Whenever we think life is going along just fine, well there always seems to be a dark cloud somewhere on the horizon. And as much as we might try to ignore it, it seems to get bigger and bigger until sometimes it can overwhelm our lives. Have you noticed that?

There are things happening in this world, terrible things that we never thought that we would see in our lifetimes – wars, terrorism, Christians being beheaded by Muslim extremists, all sorts of things. And as we watch this stuff on the news each night, it starts to seep into our pores; it becomes part of us. And whether we realise it or not, a sense of foreboding; a fear takes hold of our hearts and our minds.

Of course this is nothing new. I think back to the 9th of September 2001. Why is that an important date? Well, it’s exactly two days before the coordinated terrorist attacks of 9/11. But as an Australian, at least September 9th 2001 is significant to me for another reason. It’s the day that this young kid from Oz, Lleyton Hewitt, won the US Open by defeating the great Pete Sampras in just three sets.

So you can imagine that we Australians had a great old celebration over the next few days. I remember waking up just two days later and switching on the morning news on the TV and being stunned by what I saw. Those planes flying into the World Trade Centre in New York, the towers collapsing, the sheer terror of what was occurring in front of my eyes.

From the joy and elation of this young Aussie kid winning a major Grand Slam tournament against an unassailable opponent to this, this incredible terror. It’s something that changed the psyche of America as a nation. It’s changed the course of history. It affected the psyche, I think, of just about every person on the planet.

Looking back on it all after these years, I think that the biggest thing that I should be surprised about is that we were at all surprised that it happened. As though something like this had never happened before, as though something like this would never happen again.

I remember growing up. I’m part of the post war baby boomer generation that reflected the optimism of peace after the cessation of hostilities in Europe and the Pacific. My whole generation is pretty much a bunch of optimists because of the context that we were born into. And yet the whole time I was growing up the threat of nuclear annihilation hung over the world.

The very thing that had ended the war in the Pacific, nuclear holocaust, threatened to destroy the world. For thirteen days in 1962, the whole world held its breath during the Cuban missile crisis expecting the worse and hoping for the best.

So on the one hand, my generation grew up in this incredible glow of optimism. And yet this dark cloud hung over our generation. But turn back the clock a little further to generations that came before just in the twentieth century. World War 1, the war to end all wars, sixteen million dead, twenty million wounded.

The Great Depression of the 1930’s that lasted in many places for well over a decade. No jobs, people starving in hitherto affluent countries. And as if that weren’t’ all enough in 1939 World War 2 kicked off. In just under six years, sixty million people were killed in the deadliest conflict in human history. That was two point five percent of the world’s population.

Then peace. But that threat of the Cold War consuming the world, today, it’s global terrorism, the rise of religious extremism. In fact, right now there are around forty-two armed conflicts being fought around the globe and that’s been a pretty constant figure for over the last half century.

Some make the news, Israel, Palestine, Syria, Iraq, terrible atrocities. But others, Somalia, the Democratic Republic of Congo, South Sudan and many others see hundreds of people dying every day. And yet it seems the darker the skin is of those who are dying the less interested the western media is in reporting their deaths.

And that’s just a snapshot of what’s going on in the world today. And next month, next year perhaps the list of war zones will change slightly but they won’t be any fewer. The horror and the pure evil won’t be any less. I’ll say it again, we are seeing things happening in this world that we never thought that we would see in our lifetimes and yet this is exactly what the Bible tells us would happen. This is exactly what Jesus tells us will happen, Matthew chapter 24, verses 1 to 14.

As Jesus came out of the Temple and was going away his disciples came to point out to him the buildings of the Temple. Then he asked them, ‘You see all these do you not? Truly I tell you not one stone will be left here upon another, all will be thrown down.’ When he was sitting on the Mount of Olives the disciples came to him privately saying, ‘Tell us when this will be and what will be the sign of your coming and the end of the age?’

Jesus answered them, ‘Beware that no one leads you astray for many will come in my name saying ‘I am the messiah’ and they will lead many astray and you’ll hear of wars and rumours of wars. See that you are not alarmed for this must take place but the end is not yet for nation will rise against nation and kingdom against kingdom and there will be famines and earthquakes in various places, all this is but the beginning of the birth pangs.’

‘Then they will hand you over to be tortured and will put you to death and you’ll be hated by all nations because of my name then many will fall away and they will betray one another and hate one another and many false prophets will arise and lead many astray and because of the increase in lawlessness the love of many will grow cold but the one who endures to the end will be saved and this good news of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the world as a testimony to all the nations and then the end will come.’ (Matthew 24: 1-14)

Some things seemed so certain to these people that He was speaking to. The Temple in Jerusalem, Gods own house, surely that would stand forever, surely. Yet Jesus predicted its destruction, which is exactly what happened less than forty years later in AD 70.

So the disciples in private asked Him, ‘Hey Lord, so when is it going to happen and what will be the signs of your coming?’ What answers do you think they were expecting? What signs were they expecting? Angels with trumpets shouting, ‘Glory, glory, hallelujah’? Well why not? That’s how Jesus first coming was announced to those shepherds on some gently sloping hillside outside Bethlehem on that starry, starry night just three decades or so before.

But instead of that Jesus spoke of wars and rumours of wars. He spoke of believers being handed over to be tortured. He spoke of people falling away from their faith, of lawlessness and false prophets of the love of many of those who call themselves after His name, falling away.

And people let me tell you that’s exactly what we see happening before our very eyes today. Why are we so surprised? Why do we act as though this shouldn’t happen? Why do we tremble in our boots? These are the signs of the coming of the end of this age. This is exactly what Jesus said would happen.

And His call to us, His people, His Church is to persevere, is to not give up, is to not let our love grow cold, to hang in there and be His people until the end.

As I look around the Church today, I see in many places that the love of God’s people has grown cold. I see that we’ve become comfortable in our safe little soft pews (in the west in particular). We worry about our petty little first world problems while our brothers and sisters in Iraq are being beheaded. We, the western Church in particular, spend money on ourselves while our brothers and sisters around the world are in such desperate need. And in our personal lives we allow doom and gloom and foreboding and fear to immobilise us.

Well enough is enough. I believe that God is asking us, His people today, ‘Do you love me? Do you really love me’?

Well, if you do then get out there and feed my sheep – Church. It is time for us to rise up in Jesus name. It is time for the Lion of Judah to roar.

Fear – who likes it? None of us really and actually it’s not good for us. As a short-term response to danger, it’s a natural, perfectly tuned and necessary protection mechanism but a constant sense of foreboding is like a cancer that eats away at us from the inside. And today many, many people who say they believe in Jesus, are living their lives in fear.

Yesterday on the program, we talked about the looming sense of dread and foreboding that world events seem to impose on us – wars, terrorism, atrocities, from 9/11 through to the beheading of Christians in Iraq through to ethnic cleansing in different parts of the world.

Come on, you watch that stuff on the news often enough and it starts to get to you. But lets now bring all this closer to home. Not something out there or over there or in another country that might threaten me one day but threats much closer to home. Threats in our own backyards, under our noses, in our face because there are more people today listening to this program who live in parts of the world who are under threat than there are those sitting in some safe comfortable place where they know tonight there’s a warm, soft, dry, safe, clean bed to sleep in.

In the 165+ countries in which this program is being heard today the majority of the people who are listening are in a place where war or violence or economic deprivation and starvation are real things terribly impacting their lives. And so albeit I’m a westerner, albeit that I’m blessed to live in a safe place I want to speak into the reality of today in the lives of so many people, into the reality of the majority.

And for those who are sitting safely and comfortably in the place that God has blessed us to be, yes even our faith is under a great threat today. Increasingly secularists are demanding that we forsake our faith in the King of King’s and the Lord of Lord’s. There’s no room for religion in politics or prayer in schools or for Christian morals in the bedroom.

‘Who are you?’ they demand to know, ‘to tell us that same-sex relationships are wrong or that a man and a woman shouldn’t live together without being married or that people shouldn’t be able to engage in casual sex?’ Who are you to claim that your God is the only God and that all the other gods are wrong? You intolerant religious fanatic you.

Add to that the Richard Dawkins of this world with their books like The God Delusion and Christians everywhere feel as though their faith is under attack. It seems sometimes that the only things that are on the rise are Islam and Secularism. And so whether the threat to our faith and our lives is physical or psychological, whether it’s our outer life or our inner life or both that are being threatened, what I see happening around the world is that Christians are starting to behave like victims.

Instead of living in victory, the victory that Jesus came to purchase for us through His death on the cross, we start thinking like and behaving like the vanquished, as though somehow we’ve been defeated.

Wherever you live, whatever your circumstances are, however your life and your faith are being threatened today, if you believe in Jesus, you have victory in and through Him. Today. Now. Listen to this, Romans chapter 8 beginning at verse 31.

What then are we to say about all these things? If God is for us who can be against us? He who did not withhold his Son but gave him up for all of us, will he not with him also give us everything else? Who will bring any charge against God’s elect, it is God who justifies? Who is to condemn? It is Christ Jesus who died, yes who was raised, who is at the right hand of God who indeed intercedes for us.

Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will hardship or distress or persecution or famine or nakedness or peril or sword? As it is written, ‘For your sake we are being killed all day long, we are accounted as sheep to be slaughtered’. No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loves us.

For I am convinced that neither death nor life nor angels nor rulers nor present things nor things to come nor powers nor height nor depth nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus, our Lord. (Romans 8:31-39)

So if your life and if your faith are under attack today here are three things that you can do to put the courage and the resolve back into your heart.

The first, is to remember that the greatest victory of all human history, the death of Jesus on that cross, appeared to all and sundry like a mighty defeat.

Jesus the miracle worker, Jesus the hot-shot preacher, hanging naked, dead on a cross but on that cross He disarmed the power of satan and sin to steal your life. In fact, the Bible tells us in Colossians chapter 2, verses 13 to 15 that:

When you were dead in your trespasses and in the uncircumcision of your flesh God made you alive together with him when he forgave us all our trespasses, erasing the record that stood against us with its legal demands. He set this aside, nailing it to the cross. He disarmed the rulers and authorities and made a public example of them, triumphing over them in it. (Colossians 2: 13-15)

And this is something Jesus didn’t do as a victim dragged kicking and screaming to a bloody and brutal end. Not at all, Jesus said, John chapter 10 and verses 17 and 18:

For this reason the Father loves me because I lay down my life in order to take it up again. No one takes it from me but I lay it down of my own accord. I have the power to lay it down and I have the power to take it up. I have received this command from my Father. (John 10: 17-18)

See, that very same victory of sacrifice is alive in you every time your life or your faith are attacked. Every time you’re rejected or ostracised for your faith, every time they laugh at you, belittle you, mark you as an outcast or attack you, you are more than a conqueror in Christ Jesus. Not because I say so but because God does.

The second is not to be surprised when all this happens. Please never be surprised at all because it is precisely what Jesus promises to each and every person who will take up their cross and follow Him. Have a listen, John chapter 15 verses 18 to 25.

If the world hates you be aware it hated me before it hated you. If you belong to the world the world will love you as its own but because you do not belong to the world but I have chosen you out of the world therefore the world hates you. Remember the word that I said to you, ‘Servants are not greater than their master’. If they persecuted me they’ll persecute you, if they kept my word they’ll keep your word also.

But they will do all these things to you on account of my name because they do not know him who sent me. If I had not come and spoken to them they wouldn’t have sin but now they have no excuse for their sin. Whoever hates me hates my Father also. If I had not done among them the works that no one else did they would have no sin but now they have seen and hated both me and my Father. It was to fulfil the word that is written in their law. They hated me without cause. (John 15:18-25)

And the third thing, the final thing I want to say to you about having victory is live out and do exactly what Jesus promises will happen to you when you are so persecuted. Here it is. He says it in the very next breath in the next two verses, John chapter 15, verses 26 and 27. He says:

When the advocate comes who I will send you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who comes from the Father, he will testify on my behalf. You also are to testify because you have been with me from the beginning. (John 15: 26-27)

So let the Holy Spirit fill you with truth. How? Dust off the Bible you’ve got. Spend a lot of time reading it and praying. And it’s in that solitary place that the Holy Spirit will begin to pour His truth, the truth of God into your spirit and your soul. It’s in that place that He will give you the courage to go and do what Jesus wants you to do.

Despite the sneers and derision, despite the out-and-out threats against your faith and perhaps even against your life – go and tell people about Jesus. He has been with you and you with Him from the moment you accepted Him into your life.

Go and speak the truth in love. Go and share the wondrous story of the free gift of eternal life that is available only through Jesus at whose name one day every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that He is Lord over all.

Because it’s time for you and me to stand up and be counted.

With all the things going on in the world around us – the terrible things we see on the news each night, all that stuff out there that’s so far outside our control, it’s easy to become despondent about where the world is headed. Like the world’s completely out of control and there’s nothing we can do about it. Well that’s just plain wrong.

So yes we do live in a crazy, mixed up, often brutal, often confronting world where unspeakable tragedies end up dominating the spirit of the times or the zeitgeist as it’s often referred to.

In my grandparent’s generation, it was World War 1 and the Great Depression, for my parents it was World War 2. For my generation it was the Cold War and potential nuclear holocaust and for today’s generations it’s the terrorism that’s changed the way we think, the way we fly and so many other things about our lives.

So on the one hand we can become despondent about the big picture and on the other we try and make ourselves comfortable to the extent our finances allow, safe, cocooned in luxury for some as a way of ignoring the geopolitical dangers that loom as dark clouds on the horizon.

Will terror strike close to home? When I fly will my plane be blown out of the sky? When will someone next attack my faith in Jesus as being irrelevant or at worst dangerous? See we can try to ignore these things as much as we want but they still loom over us and shape our outlook on life.

As I said the other day, we can end up feeling like victims. As someone who believes in Jesus we can end up feeling as though our faith is under attack from all directions. And instead of being more than conquerors we feel more like losers. And so many a Christians faith starts to waiver and just as Jesus predicted people’s love grows cold and they fall by the wayside.

It’s tragic and it’s just what the devil always intended. But here’s the thing, whatever your circumstances might be, whatever your dark clouds that loom on your horizon or rain on your parade represent, whatever things are attacking your faith in Jesus you and I know how all this ends. We know that at the end of the day Jesus wins. At the end of the day those who believe in Jesus win. At the end of the day the Lion of Judah will roar.

The Lion of Judah is a biblical term you hear often but actually it only appears once in the Bible in Revelation chapter 5. Now before I share a few bits of that with you just remember that Revelation is written in picture language, technically it’s called apocalyptic literature. It wasn’t uncommon in the Hebrew culture of old although we have no direct equivalent in the English language today.

So as we turn to the Book of Revelation remember with me that God is talking to us here through word pictures, through a vision that the Apostle John had on the Greek island of Patmos. Have a listen, Revelation chapter 5, verses 1 to 4.

Then I saw in the right hand of the one seated on the throne a scroll written on the inside and on the back sealed with seven seals and I saw a mighty angel proclaiming with a loud voice, ‘who is worthy to open the scroll and break it’s seals?’ And no one in heaven or on earth or under the earth was able to open the scroll or to look into it and I began to weep bitterly because no one was found worthy to open the scroll or to look into it. (Revelation 5: 1-4)

So here’s the picture: John is there at the end of time, everything is about to be revealed, the end game is about to happen, the end of all of history, the judgement of everybody who’s ever lived, the final outcome that God has been working towards for all eternity even before time began.

And he feels that very despair that, in a sense, you and I can end up feeling. Christians being beheaded in Iraq, children being slaughtered in Syria, planes being blown out of the sky, our faith under attack from secularism and atheism and other religions in all different directions, blimey where’s my world headed? How can I make a difference? How can my faith stay strong? How’s it all going to end? Will I make it through to the end for Jesus?

They’re all the questions and more that rattle around between our ears and in our hearts and from time to time we feel that desperate despair that John felt that made him weep when he had a glimpse of the very end.

What’s the answer? Who has the power? Well he gives it to us in the very next breath.

Then one of the elders said to me, ‘Don’t weep, see the lion of the tribe of Judah, the root of David has conquered so that he can open the scrolls and the seven seals’. Then I saw between the throne the four living creatures among the elders a lamb standing as if it had been slaughtered, having seven horns and seven eyes which are the seven spirits that God sent out into all the earth.

He went and took the scroll from the right hand of the one who was seated on the throne. When he had taken the scroll the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders fell before the lamb each holding a harp and golden bowls full of incense which are the prayers of the saints.

They sing a new song, ‘You are worthy to take the scroll and to open its seals for you were slaughtered, by your blood you ransomed for God saints from every tribe and language and people and nation. You have made them to be a kingdom and priests serving our God and they will reign on the earth.’

Then I looked and I heard the voice of many angels surrounding the throne and the living creatures and the elders, they numbered myriads of myriads, thousands upon thousands singing with full voice, ‘Worthy is the lamb that was slaughtered to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and honour and glory and blessing’.

Then I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and in the sea and all that is in them, to the one who is seated on the throne and to the lamb be blessing and honour and glory and might forever and ever and the four living creatures said, ‘Amen’ and the elders fell down and worshipped. (Revelation 5: 5-14)

Do you see this glorious picture that God’s painting here for you and me? Jesus, the Lamb of God who was sacrificed for us is also the Lion of Judah and at the end of this age the Lion of Judah will roar. The Lion of Judah is a picture language way of saying ‘the King of the jungle‘.

The one who is at the top of the food chain, the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords wins, that’s how it all ends. And no matter what happens, no matter what other people say or do, no matter how much it seems like evil is winning and terrorism is winning and secularism is winning, the Lion of Judah has already won. The end game is already written and sealed in that scroll and ready to be unfurled by the only one who has the power to bring it all to the end that God planned since eternity passed – Jesus.

The Bible predicts lawlessness and persecution and wars and terror in the last days, that’s exactly what God said, will happen to usher in the end. But on that dark day two thousand years ago when Jesus died on that cross He died for you and me and when on that sunny morning three days later the tomb was empty He rose again for you and for me and that is the one truth that will always stand the test of time. Jesus has already won and the Word of the Lord will stand forever.

So now, now it’s time to look at the events in this world from a different perspective. It’s time to put the fear away, it’s time to put the victim mentality away and it’s time to stand up and be counted. Jesus didn’t come so that you and I could be victims, He came for us to be victors and He has poured His Spirit out onto our lives so that we can be about the business of being His witnesses unto the ends of the earth.

He has a completely new life planned for you and me – a life where we are filled with His courage, filled with His wisdom, filled with His knowledge of how it all ends and His power to live to the end faithful to Him as we profess Christ to those around us.

Wherever He’s put us, whatever our circumstances are and actually getting out there and professing Christ to those around us, well that’s something we’re going to chat about more over the next couple of days on the program.

Everyday there are things that happen that would tear shreds in your faith of Jesus. There are bad people, bad things, terrible things going on that seem to proclaim that God’s lost control in this out of control world. Well I’m here to tell you today that your King reigns.

I want to share a story with you today, a very personal story about my life and the life of this ministry. A difficult story, a painful story for me because as we take a look at this out of control world in which we live, as we try and apply our faith on the one hand with the terrible things that happen in this life on the other often they just don’t seem to fit together, do they?

Jesus promised so much and yet the world can be so brutal. God has so much love to give and yet so often we seem to be wandering alone in the wilderness. This faith contradiction slaps us in the face like a cold fish on a daily basis.

And so here’s what we do with it. Given the apparent conflict between the brutal realities of today and the things that God promises in His Word, well they’re kind of leaning towards believing what today is telling us and we relegate God’s Word to second or third or fourth or last place.

Here’s the story. A small bunch of us had this crazy idea that God wanted to use us to produce radio programs for Him, to share His love with people all around the world. That was really a super crazy idea because we had no expertise. I come from the IT industry, we had almost no money, almost no people supporting the ministry and no radio stations to take these programs. In fact, we didn’t even have any programs yet to take.

So we set off on this journey almost exactly ten years ago to the day with just this child like faith and a heart to serve God and amazingly God honoured that. I don’t mean that I’m amazed at God. I’m just amazed that He would take people who knew so little to do something with.

As the months and the years slipped by one day we turned around and wow, the programs were being heard on about two hundred and fifty stations in forty-five countries. It was totally amazing. We kind of felt that God was really with us, that we must be on the right track and then, then it happened.

With the growth in the reach of these programs came a growth in the cost of the ministry and we just didn’t have the support that we needed. Nobody had been paid for a few months, we were struggling to pay our bills, we had a problem with one station broadcasting the programs which, to cut a long story short, meant a further reduction in our supporter base.

And it came to the day where I had to decide whether to continue the ministry or shut it down. Now it doesn’t honour God not to be able to pay your bills. And you just can’t keep on going incurring costs without any prospect of being able to pay the bills, hey there are laws against that (in Australia at least) It’s called Trading While You’re Insolvent and our law says that if the Director’s of an organisation knowingly do that then they become personally liable for the repayment of the debt, fair enough.

And all that while our tiny team was working such long crazy incredible hours just to try and hold it all together. I felt as CEO that I was being torn apart. On the one hand, God called us into this and He seemed to be in it. But on the other, right in that dark moment it felt like He deserted us. It felt like the world was winning, like the devil was winning and it didn’t matter how hard I prayed all I got back from Him was dead silence.

Well you know what they say, if you want to hear God speak read your Bible and if you want to hear Him speak out loud read it out aloud. So I read my Bible and here’s the passage that hit me between the eyes, Psalm 99, verses 1 to 5.

The Lord is King. Let the peoples tremble. He sits enthroned upon the Cherubim; let the earth quake; the Lord is great in Zion; he is exalted over all the peoples. Let them praise your great and awesome name, holy is he, mighty King, lover of justice. You have established equity, you have executed justice and righteousness in Jacob. Extol the Lord your God, worship at his footstool, holy is he.

What had I forgotten? Why was I so torn up and afraid? Because I had forgotten that my King reigns. Despite what my circumstances screamed at me, despite what some of my advisors whispered to me, despite what my heart said to me, my King reigns. No, He hasn’t fallen of His twig, no He hasn’t forgotten me, no He hasn’t cast me aside, armed with that powerful truth I went to another one that I come back to time and time again …

Proverbs chapter 3, verses 5 and 6:

Trust in the Lord with all your heart. Do not lean on your own understanding but in all your ways acknowledge him and he will make straight your paths.

And so through God’s Word He gave me the faith to believe. That was five years ago and since then millions more have heard the Good News of Jesus through these radio programs. We know that it’s such a time as this we need to stand up and be counted, we know in this dark and desperate world of terrorism, of slavery, of exploitation of the growing gap between the haves and the have not’s that those of us who love Jesus are meant to be making a difference – to be shining God’s love into the desperate lives of people.

We know that in the face of terrorism we have the power to pray and love. We know all that stuff and yet somehow, as those circumstances that seem to declare that God’s lost the plot eat away at us. Somehow we can’t find the backbone, the courage, the resolve to get out there and make it happen.

That’s why I’m here to tell you today that your King reigns. No, He hasn’t lost the plot or the will or the power to make the difference.

And His eyes are roaming the earth looking to strengthen those whose hearts are for Him. (2 Chronicles 16:9)

That means He’s looking for you. That means He’s looking to strengthen you. That means that this King of yours who reigns upon His throne above every power in this universe is ready and waiting for the likes of you to stand up and be counted so He can strengthen you.

There are religious extremists tearing this world apart. There are secularists trying to tear your faith apart and yet your King reigns and will strengthen you. That’s the truth we need to get a handle on because that’s the only truth that matters. I’m absolutely certain there are some people sitting out there wondering whether this message is really for them, whether in the face of these tectonic geopolitical calamities confronting our globe, they can possibly make a difference. Are you wondering that?

Then open your eyes and look around. Forget your woes for the moment. Forget the challenges you’re facing at the moment and gaze on the face of Jesus who died for you, Jesus who rose again for you, Jesus who poured His Spirit out on you. And now ask yourself, ‘Who in my circle of family and friends and work colleagues and even foes desperately needs the love of Jesus in their lives?’

Start there, just start loving those people with the love of Christ. Just start speaking the truth to them in love. Just start serving them with who you are and what you have as little as that may appear to you from time to time. While all along praying, praying for this world, praying for your political leaders, praying for your enemies, praying for wisdom, praying for power in God’s blessing and His hand to be upon you.

It is time for us to stand up and be counted. It is time for God’s Church to answer His call as He asks, ‘Do you love me?’ If your answer is yes then go and feed His sheep, go tend the flock, go serve your Master.

It’s not about me, it’s not about you – it’s about Jesus, it’s about His heart for the hurting and the lost, it’s about His plan to save the lost through you.

Listen again as He asks you today, ‘Do you love me? Then go feed my sheep’.

With all of the things – terrorism, brutality, persecution, socio-economic inequities, exploitation, child labour, forced prostitution, the list goes on and on, with all those things happening, seemingly completely out of control, we can quickly come to the conclusion that little old me can’t make one iota of a difference. Well if that’s the conclusion you’ve come to, well you’d be absolutely and completely wrong.

It’s true isn’t it? We turn on the evening news night after night and we see the terrible things happening in the world. Right now where I live its corrupt politicians taking bribes, people we trusted cheating on the people who elected them. Then of course the terrible things happening across the Middle East, wars and rumours of wars and things like child labour and forced prostitution and slavery which oppress over a hundred million people across the globe.

Just think of the incredible pain and misery of that multiplied by a hundred million. Those things don’t even make the news – domestic violence, the rape of women and children, child sexual abuse. Have you ever turned off the evening news in such disgust and come to the conclusion there’s just not a thing I can do about all that? Then you pour yourself a glass of wine as many people do, you prepare your dinner, sit down and relax and unwind and watch a bit more telly (television) and then head off to bed just to do the same all again tomorrow.

Social researchers talk about the phenomenon of cocooning. We come to the conclusion the world out there is so crazy and out of control we can’t do anything about it so we cocoon ourselves into our own little world, travelling the self-same rut day by day, wrapping ourselves in whatever comfort and if our means afford it, luxury that we can and all that helps us to ignore the terrible things happening out there.

That little scenario is repeated billions of times every day around the world by people who’ve come to the conclusion they can’t make a difference. So, like the proverbial emperor Nero we fiddle while Rome burns. Mmm … is it really true that you and I are impotent to change the world? Well it could be, after all most of us are ordinary people, most of us don’t have the power to stand up and to speak out and effect meaningful, powerful, lasting change.

Surely, I mean surely our political leaders, that’s their job and some celebrities, people like Bono, you know they have the platform to get up and speak against bad things. They have millions of followers on social media and access to television screens and newspapers and reporters and journalists, surely it’s up to them and boy aren’t they making a hash of things.

Back in the 1700’s there was an Irish statesman called Edmund Bourke, unless you happen to be Irish you’ve probably never heard of him but he once said something that you probably have heard, it’s this: That the only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.

You’ve heard that before, right? During the holocaust of the Jews by the Nazi regime in World War 2 the Church in Germany largely stood idly by and said nothing while Hitler and his cronies systematically slaughtered over six million Jews, well most of the Church. There was a man called Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a pastor who stood up against the regime, he was killed. Surely that could never happen again, surely we’d learn from that.

1994, Rwanda, a million slaughtered in a hundred days, the streets lined with rotting bodies. I’ve spoken to people who were there. The west stood by, closed it’s eyes and let it happen.

2014, Iraq, the slaughter of Christians and forced rape of women by Muslim extremists ISIS. We stood by and watched in happen and those my friend are just a few isolated examples.

This stuff is happening all around the world and we stand by and watch. Well we actually don’t watch, we switch off the evening news, pour another glass of wine, enjoy dinner before heading off to our safe warm beds.

Now, it maybe that you think I’m being a little unfair. What can someone, an ordinary person like you and me do sitting in another part of the world about the terrible things happening on the other side of the world? Well the answer is rather a lot more than you may think.

Two thousand years ago Jesus said this, Luke chapter 11, verse 23.

Whoever is not with me is against me and whoever does not gather with me scatters.

When you think about it Bourke’s pronouncement back in the 1700’s, that the only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing – is almost an exposition of what Jesus said.

Jesus is saying to you and me, ‘If you just sit there and do nothing, if you’re not actually getting up and being with me, if you’re just patting yourself on the back that really, you’re not a bad person then basically you’re not with me. You’re against me because you haven’t stood up to be counted’.

Church, wake up! By and large we’re asleep at the wheel, corporately and individually. There are so many different things that we could be doing. We could be using social media to speak out. We can create effective communication campaigns to change hearts. We can demonstrate the love of Christ in practical ways so far as we’re capable and that’s much more than what we’re doing right at the moment.

Don’t get me wrong, not every part of the Church but large parts of the Church. And as individuals we can choose to sponsor a child in a poor country, give her an education as she grows up and tell her about Jesus so that when she is an adult, she’ll be capable of effecting change in her country from within.

In the workplace we can take a firm but loving stand against the things we know are wrong, being prepared to sacrifice promotions and favours from others for the sake of doing and speaking what is right.

Are you getting the picture here? As Churches and individuals we need to be on a war footing because people, the world is at war, a war of devastation being waged by the spiritual forces of evil. And all that’s required for evil to triumph is for good men and good women like you and me to switch off the evening news, pour another glass of wine, go to bed in our soft comfortable beds and do nothing. So when Jesus asks you, ‘Are you for me or against me?’ What is your life, the way you’re living it at the moment saying to Him in answer to that question, hmm?

It’s pretty confronting isn’t it? Sometimes we see bad things happening just in our little parts of the world. And instead of standing up for the weak, instead of speaking out and risking the ridicule or even the wrath of others in the process, we sit there and through our silence and inaction we are complicit in the deeds of evil going on around us. If it was a crime happening in front us this evil going on, we can be convicted as accessories through our inaction.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a Lutheran pastor, an anti Nazi dissident in Germany during World War 2. He spoke out and he was harassed and persecuted. He was part of the underground movement smuggling Jews out of Germany to Switzerland. He knew about the plot to assassinate Hitler. In April 1943 he was arrested for being complicit in that plot and was finally executed on the 8th of April 1945 after a sham trial.

Bonhoeffer stood up against evil and it cost him his life. And that is exactly what Jesus has called you and me to do, Matthew chapter 16, verses 24 to 26.

Then Jesus told his disciples, ‘If any of you want to become my followers let them deny themselves, take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it and those who lose their life for my sake will find it. For what will it profit you if you gain the whole world but you forfeit your life or what will you gain in return for your life’? (Matthew 16: 24-26)

Yeah, as things turn out in this world good men and good women like you and me, we can do a lot more than we think.

So are you for Him or against Him?