We Lost The Wars – To The Victor Goes The Spoils

We Lost The Wars – To The Victor Goes The Spoils

To be right with God, is to be in trouble with Men – A.W.Tozer
For almost 250 years Christians in America were able to live in freedom, specifically freedom from being persecuted. Our nation is built on the fact the peoples from Europe fled religious persecution so that they could embrace and promote biblical values instead of government run religion and their values.
We are kind of an anomaly, we Christians in America. We have never seen persecution. Where believers the world over regularly encounter persecution, many pay the ultimate price and are killed for their beliefs in God. It is estimated that every 11 minutes a Christian dies at the hands of persecutors.
But for the past 20 years things have been slowly changing. So slowly that twenty years later and we look around and ask ourselves, where did our country go?
We have not been paying attention and it is the “slow boiling frog” syndrome waking us up. Like it or not, we have lost both the cultural and spiritual wars that were fought these past 20 or so years.
A spiritual climate shift has taken place and we are just starting to wake up to the fact and realizing it. You remember the story of Rip Van Winkle, how he fell asleep against a tree to wake up twenty years later and not know anyone and how everything has changed?
We as Christians today are experiencing the same Rip Van Winkle effect. We look around and ask ourselves where did our country, our lifestyle, and our freedoms, where did they go to?
They are gone and will probably never return. Why do I say that?
Our nation has in fact become a pro-pagan, pro-humanist, pro-homosexual and anti-Christian anything society. Is there tolerance for anything Christian? Not at all, forget it, it is gone and is willfully forgotten.
Once the two generations of baby boomers die all those traditional values and votes will go with them. Like it or not, they were the last standard bearers of God, Jesus and His Word. Already the intensity of this shift in ideas is becoming blatantly obvious in our day to day lives.
Pastor and author Erwin Lutzer stated the following…
“We have crossed an invisible line and there are no signs that we are capable of turning back. Like a boat caught in the mighty torrent of the Niagara River, we are being swept along with powerful cultural currents that just might put us over the brink. Seemingly irrevocable trends put in motion forty years ago continue to gather greater momentum and speed. Our Judeo-Christian heritage that gave us the freedoms we have enjoyed is for the most part gone, and in its place is an intolerant form of humanism that can boast of one victory after another . The “cultural war” we used to speak about appears to be over, and we have lost.” (1)

The Outcome? Become Prisoners of War

As I stated, we lost both the cultural and spiritual war. When the victor wins, they often round up the losers and imprison them or even execute them. In other words, the losers are persecuted.
When we often think of persecution we think of imprisonment or martyrdom, but it more.
Here is a great definition by Geoffrey Bromiley…
“Persecution is the suffering or pressure, mental, moral, or physical which authorities, individuals, or crowds inflict on others, especially for opinions or beliefs, with a view to their subjection by recantation, silencing, or, as a last resort, execution.”
In other words, persecution is the social marginalization of believers with the end goal of eliminating their voice and their influence. What we are witnessing today is Christians being “squeezed” into submission from all directions.
So when we think of persecution, we often look at martyrdom, where today, Christians in the US are already suffering that “squeeze” of persecution.
What will happen next is that pressure will escalate to more laws to regulate our beliefs in business to the point that having a business will prove futile instead of profitable. Physical attacks will increase, just look at the street preachers being harassed and arrested today for just standing in a city park preaching the gospel.
The goal is silencing our voice. Why? Because we shed the light in the darkness and the darkness does not like it. In the end, anyone who claims the name of Christ will eventually end up in the anti-Christian cross hairs.

The World Hates Us

Like it or not, believe it or not, the world hates Christians. The world does not tolerate us, even though “WE” are to be tolerant of others. We are the surge of the earth so why should “THEY” tolerate us?
But why do they hate us? Hey, I’m a nice guy. I obey the law, pay taxes, volunteer and as much as I don’t like doing so… yes I recycle my garbage. I am a good red, white and blue American. So why does the world hate me?
Easy… we are different.
Scripture says…
John 15:19 If ye were of the world, the world would love his own: but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you.
There it is, right there in black and white from Jesus’ own mouth. The world hates us because we are children of God and not children of the devil.
That is the great divide that so many of us forget.
In today’s watered down churches it is taught that God loves everyone and that everyone is God’s children.
1 John 3:7-10 Little children, let no man deceive you: he that doeth righteousness is righteous, even as he is righteous. 8 He that committeth sin is of the devil; for the devil sinneth from the beginning. For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that he might destroy the works of the devil. 9 Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin; for his seed remaineth in him: and he cannot sin, because he is born of God. 10 In this the children of God are manifest, and the children of the devil: whosoever doeth not righteousness is not of God, neither he that loveth not his brother.
Jesus speaking to the Pharisees and scribes stated the following…
John 8:44 Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it.
So this idea that we are ALL God’s Children is an error.
This is also why the world hates us, we are His.
Folks, people are starting to wake up to the realization that things are getting bad. Not only are they getting bad in the states for everyone, they are getting worse for those of us who are Christians and part of the body of Christ.
When things are bad, it is human nature to pick on someone and make them the scape goat.
In Nazi Germany, the scape goat was the Jews. Hitler worked very hard at punishing, persecuting and then eliminating the scape goat. He was pretty successful and killed over 6 million Jews and several million bible believing Christians who would not bow down to his rules.
Like it or not, the same thing is going to happen here. It is human nature and man constantly replays his own history.
This is an ugly topic to discuss. But it is something that needs to have attention brought to it.
In the coming months and years persecution of Christians will get worse. I mean let’s face it. Congress is not going to fund all these FEMA camps and just let them sit and gather dust. They will eventually use them.
My question is, are you going to wait around till it is too late to finally come to the realization that you might be an occupant of said camps?
Read the writing on the wall. Yes it is scary and it is totally battling with your normalcy bias. But these things are going to happen.
Man repeats his history – just see —

There is a Russian proverb that says ” When it happens you will know that it is true, by then it will be too late.”
I will continue along these lines in future articles discussing what we should do knowing what the future holds.
By Ray Gano
 
Endnotes
1 – Nyquist, J. Paul (2015-01-30). Prepare: Living Your Faith in an Increasingly Hostile Culture (p. 11). Moody Publishers. Kindle Edition.