Indeed, the trials that Christians will face with the Biden/Harris administration may well be God’s wake-up call to Christians. In the U.S., even many “practicing” Catholics, barely believe any doctrines of the Church, and where every Catholic used to feel impelled to attend both mass and confession at least once a week, only 39% of them can be found in church weekly today. But Protestants do not fare much better. As far as weekly attendance is concerned, only 58% of Evangelical Christians and 53% of black protestants attend each week. Jehovah Witnesses are at 87% and Mormans at 77%.
Of all those who do attend church each week, 89% say that religion has an important role in their lives, yet only 87% have a sure belief in God as well as in the existence of heaven, and only 84% pray daily. In all, the percentage of Americans who attend church each week is about 36% (118 million) of our nearly 328 million citizens, and only 31% (32 and a half million) talk to God daily. Certainly the numbers of church attendees rise somewhat if you add in those who attend once or twice a month, but in a country where many of the earliest settlers came here seeking freedom to worship God, we have come, in this 21st century, to a barren wasteland of unbelief.
And the rest of the world fares no better. Across the world, especially in first world countries (countries that enjoy wealth and a high standard of living) Christian church attendance is down, just as it is in America. Few people in Great Britain really believe in God anymore, and in the great cathedrals of France and other once strongly Catholic countries, you are lucky to find a handful of congregants in any service. Churches across Europe are only filled for special choir or organ concerts or by the tourists who troop through to admire the stained glass windows and ogle the tombs of famous rulers.
So yes, the coming trials, added to the government’s war against Christians and other conservatives under President Obama, and President Trump’s constant battle to protect Christians and the unborn, may well be God’s warning to those who wear the title of Christians to become more Christ-like. But that warning may be more than just His desire to have a people who serve Him with their hearts and souls rather than only in name. It may be the prelude to the Second Coming of Christ.
Christians and Jews alike await the coming of the Messiah. Other than Messianic Jews (those who believe that Jesus is the Messiah), Jews are waiting for Messiah to come for the first time. Christians, on the other hand, await his Second Coming.
Matthew writes of the answer Jesus gave to His disciples when they asked what the signs of His coming would be. Jesus said: “And you will hear of wars and rumors of wars. See that you are not troubled; for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet. For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. And there will be famines, pestilences, and earthquakes in various places. All these are the beginning of sorrows. Then they will deliver you up to tribulation and kill you, and you will be hated by all nations for My name’s sake. And then many will be offended, will betray one another, and will hate one another. Then many false prophets will rise up and deceive many. And because lawlessness will abound, the love of many will grow cold. But he who endures to the end shall be saved. And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in all the world as a witness to all the nations, and then the end will come”(Matthew 24:6-14).
This certainly seems to describe the era in which we currently live. The gospel has been preached to all nations, both through modern technology and through missionaries from numerous countries. We have also seen wars throughout the world, famines, earthquakes, and the pestilence of COVID-19. Christians only a few years ago were beheaded on video by ISIS simply because they were Christians. The once vibrant Christian community in Syria has now been all but eliminated. . Many are offended by words and phrases that have innocent meanings or by the color of another’s skin, and many have betrayed other members of their political party in order to seek favor with others. The hatred of Christians by the left in the United States continues to rise, and the “love of many” in the Church has grown cold so that they no longer live by the example of Christ and view the Bible as simply a metaphor for life, a collection of made up moral tales and not the divinely inspired Word of God
Many Christians believe, as do I, that the Church will be taken out of the world before the Great Tribulation, a time when wickedness and persecution will be unrestrained. In 2 Thessalonians 2 verses 6 – 8, Paul writes of the end times and of the “son of perdition” who will act on behalf of Satan to persecute any followers of God and allow the free reign of evil in the world. “And now you know what is restraining, that he may be revealed in his own time. For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work; only He who now restrains will do so until He is taken out of the way. And then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord will consume with the breath of His mouth and destroy with the brightness of His coming.”
“He who now restrains” refers to the Holy Spirit which dwells within each Christian. Thus, the prayers of Christians and the power of the Holy Spirit working through the Church is holding back the full expression of Satan’s influence in the world. But when the Church is taken out of the world, the Holy Spirit will go with them, and the complete evil of the “lawless one” will usher in what is known as the Great Tribulation.
Paul in his first letter to the Thessalonians described the departure of Christians in this way: “For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And thus we shall always be with the Lord” (1 Thessalonians 4:16-17).
The evil in this world, in this supposedly Christian nation, can surely not be tolerated by God much longer. In the book of Genesis, we read of the days of Noah. “Then the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. . . .So the Lord said, ‘I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth, both man and beast, creeping thing and birds of the air, for I am sorry that I have made them. . . . The earth also was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with violence’” (Genesis 6:5,6 and 11). Jesus also warns in Matthew 4:37 “But as the days of Noah were, so also shall the coming of the Son of man be.”
Jesus gives us signs of the times in which conditions are right for the catching away of His Church, but He warns that no one will know the exact time, not even He. He gives this example: “Then two men will be in the field: one will be taken and the other left. Two women will be grinding at the mill: one will be taken and the other left. Watch therefore, for you do not know what hour your Lord is coming” (Matthew 24:4-42).
Certainly the conditions are right. The world is filled with evil. Ungodliness and sexual perversion abound even in this supposedly Christian country. We have legalized the barbaric murder of our own unborn children. Lying, cheating, and violence have grown in the last decade, reaching to the highest positions of authority in this land. Let us endeavor to draw closer to God in the days to come. Let us pray for those who have drifted from God that the trials to come may bring them back to Him before it is too late. And above all, let us not forget these words of Jesus:
“Watch therefore, for you do not know what hour your Lord is coming.”