The title is Why do the nations rage, and the people plot a vain thing? The subheading for the first part is the War against God from the beginning. The second part is the War against His Anointed and the final part is titled the War against God’s people. The Anointed is Jesus Christ, the Son of the Living God, The Messiah, God with Us, the Saviour, the Lamb of God.
This article is in three parts. I initially wrote this in June 2016 based on Psalm 2:
"1 Why do the nations rage, And the people plot a vain thing?
2 The kings of the earth set themselves, And the rulers take counsel together, Against the Lord and against His Anointed, saying,
3 “Let us break Their bonds in pieces And cast away Their cords from us.”
4 He who sits in the heavens shall laugh; The Lord shall hold them in derision.
5 Then He shall speak to them in His wrath, And distress them in His deep displeasure:
6 “Yet I have set My King On My holy hill of Zion.”
7 “I will declare the decree: The Lord has said to Me, ‘You are My Son, Today I have begotten You.
8 Ask of Me, and I will give You The nations for Your inheritance, And the ends of the earth for Your possession.
9 You shall break[a] them with a rod of iron; You shall dash them to pieces like a potter’s vessel.’”
10 Now therefore, be wise, O kings; Be instructed, you judges of the earth.
11 Serve the Lord with fear, And rejoice with trembling.
12 Kiss the Son, lest He be angry, And you perish in the way, When His wrath is kindled but a little. Blessed are all those who put their trust in Him."
C H Spurgeon said in the Treasury of David “To a graceless neck the yoke of Christ is intolerable, but to the saved sinner it is easy and light. We may judge ourselves by this, do we love that yoke, or do we wish to cast it from us?”
We hear today how the UN and the EU are bringing people together today through directives and laws designed to construct the One World”, “One Team”, “One Mind”, “One Goal”, “One Thought”, “One Voice and “united in one spirit” ethos. Out of 7.6 billion people in the world, laws that were founded on Judeo-Christian beliefs and principles are rewritten to cater for a tiny amount of people under the global agenda of unity.
They may say that their focus is an idealistic and political desire to have the world come together in one mind and spirit by working together for the betterment of all of mankind, but it is being done without God and affects us practically as Christians.
When I say Christians, I’m talking about born again, bible believing people, not wishy-washy liberals, appeasing to everything that sets itself against God’s Word. If you doubt what I’ve just said, look at today’s media and how Bible-believing Christian are being persecuted, not in some far-away places, but here in the UK, US and all over the Western world.
Through these same laws and directives, the very nature of man, created as God’s image in the beginning is now being attacked. Civil laws are structuring man's life in society so that male and female can be defined as non-binaries, that laws rewriting the definition of marriage, as instituted and defined by God as being between one man and one woman, were passed. Obviously, Satan cannot create man i.e. give him breath, but he has been transforming man to his image and you can see the evidence by the state of humanity. When we deny God as our Creator, another master takes over and we do its bidding. Everything in our society points to this agenda that seeks to eradicate all basic biblical beliefs. Everything relating to education, the political system, corporate world, environment, family life and society, are on the whole in complete opposition to God and the bible.
I would like to list number of news stories in the media and recent legal cases reported by Christian Voices, relating to the persecution that is coming in by stealth through the EU and UN equality directives:
In 2015 Christian, Richard Page, was suspended at the hospital board where he has been a member for the last two decades, after making comments that same-sex parents are not suitable for children. Page, who worked in mental health for 20 years and as a magistrate for 15 years, questioned whether a same sex couple would be the best choice of parents for adopted children. He has now been removed from office by the Lord Chancellor after sharing his personal conviction in a media interview with the BBC that there is not enough evidence to show that placing children in the care of same-sex couples is in their best interest.
Dr Scott, a Christian GP from Margate, Kent, with 28 years’ experience as a doctor, has been issued with an official warning and under investigation by the General Medical Council following a complaint that he shared his faith with a patient during a consultation.
Caroline Petrie, a nurse from Weston-Super-Mare, was suspended without pay for asking a patient whether she would like to be prayed for. North Somerset Primary Care Trust suspended Mrs Petrie even though the patient in question was not offended. The incident was reported by a nurse who visited the same patient the day after Mrs Petrie had offered prayer.
In November 2015, Christian street preacher Michael Jones was charged with two counts of religiously aggravated offense for comments (apparently about Islam and ISIS) he made whilst open-air preaching in Beverley, near Hull. Michael denied both counts. Andrea Williams, of Christian Concern said: "Michael Jones was falsely accused. None of the phrases he was supposed to have said on 18 November were actually said by him. What he did preach, however, were his sincerely held Christian beliefs.” In January 2016 the Crown Prosecution Service dropped all charges against Michael citing a lack of evidence to provide a realistic prospect of conviction.
Felix Ngole is a Christian student who has been removed from his university social work course after he made comments on his personal Facebook page in support of biblical teaching on marriage and sexual ethics. Felix was told that, by posting his comments on Facebook, he "may have caused offence to some individuals.”
Victoria Wasteney, a senior NHS occupational therapist was suspended for nine months after giving a Christian book to a Muslim colleague. Victoria then received a written warning following allegations of 'harassment and bullying' by a Muslim staff-member
Christian nursery nurse, Sarah Mbuyi, was dismissed for gross misconduct from her job in a London children’s nursery after saying that marriage is between one man and one woman.
In March 2015, street evangelist Mike Overd was convicted of a public order offence for using the 'wrong' Bible verse in public. The judge ruled that Mike should not have referred to Leviticus chapter 20 when he explained the Bible's teaching on homosexual practice in answer to objections from a listener. Mike appealed his conviction and in December 2015, Circuit Judge David Ticehurst upheld the appeal. He said the Crown failed to provide sufficient evidence to justify the conviction. He also awarded costs in Mike's favour.
Obama orders all public schools to allow transgender students to use bathrooms that match their gender identity – this story came about because the North Carolina state banned people from using multiple occupancy restrooms or changing rooms in public buildings and schools that do not match the sex on their birth certificate.
Back in March, David Cameron refused to call the massacre of 21 Coptic Christians as genocide even though the US Secretary of State stated it was genocide and a crime against humanity.
The number of children referred to gender identity clinics has doubled in the last year. Children as young as three were among the 1,419 under-16s who received support during 2015/16. That's an increase from the 697 children the previous year who believe they were born in the wrong body.
In Dec 2015, a two-year major inquiry into the place of religion in Britain as modern society, chaired by the former senior judge Baroness Butler-Sloss, and involving leading religious leaders from all faiths, called for public life in Britain to be systematically de-Christianised. The report stated that Britain is no longer a Christian country and should stop acting as if it is. The report also concluded that the decline of churchgoing and the rise of Islam and other faiths mean a "new settlement" is needed for religion in the UK, giving more official influence to non-religious voices and those of non-Christian faiths.
There are so many more stories and cases, but we know, because of the times that we are living in that it is inevitable, and we should not be surprised and shock how dark this world is becoming. Jesus said in John 15:18-20
18 “If the world hates you, you know that it hated Me before it hated you. 19 If you were of the world, the world would love its own. Yet because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. 20 Remember the word that I said to you, ‘A servant is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted Me, they will also persecute you.”
Social media – the new arena
One of the platforms that is fuelling hatred towards Christians is the emergence of social media, where Christian Groups are lumped as bigots. Social media is the new arena where the mobs crying out “sack him”, “fine him”, “arrest him” etc. The Southern Poverty Law Center in Alabama is a non-profit civil rights group that combats and monitors hate groups. Three years ago, it designated the Family Research Council, as a hate group - a characterization the group stridently rejects. We are not tolerated, and we will never be tolerated; just as Mordecai refused to bow to Haman, we must likewise refuse to bow to these pressures. And because of these pressures, many churches are rejecting the Word of God for popular opinion and those who disagree with them are marginalised or rejected.
Social media has impacted every area of our lives in businesses, entertainment industry, politics, social movements, relationships and overall view of the world. It has become a formidable force for change and the catalyst for policy changes in our society and these changes were addressed in the 2016 World Economic Forum in an article titled “6 ways social media is changing the world”.
We are all familiar with some of the symbols of social media, Selfies (the excessive self-love and preoccupation with self), Comment, flag, thumbs up and down, but did you know that the latter was pivotal in the gladiatorial combat in Ancient Rome. A hand gesture of thumbs up, thumbs down was used by the crowds to signal to pass judgment on a gladiator. It was the crowd who chose whether a gladiator lived or died!
"Now they give shows of their own. Thumbs up! Thumbs down! And the killers, spare or slay, and then go back to concessions for private privies" from the poem, “Against the City of Rome” by the Roman Poet, Decimus Iūnius Iuvenālis or more commonly known as Juvenal.
This agenda of Inclusion is the mantra in the corporate, legal and political world and many churches are now promoting this. This agenda, seen as a path to unity and conforming to the UN agenda, is a smokescreen that is currently being used to criminalise not Muslims but Christian beliefs. People, especially young people and particularly children are being conditioned to accept that anything goes.
Here in the UK, we experienced this agenda first hand, when Tim Farron resigned in June 2017 as Liberal Democrat Leader. During election, because of his Christian beliefs on abortion and same sex marriage, journalists were only interested in these views, the party’s policies wasn’t on their radar. It was awful seeing him continuously been attacked and cornered at every media event, attacked in print and on television and radio programmes, it was excruciating to watch. It reminded me of sharks circling at the smell of blood but because of the relentless pressure he did a U-turn on whether gay sex is a sin. Andrea Williams, CEO of Christian Concern and the Christian Legal Centre, said this:
“Tim Farron’s treatment demonstrates that Christians are simply not tolerated by the illiberal elite in positions of influence. This, alongside the widespread reaction to the DUP’s views on abortion and same-sex unions, is further evidence of this anti-Christian morality.
“The vilification of the DUP for its opposition to abortion and same-sex unions and castigation of Tim Farron is shocking and upsetting. If we continue in this crusade of ‘totalitolerance’, we will enter a harsh and conformist world where Christianity will be ‘no platformed’ and eventually squeezed out of every sphere of public life. The elite determines what are toxic unacceptable views. Unless you approve of their ‘new morality’ you are punished. At first comes the loss of privilege, a political position, a place at university, then the detriment: the refusal of a grant and ultimately criminal sanction.”
Recently, Tim Farron gave an interview to Premier Radio and has spoken of his "regret" at bowing to pressure he felt to say homosexual sex is not sinful.
The masses are being conditioned and manipulated through the media, political power, economic control, sciences and technology, biological engineering and consumerism. One such example of how this is disseminated is from an extract of a book that was written in 1958, called the Naked Communist. W. Cleon Skousen, was a United States author and political theorist and a former FBI agent, in summary the book is about a geopolitical strategy by which the Marxist–Leninist Soviet Union was attempting to overcome and control all the governments of the world that were not members of the Communist bloc in particular the USA. The author argues that everything is being done to create the One World Government, not as some communist ideology but as a blueprint to the coming world government. When you read the list below, selected from the 45 Communist goals, you will see that it isn’t a crazy idea after all, for the goals are very indicative of what is happening to societies all over. These things are already taking place and laws are being implemented that oppose the Bible and in our topsy-turvy politically-correct world there is a concerted effort by groups to remove Christianity from public life.
17. Get control of the schools. Use them as transmission belts for socialism and current Communist propaganda. Soften the curriculum. Get control of teachers' associations. Put the party line in textbooks.
20. Infiltrate the press. Get control of book-review assignments, editorial writing, policy-making positions.
21. Gain control of key positions in radio, TV, and motion pictures.
24. Eliminate all laws governing obscenity by calling them "censorship" and a violation of free speech and free press.
25. Break down cultural standards of morality by promoting pornography and obscenity in books, magazines, motion pictures, radio, and TV.
26. Present homosexuality, degeneracy and promiscuity as "normal, natural, healthy."
27. Infiltrate the churches and replace revealed religion with "social" religion. Discredit the Bible and emphasize the need for intellectual maturity, which does not need a "religious crutch."
28. Eliminate prayer or any phase of religious expression in the schools on the ground that it violates the principle of "separation of church and state."
36. Infiltrate and gain control of more unions.
37. Infiltrate and gain control of big business.
40. Discredit the family as an institution. Encourage promiscuity and easy divorce.
41. Emphasize the need to raise children away from the negative influence of parents. Attribute prejudices, mental blocks and retarding of children to suppressive influence of parents.
45. Give the World Court jurisdiction over nations and individuals alike.
In essence what this signifies is “Let us break Their bonds in pieces And cast away Their cords from us.” Meaning let us break their bands asunder, let us be free to commit all manner of abominations, let us be our own gods, let us rid ourselves of all restraint and let us fling off their cords from us. And as they unite to do this they are creating the very thing they don’t want, which is bondage and slavery.
"But know this, that in the last days perilous times will come: 2 For men will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, 3 unloving, unforgiving, slanderers, without self-control, brutal, despisers of good, 4 traitors, headstrong, haughty, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, 5 having a form of godliness but denying its power. And from such people turn away!" 2 Timothy 3:1-6
Apostacy - threat within
“A time will come when instead of shepherds feeding the sheep, the church will have clowns entertaining the goats.” C.H Spurgeon.
As Bible-believing Christians we face not just the hatred of this worldview, but also within. The level of apostacy is truly staggering, these false teachings and false teachers are being distributed via the respective Church Governing Bodies of the various denominations. It is then disseminated to the local churches and through the “media televangelists” businesses. The latter, is in the business of marketing our Lord Jesus by giving Him a makeover, to make Him more acceptable, friendly, a likeable Facebook Jesus. We are opening our doors and our wallets to these wolves in sheep clothes. You must understand that these people were among us and have now deliberately denied Jesus and are now benefiting from their “form of godliness, but denying the power thereof”.
In many of these churches, new age beliefs are being practiced under various disguises and people are falling for it. The latest fad and the latest “new spiritual movement” are being introduced from the pulpits. Every religion of the world is now joining forces to declare that all roads lead to one god. The Evangelicals, Charismatic, Pentecostals and Protestants are now linking with Catholics, Judaism, Mormons, Buddhists etc. through various camouflages and agendas. These are prominent Christians leaders whom some of you may have their books, CDs or watch on “Christian” televisions. The utter rubbish and lies been doled out on these shows simply beggars belief. Many of today’s “Christian Media” promote the New Age beliefs, ecumenical movement, the prosperity gospel, the Word of Faith movement, Evangelical Catholicism, the teaching and acceptance of Catholicism, Oneness Pentecostalism, and so on. For many, this has become their devotional outlets instead of reading and studying the Word of God. And if you try to challenge them about the voices they listening to, you are shouted down or dismissed. I had a experience of this when I spoke to a lady, who I met on my daily commute to work, who followed a well-known televangelist and I pointed out to her of his erroneous teachings. She never spoke to me again and did everything possible to avoid me at the train station.
I follow some good Bible-believing Christian sites and it is so sad when, so many write in via comments, about how their church has changed, many embracing these false teachings and how some are now meeting in homes just like the first Christians in Acts, many of these comments are from American Christians, but we in the UK are not immune from this either.
This is the Apostasy that the Apostles and our Lord warned us against.
Matthew 24:10-13
"10 And then many will be offended, will betray one another, and will hate one another. 11 Then many false prophets will rise up and deceive many. 12 And because lawlessness will abound, the love of many will grow cold. 13 But he who endures to the end shall be saved".
"6 For of this sort are those who creep into households and make captives of gullible women loaded down with sins, led away by various lusts, 7 always learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth. 8 Now as Jannes and Jambres resisted Moses, so do these also resist the truth: men of corrupt minds, disapproved concerning the faith; 9 but they will progress no further, for their folly will be manifest to all, as theirs also was". 2 Timothy 3:6-9
The world and its influences are everywhere fighting for your attention. Don’t get tangled or get dragged into the black hole of worldly living. It’s marketed so well, but it leads to emptiness and spiritual death, but the word of God says in Romans 12:2:
“2 And do not be conformed to this world [any longer with its superficial values and customs], but be transformed and progressively changed [as you mature spiritually] by the renewing of your mind [focusing on godly values and ethical attitudes], so that you may prove [for yourselves] what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect [in His plan and purpose for you].” Amplified Bible.