NOQ Report - Conservative Christian News, Opinions, and Quotes By David Ware
EPHESIANS 6:12
For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.
CHINA
As the United States and the Western World face off with China which is seeking control over the world’s economy and imposing military hegemony at the same time, we need to also be cognizant of the fact that the Dictator of China is making life a hell on Earth intentionally for Christians in his country. China has now crossed a red line by challenging God Almighty. Xi Jinping is deifying himself and demanding worship of his Communist government above God. He is offended by the First Commandment which is: “You shall have no other gods before Me.” XI demands that churches in China place his own sayings on the altar instead.
What China is demanding of Christians is blasphemy, heresy and apostasy all rolled into one. We cannot deny the Lordship of Jesus Christ by reciting the Islamic shahada professing Allah to be the only god and Muhammad as his only prophet. Likewise, worshipping Xi Jinping of China or Kim Jong-un of North Korea and deifying their Communist governments is a process whereby one could save his own life but lose his eternal soul.
China has over 97 million known Christians out of a population of over 1.4 billion. Christians in America and around the world need to pray for our brothers and sisters behind the Bamboo Curtain.
AMERICA
The United States government needs to hold China accountable for human rights violations even as we are also countering them militarily and economically. Everyone in the Biden Administration and every member of the U.S. Congress needs to be aware of these facts.
We must ensure religious liberty in our own country and we must also hold the rest of the world accountable in our bilateral and multilateral relations. We must not be distracted over concerns with how China and its Muslim Uyghurs deal with one another to the degree that we forsake truly persecuted minorities.
Christians are no threat to Beijing or anyone else in the world except in the minds of ungodly people. But whoever seeks to exalt himself and be worshipped over God stands in eternal peril.
OTHER COUNTRIES
Open Doors publishes an annual ranking of the top 50 countries where it’s most difficult to follow Jesus. The most prevalent dominant religions in these countries are Islam, Buddhism and Hinduism, along with the atheistic ideology of Communism. China has moved up to Number 17 on the list.
But even here in our beloved America things are not as they once were.
Joe Biden is only the second nominal Catholic President of the United States, but I was around when JFK was in office, and “Mr. Biden, you are no Jack Kennedy!” If you remember a variant of that line by Lloyd Bentsen against Dan Quayle in 1988, you get extra credit.
Our current putative president did issue an annual National Day of Prayer Proclamation, but he is the first incumbent to deliberately refuse to even honor God in so doing. There was no commensurate worship service. Walking into a garage does not make you an automobile. Adopting the label Catholic does not make you a Christian. Neither does Methodist or Baptist, or other Protestant denomination, for that matter.
Yes, there is a litmus test.
Psalms 139
13 For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. 14 I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well.
Romans 1
18 The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people, who suppress the truth by their wickedness, 19 since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. 20 For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities — his eternal power and divine nature — have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.
21 For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22 Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools 23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like a mortal human being and birds and animals and reptiles.
24 Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. 25 They exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator — who is forever praised. Amen.
26 Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones. 27 In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed shameful acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their error.
28 Furthermore, just as they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, so God gave them over to a depraved mind, so that they do what ought not to be done. 29 They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, 30 slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; 31 they have no understanding, no fidelity, no love, no mercy. 32 Although they know God’s righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them.
Sodom and Gomorrah
Genesis 19
5 They called to Lot, “Where are the men who came to you tonight? Bring them out to us so that we can have sex with them.”
24 Then the Lord rained down burning sulfur on Sodom and Gomorrah — from the Lord out of the heavens.
Matthew 5:14–16
You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works.
LEADERSHIP BY EXAMPLE, NOT BY LECTURE
Thus far, Christians are not usually physically killed for our faith here in this country, but we are far from being an example of righteousness to the rest of the world. As we pray for persecuted Christians around the globe and do what we can for them, first and foremost, we need to get our own house in order.
We do that first in our own home with our own family, then in our own community, in our own workplace, in our own city, in our own state, in our own country. Then, and only then, will America once again become an example and role model to the rest of the world.
We must return to electing men and women who honor God both in their personal lives and in their public service. He Alone will restore these United States of America as “one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all”.
Under God, indivisible!
