1Co 3: MSG
1  But for right now, friends, I’m completely frustrated by your unspiritual dealings with each other and with God. You’re acting like infants in relation to Christ,
2  capable of nothing much more than nursing at the breast. Well, then, I’ll nurse you since you don’t seem capable of anything more.

1Co 13:11 MSG
11  When I was an infant at my mother’s breast, I gurgled and cooed like any infant. When I grew up, I left those infant ways for good.

1Co 14:20 MSG
20  To be perfectly frank, I’m getting exasperated with your infantile thinking. How long before you grow up and use your head;your adult head? It’s all right to have a childlike unfamiliarity with evil; a simple no is all that’s needed there. But there’s far more to saying yes to something. Only mature and well-exercised intelligence can save you from falling into gullibility.

Rev 3:14-18 MSG
14  Write to Laodicea, to the Angel of the church. God’s Yes, the Faithful and Accurate Witness, the First of God’s creation, says:
15  “I know you inside and out, and find little to my liking. You’re not cold, you’re not hot; far better to be either cold or hot!
16  You’re stale. You’re stagnant. You make me want to vomit.
17  You brag, ‘I’m rich, I’ve got it made, I need nothing from anyone,’ oblivious that in fact you’re a pitiful, blind beggar, threadbare and homeless.
18  “Here’s what I want you to do: Buy your gold from me, gold that’s been through the refiner’s fire. Then you’ll be rich. Buy your clothes from me, clothes designed in Heaven. You’ve gone around half-naked long enough. And buy medicine for your eyes from me so you can see, really see.

Let me start by making a startling statement!  The church, the Body of Christ was never promised any government rights.  The only things that were promised were given to the disciples from Christ.

The church of the Book of Acts was in the minority.  Many of the disciples had a price put on their head by the Roman government.  They were hunted by one who was called Saul of Tarsus.  The first to die from his orders was Stephen, stoned to death and while dying made a remarkable statement as he looked up into the heavens. “I see Jesus standing at the father’s right hand”.  Our first glimpse of what lies beyond the death of our physical body.  Oh how glorious!  “To be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord” (2 Cor. 5:8 KJV).

My heart aches as I look on to what is happening within the borders of North America.  The cosiness of the churches with the governments of man.  Their senses have become dull.

The church in other countries meet in secret for fear of being imprisoned by their government leaders.  This should not be alarming to those in the Body of |Christ.  Remember, Paul and Silas were imprisoned by Rome.  The Apostle Paul wrote many of his letters to the churches from some dark and damp, rodent invested jail cell.

The apostle John the Beloved was placed on an island that housed convicts.  The island of Patmos.

Why should in the twenty-first century be any different?  Christ told us they would hate us, kill us thinking they are doing God a service.(John 16:2 KJV)

I truly believe in North America the Body of Christ is not prepared for what is about to come on the world.  A world leader who will demand that people will worship his’ image that he has made.  The Body of Christ will be killed when they refuse to recant the faith in Christ Jesus our Lord.

This will be the darkest ages that this world will ever know.  We have only one promise, that is Christ will be with us through it all.

I use to preach a sermon called, ‘God’s spoiled Brats’.  I feel it would still be relevant today. 

Let me add this warning, the government will not always be the defender of Christians in North America.  Our only defender is Christ Jesus.

Let me remind you of those Hebrew young men that refused to bow down to Baal.  The king was enraged, ordered his men to crank up the furnace seven times hotter than normal.  The soldiers bound up those men and threw them into the fire.  That night God caused the king to have a very restless night.  He gets up goes down to the furnace, has the guards open it up.  It must have been quite the thing to behold, for he turns around and asks his guard a question. Did we not cast three bound men into the fire?  He then declares that he sees four men walking around unbound and the fourth man looks like the Son of God.  Yes, it is time for the Body of Christ to grow up, get a backbone and truly trust God that this next fiery trial that is coming that God will be with us like the Hebrew men.

There may come a time like children of God in other countries, that the same will come upon North America.

Yes, I believe that there is coming a season where religious freedom will be stripped.  No more Christian television, radio, or print.

Are you prepared?  Have you the strength to trust Christ? Or maybe you will become weak and like Peter deny Christ and lose your very soul.

For me, I am willing to lay down and lose my head.  The world can destroy my body, but I fear the one who can destroy not only my body, but my soul.

So, I am sounding the alarm.  It is truly time for the Body of Christ in North America to just plainly “GROW UP!”