PERSECUTION IN CHINA

PERSECUTION IN CHINA

                My son Zach sent me an article yesterday written by a Chinese Pastor by the name of Wang Yi. In December of 2018 the Chinese government raided his church hauling 100 people off in chains to be interrogated. They searched the men and strip searched the woman and hauled them away.

                As Zach said, reading this pastor’s comments was a bit like reading the writings of Paul the apostle. He is a pastor who gets it. He is not a religious political activist as some have been. He is a suffering servant who has only a goal of making it known that there is a higher authority than the temporary governments of the world. It is an authority of truth that is worth dying for if necessary. In his persecution he only wants to bear testimony to the cross of Christ.

                IN the following 3 paragraphs I quote the words of this brave and faithful pastor whose words were translated from Chinese by faithful followers. In his comments he gives us a view of the bigger picture when it comes to persecution for the sake of Christ. He says:

                “For this reason I accept and respect the fact that the communist regime has been allowed by God to rule temporarily. As the Lord’s servant John Calvin said, wicked rulers are the judgment of God on a wicked people, the goal being to urge God’s people to repent and turn again toward Him. For this reason I am joyfully willing to submit myself to the enforcement of the law as though submitting to the discipline and training of the Lord.”

                “At the same time I believe that the Communist regime’s persecution against the church is a greatly wicked, unlawful action. As a pastor of a Christian church, I must denounce this wickedness openly and severely. The calling that I have received requires me to use non-violent methods to disobey those human laws that disobey the Bible and God. My Savior Christ also requires me to joyfully bear all costs for disobeying wicked laws.”

                “But this does not mean that my personal disobedience and the disobedience of the church is in any sense fighting for rights or political activism in the form of civil disobedience, because I do not have the intention of changing any institutions or laws of China. As a pastor the only thing I care about is the disruption of man’s sinful nature by this faithful disobedience and the testimony it bears for the cross of Christ.”

                In this submission to the persecution of the government Pastor Yi makes an important distinction between political activism and the true mission of the church. He is following the example of Jesus who was not a political activist. You see, one of the reasons the Sanhedrin denounced Jesus and handed Him over to Rome had to do with their disappointment that Jesus was not a political activist. They wanted Jesus to rise up and to deliver them from the iron fist of Rome.

                Even at Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem for the last time, Jesus’ disciples and His followers were throwing down palm branches and laying their cloaks upon His pathway. They were shouting “Hosanna to the Son of David” thereby announcing His royal lineage with the intent of proclaiming Him as the conquering King. But Jesus stopped and wept over Jerusalem. He saw the destruction of their city and their temple and the mass slaughter of human lives that it would entail and He wept for them. He saw their rejection of Him in the ensuing hours. Their interpretation of Scripture and their traditions had caused them to misunderstand the nature and purpose of His first coming, just as we often misunderstand and the nature and purpose of His second coming.

                Jesus had not come to be their conquering King, but a suffering servant. In fact, notice if you will, that only minutes before Jesus ascended into the clouds after His resurrection, His disciples asked: “Lord, is it at this time You are restoring the kingdom to Israel?” Acts 1:6

                When the disciples had been arguing over who would sit on Jesus right and who would sit on His left, they were not bargaining for positions on crosses on either side of Jesus, they were jockeying for positions in what they thought would be His earthly reign. They had the right idea, but the wrong timing.

                In their time the leaders rejected Jesus as a suffering servant, because they wanted Him to be their conquering King who would overthrow the Romans and judge them. But now the church in our day is rejecting Him as Judge and King and portraying Him as the ever gentle and understanding and loving servant who would never judge us or rule over us. Today we want a Teddy Bear God who expects no more of us than to party in His name. We don’t realize that we are dancing on the Titanic so to speak. We are clinging to the world and its goods, even as the world is sinking.

                But this time Jesus is coming as King of kings and Lord of lords. He is coming to judge the world and to grind the nations into powder and to set up a kingdom that will fill the whole earth (Daniel 2), but many are wanting Him to whisk us out of harm’s way to a purposeless eternity of playing harps and sitting on clouds.

                Today much of the church has it all wrong. We love to talk about Jesus as King of kings, but we want to deny the judgment of the living and the dead, or the accountability we owe in terms of obedience and the putting away of sin that His kingdom requires.

                This time around He is going to do exactly what the Jews wanted Him to do the first time around. He is coming to Jerusalem to reign for 1000 years. He will rule the nations with a rod of iron just as it says in Rev. 2:27, 12:5, and 19:15. We who are faithful will rule the nations with Jesus, (As it says in Rev. 2:27) not of fluffy clouds, but in His earthly millennial kingdom. (See Rev. 5:10, Rev. 20:6)

                Today’s American church has no stomach for persecution. But persecution is coming on a global scale and even as we sleep, the towers of the 5G network are being set up and matched with massive quantum computers and AI technology that is able to track every person on the planet, analyze every, conversation on our phones and our internet and even watch us in our homes through TVs and smart devices from our toaster to the refrigerator. In fact their surveillance is so thorough that even if you go completely off the grid they can use surrounding surveillance to create 3D picture of you and track you in real time even without any smart devices. Someday my own words will testify against me and I write what I do because that is what God has called me to do. But this evidence will be held against us when the hammer falls.

                The power of these new AI computers is so astounding that they can monitor every detail of every person’s life on the planet on a moment by moment basis in real time. Through the massive distribution of cameras and credit and debit cards and facial recognition, and smart devices in our homes they know right where you are ever minute of the day.

                The thing is that just like in China; Christians are going to be seen as subversives against the coming global government. With president Trump, be he good or bad, God has given us time to wake up and to repent and to turn to Him with our whole hearts. But when this reprieve has come to an end, the Day of the Lord is going to come upon God’s people as an overwhelming surprise. Every faithful Christian will suddenly be locked out of the system. In a moment your credit cards and your debit cards will be turned off and you will be trying to hide from those who are rounding up Christians for FEMA camps, or retraining camps just as they are currently sending Christians in China.

                Can we really afford to be complacent about our faith? Can we really afford to be seeking comfort and security from a ship that is going down? Are we ready to have all of our stuff taken away from us and to find ourselves running as fugitives from the law?

                Large portions of the church are falling away. They are embracing political correctness, dropping crucial doctrines in order to meld with the coming global religion of the beast, joining hands with the Pope in his formation of the one global religion made up of all the religions of the world. But you simply can’t clump Jesus in as just one god among equals. He is either the Creator of the universe and Savior of mankind… or He is an imposter and a liar and the world is going to try and tell you that He is the latter.

                Paul said this in 1 Thess. 5:1-6: “Now as to the times and epochs, brethren, you have no need of anything to be written to you. For you yourselves know full well that the day of the Lord (The Tribulation) will come just like a thief in the night. While they are saying, “Peace and Safety!” then destruction will come upon them suddenly like birth pangs upon a woman with child; and they shall not escape. But you, brethren are not in darkness that the day should overtake you like a thief; for you are all sons of light and sons of day. We are not of the night, nor of darkness; so then let us not sleep as others do, but let us be alert and sober.”

                Again in 2 Thess. 2:1-4 when Christians were asking Paul about the timing of Jesus’ coming and our gathering together to Him, Paul answered:

                “Now we request you brethren with regard to the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our gathering together to Him, that you may not be quickly shaken from your composure  or disturbed either by a spirit or message or a letter as if from us to the effect that the day of the Lord has come.”

                `In other words, some false prophets had come around after Paul and said that they were already in the tribulation. And it was plausible since the Roman Emperor certainly fit the bill of the antichrist. They were being persecuted and the situation looked like end time prophecies were being fulfilled. So, in order to dispel these rumors and lies, Paul explained this to them saying:   “Let no one in any way deceive you, for it will not come unless the apostasy comes first and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of destruction who opposes and exalts himself above every so called god or object of worship, so that he takes his seat in the temple of God displaying himself as being God.”  2 Thess. 2:3, 4.

                Well, throughout the past 2000 years there have been many apostasies in the church and many antichrist types including the popes who changed times and laws, separated from their Judeo Christian roots and married the pagans and indeed persecuted all” heretics” with every sort of torture including burning them alive. Yes, end time events have occurred over and over again throughout history.

                But until now many parts of end time prophecy could not be fulfilled. Israel was not yet back in their land, so the physical temple could not be built into which the coming antichrist will reign as God. All of the events of the past fell short of global control or the ability to track or control the buying or selling of every single person on the planet. No technologies existed in those days by which everyone could be seen and be controlled by the antichrist, or receive instant communication around the world or to see and hear the messages of the Two Witnesses or to watch their deaths in Jerusalem or their resurrections.

                In other words we are entering into a time when all of the prophecies will come together on a global scale and they will be fulfilled literally in every detail. In fact in the construction of the 5G network we are seeing the final emplacement of the Mark of the Beast system.   Because of our role as protectors of Israel and because there are still “7000”people in America who have not bowed their knee to Baal so to speak; God has given us a little time to repent and to turn to Him with our whole heart. Are we using this time wisely?

                We see in China and in other parts of the world that the issues of the Mark of the Beast will be first and foremost our faithfulness to Jesus Christ and His Word. We see faithful Christians being persecuted for their faith and at the same time we see the falling away church scrambling to comply with political correctness, abandoning the Bible and embracing things that are clearly an abomination to God. We see them beating a pathway to Rome to sign up for the Pope’s global religion. We have seen signs in the sun, moon and stars telling us that this is it.

                We see false pastors, prophets and teachers that are abandoning the Word of God in favor of manmade philosophies and gods of their own making. We are seeing a separation of the wheat and the tares, the wise and foolish virgins and if you want to be on the right side of things, now is the time to give your whole heart and soul and body to the Lord. The tares must go and the chaff must go and the winds of strife are rising to blow them away.

                Will we be ready to stand like Pastor Wang Yi and the members of His home church, the “Early Rain covenant Church in Chengdu, China?

                “And now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you entirely; and may your spirit and soul and body be preserved complete without blame at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. Faithful is He who calls you and He will also bring it to pass.” 1Thess.5:23, 24