We must hold hands and jump together.

Appeal to you to read / study up on Dietrich Bonhoeffer. His times are a reminder to us, that if we do not do the hard things when it is time to do them, the severity of the things that will need to be done and the increased loss of lives, freedom, and property that result if we don't do them -- will rachet higher on the next round.

The difficulties of the churches and Christian associations in Germany in Hitler's time came about because they did not want to lose benefits.

It had long been the custom (and still is) that churches accepted (thus) approved of policemen collecting taxes to benefit the church. Pastors were paid by the civil government. When the civil government accelerated in to evil under Hitler's lead to lawfully murder and steal, it was that much harder to dissociate because it would cost them their livelihood.

This recapitulated the Scottish Reformation Covenanter era, prior to 1688, when the civil rulers required pastors/Bible teachers to conform to how the king/State thought Churches should be operated (who should pastor, who should take communion) and to not teach about the proper relation of the Lord Jesus Christ as sovereign over Church and State, and thus neither was Church sovereign over State (Roman Catholic Popery), nor was State sovereign over Church (Erastian/Church-of-England Prelacy/Bishops). This caused, at first, all the half-way decent men to leave their house/vocation and paycheck as ministers of the Church. The State then had to scape the bottom of the barrel of un-educated and un-principled men that were greedy for a paycheck to serve as pastors. Very few self-respecting, but un-trained, principled, Christian men were willing to serve as teachers with such restrictions placed on them either. Congregations were disgusted at the ridiculous teaching and scandalous lives of these replacements they could hardly bring themselves to attend on Sundays. There are stories of locking the church doors so that these "pastors" could not get in to serve.

That was so embarrasing to the king/official "church" that they offered an Indulgence where they would offer pastors a little more freedom and give back the house/vocation and paycheck as ministers of the Church -- if they would only not say the civil government was evil, should be refused and resisted by all good men, and that king did not have ethical authority over the Church.

Most Christians and pastors knew this was still wrong, but decided that the benefits of having pastors back in pulpits who could still teach a whole bunch of the other things the Bible said was worth the compromise. Christians were grateful to have better pastors back in the pulpit again, even under the limitations. Many good Christian ministers and laymen still thought was wrong, and still focused on the 'conventicles' where they would meet in illegal places (indoor and outdoor) and teach most of the Biblical truth (save not rebuking the acceptance of these Indulgences). They thought it was good not to make a stink about it, lest they dilute the unity and "strength" of Christians, since the struggle against evil civil government was bad enough already. Some think the battle of Bothwell Bridge was lost because of the Covenaters arguing over this very issue.

Though a great number were sympathetic, it got down to where the only ordained ministers that were witnessing to the destructive evil of what the compromised pastors and congregations were doing -- were Richard Cameron and Donald Renwick. Their point was that the Christian Community needed to admonish the compromisers to either disobey the "law" by teaching the whole truth in the churches, and to teach anywhere, everywhere, and anything the Bible/Christ called on them to teach -- or else resign their indulged, compromised papycheck/housing "benefits". When the policemen finally caught up with Cameron and Renwick and murdered them, many Christians thought it was justice due to their rebellious and anti-Christian revolutionary stance.

Cameron was murdered in 1680, and thus commenced the "killing times" for 5 years, as the most intense persocution of the  whole Covenanter period. Many think that the compromising gave the more credence to the government's objection that "most Christians think this 'minor' capitulation to the teaching restrictions is just fine, and that the only reason some Christians don't accept our terms is that they are law-breaking rebels against the legitimate authority of the king". This justified more persocution where patroling groups of soldiers/policemen would murder suspects on-site -- just for walking fast or for hesitating too long if asked to swear the oath ("the king is rightful sovereign authority in church and state"). In 1688 The Two Margarets were executed in the surf near Wigtown for refusing to take abjure this oath and the actions and teaching of Richard Cameron.

One huge concept that the Church cannot avoid -- as much in these days as in the days of Bar-Abbas -- is the issue of perjury. There was no neutrality on the morning of the trial of our Lord Jesus Christ before the Israeli legislature with the supreme court and before Pilate, the Roman governor. Each bystander could be in favor of calling this Jesus of Nazareth a capital criminal, or in calling Bar-Abbas (literally "son of the father") the capital criminal. His own people, the Jews, demanded of their idolatrous, pagan captors (Proclaiming exclusive allegience to the dictator alone -- "we have no king but Caesar", and I am afraid by king, they could not help meaning "god") -- they begged the government from whom they had so long suffered murders and thefts -- to execute their own rightful monarch.

After this perjury and false witness, it is no wonder Josephus records the Romans reluctantly reducing the nation at Jerusalem in 70 A.D. and Masada 3 years later. Masada was last-ditch rebellion by the Sicarii which had methods possibly similar to the charge against Bar-Abbas ("murder in the insurrection"). The Sicarii (literally: dagger-men) would sneak up in crowds and stab Romans and those who approved Roman taxation -- and melt away, loudly lamenting the assault with everyone else. Bar-Abbas was accused of insurrection and murder (Perhaps of tax-collectors), whereas Jesus was accused of "misleading our nation", "forbidding to pay taxes to Caesar", "stirs up the people", "incites the people to rebellion" [Luke 23]. John, in his gospel, adds to Bar-Abbas's accusation that he was a thief but doesn't add any adjective to the two crucified with Jesus. The other Gospels call them thieves or criminals (Luke). Luke is alone in declaring the saving election of one criminal who acknowledged the capital guilt of them both -- but rejected the official perjury of regarding Jesus as a capital criminal ("...we deserve...but this man has done nothing wrong"). The nation's Officers appealed to their sovereign in power and ethics (Tiberius Caesar, son of the divine Augustus & highest priest).

The other dramatic conversion at the foot of the cross came immediately after the death of Jesus. As the supernatural darkness was ending and the aftershocks of the earthquake were dying away, the police captain (centurion) exclaimed, "Surely this man was the Son of God" (Matthew) / innocent (Luke). Pilate, himself, did not follow the perjury of the Jewish leaders. Where the criminals had their accusations pinned up above their heads "For murder during a robbery", Pilate would only list the reason for Jesus's condemnation to capital execution as "Jesus of Nazareth: the King of the Jews". To the reader familiar with the Old Testament 'king of the jews' would mean Messiah, the fulfiller of all the prophecies about the Man who would come as the ultimate priest, king, and prophet.

As Messiah, Jesus would be the proper and final Owner of all flesh and all the earth. Yet here he is portrayed as the center-thief, between two thieves who were guilty of killing men out of their desire to gain control of a little money or property. This Jesus was claiming ownership of the World on par with the sovereign authority of the Most High God, and "killing" God, by virtue of displacing Him. Either He is the worst-ever Thief, or He is a good man and true with a royal patent that does not derive from the political and military might of some earthly electorate.

Our own generation must also risk perjury in a capital case -- and the sooner the better.

⁴² Jesus *said to them, “Did you never read in the Scriptures,

⁴³ Therefore I say to you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a ^[m]people, producing the fruit of it. ⁴⁴ And he who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces; but on whomever it falls, it will scatter him like dust.”

We either fall on this Stone -- sooner -- and be broken and resurrected by Him, or This Stone falls on us -- later -- and we be crushed to powder. We either say, with Thomas, He is the owner of all, and soveriegn of all -- or else He was a blashemeous capital criminal whom society must execute to avoid the wrath of Almighty God with Whom this Jesus is absolutely claiming equality of essence.