When a Nation Criminalizes the Bible

The preacher lays his Bible on the pulpit and smooths the page with one hand.

The sanctuary is still for a moment. A few coughs. The creak of a pew. A child whispers and is hushed by his mother. Morning light falls through the glass and settles on black letters that have outlived kings, empires and every bright new lie that ever strutted across the stage of history.

Then the preacher reads. He reads what God has said about sin, judgment, holiness, marriage, repentance, salvation, Christ. Spoken with the quiet confidence of a man handling treasure. He reads with the trembling awareness that the treasure cuts.

That scene still happens every Lord’s Day across North America. Yet the air around it is changing.

Canada’s House of Commons has now passed Bill C-9 and sent it to the Senate. Among other changes, the bill repeals a Criminal Code defense tied to expressing opinions in good faith on religious subjects or from religious texts.

The bill’s supporters say the law still targets hatred in a narrow legal sense, not mere offense, but a real shield for religiously grounded speech is being stripped away. That matters. It matters because once a nation starts pulling legal cover away from sacred words, the church can hear the weather changing before the storm reaches its own porch.

American Christians should watch that moment with sober eyes.

A bill in Ottawa does not erase the First Amendment. It does, however, show how fast a culture can move once it decides that some truths wound too deeply to be spoken aloud.

Today a law trims a defense. Tomorrow a school board rewrites moral language. Soon a classroom treats Genesis like a threat. A company handbook turns biblical conviction into a liability.

A sermon on Romans 1 becomes, in the ears of the age, an act of cruelty. That is how a civilization drifts toward darkness. It does not usually begin with bonfires in the square. It begins with a tightening of the face whenever God’s Word speaks with clean authority.

Paul knew such days would come.

When he wrote 2 Timothy, he was not sitting in safety with years to spare. He was awaiting death. Nero’s shadow lay over him. The cell was cold, the future short, the stakes eternal.

He wrote to Timothy with the calm of a man who had looked hard at the world and found Christ greater still. “But realize this, that in the last days difficult times will come” (2 Timothy 3:1). Paul was preparing Timothy for terrible seasons and terrible people, while reminding him that he would never wake up to a day God does not control.

That line steadies the pulse.

You will never wake up to a day God does not control.

The Bible never paints history as a smooth upward road where truth grows more welcome and holiness becomes fashionable. It speaks of waves. Seasons. Surges of evil that break across nations, institutions, homes, and churches.

History is like the sea rushing upon a beach, crashing hard, then drawing back for a brief calm before another wave gathers strength. That is how many believers feel the present moment. Something heavy is rolling in.

Paul describes the moral atmosphere with terrifying precision. “People will be lovers of self, lovers of money… lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God” (2 Timothy 3:2, 4).

Read that list slowly and the modern world rises off the page. A man lifts his phone and turns the camera toward himself again. A woman builds her identity out of appetite and applause. A child is taught to trust his feelings above his Creator. A nation celebrates rebellion and calls it courage. Gratitude withers. Purity looks strange. Restraint seems oppressive. Humility is mocked as weakness. Families crack. Speech grows coarse. Souls grow thin.

Then the Word of God enters the room.

The Bible declares that the self is a poor savior, desire is a dangerous master, the body belongs to God, marriage rests under His authority, and judgment is real.

It says “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). It says “the wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23). It says “you must be born again” (John 3:7). A culture built on self-worship will not hear those words as gentle. It will hear them as war.

Jesus said as much. “If the world hates you, you know that it has hated Me before it hated you” (John 15:18).

There is the heart of it. The hatred gathers around the Word because the Word tells the truth, and truth has a way of pulling the curtain back.

Darkness does not mind religious ceremony and will tolerate vague spirituality, soft phrases, candles, choirs, and talk of kindness. Darkness hates exposure and really hates a Book that names sin plainly and then demands repentance.

So the danger before us is larger than any one bill.

The greater danger is a people trained to flinch at holy speech and a church tempted to shave off sharp edges from the Bible so the world will keep smiling. Danger rises when a preacher values a crowd above a clean conscience and when a father who knows the text begins to whisper through the hard verses because the spirit of the age is already staring him down.

Paul does not tell Timothy to adjust the message. He tells him to stand in it. “Continue in the things you have learned” (2 Timothy 3:14). Then he anchors him in the source. “All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness” (2 Timothy 3:16).

The church does not survive terrible seasons by becoming clever. She survives by clinging to the breathed-out Word of God. This is the time to urge the church toward purity in belief, purity in life, and watchfulness in days when false teachers multiply.

Yet the church must remember something even more central.

The Bible is hated because the gospel itself is hated before it is loved.

The gospel does not begin by stroking our pride. It begins by telling us that we are guilty before a holy God. It tells the truth about the secret life, the bitter thought, the lust nursed in darkness, the envy hidden beneath polished manners, the lies we excuse, the idols we defend, the self we worship.

Scripture does not flatter the sinner. It strips him bare. That is why men resist it. The human heart would rather be soothed than searched.

Still, God did not send His Son into the world merely to expose sinners.

He sent Him to save them.

The Christ who spoke hard words also walked toward a hard cross. The holy Son of God stepped into this filthy world and took flesh among rebels. He put His hands on lepers, stood weeping at graves, and drew the weary to Himself.

Then He carried our sin to Golgotha. At the cross, the wrath we earned fell on Him. The judgment our crimes deserved landed on His head. The Lamb of God bled under the curse so guilty people could go free. Three days later He rose from the dead, and the stone rolled away from a world that could never save itself.

That is the message a frightened age cannot silence and a faithful church cannot surrender.

Sinners find welcome in Him, the foulest record meets His forgiveness, the stained conscience comes out clean, and hearts ruined by darkness are made new by His mercy.

He saves the sexual sinner, the proud churchgoer, the greedy businessman, the bitter mother, the lying teenager, the polished hypocrite, the blasphemer, the coward. He saves all who repent and believe.

So read the Bible aloud.

Read the verses the age hates. Read them with tears. Read them with courage.

Read them knowing that history may grow darker before the Lord returns. Then read on until you come to Christ crucified, Christ risen, Christ reigning, Christ coming again. The world may hate the Word more fiercely as the years pass. Even so, the Word of God still carries the only message that can rescue the very people who hate it.

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