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Jesus said: If anyone causes one of these little ones—those who believe in Me—to stumble, it would be better for them if a large millstone were hung around their neck and they were thrown into the sea. (Mark 9:42)

Harsh words. Words, from the opening of one of C. H. Spurgeon’s (1851-1854) early sermons:

The people of God are represented as sheep in the midst of wolves. Jesus has taken special care, however, that those who bless them shall be blessed and cursers the cursed.

Jesus is abundantly clear about His attitude towards those who offend our children. Senator Malcolm Roberts quoted the same scripture in the Senate recently.

Sin of Omission

In “Silence in the Face of Evil — Interview with Eric Metaxes” (6 December 2022), Eric talks about his new book, Letter to the American Church. He was compelled by God to write this book as he saw that the Christian church was, by and large, failing to take a stand against the tide of evil coming from the radical left.

I was reminded of the brilliant quote from Martin Niemöller (1892–1984), who spent the last eight years of Nazi rule, from 1937 to 1945, in Nazi prisons and concentration camps:

First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a socialist.

Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.

Metaxes, quoting from his book, described the Lutheran Church’s position in Germany under Hitler. He said there were 18,000 Lutheran ministers in Germany at the time. When it became clear what Hitler was doing, only 3,000 of them stood against Hitler. Another 3,000 actively supported Hitler, leaving 12,000 ministers taking no stand at all. Metaxes said that, if just another 3,000 of the 12,000 had joined the resistance, the history of Europe and the Jews in particular could have been reversed.

Danger Zone

What will the statistics look like for our church today? It seems to me that we all know the agenda of the far left’s targeting of our children. The denial of two genders and the embrace of gender fluidity, the push for normalising gender dysphoria, the legalising of children seeking medically irreversible gender change without parental knowledge or permission, gender ‘adjustment’ surgery on Medicare, the making of gay conversion therapy illegal and the manslaughter of aborted babies left to die in hospital.

Enough is enough! I find it hard to write at this point as I am seeking to disassociate my emotions from the keyboard.

Many have called for the Christian church to take a stronger stand, the Daily Declaration and the Australian Christian Lobby in particular.

The Family First Party has recently been relaunched under the leadership of Lyle Shelton. One of their core values is naturally taking a stand for the nuclear family and children’s rights in particular. Last August, the Daily Declaration ran a great piece about Lyle’s push for great Political and Cultural Engagement.

What We Can Do

We can wring our hands and say, ‘The church must do more; it needs to show more leadership’. I do that regularly! But what can we do, those of us in the pews?

1. Pray for our leaders, political, cultural, and church leadership. Their leadership is under God; they are ultimately accountable to Him.
2. Barely a week goes by, when we are not encouraged to write to our state and federal members about the latest atrocities to come across our alternative media feeds. I have done a lot of this, and I am sure it helps. I also write to encourage the handful of common-sense thinking parliamentarians who are taking a stand and I subscribe to their channels.
3. But how many of us have written to our church pastors and ministers? I think there is a tendency for us to believe that they are hearing from God better than we can. We say, how can they be in their leadership positions if they are not? But I believe in the priesthood of ‘all’ believers, don’t you (1 Peter 2:9)? So, let’s write to them! Perhaps if we ‘all’ write to them, the impact might even be more impacting than writing to our parliamentarians!

I am really excited about this. I believe that as we seek to build stronger relationships with our local church leadership, communicating with them regularly, we can change our nation for the Gospel as we stand with the ‘little ones’. This can be our personal mission!

I believe it’s important to put our thoughts and prayers into writing so that our leadership can pass them on to the whole of their leadership team, board, or presbytery. A word in their ear after the Sunday sermon will not have the longevity or the reach as the written word.

In particular, we must request that our churches train and equip their members to withstand the psychological attacks as well as the legal pressures of the far-left ideology.

Let’s pray that the Christian church can truly stand in the gap and become a force to be reckoned with, rather than an archaic relic of ancient history to be erased from history as soon as possible.

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Photo by Andrea Piacquadio.