not by the mere passion of patriotic zeal, but by the Holy Spirit of God and His Word. It is not us against them — it is an angry and rebellious world against God, and we would do well to remember that when the devil comes knocking at our door demanding more tolerance, diversity and unity.
Home churches and Bible studies are already being raided in various parts of the country for such things as alleged zoning violations, in spite of the First Amendment's provision for "the free exercise of religion" and "peaceable assembly."
When our Constitution and Bill of Rights are eventually discarded altogether to appease and advance the global community, there will be no going back to the way things were here in the United States. There will only be the Word of God to edify, encourage, inspire and sustain each of us through the hard times ahead.
Best we get into His Word now more earnestly and take it to heart in preparation for a time when Bibles are no longer allowed or even legal, than get caught spiritually ignorant and scripturally unarmed when temptation and tribulation come.
Paul Proctor is a free-lance writer who lives in Franklin.
(Janet, thanks for calling my attention to this article.)
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