Will American Christians Ever Be Persecuted?

In this regular feature Dave and Tom respond to questions and listeners and readers of The Berean Call.  Here is this week’s question: Dear Dave and Tom:Do you think that true believers in America will undergo any kind of persecution like we see in other parts of the world?Along that line, do you see a battle lining up here in the U.S. between the apostate church and those who cling to the Word of God?

Tom:

Dave it sounds like a wild question, but it’s something that you have to think about.We are premillennial, pretrib believers.That is, we believe the Lord will come and take the church out before the beginning of the Great Tribulation.But does that mean we’re just out of here?Will we go through any of this?

Dave:

Tom, I can see it coming.When it will happen, I don’t know, but as we try and unite the world more and more.For example, it’s not politically correct to tell the truth about Islam right now because the whole idea is well, but Islam is peace.We are form a coalition of nations against terrorism and yet many of these Islamic nations that have joined this coalition have been the primary sponsors of terrorism and some of them still are.Now whether that will lead to some embarrassment, some soul-searching—and I think what Musharraf has been doing you know, in Pakistan, he is now arresting terrorists, he’s putting restrictions on the madrassas, these religious schools that have been generating terrorists, so there could be some things that will happen.But on the other hand, if I say too loudly Islam is not peace—give me an example where it brought peace.I can give you a thousand examples where it brought war.Right now you have a revolution that has been going on for about almost ten years in Algeria and they’ve killed about 100,000 people.This is between Muslims.Muslims who want to impose sharia and those who don’t want it—that is, Islamic law.So to say wait a minute, I want to tell you the truth about Islam, that’s not politically correct because that would break up the coalition.Then it would offend Muslim nations.We see the same thing in America today.It will get to the point that you can’t say that homosexuality is wrong.They have taken control of society; they have imposed their view on society.They are forcing society to accept homosexuality as simply another lifestyle.It is normal and acceptable, so as soon as you say no, that’s not true, then you’ve got problems.

Tom:

So just as the president of Pakistan is closing down these fundamentalist Islamist—

Dave:

No, he’s not closing them down, but he’s putting some restrictions on them.

Tom:

Just as he’s doing that, now in this country where we want to be pluralistic, we want to have everyone come together, those who are saying, well wait a minute, and these are labels, just as we saw in our earlier segment, we have a poll here that says fundamentalists—no, we don’t approve of them.They’re flame throwers, they are this, and they are that, much of this coming out of ignorance about exactly what a fundamentalist is as you explained.But now we have a problem, because those who are the gainsayers, or who won’t go along with it, where do they end up?

Dave:

Well Tom, the Catholic Church for example, the Catechism and Vatican II say that Allah is the God of the Bible and that we all worship the one true God.The Pope just had leaders of a number of major religions there: Buddhists, Muslims, Hindus and so forth at Assisi and he says we’re all worshiping the same God.We have our memorial services, you’ve got Buddhists, Muslims and Hindus and evangelical Christians going along with this.Now to stand up and say now wait a minute, there is only one true God.This is the God of the Bible; the God and Father of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.There is no hope for mankind except they recognize that God became a man—he didn’t cease to be God and he will never cease to be man, the one and only God Man through the Virgin birth, Jesus Christ came to die for our sins and pay the penalty that his infinite justice required.I am sorry, there is only ONE way!But wait a minute, if you say that you are going to offend the Muslims, you are going to offend Catholics, you are going to offend Buddhists and Hindus and so forth. So—

Tom:

You are intolerant.

Dave:

So now Tom, truth is not important any more.The eternal destiny of mankind falls by the wayside in order to build a coalition, in order to build a one world religion, a one world government.That’s where we are heading.So I can see that if we stand true to the Word of God, it’s like the early Christians as you know, they would never have been thrown to the lions and turned into human torches if they had said well Jesus is another god, you know the God of the Bible, that’s just one more.

Tom:

Caesar’s okay and Jesus is okay.

Dave:

Yes, you’ve got all these gods, but as soon as they quote Jesus, “I am THE way, THE truth, and THE life; as soon as Peter says, “There is none other name under heaven whereby we must be saved, that’s Jesus Christ alone,” that’s intolerance.But they are so tolerant that they killed the people that they accuse of being intolerant. Tom, it could be coming.

Tom:

Through laws, through—I think back, there have always been battles within the church.We have those who as we’ve been saying, they just want everybody to get along, whoever names the name of Jesus, no doctrine, no real content, but just a feel-good kind of thing.How’s that going to affect us?

Dave:

We will be the sand in the gears, we will be the obstacle in the way to a one world government and a one world religion where everyone just gets along with everybody, and we don’t say that anything is true.You have your opinion, I have mine, and God’s opinion, God’s Word falls by the wayside.We need to wake up and follow him.But mankind in general will not want to do that.