The Devil is actively at work persecuting believers in Jesus Christ.

If you’re not sure the devil is prowling around, think of how the sexual revolution has gone from wanting mere tolerance to outlawing any dissent to its agenda, down to enforcing patently incorrect pronoun usage.

If you don’t think there are demons at work in the world, have you heard that, in the UK, a counter-terrorism unit named Prevent listed reading C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien as inspiration for right-wing extremism because they promote traditional social values?

And now, a deadly shooting in Australia was recently blamed on an “extremist Christian ideology known as premillennialism.”

It’s hard for me to imagine finding a significant correlation between premillennialism and acts of violence or terrorism. If such a relationship existed, you would expect more violence at Dallas Theological Seminary or among people who read the Scofield Study Bible. Maybe you do—but I doubt it!

Then again, if believing in something as basic as the biological reality of men and women is considered “extreme,” why not also condemn premillennialism? It makes sense.

While I don’t take that as a serious critique of premillennialism, I do take it as a serious example of a government’s tyrannical ability to label something “extreme,” count on the media to toe the line.

These are all tests to see how much “they” can get away with. In some parts of the world, they can get away with whatever they want, and people won’t object. (They’ll only object to the objectors!) In other parts of the world, there’s more resistance. Some call it “dissident discipleship”—communities of Christians living as islands of sanity in a sea of cultural madness. I hope to see more pockets of normalcy spring up everywhere.

God has never promised to spare Christians from tribulation and persecution. On the contrary, Jesus said we’d have it (John 16:33). And over the centuries, and worldwide, many of our brothers and sisters have experienced some of the worst sufferings that physical beings can endure.

But Jesus promised believers eternal life—“life in the Age.” We’ll be resurrected, brought into the kingdom, free of persecution, and live forever with our beloved Savior.

Some people think that belief is extreme. But I find it extremely comforting.

Send your questions or comments to Shawn.