I used to play guitar in church. For years. Don’t do it any more: there is no need for a fifth guitarist where I am. Instead I play viola in the local community orchestras. But I still have my guitars.

And I wonder, often, if in our worship we are like Peter. We are claiming what we cannot say, when indeed Satan had demanded that we are to be sifted by wheat.

The trouble with modern churchian worship is not the band. I like my music to be good: and let’s be fair, elevation music have written a fairly simple song that does not go all “Jesus is my boyfriend” on us. I like good worship, be it Bach or Mozart or Wesley or Hillsong. I don’t like Pat Boone or George Beverley Shea, but that is just taste.

But worship without repentance and tears and the fear of God is the prating of fools. It is not the symbols or the chord structure or the syncopation that matters. It is the reality behind it. At least Peter claimed that he would follow Christ after Christ told him he would be torn apart by the enemy, and then he was to return and comfort the brothers.

“Simon, Simon, behold, Satan demanded to have you, that he might sift you like wheat, but I have prayed for you that your faith may not fail. And when you have turned again, strengthen your brothers.” Peter said to him, “Lord, I am ready to go with you both to prison and to death.” Jesus said, “I tell you, Peter, the rooster will not crow this day, until you deny three times that you know me.”

And he said to them, “When I sent you out with no moneybag or knapsack or sandals, did you lack anything?” They said, “Nothing.” He said to them, “But now let the one who has a moneybag take it, and likewise a knapsack. And let the one who has no sword sell his cloak and buy one. For I tell you that this Scripture must be fulfilled in me: ‘And he was numbered with the transgressors.’ For what is written about me has its fulfillment.” And they said, “Look, Lord, here are two swords.” And he said to them, “It is enough.”

(Luke 22:31-38 ESV)

This passage does argue for periods when circumstances change. While Christ was with the apostles, there was provision: he is going, and it is time to work, to defend, to be prepared. It may be the swords needed to be there for prophetic reasons, but there will be times when we need to fight, and times to seek peace.

Which is not unusual. There are seasons in the life of all: most clearly for women who have but a few fertile years. We change over time, and as much part of our life cycle as pupae and butterflies.

We need to look at the prayer of Christ. It was not preventing the trial, but that Peter would be preserved. It is not us that keep the faith: we would fall into error. It is Christ. It is the work of Christ. At times it is not our will nor our oath to follow that preserves us, but Christ. For he will have his church, regardless of who will try to despoil it.

And the enemy wants the church broken. When a faithful son of the Roman church is blunter than Calvin about the evils of the current pope, you know that we are in the desert, and under attack.

We, who have lived to see this mess, must wonder how many souls will be lost, and resolve with more determination than ever that our soul, our soul will not be among them. Let entire worlds crush around us: we will stay firm in what the Church has always taught us. We will live and die believing in what our forefathers have believed.

The Bride of Christ is being raped. This unspeakable disgrace, Jorge Bergoglio, will undoubtedly live in infamy for all the centuries to come. May he, if he die unrepentant, burn in hell forever, together with the demons to whom he is prostituting himself. May all those who help him – if they die unrepentant; if they die unrepentant! – suffer with him in eternity for what they are doing.

The scale of evil we are witnessing would have been barely imaginable merely years ago. But on this saddest of days since Bergoglio was elected, we must recognise that Bergoglio is but the metastasis of a cancer that was started with Vatican II. A stupid generation has started the cancer, their sons and nephews must now cope with the metastasis. The price to pay must be horrible, and we are most certainly being punished in the most just of ways, by a most just God, for the iniquity of the last 50 years.

The Bride of Christ is being raped. The pope himself leads the rapists. He has no fear of the Lord. He is a miserable scoundrel, unworthy not only of his white habit, but of being called a Christian. He is the enemy of Christ and the enemy of all of us. If you do not see the depth of the abyss in which Francis wants to lead you the smell of Reprobation is very strong in you, and I truly do not see how, bar a great help from the Holy Ghost, you can hope to attain salvation.

Well, we still have a duty to stand. To remain in the faith. To obey Christ. To pray for those who lead us, including that they repent when they are leading the flock into grievous error: it is as if they look at how liberalism imploded what used to be faithful and true and righteous churches in England, Holland and Denmark and think that this is a good thing.

The only reason Augustine, Luther, Francis Xavier, Calvin and Erasmus will not stand as one and condemn our generation is that they know they sinned, and sinned often and frequently, and rely on the cross and the work of the Spirit for their salvation. The only reason that the NeoMartyrs of the Orthodox faith will not damn us is that they would rather praise Christ. For we have fallen.

We are too caught up in the fashions of this age to discuss and confront the evil of post-modernism. Which is this. By making everything relative, and stating that evil must be embraced, we remove righteous anger, which arms a man, to the point that the slave trade was expunged (but is coming back) and the rape of war widows stopped (but that, also, has been returned, by those Satanic hordes of ISIS)

We have fallen. May God preserve us from the sifting of this time, and from our faith shifting to the ephemera of this age. So that we may glorify God in a time of darkness, and comfort the remnant. For God will have his bride, and that pride will be refined, pure, holy and righteous, despite the workers of evil and lovers of perversion, including those with ecclesiastical robes.