Jesus told his disciples, and by extension us, to stand firm to the end in an increasingly cold world. It isn’t easy when you can’t trust most of the people around you, when you can’t trust your own leaders, when the world appears to be falling apart, and when there is very little or no genuine love or affection to keep you going – but stand firm we must. With HIs presence it is possible. I must walk in the light, walk in the Spirit, walk in faith hope and love, and put all my faith in the One who holds all things in His hands.
Because of the increase of wickedness, the love of most will grow cold, but the one who stands firm to the end will be saved” (Matthew 24:12-13).
I know many of you have a far nicer experience of life than I’ve had (and some a lot worse) so that it will seem to some of you that I’m whining unnecessarily. So be it. Good for you. This is mine.
Over the years I’ve had numerous friends and family members turn their backs on me. I started to make a list once and lost count. It began when I became a Christian just before my 23rd birthday. My friends were all very left leaning in their political and social views, and most of them distanced themselves from me, though we had grown up together. To be fair, I distanced myself from them also because of their lifestyles and their unbelief. While they had condoned just about every immoral practice you can imagine, the one thing they couldn’t stomach was a Christian who actually believed what he claimed to believe. I terrified them and offended them.
One of the very few of those friends who remained, though at a distance, cut himself off from me the moment I told him in 2016 that I supported Donald Trump. Not only was this friend practically and proudly a Marxist but along with all my other old friends in the United Kingdom, he had been successfully brainwashed into thinking that Trump hated anyone who wasn’t lily white. He also hated people who weren’t rich like him, they were convinced, and so to their minds he was the mortal enemy of all good and broad-minded people.
The two girls I fell deeply in love with ran off with Tom, Dick and Harry.
Other “friends” similarly cut themselves off from me for the same reasons. Not only was I a born-again Christian looking for Christ’s return, but I politically supported someone far more evil than Adolph Hitler who (they had been told) had raped little girls and women, who was so ignorant and stupid that he couldn’t put a few words together coherently, who looked funny, who got rich by stealing money from poor people and who wasn’t a weak-wristed tool of the progressives. People I once regarded as close friends, who I had spent many good times with (or so I’d thought) who I’d grown up with and rubbed shoulders with didn’t want to know me. Friends? No, they were never friends.
At least one old “friend” who was an avowed atheist spat acid the moment I attempted I called to speak to him on the phone. Having once enjoyed many laughs and enjoyable times together, and having played many gigs in the same band for two years, his first words to me after years of separation were, “You don’t still believe in that stupid God of yours do you?” He refused to say anything to me but spiteful accusations and mockery so that I had to hang up.
Family members have also disappeared into the mists of time and space over Jesus Christ and Trump (I don’t put those two together in the same sentence for any other reason than that they are hated equally). I had to “unfriend” a brother who was mystified as to why I would not rail against Trump and mock him vehemently as he and all his friends do. I don’t want to hear or see the bile-filled hatred. Once a professing and a preaching Christian, he denied Christ many years ago and will not listen to a single word of reason, encouragement or logic concerning Jesus or even the existence of God.
Other family members have always kept a large distance for the same reason, and some have been plainly rude. My support for the nation of Israel has provided even more reason for this, and there have been times when even though I had said nothing but “hello” and “nice day today” they set upon me knowing my stand on Israel. Aren’t there any other things to take up arms over? I’m speaking here of alleged discussions even decades ago, long before the recent events in Gaza. One, a teacher of religious education in the UK, was disgusted to find that I could defend my position effectively and wants nothing more to do with me.
Here in the US most of the people I’ve worked with have been very progressive in their views and lifestyles and are very uncomfortable around professing Christians. Churchgoers turn their noses up once they find out that you actually believe what the Bible says, particularly on the subject of creation and the deity of Christ.
In-laws think me to be someone who doesn’t believe in the Holy Spirit and so something of a spiritual enemy. I’m not a real Christian because I don’t speak in tongues or roll on the floor of the church. My theology isn’t conducive to good family relations, and anyway, my occupation and income level just isn’t impressive. I’m a nonce; a nobody, a nothing.
On an entirely different level I’ve seen men becoming effeminate during my lifetime so that being a man is a bad thing. I’ve seen the culture around me disintegrating. I’ve seen the elite classes hissing venom and scratching at the eyes of people who weren’t like them and spouting nothing but lies and hate every time they open their mouths. I’ve seen pop culture rotting the lives and minds of people of all ages.
In short, the world has become a much darker place in the few decades I’ve lived in it. Of course, there has always been hate and violence and misrepresentation and prejudice, and after all, Christ, the perfect God-man, was crucified two thousand years ago. Human nature has always been corrupted, but now people more openly embrace evil.
Ah, but Jesus Christ is coming back. He said He would, and I believe Him. The night is almost over, the Day is coming. The knowledge of God will cover the earth like the waters cover the sea. At that time If you look for the wicked and the haters, you will not be able to find them. Instead God will reign in holiness. Loving kindness and brotherly/sisterly affection will be all around. Lives will be full and vibrant. Love will rule.
Fuel for Faith, Food for Thought 