WALDEMAR’S WARNING

The year was 1981 (Yeah, I know, that dates me!). I was asked to go to Poland, still under iron-fisted communist rule, with a small team from my native Holland to help run a week-long Christian camp for young adults. I found out that most had spent a year’s wages to attend the camp. All they wanted was Bible study and prayer. Morning, noon and night. Never mind the fun and games we had planned. They wanted their money’s worth in spiritual food. The camp was being watched, the secret police made a visit and made it clear to Waldemar, the leading elder, that they knew we were there, and that they had a list of all the supply items that had been “left behind” for their use the previous year. Both the oppression and the inner joy, freedom, and hunger for God I saw in the young people deeply touched me. When the time came to say goodby, I told Waldemar: “I had no idea life was so tough for you guys. I’ll really pray for you.”

Big mistake.

He put his big Polish hands on my shoulder, looked me in the eyes and said; “You don’t get it, do you. We know who the enemy is. He wears a uniform. Jesus Christ is everything to us. We have to depend on Him for everything, even bread, potatoes and rice. But you are going back to the West where your grocery shelves are stocked full and you are insured from the cradle to the grave. You don’t know it, but Satan is lulling you to sleep with abundance, and when persecution comes – and it will come some day – you will not have the faith to withstand it.”

Ouch!

As we rode back West and transitioned from impoverished, oppressed Poland and East Germany into wealthy, prosperous Western Europe and back home to The Netherlands, it dawned on me that they were free. On the inside. And we were the ones enslaved – by our abundance, which was keeping us from having to rely on God for everything and therefore struggling to walk daily and closely with Him. Need is still one of the greatest driving forces for intimacy with an unseen God.

Waldemar’s words always stayed with me as a warning in the back of my head. And it came roaring back last week, almost 40 years after they were spoken, as I asked the Lord how to pray for The Return, the big prayer gathering in DC: “Lord, what are we, starting with me and mine, to repent of that grieves you the most?”

Perhaps surprisingly, no great big sin came to mind, but the words “worldly attachments.” And the memory of Waldemar’s warning.

Creature comforts, comfort zones, things we as Christians in the wealthy West have taken for granted as always available to us. Things that have made complete surrender to God, and dependence on God for our very survival, optional.

Those worldly comforts have crowded Him to the back of our minds and hearts, and have given Him a place in our lives, but not the place. Not the preeminence He deserves and needs to have.

The DC gathering fell far short of repenting of our sins. It focused more on the sins of our nation. And in my humble opinion it misunderstood repentance. Repentance is not a prayer, or a confession of sin. Those precede repentance. Repentance (metanoia in Greek) means to change one’s mind or purpose, to make a 180 degree turn in direction, and that is the mindset needed for transformation from above. It is a decision leading to action, not words.

Why is that so needed today? Because today’s church culture has grown spiritually weak. The majority of the people populating church seats do not have a strong daily walk with God, have little or no Bible knowledge, and are not full of the Holy Spirit. And many of the churches that house them have moved away from teaching them to connect with God through prayer and being in the Word, from loving one another deeply and from reaching their communities for Christ, and to exciting activities, big Sunday morning shows and corporate growth models.

Those do not build faith. Those do not prepare us for what is to come. I have heard from various prophetically astute people and mature intercessors that a period of suffering is going to come upon the church. It echoes what national prayer leaders heard from God twenty years ago when they sought God as to why revival had not come a decade of crying out for it in nationwide Concerts of Prayer. The answer they received: “It will come, but in the wake of suffering.”

In other words: there will be a rude awakening before there will be a spiritual awakening. Nothing like having your comfort zone shattered all at once by persecution and suffering.

But that should not surprise us. Europe has long been post-Christian. Christianity is regarded there by most as a thing of the past, as constraining, narrow-minded and a hindrance to progressive thinking. While the governments there do not persecute Christians, the people often do. And that is mild in comparison to the persecution faced by Christians in China and much of the Islamic world.

Interestingly enough, the church is declining the most in the “free” countries, and is growing the most in countries where Christians are persecuted to the point of death. The fastest growing churches today? Iran and China!

So it should not dismay us that God would visit a period of suffering on us. According to James 1:2-4 it purifies and strengthens our faith, it builds our Christian character and solidifies our steadfastness. It perfects us. Because when you are persecuted for your faith, God is no longer optional. He is your everything.

Which leads me back to repentance. I mentioned that repentance is a 180 degree turn. In this case, away from lukewarmth and attachment to worldly comforts and pleasures and towards spiritual preparedness.

That is the other half of what I heard when I prayed about what I should repent of. In the words of Martin Luther in the hymn A Mighty Fortress: “Let goods and kindred go.”

That is the key to spiritual preparedness for suffering. Let go of our attachment to worldly comfort. Consider it of much lesser value than the grace of God and nothing you can or should depend on. Think of yourself as an exile, of one just passing through on your way to heaven. Attach yourself to the kingdom of God instead. Remember the words “Turn your eyes upon Jesus, look full in His wonderful face; and the things of earth will grow strangely dim in the light of His glory and grace.” In short: love Jesus more than you love the things of earth.

The apostle Peter helps us with this:

“Therefore, preparing your minds for action and being sober-minded, set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ. As obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance, but as He who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, since it is written, “You shall be holy, for I am holy.“
1 Peter 1:13-16.

Preparing your minds for action. I love that. We can’t anticipate what suffering will come to us, what it will look like and how it will affect us. But apparently we can prepare spiritually nevertheless.

We can:
– Be sober-minded (i.e. be alert and prayerful, and not asleep or stick our heads in the sand)
– Set our hope fully on the grace of God with an eternal perspective, namely that it is not
about the quality and comfort of life here on earth but about the grace brought to us
when Christ is revealed – our eternal life with Him.
– Renounce worldly passions: creature comfort, too much entertainment, false idols,
the pursuit of financial prosperity, addictions. You name it.
– Be holy in the awareness that we were bought by the blood of Christ (vs. 18,19) to be
in intimate relationship with a loving, but holy God.

So my call to you today is to go before the Father, ask Him what you should repent of, remove it from your life with His help, and ask Him how you should prepare you and yours spiritually for what is to come.

And above all, do not be alarmed or dismayed. Tough times lead to a deeper knowledge and walk with the Father and nothing is of greater worth than that.