By Jesse Jost

The feedback from my latest forays into social media seems to imply that what some people have been hearing in my posts is this: don’t worry about the encroaching threats to our freedom. Don’t fight for our freedoms. The corruption in government and big pharma is all just conspiracy theory. We can safely ignore it and just spread positivity.

That is not what I am saying at all! My passion is two-fold:

1. What can I do practically to make a difference in staving off the very real threats to our medical and religious freedoms?

We’ve heard it many times: all it takes for evil to flourish is for good men to do nothing. That thought chills me and motivates me to action. But I want to do something that is making a real difference.

Social media provides a paradox: it’s easy to share and raise awareness, but it can also lessen the steps people take in the real world to make a difference.  I’m using social media right now to participate in a conversation, but I must fight the temptation to think that because I wrote that post or shared the article, my work is done. That’s my first concern.

• Is what I’m advocating truly biblical? Is it in line with God’s word?

I am always asking:  What does God’s word say about this? It’s easy to adopt ideas and trends that make sense to us or sound good, but they can directly contradict God’s instructions to New Testament Christ-followers.

In light of these two concerns, let’s look at just of the few possibilities that believers are sounding the alarm bell about and how we should respond.

“Government is inflating covid deaths to make the threat more scary and control us.”

“We will face terrible economic collapse if the government doesn’t reopen the economy and let us get back to work.”

“There is a plot to keep churches from worshipping freely.”

“Deep state, led by billionaires, manufactured this virus for nefarious purposes, and wants to make billions of dollars with a forced vaccination.”

I want to be clear that I am not telling people to ignore these ideas or that these fears are groundless. I DON’T KNOW.  There is so much conflicting data to wade through. You can “research” for weeks and find solid evidence to support any conclusion you want.  It’s maddening!

How did the first apostles deal with such threats? In their world, they faced not only the prospect of the removal of medical freedom, but the loss of all freedoms! The governments of their day had no recognition of human rights if you were not a Roman citizen. In other words, if the most dire predictions of collapse, corruption, and freedom loss we are hearing today took place, we would still have it better than the early church did!

How do we see the early apostles responding? We see them pleading with people night and day with tears, begging people to “wake up!” “Be on guard!” “Be sober!” “Pay attention!” There were two things that they wanted people to “wake up” to:

The first was that the real enemy we face is not flesh and blood but the unseen forces of darkness. Not government officials, greedy billionaires, or the WHO.  The enemy they were concerned about was Satan who roams like a stealthy lion seeking whom he can devour. He comes as an angel of light. He is the accuser of the brethren who wants to spread fear and division. He is the enemy we are to be vigilant against, and he can’t be defeated merely by our sharing of expose articles and videos. Only in humble dependence on the power of God and prayerful submission to the authority of Jesus can he be defeated.

The second thing that the apostles wanted people to “wake up” to was the coming judgment of Jesus Christ.  Their message was this:

 “God is just: He will pay back trouble to those who trouble you ⁷ and give relief to you who are troubled, and to us as well. This will happen when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven in blazing fire with his powerful angels. ⁸ He will punish those who do not know God and do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. ⁹ They will be punished with everlasting destruction and shut out from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might.” (2 Thess 1:6-9)

Chilling words that you are unlikely to hear in most pulpits in North America today. “Knowing the terror of the Lord, we persuade men,” Paul wrote.

Bill Gates may or may not get his mandatory vaccinations, I don’t how bad the economic collapse will be. I don’t know how corrupt Fauci is. But what I do know is that every single one of us will die regardless of what story you believe. We will all stand before the Judge who gave us our every breath and give a report of how we spent this gift of life.

 Perfect justice is coming, and what people desperately need is a Savior! We need The One who took our guilt and offers us His righteousness, so when the sword of perfect justice falls, it need not fall on us. We can enter the New Heaven and Earth with freedom and righteousness because of Jesus!

But it is not just for future judgment that we need Jesus, we need him today! We need His joy to give us strength. We need His peace in this time of uncertainty. We need His healing when our pride burns down relational bridges. We need His comforting presence in our grief and loneliness. We need His beauty to captivate us in our boredom and the fight against temptation. We need His hope when fear and anxiety strangle us.

The critical and supreme importance of the message of Jesus and the hope He offers through his death and resurrection is why Paul gave this a laser focus when he went to a new community. He wrote the church at Corinth: “For I determined not to know anything among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified.” (1 Cor 2:2)

If all the dire forecasts are correct and we face premature death and imprisonment, the need for Jesus will be even more urgent.

If we lobby and share and raise awareness and we get everything we want, reopened economy, religious and medical freedom, this won’t change the fact that every person will still need Jesus!

The real threat of Satanic oppression and the coming judgement of a perfect God will not have gone away. This is what we need people to “wake up” to!

My concern in cautioning against “Plandemic” and other “conspiracy theories” Is not that I know for sure there is no truth to them. I don’t know. My concern has been that they are distracting from the message we are called to share: the freedom and hope and forgiveness that is found in Jesus.

I believe there are strong biblical grounds for believers to get involved with politics, to seek justice for the oppressed, and expose the corrupt works of darkness. The Lord’s prayer calls us to seek that God’s will be done here on earth in every area of life, just as it is in heaven. But knowing Jesus and making Him known must always be our first priority.

It’s all about Jesus. He is what people desperately need. If we are concerned and want to make a difference, we need to ask ourselves:

Are we pointing people to Jesus with our words and posts?

How are we representing Jesus to those who don’t know Him?

Are our lives making people thirst for Jesus or want to run from Him?

Are we praying for the souls of those around us?

 Are we drinking deeply from the well of Living Water?

 Are we offering that water to others?

Jesus is the only one who can make the difference in us and in the world that we long to see. He is the truth that people to need to wake up to. We can fight and lobby till we have near utopia on earth, but if people don’t find Jesus we will have failed miserably as Christians.