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    303
    How to Be a Christian
    and Suffer Gracefully

    Temple School, Monday 2 October 2000

    In many respects I am very grateful that I have lived as an exile and as a foreigner most of my life. I was born in Singapore and spent my childhood in Malaysia and even though I was not racially Malay, Chinese or Tamil (the main inhabitants of that nation) Malaysia was, and always will be, home in a special way. I then moved back to England from which my parents originated and, in spite of the racial affinity, I felt a stranger there for many years. England grew on me, as it were, but it never replaced my Asianness. From there I moved to Norway for nine years and from there to Sweden which is my present domicile. In all of these nations I have been a stranger, an exile, and a foreigner, even though I have adopted many of the customs and habits of all these nations and become a cultural pot pourri.

    In our day and age both the young and the old are able to travel the world over as in no previous generation, a privilege which previously was restricted to the rich, the diplomats, the soldiers of Empire, and international traders. Though this exposure is helpful it really requires that you settle and live amongst a people a good while before you can comprehend their ways and appreciate their virtues. Such exposure is not, to be sure, without its dangers. We often read of young people disappearing in exotic countries, and sometimes we learn the grizzly truth of how they have been murdered or sold as sex slaves. Many come back with strange and destructive religious ideas. One only has to think of the Beetles and how their trip to India to meet a well-known guru caused an entire generation of Western youth to be influenced by demonic ideas through their Hindu-inspired music, which has since spread and multiplied into every form of vile and detestable lyric and beat, consuming millions of young souls and corrupting the present generation of adults who are today's rulers.

    Foreign travel has both its good and evil sides. Indeed, I remember when I was in eastern Europe shortly after the so-called fall of communism and hearing of the eagerness of these people to travel and experience the West. I told them in no uncertain terms that whilst the West had much that was desirable, it was also a cesspit of every demonic stronghold imaginable as well. Today the doors between West and East are wide open and the East is becoming as depraved as its Western neighbours.

    There is, as I have pointed out to you before, this wanderlust in young people. They want to travel the world and see it. And in most instances the impulse to do so is an unconscious pilgrimage to find out who they really are. They will be disappointed after many such travels. After the new and stimulating sights and sounds have died down in their memories, the search for fulfilment will remain, and especially if they are immature Christians. The apostle Peter writes:

    "I implore you, dear friends, as exiles and aliens to keep from gratifying fleshly desires such as war against your soul" (1 Pet.2:11, RBV).

    My eldest daughter often envies me because I have travelled to so many countries in the world on every continent except South America and have sampled a wide spectrum of cultures, sights, sounds and other stimulations. One of her ambitions is to travel in connection with her career. But I must in all truthfulness declare that to me all of these things are dead for I have discovered that no matter where I go, no matter what I see, no matter what I experience, I remain, beyond my power because of my choice to be a disciple of the Risen Lord, an EXILE and an ALIEN. This is not my world. It is Satan's. None of these are my cultures - they are Satan's. They are all, every one of them, demon-infested. I have no home in this world.

    Now there are many people who think me an extremist in saying such things, quite apart from being grossly insulting to different cultures, although they forget I include my native British one in the list. Irrespective of their ire and howls of protest, though, the fact remains that in our Western Liberal Dictatorship there is an idolatry which festers unchecked called culturism which basically states that all cultures are in some way good and should be preserved and respected much as one would wish to save an animal species threatened with extinction. To speak ill of any culture is politically incorrect even when the mouths of those defenders of culturism are full of hypocrisy. There was a lunatic fringe, now mainstream, which criticises how the British Empire imposed its values on various cultures within its domain whilst at the same time it decries all cultures which do not harmonise with their liberal, feministic ideas about women's right and other such issues. The covert powers that be - the liberals and their unbeknown financial Illuminist overlords - have a hidden cultural agenda which is not at all unlike that of the antichrist Antiochus Ephiphenes who wished to forcibly hellenise the whole world and eradicate the truth of Yahweh's Eternal Law. "All cultures are equal, but some cultures are more equal than others," might well be their Orwellian battle-cry, laced as it is with doublespeak. The emerging Illuminist western promiscuous occult-saturated culture is, of course, the "more equal" society in to which all the others must converge, an antichrist culture which is diametrically opposite to the divine culture of the millennial world to come. Oh yes, if we are Christians - really Christians, then we are most certainly aliens and exiles in this world. And if you as a Christian feel comfortable with this world, then I must warn you that in truth you belong to it and to its evil overlord. Quite a frightening thought, really.

    And yet we have to live in this world. If you have never felt sympathy for immigrants and refugees living in your country, now is perhaps the time to empathise with them a little, particularly those who are harshly treated, irrespective of whether they are political or economic refugees. A time is coming when refugees from bombed-out western countries, many of which will be radioactive with nuclear fallout, will stream into the countries from which the immigrants they once so despised originated. Americans will stream into Latin America and Europeans into Africa and Asia, and will receive in measure the same contempt they once showed to their own former immigrants. I would not like to be a European or an American in those dark days to come for the tables will be reversed. Their suffering will be great.

    However, I deviate to some extent from my main theme of today's lesson, which is how to suffer graciously as a Christian. I wonder how many of these white refugees will suffer graciously and with dignity and according to Christian principles? Peter says: "Conduct yourselves well amongst the Gentiles to that, although they may defame you as criminals, they may see your good works and glorify God in the day of visitation" (v.12). I fear for those European Gentiles who find themselves as refugees in North African Muslim lands in an alien culture for which they professed respect but which in their hearts actually despised. The shoe will be on the other proverbial foot, and the hosts will become unwelcome guests! And this is as it must be for history, as it is consummated, is going to reverse itself.

    Christianity began its life in the Middle East, and although it spread rapidly into Europe through the activity of the illustrious apostle Paul and his co-workers, it always remained strongest and the most unpolluted in the Asian and north African lands. Europe and European ideas were always a source of trouble for the Gospel for it was in Europe that it became hellenised. The whole world is actually in the process of being hellenised. I mean no disrespect to the Greek people in speaking ill of hellenisation, for the Greeks played a vitally important positive rôle in the spreading of the Gospel too, and we owe much to them in terms of art and science. But it is their pagan past, now made present again, which is the object of my criticism and concern.

    The Gospel, as I have said many times before, is returning to the East from whence it came. Amongst these European refugees to North Africa and Asia will be a small band of true Bible-believing Christians. Europeans will be forced to see their culture in a new light and to gain insights into its own spiritual bankruptcy through being resident in the lands they once so despised. Their eyes will be opened - really opened! The Christians who come with them as refugees will bring the Gospel to the Asians and North Africans where before there has been little or no access, and the evil which befell the Europeans because of their wickedness will be turned to good through these missionaries. Like Joseph in captivity in Egypt, God's plan will be accomplished.

    The Gospel has always been the most alive and spread the most rapidly through suffering. This is not to say that as Christians we should court suffering but rather graciously accept it when it comes with the understanding that this is the primary way that God reaches rebellious mankind. And it has spread through being placed in alien cultures.

    After the death of the apostles Christianity flourished in north Africa from Egypt to Morocco. North Africa was Christian. The whole Middle East was Christian! It is easy for forget this since all of this was swept away by the advance of Islam a few centuries later. Yet that is what it was, and that is what it is going to be again. From Morocco to Egypt and up into Palestine and Syria and modern day Turkey, this was all a Christian world. And so it shall be again. As European Christianity declines, so African and Asian Christianity shall ascend.

    It is a bitter irony, for who are these pagan Europeans? They are, to be sure, of many races, but mixed liberally in them is the blood of Ephraim - the blood of the lost Ten Tribes. Israel always did have a propensity for rebellion and idolatry, particularly the tribe of Dan. And where did the worst of the 1960's sexual rebellion gain its strongest foothold? Denmark! The land of Dan (in Danish, Dan-mark). Denmark was the pornographic centre of Europe and the world, and spread into the other Scandinavian countries amongst the descendants of Naphtali in Sweden and other Israelite tribes. Israel is doing what it did so much of in her past.

    So Israel - the Europeans - will find themselves amongst another branch of Abraham's seed, the Ishmaelites who, though they have largely adopted a counterfeit religion, still possess many of the qualities of their father Abraham whom the rebellious northern European Israelites have forgotten. These two branches of that great and wonderful House of Abraham are destined to learn from one another, and by the most unusual of circumstances. You see, Ephraim is going to return home as a refugee! Egypt and Assyria, the Bible tells us, will turn to the Lord God of Israel and go up to Jerusalem for praise. And we Europeans will be amongst them, also going up for praise, intermingling with our Middle Eastern and North African brethren. Our distinctly European and Arabic ways will disappear and a new culture will emerge, as all of Abraham's seed come home. How do I know these things? Because I have seen them in vision.

    When this calamity will happen, I do not know for sure - perhaps just before Antichrist comes to power. Jerusalem has yet to become centre-stage of his coup d'état, the capital of his short-lived 1,000 year antichrist Reich, even shorter than Hitler's. Today, in October 2000, the battle for Jerusalem is still raging as Talmudic Jews battle with Islamic Arab Palestinians. You may have read of the recent bloodshed in that sad land. Jerusalem will indeed change hands again, once more if not twice, until it is the millennial domain of the Messiah, Yah'shua (Jesus). How I look forward to that day. This European Asian-born author yearns for his south-east Mediterranean home. But not, I suspect, in this life.

    In the meantime we must live with uncomfortable realities and the daily contradictions that face us as aliens in a foreign land, no matter what that land may be. We face dilemmas including this one Peter speaks of: "Be submissive to every human institution for the Lord's sake, whether to the emperor as supreme, or to governors as commissioned by Him to bring criminals to justice and to encourage the well-behaved. For this is God's will, that by behaving well you should silence the ignorance of thoughtless people. Enjoy liberty, not by employing freedom to cover up wickedness but as slaves of God. Treat everybody honourably; have love for the brothers; revere God; respect the emperor" (1 Pet.2:13-17, RBV).

    No small amount of trouble has come from misunderstanding this scripture, from those who believe that we should yield to every political institution no matter what its colour to those who believe in the gospel of revolution and physical violence. Christians constantly face dilemmas. The liberation theologians and their priests have taken up arms alongside communists to fight brutally repressive and murderous fascist régimes and find their justification in selected scriptures. Other Christians wholly collaborate with the dictators, saying they are simply being submissive to the extant political institutions. And yet others like the Jehovah's Witnesses refuse to have anything to do with politics altogether. Who is right?

    Corrie Ten Boom and her father faced similar dilemmas during the second world war in their native Holland. There they hid Jews from the nazis. The nazis knew what they were doing but could not at first pin anything on them and one of the things they reminded Corrie's father of was that Christians should be subject to the secular authorities, quoting this passage from Peter. Corrie's father was in no doubt, for he cited the apostles in the Acts of the Apostles, for they had been commanded not to preach the Gospel by the Talmudic Jews. Their response was succinct - sometimes we must disobey the civil authorities in order to obey God. Thus as we look at the scriptures on the Christian's relationship to civil authorities we find a tension, an apparent dilemma, for on the one hand we are commanded to submit to these authorities and on the other we must obey God first.

    I do not find any evidence that we are to obey all civil authorities carte blanche nor do I find any evidence that we are ever justified in taking up arms like the revolutionaries. Rather I find the following principles as being the common factors of truth:

      (1) First, we are to understand and accept that the principle of civil authority in this non-Zionic world is essential for the sake of law and order and that it is better than complete anarchy. Unrighteous law and order is better than no law and order at all;

      (2) We are not to be involved in politics. The Talmudic Jews and many of His disciples tried to involve Christ in nationalistic concerns but His reply was that His Kingdom had nothing to do with this world system and that they should be thinking of their heavenly country;

      (3) We must be prepared to suffer for our faith. Violence on the part of Christians is rarely ever justified, and probably not at all. We may resist tyranny in many different ways and we are justified in disobeying the laws of the world system which would prevent us from living our religion (as the unregistered Baptists did in congregating secretly to worship in the former USSR, or as Corrie Ten Boom and her family did in hiding Jews from the nazis to save their lives). I am not saying that a Christian does not have the right to defend himself and his family from a violent attacker by violent means but I am warning him to be careful that he does not take this over the boundary of acceptable Christian behaviour. We are to offer the other cheek to be sure at least once, but how many times? It is at this juncture that I believe I am right at leaving such issues to the personal conscience. I only know that it is a terrible thing to have blood on ones hands and that such can make defile person, as Scripture attests.

    As Christians, we are to enjoy our liberty, as Peter says (v.16), but as slaves to God. We are to pray for our enemies rather than kill them. We are told to respect the emperor or the modern-day equivalent. "What, even an adulterer like Clinton?" someone once asked me. Yes, even him, and I will explain.

    Recently we have been talking a lot about wearing the clothes of virtue as an outer discipline whilst our soul learns to do these things naturally from the inside out through the Ruach haQodesh (Holy Spirit). Now personally I think Clinton, along with a good many other political leaders, are rogues of the darkest dye. I have no respect for Clinton as a man but were I an American I would respect his office, because the Scripture tells me that this office exists for the good of the people, notwithstanding its abuse by scallywags and rogues. Similarly. I have a strong dislike for the British Prime Minister but I respect his office. It is same with the Pastoral office - we may disagree and perhaps even dislike our pastor sometimes (sadly) but we must support him because of his office (see The Pastoral Office in NCW, August 1992, 1:38-58).

    There are many Christians today who suffer from the idolatry called democratitus. Don't worry if you've never heard of that word because you probably haven't since I made it up. It's the worship of democracy. These Christians believe that democracy is God's own political system and they peg it at the same level as the Gospel itself. Whilst democracy has much to commend it to be sure, it is not a Biblical concept at all, but a Greek one! Democracy only works as long as the people are righteous. Once they are not, democracy is just another licence to wickedness. The Bible offers no support to those who believe that one should always support democratic institutions and become the enemy of dictatorship. The Bible actually does not care about worldly political systems in the least bit. Indeed, it would favour a righteous dictatorship over a democratic system that continually legislates wicked practices. You can be a good and happy Christian whether in a totalitarian state as a democratic one. Both types of state persecute Christians in any case albeit in different ways. Thus when Peter commands respect for the emperor he could as easily have meant a democratically-elected president or prime minister as a dictator. The Romans were, after all, dictators - the people didn't elect them, much less the Christians to whom Peter is writing!

    Peter goes on to illustrate this idea in verses 18-20. A Christian might just as easily be a slave or a slave-holder. If he is a slave, is he to revolt against his master? Not at all! "You domestic slaves should with unqualified respect be submissive to your masters, not only to the kind and considerate, but also to those who are harsh...!" (v.18).

    Are you hearing this? Peter is not the least bit interested in the rights or wrongs of slavery - that is an entirely different issue. Would I therefore have supported the emancipation of slavery? If it was by peaceful means, as Wilberforce in England did, then yes, of course I would. But would I have taken up arms as the northern American states did? Absolutely not, not even should you get me to sing that glorious American "Battle Hymn of the Republic" with its deeply patriotic and Christian strains.

    Slavery is an emotive subject but we must not become side-tracked by it in our attempt to try and understand what our proper relationship as Christians to the powers-that-be should be. Does not this issue, in fact, declare clearly that we are not to get side-tracked in worldly issues? Salvation is not, in any case, in politics, whether in the emancipation of slaves, women, or any other class of human being, but in how we conduct ourselves in the Spirit. We are told to give unqualified respect to our masters, whether they are good or evil, and no matter what we may actually feel about them in our hearts. Thus in this one bold statement the apostle Peter gives the lie to all revolutionary movements that depend on violence or indeed upon the overthrow of any godly principle. The American Civil War is a case in question, as indeed the American war of Independence. Now I realise that in bringing these up I risk confronting two golden calves so I shall step around them for now. But for goodness sake don't let politics or nationalism blind you to true Christian precepts for it would not be the first time that these things have waylaid sincere but misguided Christians. Remember your heavenly citizenship.

    There is a great struggle going on in the United States at the moment between the "One Worlders" like Clinton and the "Patriots" who wish to defend America, democracy and capitalism as Christian institutions. Of course, the "One Worlders", who want a New World Older with an international government, police, army, and even religion, are instruments in the hands of the coming antichrist and the devil himself, make me strongly sympathetic to the "patriots" (even though I am not American) but I must give a strong word of warning: don't let your nationalism become idolatry. The combination of religion and nationalism has historically, including in biblical times, been one of the most dangerous and spiritually fatal unions for any people, for nationalism so easily substituted for true spirituality. It becomes a religion all of its own and, as we also know, the last bastion of many a scoundrel. Make sure your heavenly citizenship has your first allegiance.

    If we are not to engage in violent revolutionary movements whose aim is the overthrow of governments, states, and the like, then we have got to do it the apostolic way. We have got to suffer for righteousness' sake. Peter continues: "To such experience you have been called; for Christ also suffered for you and left behind an example, that you might follow in His footsteps" (v.21, RBV). The agenda is clearly set, is it not? We are not to go inventing novel ways of effecting social change but to do things Christ's way, whose example we are to follow. For the Christian, there is only one path to follow, and it is neither political nor nationalistic, no matter how powerfully his feelings may be drawn to such things. Political and nationalistic passion are, in any case, more often not substitutes for the worship of God. This does not mean that I do not love my country when I eschew the politics of left, right or centre, or if I do not possess a fiery nationalistic spirit, nor does it mean that I will not serve my country, for I will in truth respect and honour those in authority for the sake of their God-ordained offices.

    "But what of the communist political commissar or the Gestapo chief?" someone might cry. Peter has already given us the offices we are to respect, and why: (1) the Emperor (president/prime minister) as head of state; to (2) Governors who bring criminals to justice and encourage the well-behaved. "What if Christianity is a crime in a country?" Then we must invoke the apostolic exception clause - indeed, we may well find we are invoking it rather a lot as the times get worse, until we are forced to flee persecution or perish. The Christian must deal with each and every case entirely on its own merit, according to the Word and his own conscience. And because we see through a glass but darkly, we are likely to see some things differently. God will judge us individually as it is impossible to write a complete list of do's and don't's. But we may set down the general apostolic guidelines.

    Christianity is an intelligent faith. It is also a faith of freedom. We are free to find out the truth for ourselves without religious or political indoctrination. As such, therefore, we bear a heavy responsibility, and are under pressure to always act in a mature and loving fashion, thinking of others more than ourselves. Every soul faces a moral dilemma at least once in his life for which the Scriptures give no clear answer and an answer to which the Lord gives no clear answer by revelation. We are sometimes left to figure it out for ourselves. The wise person will wrestle long and hard, not jumping to hasty conclusions or ill-conceived actions, working out his salvation with fear and trembling (Phil.2:12), remembering the example we are always to follow:

      "(Christ) committed no sin, neither was deceit found in His mouth, who did not return the insult when He was insulted; who did not threaten when abused, but committed Himself to the Righteous Judge" (1 Per.2:22-23, RBV).

    Such a course of action - such behaviour - is, needless to say, totally contrary to the reflexive behaviour of the natural man. As such, therefore, is requires self-discipline until it occurs naturally. It is the opposite of the spontaneous behaviour of the artist but requires careful and thoughtful consideration, often the result of intense inner struggling to resist the passions of the carnal nature. Little wonder that artists rank amongst their number an exceedingly high proportion of bohemians and revolutionaries, who mistake their creative impulses for the working of the Ruach haQodesh (Holy Spirit). What moral crimes have been committed in the name of Art, I wonder? From whence does pornography get its supposed moral licence? What of the impassionate speeches of the politicians, ruling and smearing their opponents? Or the nationalists, who in their misguided love of country would walk roughshod over other nations? Or the proponents of the New Order who would butcher all opponents of their fantastic dream of a one-world dictatorship? One has only to think of Waco and the Branch Davidians of recent memory who far from killing themselves were actually butchered by the state, for whom violent means justifies the imagined glorious ends of the "New Order".

    Beware, beware, of the devious, deceitful designs of wicked men! It was not so long ago that we were being presented with a grotesque choice in the Balkans - in Bosnia and then Kosovo - to support the instrument of the New Order, NATO, or the pan-Slavic nationalism of Slobodan Milosovic. Since nationalism is now politically incorrect, the people naturally supported NATO...and possibly an even worse evil, presently and conveniently camouflaged with the respectability of that old golden calf "democracy". Only a tiny minority refused to support either. We were lied to and deceived - we were shown the horrors of the Serb killing machine but not the murderous activities of the Albanians. Facts were manipulated to present a benign face to NATO. In time NATO and the United Nations will presented as the counterfeit Christ and millennium, just as communism and nazism presented their own. You perhaps don't believe me? Well, consider this:

    The Truth Communism Nazism The New Order
    GOD (Yahweh- Elohim) Dialectical Materialism Nazism, the Herrenfolk Mankind, Liberal Democracy (consensus of the majority), the State
    The MESSIAH (Yah'shua/ Jesus) Karl Marx Adolf Hitler The Antichrist
    The ELECT (Saved Christians) The Proletariat The Germans The Initiated Occultists (Illuminati)
    The CHURCH (Assembly of Believers) The Communist Party The Nazi Party One World Polytheistic and Pantheistic Religion
    SECOND COMING The Revolution World Conquest World Government
    HELL Punishment of the Capitalists Punishment of Bolsheviks and Jews Punishment of Monotheists (Christians, Jews, Moslems)
    The THEOCRATIC MILLENNIUM The Communist Commonwealth The Nazi World Reich (Empire) The One World Satanic System

    You will find virtually every false system contained within, or variations of, the three main counterfeits shown above. Each of these systems depends on either overt or covert violence of one sort of another, and that includes the cultural violence of liberal democracy. I have long said that the West is a Liberal Dictatorship and I stand by that accusation. Indeed, no matter how appealing the democratic label may be, it is just another or many different counterfeit systems. It relies on deceit and compulsion of one form or another, whether in the realm of philosophy (in the teaching of evolution), morals (homosexual rights, the rights of permissiveness, abortion, etc.) or culture (the imposition of an expected standard of behaviour with punishment for deviancy). Whether we as Christians live under communism, fascism, or liberal democracy, we must suffer...or compromise. Neither of these three are the Christian Theocracy but are counterfeits and a part of the satanic conspiracy. Indeed, you would be horrified to learn that all three systems were concocted by one set of minds, the Illuminist descendants of Weisshaupt. And that includes counterfeit Christianity also such as Catholicism, Mormonism and the Jehovah's Witnesses. You will find an infinite number of mutants of the above, all claiming to be THE WAY. Indeed, the three false systems I have detailed above are all modifications of one another!

    If you are one of those who wants to change the world politically I can only say this to you: you are unwittingly a pawn of Satan. As Christians we are to pray for leaders and government and respect their offices but we are not to get ourselves tainted by the system itself. All systems of government are heading in ONE direction only, namely the New Order. None of them has anything remotely to do with the Theocratic Order of Christ which is to come. They are also CORRUPT and ANTICHRIST. But we must live with them until Christ personally brushes them all away.

    For us, there is but one commission. For just as "He (Christ) Himself carried our sins in His own body on the cross, so that we might die to sins and live to righteousness. By His wounds you are healed" (v.24). Once you start trying to change the world by imposing a political solution from without you are operating in the sphere of compulsion. Oh yes, you may claim that democracy is the freedom of the vote, but that is a major illusion. Quite apart from the fact that politicians lie and deceive, once you have voted them into power, your part is over - you become a slave to the government, to do as you please. Democracy may possess a semblance of freedom inasmuch as mass protest can sometimes change a few things, but it is still a prison. The people will always vote for what their evil hearts desire, whether it be to legislate in favour or more sexual immorality, more murder of the unborn, or the destruction of the family and of Christian values generally. The system is no friend of the Christian.

    Christianity is the opposite of democracy. Not only is it a voluntary dictatorship of the Righteous One, but it demands that all change start from within first. It demands the death of the sinful man of the heart. How can democracy ever secure righteousness when those who constitute its vast majority are all sinners and therefore in God's eyes WICKED?? They are "straying like sheep", people and politicians alike, and the call to them is to "return to the Shepherd and Guardian of your souls" (v.25).

    The God of this world is that undefinable thing called "the State" which is supposedly the "voice of the people". It isn't. It is the voice of the sinful condition of the majority who give that state life, and the secretive overlords of money who decide the direction in which the state shall go. If you believe in democracy or the state, your god is your own passions.

    Our liberal democracy, irrespective of what party is in power, is merely a mutant form of communism combined with capitalism. The only country in the West which has been honest about the reality of the political system that obtains is Sweden. They have always admitted openly that theirs is a mixture of communism and capitalism. And all Western nations have basically adopted the Swedish way, often without realising it. The West is ruled Pink Communism, as I call it, an anti-god, secular democracy. If you want to see dead Christianity, come to Sweden! This system, so outwardly appealing, has crushed Christianity almost completely. Here the social Gospel rules but the Gospel of salvation is virtually dead. The Gospel is socialism. Here the state controls you from cradle to grave, and it gets away with it because by and large the democratic majority is perfectly happy with the system. It's almost the same in Norway which has been rapidly heading towards the Swedish system. Even British Prime Minister Tony Blair recently visited Sweden to see what the British might learn from Pink Communism. The result is basically a nice, tolerant, pluralistic, compliant, fairly well off people...but start talking about the salvation of Christ and you will receive a polite smile and be condescendingly looked upon as though you were something recently dug up from the unenlightened barbaric past. Satan has done an excellent job here! He has sent the people to spiritual sleep amongst a people who, in my opinion, were once the greatest and most important in the world -- the defenders of Reformation Christianity against extinction from Catholicism. They paid a terrible price in blood to prevent the truth being extinguished by the forces of darkness. For this the Swedes have my deepest respect and undying gratitude.

    Sweden is a nation slowly by surely strangled spiritually. It is the darling of occultists, democrats, pacifists and others the world over. And to be sure, there is much that is praiseworthy and commendable in the Swedish soul, much that I continue to admire, but I grieve deeply for their spiritual death. Whether revival will ever come to this land I do not know.

    One pious Christian King of Sweden, Karl IX, who reigned from 1660 to 1697, saw a vision on 16 December 1696 in which he was shown Sweden's apostasy from the Christian faith in our time. A terrible bloodbath has yet to come here, disturbing the illusory peace that presently fills this land, and which will shock its citizens. (For the full account, see Sveriges nedgang og fall in Den Profetisk Røst, nr.1, 2000, p.24-29: Sinsenterassen 12, N-0574 OSLO, Norway. Tel.22-15-12-23. dpr@start.no). In Sweden almost anything goes and gross immorality is openly tolerated (see 1 Pet.4:1-3), especially in the cities. I believe a powerful cry is about to go up in this land very soon and that it will stir up the sleeping dragon, disguised as a dove of peace, to rage.

    We have now seen in our readings from the first letter of Peter how it is we are to submit to authority for the sake of what it ideally should stand for and irrespective of whether we find such authorities agreeable or not. We have seen how important it is to simultaneously weight the demands of the secular authorities against what Yahweh requires of us and to be sure that we obey God first. And we have seen how necessary it is that we suffer for the sake of Christ, imitating His example, and not yielding to the blind passions of rage and violence.

    Finally, the apostle gives one yet one more illustration to dispel in our minds any doubts we may yet entertain as to the correctness of this path we are called to walk - and it is an illustration which is not certainly not popular with the secular world and which in many respects sets us apart from it. Peter writes:

    "In a similar way" - that is, the same way that you subject yourself to the Emperor, President, Prime Minister or even Pastor when you yourself may feel disinclined to do so in your heart - "In a similar way you wives should be submissive to your own husbands, so that if any of them will not be persuaded by the message, they may without message be won by the conduct of their wives, as they observe your chaste and respectful behaviour" (1 Pet.3:1-2, RBV).

    Now, most assuredly, this kind of talk is not politically correct. It goes against the grain of the whole concept of our unisexual cultures which seeks to erode gender differences to such an extent that they are virtually interchangeable. Like a sore thumb, the Bible says a resounding NO! to the feminism and sexual reorientation of society. It is saying, in fact, that the modern liberal democratic society has got its values completely upside down. Is it any wonder that respect for authority has all but gone? Is it any wonder that marriage is an institution fighting for its very survival? Is it any wonder that people are confused as to what gender they are, and that more and more people are coming out with homosexuality and lesbianism?

    The biblical pattern is unmistakable and undeniable, and those Christians who repudiate it in favour of secular norms should be honest enough to say that they are no longer believers in the Bible. This being the case, they are no longer believers in Christ either, and therefore should in all truth repudiate the label "Christian". They are not followers of Christ at all.

    Now, Christian husbands are no more perfect than Emperors, Governors, or even Pastors, but that does not alter the fact that we must be submissive to them and hold them in reverence, however corrupt and objectionable they may be. It is the same with wives. Wives are not to be submissive because they are morally, ethically, or intellectually inferior to men but because man has received the office of family and marriage leadership from the hand of Yahweh Himself. To submit to a husband in a respectful way is to acknowledge God's authority. It is to acknowledge that Yahweh will no more tolerate anarchy in marriage anymore than He will in the wider society, or in the Church where the Pastor is the father-figure. Yahweh is a God of order, and from that order flows contentment and peace.

    If you wish to persuade someone of your point-of-view you may do so in a kind and respectful manner or at place him a the end of a gun. But it remains a truism that a person convinced against his will, remains unconvinced still. Just as a wife is expected to win over her husband's favour by her exemplary conduct, so also much a Christian attempt to win over the secular authorities by his excellent conduct too. Paul, when he was in captivity, did not rant and rail at his captors. He spoke most respectfully before Festus and others and almost persuaded the Roman to become a Christian. As a woman should be chaste, so must we also be impeccable in our conduct, not putting the Name of Christ to shame by an ill-temper, deceit, threats, or any other principle of vice.

    Liberal democracy has not encouraged respect - it has encouraged a form of anarchism, and most especially to that which is noble and virtuous. Political correctness has replaced moral rectitude.

    Peter continues: "Your adornment should not be outward - braided hair, putting on gold trinkets, or putting on robes", (v.3) or the modern equivalents of provocative or sexually explicit clothing, tattoos, ring piercing, or the like - "instead it should be inner personality of the heart with the imperishable qualities of a gentle and quiet spirit, something of surpassing value in God's sight" (v.4).

    I almost gasp when I hear this, for where is such a woman to be found in our decadent West these days? This picture of godly womanhood might just as well be an alien from outer space in our modern culture where women have imitated men to such a degree that they are even outdoing them in wickedness in some instances. Listen to this report by an English policeman in a British newspaper:

      "We are breeding a generation of ignorant, insolent, drunken, drug-taking, foul-mouthed, litter-strewing yobs of both sexes who exist in a moral vacuum. These louts have not a shred of consideration for anyone other than themselves" (A Cheshire policeman, in Auberon Waugh's The English Way, in The Weekly Telegraph, No.465, 21-27 June 2000, p.33).

    To find a godly woman these days is to find gold, and she is infinitely more scarce in our Western European and American world than in many places in Africa and Asia. Yet this biblical image of womanhood was not a false product of a primitive or barbaric culture from the remote past but something deliberately cultivated in the true spirit of godly femininity. Peter says:

      "For in this way the holy women of the past, who fixed their hope on God, adorned themselves, submissive as they were to their own husbands. Sarah, for instance, obeyed Abraham, whom she called "Master". You have become her daughters if you do right and are not terrorised by any fear" (vv.5-6, RBV).

    Ask a modern woman to call her husband "master" or "lord" and she'd sooner kick him in the genitals (which incidentally was a capital offence in Mosaic times). Today the rallying cry is "equality" and "freedom", the greatest verbal misnomers ever. For in truth women are no longer their true feminine selves - they are prisoners of a false sexuality. They are trying to fit into an artificially contrived image of womanhood and in the process have lost themselves. The women have become more masculine and the men more feminine. The politically correct men are girls dressed up in trousers and those who are not are either true Christians men or their very opposite - the male macho animal.

    And what is the true Christian man? Is he the male macho pig which secularists accuse him of being? Judge for yourself out from God's Word: "By the same token you husbands need to live understandingly with your wives as with a weaker vessel, rendering them honour as joint-heirs with you of the grace of life..." (v7). Elsewhere the Scriptures say that the man is to be loving, considerate, forbearing, and patient, ruling his household in wisdom and righteousness. Does this sound like your male macho pig?

    Men have either become castrated by feminism or been driven into black hole of bestiality. The Christian man is almost as equally scarce as the Christian woman. One woman journalist in looking into that black hole had this to say:

      "For months last year, the advertising billboard at my local railway station displayed a poster of a black rap star. He sat, muscular shoulders draped in black clothes, wearing an array of jewellery (including massive rings that would function as knuckle dusters), glaring out at the world through impenetrable dark glasses.

      "What was this image intended to say to me as a white woman: just pray that you never find yourself alone on a train with me? What was it meant to say to a black woman (particularly given the notorious sexual violence of rap lyrics): don't you forget who's got the power around here?...

      "...This icon of proud menace, of scarcely contained violence, of fearsome sexual predation and, above all, of total rejection of "respectable" aspiration, is the image of heroism that dominates the adolescent male scene..." (Janet Daley, "The Racism, Sexism and Violence of Rap Culture", in The Weekly Telegraph, ca. August/September 2000).

    Of course, what Daley wants is the politically correct submissive male which in part has caused this animalistic false-patriarchal backlash in the first place. But I have read many articles by men deploring the effect of feminism on male identity which is in crisis: men don't know who they are any more. By contrast, the liberated women with power know who they are: they have become men themselves.

    The Bible is not wrong on this issue. Neither is it outdated. The problem is that society identified Biblical Christian patriarchy with the kind of mythic male nonsense that Janet Daley rightly set out to demolish.

    Peter does not end with comments on the way Christian husbands and wives should conduct themselves. He picks up on his theme again. You'll find no macho male culture endorsed by any apostle. He writes:

      "Finally, let all of you be harmonious, sympathetic, loving as brothers, deeply compassionate, humble-minded, returning no evil for evil or vituperation. Quite to the contrary you will bless in return, because you are called for this, so as to inherit a blessing. For 'he who wants to enjoy life and to see happy days must keep his tongue from speaking evil and his lips from uttering deceit. he must turn away from wrong and do right; he must search for peace and keep after it. For the Lord's eyes are on the righteous and His ears are attentive to their prayer, but the Lord's face is set against those who practice evil' " (1 Pet.3:8-12, RBV).

    As is to be expected, the feminist-ruled secular society has lied about true Christian patriarchy and set him up as a tyrant and an oppressor of women. Though misguided Christians may have been guilty of this in the past, and may still be today in some places, this is not the Bible-inspired man.

    For a man to be submissive to Christ, for a wife to be submissive to her husband, and for both to be submissive to their pastor and to the secular authorities in a respectful way, requires guts and a special kind of love. That love is not inbuilt but must be obtained from its source through faith and appropriation through obedience to the commandments. All good things cost something. But ours is a cheap culture. Even high quality items are hard to find these days. The common man's furniture of 50 years ago was robust and practical but today all he can get is something with a flash exterior which disintegrates in five years. That seems to be what people have settled for in relationships too. Show off your body, have some sex, and then move on as the relationship disintegrates. Men and women don't, in truth, find each other attractive enough to remain with one another very long. The feminist has created a woolly male puppet when what she really wants is someone morally robust and faithful. The male macho has made a sexual doll when what he really needs is someone loving and true. They are disgusted with each other, use each other, and dump each other. They have been programmed to find and use plastic people, disposable sex toys. Children aren't wanted - they're just murdered when they get in the way before they've even seen the light of day. They, too, are disposable.

    And that's the truth. The New Age philosophy of the Illuminati which is pushing everything and everyone towards one world government and one world religion, is one of power at any cost in which people are disposable. Millions of people are scheduled for extermination. They've already started doing it covertly. Anyone who stands in the way of Illuminist Weisshaupt's dream is due to be butchered. Everything is disposable - relationships, jobs, savings, true sexual identity, Christians, the politically incorrect. People don't matter any more. All that matters is the communist state, the nazi Reich, the liberal democratic New Order - people are but cogs in the machinery for the greater evil to come. And the leaders of this crime against love and truth are sweeping the deluded masses of unsaved souls along on their caravan of fantasy just as the Bolsheviks did with the impoverished workers and peasants and the nazis with a defeated and humiliated German people. The bag of tricks is the same - they're just gift-wrapped differently.

    Christian, if you're not prepared to suffer for your faith you're going to lose it. Of you're not willing to pick up your Cross and walk in the Master's footsteps, you're going to be swallowed live by the greatest delusion in the history of mankind. Did I use the word "Master"? Oh, excuse me. The idea of having masters and servants isn't very popular these days, is it? Everybody wants to be the master of themselves and subject to none. Fools! They are all slaves of a system but they are too blind to see it. Some are willing to have Yah'shua (Jesus) as their Friend but not many want Him as their Lord or Master. Women want men who are god friends and companions, but forget about having as master or lord as a husband! Indeed, I'm amazed that Christians still call Christ "Lord" at all because the professions of faith and obedience I hear coming out of the mouths of most contemporary culture-sympathic Christians are pure LIES. They're playing a game. They're playing at being Christian whilst riding the merry-go-round of the world.

    Because the evil of our modern age is so extreme now, in spite of being sugar-coated with so much sugar that it rots your teeth down to their roots, the truth of Biblical Christianity is going to be hated as in no other time of history. Even the Bolsheviks will seem sympathetic by contrast. The powers- that-be just want blood, as they proved in Waco, Texas, when the arm of the 'benevolent' state with its effective propaganda machine sent in Satanists who hacked men, women and children to pieces in an occult sacrificial ritual and then tried to conceal their crime in fire. There won't be any political correction for "deviant Christians" in the New Order that is to come - they will simply be decapitated.

    The promise that the faithful Christian is given is far greater than any terror that the occult-inspired world system can try to impose on us. Peter said: "And who will hurt you if you become eager for the right? But even if you suffer on account of righteousness, you will be blessed. Be neither terrified nor troubled by their threat, but revere Christ in your hearts as LORD (MASTER) and be always ready to make a defence to everyone who asks you for a reason of the hope that is within you: but do it gently and reverently. Maintain a clear conscience so that, in case you are slandered, those who falsely accuse your good Christian conduct may be ashamed; for it is better, if it is God's will, to suffer for doing right than for doing wrong" (vv.13-17, RBV).

    I am sorry to say it but if you have been born at this time - and I hope you won't deny that - then you must expect your Christianity to truly account. There is no place for a watered-down Christianity or a social Gospel - if you want the latter, come and visit Sweden where you'll get plenty of it but without the saving message of Christ. Indeed, you'll get so much social Gospel here that you'll drown in it and you won't have time or space for Christ! (Who knows, perhaps the Swedes will drive me out of their country for saying these things, just as the Norwegians did from theirs for saying similar things! We will see how truly tolerant the pink communists are).

      "Do not be surprised, dear friends, at the fiery test that is coming upon you, as if you were experiencing something unheard of. Instead, be joyful that you are sharing to some degree the sufferings of Christ, in order that at the revealing of His glory you may be full of joy. If you are defamed for the name of Christ, you are blessed, because the Spirit of glory, yes, the Spirit of God, is resting on you" (1 Pet.4:12-14, RBV).

    Do you want to be full of joy when Christ returns, or when you are presented before Him at the day of judgement, or do you want to compromise the faith once and for all delivered to the apostles for an imaginary short-term gain, and find that you have lost everything? What, then, is holding you back? Who is pulling the strings of your life - the state, a spouse, a friend, your carnal lusts, or Christ the Lord God Omnipotent?

    May you be found a true man or a true woman, blessed with the image of Christ, walking in perfect liberty, submitting gladly to those in authority over you, and rejoicing in the love and joy of the redeemed, is my prayer in Yah'shua's (Jesus') Name. Amen.

    This page was created on 16 February 2001
    Last updated on 16 February 2001

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