Saturday Night Live Djesus and The Coming Persecution of the American Church

Sometimes surfing the net can be a real downer. This morning I watched a blasphemous video Saturday Night Live recently broadcast and MSNBC mock and malign Christians. Of course I am regularly bombarded by politicians (who in many cases claim to be followers of Christ) who do their very best to secularize the culture and marginalize the Christian faith. While all of this goes on the church yawns (when it is awake at all) and ignores the persecution awaiting believers just over the horizon.

I have often heard prayers lifted in worship services which thank God for a free country in which to worship Him. I wonder if those lifting such prayers know or even remotely appreciate the words they pray. Freedom, and more specifically the freedom to worship, is a very fragile thing. Most of the earth live under governments which seek to control religion and expressions of faith within their borders. In the United States we say we believe such a freedom to be our birthright. I wonder if we have forgotten the sacrifices which won the realization of such a right. God gave Americans the freedom to worship Him through the blood, sweat, tears and travail of many, many people who have gone before us.

Religious persecution is coming to the United States unless there is a revival of faith in our country. The current slide from a culture which revered Christianity to one which reviles it is only picking up speed. The media, government and popular culture are doing all they can to intensify the prejudice against Biblical Christianity. The recent Saturday Night Live skit is just a drop in the barrel of what is going on all around us everyday. Our own president disallowed a pastor from giving the invocation at his inauguration because he actually believed certain passages in the Bible were true.

I intend to write more on this topic during the week. For the time being I hope you will begin to pray for a genuine revival of Biblical Christianity in our country. Apart from a real, genuine move of God's Holy Spirit the church will soon find itself under persecution never before seen in our country.

James