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Tidal Wave of Persecution
00:03:09
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| So you believe that a tidal wave of hostility and persecution is coming to America's Christians. | |
| Tell us more about that, would you? | |
| Well, I don't think you need to be a prophet to see it that it's coming. | |
| The signs are very clear. | |
| And I think of two generations ago, it wasn't that difficult to be a follower of Jesus in the States. | |
| You might get some pushback, but there's been a huge change in the past generation. | |
| And if you look at what I would call the commanding heights of our culture, the arts, media, entertainment, schools and universities, professional sports, the corporate world, big tech, much of government bureaucracy, is mostly populated by people who are increasingly hostile to followers of Jesus. | |
| So I think that we're reaching a tipping point. | |
| And once that happens, things can accelerate very quickly, and they can do so across a wide front. | |
| So I think that we're going to be seeing a lot more of this silencing, marginalizing, shaming, the cancel culture being applied to Christians, deplatforming, a lot of financial pressure coming. | |
| So you believe that a tidal wave of hostility and persecution is coming to Christian America and what's already started. | |
| How did your brokenness you felt in prison prepare you to help Christians weather the storm of persecution that is coming, and I think it's already here? | |
| Yeah, one of the things is that I've said that if we're not prepared for hardship, for persecution, when it comes, there are significant risks, risks that Jesus warned about. | |
| And I experienced a couple of these pretty intensely, so I know how dangerous they are. | |
| And secondly, even though I was weak and broken, there are things that I did that helped me to stand. | |
| And these are things that others can do to prepare themselves. | |
| So some of the risk areas, especially Jesus warned that if we're not prepared, then fear can be a very powerful, very destructive thing. | |
| And I'm an expert on fear. | |
| I had a lot of fear. | |
| And when we're afraid, the tendency is to run away, to try to escape what is making us afraid. | |
| And we'll do anything to get away from it. | |
| And so we need to prepare ahead of time so that when we are afraid, we do not run away, but we end up standing. | |
| And the danger is if you're not prepared, that when that fear hits you and it's normal to be afraid, is that you just run away and compromise. | |
| Another thing that I really had to deal with was offense. | |
| And I mentioned in the previous program that I had a lot of offense in my heart toward God. | |
| I went into relational crisis with him. | |
| And Jesus actually warns about this, that people are going to be offended. | |
| We've heard the verse before about how the love of many will grow cold. | |