We are far from being the first Christians who have had to face such times as these. Today we are living in what I might call our Bonhoeffer moment. Our culture has completely lost its collective mind and soul, and is running headlong into devilry and debauchery. And worst of all is all the silent Christians witnessing these times and keeping quiet about it. They seem to have forgotten their first love as they go about their days disengaged from a Christian perspective. Never really living and walking in the love according to Jesus' commands.
2 John 1:6
"This is love: that we walk according to his commands. This is the command as you have heard it from the beginning: that you walk in love."
The times are growing dark and the hearts and minds of the people are growing cold. What does the Christian say in response to this growing darkness? Simply put we say, God is light, and there is absolutely no darkness in him. If we walk in the darkness, we are lying and are not practicing the truth. And so we walk in the light and not guided by our darkened emotions. We remain encouraged by the light, not enchanted by our own imaginations.
Honestly friends, as Christians we are in the minority. The nothingness of the darkness is consuming everything. All memories of our Lord Jesus are being erased in the minds and hearts of many new generations. The Christian light is being marginalized, helped by many who hide that light under a bushel. Many are lying in their silent inaction, and therefore are not practicing the truth. And I believe much of what we're seeing is being brought on, not by a lack of seeing the light, for many are worshipping, singing, and showing outward signs of faithfulness in the safety of their congregations, but are living outside that comfort zone by a lack of hearing and receiving the truth. By a lack of love and by not giving voice to Christ's commands in their cultural walk.
1 John 2:4-5
The one who says, “I have come to know him,” and yet doesn’t keep his commands, is a liar, and the truth is not in him. But whoever keeps his word, truly in him the love of God is made complete."
Why would we hide this light of Christian truth, our sins have been forgiven on account of Christ's name, why wouldn't we share this openly and joyfully? I mean, Jesus has conquered evil and yet it reigns still in the lives of many of the redeemed. Their faith is being tested and tried, refining them, remaking them, and dissolving their own cultural works. Christ's love burns off the dross and proves his love will last into eternity. And so the work Christ is working out is the challenging times that we face. He's looking for love and faith in those who are looking for love in all the wrong places.
And Christ reminds them:
1 John 2:15-16
"Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For everything in the world—the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride in one’s possessions—is not from the Father, but is from the world."
Christ's Spirit inspires us to be the light by rejecting the darkness openly in our desires. In our lusts. In our pride. We do not participate in these things. We do not teach them to children. We do not tolerate these lusts and prideful behaviors, allowing them to become mainstreamed in our culture. We do not remain silent.
You all have an anointing from the Holy One, and all of you know the truth, so why is it that the age of confusion is overtaking us if it isn't because we've failed our children in teaching them by our example. What has changed? Did Satan get stronger? Did the devils multiple and overtake the people of faith, or did the people of The Book reject holiness in their own walk and thereby by example have teached their children that faith is relative to their emotions and desires?
The reason the world does not know Christ's truth is that they didn’t know Christ. And they don't know him because we who love God have misled them and hid his commands from them. We refuse to live godliness according to Christ's truth. Instead we encourage the deception, tolerate the lies, and now we teach the children to love the lusts of their own imagination. We call Christ's command to be holy a judgmental restrictive unwelcoming message. Better we think, to offer honey in order to catch more flies. This message comes from the Lord of flies.
1 John 3:18-19, 24
"Little children, let us not love in word or speech, but in action and in truth. This is how we will know that we belong to the truth and will reassure our hearts before him...The one who keeps his commands remains in him, and he in him. And the way we know that he remains in us is from the Spirit he has given us."
We've set our children out onto the sea of confusion, equipped with lies, and we've told them to go out there and discover who they are. We've taught them by our example to compartmentalize their lives and disguise their Christian accent when they move around among the ways of the world. We've taught them to avoid being seen as children of God. By covering up our light in our own lives we've instructed our children to put on a mask when conducting themselves in the world. Not a medical mask to prevent infection by the pollution of the culture that celebrates in the darkness, but a mask of iron that hides the bright face of the child of light, the child of God.
In conclusion:
What do we know about walking in the darkness?
"We know that we are of God, and the whole world is under the sway of the evil one." (1 John 5: 19)
How do we identify ourselves as Christian in that darkness?
"And we know that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding so that we may know the true one. We are in the true one—that is, in his Son, Jesus Christ. He is the true God and eternal life." (1 John 5:20)
We know ourselves as strangers and exiles among this culture. We are not of this world and therefore we should not take on their accents as we operate in this walk of life. We're living through an era in which Christians have rejected being the witnesses for Christ. They've sold that inheritance, that responsibility, to the establishment church business. Doing this has enabled the Christians to compartmentalize their spiritual and natural worlds. And in doing this they've embraced errors of all sorts which inevitably ended up creeping into the establishment church businesses as well as in their own lives outside the church. Everything has become polluted.
What should be done?
This inevitable disaster is unavoidable. It's all vanity. There is only one way to find a Christlike way through it...
"Little children, guard yourselves from idols."
(1 John 5:21)
Guard your heart and mind...and do what Jesus Christ taught and commanded...
"let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven." (Matthew 5:16)