Where did it go?

By Steve Stutzman

July 1, 2023

They HATED them.

Not disliked. Not resented. Not despised. Hated.

In the last week, I traversed some of Switzerland. I saw towering heights and stunning valleys and gorges, snowcapped peaks and green valleys. I also saw, photographed and entered multiple churches. I was looking for something.

I sat in some of the churches, looked at the stained glass and polished pipe organs. Was it still there? The hatred.

I drove thru Emmental Valley. I felt it. My spirit stood straight up on guard, as if I had been there before. I felt the fear glowering at me from the hillside. The serpent slithered about between the rocky cliffs buttressed against the mountains.

What caused humans, regular humans, to rise up against other humans: their neighbors, their cousins, their kinfolk, their friends? How could they rip their families apart, imprison, torture, and murder them? How? WHY? Where did that level of HATRED come from?

They (Swiss Reformed) hated Anabaptists. Their response was demonic.

And then the real question I sought..... Where did it go? Is it still there? I don't experience that kind of a hated, pursued, persecuted, and hunted existence. My life is free.

Did the demons that hated, grow up? Did they get educated and civilized? Do they still hate the Life of Christ in human flesh, like they did in the Anabaptists? Or did they 'get over it'? Did they just move on to other methods of trying to kill and crush?

Jesus said not to marvel if there is a display of hatred for Divine Life. Today, the world celebrates Christianity (in the West)...... while the generation twists itself into a pretzel trying to be relevant and accepted by a demon-run culture.

I begin to feel like a freak from another planet.

So what would it take? What would it take for a generation to rise that would butcher their neighbors and family without voice or conscience? What would it take to shift society, until they saw me as the #1 enemy that must be hunted down?

If God once again brought a world- shaking movement to earth, do you think for a minute that the devils would roll over and play dead? How many churches would respond directly to the voice of hell, and align themselves with evil?

These churches did. (Like it or not, these are the roots of Reformed theological churches today.)

And this castle has names like Yoder, Martin, and Miller carved in the stone basement, where they were held captive simply for knowing Christ.

Just thinking deeply… Two weeks ago I was with brothers who suffer extensively for Christ. They are today's Anabaptists. They are fearless heroes.

Why does the reality that burns in me, create so little disruption?

"Must I be carried to the skies

On flowery beds of ease

While others fought to win the prize

And sailed thru bloody seas?"

(Am I a Soldier of the Cross, by Isaac Watts)

My heart burns for reality. Not for persecution. We are instructed to pray for a quiet peaceful life. (1 Tim 2;2)

But what happened to the hatred?

Is it merely restrained?

 

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