Genuine Faith in Hostile Times

What are we doing about those who are suffering because of discrimination?

Are you really a Christian? Or are you just a fake Christian? Scripture enjoins us to make sure that we are the real deal, and it offers some very practical tests to help us determine this. In 2 Corinthians 13:5 Paul gave this command: “Examine yourselves, to see whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves.”

Consider just two ways that James gets us to see if our faith is legitimate. In James 1:27 he says this: “Religion that is pure and undefiled before God the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world.”

And in James 2:15-16 we find this: “If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food, and one of you says to them, ‘Go in peace, be warmed and filled,’ without giving them the things needed for the body, what good is that?”

So helping those who are in need – especially our brothers and sisters in Christ – is a good test to determine if we are in fact legit disciples of Christ. As I just read moments ago in Galatians 6:10: “So then, as we have opportunity, let us do good to everyone, and especially to those who are of the household of faith.”

I say all this to deal with an important matter that has arisen in the West over the past few years. And as is so often the case, my daily reading of Scripture lines up perfectly with what is happening in the world around me. As to what is going on, we know that more and more Christians (and others) are finding themselves out of work and losing their livelihoods because they believe their conscience should not be crushed by ugly government mandates.

So many are out of work and wondering how they are going to feed their families because they resist the tyrannical health mandates, especially forced injections of drugs into their bodies. Because they dare to stand up for their fundamental human right to decide on what health treatments are best for them, they are finding themselves wondering how they will pay the mortgage and the bills and keep their families alive.

This is a very real problem indeed for millions of believers worldwide. And add to that all those Christians who have been forced out of their jobs because they have stood up for biblical truth. I have discussed many of them on these pages.

Dr Jereth Kok is one such individual who has spent the last two years trying to find a new way to get an income – all because he dared to share biblical truth online. See one of my write-ups about him here which includes some practical ways that we can help him and his family: https://billmuehlenberg.com/2021/08/21/please-stand-with-this-persecuted-australian-christian/

Between those Christians who are being fired from their jobs for simply being true to their Christian convictions, and those who are losing work and the right to work because of their stance on coercive jabs and ‘health’ mandates, we have a whole new underclass of Christians who are in need of real practical help.

Just a few other stories (of so many) can be shared here. Consider this open letter to AHPRA from an anonymous Australian doctor who is resigning 20 years earlier than she had anticipated because of how it is responding to Covid. It begins:

To the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency (AHPRA),

 

I would like to advise you that I will be cancelling my registration as of today. I expect my recent payment for the upcoming period to be refunded in full. I do not intend to return to the profession at this stage, and I will be retiring approximately 20 years earlier than anticipated.

 

As a defence veteran who served this country to protect our people’s rights and freedoms, my heart is broken that our society and the health profession have so openly accepted discrimination and division. I reserve the right to reconsider my registration, without prejudice, if and when the health sector returns to working with ethical and moral standards.

 

I am disheartened and disgusted by the lack of ethics and the sudden widely accepted discrimination running rife in the medical profession in response to COVID-19. The relevant government mandates appear to breach medical ethics and human rights.

 

The health sector (and AHPRA as the regulating body) has allowed itself to be politicised and used as a tool to coerce. You have abandoned your duty to educate and empower patients and the wider community when deciding on the best individualised patient-centred care. https://blog.canberradeclaration.org.au/2021/12/07/medical-apartheid-australian-doctor-resigns/

Of course it is not just doctors who are losing their jobs, or resigning. Consider a 28-year police veteran from NSW who has resigned because of these draconian mandates and health orders: https://rumble.com/vq8med-former-nsw-police-sergeant-stephen-kelly.html

Finally, check out these two recent stories about airline pilots. One of them has said this:

My name is Greg Hill. I was a Canadian airline pilot and am a military veteran, serving over 30 years, including 3 tours in Afghanistan. In spite of 13,000 flying hours, an impeccable safety record and dedication to my employer’s success, I was put on unpaid leave after refusing to cede my God-given freedoms. I will never do so, nor will I participate in state-sponsored polarizing segregation. Humanity allowed this before and it ended in our very darkest hours. We are headed there again unless we Canadians stand, together, for our hard-won freedoms.

He reminds me of Australian pilot Graham Hood who also has been discriminated against after 32 years of faithful service to Qantas. He too is now without income, all because he feels he should stand up for freedom and stand against health apartheid. See one of his moving videos here: https://www.reignitedemocracyaustralia.com.au/the-inspiring-graham-hood/

Hood is an outspoken Christian (I am not sure if Hill is). But the point is, so many are now unemployed. The question is, what are we Christians doing about it? Do we care? Are we offering them practical help as James speaks about? Or are we just ignoring them?

In my daily reading of the Word I see that it sure has a lot to say about these very situations. Throughout the Bible we find commands to care for the poor, and to especially look after one another who are God’s people. As I just read again over the past few days in the letters of Paul, he often wrote about collections for the poor.

We read about this in Acts 4:32-37 for example. To see what Paul said about this, have a look at Romans 15:22-29; 1 Corinthians 16:1-4; and 2 Corinthians 8-9. The 1 Corinthians text says this:

Now concerning the collection for the saints: as I directed the churches of Galatia, so you also are to do. On the first day of every week, each of you is to put something aside and store it up, as he may prosper, so that there will be no collecting when I come. And when I arrive, I will send those whom you accredit by letter to carry your gift to Jerusalem. If it seems advisable that I should go also, they will accompany me.

Thomas Schreiner says this about what Paul had written:

Giving to those in need was a great concern of Paul’s, and helping the poor, especially fellow-believers, was one of the marks of the early church (e.g., Matt. 25:35-40; Acts 9:36; Rom. 12:8, 13; Gal. 2:10; 6:10; 1 Tim. 5:3-16; 6:18; Heb. 13:16; Jas. 2:15-16; 1 John 3:17). Paul teaches that giving should be systematic (on the first day of the week), organized (the church takes the collection) and proportional (as someone has prospered). Also, funds must be handled by people of integrity so that there is no room for charges of corruption or theft.

The obvious question here is just what is the Christian church today doing for all these people who are losing their jobs – whether they were kicked out of work or whether they felt they must resign instead of compromise their principles.

Are the churches helping these people? Do they even know they exist? Or are they just ignoring them? Given that most churches – including those that are supposedly Bible-believing, evangelical churches – are excluding the unvaxed and treating them as lepers and second-class citizens, I doubt if many churches are doing anything to help these people.

But I can ask the same questions of individual believers: Do you know this is happening? And what are you doing about it? Are you putting your faith into action as more and more Christians around you are now struggling financially, with some on the verge of losing their homes and no longer able to feed their families?

Do you care? Does this matter to you? Or will you do what James warned against? Let me repeat it: “If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food, and one of you says to them, ‘Go in peace, be warmed and filled,’ without giving them the things needed for the body, what good is that?”

If you cannot help your brothers and sisters now in this situation, then you may need to ask some hard questions – the most important of which being, “Are you really a Christian?”

[1544 words]

13 Replies to “Genuine Faith in Hostile Times”

  1. Hello
    I will likely be one of those people who will be sacked for not taking the voluntary vaccination.
    Luckily my employer forgot about me for awhile but I had my first phone call today.
    I expect that there will be another one soon asking me to show why they should not let me go.
    My friend said an interesting thing to me this week after she had been vaccinated due to either being tossed out without a home or submitting. She said she would not have had the vaccination if it was not for the fact that she and her husband are old and could not afford to live on the street. She also stated that when she prayed she felt God advise her that it was a moral issue and not a salvation issue. This is also where I feel the issue is.
    The sacrificing of the unborn today is the equivalent of sacrificing children to Molech. Due to vaccines being developed and or tested using cultures of cells from a aborted baby we partake of this sacrifice to Molech. It does not matter that the abortion was sixty or seventy years ago, it is still life derived from a sacrifice.
    Will we lose our salvation if we are forced to take the vaccine, probably not but I for one do not want to be associated with this sacrifice.
    I will also never condemn anyone who has had the vaccination as there is so much pressure being pushed onto people. Forgiveness and salvation is and always will be from the Lord.
    Stay strong my brethren and remain faithful to the Lord. Our governments are like smoke in the wind. The fire may seem fierce at the time but in a little while you will look for them and they will not be found. None of these leaders are above the Lord and if they think that they are our saviour the the Lord will remind them that they are but smoke and when the wind blows they are gone.

  2. This is indeed heartbreaking Bill.

    But how do we help these people if we also lose our jobs over the jab? As many Christians have refused the jab, there are many of us looking over the precipice of whether to grit our teeth and have it or join these others. We will have nothing to help them, let alone ourselves.

    My job is slowly edging towards a mandate.

    If we all lose our jobs, then how do we take care of each other?

    It is indeed a conundrum. I have sought God for a clear answer and none has been forthcoming to me. What do we do?

    If we take the jab to keep our jobs and feed our families, does that then make us lesser Christians or failures in God’s eyes?

  3. Well Troy, given that most folks, including most Christians, have for whatever reason gotten the jabs, in theory they are still gainfully employed. Hopefully they will take heed to what Scripture says abut helping the poor and needy.

  4. Great article Bill.
    Of course, helping those in need becomes more viable if an organisation exists to which one can contribute, either by labour or finance/resource. Existing Christian welfare organisations like the Salvos or Vinnies are already stretched so do we need to start a new one?
    My suspicion is that everyone who refuses to be vaccinated will eventually be excluded from ALL community resources including food supply, medical aid and income and so will eventually be unable to provide help to others. So it will be only the ‘vaxxed’ who will have the resources to help the ‘unvaxxed’. Will that happen?

  5. A good and timely article brother Bill. That has laid on my heart lately, and though I may have not much to give, I’m willing to help where I can (my wife and daughter have both lost their jobs and I’m hanging in by a thread).
    Just been having a bad gut feeling as of late, and what about that poor lady who lit herself on fire in Melbourne, with a sign on top of her car stating “no one cares anymore, mandates are killing us all”.
    Oh that’s right, lamestream media won’t report on that (don’t know if she survived).

  6. Amen to Stuart but my guess about the future is different to David’s. I believe we will obtain effectiive herd immunity but it will take much longer. We would have herd immunity by now had nature taken its course albeit with many, elderly deaths but with the young and healthy having obtained robust, natural immunity which would last a near lifetime.

    The question now is whether the poor, short term immunity provided by the jabs will impede the young from gaining natural immunity. If the imperfect way the jabs teach the immune system impedes the more extensive way the immune system is naturally taught, then we will be beholden to the pharmaceutical companies for a lifetime with endless, six-monthly jabs or whatever. The pharmaceutical companies say it doesn’t and with so many of those close to me having been forced into the jabs I sincerely hope they are correct otherwise everyone will be forced into a regime of repeated jabs which will, without God’s help, weaken people’s overall immunity.

    As I have said before, I suspect we have flattened the curve only to make it much wider.

    What we do know is that pharmaceutical companies are playing with powerful things they do not fully understand and are making mind-boggling amount of money from it with the help of apparently unassailable, supposedly unquestionable bureaucracies.

  7. Dear Bill,

    Thank you for the splendid thought provoking articles. Also the responses to this one are wonderful. Indeed this pandemic WILL test just how Christian professed Christians really are because it will call for deeds not just words.

    I can’t do much anymore but I can still knit and crochet although even that causes pain in my shoulders but contributing items to charitable agencies who help those less fortunate is something I can still do thankfully.

    I truly feel sorry for and admire the young who have stood firm against this evil at the expense of their jobs.They should not be confronted with something which has been planned for decades by evil and unwise world leadership and the filthy rich. It is vital that we keep faith in the fact that Our Lord and His Truth will triumph in the end.

    As for having the vaccination I have been in a dilemma of hesitancy for months and I am unable to find an answer although I have prayed constantly about it. The thought of benefiting from a vaccine which has resorted to using the murdered unborn I find extremely repugnant,That is apart from the fact that I do not trust it and have a bad feeling about it.

    Yet I am elderly and my husband of 66 years is very frail and sick and the chances are he will die if he contracts Covid. If he got the disease he would have to die alone without me by his side after all these years. He wants to have the vaccine so it puts me in the position of having to be vaccinated as well for his sake if only to mitigate the severity of the disease if we should contract it. I know there are no guarantees and everything is in the hands of God. As I am old I also do not fear the possible long term effects of the vaccine. They make no difference to me because I can’t have that many more years left.

    My sister-in-law had nine children and during her last illness her nine children sat in shifts by her bedside as she died. I felt at the time and still do that that was her reward for the sacrifice she had made for bringing so many lives into the world. However, I do not fear dying alone if indeed it came to that because I can honestly say I do not fear death that much. I have my faith and believe in God’s Mercy. Ordinary everyday life is getting harder for me and because God made me the way I am I don’t suffer that easily. I know a devout old man with all his faculties who is 93 and still amazingly active for his age but in spite of this he says he would like to die. His wife died a few years ago. Strangely, I can understand how he feels.

    Finally, I would be obliged if you would not publish my name. I normally don’t mind but it is to protect my husband’s anonymity – thank you.

  8. Hi Bill
    I agree that this is the time we should be helping out to all the people affected by the mandates but working out a strategy to assist is worth pursuing and finding a solution (any suggestions out there?).
    Other urgent helps needed is there are many elderly folk (especially widows) who do not have much support to be visited at this time for a chat and reassurance.

    Maybe each local church should set up a food bank and other support mechanism from within their own congregation (not government sponsored) to assist the people who have lost their jobs over the mandate requirement. Every person who have lost their jobs should line up at Centrelink as well to get a little payout from the unemployment benefit – to tide them over.
    I know in the Redcliffe (Qld) area food parcels are given out to people in need as a temporary measure from a group called Encircle –

  9. Hello Bill,

    I’m an American that reads your messaging regularly. I’ve been blessed reading many of your commentaries. I’m currently in England visiting family and on Day 6 of the pre-release quarantine having taken three PCR test, with two more to go before I can get back to the US in a few weeks. No inoculations. Therefore, I have time to catch up on work ahead of my co-workers and read and study. I’ve been blessed financially with some ability to weather whatever may come for a few years, maybe take retirement early, and collect social security (if its there). So many people of faith are not so fortunate. Many of the evangelical “bible-light” church’s where I come from have little interest or capability in supporting the needs of their regular members (other than regular food drives). Most Church’s have openly encouraged their members to get the inoculations so I don’t expect them to help their brethren short of a massive move of the Holy Spirit. There are small movements developing in America to set up parallel communication, services, banking and merchandising. What so far seems to missing is development of donation based charitable groups for those that have and may be exiled from the system. It may or may not get ugly for Christ followers in the next few years. Frankly, no one knows but something is definitely amiss. Christ tells us that we will be sustained in all things and through the coming Tribulation. I’m not entirely sure what that will mean but am called to submission and faith in his promises and accept them simply because he said it. A beautiful thing. However, the flesh is a hard thing to manage in the face of the adversity that comes at us regularly. Back home, I don’t know what the next step will be if it gets ugly. There appears to have been a start to move toward a parallel support system for people of faith. When the overt and directed persecution comes it will be interesting how G*d will move among his people to sustain them. I look forward to it. Those of us with plenty will then be tested to care for the needs of our brothers and sisters in Christ. I pray that I respond accordingly. Thanks and God bless you.

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