As Christ Followers in America, we have been blessed not to have experienced brutal and life-threatening persecution for our faith as our counterparts do in other nations.
Forty-Eight years ago, my youth ministry pastor challenged our group to prepare ourselves for a time when we too may be subjected to beatings, imprisonment and even death for our faith.
When I hear statements from people like Paula White, Jim Baker, Franklin Graham, Jerry Falwell Jr., and others like them, compare President Trump to Biblical heroes and twist scriptures to justify his hateful and corrupt policies, I can see the possibility of True Christians being persecuted by Counterfeit Christians who have aligned themselves with Trump and his administration.
Remember, it was the Pharisees, backed by the power of the Roman empire, that ordered the persecution and execution of Christians beginning with the crucifixion of Christ.
And if you think America is too “Christian” to allow anything like that to happen, you’re wrong. During colonial times, Catholics slaughtered Protestants over differences in beliefs; and the Puritans, who came to America to escape religious persecution in England, ban Catholics, Quakers and other non-Puritans from settling in the Massachusetts colony for the same reasons. There were other established churches that tried to force all citizens to financially support their ministers. Those who refused were imprisoned, tortured and executed. It was for these reasons that the founding fathers chose “religious freedom” instead of “government sanctioned religion” which leads to tyranny and oppression. They also believed that faith and religious beliefs were personal matters between individuals and God.
Even after the constitution was established, different sects of Protestantism repeatedly petitioned congress to incorporate their view of Christianity into the constitution, and to make laws that favored their denomination above others, and above those who held no religious beliefs. And we cannot forget the Moral Majority/Religious Right sect under Pat Robinson and Jerry Falwell Sr., who used the issue of Abortion (an issue they had favored as a personal right) as a rallying call to unsuspecting Christian voters as a cover for pushing segregation, racial inequality, and discrimination.
The Apostle John wrote in I John 2:18-19, about the coming of the Antichrist (one who will oppose and seek to replace Christ), and many antichrists (false teachers) who were currently among them. Because of the work of the false teachers, John knew that the church age is the “last hour” before the Antichrist’s arrival.
Who are the false teachers, and where did they come from? John tells us that the false teachers are those who were once a part of the true church of Christ, and whose current teachings contradict the teachings of Christ.
What can the true children of God do? Follow Christ’s example. Love one another and strengthen the bond of fellowship; refute, with scripture, every lie these false teachers spout; and demonstrate the Father’s love for all of humanity (John 3:16, 17; 1 Cor. 6:9-11 [key verse, v. 11]; 2 Cor. 5:18-20). For many will come to know Him through His love, manifested through us, for them.