Fret not! - What to do when facing religous persecution by anti-Christs

By David Brandt Berg - November 1974

Jesus accused of wrongdoing by the religious leaders before Pilate

Some of you have been concerned about a ripple of recent so-called "bad" publicity originating with a minority from whom a great deal of our own leadership and many of you yourselves originally came, as well as many of our old and new disciples.

This turning of many of their own children to real genuine ardent and zealous Christians and therefore separating some of them from their families and their former family religion was enough to arouse their ire and provoke them to jealousy and verbal attacks upon us, even as they did to converts in Jesus' day.

But when Jesus began to openly expose these parents and religious leaders for their own sins and hypocrisy and to warn the World against their wickedness, these enemies of the Truth became very afraid of Him and His exposures of themselves and frightened at the rapid progress of His new unorthodox, unchurched movement of multitudes of mounting converts to God's only law of Love!

They then became determined to smear Him and His work, His doctrine and His followers, and also to do everything they possibly could to discredit His Words and works and disciples, and finally to try to crush both Him and His by inspiring the government to persecute and prosecute them as criminals and traitors, and to eventually crucify Him personally and try to slaughter His little lambs!--And they're still at it, as usual! They haven't changed!

As Jesus himself told them face to face, they were of their father the Devil [John 8:44] and not of God and had always persecuted the poor and slain God's Prophets and would soon cap it off with their crowning capital crime of all by slaying Him Himself, their own King and Messiah!--Jn.8:44; Mat.23:29-35.

They immediately turned around and used His Own Words with the Roman government to accuse him of treason and sedition as well as blasphemy and religious crimes, to persuade the reluctant Romans to kill him and pursue His followers as threats to the State and a danger to Rome!

But most of them never seem to learn from history and are even crazier than Quixote himself in dreaming an even more impossible dream of trying to beat an even more unconquerable foe, the Son of God and God Himself and His Holy Spirit and His innumerable Spirit-filled Children throughout the Earth, as well as all His holy Angels, even turning the Devil and all his forces' "cursing to blessing" and "causing the wrath of Man to glorify God" Himself!--Psa.76:10.

As both the Romans and the Communists and every other anti-God power throughout history has discovered, the more they try to suppress the truth and crush its followers, the more we grow and the faster we follow until they find they are trying to stem the flood with a surfboard and empty the ocean with a teacup and they themselves are overthrown and washed away, like Israel and the Romans both, by the very tide they tried to stem with puny men against God!

"Beware lest thou be found to fight against God!" as one of their own warned them! "For," as he wisely counselled their leaders, "if this thing be of man it will come to naught, but if it be of God, no man can stand against it!"--Not even me or you, much less one of them!--Acts 5:38,39.

So no matter what our mistakes may have been or how much they lie about us or try to fight us, they can never win, for we are an unbeatable foe of their treacherous tyranny against God and His Children! Hallelujah! They just can't win for losing, and we just can't lose for winning no matter how hard either of us try, because God is on our side and against them! Praise God!

So "all things still work together for good to them that love the Lord," and He will again "cause the wrath of man to praise him" by continuing to keep us and our Message in the news as one of the hottest and most controversial newsworthy subjects in the World!--Rom.8:28; Psa.76:10.

So don't worry about the attacks of your enemies, much less their lies and their insinuations and a little "bad" publicity from their smear campaigns! They will eventually reap what they sow sooner or later, and God will take care of them in His Own time and way when He's finished with them in using them to help keep us in the news and on our toes!

As the actor's agent said, "there's no such thing as 'bad' publicity!"--Whatever God wants to use to keep us in the news and His message before the public is His business!--He knows best!--Amen?

Just be sure you know it isn't true and you don't believe the Devil's lies yourself, because you know from your own personal experience and observation that the Enemy's own fabrications just aren't so! Because you know good and well that if any of these things were true and he could prove them, he'd do more than lie about them!

If they really had anything on us and we were actually doing anything wrong or against the law, you know they would have had us in court long ago! But they've never been able to prove a thing of all the lies of our enemies and the false witnessing of some of their disgruntled, spiteful and unhappy backsliders or so-called "ex-members," some of whom never spent more than a few hours or days with us and had to try to make excuses and false accusations against us to justify themselves for leaving us as traitors, "who went out from us because they were not of us!"--1Jn.2:19.--Amen?

We are certainly not perfect and have made our share of mistakes just like everybody else, for which may God and others forgive us! But certainly none of them have been serious enough to warrant criminal prosecution or our enemies would have had us prosecuted long ago instead of having to resort to a mere smear campaign of words in place of weapons!

No actual crimes can be legally protected by religion, so their ridiculous excuses that they can't prosecute us for crimes because we're religious are a real laugh, like the charges against Jesus before Pilate! He threw the whole charge out of court and said he "found no fault in this just man" under Roman law!--Jn.19:4.

So don't worry about a little "bad" publicity, oral persecution or even a few verbal or literal beatings! They'll only make more news and keep you and your Message before the public until you have reaped the harvest, grown even stronger through opposition and even grown in numbers through attempted suppression, as history has so often proven!

Again, God will thereby make peoples and governments make choices and decisions either for or against you and Him, for which He will judge them accordingly while you're driven to a new country and a new crop!--Amen?

Even if they imprison, torture and/or kill you, they cannot capture your spirit nor imprison the truth nor torment your immortal soul nor kill the everlasting Children of God and His Eternal Kingdom, which shall reckon with them some day soon as they deserve!

Nothing can stop God or His reign or all of His messengers, Prophets and holy Children who are here to stay forever, even if He has to jerk the World and the wicked out from under them and create a new one in which they'll live in peace, plenty, beauty and harmony forever!--And He will! Hallelujah!

So "fret not thyself because of evil-doers, neither be thou envious against the workers of iniquity. For they shall soon be cut down like the grass and wither as the green herb! Trust in the Lord and do good, so shalt thou dwell in the land and verily thou shalt be fed! Delight thyself also in the Lord and He shall give thee the desires of thine heart! Commit thy way unto the Lord, trust also in Him and He shall bring it to pass...Rest in the Lord and wait patiently for Him."

"Fret not thyself because of him who prospereth in his way, because of the man who bringeth wicked devices to pass...Cease from anger and forsake wrath: Fret not thyself in any wise to do evil. For evildoers shall be cut off, but those that wait upon the Lord shall inherit the Earth! For yet a little while and the wicked shall not be: Yea, thou shalt diligently consider his place and it shall not be! But the MEEK shall inherit the Earth and shall delight themselves in the abundance of peace! Forever!"--Read the rest in Psalm 37!

I don't believe in advertising The devil's business nor his lies, so don't be tricked by your enemies into coming down from your wall of great works to waste time arguing with them and letting yourself get trapped by their treacherous questions, much less get tempted into a worrying wasteful war of words which will only advertise the Devil's accusations and serve to spread his lies the more to the vast majority of the people who never even heard them in the first place and couldn't care less!

Even if they heard, lies are soon forgotten, so don't remind'm! Your friends don't need an explanation and your enemies wouldn't believe you anyway! If they really want to know the Truth, let them come and see you for themselves and taste your samples!

Answer sincere questions honestly and show the sincere the truth, and if they really wanna know, God will show'm! Amen?--If not, God damn them!--And He will, don't worry! Praise the Lord! God bless you and keep you!--And He will! I love you!

God has ways of repaying those who attack his children! So "fret not"!--"Vengeance is mine," saith the Lord, "and I will repay!"

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