Persecution: Not a Threat but a Promise

Let's pray. Father, as we talk about tonight this persecution that you have promised, that you have said is inevitable for all time, for believers in this fallen world, on this side of eternity, I pray that you would strengthen us, that we would take your word seriously, that you would make us Bereans, ready to always give a reason for the hope that is within. I pray for those now who feel that pressure, perhaps at work, perhaps with family gatherings, in other situations, that pressure to compromise, that squeeze of the world, saying just give in, just give in, just give in. Would you send your Holy Spirit to strengthen, to gird up their loins? I pray we would be strong when that day comes.

And for those who are already in the midst of it, would you strengthen them? I pray now that you would give me wisdom and clarity and great humility. It is a fearful thing to handle the Word of God. And we need you, Father. Thank you for Jesus, our Lord, our Savior, and our King.

And it is through Him that we pray this. Amen. I want to apologize in advance. I'm perhaps used to a classroom setting and so if I ask a question, feel free, what, there are no wrong answers or something? Feel free to yell out answers if I ask you questions.

I like that. You ever feel like Rip Van Winkle? You know the story? He's out hunting squirrels in the Catskill Mountains and while he's there, he's not a big fan of his wife and so he gets away a lot and he falls asleep, perhaps he'd been drinking from the story it appears, maybe.

And what happens? That's right, 20 years later, he wakes up and he goes into town and nothing's the same and everything he talks to has changed. And there was a movie in the 90s, Dude, Where's My Car? Dude, Where's My Country?

What happened? Everything's different here. And I wonder, perhaps, do you ever feel like that? Do you ever just look at the culture and go, what has happened?

The signs are the same, but everything's changed and it's only speeding up. Does anybody know how long Rip Van Winkle, by the way, it's a story, it's not true, obviously, but does anybody know how long he slept in the story? 20 years.

That's exactly right. I would suggest to you that perhaps, instead of 20 years, the American Evangelical Church has perhaps been asleep for about 50 to 60 years. And it's happened, America is so interesting. We have lived relatively free of persecution. Christians in America have had it relatively easy.

That's not normal. When you look at Domitian, Nero, when you look at Communist China, well, Communist anything, Venezuela, North Korea, when you look at Islamic countries, which by the way, Islamic fundamentalism is on the rise, living free of persecution is not normal. Peter said, don't be surprised when you face fiery trials. That is to be the norm for believers who take a stand for Christ. Now, there are believers who don't do that, and we're going to talk about that some.

They don't experience it as much. But for believers who say, I'm not doing that. I serve the Lord Jesus Christ, and I'm not doing that.

Persecution, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, literally a fiery trial is sure to follow. So, while the Evangelical Church, which I am certainly a member of, certainly a member of, has perhaps, like Rip Van Winkle, been asleep, we have lost our institutions. Now, we can look, and we can say, yes, that college, that's the problem. Okay, yes, K through 12.

I'm going to be charitable. Perhaps we call them public schools. And by the way, I went through a public school, but they're also government schools. And so, evolution only. We celebrate LGBTQ Day. Karl Marx is revered. Any type of Christian influence is to be frowned upon. We're, so while we've been asleep, atheism, Marxism has taken over our institutions. And I want to encourage you, perhaps, with this word, if you can, it might be good to investigate ways to take your children out of those. They have an agenda, and it is not pro-Christ.

They have a clear agenda. And I always think it's funny, we look at colleges, and some of our children come home after visiting college, and they say, you know what I'm really into now is Marxism and atheism. And then you get the bill, and the college says, that'll be $40,000. You know, I can ruin your kids for free.

You don't have to do $40,000. While we've been at it, abortion on demand has become the law of the land. There's talk, the governor of Virginia was talking about post-birth abortions. What's the sixth commandment call that? That's just murder.

By the way, of course, in utero, ex-utero, it doesn't matter. It's murder regardless. But this idea of this child, that's not going away. Evolution only education, gay marriage, and I want to bring this up very quickly. Can you imagine in 2008, when President Obama became the president, do you know what his stance on gay marriage was? He was against it.

I mean, just think about that for a second. Anybody, any politician publicly saying they're against gay marriage, that was so common in 2008. By 2015, if you thought men shouldn't be in women's bathrooms, you were a homophobic bigot. Things are changing, and they're changing quickly. The rate at which things are changing only appears to be speeding up. Boy, can you see? I feel like Rip Van Winkle. What's going on?

How is going on here? And so, if you're following the news, and I've kind of checked out over the last couple months for the first time in a while, it's just, ugh. But there's more coming down the pike. Get ready. Jesus promised this. This is not a threat. This is a promise.

And I would keep your eye very, be very wary right now. There's a push, and I'm just saying this is a public service announcement towards acceptance of pedophilia. And when you see the phrase, love is love, that's what that means.

Now, there's several things they mean by that, but one of them is the legitimization of pedophilia. Love is love. And it's so interesting, I hope we're intolerant. I hope those are things that we look and go, I'm not tolerating that.

That's not okay. Certainly, when you look at critical race theory, intersectionality, this cultural push towards androgyny. What did somebody, the prayer two weeks ago in the Congress, amen, and yeah, which doesn't even make sense if you know what amen means. But there's a push towards feminine men, masculine women. So everybody, this always towards the middle. And the goal is, of course, androgyny. So you get Bibles where instead of a man had three sons, suddenly we have a person had three children.

Always towards erasing the God-given distinction between male and female. None of this is persecution, though. Persecution comes when you say, I'm not doing that.

This is not okay. Persecution comes when you take a stand, and Luther at the Diet of Worms said, here I stand, by God I can do no other. He went on to say, my God has never disowned me.

How can I disown him now? So I'd like to encourage you, and by the way, this is a uniquely anti-Christian movement. Buddhism gets a complete pass. Islam, you will never, there's a book written a few years ago called Islamophilia, philia meaning love. Islam, which is much more rigid, much harder on women and human rights in general, will always get a complete pass. And I'm telling you that not to pick on other religions, but to tell you that you are the ones being picked on. It is a distinctly anti-Christian bias, and Jesus promised that. That's exactly what Jesus promised, and that's what we're going to be talking about some more tonight.

But I do want to just lay the groundwork over the last 40 to 60 years. It's not been uncommon for a Christian leader to say, hey, just compromise with the world here, okay? Just give them what they want, make peace, and what does compromise lead to? More compromise. You knock down a domino, guess what happens?

The next one falls. And so we didn't get here by accident. We've gotten here through compromise after compromise after compromise.

Dude, where's my country? That's how we've gotten here. And we're going to pick that apart a little bit more. What I'd like to do, we're going to be bouncing around a little bit in Scripture. If you've got your Bibles, if you would turn with me to John 15.

We're going to start verses 18 through 25. Before I read this, I'd like to bear in mind, in Scripture, there are certain phrases that are repeated over and over and over again for emphasis. What word is repeated three times for God?

That's exactly right. Not love, love, love, mercy, mercy, mercy. What's God's primary defining attribute? The only one mentioned three times is His holiness, not like us, not like us, not like us. Jesus would say, truly, truly, I say to you. It meant really what I'm about to say, stand up and take note.

As we read through this passage, I'd like to invite you, what do you hear over and over and over again for emphasis? This begins in verse 18, John 15. Jesus says, if the world hates you, know that it hated me, before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own, but because you were not of the world. But I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hates you.

Remember the word that I said to you, a servant is not greater than his master. If they persecuted me, they'll also persecute you. If they kept my word, they will also keep yours.

But all these things they will do on my account, on the account of my name, because they do not know him who sent me. If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not have been guilty of sin. But now they have no excuse for their sin. And whoever hates me, hates my father also. If I had not done among them the works that no one else did, they would not be guilty of sin. But now they have seen and hated both me and my father. But the word that is written in their law must be fulfilled, they hated me without cause. What's the word? Somebody describe the world's attitude towards you and me and all who believe. Okay, that's exactly right. It's not slightly dislike, it's not ambivalent, it's not, they're not going to invite you to the parties.

Won't that stink? They hate you. They hate you because they hate Christ. Period.

There is no compromise. The feeling that the world has towards you regardless of how it's dressed up, regardless of the nomenclature that's used, always boils down to hatred of you because of hatred for Christ. Why? Well, very quickly, Jesus diagnoses it.

In verse 19 He says, they're going to hate you. By the way, you may be thinking, but I'm nice. I pay my taxes. I'm reasonably funny.

I volunteer sometimes at the soup kitchen. We got all these babies. Why?

What's going on? Jesus explains it. Verse 19, number one, because you're not of the world. You don't belong to the same club that they do. Number two, verse 20, you serve Christ.

It's bad enough that you're in a different club, but you're in that one? Those intolerant, those scared. I heard a pastor that I greatly respect. He told somebody, I'm a Christian, and they said, you believe the world was created in seven days? And he said, no, absolutely not. He was six.

He rested on the seventh. Yes, absolutely. Not only do I not, am I not part of your club, I'm part of a family over here, the family of faith. So they hate you because you're not of this world because you serve Christ.

Number three, because you bear His name. You want to suck the air out of a room at a party where everybody's having fun? Start talking about Jesus. Oh, man. But that's wonderful.

But expect it. That's a form of persecution. Number four, we expose sin. Now, I'm not saying we walk around, thou shalt not, thou shalt not. But at the same time, somebody comes up to you and says, hey, what do you think about evolution?

Oh, man, that's a chance to let your light shine. And you might be hated for it. Because we expose it. Modern psychology, by the way, says the main problem in the world is guilt. We just need to get rid of the guilt.

Jesus says the main problem for the gay woman, the addict, the disobedient child, the transsexual man is sin against God. And the answer is run to Jesus. They don't want to hear that. They don't want to hear that. They hate it. And by the way, my call is to love them. When they look and say, I hate you guys.

And they mean it in spite of all the claims of tolerance. I hate you guys. My call is to say, I want to tell you about Jesus. He loves you so much.

He's so much better than you think. How did this happen? I just saw last week. Here's some good news. Eighty-eight percent of the members of Congress identify as Christians. So people, don't worry, beloved. We're in good hands.

Oh, why was everybody laughing? I could be being serious. Sixty-five percent of Americans still identify as believers, according to a recent survey. Be very suspicious of those, by the way. It's not uncommon for them to go to somebody and say, have you ever been to church? And they go, yeah, like 30 years ago. And they go, okay, Christian. And then they'll, that's, whenever you read those, just bear in mind what you and I mean by a Christian, someone who's trusting in Christ alone, by grace alone, through faith alone, isn't necessarily what the surveyor means. But, 65% of American adults say they're Christians.

So what's going on? How is this happening if we're so Christian? Number one, there are plenty of believers who have a false assurance of their faith. And what I mean by that is there are plenty of people, and perhaps I shouldn't even use the word believers, who go to church, who perhaps during a worship song, there were chill bumps, or perhaps they prayed a prayer once, and they go, I'm a believer. But there's no evidence of the Holy Spirit's work in their life. There's no fruit of the Spirit that Paul talks about in Galatians. And so we do have plenty of people every Sunday, every church has this, who may have never actually given their heart, their soul to Jesus Christ as their Lord, Savior, and King.

Number two, because we've been so comfortable, we have an epidemic of uneducated believers, believers who appear completely disinterested in growing in their faith, who look and take no advantage of the Scripture that's sitting on their shelf, the means of grace, meeting with other believers. And by the way, I have been guilty of this. There are times in my spiritual life when I've thought, you know, let me just kick my feet back and I'll just coast. Now, marriage counsels will tell you, in a marriage, and I like this, you are always either moving towards your spouse or away from your spouse. You can never simply coast.

To coast, to quit trying, to quit putting effort into it, is to move away from one another. As a believer, beloved, that's the same with our faith. I am always either taking steps towards Christ or away, but when I say it's okay, I'm just going to rest, I'm not going to pray, I'm not going to go to church, I'm just going to kick back and relax. Jesus and I are just fine.

Don't be deceived. That's moving away from Christ. Philippians 2.12, Paul says, you need to continually be working out your salvation with fear and trembling.

Don't stop continually. Grow deeper in the things of our faith. Hebrews 5, the writer of Hebrews says, look, don't be a baby in your faith. Everybody starts off as a child in their faith, perhaps immature.

That's the way it goes. But grow up. Pursue those things. Grow deeper in your relationship with Christ.

And so how is this happening? Number one, false assurances of faith. Number two, believers who have remained sort of uneducated in their faith. And number three, and this is perhaps the most convicting of all, unfaithful shepherds. Unfaithful shepherds.

Christian leader pastors who, well, I'll tell you this. There's a meme, I remember the famous, who was the guy who was so good at boxing, it was real fast, Muhammad Ali. And remember, float like a butterfly, sting like a bee. There was this wonderful little picture of a jellyfish. And Muhammad Ali says, float like a butterfly. And the jellyfish says, okay, okay. And then he says, sting like a bee. And the jellyfish says, I am nailing this. Okay, so, you know, visual jokes never work. If you're ever at a party, don't do what I just did. But many of our leaders resemble that jellyfish. A jellyfish is an invertebrate. There's no spine.

C.S. Lewis called us men without chests. They don't take a stand for anything. And I guess perhaps if I'm feeling confrontational, I would say that, and this is certainly not true of your pastor, any of them, but many pastors today are simply cowards. They want the world's approval.

They want to be popular. They'll even say, we're not in a fight. Yet Paul speaks about the spiritual armor of God in Ephesians 6. Paul tells Timothy, like a good soldier. And yet these men often will say, we're not in a fight. Be nice.

Compromise. And so Spurgeon, Charles Spurgeon said, hey, look, being in the world is like having a boat that's in the water. You want your boat to be in the water. You don't want water to be in the boat.

If that starts happening, you've got problems. And so in the evangelical world, as we've been asleep, we've been taken on water and we've been hungering after the things of the world. And so it's not uncommon for, I don't like this term at all, celebrity pastors to advise compromise, compromise, compromise.

The second largest church in America is pastored by a guy named Andy Stanley. And several years ago, you guys will remember, there was a couple that refused to bake a cake for a gay wedding. By the way, it was beautiful.

I mean, shatter at Meshach and Abednego, right? We're not doing that. Well, we're going to sue you. That's fine. But I'm not doing that.

We're going to take you to court and you're going to lose your business. I don't care. We're not doing that. Pastor of the second largest church in America said this about that. Serving people we don't see eye to eye with is the essence of Christianity.

First of all, false. Jesus died for a world with which he didn't see eye to eye. If a bakery doesn't want to sell its products to gay people, it's their business, literally. But leave Jesus out of it. Leave Jesus, that's a quote. He said leave Jesus out of it. The second largest church in America.

Why is this happening? What are our shepherds doing? Jeremiah 23, God says this. Woe to the shepherds who destroy and scatter the sheep of my pastor, declares the Lord. Therefore, thus says the Lord, the God of Israel concerning the shepherds who care for my people. You have scattered my flock and have driven them away and you have not attended them.

Behold, I will attend to you for your evil deeds, declares the Lord. And then I will gather the remnant of my flock out of all the countries. By the way, a remnant. A small little group of people who actually adhere to true Christianity. It's a remnant.

It's always been like that. Then I will gather the remnant of my flock out of all the countries where I have driven them and I will bring them back to their fold and they shall be fruitful and multiply. And I will set shepherds over them who will care for them and they shall fear no more nor be dismayed. Neither shall any be missing, declares the Lord. God cares about His shepherds.

And I would like to encourage you. Please pray for Doug. Please pray for Eugene. Please pray for Steve. Please pray for your elders.

This is not an easy fight. And they need you, the saints, calling in air support on their behalf. Please, please pray for them.

They're in the crosshairs of the enemy. And incidentally, I would love to tell you that other denominations are the problem. Boy, if we could just look over at the Baptist or Methodist or Pentecostals or Episcopal or something. Our denomination has an openly gay youth pastor right now.

We are hosting a conference for gay Christians called the Revoice Conference in St. Louis. So that's the sound of a domino falling. That's what it looks like when it happens. And what's needed is for men and women to stand up and say, we're not doing that. That's not okay. You can't do that. You can't do that. You can't do that. That's not okay. You can do what you will. That's not okay.

So persecution. I'd like to redefine it for a second. I don't know about you. How many of you really like pain? Just man, give me some pain.

My natural reaction is if it's over there, I'll be over here. You know, my wife has had seven kids. I'm such a wimp. I don't like pain. And yet, what I'd like to turn for just a moment is to show you that Jesus points out, and then Peter and James also affirm this, persecution according to Christ is a blessing. The blessing of persecution. What are the three offices of Christ? He is our blank, our priest, and our king.

What's the first one? He's our, say it. He's our prophet. Now, a prophet of, I'm sorry, I pace. I'm trying to stay here though. A prophet of God.

What's their batting average have to be? 100%. You can't be wrong at all. Every time you have to be right. If you're not, you're a false prophet. So if Jesus makes a prophecy, and we're about to read something that he says, how accurate is it?

You can take it to the bank. It's going to happen for sure every time. So Jesus says in Matthew 5, 10 through 12, blessed, blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness sake. What is the persecution? What are you when you're persecuted? You are blessed.

Now, by the way, it's so amazing. He says for righteousness sake. That means, who's the righteous person? Who's the righteous one?

It's God. Paul said, be an imitator of him. So when you're imitating God, when you're striving for righteousness, you're going to be persecuted, but it's a blessing. The blessing of persecution. For theirs is the kingdom of heaven. And then he goes on to say, and blessed are you when others revile.

I had to look up revile. It means when you are relentlessly criticized and unfairly mischaracterized. You ever see that happen to Christians? Relentless criticism, unfairly mischaracterized.

That's our lot. Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven.

For so they persecuted the prophets who were before you. So when I think of blessing, I think of coming home and saying, honey, I got the promotion. Go ahead and buy the big car. We're going to tear out everything downstairs and remodel it.

Or better yet, let's just buy another house. And my kids are so well behaved that people think I'm a great father. That's what I think of as blessing. And Jesus looks and he says, no, no, no, no, no.

The American dream was a chicken in every pot and a no. Blessing is when others come after you and slander you and relentlessly mischaracterize your positions on purpose to make you look evil. Blessing comes when you don't compromise your faith in Christ and are called intolerant, hateful. And so what do we do? I want to encourage you, there's one word and we're going to talk about, unpack this a little bit.

What do we do? If Jesus promised this is coming and yet we're kind of okay for the moment, we prepare. Now is the time to prepare. I have the privilege of serving in youth ministry for 15 years, baby, 15 years. And one of the things that we talked about frequently was purity because everybody was dating and so sexual purity was a really important topic.

It came up all the time. And one of the things that Scripture emphasized and we tried to emphasize was the time to prepare for your standards in dating, especially when it came to someone who might pressure you sexually was before you're on the date. Decide before you go out with the person, I'm not going to do this. I'm not going to do this. This is too far. I'm going to protect myself from my husband or my wife one day.

I'm not going to do anything to cause me shame because if you're on the date and suddenly the person says, hey, my parents aren't home, do you want to come in? And you don't have a plan, it's too late. You don't know what you're going to do. Now God can intervene, by the way, but the time to prepare. Joshua said in Joshua 24, choose this day who you're going to serve. This day, right now, sitting here before the heat gets there because if you haven't planned something and things heat up, you're likely to fail.

So between now and when the heat comes, I would encourage you, begin preparing now. What are the things in your life that you look at and you say, I'm not doing that. I'm not compromising there. I'm not going to wear a flag for Gay Pride Day.

I don't care if it's mandatory or not. I'm not doing it. And if somebody asks you why, be prepared to tell them because Jesus Christ is my Lord and Savior and I can't serve man but you.

That's what happened in Acts 5 29, right? I have to serve God. I can't serve you.

I'm sorry. I've got a higher calling. Would you like to hear about Him?

I'd like to tell you about Him. Go change your life. And in fact, in 1 Peter 3 14 and 15, Peter says, going back to this theme of persecution is blessing, if you should suffer for righteousness sake, you will be blessed. Have no fear of those who persecute you nor be troubled but in your hearts honor Christ.

Why does he have to say that? Because our temptation is to always give people and things more honor than they deserve. So in your hearts set aside all that other stuff and put Christ as your Lord. Honor Christ. And then this is the linchpin of all apologetics. Always being prepared, prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for the reason for the hope that is in you.

If somebody comes up and they say, you believe that Noah grabbed two of every kind of animal and just led them to the ark, you know, oh, hey, little ants, come on there. You need to be ready to say, you're darn right I do. Of course I do. Scripture says it. I believe it. That settles it. And by the way, God was the one who led the animals. Noah was just shepherding them in there. So there's no issue there.

You need to be prepared to give a reason for the hope that is within you. Always. I was watching a movie called Collision. Has anybody seen that? It's a series of debates between Doug Wilson and Christopher Hitchens.

It's worth seeing if you've got the time to see it. One of the things that Doug Wilson says is the way I prepared is I just had conversations in my mind and thought of every possible answer and I just did that until I knew what I thought. So I don't have to keep rehearsing this. I want to encourage you.

Be prepared to give that reason for the hope. Start thinking through things. How would I respond to that? I'm sort of, I don't want to go too far on this because I don't have a lot of time. But be prepared when somebody says, well, if God is so powerful, why do bad things happen to good people?

First of all, there's 600 books written on the subject. Second of all, you need to have an answer for that. Be prepared. We can do this. God speaks to these things. Be prepared.

James picks up on this. Blessed is the man who remains steadfast under trial and when he has stood the test he will receive the crown of life which God has promised to him. Again, persecution as blessing.

How so? Well, what's blessing? It's God's stamp of approval. God blesses those things which He likes. In the Old Testament the most common sign of blessing, well, first of all was the presence of God. But materially speaking, the most common sign of God's blessing was a family like Eugene's. Lots of kids. Lots of babies. Those were God's blessing. That's one of the reasons we're against abortion. Children are a sign of God's blessing in all times, all places, all circumstances regardless of the genetic makeup.

Children are a blessing. That's God's stamp of approval. So Jesus says when you're persecuted, that's God saying to you, good job. Stephen just before he was killed, what was significant about what he saw when he looked up at Jesus? What was Jesus doing? He was standing. Where is Jesus? He's seated at the right hand of God and then he looks down at Stephen just before he gets his head bashed in for proclaiming the gospel and he's standing. Persecution is of God's sign of saying good job.

You're doing the right thing. People know you're following me. Persecution according to Philippians 3 allows you to know Christ more. Paul says for his sake I've suffered the loss of all things and Paul had some things. Circumcised on the eighth day, a Jew of Jews, a Pharisee of Pharisees, of the tribe of Benjamin, as to the law, blameless. He had some things.

I counted all loss. I counted all rubbish in order that as I let it go I gain Christ. You have some things that the world can take away from you but you will gain Christ and be found in him not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith that I may know him. I may know the power of his resurrection and I may share in his sufferings becoming like him, becoming like him in his death. Suffering allows us to know Christ more. A female missionary came and spoke at our church years ago in Chattanooga.

I can't believe how many people say don't go to a Muslim country. They need Christ. She went. Quickly caught, quickly imprisoned in a silo that had been overturned for months that had been overturned and I don't know how to say this gently so I'm going to say it. She was raped multiple times a day for months for her faith and she said she shared with our congregation that as she was in there through the pain and through the humiliation every day for months she prayed and felt God say to her sister they're not doing it to you they're doing it to me and in the midst of that he was there with her. Persecution. Christ is with us in the midst of that.

Persecution allows us to experience the presence of Christ in ways that we don't otherwise. Sean Hurry was about to leave to be a missionary in South Africa and pray for him. There's Isaac there.

He's going with him and Sean's three daughters. We were talking the other day and he said you know in 1949 when China went over to communism there were estimated one million believers in there and now 72 years later still just as anti-Christian as it was before. Guess how many believers there are now? They estimate a hundred million. A hundred million people who are saying I'm trusting Christ.

You can do what you want to. I count it all loss. My life.

I count it loss. So what do we do? In the meantime we pray. We have access to the most powerful being in the universe and he likes us. God's not mad at us because Christ has covered all of our sin.

He sees the righteousness of God when he looks at everyone in here who's trusted Christ as their Lord and Savior. And so we pray. We pray for revival. I'd like to point out what happened to Nineveh when Jonah went there? They repented.

They had piles of heads outside the gates. We don't have that. They repented. I'm telling you I can look at America sometimes and just go good grief. It's all hopeless and God says don't say that. I can do it in Nineveh.

I can do it here. Pray for revival. God here's your prayers and your prayers move the hand of God. Pray for revival. Pray for your own backbone. Pray that when the time comes for you to take a stand for Christ and it's coming. Jesus can't be wrong.

He said it's coming. That you will stand there and say I'm taking a stand and I'm not doing that. And by the way for Christ in the name of Jesus.

I'm not backing down. Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego when they were told to worship this idol obelisk on the planes there outside of Babylon they said if we're thrown in the blazing furnace the God we serve is able, omnipotent. He's able to deliver us and he'll deliver us from your majesty's hand. But even if he doesn't sovereignty even if he doesn't we want you to know your majesty we're not serving your gods and we're not worshiping the image of gold you have set up. Pray for that grace enabled backbone to look when the time comes and say I'm not doing that. I serve someone who's sovereign and omnipotent.

I'm not doing that. Next shine. Philippians 2. Be blameless innocent children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation among whom you shine like stars. You shine like stars holding fast to the word of life. Jesus said let your light shine. The Gospel of John said the darkness has not overcome it.

It's going to be hard. The darkness is going to try to overcome you. Let your light shine. And by the way not let your light shine the grace of the witness of being good and moral and what is it I don't cuss chew or run around with girls who do. No let it shine for Christ for the Gospel overtly. Number three don't stop attending church. Keep coming back in person.

Zoom is communication but I would encourage you to get community. Hebrews 10 40 24 to 26. Let us consider how we can stir one another onto love. Boy I need to be stirred up. Don't you?

You come in beaten bruised battered by the world. Isn't it nice to have believers who go well let's pray. Let's talk. Let's see what the word has to say about a spur one another on. And by the way how long have Christians been skipping church. At least since the book of Hebrews was written because he says this is nothing new.

Not neglecting to meet together as is the habit of some. I mean the church is like 40 years old at this point. Come on guys. Bedside Baptist. But encouraging. That was a joke. OK. There is no bedside Baptist.

If there is tell me about it because I may want to. All right. But encouraging one another all the more as you see the day drawing near. Church is our moment of sanity. By the way certainly these walls of the church building but you were the church. You were the church.

It's the people. And praise God for a church like Grace where the word of God is held in high regard. And finally what do we do. We run towards the darkness. China needs missionaries. Your work needs missionaries. Your family needs missionaries. Run towards the darkness. I always think of 9-11 and the pictures that certainly stick with me are the firemen who are running up those stairs. They didn't care.

They didn't care. This is what I'm called to do. This is what I'm going to do even if it costs me everything. This is my job.

You and I have a job. Run towards the darkness. Let's pray. Father thank you for that high and lofty calling that you've given us that calling to take a stand for Christ. Father I pray we run towards the darkness that we would not fear persecution. You've promised it but I fear that we would bear up underneath it. At least people know we're believers when we're being persecuted and I pray that that fear of man would dissolve. That we would count it lost that we may gain Christ. And it's through Christ that we pray this. Amen.