Condensed from Ralph Martin’s talk at Lift Jesus Higher 2023.
One of the first tremendous challenges we have is what’s happening in our culture. It’s hard to believe how quickly things are deteriorating and getting closer and closer to insanity. All the levers of power and influence in our culture are in the hands of people who are hostile to Christ and the Church. They really don’t like Christians at all, and they really don’t want us to say what we need to say if we confess Jesus Christ.
Huge sections of humanity are falling for this fundamental temptation, the temptation the devil presented in the Garden to liberate ourselves from obeying God, to think that we can make ourselves into whatever we want. A lot of suffering is going to happen and is already happening because of it. Particularly, suffering is happening in the area of sexual immorality, which is the point of the spear coming at Christians today from the secular world.
Division within the Church is another challenge we are facing today. Just when the world needs to hear a clear word from the Church, a clear message of repentance and faith in Jesus Christ as the only hope for humanity, we instead have division, apostasy, and open rebellion. Under the surface, many people have wanted to change the Church and its teachings for many years in all kinds of areas. Still, I never thought I would see very high-ranking churchmen, cardinals, openly say they do not believe what the Catholic Church teaches about sexuality to be true.
What do we do in a situation like this? How should we live as Catholics in these challenging times? Why would God permit these obviously evil things, this rebellion? He’s a patient God, and my thought is that when people don’t return to Him after receiving the many blessings He’s given them, He sometimes starts tightening the screws. The Lord is using all that is going on to try to bring people to their senses. We all must make some serious personal decisions. Who do we believe? Who are we going to follow?
Who do you say Jesus is? If Jesus is Lord, then the only sensible response to Him is total surrender. Many people have added Jesus to their collection of important people, influential thinkers, and wise counselors. No. Jesus is the Lord. We must fall on our faces before Him and say, “Speak Lord, for your servant is listening” (1 Sm 3:10).
A third thing we need to do to keep peaceful hearts and clear heads is to recover our confidence in the truthfulness and reliability of Sacred Scripture. Two areas that we need to get particularly clear on are marriage and sexuality, because, in many ways, this is where the battle is taking place.
It doesn’t take rocket science, and it doesn’t take reading a four-hundred-page book to get clear on these points. God created us male and female for the purpose of bringing a man and woman together in holy marriage open to life. That’s it. Any exercise of sexuality outside of holy marriage is offensive to the Lord and damaging to people.
Lastly, I think we need to get ready for persecution. How do you get ready for persecution? You grow in your relationship with the Lord. You grow in your knowledge of his Word, and you deal with the Antichrist with spiritual weapons.
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