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“If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you,”
“All who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted”
eternity will prove that such suffering was worth the price.
“have conquered [Satan] by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, for they loved not their lives even unto death”
Obedience, it was implied, would lead to effective ministry and measurable results and even success.
felt mostly loss and heartache and failure.
“I knew that my Redeemer lived”—but I couldn’t figure out why He was being so painfully silent. I was desperate for answers, but my questions simply hung in the air.
makes impossible demands and promises only His presence?
heard
“Why risk your life, waste your time, invest your energies, or expend so many personal and Kingdom resources to try to change the minds and hearts of people who don’t want to change, and don’t even think they need to change?”
one of the most accurate ways to detect and measure the activity of God is to note the amount of opposition that is present.
The stronger the persecution, the more significant the spiritual vitality of the believers.
all too often, persecutors sense the activity of God before the believing participants even realize the sig...
This highlight has been truncated due to consecutive passage length restrictions.
For us, persecution is like the sun coming up in the east. It happens all the time. It’s the way things are. There is nothing unusual or unexpected about it. Persecution for our faith has always been—and probably always will be—a normal part of life.”
when the new communist-appointed pastor arrived for his first Sunday morning worship service, church members (often the older women) would show their disdain by linking arms and blocking his way to the pulpit. If he was able to push through to the pulpit, the women would take their usual places in the pews and join the rest of the congregation in singing the hymns. Then, when the new pastor (whom they felt had compromised his faith to stay out of prison) stood to deliver his government-approved sermon, the same women would silently stand and turn their backs on the preacher. They would face
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finished the sermon
However,’ and here he paused and made eye contact with us, ‘If I am in prison and I hear that my wife and my children have been hung to death rather than deny Jesus, I will be the most proud man in that prison!’”
If our family has to starve for Jesus, then let us do so with joy.’”
“We learned it from our mothers, our grandmothers, and our great-grandmothers. We learned it from our fathers, our grandfathers and our great-grandfathers.”
“When did you stop reading your Bible?”
church actually suffered little overt persecution.
These believers had failed to share their faith or speak for themselves.
I was suffering in prison in my country, so that you, Nik, could be free to share Jesus in Kentucky.”
“Don’t ever give up in freedom what we would never have given up in persecution! That is our witness to the power of the resurrection of Jesus Christ!”
the psychological aspects of persecution often cause deeper wounds and leave greater scars than physical mistreatment.
One of the clearest warning signs of undue psychological stress that we watched for among our relief staff in Somalia was the loss of an appropriate sense of humor.
underlying assumption that the suffering and persecution would inevitably happen!
Surprisingly, none of the people who reported on their time in prison seemed particularly resentful about the experience.
“Do you
know what prison is for us? It is how we get our theological education. Prison in China is for us like seminary is for training church leaders in your country.”
“Those are the people who raise the dead!”
God seemed to be demonstrating His power on earth today in places like Russia and China. It
You can only grow in persecution what you go into persecution with.”
For three years in prison, we did not share our faith with one person.
These women, in particular, didn’t seem to have the time or the inclination to debate responsibilities or titles within the church.
ten million believers in your movement cannot take care of four hundred families, do you have the right to call yourselves the Body of Christ, the Church, or even followers of Jesus?”
Still, they exhibited an undeniable, irrepressible joy.
The security police regularly harass a believer who owns the property where a house-church meets. The police say, “You have got to stop these meetings! If you do not stop these meetings, we will confiscate your house, and we will throw you out into the street.” Then the property owner will probably respond, “Do you want my house? Do you want my farm? Well, if you do, then you need to talk to Jesus because I gave this property to Him.”
The security police will not know what to make of that answer. So they will say, “We don’t have any way to get to Jesus, but we can certainly get to you! When we take your property, you and your family will have nowhere to live!” And the house-church believers will declare, “Then we will be free to trust God for shelter as well as for our daily bread.” “If you keep this up, we will beat you!” the persecutors will tell them. “Then we will be free to trust Jesus for healing,” the believers will respond. “And then we will put you in prison!” the police will threaten. By now, the believers’
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had always seen God’s Word, especially the Old Testament, as a holy history book. For me, it was an ancient record of what God had done in the past.
God, evidently, was doing today everything that He had done in the Bible!
They told him to stop singing “so that your songs won’t convert us.”
These believers don’t just live for Jesus, they live with Jesus every day.
many concerned western believers have sought to rescue their spiritual brothers and sisters around the world who suffer because they choose to follow Jesus. Yet our pilgrimage among house churches in persecution convinced us that God may actually want to use them to save us from the often debilitating, and sometimes spiritually-fatal, effects of our watered-down, powerless western faith.
If people stopped accepting Christ as Lord and Savior . . . persecution would end immediately. That would be the only way to completely end persecution.
but should we really be asking God for the end of persecution? By doing that, we might unknowingly be asking that people not come to faith in Christ!
We have never heard that request.
Really? Never???
believers in persecution ask us to pray that “they would be faithful and obedient through their persecution and suffering.”
even if someone becomes a follower of Jesus, persecution will likely not happen if the faith is kept private and personal. If a person is silent about their faith in Jesus, the chance of being persecuted is very small.
The freedom to believe and witness has nothing to do with the government or political system. The freedom to believe and witness has nothing to do with the civil and political rights that might or might not be present.
