The gates of Hell will not prevail against the advance of the Kingdom of Christ. Christendom is not in quarantine hoping to ride out the deluge of disease outside it's pearly gates. The call to defend the faith once delivered is not a command to cloister. The enmity inserted into existence by God does not merely run the one direction. Yes, the world will hate us like it hated Christ, but do we hate the world the way Christ did? Which is to say, do we love the world the way the Father did? He so loved the world that He sent His Son as a weapon of mass destruction. He loved the world too much to watch it rot. He took the offensive and inserted Himself into our sorry situation. He flexed His initiative for the sake of His world, even while it was His enemy (Rom. 5:10). He loved His enemies by defeating them (Matt. 5:44). He blessed its rebels by making them obey.
Our hope is not in retreat, it is in reform. We only want to be left alone (1 Th 4:11) so that our leaven might work its way into everything else. We do not desire a Christian ghetto, but Christendom. All that to say, we don't desire peace and quiet without Christ. And we will not rest until the rest of the world rests in Him.
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