When Jesus stood before Pilate, just prior to going to His execution, Pilate asked Him, “Are you the King of the Jews?” After some discussion, Pilate concluded, “You are a king, then!” Jesus replied, “You are right in saying that I am a king. In fact, for this reason I was born, and for this reason I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone on the side of truth listens to me.”

Sounding much like a modern-day graduate of Harvard’s divinity school, or the Dean for Religious Life at Stanford University (who both probably have about the same regard for Christ as did Pilate), Pilate concluded his exchange with Jesus by asking, “What is truth?” And just as one would expect from someone so blind to the truth, Pilate and the crowd sent the most innocent man the world has ever known to his excruciating death.

When His disciple Thomas asked, “how can we know the way?” Jesus answered him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” The clearest picture and purveyor of truth in the history of the universe is Jesus Christ. Thus, those who stand opposed to Him often go to great lengths in their attempts to silence His message and His messengers. Whether the arenas of Rome, the pitch-soaked flaming pyres throughout Europe, the savage altars of the Aztecs and Iroquois, the brutal prisons in communist China, Russia and North Korea, or the Islamic swords and machine-guns in the Middle East and Africa, for two millennia, millions of Christians have suffered, many “even unto death,” for their faith in Jesus and His message.

Apologist Greg Koukl, writing about the martyrdom of Polycarp, a second-century disciple of the Apostle John and bishop of Smyrna, sums up well how so many Christians have been able to happily endure their persecution. Koukl asks, “How could Polycarp go to his redemption with eagerness?” The answer: “Because he understood the truth. And the truth changed everything.”

Indeed, in spite of the vain yammerings of Barack Obama and his liberal lackeys, the only way to bring real, lasting, and positive change to individuals or a culture is with the power of Christ. This is a truth -- The Truth -- that many, in spite of how they paint themselves, simply cannot “tolerate.”

If unbelieving liberals, Islamists, et al, understand anything, they understand this: their way and The Way are in direct opposition. In spite of the foolish attempts of some who call themselves Christians, there is no reconciling the way of the Cross with that of Muhammad, Buddha, liberalism, secularism, or any other religion contrived by man. This is precisely why those deceived find Jesus so “offensive.”

As a man who has found the cure for a terrible disease, true followers of Christ tell the truth with courage, conviction, and love. They minister to the sick, poor, hungry, and broken. They build churches, schools, hospitals, and orphanages. In order to further engage the world and spread the truth, Christians are involved in politics, science, industry, education, entertainment, and even the military. They also peacefully, but strongly, stand up to the lies of liberalism, Islam, and the like. This is precisely why such Christians are found to be so “offensive.”

Opponents of the truth (whose side we were all on at one time or another) find themselves in what C.S. Lewis describes as a “terrible fix.” They have made themselves enemies of the one thing which they cannot stand to be with, which is also the one thing which they cannot really do without. As Lewis puts it, the Author of truth “is the only comfort, He is also the supreme terror: the thing we most need and the thing we most want to hide from. He is our only possible-ally, and we have made ourselves His enemies.”

Those who remain His enemies are as numerous, devoted, and angry now as they have ever been. Militant Islamists, communists, humanists, atheists, and so on, are waging a vengeful war against all things Christian. The global persecution of Christians is at historic levels. As Christians (along with others) are being killed or jailed in the Eastern world, their property and their careers are being threatened in the West.

I often thank God that I don’t live in a part of the world where it’s dangerous (meaning that your life is threatened) to be a Christian. However, just as Islam for centuries has known the “danger” that Christianity presents to followers of Muhammad, how long before those committed to the Godless humanist/secularist worldview in the West decide that lawsuits and other such legal actions against the “offensive” are simply not enough? After all, they’ve had plenty of practice killing the most vulnerable among us -- those in the womb.

It’s not as if Jesus and His Apostles failed to warn us. Jesus said that because of Him, we would be hated. The “City of God” will always be despised by “The City of Man.” Nevertheless, Paul teaches us to bless those who persecute us and never to “repay anyone evil with evil.”

Jesus also told us never to fear those who can only “kill the body and after that can do no more.” As the beheadings, massacres, kidnappings, and rapes continue in the Middle East and Africa, as the forced abortions continue in China, as the faithful continue to endure imprisonment and execution in North Korea, and as Europe and North America continue to seek to destroy the biblical family model through the promotion of abortion, homosexuality, marriage perversions, and the welfare state, may we never forget that “our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.”

“Truth is incontrovertible,” wrote Winston Churchill. “Panic may resent it; ignorance may deride it; malice may distort it; but there it is.” And it will be there for all time and beyond time. In spite of all our efforts, we will all ultimately answer to the truth -- better to do so in this world than the next.