SUFFERING IN AMERICA

I have a tendancy to block out sermons on "Understanding Suffering", because I assume most pastors will rush to direct the focus on matters like:  getting cancer, the death of an infant, the death of a spouse, losing the use of your legs, etc.  I can easily see the need of edification if I were put in one of these providences, however I still block out these sermons because the focus becomes so immediatlely couched in physical connotations, instead of spirtual ones.

Second, I pass over these sermons because if the pastor does talk about Suffering for Jesus, then we are brought to consider the persecution of Christians in Muslim Nations, Communist Nations, and Atheist Nations.  These Christians are threatened, beaten, arrested, driven from homes, tortured, killed, and separated from family.  They live in abject poverty and face a tribulation very different from the comforts of the American Protestant scence. While this is important to remember, it still seems to be so far removed from what we are able to relate to and respond to.

However, I am learning now the important priority to speak on Christian Suffering in America.  While this suffering holds no comparison to those Chrisitans in Muslim and Communist Nations, it is still a undeniable reality.

I want to make it clear, that Christian Suffering in America does not refer to Hollywood attacking morality, or the government taking prayer out of schools.  This is not about immoral sectors attackign moral sectors.  This is not precisely about the gay-agenda.  In reality it is in fact a Suffering from groups holding a Bible against those who are truly Born Again.  The current suffering is not yet physical, but the animosity and division is real.  Those who proclaim SOVEREIGN GRACE  are ignored, isolated, mocked, ridiculed, and maligned.  They are to be silenced from the pulpit and from the congregation.  Their conversation is to be squelched and dismissed as divisive and untimely.