I recently heard a well-meaning and sincere Christian give a pep-talk to the church about taking our country back. Although I believe he was well-intentioned, and I certainly can sympathize with his righteous indignation over the evil abreast in today’s America, I’m afraid this dear brother in Christ is sorely mistaken over his naive belief that the church can triumphant over the perverse antichrists who are currently taking America by storm.
Do you remember the counsel of Gamaliel to the Jewish Sanhedrin in Acts 5:34-39? According to Gamaliel, it is a foolish and futile exercise in futility for us to vainly attempt to prevent the coming to pass of divine providence. God’s plans and purpose will be fulfilled; and no angel in Heaven, devil in Hell, or man on earth can prevent them from fulfillment. The tragic truth of our time, a truth intolerable to the average Christian today, is that we now find ourselves, as our Lord once did during His earthly sojourn, in the “hour” of our enemies, as well as the hour of “the power of darkness” (Luke 22:53). Yet, in our case, as in our Lord’s, it’s all being divinely orchestrated toward the accomplishment of divine ends.
Far from being conquerable ideologues, present-day progressives, who are both anti-American and antichrist, are actually instruments of divine judgment. As God used Egypt’s pharaoh to bring His judgment upon ancient Egypt, God is using our present-day politicians to bring His judgment upon modern-day America. As is becoming quite obvious to every observant and open-minded American, our God-forsaken and Christ-rejecting nation is now being destroyed by our own government. Although it is unbeknownst, not to mention unbelievable, to America’s contemporary church, behind the destruction of America by today’s diabolical Democrats and docile Republicans is the invisible hand of divine providence. It is God who is reducing to ruins our once great representative republic, not present-day politicians, who are but mere pawns in God’s hands.
It is from our nation’s ruins that the Biblically predicted tyranny of a beastly New World Order will rise up to stamp out Christianity upon the earth. Far from ushering in heaven on earth, as progressives have long envisioned, their long awaited beastly New World Order will usher in the greatest hell on earth this fallen world has ever known. Therefore, pep-talks to today’s church to rise up and politically prevail over today’s anti-American progressive antichrists are mere exercises in futility. What we really need to do, however, is prepare ourselves for pending, predicted, and unprecedented persecution. It is, much to our chagrin, Biblically predicted, providentially unpreventable, and imperative for the church’s preparation for Christ’s Parousia (Second Coming).
It is this imminent, fiery, end-time tribulation that will refine the church, the bride of Christ, for her Groom’s return. Christ is not coming back for the carnal old hag we’ve been calling church, but for a glorious church prepared and adorned, as a bride for her Husband (Ephesians 5:26; Revelation 21:2). It is only by walking through the fiery trials of end-time tribulation, not by being safely and secretly snatched out of them, as most contemporary Christians are erroneously expecting, that the church will be refined and readied for her Redeemer’s return.
When persecution comes, as it soon and surely will, Christians will be forced to return to the New Testament blueprint for the church; that is, to meeting house to house (Acts 2:26; 5:42; 8:3; 20:20). We will turn our back on the traditional religion of our day—the traditional, conventional, denomination church—just as Christ turned His back on the traditional religion of His day—the temple (Matthew 24:1-2). Since the only churches allowed to operate publicly in the dark and evil days ahead will be those sanctioned by the state, for having subjected themselves to state imposed apostasy, the true church of Jesus Christ will be forced underground. There, in secret house churches, the wheat will be separated from the tares, the sheep from the goats, and true believers from make-believers. Consequently, the church, being refined by the fiery trials of end-time tribulation and purified by its return to the New Testament pattern, will once again find itself walking in New Testament power and glory. Hallelujah!