Principles in Planting an Underground Church
By Pastor Hal Mayer
Dear friends,
Welcome to Keep the Faith Ministry once again. We live in countries that have been free to work openly as a church. We have never had to face persecution for our faith. But prophecy gives us the scenario that will develop in the last days. And we see developments that fulfill prophecy, or that lead to the fulfillment of prophecy. Censorship is a big one. But so was torture in secret prisons. Secret tribunals, the repudiation of key constitutional principles, manipulation of public health, and many more issues are changing the world making it more hostile for anyone who loves God completely and fully. Preparations for the final assault on God’s people as an overwhelming surprise can be palpably felt. In these unique and unusual circumstances, the underground church will be an absolute necessity. Our subject today is how to plant the underground church.
Before we begin, I want to clarify what I mean by saying the public church won’t have your back when the government and society turn against the faithful. I was not saying that the public church is not God’s church. Some people seemed to misunderstand that. The Lord’s messenger to the Remnant says that the church “may appear as about to fall, but it does not (2SM 380).” I believe that statement with all my heart. I believe that God’s Remnant church, in whatever form it will be in, will go through. But that is a different point than what I am making in this series. What I read in the Spirit of Prophecy is that every individual will have to stand alone (5T 707, Ev 69), and that “every earthly support will be cut off (DA 121).” That means your family and your friends will not be there to support you. That means you can’t rely on the government or the justice system to treat you fairly. That means that even the public church will not support you. And I gave a history of examples, including the recent pandemic.
It is my duty as a minister of the Lord to warn you of the stark reality that is coming, or you will be caught up in the almost overwhelming surprise. Many people react to anything that is said that sounds negative about the public church. The same was true in Jesus’ day. But the Jewish church was still God’s church even as the leaders were plotting and conducting the death of Christ. Even Jeremiah expressed it this way, in 7:4,
“Trust ye not in lying words, saying, The temple of the LORD, The temple of the LORD, The temple of the LORD, are these.”
“The temple, the temple, the temple.” If we are blindly supporting false views of the church we will be deceived.
We need to know what to do at that time. It will pay you to start thinking and praying about it, and maybe start practicing. You can start a weekly Bible study in various homes and build networks of faithful people. These will automatically become the underground church when it is needed. Start thinking like an underground church member. That’s what this series is all about. That way you won’t be caught flat footed.
Now let us begin with prayer. Father in heaven, we need your Holy Spirit to help us in every area of our lives. For we are so helpless and we are not prepared for what is coming upon us. Please help us to get ready. And be ever so gracious to us and kind to us, by giving us the resources we need to navigate this difficult and unique period of time. Send your Holy Spirit today that we may be impressed with what our duty is to ourselves and to our fellow believers. We don’t want to miss out on heaven. And it’s a struggle to know what to do, and what to say when we are confronted with the evil that is around us. It is getting worse. So please be with us today as we study. In Jesus name, amen.
Please turn with me in your Bibles to Matthew 5:11, 12.
“Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake. Rejoice, and be exceeding glad: for great is your reward in heaven: for so persecuted they the prophets which were before you.”
The underground church is not something new. But the circumstances that we will face when the underground church is essential again, are the worst circumstances that have ever been faced by God’s people. But no matter how bad they will be, we are assured that Jesus went through circumstances that were worse than what we will have to face, and He can and will sustain us. Listen to this statement from Great Controversy, page 592.
“Those who honor the Bible Sabbath will be denounced as enemies of law and order, as breaking down the moral restraints of society, causing anarchy and corruption, and calling down the judgments of God upon the earth. Their conscientious scruples will be pronounced obstinacy, stubbornness, and contempt of authority. They will be accused of disaffection toward the government. Ministers who deny the obligation of the divine law will present from the pulpit the duty of yielding obedience to the civil authorities as ordained of God. In legislative halls and courts of justice, commandment keepers will be misrepresented and condemned. A false coloring will be given to their words; the worst construction will be put upon their motives…”
Think about that. That is really extreme. Those who do these things are motivated from beneath, from darkness and evil. And the victims are generally mild-mannered people that wouldn’t hurt a flea, much less be motivated by malicious intent. Many Jews in World War 2 wouldn’t hurt a flee. But they were attacked, dehumanized, persecuted, and killed by the brutal Nazis. But we’re rapidly starting to see a lot of that same thing today in other areas than the Sabbath. So, when you become an enemy to your neighbors and friends, and family, because you keep the Bible Sabbath, you can’t expect justice from the courts, or nice words from your enemies. You can’t expect to be rightly represented by the witnesses that are brought to testify against you. They will outright lie about you. And that’s not very pleasant, especially if it’s from your friends. Listen to this statement from Great Controversy, page 608.
“Conscientious obedience to the word of God will be treated as rebellion. Blinded by Satan, the parent will exercise harshness and severity toward the believing child; the master or mistress will oppress the commandment-keeping servant. Affection will be alienated; children will be disinherited and driven from home. The words of Paul will be literally fulfilled: “All that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution.” 2 Timothy 3:12. As the defenders of truth refuse to honor the Sunday-sabbath, some of them will be thrust into prison, some will be exiled, some will be treated as slaves. To human wisdom all this now seems impossible; but as the restraining Spirit of God shall be withdrawn from men, and they shall be under the control of Satan, who hates the divine precepts, there will be strange developments. The heart can be very cruel when God’s fear and love are removed.”
This is being developed right now in our society, and people are being conditioned to react in the worst possible way to those who are demonized. This will be a serious time. Can you imagine being disaffected from those whom you have loved and have had sweet fellowship with? And there will be those thrown in prison. What does it mean to be exiled? Does that mean to be cancelled or marginalized? The faithful will be at least unable to access a platform to spread God’s message. They will be exiled from social media, from banking, and from other means of making a living. What Satan is doing right now in the western free world is preparatory to doing those very same things more severely to God’s people. These are strange developments indeed. Unprecedented things will take place. Can you imagine being treated like slaves? Who does this? Who is behind this mistreatment and the abuse of God’s people? If you have righteous indignation for what you see in the political world, know that it’s coming to you for religious reasons. And this statement from Great Controversy, page 610 tells us what the result of your refusal will be to yield to the pressure.
“Persecution in its varied forms is the development of a principle which will exist as long as Satan exists and Christianity has vital power. No man can serve God without enlisting against himself the opposition of the hosts of darkness. Evil angels will assail him, alarmed that his influence is taking prey from their hands. Evil men, rebuked by his example, will unite with them in seeking to separate him from God by alluring temptations. When these do not succeed, then a compelling power is employed to force the conscience.”
Think about the pressure that many people received to take the vaccination. Their jobs were on the line. Their statements of concern were misrepresented as misinformation and disinformation. Many were ridiculed. Many were accused of killing others, even though they had no such thoughts or intentions. And it was largely false. Now it’s coming out and all can see how bad the vaccine really is. Are people thinking about the consequences of what they did and what they are doing to those who realized what we were up against and spoke out? The time of trouble that is coming upon God’s people will be worse than the pandemic. And Sabbath keepers will be isolated as if they have a disease that will infect society. That is what the Nazis did to the Jews in their day. They said the Jews had a disease and had to be quarantined from the rest of society. Why is there so much emphasis on pestilence in society? You can see where this is headed.
As you can see it will be a trying time. No flesh, I repeat, no flesh will be able to withstand the assault on God’s people without Christ by their side. Here is another statement from Great Controversy, page 593.
“Those who endeavor to obey all the commandments of God will be opposed and derided. They can stand only in God. In order to endure the trial before them, they must understand the will of God as revealed in His word; they can honor Him only as they have a right conception of His character, government, and purposes, and act in accordance with them. None but those who have fortified the mind with the truths of the Bible will stand through the last great conflict. To every soul will come the searching test: Shall I obey God rather than men? The decisive hour is even now at hand. Are our feet planted on the rock of God’s immutable word? Are we prepared to stand firm in defense of the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus?”
Do you understand the will of God for yourself? Do you understand God’s character? Do you have a searching familiarity with scripture? Do you think you’re ready to stand and obey God rather than man? This is the issue. And the test will come to everyone. You can’t avoid it. So, learn now to stand for truth even when it’s unpopular. It will fortify you.
Now let’s put this in the context of the underground church. These faithful souls will face innumerable and relentless enemies. That’s why they have to have an underground church. You can’t depend on the public church during this time. It’s a simple fact. When you read the New Testament, you should read it with the lens of the underground church. But it takes new eyes to do this. For example, in the Bible there are apostles and disciples that had “other” names then formerly, and there were many examples of this throughout the New Testament. No doubt God had a purpose in this.
In Acts 1:23 we have the following.
“And they appointed two, Joseph called Barsabas, who was surnamed Justus, and Matthias.”
Here is a man that operated under three names. His name was Joseph, but they called him Barsabas, and sometimes they called him Justus. That was very confusing to the authorities especially if the locals did not know his other names. And in Acts 4:26 we have this.
“And Joses, who by the apostles was surnamed Barnabas, (which is, being interpreted, the son of consolation,) a Levite, and of the country of Cyprus…”
So please notice that the apostles gave Joses another name. This is probably to allow him to work more effectively in the underground church. Acts 13:1 informs us about Simeon.
“Now there were in the church that was at Antioch certain prophets and teachers; as Barnabas, and Simeon that was called Niger, and Lucius of Cyrene, and Manaen, which had been brought up with Herod the tetrarch, and Saul.”
And Acts 15:22 tells us that a certain Judas had another name too.
“Then pleased it the apostles and elders, with the whole church, to send chosen men of their own company to Antioch with Paul and Barnabas; namely, Judas surnamed Barsabas, and Silas, chief men among the brethren.”
So, Judas and Joses had the same alternative name. Imagine the confusion that would cause the authorities. And finally, Colossians 4:11 tells us of another man that had another name.
“And Jesus, which is called Justus, who are of the circumcision. These only are my fellowworkers unto the kingdom of God, which have been a comfort unto me.”
So, Jesus which is called Justus had the same alternate name as Joseph. Another confusion. Have you ever thought about why Jesus called Simon, Peter? The only explanation I have heard is that his new name was a reference to his experience, which is probably true. But it was probably for another reason as well. He was about to enter the underground church as a pastor, an apostle. And he needed a different identity. Names and identities get changed around in the underground church. When a pastor travels from one town to another he has a different name in each town. It makes it hard to arrest him because they can’t find him with the name that they know. When he’s in Philadelphia he has one name, when he is in Washington he is known by another name, and when he is in Seattle, he is known by a still third name. Have you ever wondered why governments are so interested in digital ID’s? Could it be because of another reason than what they publish? Do they want to make it impossible to travel under an alias, to prevent the possible evasion of the authorities by God’s people? You will basically be restricted to local service. You won’t be able to travel on a plane or any other type of public transportation. You won’t even be able to buy gas or petrol for your car.
When Jesus told his disciples in Luke 22:7-13 to go prepare supper for them, he did not say go to such and such a house and ask about Mr. XYZ, and there prepare supper. No, listen to what He said.
“And he said unto them, Behold, when ye are entered into the city, there shall a man meet you, bearing a pitcher of water; follow him into the house where he entereth in.”
He said to follow the man bearing a pitcher of water. Follow him to the house where he enters. This man had a strange activity. He was bearing a pitcher of water. No man would bear a pitcher of water. That was for women to do back then. So, it’s OK to have some sign or symbol that is unusual that you can identify the one you can trust.
This was clearly to avoid detection. They wouldn’t have to ask questions or seek directions. It is done the same way in the underground church. You don’t give an identifier of a specific address because you don’t know who the informer is. You say “stand at that street or sit there in the public park and you will see a man with a blue necktie or some other sign. Follow him. If anybody asks, “what is your name?” then you know he is probably an informer of the police.
The underground church was already existing in the time of the writing of the New Testament. There are those who quote scripture and say that the church should not work underground; that the authorities are there to punish evil and reward good. And while we respect them as authorities, if their laws require us to stop preaching the word, or stop worshipping on the Sabbath, that is where their authority ends. We do not have an obligation to obey laws that oppose our Bible-informed conscience or that are against our mission and our duty to God. Pressure is being applied today to use preferred pronouns and to speak in certain ways or not speak in certain ways about the LGBTQ movement. This is all preparation for censorship of the truth about the Sabbath. It is also a cultural perversion, but don’t mistake it for the larger issue. The enemy is getting people used to thinking like that and reacting like that. That way they will very easily be co-opted to work with the enemy in persecuting God’s people.
In preparation for the underground church remember that you have to develop your mind to accept a new set of circumstances that requires special measures to minimize the tragedies in the time of persecution.
The family is the basic unit of society, and it’s the basic unit of the church. The family is where worship should begin. True public expression of worship can only happen when there is a vital worship experience within the family. So, the idea of a house church is not foreign historically to the church. That is where it all began. That’s where the traditions and the principles of righteousness have been passed on for ages. Families that don’t have a vital religious experience among themselves are not able to have a genuine relationship with the church.
But the family is precisely what has been uprooted by the sexual revolution. Single parents are everywhere. Dysfunctional families are almost universal and are becoming more prevalent. And because of abortion, people think that it doesn’t matter what they do with their sexuality. They can be immoral, all without consequences. This has led to sexualization, gender dysphoria, gender identity fanaticism, and all manner of perversion in today’s society. It is glorified and made to look as if it’s acceptable, even desirable. They defy God and then expect to be without costs, consequences or penalties. What we need now in preparation for the underground church is the rehabilitation of the “first church,” the family.
Let’s get practical. The underground church is actually practiced in one third of the world. And it is usually made up of people who never thought that they would have to be in an underground church. But it is comparatively unknown, precisely because it is secret. So, pastors and members need to know what an underground church looks like and what it does. Underground church work needs a strategy.
The primary purpose of the early primitive church pastors was to prepare the people for martyrdom. So, in planting the underground church that must always be in our minds. What will be the fate of the people around you? Will they be able to stand alone? How can you help them prepare for that eventuality? There are 12 principles that guide the planting of the underground church. These principles are the same for all people in all places.
We won’t get through all of them today, but we will explore a number of them and continue next month. These principles will help you to think and practice what underground Christians from many different time periods and places have applied. They have enabled underground Christians to be faithful in the midst of serious opposition. And we face a unique set of circumstances, for the opposition will be focused on primarily one thing, the seventh day Sabbath and those that keep it.
The word underground is not clearly defined. That is intentional. The underground church wants the government or general public to only have a vague idea and knowledge of their existence and purpose. They want to avoid being easily discovered or observed or infiltrated by larger and more powerful opponents who want to control them, or change them, or stop them, or even destroy them.
Today, the sexual revolution has changed the public’s attitude toward the church in general. But the enemy is only getting the people more used to censorship and cancellation. When he hones in on the true Sabbath, true Christians from every denomination or persuasion, especially those who have not accepted unbiblical lifestyles, and who have already been marginalized because of it, will join faithful Sabbath keepers in spite of the persecution. Also, there will be secular people too, who have lost everything for their plain speaking during the pandemic, or at other times, and have seen the evil, will join then with God’s Sabbath keepers too. Listen to this statement from Great Controversy, page 612.
“The message will be carried not so much by argument as by the deep conviction of the Spirit of God. The arguments have been presented. The seed has been sown, and now it will spring up and bear fruit. The publications distributed by missionary workers have exerted their influence, yet many whose minds were impressed have been prevented from fully comprehending the truth or from yielding obedience. Now the rays of light penetrate everywhere, the truth is seen in its clearness, and the honest children of God sever the bands which have held them. Family connections, church relations, are powerless to stay them now. Truth is more precious than all besides. Notwithstanding the agencies combined against the truth, a large number take their stand upon the Lord’s side.”
And as the world is beset by huge disasters, Sabbath keepers will be seen as the cause of the convulsions of nature. Here is another statement from Great Controversy, page 614:
“Those who honor the law of God have been accused of bringing judgments upon the world, and they will be regarded as the cause of the fearful convulsions of nature and the strife and bloodshed among men that are filling the earth with woe. The power attending the last warning has enraged the wicked; their anger is kindled against all who have received the message, and Satan will excite to still greater intensity the spirit of hatred and persecution.”
Sabbath keepers will become the target, and all will unite to persuade, bribe or pressure them by censorship, discrimination, isolation and the usual punishments, like fines and imprisonment, to keep Sunday. Here is another statement from Great Controversy, page 592.
“The dignitaries of church and state will unite to bribe, persuade, or compel all classes to honor the Sunday.”
So, you can see that there will be an essential need for the existence of the underground church. It will be quite different from what we are used to today. So, here is the first of the 12 principles that guide the underground church. These are the principles that are necessary to make an underground church work within a hostile environment of government, and society.
Principle #1. Do not legally incorporate the underground church. Legal incorporation puts the church in a sort of bondage. We are aliens to this sinful world. This is not our home. Like Abraham we are indeed looking for another city. Hebrews 11:9, 10.
“By faith he sojourned in the land of promise, as in a strange country, dwelling in tabernacles with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise: For he looked for a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God.”
This world is only temporary. So, we cannot plan on developing a monolithic institution which will not survive the soon coming onslaught. The church does not need to be a permanent structure or organization when such hostilities are in the land. When strong opposition from the government or from the general public is prevalent, they will seek to prevent the underground church from having access to tools that they have been used to using. Trappings like church buildings, permanent organizations and leadership structures, training resources, schools and seminaries, media broadcasts and Internet access will be removed from those who are faithful to scripture. The faithful will be marginalized. It will be like North Korea today where the church is truly underground, hand printing presses are hidden in basements and closets, and the people have to go about their church business secretly.
Currently, in the free world, the government or society does not act that way in the extreme toward the church. We believe that our laws, customs, and mutual love of freedom prevent these kinds of attacks, even though we know that respect for the church is diminishing or has been destroyed in many parts of the world. But this has now become a real possibility in the near future. Physical violence wasn’t necessary for controlling the church in free countries for many decades. The enemy doesn’t attack overtly without a long process of conditioning the world to hostility toward the church and toward God’s Kingdom. The hostility has existed since the fall of Adam and Eve, but it is not physically violent because that would wake up God’s people to their danger.
In the free world there are tremendous benefits available to the church if it is willing to be named by the world as a legal corporation, recreated in the image of the world’s organizations. The church is given access to the financial, commercial, legal, and political systems and the benefits that come with it. Those benefits include the ability for the church to open a bank account, rent and purchase property, take out a loan, and use debit and credit cards; it also includes the ability to not pay taxes and to reduce the taxes that it’s pastors must pay, the ability to receive donations that are not taxed, the ability of its pastors to perform legally binding marriage ceremonies, the ability of its schools and universities and seminaries to become accredited and be treated like any other educational institution, the ability to limit the legal liability of its individual members should the church be sued, the ability to lobby the government and public opinion, the ability to speak in public at all, whether through operation of broadcast media, inclusion in public debates and discussions with other groups, or even offering prayers and blessings at governmental or public events. While these things may have been useful in a time of peace and even advocated, during a time of hostility this will not work.
The message Revelation 18:4 is now clearer than it was before. While we are to call people out of the Babylonian system, you also must make the journey out of the government system in times when the system becomes hostile to God’s true people. Revelation 18:4.
“And I heard another voice from heaven, saying, Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues.”
The structures that we have been familiar with up until now, and that have served us well, and that we have used effectively up until now by the public church will continue. They will see that compromise with the government and with society is worth the effort, to maintain its status within the context of the ruling regime and culture. The public church will no longer be available to the truly faithful and will become a tool in the hands of the government or society to marginalize faithful souls and to persecute them. This has happened before in previous times of trouble, in the Soviet Union, in China, in North Korea, and many other places. So, we should not be surprised when it happens again.
In that time the church will have to depend completely on God, and not on the world’s systems for support, including financial support. God intends to reveal himself through His church, especially in the coming crisis. He did not depend on the world’s system for His success. He was persecuted by those systems and was crucified on the cross by those systems. And the true church, in the time of trouble will experience the same thing, as well as individuals. The true church must expose the world’s systems for the hostile powers that they truly are.
Christ did not seek authorization from the church or from the world to do his work and to exercise His power to heal and restore. He confounded every attempt by those in the world and in the church to fit Him into their categories. He refused the benefits of the world’s systems which would seemingly have made His task easier. But His mission was conducted in the context of a hostile environment. Therefore, He had to work independently and establish His church as an independent people, free of the systems of the world because of that hostility and persecution. And in a hostile environment we must do the same in the underground church.
Not incorporating the underground church raises questions like: Where would we meet if we couldn’t rent or own a building? How would we process donations or tithe, or fund missions, or pay a pastor if we don’t have a bank account? How can the church impact the world if it doesn’t legally exist? We will address those questions later. But for now, we have to realize that the church has been underground whenever it is in a hostile world. It was unincorporated, its tools were not of this world. And somehow, they managed to make a huge impact wherever they were. So, it’s not necessary to have all the trappings of the world’s system to be successful as God’s church.
Principle #2. The Response and its implications for the underground church are important. How should the people (the church) respond when faced with opposition from a hostile government and general public? There are four possible responses.
The first response is flight. When communism moved into Eastern Europe, some Christians moved away, some to a different home or city and some to a different country as they tried to avoid confrontation or persecution. There are two motivations for this. One is destructive. One is productive and advances the cause of God. Jesus said in Matthew 10:23.
“But when they persecute you in this city, flee ye into another: for verily I say unto you, Ye shall not have gone over the cities of Israel, till the Son of man be come.”
There are enough places in this world to proclaim the truth to people, and you cannot get to them all by yourself. So, if they persecute you in one city, flee to the next. God will see to the people left behind. But if persecution intensifies you may not be able to do that, especially in today’s digital and surveillance environment.
Don’t be fearful; this can be destructive. It is also sinful. But when flight is motivated by what Jesus Himself said, it can be positive. Persecution always spreads the believers around and promoted the truth. And the martyr’s blood was seed for the gospel.
This world and its governments are evil and getting more evil all the time. You can’t escape from any of them and you can’t see yourself as isolated from society. So, don’t be afraid of them. You have Christ at your side. Jesus indicated that we are to be salt and light with our influence on society. So, we should not be cowards whenever we face persecution, but we should be taking lessons from other persecuted people and from nature. We should be wise as serpents and harmless as doves.
The second response is resistance; not resistance by fighting, or by taking a posture of opposition to government and its policies. Jesus did not resist the policies of Herod, the Roman government, or the rabbis and Pharisees. All of these were abusive. I’m reminded of the statement in Desire of Ages, page 509.
“The government under which Jesus lived was corrupt and oppressive; on every hand were crying abuses, —extortion, intolerance, and grinding cruelty. Yet the Saviour attempted no civil reforms. He attacked no national abuses, nor condemned the national enemies. He did not interfere with the authority or administration of those in power. He who was our example kept aloof from earthly governments. Not because He was indifferent to the woes of men, but because the remedy did not lie in merely human and external measures. To be efficient, the cure must reach men individually, and must regenerate the heart.”
We must have resistance to compromise under pressure and to sin. After all, that’s what the evil one wants us to do, and this is why he leads governments to be oppressive. Even the fact that the underground church exists is a form of resistance. The members resist the government’s attempt to shut down the church. They endure persecution as a form of resistance. In fact, they need to resist the pressure to conform, so it is also a form of resistance. It says that the government is out of place, and persuasively shows that the conscience is the domain of the individual.
When we are persecuted, we must learn to forgive. Wherever Christians were trapped by the assumption that their major task was to fight the government, they were handicapped and became incapable of practicing forgiveness and being living witnesses to their enemies.
In other words, whenever the church marshals its forces to defend itself against the enemy, whether communism, Islam, or Western nation’s LGBTQ ideology, or any other thing, it ceases to be a church. It is just another political entity. Have you noticed this about your church today? The vaccine turned the public church into a political entity in support of the government. If you didn’t see the political nature of the public church back before the vaccine, you’d have to be deaf, dumb and blind, and have buried your head in the sand to not see it today. We cannot afford to place ourselves in a position that we will not be able to forgive.
The third response is accommodation. This is always a destructive response. Accommodation is a lose-lose situation both for the individual and for the public church. The temptation to conform or compromise, to tailor the message to the new situation in order to accommodate it to the prevailing ideology results in more imprisonments, more tortures, more persecution of those who want to be faithful to the Lord.
This was the sad response of the German church under Hitler. It was the response of the three self-church in China. And it was the response of most of the American and European evangelical churches to the sexual revolution by announcing that they had opened their Bibles and found that homosexuality had been hiding there for over 2000 years. And sadly, it was the response of the public church to those who had convictions about the vaccine. Many people suffered because of the public church and its decisions, and its official published papers. And it was all to keep money flowing into the church and its institutions, particularly its hospitals and universities, from the government.
Accommodation certainly destroys the church by compromising its witness and making its message subservient to worldly ideologies. And it causes a worse form of destruction: the division of the church. It drives faithful souls into the underground church. Meanwhile the public church becomes a house divided.
Jesus words in Mark 8:34 are rather poignant.
“Whosoever will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me.”
Living according to the belief and practice of the cross means a total commitment to all the demands of Jesus, no matter what the cost. It means living the Christian life in response to the call of Christ. It means that we do not react mindlessly to the opposition of the government. This included accepting whatever punishment the government meted out for living fully by the principles of God’s law, particularly the Sabbath law in the end of time. This is the teaching that Christ’s followers will have to have if the church is to be fully a church, not a mere opposition to the government. It is the church’s willingness to suffer without retaliation while continuing to love its enemies as it lives out the fullness of the Christian life that advances the cause of Christ.
The Bible says in Matthew 10:18.
“And ye shall be brought before governors and kings for my sake, for a testimony against them and the Gentiles.”
Jesus said this, so you can guarantee that it will happen. But your response should not be belligerent. It should be humble, and submissive, but uncompromising and genuine.
So, think about establishing a plan for how you will establish an underground church and how it is going to deal with the coming hostility. Plan how it is to meet, operate and communicate in the event that it loses or must surrender the advantages of its non-profit status. The underground church will have to work without it anyway. Develop this plan now, well before any specific trouble is apparent. Some things will have to be kept confidential for security reasons, but it should be announced to your congregation that the church has created a financial plan so that church members do not need to be afraid of any threats from the government or the general public in conducting whatever the Lord commands the church to do. Drills should be held periodically and without prior notice so that the church can practice taking the church underground.
The underground church is going to be a necessity in the near future. Therefore, we need to start thinking about it now. When the public church will not stand with the faithful few, that’s when friends will rise up against friends. That’s when children will be persecuted by their parents, and parents by their children. Jesus said a man’s enemies will be from his own household. You need to prepare yourself for this time. Learn who you can trust. But be very cautious about what you say other than when you speak of the everlasting gospel and the three angels’ messages.
Let us pray. Our Father in heaven, we have known for a long time that persecution will come. But now we have to become practical and realistic about it. For it’s going to come in unexpected ways, and from unexpected people. Many did not think it would come from the church they loved and supported for many years. They did not think that it would come from their own families. But Jesus promised this would be the case. Please help us to be aware of these things in our hearts. Please help us to stand firm for Christ. And please Lord, give us wisdom and understanding to develop the underground church now while we still have freedom. That way we can succor those who are going through this time with us. Give us strength, and power, so that we can do this work. And we’ll praise Your name forever, in Jesus name, amen.