Our Life and Times : Biblical Reasoning for a Modern Age
BLOGGER · THEOLOGIAN · APOLOGIST
Norman Harold Patterson Jr.
Are You a Dangerous Christian, or are You Just "Nice"?
The world, the government, and the minions of Satan hate dangerous Christians. These are believers who fear nothing but God. Jesus tells dangerous Christians that the world will hate them because they hated Him first. (John 15:18-27). Dangerous Christians are told to "love not the world." (1 John 2:15-17). Why would they, they are not citizens of this world. (Philippians 3:20)
Modern Christianity has produced a new phenomenon: the nice Christian. A nice Christian bears little resemblance to the dangerous Christians we read about in the Bible and throughout history. The nice Christian is just that; nice.
John Wesley told Christians not to be "nice." Why did he say this? The Latin roots of the word "nice" mean "ignorant" or "silly." Modern Christianity has become nice in the truest sense of the word. I'll spare you my rant on all the ways. Instead, I will write about the dangerous Christian.
The world, the government, and the minions of Satan hate dangerous Christians. These are believers who fear nothing but God. Jesus tells dangerous Christians that the world will hate them because they hated Him first. (John 15:18-27). Dangerous Christians are told to "love not the world." (1 John 2:15-17). Why would they, they are not citizens of this world. (Philippians 3:20)
This is why governments all throughout history hate these Christians. Nice Christians line up to show just how obedient and subservient they are. They salute the flag, send their children to public schools to pledge allegiance to the state, and stand whenever the National Anthem is played. Dangerous Christians dare to remove the American flag from their sanctuaries and do not sing patriotic songs, refusing to acknowledge that Caesar has any place in God's worship. They refuse to incorporate their church and become a state 501(c)3 state corporation.
Dangerous Christians are the bane of ungodly governments. They refuse to pay homage to the gods of the state. (Exodus 20:5) They would rather face perishing by fire (Daniel 3) than bow down. The Caesars hated these Christians as did tyrants all throughout history. They hate them because this kind of Christianity has brought down every major government in the past. When given the choice of obeying God or ungodly government, these Christians always obey God. (Acts 5:29)
The problem with dangerous Christians is they have already died. (Galatians 2:20). They fear no one and nothing, only God. It's difficult to intimidate someone who believes that killing them only ushers them into the presence of Jesus Christ. (2 Corinthians 5:8) In fact, these Christians believe that dying for Christ increases their reward in the afterlife. (Matthew 5:10) No, they don't get 72 virgins. They receive Jesus Himself! And for them, there is no greater reward.
Compared to the love of dangerous Christians, the love of nice Christians is pathetic. Nice Christians never speak difficult words, don't offend anyone, and do not want to impose their religion on anyone. Not so with dangerous Christians. They speak the truth in love (Ephesians 4:15), follow the lead of their Savior by offending the crowd (John 6:60-62), and continually impose the gospel's message on this lost world. (2 Timothy 4:2)
Dangerous Christians will give you the shirt off their backs if you are in need (1 John 3:17), yet command that food be withheld from a slacker (2 Thessalonians 3:9-11)
Dangerous Christians defend the innocent and vulnerable with fierceness and tenacity that makes nice Christians uncomfortable. (Psalm 82:3) Nowadays, nice Christians wear masks to protect the irresponsible, while saying nothing about the hundreds of ways people jeopardize their health daily, let alone anything about their eternal soul.
Dangerous Christians stand outside of the abortion clinics that, by the way, remained open during the pandemic's height as an "essential service." Instead of chastising others on Facebook for not wearing a mask, they begged and pleaded with mothers to spare their unborn children. They are so dangerous that governments have to pass special laws limiting the protesting of dangerous Christians so women can have guilt-free access to slaughter their baby in their womb.
Dangerous Christians know the corruption of the human heart and so are suspicious of profit-driven media. (1 John 4:1-3) They wage war against lies, arguments, and opinions that are anti-God and anti-Christ. (2 Corinthians 10:1-6) The media and its disciples can't stand the difficult, penetrating, and insistent questions of dangerous Christians.
These Christians love science, but they don't trust the scientist (Jeremiah 17:5), especially when they have motivations to please those who sign their paychecks. There is nothing more annoying than a Christian asking difficult questions of power or profit-driven science.
Dangerous Christians are not perfect. They make mistakes. Many of them are former adulterers, fornicators, haters, blasphemers, thieves, and alcoholics. (1 Corinthians 6:11) There is plenty to criticize in their lives even now, but no one is faster to admit that than these Christians themselves. They know what a miserable lot they are apart from Jesus Christ. Tell them how hypocritical they are, and they will heartily admit it. Though, they dare to say they are saints and believe they are as holy as Jesus Christ Himself. They indeed are an odd bunch.
Who are these dangerous Christians? They are the ones who call the world to repentance, feed the hungry, clothe the naked, care for the orphan, and provide for the widow, all for Christ's sake. They have only one ultimate cause, and that is the cause of the gospel of Jesus Christ. (Matthew 25:35-40) While they work for social change, they know that the world can not change unless the root cause of sin is rooted out by the power of the Holy Spirit. These Christians are intolerant of all other religions and are zealous for the One True God, who has revealed Himself in Scripture. They are people of one Book, one faith, and One God.
If you don't know any Christian like the dangerous Christian I've described, you are probably friends with a nice Christian or perhaps are a nice Christian yourself. If you'd like to join the motley crew of dangerous Christians, put down your phone and computer right now and ask God to make you one. Call upon the Holy Spirit to transform you into someone the world, the flesh, and the devil would consider a dangerous Christian.
We find the Dominion Mandate for Bible-believing Christians in Genesis 1:26-28:
Then God said, "Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth." So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. Then God blessed them, and God said to them, "Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it; have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth."
For Christians, this means that God has given us the responsibility to take dominion over the entire world. We have God's approval and authority to "fill the earth and subdue it." Add to this Christ's call in Matthew 28:19+20 to:
Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in[a] the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age."
And 2 Corinthians 10:3-6:
For though we walk in the flesh, we are not waging war according to the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds. We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ, being ready to punish every disobedience, when your obedience is complete.
While God called Christians to be separate from the world in holiness, He doesn't give us the option to isolate ourselves from the world physically. As Jesus said:
I have given them your word, and the world has hated them because they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one. John 17:14-15
Because of false piety and a lack of understanding of these and other Dominion affirming Biblical texts, Christians far too often vacate the world, leaving an "influence vacuum." As the old saying goes, "nature abhors a vacuum." Because of this, instead of taking Dominion over the arts, sciences, court systems, political offices, universities, and so on, Christians withdraw into isolated communities only to leave the world unoccupied.
As a result, anti-Christ people and philosophies have readily taken over virtually every facet of life. The greatest antithesis to Biblical Christianity has understood and intentionally implemented the Dominion Mandate for their own sinister ends.
The most dangerous of all are those espousing Cultural Marxism. Briefly, Cultural Marxism is an expansion of Classical Marxism, which focuses primarily on the economic philosophy of Karl Marx. Cultural Marxism is much more all-encompassing than Classical Marxism.
Ultimately, Cultural Marxism is about liberating humanity from the moral constraints of Biblical Christianity. The Bible prohibits same-sex intimacy, adultery in all forms, polygamy, bigamy, bestiality, pedophilia, and so on. God created man and woman in His image and commanded them to be fruitful and multiply; the Dominion Mandate!
The method Cultural Marxism employs to propagate its insidious agenda is through applying the Biblical Mandate. The plan has been and continues to be for those who oppose Biblical Christianity to infiltrate and dominate every known sphere of influence. As Voddie Bachem pointed out, their strategy is to take over the "robes" of society; professors, pastors, and judges, for example.
R.J. Rushdoony and the Christian Reconstructionists proposed the same tactic, taking over the "robes" of society. However, instead of a great "Amen" from the rest of the Church, Christian Reconstructionism has been vilified as patriarchal, extreme, and misguided.
In the meantime, Cultural Marxism is dominating the universities, media, churches, courts, arts, etc. They are putting Christians and Christianity to shame by their ardent intentionality to dominate the world for Self.
As the degeneration of our culture continues, so will the hostility toward Biblical Christianity. And just as Marxism tried to destroy Biblical Christianity through the reign of terror in anti-Christ regimes like the Soviet Union and Communist China, modern Marxists will not rest until Biblical Christianity is destroyed.
The good news, however, is the promise of Jesus Christ. He said that the "gates of hell" will not prevail against the Church. (Matthew 16:18) The image Christ was giving was not a Church that was cowering in the corner, battening down the hatches until the storm of hell subsided. Just the opposite. Hell is under attack, and its filthy gates are no match for the power and glory of the Risen Christ and His Bride.
Christians can no longer cower in corners. It is time for us to take up the battle cry and assault Cultural Marxism and any other "high place" (2 Corinthians 10:3-6) that dares to raise itself against the knowledge of God. Our weapons are not of the flesh (Ephesians 6), but they are weapons nonetheless and are worthless if left unused.
It is time for Christians to take back our country, our world for Christ. We must do it according to the means and methods of Jesus Christ and His Kingdom, which means we must take Dominion and occupy all walks of life for the glory of the crown rights of Jesus Christ.
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