Throughout history, the preaching and free exercise of our faith has always required an act of civil disobedience, going against the status quo, and challenging societal norms, and the Bible warns us repeatedly that we would suffer various forms of reprisal and persecution on behalf of the name of the Lord Jesus whom we are called to represent and we need to prepare ourselves and our families accordingly for those times and for those seasons and if, God forbid, the anti-Christ forces within our nation should ever seize power, we, as followers of Jesus are going to be challenged to risk everything, including our own lives for the sake of the Gospel.
The Bible admonishes that we are not to fear man who can only at worst kill us, but instead we are to fear God who is able to cast both body and soul into Hell. (Mt. 10:28)
Whatever happens, when we are faced with reprisal and threats of reprisal for the preaching and exercising of our faith, we must remember that those who would persecute us for our faith will have to give an account before God themselves for everything that they have done in this life and we must remember that it is not man from whom we will receive the final rewards and honors, but it is from God that we will receive them (1 Cor. 3:11-15) which is why we need to value the honor and pleasure of God above that of man, for the praise and honor that comes from man is temporary but the honor and praise that we will receive from our God will last for eternity.
Devoted followers of Jesus from the when the Church was first established to this very day have understood this and it is the desire to please God that spurred them faithful service to His Kingdom, even at the risk of severe persecution and the cost of their very lives because they feared God enough to prefer the disfavor, condemnation from, and the wrath of man which is temporal rather than the displeasure and wrath of Almighty God which is eternal.
Those who have surrendered their lives and souls to the Lordship of Jesus Christ and to the service of His Kingdom have done with such great and tremendous risk and cost have not only done so in nations, kingdoms, empires, and in societies in which Christians face both severe civic and social persecution, but even in countries in which they are supposed to be able to practice and proclaim their faith freely. Even in this nation, there have been a massive amount of cases in which professing Christians have risked and lost livelihoods and jobs due to living in accordance to the dictates of their faith, and in some cases, have even been incarcerated and in the worst case scenarios, there have even been some cases of martyrdom at the hands of fellow citizens and if you find that hard to believe, all one needs to do is visit sites like Alliance Defending Freedom, the American Center For Law And Justice, The Family Research Council, and the American Family Association; you will find a long list of cases of the Constitutional and civil rights of Christians being violated by local, state, and under the previous anti-Christ Democrat Presidential administrations, even by the federal government.
The latest threat against Christians comes from the state of California in which the California state legislature passed two so-called hate speech legislation which was then signed by Governor Gavin Losernewsom. [1] For the private sector, California Assembly Bill 1803 states:
An employer shall also provide training inclusive of harassment based on gender identity, gender expression, and sexual orientation as a component of the training and education…
...an employer shall also include anti-hate speech training...Anti-hate speech training shall provide supervisors and employees with practical guidance on recognizing, reporting, and confronting workplace speech that vilifies, humiliates, or incites hatred [2]
And for the civic sector, Assembly Bill 1578 lays out similar mandates:
Existing law requires local agency officials, as defined, to receive sexual harassment prevention training and education if the local agency provides any type of compensation, salary, or stipend to those officials. Existing law requires the training and education to include practical examples aimed at instructing the local agency official in the prevention of sexual harassment, discrimination, and retaliation.
This bill would additionally require…the above-described training and education to include for any elected local agency official, as a component of the training and education, anti-hate speech training…
the training and education required by this section for any elected local agency official shall also include anti-hate speech training as a component of the training and education. Anti-hate speech training shall provide practical guidance on recognizing, reporting, engaging or participating in, and confronting speech that vilifies, humiliates, or incites hatred…[3]
The problem with so-called hate speech legislation is that they do not determine what speech constitutes as the vilification, humiliation, or inciting hatred of anyone of based on their gender, sexual identity or orientation, gender or respective faith. Even a moral objection or expressing a disagreement with a certain behavior or the tenets of a particular religion and the refusal to affirm or celebrate that which with one might disagree with may be interpreted and called out as hate speech and this is what concerns Christians in California who believe that they must be prepared to practice civil disobedience [4] in order to remain faithful in their service to our Lord and Savior even though it may risk civil suits and civic reprisal and if should ever come to that, it will not be the first time that Christians in this nation have been faced with a choice between following the dictates of their faith and conscience or to appease anti-Christ governing powers at the expense of violating the teachings of their professed faith but because they feared the displeasure of God more than the displeasure of man, they chose to stand firm in their faith rather than rather than obey laws and regulations that opposed the laws and dictates of their faith at the risk of paying a tremendous civic price for that and with some even paying that price.
I pray that these two pieces of legislation will be challenged in court and overturned, but if in our country we risk persecution for our faith where we should be able to proclaim and practice it openly, how much more at risk might we be without the freedom to be able do so, but nevertheless we ourselves are not being asked to make any greater of a sacrifice or to suffer any more on behalf of the Kingdom of God than others have been asked and if the day should come when our Constitution which was designed to uphold and protect our freedoms is overthrown and our God-given freedoms are stripped away, what will we as followers of Jesus do then?
Will we fear man above God, or will we fear God above man? I would like to think that most of us would fear God above man and continue, even in spite of the loss of the freedoms we presently enjoy, to zealously and faithfully serve our Lord and Savior to the best of our ability even in spite of such a loss and that we would continue to do so as if we still had those freedoms, but and that we as a whole would retain a bold and steadfast commitment, but at the same time, I fear that most professors of the faith would simply confess defeat and surrender to the forces of darkness because they fear man more than they fear God and value the things of this present world more than those things of the new and better world to come that we are promised. (Rev. 21-22)
When we are faced with a choice between the favor of man or the favor of God, whether we stand firm on behalf of the Kingdom and on behalf of all that is good and right in His sight, or capitulate to the forces of darkness and to those who have set themselves against God Almighty is going to show what it is we truly value and regardless of what happens with our elections, we should resolve in ourselves that there should be no other options for us except that we either win or die trying because we should not accept anything less except that with the help of God, we win or we die trying because no matter what happens, we should not accept anything less except that “we win and they lose” because death will always be better than the loss of our God-given freedoms.
End notes:
1. Ian M. Giatti, “'Civil disobedience will be necessary': Christian family group sounds alarm on California's 'anti-hate speech' training,” Christian Post, October 9, 2026
https://www.christianpost.com/news/christian-family-groups-sounds-alarm-on-new-california-law.html?utm_source=notifpush.com&utm_medium=web-push
2. California Assembly Bill 1803
https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=202520260AB1803
3. California Assembly Bill 1578
https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=202520260AB1578
4. Giatti, “'Civil disobedience will be necessary': Christian family group sounds alarm on California's 'anti-hate speech' training,” Christian Post, October 9, 2026
Scripture references:
1. Matthew 10:28
2. 1 Corinthians 3:11-15
3. Revelation 21-22
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