I don't think we will face persecution like our African brethern. Ours is more like our brethern in China.

May the Lord preserve His people in the midst of the calamities. The Apostle Paul in Romans 8 reminds that we are more than conquerers. But our status is not measured by earthly success but heavenly gain thru Christ our Lord.

I've found that keeping the long view in mind has helped my mood and outlook. When I was in the Service, I used to deploy. Going out was exciting but after about three days, I was ready to head home...with a long time yet to go before making it home again. Life to me is one long deployment. At the end, we get to return to a home port we have have never known or been before.

We may not agree on every aspect of what the Lord is doing and how He is doing that. On a separate thread, our Brother Frank aptly stated that knowing the mind of God is like trying to know all the grains of sand at the seashore when all we can comprehend is a single grain. Perhaps that is our situation. Let love cover our differences.

Thank you, Brother Frank, for your excellent response. Your "grain of sand" analogy is spot on.

My answer, sir: As I believe we know enough of what the Lord thinks about such regimes from His word, I hope such knowledge would not change our doctrines, at least the ones we *say* we believe. Perhaps considering how the Lord views sin would help us to deeper repentance of our own sin and a better marrying of our spoken doctrine and outward behavior (or "coversation" from Old English).

However, they certainly have gained in their losses as you so aptly described. The Lord Himself will avenge them as well.

But for folks who seek truth, we want something solid. Science cannot deliver. None of us were there when the Lord laid the foundations of the earth (Job), Science cannot recreate the scene. And the variety of opinions and changes and tightly held then discarded theories mounds up. So we follow the science to the Lord, which is its natural end anyway, but not where you or the scientists want us to go. Sorry to annoy you, and you are forgiven for annoying me.

The Bible shows another paradyme. The Lord has established what is right and what is wrong. He will hold each individual and groups of people accountable to that standard. Seeing as He made us and not we ourselves (Psalm 100), we don't have the option to crowd-source our morality. Polls, like stargazing, may be entertaining, but they are no way to figure out right from wrong. Psalm 19 points us toward God's holy and inspired word for that.

Meanwhile, the other side of the coin that a recent poster brought up is also necessary. Assisting individuals who became pregnant most likely thru sin to not sin further by murdering their child. As important as the first is, proclaiming the Lord Jesus and being His hands and feet can't take second stage.

It starts with having a Dad and Mom who are married to one another. It continues with hard work and the Lord's blessings thru that work. And it ends socialism in our times.