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If there were a passage of Scripture most relevant to the body of Christ in Australia right now, I believe it would be what the Lord Jesus Christ says to the church of Sardis in Revelation 3:1–6. In short, we appear to have a “reputation of being alive” but I fear that many of us are “dead”.

What follows is, by God’s grace, a wake-up call to the Christian Church. To stand up and contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints (Jude 3). We are in days of moral confusion and spiritual rebellion. As the prophet Isaiah was inspired to write:

“Woe to those who call evil good and good evil,
Who put darkness for light and light for darkness,
Who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter!”
(Isaiah 5:20)

Christians have always had a sacred responsibility to speak God’s word both privately to individuals as well as publicly to those in authority. The Church in Australia though seems to have lost its nerve and has gone silent. Once again, the words of Isaiah could be applied to ourselves.

“Israel’s watchmen are blind,
    they all lack knowledge;
they are all mute dogs,
    they cannot bark;
they lie around and dream,
    they love to sleep.
They are dogs with mighty appetites;
    they never have enough.
They are shepherds who lack understanding;
    they all turn to their own way,
    they seek their own gain.
‘Come,’ each one cries, ‘let me get wine!
    Let us drink our fill of beer!
And tomorrow will be like today,
    or even far better.’”
(Isaiah 56:10–12)

Rarely do we hear a pastor or denominational leader speak with clarity, boldness or conviction regarding the issues of our day. Even worse, there are more than a few who would even discourage such an activity claiming that it is a distraction from preaching the gospel. But by the grace of God though, there still are servants of the Lord Jesus Christ such as Rev. Chris Wickland in the UK. In a powerful and timely vlog, Rev. Wickland recently produced the following video:

The Vexed Vicar Wickland

Rev. Wickland says that a number of recent issues have left him deeply ‘vexed’, and I would contend that anyone who is a genuine believer in the Lord Jesus Christ should be vexed as well. Firstly, Rev. Wickland says:

“Last week we saw our king who’s decided that Christianity isn’t good enough for him, now say that he wants to be the multi-faith king even though he already is because by being the king, i.e. he’s the common head of the Commonwealth and over Britain. He is kind of everyone’s king. But his specific mandate is to be the supreme governor of the Church of England and to oversee the Christian faith, and specifically the Protestant Christian faith, but no he doesn’t want to do that anymore more.

“You look at the hypocrisy of all this stuff and you look at our king who seems to be more interested in putting out statements about Eid during Ramadan than he is actually about Easter. And while he’s supposed to be the Defender of The Faith there are Christians that are being butchered and martyred. There is a genocide of Christians going around in certain parts of the world right now. But the ‘Defender of our Faith’ doesn’t want to talk about that. He doesn’t want to call it out. And do you know why he doesn’t want to call it out? Because the people that are killing all the Christians are — you guessed it — Muslims. The religion of peace, the tolerant religion, who go around butchering and killing Christians all over the place, and our king who is supposed to be defending the Christian faith won’t talk about it.”

Rev. Wickland is right and the King of England should step down or in my opinion be told to do so. One cannot claim the exalted title of being the head of a Christian denomination and at the same time not defend God’s people against those who are seeking to destroy it.

However, the Church of England is not alone. The rot of spiritual compromise has also infected the Church of Rome. As Rev. Wickland states:

“Then I saw some other footage this week of the Pope blessing all the illegal migrants coming into countries into the country… and it’s just like one of those forehead slapping moments. It’s like why do we have a woke pope? Why do we have in this country an apostate archbishop and a whole bunch of viper bishops that sit underneath her? Why, why are we living in times where we seem to have this? Where’s the good men? Where’s the good leaders? Where’s the brave men? Where’s the brave leaders that speak up against injustice? Where are they?

“Instead, we have the archbishop going to the mythical country of ‘Palestine’ and talking about the occupiers. What you mean [by occupiers] is Israel and the Jewish people that live there, and actually all those other people that live there. So, they’re the ‘occupiers’, are they? Again, we have a virtue signalling head of the Church of England who is more interested in looking good to the liberal left rather than standing up for the truth of the gospel.”

Again, Rev. Wickland makes an excellent and salient point. The Vatican is the most protected, as well as restricted, country in the world. If the Pope really wanted to make a point about showing hospitality to refugees, then he should welcome them into his own country first. In short, he should practice what he preaches. Anything else is political posturing under the guise of Christian compassion. But of course, the Pope won’t do that even though he has the material resources to do so.

There is an even more important rebuke which the vicar is issuing though, and it’s where are all the men and women who own the name of Christ and who are willing to speak the truth in love? Being a prophet is messy and dangerous. That is why they are routinely despised, rejected and even killed (Matthew 23:29–36).

Unbelievers Want the Truth?

There is a strange irony which Rev. Wickland picks up on next. It’s that unbelievers long to hear the truth. We saw this especially during Covid when the churches — especially in England — enthusiastically shut their doors. Conservative commentator, Douglas Murray, who as a homosexual is not a natural ally of Christians, wrote at the time how saddened he was at both the closure of churches as well as the missed opportunity for spiritual leadership. Rev. Wickland himself expressed the Church’s silence like this:

“I get lots of emails, I get lots of texts, I get lots of messages from people and some of them are from atheists. What I find really quite interesting at this time is there are a lot of atheists that are writing to me saying, ‘You know I’m really thinking of becoming a Christian because of what you’re saying. You’re speaking truth and biblical truth into the times in which we’re in, whereas for the most part, the Church wants to remain silent and not speak out about the injustice that’s going on in our nation right now and this has to stop.

“I’m getting these emails and these letters from people that are saying they’re glad to see someone standing up for truth. It’s what’s making them think about turning back to God. Now why is that interesting? Because for the most part I come from an evangelical background and I am surrounded by what I call toffee-apple-cotton-candy-spineless-evan-jelly-fish.”

Some of us might be offended by Rev. Wickland’s name-calling but it’s important to remember how the Lord Jesus Christ sometimes engaged in the same kind of language. Matthew 23 Jesus rebuked the Pharisees calling them “blind guides”, “blind fools” and even “snakes” and a “brood of vipers”. In fact, Jesus calls them “hypocrites” in one form or another no less than seven times!

There is no greater rebuke for a Christian than to be labelled as a hypocrite. Indeed, the most terrifying words one could ever hear from the Lord Jesus after rightly calling Him “Lord, Lord” is the response, “I never knew you; depart from me you workers of lawlessness” (Matthew 7:23). When followers of Jesus then are ashamed to declare what God’s Word says to an increasing hostile culture are we not guilty of hypocrisy?

When the Church Only Wants to Be “Nice”

Large swathes of the Christian Church today want to be liked by the world. They don’t want to confront or challenge people about their sin or the injustices they see in the world around them. Just take the recent tragic example of Henry Novak which illustrates how cries of racism are treated more seriously than the claim to have been stabbed. As Rev. Wickland explains:

“I’m going to keep saying this and I don’t care if this really upsets people. I’m just going to keep saying it… I’m not picking on the people in Southampton because actually how the Christians responded in Southampton is exactly how the Church is right now in the UK everywhere.

“I was there and I was speaking out about the injustice and lots of Christians were very unhappy with me for doing that.

“But what they did over the next few days is they had a litter pick, to pick up the litter which all those right-wing thugs had had done and basically let’s whitewash what’s happened. Let’s just clean it all away.

“Then they had a multi-faith event. Not that it’s had anything to do with race except actually about injustice against a white guy and then they had prayers and read poems. They read poems! That really sums up the state of Christianity in our nation today. It shows this weak-whitewashed-mealy-mouthed-left-leaning Christians that just will not do what they should do.”

Now I’m for picking up litter and especially being inspired by good poetry. But if that’s the only response you have to the injustice of two-tier policing then I’d suggest you’re not seeing the full picture. Indeed, you’re in danger of Jesus rebuke in Matthew 23 when he said of the religious leaders of Israel:

“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint and dill and cumin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faithfulness. These you ought to have done, without neglecting the others. You blind guides, straining out a gnat and swallowing a camel!” (Matthew 23:23–24)

As many others have ably pointed out, the murder of Henry Novak was a result of what James Lindsay has labelled, “Race Marxism”. It is the rotten fruit of critical theory and progress politics where the crime of being perceived as being a ‘racist’ is taken more seriously than the claim of having being violently assaulted.

We Must be Prepared to Suffer!

As I say to the people in my congregation whom I pastor, there is no easy way out of the predicament we now find ourselves in. In short, we must be prepared to be hated, to suffer and to even die. While that might seem to some a hyperbole, is it not precisely what Jesus Himself, as well as the apostles, taught we should expect? (See Matthew 10:22; John 15:18; 2 Timothy 3:12) As Rev. Wickland explains:

“My bishop — Bishop Kodia because I’m a part of the Confessing Anglican Church — my bishop has got a fatwa on him.

“Now I need to make this quite clear to you, I need to make this absolutely clear to you all. You Christians that watch this, that don’t like me because I know there’s a lot of you. What kind of persecution are you getting for standing up for truth? What persecution are you getting for calling out the errors and the evils of society? What happens to you when you call out this so-called religion of peace that’s slowly taking over our nation? What persecution are you getting?

“But of course, most Christians don’t want persecution, they want to be accepted. They want to be seen as nice!

“Let me give you an example of the quality of Christendom today versus the Christendom of the first, second, and third century Church. In the first century Church, we had an emperor called Nero and he didn’t like Christians very much. He basically said to them, ‘Hey guys, if you don’t bow down and worship me, I’m going to kill you.’ Now this wasn’t religious persecution, this was civic disobedience because you had to worship the emperor. That just went without saying.

“So, what did the Christians do? They didn’t go, ‘Well, we just want to fit in and we just want to be nice and we’ll just read some poetry and we’ll do a litter pick and maybe we can have like a like an interfaith event with you know all the Roman pantheon of gods and their priests and stuff and have this really nice interfaith event.’ No what they did was say, ‘No, we aren’t doing it. We are not going to bow down and worship you!’ And so Nero slayed the Christians.

“Later on, the Roman emperor said to the Christians if you get publicly baptised, we will confiscate you of your property, we may even kill you and you will lose all your income. And that will be it. What did the Christians do? They didn’t go out to the Roman Senate and have a litter pick, read poetry, say a few prayers and do some interfaith event. No, they publicly got baptised while the Roman soldiers watched them do it. Defiance. Defiance to the evil authorities that tried to subjugate them and tell them how they should live.”

My brothers and sisters in Christ, can I say especially to you, we must be prepared to be hated. There is no easy way out of the current predicament we find ourselves in. We must be prepared to suffer for the name of Jesus. As Martin Luther used to say, “If our king wore a crown of thorns, we should not expect a bed of roses.”

Obedience to the State Is Not Absolute

There is another important aspect which we need to consider. While we should always seek to honour the king (1 Peter 2:17) and to submit to those in authority over us (Romans 13:1–5), this obedience is not absolute.

Unfortunately, there comes a time when we must obey God rather than men and this will bring us into direct conflict with the state (Daniel 3:16–18; Acts 5:29). Rev. Wickland explains the same truths this way:

“As Christians we live according to Scripture… Romans 13 talks about how we’re to obey those in authority without question. It’s like you must do this, you must do that because they’ve been placed there by God. But what happens when that government then moves into the territory of God and starts telling you to do? Things like, ‘You can’t pray here in your head’, or ‘We don’t want you worshiping here’, or ‘We want to shut you down so that you can’t meet’, or ‘You can’t baptise people’, or ‘You can’t do this’. That’s when the Church says, ‘Nope, nope!’

“Jesus says go into all the world and baptise. Jesus said that we’re not to forsake the gathering together. Jesus said that we’re to take communion as often as we drink it and often as we meet and I see too many Christians bowing down to the knees of the emperor of Nero rather than bowing down to the one true God, the one true king of all kings and lord of all lords who is Jesus Christ!!”

Wickland goes on to further say:

“I get a lot of stick a lot of flak from Christians because I just say things as they are. That’s all I’m doing. I’m calling things out. I’m calling out our woke king. Oh, you shouldn’t do that!

“Who do you think you are? Maybe we should be at home having litter picks and reading poetry and praying about it? You know if we took that kind of attitude throughout history, we’d still have slavery in this country. London would be infested with all kinds of infections because they never fixed their sewer problem. There were so many issues in this nation… we are living in the fruits of the goodness of what Christians did because some Christians basically had as my friend says, the ‘testicular fortitude’ to do what needed to be done and say what needed to be said.”

There is a time to speak with courage and conviction. The unbelieving world will not like it and sadly there will even be some in the Church who will oppose us, but nonetheless, the truth has to be spoken. As the apostle Paul writes towards the end of 1 Corinthians, “Be watchful, stand firm in the faith, act like men, be strong. Let all that you do be done in love” (1 Corinthians 16:13–14).

While the LORD’s servant must not be quarrelsome or argumentative (2 Timothy 2:24), neither can we be ashamed of God’s word or refuse to refute those who are responsible for spreading error (See Luke 9:26; Titus 1:10–16). Once again, Rev. Wickland expresses the same truth well when he says:

“Sometimes there is a place for little pieces of poetry and soft mealy-mouthed Christianity, but in this day and age it has to be a Christianity that is muscular. That stands up against injustice. That stands up against the nonsense that’s going on politically in this nation.

“Oh, but Chris you’re not allowed to be political because you’re a Christian. I mean my whole Bible; Daniel chapter 4 God is the one that positions people in authority. Romans chapter 13 God sets up civil authority. Ephesians 4 God sets up spiritual authority. So don’t please tell me that God doesn’t do politics when he’s the one that sets up political leaders in the first place!

“These are days brothers and sisters where this nation is desperate. I’ve been on TV a little bit of late and one of the things that surprised me was this producer spoke to me and said you know we’re desperate to hear a Christian voice that speaks into what’s going on in our nation right now. Not the woke politically correct voice of the Church, but the actual biblical voice of the Church.

“They are desperate for it. They are crying out for it! And while the Church keeps on being wimpy and weak, hiding behind platitudes and doing absolutely nothing, or keeping busy, looking like they’re being Christians but actually doing nothing of any absolute value that has any eternal consequence at all, this nation is going to hell in a handcuff. While the Church is doing absolutely nothing and playing games and not taking this hour seriously.

“This is a time where we need Christians to rise up and be strong have some fortitude, have some constancy, have a backbone. It’s time to exchange your yellow-belly spineless Christianity and put in that first century Christianity. What did you sign up for when you became a Christian? ‘Well, I signed up to Jesus loves me and accepts me as I am so that I can stay as I am.’ Nope. That’s not what you signed up for! Jesus said you’re to take up your cross daily. What does that mean? It means that you may have to lay down your life literally for the cause of Christ. It means that you have to say no to yourself and yes to Christ.”

The Sin of Cowardice

Now is the time my brothers and sisters in Christ to be bold in our stand for the truth. There are many sins which, if not repented of, which exclude one from entering the kingdom of heaven. One which is hardly ever mentioned though is that of cowardice. However, Revelation 21:8 is emphatic in its clarity when it states how cowards “will be consigned to the fiery lake of burning sulphur” which “is the second death” (Revelation 21:8) As Rev. Wickland explains:

“Being a Christian is the best thing in the world. But it’s also the hardest thing in the world because you have to say no to what you want to do and sometimes you have to lay down your life, your career, your dreams, maybe even go to prison for speaking truth because if you are not speaking truth because you are frightened of being cancelled, you’re frightened of being put in prison, or you are frightened of your local neighbourhood Muslim killing you, let me tell you something you — you are not fit for the kingdom of God. You cannot put your hand to the plough and look back because it says in the book of Revelation that the cowards and the cowardly will not inherit the kingdom of God, and there are too many Christians that are being cowards at this hour.

“So, I say to you, come on let’s do this let’s do this together. This nation is desperate. This nation is crying out for Christians that are not going to be politically correct or culturally relevant but they’re actually going to have a voice. That’s going to speak out prophetically to this time, in this season. That’s what’s going to get this nation come back to Christ. None of this mealy-mouthed, wimpy Christianity that absolutely does nothing but just looks busy for Jesus. The Christians walking around with a clipboard and they’re all saying to each other, ‘Look busy because Jesus is coming back soon.’ That kind of Christianity is nothing, it’s meaningless, it’s tripe.

“Living a Christian life is a hard life because we have to challenge sin in ourselves and in the world around us. And that makes us sometimes not very popular because that’s just how it has to be.

“But the Church is more interested in being liked and nice and being popular but that’s not what Jesus taught. That’s not what the Church is supposed to be. The Church is supposed to be the manifestation of the kingdom and the rule and the power and the authority of almighty God down here on the earth. When we play games just like the world plays, we become irrelevant. We lose our voice, we lose who we are.”

The whole vlog post by the Rev. Chris Wickland deserves careful consideration. But the prayer which he concludes with is one which I would encourage us all to pray, especially at this time:

Lord make us bold. Make us all strong Lord God to do what needs to be done at this hour, to say what needs to be said at this hour, and to stop pretending and playing games. Give us courage, give us fortitude, give us constancy, give us the ability to be consistent under pressure.

Lord Jesus, we know that you really are the one true God and that you love us and that you care for us and that you have a plan for this nation. A plan to prosper this nation, a plan not to harm this nation in any way.

 Please bless us with wisdom and grace to serve you faithfully and that we might not love our lives so much as to shrink from death. Instead, may we overcome all the schemes of the evil one by the blood of the Lamb and the word of our testimony.

Amen.

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Image via Adobe.