Now that the Christmas holidays are upon us, the issue of religious tolerance is coming to the fore again. We Christians are urged to be understanding about other peoples' faiths. We are supposed to keep our religious symbols to ourselves and not put them on public display, especially on public property. We are denounced as hateful religious bigots if we refuse to hide our love and loyalty to Jesus Christ from the general public who might be offended by such displays.

Well, we can't hide Jesus or our love and loyalty to Him. People's lives are at stake, both now and for eternity. Getting people saved is a top priority now, with the prophetic signs pointing to the soon return of Jesus and the start of the Tribulation. We can't be silent about this any more than we could be silent if we saw a building on fire and the occupants going about their business unaware of the danger around them.

It was urgent enough before the appearance and strengthening of the signs indicated that time was growing short. It was bad enough when someone never hears the Good News of their available salvation or isn't convinced by hearing about it to become saved. What is going to befall the unsaved soon is so horrific that we must make every effort to reach them with the Good News while they can be saved. Once the Tribulation begins, the deceptions by our enemy Satan will be so strong that millions won't be saved no matter what is happening around them.

Here is a crucial point that non-Christians need to understand about this. You have to be a born-again Christian to be part of God's kingdom. If you have any other religious belief, philosophical belief, or no particular belief, you are part of Satan's kingdom by default.

Why are we so doggedly exclusive of every other religion? It is because there is more than your personal belief system involved here. There is a real God fighting a real enemy Satan for the people of this world. God created the human race, but because Satan convinced our first parents Adam and Eve into following him, every human born on this planet was born into Satan's kingdom of darkness, not God's kingdom.

You don't have to be an outright Satanist to be part of his kingdom. Satan doesn't need that to reinforce his legal claim on you.

You don't have to practice witchcraft or the other related pagan nature religions. Satan doesn't need that to reinforce his legal claim on you.

You don't have to be Muslim or believe in a religion worshipping any god or gods other than Jesus Christ, His Father, and the Holy Spirit. Satan doesn't need that to reinforce his legal claim on you.

You don't have to believe in any religious system that is centered around a man-created philosophy like humanism or many of the Eastern religions. Satan doesn't need that to reinforce his legal claim on you.

You don't have to be an atheist who doesn't believe in any god at all. Satan doesn't need that to reinforce his legal claim on you.

You don't have to be in any religious or non-religious or anti-religious system at all. Satan doesn't need that to reinforce his legal claim on you.

Have I covered everything outside of Christianity? If I missed your particular belief system, please add that and add Satan doesn't need that to reinforce his legal claim on you.

Adam and Eve were the first rulers of this planet as part of God's kingdom. The human race was meant to be part of God's family as well as have their place in God's government. Satan was originally a highly ranked being in God's government, but he decided to overthrow God and seize control of the government and the universe for himself. Ever since then, there has been a civil war going on, and our parents chose the wrong side by accepting Satan's lies about God and joining the rebellion against Him.

Just as children born on this planet have no choice but to be assigned the citizenship of their place of birth or of their parents, you don't have a choice in this citizenship assignment, either, except for a short window of time when you are too young to make a personal choice as to whether you will accept this assignment or ask to become a citizen of God's kingdom.

After you reach this age, called the age of accountability, you have to ask God to adopt you into His family. That is what becoming born again means, that you are now God's child and your citizenship is now in His kingdom. God shows mercy on people who can't knowingly make the choice for His Kingdom, but everyone else has to apply for adoption and citizenship in His kingdom.

It isn't legalism or religious intolerance to point out this crucial point. God is real, His kingdom is a real place, and His government is a real system that keeps the kingdom running smoothly just like the earthly governments are supposed to do for their countries and citizens. God only wants people who want to live with Him in love, peace, joy, mercy, and justice to be in His kingdom. He doesn't want to force anyone who doesn't want to accept that in His kingdom.

However, that leaves you with the default, which is to stay in the kingdom of darkness and live by its rules. That kingdom is going to end up in Hell forever to protect God and His family from their lawlessness. God doesn't want to send anyone there, but you have to go somewhere. You won't simply die and go out of existence, nor will you reincarnate into another life form. Everywhere God is will be part of Heaven, so that only leaves Hell if you don't want to live with Him and His family.

Can you see why Satan would promote religious tolerance to blind people to the awful truth of what lies ahead of them if they don't join God's kingdom? He has got you by default if you don't make that crucial choice for God and His kingdom, no matter what other belief system you follow. You personally don't have to make an open, positive choice for Satan to remain trapped in his kingdom. Adam and Eve made that fatal decision for you and all of their descendents.

Hell will be a place of punishment because of all the suffering that Satan and his kingdom have inflicted on God and His family. It won't be much consolation to you to be in a lesser part of Hell just because you lived a pretty good life by human standards so you don't get sent to some worse part of Hell. God is being entirely reasonable about this.

After all, you wouldn't want your family chronically abused by lawless people, whether they be outright murderers or just unpleasant to live with or somewhere in between the two extremes. You would want to send those people out of the home to restore peace for your family, even if those people were your own rebellious children. They would have to take care of themselves on their own, which is what the human race has been largely doing since Adam and Eve rebelled. God has shown us enough mercy in that He hasn't totally destroyed our race or our planet, but conditions are bad enough to show that being part of Satan's kingdom is a terrible thing. God is not going to bless lawless behavior that hurts other beings, whether He is being hurt or His other created beings are being hurt by your actions. There are consequences to bad behavior, and the evils that beset our world are the result of that.

As to the assertion that we Christians are trying to cram our beliefs down everyone else's throats, that is more a matter of our not wanting to be harmed by other people who follow different belief systems which lead them to lawless actions, which we call sins. For example, it was not illegal in bin Laden's belief system to crash planes into buildings and murder thousands of innocent people that way, but it is against both Christian beliefs and most civilized criminal law in the world. Are we Christians wrong to denounce his actions and demand that justice be done?

Similarly, when we protest the evils in the world around us, especially when they befall us directly, are we not allowed to speak against them and try to restrain the perpetrator's actions just because it is against our Christian beliefs? We try to get the laws upheld or new laws passed when people are being harmed by some action and the perpetrators cannot be convinced to stop it on their own, not because we want to bind people with unneeded religiously-based regulations. That is a major purpose of government and the law, to restrain criminals and maintain a peaceful social order.

God is not responsible for the catastrophes that befall us. That comes from a combination of Satan's actions, our actions, and the curse on the world that forces us to deal with forces beyond our own strength. This world no longer easily yields food and other necessities to us as it did when God blessed it. It is in the kingdom of darkness for now, and we are getting a taste of what living under such a king is like. What provisions it does provide are all too often stolen or destroyed by warfare in Satan's world system, on the personal level through the international government level.

God wants to put a stop to that, but you must agree to be adopted into His family and live by His rules of love, mercy, and justice to receive the benefits of it. Just as an ungrateful, rebellious child may find himself thrown out of a happy, well-provisioned home to live on the streets with other rebellious children, the human race is literally out on the street in terms of the two kingdoms. You have to ask God to let you come home to Him to return to His Kingdom. He wants you to return to Him if only you would sincerely ask. Please pray this prayer of salvation:

Dear God, I want to be part of Your family. I don't want to be part of Satan's kingdom anymore and I'm sorry for my sins and I ask You to forgive them. Jesus Christ paid the price for my sins to redeem me. Please adopt me into Your heavenly family. In Jesus' Name, Amen.