Wherein they think it strange that ye run not with them to the same excess of riot, speaking evil of you. 1 Peter 4:4
June 12, 2016, 29 year old security guard Omar Mateen called 911 and swore allegiance to the leader of the violent and radical Islamic organization ISIS. Then Mateen went to a gay nightclub named Pulse in Orlando, Florida, where he shot and killed 49 people and injured 53 others, in the worst terrorist attack in the United States since the 9-11 attacks. So who was to blame for that terrible crime? Not radical Islam, according to Chase Strangio, a lawyer for the American Civil Liberties Union. Strangio issued at least two tweets in which he declared that the real culprit in the Orlando killings was the ‘Christian Right’. Despite having not a scrap or shred of evidence to support his claim, Strangio spewed his vicious hatred against Christians and their rejection of homosexuality. A popular liberal organization called Occupy Democrats republished Strangio’s tweets because they agree with him. And news anchor Sally Kohn of the television network CNN issued similar statements, blaming the crime on Christian ‘violence and intolerance’, and not on Islam. While we shake our heads at such nonsense, it appears that much of the world around us is being shaped to agree with this lunacy. Whenever Christians disagree with promoting homosexuality or disagree with abortion, or disagree with the elimination of marriage in modern-day families, the news media and many liberal organizations make sure that the Christians are placed in the light of being intolerant and ignorant ‘hate-mongers’. All because they think it strange that we do not run with them to the same excess of riot.
As Christians, we will increasingly be considered strange and be evil spoken of. Because of this, we will come under increasing persecution if we remain faithful to God and to His Word. Are we willing to accept that? We had better make up our minds about it, because it is going to happen. This growing reality of persecution through which Christians have had to pass down through the centuries is actually normal. We who have been living in such wide-open freedom for so long are the ones who have been out of step with our Lord’s promise that we will suffer persecution. ‘Yea, and all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution’ (2 Timothy 3:12). Two things will happen to us. Firstly, this persecution will drive us closer to our Lord as we feel the need for His presence and preservation. Secondly, we will see the Gospel prosper as never before, just as it has always done during persecutions of Christians in the past.
The more the world thinks us strange for being Christians, the more we are becoming just like our Lord expects us to be. – Jim MacIntosh