Wake Up, Look Up

Hello, everybody. Thanks for listening to Wake Up, Look Up, a podcast where we connect events happening in real time to the gospel of Jesus Christ. I'm Zach Weihrauch. And in today's episode, we're talking about being arrested for speaking out or asking, is the gospel still safe to preach? This is prompted by a pretty scary article in the New York Times about laws in The United Kingdom about what you are allowed to say and not allowed to say.

For example, in The UK right now, about twelve thousand people are arrested every year for what is deemed hate speech. Meaning, their only crime was that they said something that someone else didn't like and found hateful. In fact, in Britain, they're not just limiting it to the crime of hate speech, but also to what they call noncrime offenses. This is where it gets really scary. If I say something that you decide is hateful, particularly something I say that is negative about your physical appearance or or anything that you might feel falls under protected status.

In Britain, you can file a complaint. There is no objective standard as to whether or not I've done something that's below or above what makes it a noncrime. It's simply this. If you file a complaint, that gets connected to my name. Now it's a noncrime, so you don't have to worry about going to jail.

But the noncrime offenses are listed on your credit report, on your background checks. So it's entirely possible that particularly if you work in education or health care, that when someone is looking at you for a job, they will see five, seven, eight, nine complaints that your neighbors or people have made about the things you say. I know you might think that I'm exaggerating, but I'm really not. In fact, in The United Kingdom, parents have gone to jail for criticizing their child's school on WhatsApp. That's right.

Just making critical comments about a school landed parents in jail. Journalists have gone to jail. One guy got arrested for three memes that he posted on Facebook. That's because the state is using vague laws related to so called hate, stemming all the way back, some of them, to 1988. Think about how different the world was back then.

But vague laws lead to state control. Now the reason why this is important for Wulu, leaving aside the concerns about free speech and freedom in general, is because the gospel of Jesus Christ is offensive. The gospel calls us all sinners, all of us. It we're sinful in the way we act. We're sinful in our sexuality.

We're sinful in the way we handle our money. We all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, to quote Paul from the book of Romans chapter three. And that means that from time to time, anywhere the gospel is preached, hard things are going to have to be said. And, of course, the consequence of that is that people who do don't wanna hear those hard things are going to respond negatively. And if you think that isn't true, try reading the new testament because Jesus is attacked for what he says.

Paul, Stephen, Peter, they all are attacked for what they say because what they have to say isn't always what people wanna hear, which means it is entirely possible that those who seek to share their faith, represent their faith, or call others to faith, at least in The United Kingdom, might find themselves on noncrime lists or even being arrested for hate speech. Of course, the Bible calls us to share the gospel. First Corinthians nine sixteen says, woe to me if I don't preach the gospel. Romans 10 says, how will they believe in whom they've never heard? So Christians are going to increasingly, potentially, if laws like this aren't are not changed, find themselves between a rock and a hard place.

Their neighbor, who will take them to the police if they talk about Jesus, and Jesus who expects for us to talk about him. The truth is the moment is coming for many of us to make a decision about whether or not, to borrow from Paul in the book of Galatians, were pleasers of men or pleasers of God. This is a decision the book of Acts is all about. After all, one time when the apostles were imprisoned and beaten for preaching the gospel, in Acts chapter five, they say, hey. Judge for yourselves whether we should make you happy or God happy, but we are going to keep preaching the gospel.

Listen. Political involvement matters because laws like this do change the definition of freedom. They put every group, not just Christians, in jeopardy of an overzealous government that might not share their worldview. But for Christians in particular, God's call to preach the gospel, to share the gospel from the pulpit and one on one in your office and at the park and in your home is never going to go away. And no matter what the government says, we are not loving God or loving our neighbor if we don't tell the truth.

So consider where you will fall in this moment if it comes for you. Will you please god or will you please men? Well, let's hope in America, free speech never comes under this attack. But even if it does, know this, no government, not the British government, the United States government, or any government in human history has ever or will ever stop the gospel of Jesus. Hey.

Thanks for watching this episode of Wake Up, Look Up. If you enjoyed it, please help us get the word out by sharing it with someone you think might benefit from it. And while you're here, make sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel to get further content or even download the CCC app where you'll find even more resources to help you grow in your faith and relationship with Jesus Christ.

Have an article you’d like Pastor Zach to discuss? Email us at wakeup@ccchapel.com!