Introduction: I was reading R.C. Sproul’s The Hunger for Significance: Seeing the Image of God in Man, and came across this zinger from one of the best minds and hearts I’ve been blessed to discover through his writings: Jonathan Edwards.

Edwards’ zinger: “If love is the sum of Christianity, surely those things which overthrow love are exceedingly unbecoming to Christians. An envious Christian, a malicious Christian, a cold and hard-hearted Christian, is the greatest absurdity and contradiction. It is as if one should speak of dark brightness, or a false truth” (from Edwards’ Charity and Its Fruits).

Encouragement: I read an article recently that claimed that biblical Christianity is again on the rise in the places where it is most persecuted. As one who studies a great amount of church history, the article did not surprise me. That has been the pattern throughout church history. When truth is most hated by the secular system, it spreads. Persecution is used by God to spur true Christians to seriousness and commitment.

Easy times, on the other hand, result in watered-down, mind-numbingly shallow and/or false Christianity, which is no Christianity at all. That is where many places are–hollow shells of the theology their members once laid claim and allegiance to. Those are the kinds of places Satan adores; they’re no threat to him or his legions of demons.

But what Sproul is driving at in his book, and what Edwards expressed in his inimitable ways in his many works, is that genuine Christianity is unstoppable. Why? Because it’s true. Because it’s rooted in the God who walked out of the grave, conquering death, the tomb, demons, Satan, and hell. And it’s rooted in the God who loved sinners enough to both die and live for them.