If we ever forget that we are one nation under God, then we will be a nation gone under.
—RONALD REAGAN
It’s cancer.”
I stared at my phone screen and reread my sister Karol’s text over and over again. She had accompanied Dad to his doctor’s appointment earlier and had promised to let me know how it went. I had just pulled into the church parking lot and was about to return to my office when I saw her text. Gasping as if I’d been tackled by a lineman, I doubled over against the hood of my car. The fear that had been lurking in the back of my mind now fully surfaced and was becoming reality. My father had cancer.
It wasn’t just that I loved my dad; he was my hero, my friend, my mentor in the Christian faith. He had been the best man at my wedding, and as Church of the Highlands began to grow, my dad had moved from Baton Rouge to Birmingham to help us. He was deeply intertwined in every aspect of my life, and I couldn’t imagine any of it without him.
Walking into church on autopilot, I went up to my office and shut the door. I slumped into the chair behind my desk and began wrestling with feelings I couldn’t even name. As a pastor and a student of God’s Word for decades, I had all the biblical answers and pastoral training for situations like this. I knew God’s truth. I believed God’s truth. None of that changed. But suddenly I didn’t know what to do. Just as Daniel had been a captive of the Babylonians, I felt as though I was suddenly being held hostage by heavy emotions I couldn’t process.
So, feeling desperate for God, I did the only thing I knew to do: I turned on some praise and worship music. That probably sounds strange. Worship and grief don’t usually go hand in hand. But I’d learned to practice worshipping God no matter what circumstances I faced, and that day wouldn’t be any different. God promises us peace that surpasses all understanding in Philippians 4:7. But don’t miss the instruction attached to this blessing. Philippians 4:4 is the key that unlocks this peace: “Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice!” Worship didn’t erase my grief in the moment, but it definitely turned up an overriding peace. A peace I couldn’t have found any other way.
I let the goodness of who God is soothe me. I felt his power strengthen me. I sensed his presence as he comforted me. And though I knew I would grieve over Dad’s cancer again and again, I also took comfort in the reality that I could survive this news.
My dad’s death would not be the death of the best parts of me. His influence would forever live on through me. The hallmark of his last days wouldn’t be grief but rather the fullness of life. During this season, while my father battled for his life, God gave me a verse to focus on: “The Lord will rescue me from every evil attack and will bring me safely to his heavenly kingdom” (2 Tim. 4:18). As I reflected on the meaning of this verse, I thought, Well, which is it? Will God rescue my dad from this evil attack? Or will Dad go safely into heaven?
Eventually, I realized the answer was “yes”—and both happened. After his initial treatment and chemo successfully eradicated the disease from his body, the cancer returned the following year, and my beloved father passed away a few months later. I grieved then, and I still miss him. But it brings me great joy knowing where Dad is right now and that I’ll get to see him again someday. With God, we’re always in a win-win situation. No matter what’s at risk or what we lose—even the most precious people in our lives—God’s goodness will sustain us.
But the pivotal moment in the whole journey of Dad’s illness was that day in my office—the day I worshipped God and refused to bow to fear, pain, and despair. All of hell wants us to bow to anything other than God. It may be the most important decision we’ll make in the cultural shift: who we will and will not worship. If I had chosen not to worship at that time, the world would have understood. After all, death and sickness are universally known to take people out for at least a little while. Choosing to worship in the midst of all this—that might have been the last course of action most would think of or recommend. But then, doesn’t stepping out in faith usually run counter to the logic of this world?
Through worship, we move from viewing our problems as big and God as small to the exact opposite: because we remember how big our God is.
Getting the news of Dad’s diagnosis that day was like my lions’ den moment, because my mind told me that God had abandoned me—cancer felt more powerful than God. But rather than give in to the despair of looming circumstances, I chose to worship no matter what and never bow to the pressures of life. And you can do that too. Worship changes everything. Through worship, we move from viewing our problems as big and God as small to the exact opposite: because we remember how big our God is.
Worship restores our perspective.
Warning Signs
Personal crises and painful circumstances aren’t the only obstacles that we must battle with prayer and praise. Anytime we face a crossroads moment and cultural calamity sends us reeling, we must hold to our core convictions and never take our eyes off Jesus, even if—and perhaps especially when—the world pressures us to do just that.
Values that traditionally have been held high are under attack from all sides today. The institution of marriage has been redefined. Our schools cater to contrarian special interests instead of biblical truth. Our leaders condone and approve of taking the lives of our unborn children. Cracks continue to spread across the moral foundation of our nation, shattering biblical beliefs—not to mention commonsense values—once considered so important. Many people believe one major blow occurred in 1962 when the Supreme Court ruled that prayer had to be taken out of public schools.
If you’re under fifty years old, you probably can’t even imagine our country including prayer in its classrooms. But in fact, before this ruling most school days began with the Pledge of Allegiance followed by a prayer like this: “Almighty God, we acknowledge our dependence on Thee and we beg Thy blessing over us, our parents, our teachers, and our nation.” Eventually, though, enough people were offended by this that the highest court in our land decreed that prayer must go.
This may not seem to be such a big deal, especially considering what we’ve grown accustomed to these days, but there are always unforeseen consequences when we bend to public opinion and remove God and the perspective that comes from regularly communing with him. It’s not a slippery slope—it’s one domino toppling the next until all Christian values have been leveled. Consider all that’s happened since prayer was removed.
Teenage pregnancy rates went up 500 percent after 1962. The number of unmarried mothers also rose dramatically. The divorce rate is now so high that many young children don’t even understand what a family looks like. Violent crimes have risen steadily since the early sixties, and our prison system is now bursting at the seams.1
Another way to look at it is to consider the decline in educational performance. After 1962, SAT scores declined steadily each year for almost two decades before reaching a plateau, one that has now started to decline again. We once had the best school system in the world, but now we’re ranked about fifteenth among industrialized countries—this despite spending more money on our school system than any other nation in the world.2
It’s an astonishing shift, to say the least. I’m not proposing that we put prayer back in schools. Today such a move would require every other belief system be allowed to do the same. I simply want to point out how quickly moral compromises can erode our society. We’ve gone from a decree that prayer has no place in public schools to rulings like the one in New Mexico in August 2013, which declared that sexual freedom trumps religious freedom. In this case the State Supreme Court ruled that a Christian photographer cannot decline to take pictures of a same-sex couple’s commitment ceremony, despite the fact that doing so would violate his faith convictions.3
We’ve come a long way, and our downward slide continues. Things were far from perfect in past decades, but there was a safety net of shared moral values beneath us. There was the freedom to worship God that our ancestors fought so passionately to achieve. Today, however, I’m afraid that safety net, that freedom, has been ripped to shreds and woven into a snare set by our Enemy.
Then and Now
Similarities between what Daniel experienced while captive in Babylon and what Christians face today are unmistakable. At least four parallels seem to be mirror images of one another. Let’s briefly consider each one:
1. We live in a society hostile to faith in God. Daniel faced a pagan culture with no interest in, respect for, or fear of the living God. The Babylonians tried to force Daniel and his fellow Jews to relinquish their faith and embrace the cultural customs of their captors. While Christians in our country face cultural peer pressure, we must remember our brothers and sisters in other countries who on a daily basis face severe and dramatic persecution for their faith. As we’re instructed in Scripture (1 Peter 5:9), stand firm and pray for those who are suffering and being martyred right now.
2. We face commands from those in authority to do something that violates the essence of our faith. The Babylonian kings ordered Daniel and their other Hebrew prisoners to worship pagan idols or face death. They consistently worked to eliminate Daniel’s faith in God and replace it with cultural conformity based on political pressure and deadly enforcement. Now consider the Supreme Court battle Hobby Lobby fought in response to the Health Care Reform Act, which forced them to subscribe to a healthcare plan that would provide the morning-after pill for their employees. The court ruled in Hobby Lobby’s favor in the end and they won the case, but similar legal battles still loom on the horizon.
3. We face serious consequences for noncompliance. Daniel and other Jews remained imprisoned and faced trial after trial as the Babylonians attempted to assimilate them. The Hebrew captives likely faced physical punishment and torture as well as several life-threatening encounters with furnaces and lions. Our consequences may not be as immediate or seem as dangerous, but they are nonetheless punitive. Currently, one of our time’s biggest moral debates is about how churches should respond to homosexual marriage. If we don’t perform ceremonies for homosexual couples, will the government take away our tax-exempt status? But then, who says we have to conduct state marriages? We answer to God—not the mayor, governor, or president. Will our ministries serving those who are in need be crippled by the consequences of standing firm on what the Bible says about marriage?
4. We endure cultural and societal punishment for maintaining our beliefs. Considering the life of Daniel, we realize just how extraordinary he was—not only to survive his Babylonian captors’ trials and tortures but to influence them with his steadfast faith. Daniel never allowed his fear, anxiety, or concerns to impede his faith or inhibit his obedience to God. Today, we must look to his example for the strength and courage to do the same, because we will face serious consequences when we stand firm in whom and how we worship. Some have lost their jobs, their elected offices, their businesses, and their reputations. Some have sat in courtrooms and jail cells, refusing to compromise their bedrock faith in God and his ways.
These similarities reflect the advancement of what I call the anti-Christ spirit of our age: the persecution of Christianity, the Bible, churches, and Christian values by means of coercion, authoritative control, and cultural consequences of condemnation. The Bible warns us:
The coming of the lawless one will be in accordance with how Satan works. He will use all sorts of displays of power through signs and wonders that serve the lie, and all the ways that wickedness deceives those who are perishing. They perish because they refused to love the truth and so be saved. For this reason God sends them a powerful delusion so that they will believe the lie and so that all will be condemned who have not believed the truth but have delighted in wickedness. (2 Thess. 2:9–12)
These four parallels between Daniel’s Babylon and the world around us are no coincidence. There’s more going on than what we can see on the surface. The spirit of the Antichrist that was at work in Daniel’s day continues today in his mission of overthrowing God and destroying God’s followers. Typically, it’s a two-pronged attack. First, the Enemy tries to get people to exalt humans above God. Second, he attempts to stop the worship of God. We see both strategies pervading our culture.
Perhaps the easiest way to get us to elevate humanity above God is to make life all about us. The Devil executes his plan by working nonstop to replace God’s truth with two big lies: (1) “If it feels good, do it!” and (2) “Live your own truth—do what is right for you.” Our spiritual Enemy has all kinds of cultural weapons at his disposal to promote this kind of a mind-set that places our own desires over all else. Business, sports, entertainment, money, power, fame, pleasure, sex—they’re all enticements that can shift the focus from God to us if we elevate them to become our top priorities.
The Devil knows that if he can get us entirely dependent on something earthly, then we’ll be miserable and will only want more and more of it to escape our pain. The paradoxical cycle of addiction is a deathtrap for so many people. But what’s worse is when this paves the way for the suppression of people of faith who have not chosen to participate. And we see the early signs of this already, of our religious freedom being limited by cultural whims.
Issues such as legalized abortion—not only allowing it but forcing taxpayers to pay for it—and homosexual marriage have ripped the moral fabric of our nation. We now face forced compliance with acts that go against our faith. And we must be prepared to trust God and face the consequences—whatever those may be. Culture loves to drive a wedge between our convictions and our worship. If the world can force us to abandon God’s truth, then it can push us toward worshipping its idols and not our holy God.
Worship is respecting who God is and how he sees things. It’s acknowledging that he is God and we are his creation. The clarions of culture want to force us to abandon our form of worship because they find it offensive. Because our ongoing, faithful obedience to God and his Word threatens those who want to undermine God’s existence and his role in our lives. And so our culture consistently and continually tries to erode the truth about God and place his power in human hands.
Culture loves to drive a wedge between our convictions and our worship.
But our religious freedom is foundational to our country’s existence—this is why the Pilgrims left their homes behind, sailed perilous waters, and started over in the dangerous wilderness they discovered after landing at Plymouth Rock. These early pioneers of the faith knew what we must now remember. Likewise, as Peter and the apostles explained to the Jewish religious leaders trying to arrest them for preaching the gospel of Christ, “We must obey God rather than human beings!” (Acts 5:29).
An Uncompromising Position
There can be no doubt: biblical values are slipping away. With that erosion, so, too, our religious freedoms begin to shrink. As culture shifts, new limitations emerge in an attempt to determine what we can and cannot do. The world now does not want us to worship God the way we choose. Basically, our situation is no different from the conflict Daniel faced in Babylon.
After facing cultural challenges and surviving a fiery test of faith, Daniel had to endure his greatest culture clash yet. After Nebuchadnezzar, Babylon was ruled by a new leader, Darius. Although Daniel continued to maintain a place of influence in the royal court, many officials remained jealous that this Hebrew outsider held power within their midst. So they plotted to kill Daniel and get rid of him once and for all.
Finally these men said, “We will never find any basis for charges against this man Daniel unless it has something to do with the law of his God.”
So the administrators and the satraps went as a group to the king and said: “May King Darius live forever! The royal administrators, prefects, satraps, advisers and governors have all agreed that the king should issue an edict and enforce the decree that anyone who prays to any god or man during the next thirty days, except to you, Your Majesty, shall be thrown into the lions’ den. Now, Your Majesty, issue the decree and put it in writing so that it cannot be altered—in accordance with the laws of the Medes and Persians, which cannot be repealed.” So King Darius put the decree in writing. (Dan. 6:5–9)
Having failed at forcing Daniel to worship something other than God, the Babylonians now wanted to prevent him from worshipping his God at all. They devised a clever plan to force Daniel’s hand—from a position of prayer and worship to the living God to one of full submission to their king. But notice, once again, how Daniel responded:
Now when Daniel learned that the decree had been published, he went home to his upstairs room where the windows opened toward Jerusalem. Three times a day he got down on his knees and prayed, giving thanks to his God, just as he had done before. Then these men went as a group and found Daniel praying and asking God for help. So they went to the king and spoke to him about his royal decree: “Did you not publish a decree that during the next thirty days anyone who prays to any god or man except to you, Your Majesty, would be thrown into the lions’ den?” The king answered, “The decree stands—in accordance with the laws of the Medes and Persians, which cannot be repealed.” (Dan. 6:10–12)
What did Daniel do in the face of this royal decree? He prayed! He worshipped God and prayed three times a day—“just as he had done before.” Daniel didn’t panic, he didn’t force a confrontation, and he didn’t argue about the unfairness of the decree. He simply did what he had always done—prayed and worshipped the Lord he loved and served.
Are we willing to make the same commitment? Will we resolve that no matter what happens or who tries to influence us that we will not bow before any other god? That we will continue to worship only God? Do we have the kind of courage Daniel had?
The Fruit of Courage
Daniel consistently refused to give in to the demands of his captors and their culture. He would not bow down to their idols or participate in their unhealthy hedonism. And when they told him he could not pray to anyone but the king, he didn’t even blink. He went home and prayed three times as usual. His example continues to be a witness to the world; the way we handle cultural pressure always is. As we touched on in chapter 3, to walk in Daniel’s footsteps, we must have courage. But more than courage, we must demonstrate the fruit of courage—action.
Courage was certainly something we saw in the lives of Jesus’ disciples, especially after he had returned to heaven and sent them the Holy Spirit. It’s even mentioned in a number of scenes: “When they saw the courage of Peter and John and realized that they were unschooled, ordinary men, they were astonished and they took note that these men had been with Jesus” (Acts 4:13, emphasis mine). The public officials threatened to kill the disciples because of their beliefs and teaching, yet they stood fearlessly in the face of this threat.
This kind of courage got the attention of the people, who then noticed that the disciples were not men of intellect with considerable religious training. They were just ordinary fishermen. But they had spent time with Jesus, which had left an indelible mark on them, fueling limitless reserves of courage for all they would face.
We see the fruit of the disciples’ courage later in the same chapter (Acts 4) when they attend a prayer meeting: “After they prayed, the place where they were meeting was shaken. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke the word of God boldly” (v. 31, emphasis mine).
This boldness is what I want for you—and for all of us who follow Jesus and want to stand strong in our bow-down culture: The boldness to stand courageously in the face of an ever-shifting culture. To speak up even when what you believe isn’t popular. It may not feel good—but the rewards are eternal. We’re told, “Do not lose your courage, then, because it brings with it a great reward” (Heb. 10:35 GNT). And, as we’ve seen with the disciples, the key to courage always comes back to spending time with Jesus. The more time we spend with Jesus, the more courage we will have.
The key to courage always comes back to spending time with Jesus.
This kind of courage is not reserved for pillars of the faith like Daniel, David, Paul, and the other disciples. It’s available to you and me. If you look at strong people of faith, I believe you will find in them tried and tested, fireproof, lion-proof faith. These people have as many problems as anyone else, but they also have something else: the promises of God and his Word, and the courage to act on them.
When I pray each day, I always read God’s Word first. Then I ask the Lord to illuminate a verse or an idea from what I’ve just read. And then I listen. In fact, a long time ago I learned to always keep pen and paper close by when I pray. Some of the best, most creative ideas have come to me when I pray and listen to God as he speaks to my heart through Scripture.
This kind of personal word from the Lord is a promise deep down inside us. Without it, we’ll be tempted to panic and cave under the pressure when the going gets tough. Despite the storm swirling around us, a word from God gives us the assurance to stand tall and to speak boldly. This is one of the main reasons I encourage you to spend time every day reading God’s Word and reflecting on it in prayer. And whether you understand it or not, whether you like it or not, accept its authority.
Even when I don’t like it, God’s Word tells me the truth. Sometimes it makes me miserable as it confronts areas of my heart and life that need to change. But if I submit myself to God’s truth, it sets me free. Surrendering to God’s truth strengthens our convictions and fuels our courage, providing confidence in the face of the storm.
These words I speak to you are not incidental additions to your life, homeowner improvements to your standard of living. They are foundational words, words to build a life on. If you work these words into your life, you are like a smart carpenter who built his house on solid rock. (Matt. 7:24 MSG)
If we build our lives on popular opinion or our feelings, then we will always feel unstable and insecure, fearful that everything could change at any moment. Without the certainty of God’s character and his Word, life has no stable foundation. But when we rely on him, we will enjoy the peace of mind and fullness of heart that comes from knowing that God’s got this. He’s the same yesterday, today, and forever. He loves us, and nothing can change that.
Speak Up
Daniel wasn’t the first to risk everything and trust God with the outcome. Abraham was asked to sacrifice his precious son, Isaac, the miracle child he and Sarah had been promised and had waited for and finally conceived in their old age. Why would God give them this amazing gift only to ask them to give it back? Only God knew. But Abraham wasn’t asked to understand God’s logic or motive; Abraham was simply asked to obey.
By faith Abraham, when God tested him, offered Isaac as a sacrifice. He who had embraced the promises was about to sacrifice his one and only son, even though God had said to him, “It is through Isaac that your offspring will be reckoned.” Abraham reasoned that God could even raise the dead, and so in a manner of speaking he did receive Isaac back from death. (Heb. 11:17–19)
Abraham reasoned that God could raise the dead. He trusted the Lord to do the seemingly impossible because Abraham had already seen God do it before. Abraham didn’t refuse despite how unimaginable the sacrifice. You see, courage doesn’t try to figure out all the answers and refuse to act until it understands. Courage comes from the heart. Like love, courage requires a commitment of unbreakable trust. Courage is doing what you are afraid to do, and not allowing fear to rule your decisions. Simply put, courage looks up, stands up, and speaks up.
Courage looks up, stands up, and speaks up.
As Christians, many of us have a hard time speaking up for Jesus in public. Again, this struggle is nothing new: the apostle John tells us that even when Jesus walked among them, “No one had the courage to speak favorably about [Jesus] in public” (John 7:13 NLT). But the need to speak up in the name of Christ has never been greater.
I’m sure many of us have thought, I don’t know what to say that won’t hurt people. I don’t know how to reach them. My Christian views will seem so unloving—others won’t understand. If I stand for truth, what will people think of me?
But this is a risk we have to take. If we keep our hearts purely focused through continual prayer and praise and season our words with God’s grace, then we don’t have to worry about what others may think. God’s truth has the power to set people free—this should fuel our desire to connect with others, not a smug attempt to prove we’re right.
We know some people won’t want to hear what we have to say. Others may not like what we say, but they will respect us for speaking up and see our motive is not to be right but to be loving. This can be challenging, because, as I said in chapter 2, it’s easy to slip into an “us vs. them” attitude in which grace evaporates. But this can be averted by daily coming into God’s presence and aligning our perspectives with his. Then we will be strengthened both in the love with which we approach people and in our boldness and courage to engage rather than shy away from the conversation.
God’s truth has the power to set people free—this should fuel our desire to connect with others, not a smug attempt to prove we’re right.
We all need to be encouraged in this. Even the great apostle Paul needed encouragement in this area: “One night the Lord spoke to Paul in a vision: ‘Do not be afraid; keep on speaking, do not be silent’” (Acts 18:9).
“Wait a minute, Chris,” you might be saying. “What’s the big deal? I don’t need to speak up as long as I’m right with God in my heart.” And I would answer you by directing you to what Jesus said: “Stand up for me against world opinion and I’ll stand up for you before my Father in heaven” (Matt. 10:32 MSG).
And if we don’t? The next verse explains the consequences: “But everyone who denies me here on earth, I will also deny before my Father in heaven” (Matt. 10:33 NLT).
Do you realize how important it is that you not be a coward about your faith? Jesus said essentially, “Hey, if you deny me here on earth, I will deny you before my Father in heaven. If you’re ashamed of me, I’ll be ashamed of you.” Sound harsh? Not if you’re seriously committed to what you believe.
Consider how vocal everyone else in the world is about their beliefs. As social media continues to give almost everyone access to a channel for expressing their opinions, people make it clear they’re loud and proud of their viewpoints, but those with God’s truth fear being misunderstood or hated. Christians remain timid, even reluctant, to speak up for fear of a lions’ den looming ahead. But when these moments come up, think about Daniel, on his knees, praying as usual, despite the royal decree. Take courage, my friend, and stand strong in God’s truth.
Refuse to give up your ground.
Do what God wants, not what people want.