There is a fascinating 19th-century scientific experiment. Researchers found when they placed a frog in boiling water, the abrupt variation in heat shocked the frog to jump to safety. So the scientist devised a scheme to trick the unsuspecting creature. They started with comfortably cool water and continued raising the temperature until over time the frog cooked to death. The hypothesis was, putting a frog in boiling water causes a frog to jump while placing the frog in cool water and raising the temperature to boil achieved their goal.

This world has an unsavory history of persecuting Christians from Christ until the present time. Satan began as the scientists by depositing many devotees in a boiling pot. The problem he encountered was this fearless group chose death over life if it meant having to reject the Christ they loved. Those centuries of severe persecution backfired on the devil’s strategy for their stories and ashes strewn throughout the world only advanced the gospel.

So, Satan decided on a different tactic, death by passivity. The fear of standing boldly for Jesus is thought too aggressive, and dread of not being politically correct paralyzes and rivets believers to the church pew. Not wanting to be a spectacle keeps our lips shut when the remedy for an expiring world is a Savior awaiting proclamation.

The apostle Paul wrote “For it seems to me that God has put us apostles on display at the end of the procession, like those condemned to die in the arena. We have been made a spectacle to the whole universe, to angels as well as to human beings.”

The worry of how others perceive us keeps professed Christians dormant, lifeless, ineffective and powerless.

Are we resting in church pews oblivious to the devil’s ploy to detain us until we have died the death of passivity?