Save America Ministries

Guest (Male): This is Viewpoint with attorney and author Chuck Crismier. Viewpoint is a one-hour talk show confronting the issues of America's heart and home. And now, with today's edition of Viewpoint, here is Chuck Crismier.

Chuck Crismier: "We're going to have peace in the world," declared Donald Trump at the World Economic Forum. You may recall that back in January, the later part of January. What are the peace prospects, though? What are the peace prospects for our world? What are the peace prospects for Christians in our world?

Today on Viewpoint, we're going to take a look at that subject, and I'm glad that you've joined us. As always, it's conversation with ever-increasing conviction, and indeed today is no exception in that regard. We're going to see why that would be, some rather unusual stories around the world, and I'm glad we've got your attention here as we talk about this matter of peace.

You know that the angels cried out there to the shepherds, declaring that there would be one who was being born, the Prince of Peace. His name shall be called, as Isaiah said, "Wonderful Counselor, the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace." And of the government, of His government, there shall be no end upon the throne of David to order it and to establish it with judgment and justice from this time forth and even forevermore.

Well, that was Isaiah 9:6 and 7, frequently quoted at Christmas time. "His name shall be called the Prince of Peace." That's what the angels said to the shepherds there as Jesus was being born in the house of bread, Bethlehem, now as part of the so-called West Bank in Israel.

The Bible says men will cry, "Peace, peace," but there will be no peace. And apparently, that means until the Prince of Peace rules and reigns on this planet. Jesus is going to come to judge the world in righteousness, the scripture says, and when He does, there will be indeed peace like never before on the planet. And yet even then, the hearts of men will be so wicked that even after a thousand years of His reign of Christ, they will rise up again against the Lord and have rebellion. There will not be peace because the spirit of Satan himself, the arch-enemy of Jesus Christ and the Father, will rise up through the humankind and will have to be formally crushed.

Peace, peace. It's an illusory thing. Everybody desires peace. Who doesn't desire peace? You want peace in your family. You want peace in your heart. You want peace in your home. You want peace in your place of work. You want peace in your country, in your neighborhood. You want peace. Everybody wants peace in a sense, but maybe not quite as much as we would think.

I was thinking of the song "Peace, Peace, Wonderful Peace," flowing down from the Father above, or some of the other songs that contain the word peace. "When peace like a river attendeth my way, when sorrows like sea billows roll. Whatever my lot, thou hast caused me to say, it is well with my soul." Peace. We like the feeling of peace.

But peace requires more than a feeling. It requires something more deeply rooted in our minds and in our hearts. In fact, it requires that Jesus Christ and His salvation message and His spirit be rooted so deeply in our minds and hearts that it is almost inextricable. And then we will have what is called the peace of God that shall rule and reign in our hearts by faith.

The peace of God. Billy Graham wrote about that. In fact, he had an entire book called "Peace with God." Well, peace with God is one thing. In other words, when we come into a relationship with Him, confess our sin, and determine to repent of it. But what if we don't? What if we don't repent of it, or what if we say we repent of it and then return to it? Then we lose our peace.

We lose our peace because peace with God requires that we walk with God in the light of His word. Then, as the song says, what a glory He sheds on our way when we do His good will. He abides with us still and with all who will trust and obey. When we trust and obey, we have peace with God once we have come into relationship with Him through the blood of Christ.

So it requires a walk. Not just a talk, but a walk. A walk with the Lord in the light of His word. Apparently, a fellow by the name of Enoch back in the Old Testament, what was he, the seventh from Adam, had peace with God. In fact, so much so that the Bible says at about 300 years of age, he was not, for God took him. God took him. Apparently, he had an amazing peace with God.

But Adam did not have peace with God. Eve did not have peace with God once they decided to align themselves with Satan's question, "Hath God said?" And they decided to go along with the serpent's message. They lost their peace with God, so much so that they ran from God and hid in the Garden of Eden, thinking they could hide from God.

How many people think that they can hide from God that way? That's where we got the term fig leaves. Remember fig leaves? It was a euphemistic way of expressing our ability or our desire to hide from God. But we cannot hide from God because all things are open before Him with whom we have to do, the scripture says. All things are open.

So we can't hide from God. He's omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent. We can't hide from Him. And so we think we can. We conjure in our minds that we can, but the reality is we can't. And the consequence of not being able to hide from God is that we try to hide from Him in our hearts. And when we do that, we don't have peace.

We don't have peace. And the Holy Spirit, being God's expression of mercy and kindness, calling us to repentance in the world, will bring conviction into our hearts. Which, if we respond to favorably, will allow us to renew our peace. But if we reject that, then we don't have peace and, in fact, we give right to Satan himself to bring condemnation to us. Then we try to justify the condemnation and say, "Well, that's because," and then we say Satan is trying to get me. No, it's because you decided not to follow God's word, will, and ways in any particular point or a variety of points.

So, yes, you can gain peace and you can lose peace. Peace is a very fragile thing. Have you noticed that? A very fragile thing. And so we're going to take a look at that here on the program today as we look at some situations around the world, and I'm glad that you've joined us.

It is amazing. I have just completed or am completing reading a fascinating book that I talked about with you last week concerning what happened in Hitler's Germany and how it affected the Jewish people and others who rose up to try to help protect them. There was no peace. There was no peace in Germany, no peace in Hitler's Germany. There's no peace in Kim Jong-un's North Korea. There's no peace anywhere in the world, in Nigeria or anywhere where the Prince of Peace is not ruling. But whether dictatorial folk come in to deprive people of peace, it is nothing but terror. We'll be right back. Stay tuned, friends. You're listening to Viewpoint.

Guest (Male): Once upon a time, children could pray and read their Bibles in school. Divorces were practically unknown, as was child abuse. In our once great America, virginity and chastity were popular virtues and homosexuality was an abomination. So what happened in just one generation? Hi, I'm Chuck Crismier, and I urge you to join me daily on Viewpoint, where we discuss the most challenging issues touching our hearts and homes. Could America's moral slide relate to the Fourth Commandment? Listen to Viewpoint on this radio station or anytime at saveus.org.

If we're going to have peace in our hearts, there has to be faith that drives it. Without faith, we're going to have fear and there'll be no peace. So we're either going to have to prevail, we're going to have to overcome, we're going to have to be able to stand in the evil day or not. And if we don't stand, we're going to have fear and we're not going to have peace.

Chuck Crismier: Jesus said, "My peace I give unto you, not as the world gives. Not as the world gives." So there is a kind of peace that's an enduring peace notwithstanding the circumstances around us. It may not be happy out there, but if we're walking in holiness and in righteousness, without which no man and holiness without which no man will see the Lord, we are going to have peace in the innermost part of our being.

So we have to have victory. We have to have victory over the things that take away peace. And there's no compromise with evil. There can't be any attitude or action of compromise with the forces of an increasingly godless culture, nor accommodation to its demands so as to achieve some kind of a modicum of purported peace to evade persecution, for instance.

Loyalty to Christ and Christ alone is not negotiable. That has to be our heart and mindset or our faith will fail and we'll not have peace. So, that having been said, we go back to the opening statement here on the program today from Donald Trump. "We're going to have peace in the world." That's what he said at the World Economic Forum back in January.

There's been widespread speculation that Trump intended to use a Board of Peace to replace the United Nations in settling conflicts around the world. In that context, he said, "We're going to have peace in the world," as he spoke to the audience. And following the signing of the peace charter, Trump signed the board's inaugural resolution regarding Gaza, according to the UN resolution 2803.

Now, at that time, the article came out from Newsmax wires. "Trump formally launches Board of Peace in Davos." Now, remember Davos is symbolic of globalism. The World Economic Forum, Davos, Switzerland. It was all about globalism. Now Donald Trump says we're going to have peace.

The World Economic Forum was promising peace. In fact, Klaus Schwab said you're not going to own anything and you're going to be happy about it. In other words, you're going to have peace. You're not going to own anything, but you're going to have peace. You're going to be happy about it. Well, you may wonder how that could possibly be. But it's going to take, they promised to take all the stress out of life, and government will provide everything for you, and thereby you will have peace.

Kind of like what's happened in this country with the younger generations having an entitlement mentality. They think they have peace because everything's been promised to them and they didn't have to work for it. So President Donald Trump formally launched the Board of Peace, signing the charter of the new international body during a high-profile ceremony.

He sat at a table at the front of the stage as officials from Bahrain and Morocco were invited forward to sign and ratify the board's founding charter, with about 20 other leaders following and signing the document in front of a backdrop displaying the organization's newly unveiled logo. He said the charter is now in full force and the Board of Peace is now an official international organization.

Well, how did you become a member of the Board of Peace? You had to fork up a billion dollars. A billion dollars on the table would enable you to become an agent of peace. 20 people, 20 nations. But the majority of those nations had not shown any interest in peace whatsoever. In fact, most of them were Arab nations or Muslim nations.

So what kind of peace was it they were looking for? By gaining dominion through power and the payment of a billion dollars each in order to have a major say-so to corral the rest of the world into their Islamic agenda? Interesting. So another article says that Trump's Board of Peace poses the latest in a series of US challenges to the United Nations.

Now, you remember in 1945, the year I was born, the United Nations was born. And it wasn't born because I was born, but I happened to have been born right about the same time of the year that the United Nations was born. And it was born supposedly, ostensibly, to bring peace on earth, goodwill toward men. To unite the nations, to speak together, to resolve the world's problems, and to bring peace on earth.

Woodrow Wilson had tried to do that back around 1917 with his League of Nations and it never worked. Never got off the ground in reality. But the United Nations did. But according to Donald Trump, it hasn't accomplished anything. It's just talk. It's a talking center, but it accomplishes nothing. 80 years old, the world body and uncertainty about its future as a primary force in brokering peace worldwide.

That's according to Donald J. Trump. So where are we now? What is going on in our world now that there is supposedly a Board of Peace? Is the world more peaceful? Well, we don't find peace in Gaza yet. They haven't given up their weapons yet. So there isn't peace there.

So where is the peace? Is there peace there between Russia and Ukraine? No, there's no peace there either. Is there peace in Venezuela? No. Is there peace in Cuba? No. In fact, this very day, Russia has landed there with a major plane, bringing back the remembrance of the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1963 under JFK.

I happened to be alive at that time. I was in Florida, senior in high school when the governor of Florida declared that every student, every high school student, that is every senior high school student, had to take a special class in Americanism versus Communism. And it upset the regular curriculum, so it was added to the curriculum and required that we all get up and leave our homes at 6:30 in the morning to meet at the Civic Center auditorium for an hour of indoctrination in Americanism versus Communism before the annual school day began.

So I've lived through those kinds of things. Lived through the Korean War, lived through the Vietnam War, lived through the very ends of World War II and the results of that. And then, of course, the Iraq War, and it seems like wars never cease. There's no peace on earth. And yet we're said that in the last 50, 60 years, it's been the most peaceful time in the world. But it doesn't sound like it, does it?

It doesn't sound like it. You'd never know that. And then there's a different kind of peace. There's a peace that has to, it's a spiritual peace. Now we talked about a spiritual peace from Jesus' viewpoint. If you embrace Him as your Lord and Savior and walk with God the Father in spirit and in truth, you will have peace. Not as the world gives, but you let not your heart be troubled by the things going on in the world because you're trusting God through His son Jesus Christ and therefore you have peace that otherwise is not understandable by the world. But you have inner peace.

Now, the bridge between the inner peace then and the outer peace finds its connection oftentimes not in wars in general, but in what is called persecution. That's a different kind of war. And so we want to take a look for a little bit at what's going on in that regard.

The top story of 2025, according to the Christian Post, was persecution in Nigeria. The top story. This should have been the top story for the news media, but they didn't want to pick up on it because they hated Christianity. The major news media, the so-called legacy media, does not like Christianity unless, of course, you're a liberal Catholic. Then they do. Otherwise, they don't.

They mock Christianity, they mock Christians, they mock evangelical Christians. They have no place in their minds or their hearts for you or for any around the world who are suffering. Yet one of the top Christian worldview stories of 2025 was the ongoing, worsening situation for Christians in the nation of Nigeria.

President Trump even designated Nigeria as a country of particular concern. He also called on members of Congress to offer recommendations on combating the persecution. And that led the State Department, the United States State Department, to put Nigeria back on a persecution watch list.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio even got involved, threatening the Nigerian officials with financial penalties, visa bans, and aid cuts if steps were not taken to curb anti-Christian violence and meet US counter-terrorism standards. And all of this happened at the end of the worst year on record for Christian persecution in general.

So, was there peace then? Was there peace on the planet with regard to Christians in general? Answer, no. Notwithstanding all of the talk about peace. While Western media had largely ignored one of the most significant human rights crises of the day, other voices have been loud and clear.

For instance, in a speech before the UN General Assembly back in September, President Trump said to world leaders, "Let us protect religious liberty, including for the most persecuted religion on the planet. It's called Christianity." Now, those were Donald Trump's words. The most persecuted religion on the planet today, called Christianity.

Now, why would that be? Well, the reason that is, is because Jesus said, "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man will come to the Father but by me." But that's deemed to be exclusionary, not inclusive. Therefore, it's unacceptable to the majority of people on the planet, particularly political liberals and other religions.

It's unacceptable. Therefore, it must be resisted. And how do you resist it? Through persecution. That's what's happening. And even the so-called legacy media in this country, the various news media agencies and so-called, have no love lost whatsoever for true followers of Jesus Christ. None. And so by refusing to acknowledge them, by refusing to allow their voices into the culture at large, it is a form of tacit persecution.

In other words, they're not crusading with bats and guns and screaming and yelling. They're just silent. And silence oftentimes is consent. Consent to what? Persecution, alienation, straight-arming, whatever you want to call it. 14 years ago, in his book "The Next Christendom," by Philip Jenkins, he predicted that the center of global Christianity would move from the West to the Global South, particularly in Africa and Asia.

In fact, he specifically identified Nigeria as a likely epicenter of the next Christendom due to the size of the Christian population there. So one writer says it's not coincidental that Nigeria is now at the epicenter of Muslim resistance and violence. So Christians around the world must continue to appeal to heaven on behalf of our brothers and sisters in Nigeria.

But not just in Nigeria. All over the world, friends. It's everywhere. And before we go further, if you do not already have a copy of my recent book, "When Persecution Comes," you need to get it. Because it's going to help you to understand not just about persecution, those are the facts.

But this book is not just about the facts of persecution. This is a book about how to prepare our hearts for these perilous times. You see, that's the real issue. Because if you don't have your heart prepared for what's going to happen, if you haven't prepared your children, your grandchildren, pastors, if you haven't prepared your people openly, intentionally, you have disprepared them.

You have left them stranded, and that is, well, it's almost like child abuse. It really is. It's almost like child abuse. Get a copy of this book, friends. It's favorable to you and to your family. $22 on our website, saveus.org. Call us, 1-800-SAVE-USA. Write to us. "When Persecution Comes."

Guest (Male): There is so much more about Chuck Crismier and Save America Ministries on our website, saveus.org. For example, under the marriage section, God has marriage on His mind. Chuck has some great resources to strengthen your marriage. First off, a fact sheet on the state of the marital union, a fact sheet on the state of ministry marriage and morals, saveus.org. Marriage, divorce, and remarriage. What does the Bible really teach about this? Find all of this at saveus.org. Also, a letter to pastors, the Hosea project, saveus.org. And many more resources to strengthen your marriage. It's all on Chuck's website, saveus.org. Again, you can listen to Chuck's Viewpoint broadcast live and archived. Save America Ministries website at saveus.org.

Chuck Crismier: Welcome back to Viewpoint. Well, faith is the victory that overcomes the world, that overcomes the spirit of the world, that overcomes the ways of the world, that overcomes the wars of the world. Faith is the victory. But faith is not only something we have, it's something we do. In fact, Jesus' brother James, you remember what he said: "But be you doers of the word and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves."

So the doings of faith are driven by our trust based on our belief revealed in our obedience. So when any of those things, those factors, faith, trust, and belief and obedience, are missing, they're the facets of Christian faith. When they're weak or non-existent, we're going to find ourselves facing the eternal precipice of failure of faith.

So what is that going to look like in your mind and heart? It's going to look like lack of peace. Peacelessness. So Jesus said it this way. He said, "He that shall endure to the end, the same shall be saved." So what does that mean? To endure is to persevere faithfully and patiently. We're told to lay aside every weight and the sin that does so easily beset us so that we can run with patience, endurance, the race that is set before us, always looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross.

So then the same Jesus that endured the cross turned around and He said, "Unless you're able and willing to take up your cross daily, you can't even be my disciple." So how can we say we have peace in our hearts if we're not taking up our cross daily? You say, "Well, that doesn't sound like a very nice thing to say. That doesn't sound very peaceful."

Well, in a sense, you remember we talk about spiritual warfare. Spiritual warfare is not peaceful in and of itself. It indicates a battle. There's a battle that's going on, and that battle usually is between your ears. Between my ears, between your ears, between our ears. It's the battle of the flesh against the spirit.

Now there's no persecution that's directly involved in that. We persecute ourselves. We allow the spirit of the age, the world, the flesh, the devil, we allow those things to take preeminence in our life to cause us to make choices like Adam and Eve in the garden. To make choices that are in disagreement with God, in whole or in part. And when we do that, when we make choices that are in disagreement with God, we lose our peace. We just do.

And then we try to find ways to rationalize or justify why we didn't do what God wanted us to do. Just like Adam and Eve did. "Well, you know that it was that that serpent, he deceived me." "Well, it was that woman you gave me. She's the one that gave it to me." Yes, but you had to eat it. "Oh, well, yes, I, you know, if Mama wasn't happy, then nobody's happy, so I had to eat it," said Adam.

Just kind of reading between the lines. So you can see how we play this game and they didn't have peace. In fact, God said, "You're not going to have peace for the rest of your life." Did you know that? God said that. Yep. He said the serpent's going to be after you for the rest of your life. Genesis chapter three. He also said to Eve, "Now, you're going to have problems, Eve. In fact, there's going to be a great deal of pain in childbirth, and it's because of what you did. It's because you defied my word, my will, and my ways, and you didn't coerce but you persuaded your husband to defy my will. So you took away his peace, and now you're not going to have peace in childbirth, and neither are any of the women following you for the rest of your lives."

You can read it right there. And He said, not only that, but your desire is going to be unto your husband and he's going to rule over you. So in other words, there was going to be continued strife to some level between men and women, between husbands and wives. Have you noticed that that's there? And that's why the Apostle Paul says if you're really in Christ, women are going to humble themselves before their husbands and obey them, honor their husbands, reverence their husbands as unto the Lord, and husbands are going to love their wives as Christ loved the church.

That's a whole different standard, a whole new standard, because without doing that, there can be no peace. There's no peace in the home. You see, in order to have peace, we have to be people of peace from Jesus' viewpoint. Not from our viewpoint, but from Jesus' viewpoint. Not from the culture's viewpoint, but from Jesus' viewpoint.

So these are the kinds of things that we're dealing with on the ground in our lives, but that's not all that we're dealing with because our brothers and sisters around the world are dealing with open and notorious persecution. And the reality is whether you want to accept it and believe it or not, it's coming home to roost in the United States of America and throughout Europe.

Even this very day, a representative of the Finnish parliament is testifying before Congress or will testify before Congress concerning the amazing persecution that has come upon her as a Christian in Finland as she has been charged what, three times now or four, even after the courts have ruled against the prosecution. They're still going after her because of her faith.

So she's testifying before Congress. That's in Finland. The Western Hemisphere or the Western world. So these things are not games. It's real. And that's why I wrote the book "When Persecution Comes: Preparing Hearts for Perilous Times." I believe that the Lord really prompted me deep in my soul to write this book. It wasn't easy to write. But it's a book of encouragement to professing Christians as to how to live victoriously in times like these.

And it's coming rapidly across the Atlantic. It's in the United States of America. Many of our Christian brothers and sisters have experienced it or are experiencing it in different ways in this country. For the 24th consecutive year, North Korea now bears the distinction of being arguably the most dangerous place on the planet to follow Jesus. That's according to Open Doors, which slapped the impoverished pariah state with 97 out of 100 on its persecution ranking.

That's right up there at the top because of so-called dictatorial paranoia, Kim Jong-un. Like his father and grandfather before him, that North Korean dictator and his government demand worship and absolute allegiance, forcing Christians who believe in a power higher than the state to gather in secret.

Do you know, friends, that that's exactly what Hitler required? He required worshipful obedience. His picture had to be placed everywhere. In churches, everywhere. People had to say "Heil Hitler." If you did not, you were guilty virtually of treason. The slightest offenses of disagreeing with his lordship, the Fuhrer, would bring the death penalty.

And then they would conspire against you through family and friends and go through months and years of searching to get people to tell on one another. In our families, we call that tattling. In the broader sense, we call it betrayal. That's what Judas did with Jesus, remember? And Jesus said it's going to be just like that in the latter days within our homes, within our churches. That's what happened in Hitler's Germany.

And we say "never again," but it's happening all over again. And it's going to happen even the more so as global government comes to bring its heavy hand through a one-world order and an anti-Christ lordship that is demonstrated economically in Revelation chapters 13 and 14. That infamous Mark of the Beast. What do you think that's about? It's about coercing every human being on the planet to say "Heil Hitler." It's about coercing every single person on the planet to pledge their allegiance to his worshipful honor, the Antichrist, and his system, the beast system.

And if Jesus said it was going to happen, if Paul said it was going to happen, if Peter said it was going to happen, if John said it was going to happen, then why do you think it's not going to happen? Why do you think you're the exception to the rule? You're not. And that's why we need to be prepared.

You don't have to be here when the wrath of God is poured out if you're truly walking with Him in righteousness and in truth, because the Bible says that the saints are not going to be subject to the wrath of God when it's poured out. That's poured out only on the children of disobedience. The so-called tribulation is not the wrath of God. It's the wrath of man. It's godless nations and cultures and powers that are prevailing upon human beings to frustrate, tribulate shall we say, try, put pressure on to get people to conform and to ultimately express allegiance to an anti-God, anti-Christ world government. And Kim Jong-un is just trying to do that in Korea, North Korea.

So North Koreans are encouraged to inform on their neighbors even for simple acts like clasping hands or quietly mumbling a prayer. Those who arouse even the slightest suspicion of paying homage to Jesus Christ instead of the Kim cult potentially condemn themselves and their families to execution or indefinite imprisonment in one of the country's brutal labor camps. Sounds exactly what happened in Hitler's Germany. We'll be back.

Guest (Male): Have you ever considered what the early church was like? Many people are developing a heart longing for a greater fulfillment in our practices as Christians. A recent study showed 53,000 people a week are leaving the back door of America's churches in frustration. What is going on? Why has there not been even a 1% gain among followers of Christ in the last 25 years? Could it be that God is seeking to restore first-century Christianity for the 21st century? Jesus said, "I'll build my church." Is Christ by His spirit stirring to prepare the church for the 21st century? The early church prayed together and broke bread from house to house. They were family, and it was said by all who observed, "Behold how they love one another." Incredible. But the same can be found right now. Go to saveus.org and click Cell Church. We can revive first-century Christianity for the 21st century. It's about people, not programs. It's about a body, not a building. That's saveus.org. Click Cell Church.

Chuck Crismier: Welcome back to Viewpoint. Well now we make our way over to Russia and Ukraine. We're talking about the issue of peace on earth. Donald Trump said we're going to have peace on earth. Okay. Who would not want peace on earth? But not peace at any price, right? Not peace at any price, because that requires compromise.

That will require you to give up your faith, to deny your faith. And Jesus said, if you aren't willing to confess me before men, neither will I confess you before my Father which is in heaven. That's what Jesus said. I didn't say that. So these are very real things that are not very often given any emphasis in our churches. Why? Because pastors are afraid to talk about them. Because it doesn't please the people. It doesn't make them feel good.

Like Oprah Winfrey came out of the front row experience there in Dr. Osteen's church in Houston, said, "Oh, I felt so good. It was so uplifting." Friends, that's not the primary purpose of the church gathered. The primary purpose of the church gathered is in the scriptures to instruct the believers, to correct them in righteousness, to encourage yes, to build them up in their most holy faith and to prepare them for going out into a godless world and to be able to stand, and having done all to stand, stand, having the loins girt about with truth. That's the purpose of the church gathered, not the Oprah Winfrey version.

But there are many pastors that share the Oprah Winfrey version of one level or another. And so they get vast numbers of people and they get a lot of popularity and traction with the legacy media, but they're not doing God's will. They're not obeying what God tells them to do. In one sense, they're actually engaged in child abuse, spiritual child abuse, because the people that come to them believe that they're going to give them spiritual direction and truth from God's viewpoint, but they're not getting it. They're getting a marketing experience.

Now we go to Russia. The weekend back at the end of September was a very big occasion for a church there in Ukraine, Kyiv. They were celebrating 32 years of ministry hosting a pastor's conference and dedicating a brand new worship hall built in the midst of the war. So early that Sunday morning, Russia attacked that area with multiple Iranian-designed Shahed drones.

The timing of the attack doesn't appear to have been a coincidence, as there were no military installations anywhere near there. In other words, they were after the church. Miraculously, one of the drones missed the building where the 20 pastors were sleeping by mere feet and detonated in the parking lot instead.

In America, said Colby Barrett, we cancel service if it snows or if the power goes out, but in Ukraine, they don't cancel church for anything. By 11 a.m. thousands poured into worship and to dedicate the new building in spite of the fact that the bombs had dropped. During the service alone 200 people came forth to be baptized.

A senior pastor handed a piece of sharp metal, it was a piece of shrapnel from the Shahed drone that had lodged in the new worship hall. Russia packs their suicide drones with small pieces of sharp metal so that when they explode, the maximum number of people are going to be killed or injured. So Putin's regime seems to be dedicated to destroying both the faith and the will of the Ukrainian people.

Since 2022, Russian forces have murdered at least 52 Ukrainian Christian leaders, damaged or destroyed 650 churches, whole denominations have been banned, believers have been killed, tortured, and driven underground. All while Vladimir Putin claims religious freedom in Russia, at least as long as you belong to the Russian Orthodox Church.

So this writer says I've seen Putin's brutality firsthand. While filming our documentary "A Faith Under Siege: Russia's Hidden War on Ukraine's Churches," a Ukrainian evangelical who was kept in a basement for 25 days by Russian forces, he was beaten with fists, feet, and baseball bats and repeatedly shocked with a Taser.

This sounds an awful lot like Germany's Gestapo. During his imprisonment a Russian Orthodox priest tried to cast demons from this man simply because he was a Protestant Christian. In other words, if you weren't part of the Russian Orthodox Church, you were not to be protected.

So here's what Putin didn't count on, though. His campaign of violence against faith is backfiring spectacularly. The growing church in Kyiv isn't an anomaly, it's emblematic of a broader spiritual awakening across Ukraine. Almost a third of Ukrainians say their religious faith has grown since the war began.

Putin's bombs aren't breaking spirits, they're driving people to prayer, lifting up His believers. Every missile that falls without killing becomes a testimony. Every church service held under threat becomes an act of defiance. Every new baptism represents Putin's failure. The attacks designed to crush hope are instead igniting it. Putin wanted to create fear and he's creating faith instead.

So each act of persecution plants seeds that bloom into conviction. Putin's war on Ukrainian Christianity isn't just failing, it's producing the very thing he sought to destroy: faith that persecution cannot extinguish. You see, that's what Jesus meant when He said no man can take your faith from you. Only you can. No other person, neither height nor depth nor principalities nor power, nobody else can take your faith from you, only you can by your own decision.

That's what people fail to recognize. That's why people say you can't fall away. It's not true. The Bible over and over shows and says specifically that people can fall away, but they fall away of their own decision. And sometimes those decisions come under persecution.

Persecution is a form of pressure. And when people come under pressure, they do things that otherwise they would never think they would do, like tattle on their friends, even their relatives. Give little things here and there to the enemies that are coming after them in order to try to give them a pass, thinking that the kids are going to get a pass, so they tattle on their parents.

"My parents did this, my parents..." Do you know that Jesus Himself spoke to that very problem? That's why I talk about it in the book "When Persecution Comes." We're not prepared for that in this country. And they weren't prepared for it in Germany. But that's what happened.

That's why those who were true followers of Jesus Christ in Germany were perceived as enemies of the state and the Gestapo went after them. So the churches at large became the agents, tacit agents of the support of the SS and the Gestapo and the Fuhrer's efforts to arrogate himself to godhood, the worshipful fatherhood of Germany.

These things are not new. And we need to understand that. You know, you hear the phrase "never again, never again," but it's happening all over again, deja vu all over again. And that's why you need to get this book, friends, "When Persecution Comes," because it's going to help you come to grips early enough on to where you can prepare, you can prepare your own mind and heart, that of your children, your grandchildren, pastors, your people. You need to have the gumption to do this. The holy gumption to do it. Otherwise, you too will capitulate when the pressure's on.

$22 will put this $25 book in your hands. It's on our website saveus.org. Give us a call 1-800-SAVE-USA. Write to us at Save America Ministries, P.O. Box 70879, Richmond, Virginia, 23255. Write any check add $6 for postage and handling. But we're not through.

Let's go to Israel now. One in three Christians in Israel wants to leave the country. Nearly 50% of those under 30. Why? Well, it's a context of escalating attacks against the Christian minority by Jewish extremist groups. In other words, Orthodox and Ultra-Orthodox.

There's a widespread perception also of discrimination by state agents in Israel that claims to provide freedom of religion. The growing desire to emigrate, not immigrate, but emigrate, in other words leave, affects much of the Middle East as well. 36% say they are considering the prospect of leaving their homelands. Half of the people in Haifa, 48%, are considering leaving.

Among the factors most influencing the decision are security and the socio-political situation. In East Germany, the socio-political concerns dominate by 81%. That's the so-called Arab portion of Jerusalem. In Central Israel, the socio-political concerns rise to 45%. Those related to security reached 27%. Family 52% and religious ties to the land 24% are decisive factors in the decision to stay, as is the challenge of starting over in another country.

Then there's the issue of migration. It's accompanied by the low birth rate among Christians who have the lowest birth rate of all ethnic-religious communities in the Holy Land. Which is leading Christians to leave the country. Wow. I thought we were supposed to be fruitful and multiply. Apparently Christians are getting the message.

Attacks against Christians increased in 2024 far over what they were in 2023. Most of the attackers belong to the Ultra-Orthodox and religious nationalist communities. And it's only the tip of the iceberg, says this report. So much so that the President of Israel, Herzog, during his New Year's reception, expressed concern over the departure of Christian families from Israel.

Why? Because they feel persecuted. They're not welcome, notwithstanding the alleged freedom of religion. He expressed pride in Israel's Christian communities, emphasized that the state of Israel will continue to protect the freedom of worship for people of all faiths and communities. The problem is you may have freedom of worship but not freedom to tell your faith to anybody else because that's considered illegal. That's proselytizing and it's illegal in Israel.

So this gives you a picture, a broad picture and in some respects specific here. Our viewpoint concerning persecution may well determine the course of our destiny and if fear dominates over faith, we're going to fail. In order to avoid persecution, our flesh will demand negotiating with evil. It will require masterful rationalization to justify whatever we deem required to evade or avoid the possibility of persecution.

So we have to be prepared for such an ultimate spiritual climb. For the true believer, there's no alternative but to prevail by faith. Remember, the just shall live by faith. That's an active life, not a passive life. Thanks for joining us. Get a copy of the book "When Persecution Comes." I don't think you're going to be disappointed. In fact, you'll be greatly encouraged. God bless.

Guest (Male): You've been listening to Viewpoint with Chuck Crismier. Viewpoint is supported by the faithful gifts of our listeners. Let me urge you to become a partner with Chuck as a voice to the church, declaring vision for the nation. Join us again next time on Viewpoint as we confront the issues of America's heart and home.