This message is continued from The Bugle, our enewsletter. To subscribe to The Bugle, click the Subscribe button on this page!

I went to China and smuggled Bibles in there many years ago. You go into these places and as soon as you cross the border from Hong Kong into China you can’t believe what you physically feel.  It’s like somebody runs up and throws a very heavy, wet wool blanket on top of you. You feel the pressure. I remember when we went into Russia in 89 and 90 when they first opened up. It was a mess! There were all kinds of demonic things going on, and when you went in there you felt dirty. We need to get a picture of this because we’re living in a time where there’s a constant opposition and resistance to what God wants to do through the people of God.

Look at what a couple of New Testament believers told us in Jude 3. “Beloved, my whole concern was to write to you in light of our common salvation.” That means just the ordinary. I’m not going to blow it up and make it something it’s not. It’s just what it is. He said, “But I found it necessary and was impelled to write you and urgently appeal and exhort you to contend for the faith which was once for all handed down to the saints (the faith which is that sum of Christian belief which was delivered verbally to the holy people of God).”

He was saying that you and I need to contend. We need to contend, to bring that into an earnest desire. Contend earnestly for the faith. That word contend means to fight or wage a battle. We need to decide that this war, this day of being a Christian, is a battle. It’s going to take those who are willing to fight. The day of coming to church and going through the motions, of coming to church and just having church and go home. That day has come to an end. It’s over with. It’s not going to work! Because, the outside pressure from the world is going to intensify.

2 Timothy 2:3-4, “Take with me your share of the hardships and suffering which you are called to endure…” Paul was saying that you’re going to have to share some hardships. And, you’re going to have some suffering, which you’re called to endure. Then it says, “as a good (first-class) soldier of Christ Jesus.” You are called as a first-class soldier! “No soldier when in service gets entangled in the enterprises of civilian life; his aim is to satisfy and please the one who enlisted him into the army.”

The whole purpose… I’m here to please Him who put me in His army.

There is more to this message! You can watch it on YouTube at RockCCBaltimore!