Religious Persecution

SERMON: 2015-01-11--ac15150--religious-persecution-part-2 SOURCE DURATION: 00:40:46.000 PROPOSED CUTS: 2 CONFIDENCE: 1.00 APPROVED: false REASON: The recording begins with the main theological exposition in segment [1] and concludes with a final point of pastoral application/theological exposition in segment [655]. ACOUSTIC EVIDENCE: available ACOUSTIC MUSIC INTERVALS: none ACOUSTIC SPEECH OVERLAP: no ACOUSTIC BOUNDARIES APPLIED: none Inline CUT markers identify each proposed audio boundary after the relevant word. --- ORIGINAL TRANSCRIPT WITH PROPOSED CUTS MARKED --- [PROPOSED CUT 1 START at 00:00:00.000; remove through 00:00:04.000] [CUT] (whirring) [CUT] [PROPOSED CUT 1 END at 00:00:04.000; resume after this marked segment] Now, as we've been seeing, persecution comes in many different forms. The extreme, of course, is deny Jesus or lose your life. And as we've noted, there are thousands of people around the world every year that are confronted by that choice. I told you the story a little while back of children in Iraq being confronted with the choice of denying Jesus or having their heads cut off. And some of the stories of faithfulness to Jesus that have come out of that situation are mind-boggling and just incredibly powerful. Now, most of us in the Western world, I suspect, at least in our lifetime, will not be confronted by such a radical choice. I can't say that for our children or our grandchildren. Nobody knows what the future holds. But in terms of the immediate future, that's not likely to happen. But that's not to say that religious persecution in its more moderate form will not take place in our lifetime or in our experience, because you'll recall that I've said before, persecution, if you study the history of it in countries where people have had to die for Jesus, never starts off with deny Jesus or I will kill you. No, no, it starts off by deny Jesus or you will lose your job. Deny Jesus or your kids will not enter into university, they will have no future. Deny Jesus or at least tone down the rhetoric about Christianity or you will be ostracized socially. I've said before, the world doesn't care what you believe as long as it doesn't affect how you live. Let it color how you live and you discover the antipathy, the antagonism that arises when you start standing up for Christian values. Two quick illustrations that come out of the news relatively recently. The first is a story out of Rhode Island just this past week, a Supreme Court decision against two Roman Catholic firefighters. They had appealed the decision by their boss to drive a fire truck as part of a gay parade back I think in 2001. The boss told them, drive the truck or you'll lose your job. The firefighters took it to court. In a unanimous decision, five to nothing, the Supreme Court judges said that driving a fire truck in a gay parade had nothing to do with values of religion that the two of them were holding. Unbelievable, but that's where society is going. Other illustration goes back to I believe of July of last year, a scientist by the name of Mark Armitage working at California State University. He was part of an archaeological dig where they found one of the largest intact horns of a particular variety of dinosaurs. Studying it under a microscope, he discovered an amazing thing. There were soft tissue cells present in the horn of the dinosaur. Scientifically, that's not supposed to be happening because these things supposedly are millions of years old, right? So this guy is a Christian creationist, wrote a peer review article outlining his findings and his conclusions and guess what? Gets fired from his job for subscribing to a view of science that is at odds with the scientific community. Don't ever think it's only religious people who are intolerant just for the record. All of society has its own values and if you don't measure up to those particular values, you're going to be ostracized. And so yes, we may not be called to have our heads chopped off just yet for loyalty to Jesus, but I'll tell you, the more society moves into direction where it's going, the more you and I will be confronted by situations where it will be increasingly difficult to hold on to Christian values without being marginalized in society. That is also persecution. The question then is, how do we respond? Remember last week we looked at the first two of three questions that we want to try to answer in this little miniseries on religious persecution. The first question is why are Christians particularly the subject of persecution? The second question is what is the mechanism that drives that? And we talked about all of that last week. It's online or you can get it on DVD if you weren't there. Worth your while, I think, to listen to. This morning we come to the third question and that is what should our response be in view of the kind of persecution that scripture says sooner or later all of God's people who live godly lives will experience? And that's why we read these verses from Peter because in these verses from Peter we find a five-fold prescription on how to deal with the subject of religious persecution. We won't have time to deal with all of them this morning but let's see how far we can get. Prescription number one says Peter, don't be surprised. Verse 12, dear friends, do not be surprised at the painful trial you are suffering as though something strange were happening to you. I can be brief about this. We've talked about it before. It's very important to understand from a biblical point of view that persecution is part and parcel of living the Christian life in the world. Paul puts it this way, 1 Thessalonians 3.3, let no one be moved by these afflictions. You yourselves know that this is to be our lot. This, he says, is to be our lot. And the reason for that's not hard to figure out because there are two value systems in the world. One is the kingdom of God characterized by faith, hope, and love. God is at the center. Everything bows to his authority. The other value system is that of the world. God is alienated from us and we from him. Satan is the god of this world. We are selfish through and through and the values of the world are the pride of life, the lust of the eyes, and the lust of the flesh. In other words, in the kingdom of God, God stands at the center. In the kingdom of the world, it's all about me. We talked last week about Cain's reaction to his offering being rejected by God. His response, besides killing Abel, was to build a city and to name it after his son. It's all about who I am. It's all about my legacy. I am ultimately God. And when the son of lawlessness, the Antichrist, appears at the end of history, that's going to be the full summation of that lie that somehow or another, we are the ultimate source of authority. We are the ultimate source of wisdom. We are at the center of the universe. Now, to the degree--I'll say it again. Let's put those back up for just a moment. To the degree to which we embrace the values of the kingdom of God, to the degree the world around us embraces the values of the kingdom of the world, there will always be a clash. And the only reason why in the Western world we're not having our heads cut off, we're still free to go to church, we're still free to practice our faith in God in ways that we see fit, is because of our Judea Christian heritage. And the more that is being shunted aside, the more we will see a rise in persecution, and the more you and I are confronted by the choice of what does following Jesus look like. And I'll give you one very practical example before we move on from this point. We can take that down. You're familiar, I trust, with the fact that the liberal provincial government is planning to implement in the fall of this year this revised sex ed program. You've heard about that. They tried it back in 2010 under the McGinty government. So many Christians rose up in protest against it that it got diverted, but it was the brainchild of now premier Kathleen Wynne. They are in the process of revising it, and they are doing that in consultation with the public, supposedly. But what they mean by consultation with the public is one person from each of the 4,000 schools in the province of Ontario are being given permission to comment on this program. The rest is secret. But if it's anything like what was being suggested-- and I strongly suspect that it will be-- it will raise a bit of a problem for some Christian parents and for some Christian teachers. Because do you want your child in grade 3 taught that gender is a social construct? Do you know what that means? That means gender is not determined by whether you're a boy or whether you're a girl. It's determined by what you choose it to be, one of maybe as many as 12 gender identities. Grade 3, do you want your child taught that homosexuality in same-sex marriages is on the same level as heterosexuality or heterosexual marriages? That's where it's going, I can guarantee you that. I'd be greatly surprised if it isn't, because that's where society is at. And do you want your child taught in grade 3 that there are multiple forms of families, all of which are equally valid and equally natural, from single parent to two parents to three parents to six? Do you want your kids taught those kind of values in grade 3 come the fall? If you're a teacher, a Christian teacher, and some of you are, what are you going to do when you are required to teach that kind of curriculum? What kind of spinning do-- you see where this is going in society? Christians are being marginalized, because particularly in this whole sexual revolution that we are part of today, Christians either end up going along with the flaw, and everybody will love you, or you stand against the flaw, and there's a good chance that you will lose your job, you'll get hauled before a human rights commission, and if nothing else, you'll be written off as a bigot who doesn't enjoy sex, and as a hung up prude of a religious person, because you don't fit into the model of society today. It's already happening. All you have to do is read the comments to articles that appear online about these things, and you will-- and you will be shocked at the antagonism that is being expressed to Christians even today. The Bible says, "Don't be surprised. "It's to be your lot." Doesn't mean you have to go looking for it, but you better expect it, because if you don't expect it, you're gonna be blown out of the water because you're surprised at how people treat you. So number one, don't be surprised. Peter goes on, because he knows how we think. Secondly, he says, "Learn to rejoice in the persecution." Learn to rejoice. Verse 13, "Rejoice that you participate "in the sufferings of Christ "so that you may be overjoyed "when his glory is revealed." Now, if there is anything in Scripture that is counterintuitive, it's that one. I can tell you that from personal experience, having, I think, experienced a tad of persecution in my own life of ministry, I have not learned how to rejoice. And I suspect you're not much better at it than I am. But it's a theme that runs throughout Scripture, because listen to, you know, these verses, James. James 1-2, "Consider it pure joy." Say it with me. "Consider it pure joy, my brothers, "whenever you face trials of many kinds." Paul. Now, I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake. And then just because you may think that James and Paul are a little extreme, listen to what sweet and mild Jesus has to say about it in the Sermon on the Mount. "Blessed are you when people insult you, "persecute you, and falsely say all kinds of evils against you "because of me. "Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, "for in the same way they persecuted the prophets "who were before you." Rejoice and be glad. Rejoice when you're threatened with the loss of a job. Rejoice when your spouse turns against you because you won't share in his or her particular agenda. Rejoice when you're ostracized on the job because you're not part of the gossip beyond. Rejoice when everybody thinks you're nuts and a prude because you don't want to go along with a revised sex education program. Rejoice when you watch your kids being slaughtered in front of you. Pushing it a little, don't you think? You see how far we have to go. So how in the world can you rejoice when you're confronted by that kind of persecution? And remember, what we go through is nothing compared to people who have to give up their lives. If you want to read, I don't know if I-- you know, I'd almost call it depressing, but if you want to read a book about that, it's a book called "The Insanity of God," and that's written by a guy who has traveled throughout the persecuted nations of the world to try to find out how in the world do people survive this kind of persecution. And it's an eye-opener, I tell you, because the choices that people are confronted by sometimes are just incredible. I mean, you know, Jesus says in Matthew 24, "Considering the last days, if the Lord didn't shorten those days, not even the elect could be saved." That's how nasty it gets when the devil really gets going. Don't ever underestimate it. Why rejoice? Well, two reasons. Number one, it means your faith is real. It means you have crossed over from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of light. Listen to how Jesus puts it in John 15, 19 to his disciples. "If you belong to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you." Let me put it in this context once again. Two value systems, you will recall, values of the world, values of the kingdom. By nature, you and I are all part of this value system, and that is why to the degree to which we are part of that value system, we don't bother anybody, everybody loves us. But you come to Christ, and you start living by the Spirit increasingly for this value system. They're going to do to you what they did to Jesus. What did they do to Jesus? They put him on a cross. Why did they put him on a cross? There was nobody more kind, more gracious, more loving, more truthful than Jesus, but they put him to death. Why? Because he got under people's skin, that's why. His light exposed the darkness. His love for God, his honesty for truth, his passion for the lost exposed the hypocrisy in people's hearts. He went out of his way sometimes, I might add, to bring that out of the open, but they killed him on account of that. Now, if you get persecuted for righteousness sake, not for your own stupidity, we'll talk about that in a moment, then you have cause to rejoice, because if you ever had a question about whether you're a Christian or not, that's proof positive. Rejoice, because this is what they did to the prophets of old. You're in the same category as the prophets, most of whom were killed and destroyed by their contemporaries because they were the voice of God speaking into the confusion of their day and age. That's reason number one. It's proof that you're on the right side of the equation. Number two, great will be your reward. Great will be your reward. Peter puts it this way in verse 13. Rejoice that you participate in the sufferings of Christ so that you may be overjoyed when his glory is revealed. Put it this way again. What was Jesus' reward for being faithful to the Father? He was raised from the dead, ascended into heaven, sat down on the right hand of God, and received the name. Get this. I mean, we hear it all the time, but we don't get it. The name above every name. Everything the world is fighting for all the time to get, which is happiness and joy and prosperity and sufficiency and purpose and meaning. Jesus got it all at the right hand of the Father without ever lifting a finger to fight for it. Why? Because the kingdom is not given to those who fight for it. It's given to those who are in right relationship with God the Father. And you and I, when we're joined to Jesus, we share in his inheritance. We are coheirs with him. So why rejoice when all hell is breaking loose? Because this world is not going to last indefinitely. You know that, don't you? This world is going to yield one day to the coming of God's kingdom with glory and honor and power. And those who have sided with Jesus today are going to be honored with Jesus in the glory that is to come. We're going to sit with him on thrones, whatever that looks like. God only knows what it looks like. Paul saw it, experienced it, couldn't put it into words because it was such glory. We get to share in the glory of God. And that's why Jesus says in this verse in Matthew, "Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you." Why rejoice in suffering persecution? Because it shows that you belong to Jesus. And when you belong to Jesus, when he comes into his kingdom, you get to join in the glory and the honor that is going to be piled on the children of God in the age to come. And this sounds simplistic, I know. And it's small comfort when you and I are in the middle of a lot of pain. But really, 100 years from now, will it matter that your wife was mad at you because you wanted to follow Jesus? Will it matter that you lost your job or that you got your head chopped off or that this life was difficult because you try to be faithful to Jesus? Frankly, it won't matter at all because as Paul says, the short momentary sufferings of this age are preparing for us a weight of glory that is going to be revealed to us on that final day. But do you understand with me the changes that Jesus has to work in our hearts to even get us to thinking in those terms? I mean, here's a verse from the book of Hebrews that I've often pondered, and it shows you how far we have to go in terms of getting a biblical view on the reality of life. This is in the context of the Hebrew Christians who are suffering persecution. They haven't even lost their lives yet. But the writer to the Hebrews says you sympathized with those in prison, and then this next phrase just always blows me out of the water. You joyfully accepted the confiscation of your property because you knew that you yourselves had a better and a lasting possession. Isn't that something? Oh, glory hallelujah, I just had my house burned down. Glory hallelujah, I just lost my job. Can't make my mortgage payments, I just lost my whole family. Isn't it wonderful? But you see, if the Spirit of Christ lives in you, then you don't have to rejoice because these things are happening, but you can rejoice because you have the long-range vision that you have an inheritance in heaven that is undefiled, imperishable, unfading, that nobody but nobody can take away from you. But you need the Spirit of Jesus to see that. So number one, don't be surprised. Number two, learn to rejoice in the middle of it. And then number three, equally important, keep your nose clean. Verse 15, "If you suffer, it should not be as a murderer or thief or any other kind of criminal or even as a meddler." If you suffer, it shouldn't be as a murderer or a thief or any other kind of criminal and because Paul or Peter knows church people, not a meddler either. Don't be a busybody, don't be a gossip, don't stick your nose in other people's business because you'll get yourself into trouble. See, it's one thing to get into trouble because we're committed to Jesus and the offense is the cross, isn't it? That we need to rejoice in. See, Peter knows his people because he also knows that it's quite another thing to get into trouble because we're getting ourselves into trouble. And for a lot of people historically, it's a little bit of both, isn't it? Yes, I get into trouble because of Jesus and because of my witness to Jesus, but I also get into trouble because my mouth is too big. I make mistakes, I say all the wrong things, I lose my temper. And so now people have something to latch on to me. And Peter says keep your nose clean because if you don't keep your nose clean, the forces of hell will try to grab hold of the slightest foothold in your life that they can lay hold of and they will drive it to the ground and you will be wordless to defend yourself in that situation because there is just enough truth to the accusation. There's just enough truth to the accusation that you cannot legitimately defend yourself or that other people can come to your support. Quick example, I told you last week about this church in Wenzhou that was torn down by the Chinese government just at the end of April last year. Wenzhou, as I said last week, city of about 7 million. It's a port city on the east coast of China. Weba and I had some marvelous meetings there because it's known as the Jerusalem of the East. It's got 1,500 churches. About 15% of the city is committed to the Lord Jesus Christ. And part of the fruit of that is because years and years ago under the Chinese cultural revolution, everybody had to flee to the hills and a lot of the leadership was persecuted and destroyed. When that persecution lifted, the Christians drifted back. Blood of martyrs is often said to be the seed of the church and the church in that city has been growing phenomenally. And so these folks built this church, took them six years, over 3 million dollars, and they did so with the tacit approval of the authorities in Wenzhou. But one slight miscalculation. They had received permission to build a 20,000 square foot building and in the process of building they got carried away and they ended up building structures that encompassed 100,000 square feet. You know how that goes. Add another foot to the wall, right? Well, you add enough feet to the wall and you end up here. So the authorities turned a blind eye to that. And in fact, they lauded this church building for a long time as sort of a model project. Everybody was proud of that. But then along comes somebody from higher up. And he sees all these church buildings in the skyline of Wenzhou with crosses because they love putting these crosses way up there so that they can lift high the cross of Jesus. And he says to the governing authorities, "Did they break any codes when they put this building up? Did you give them permission to do all of this?" Well, you know what happens, saving face is pretty important in most cultures, especially Chinese. And so what happened? Oh, no. So now the battle is on. How are we going to handle this? First they agreed, well, take down the cross and we'll be happy. That wasn't good enough because the Christians didn't want to take down the cross. Then they said, well, get rid of two stories on this auxiliary building that you put up and then we'll be happy. They agreed to that, but then the authorities broke the word and they tore the whole thing down. And that's where they find themselves today. My point, obvious, keep your nose clean. Because if you don't keep your nose clean, if there's anything that can be latched onto legitimately, you lose the ability to stand up and say no. Other people cannot support you because you've broken the law, but you're given ammunition to the devil to try to bring you down. And that is why Jesus, in Matthew chapter 10, when he sends out his disciples, he gives these words of wisdom. Matthew 10, verse 16, "I send you out as sheep in the midst of wolves, so be wise as serpents and innocent as doves." Wise as serpents, innocent as doves. What does it mean to be wise as a serpent? Well, you don't go poking the bear. You don't throw pearl before swine. You don't step into situations to provoke unless you really feel that you are called as a prophet of God and you're called to speak into a given situation. In those cases, you have to poke the bear, but then you better be prepared to pay with your life, because that's why they crucified Jesus. He poked the bear because he wanted to bring out into the open what was hidden in the hearts of those Pharisees, but it cost him his life. We've all been flabbergasted this past week, I'm sure, by the massacre in Paris with the two shooters invading the offices of Charlie Hebdo, which is a satirical magazine that specializes in making fun of religious people, religious movements, and generally a bunch of old hippies back from the '60s that started that thing. And I don't want you to misinterpret what I'm saying. What the shooters did was wrong, inexcusable, and totally inappropriate. But they did poke the bear. And you know that when you go poking Mohammed and slandering his reputation and portraying his image, all of Islam rises up against you. Now, if you feel that that's your job to do, then you do it, but you better be prepared to pay for it with your life, which is what these folks have had to do. It doesn't excuse what anybody did. It doesn't mean we can't have a lot of sympathy for freedom of expression. The point is this, if you don't want to die, don't poke the bear. If you're going to poke the bear, make sure it's Jesus telling you to poke the bear, because you're going to need him when the bear swats at you. Okay? Innocent as doves? Well, you make sure there is nothing that people can attach to you that gives opportunity to censure you. Paul has a lot to say about this. He says, "I want you to be wise about what is good, innocent about what is evil." In Thessalonians 2:10, "You are witnesses, and so is God, of how holy, righteous, and blameless we were among you who believed." And then he says in Romans 12:17, "Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everybody." It doesn't mean you have to be perfect. It doesn't mean you can ever make mistakes, but it does mean that the more God uses you to shine light into somebody else's life, the more they're going to examine your life under a mirror. And if they can find something in you, some inconsistency in you, some value that they can hold onto in order to diminish what it is that you're saying, they will do that. And if it gets bad enough, you will be amazed at the anger that comes from deep places in people's lives ready to crucify you because of the convicting power of the Holy Spirit and the anger of Satan. Didn't get a chance to talk about this last week relative to the story of Cain, but why did Cain become a murderer? Because he opened the door to rejection and anger, and guess who enters when you open the door to rejection and anger? The prince of anger who himself was rejected by God for failing to submit to God's authority. So hear me well. If you coddle rejection in your life and do not repent of it and take it to the cross because you were accepted in Jesus, you sit there and you nurture this, the devil comes along because he knows exactly what rejection feels like. He will tell you a thousand excuses why you were right and everybody else is wrong, and before you know it, you've become a murderer in your heart. Because all you have to do is study history to discover how some very good, noble people commit some incredibly atrocious acts. I remember years back when Schindler's List came out. Remember Schindler's List? The story of the man who saved a lot of Jews from going to the gas chambers? I remember one of the comments that people made when the movie first came out was the fact that the Nazi officials who were sending thousands upon thousands of Jews cold-bloodedly into the gas chambers to be murdered were pictured as these loving husbands and fathers at home. And people said, "How in the world can you square that because we always think the bad people sport horns and tails and look demonic." Isn't that true? But you see, once the devil persuades you that you're righteous and everybody else is unrighteous, it's amazing what you can accomplish in the horror of the grip of his power. I mean, you've heard that story, you know, in Peshawar, in Pakistan, where these, what was it, seven terrorists invaded the school? You know how they killed them? They lined those kids up against the wall, a whole bunch of them, and then they just went back, went around, shot everyone in the back of their head, dropped dead. I mean, one or two, it's always amazing. A bullet grazes somebody, they fall down, they're not really dead, they survive, but talk about horror. See, but then you ask yourself the question, how can people do what--don't you-- how inhuman can you be? Fact of the matter is, when you're in the grip of Satan's wisdom, it makes perfectly good sense, and nobody is immune, which is why the Lord says to Cain back in that story, "Sin is couching at the door. You've got to resist it, because if you don't resist it, it's gonna take you out." Cain didn't want to take--didn't want to resist it. It took him out, and the rest is the foundation of what we call the world, a civilization that is built on rebellion, on rejection, and on having to strive in order to attain. So what do we do when we're faced with persecution in whatever form? Number one, we learn not to be surprised, because it's gonna be our lot. Number two, learn to rejoice, because God's up to something. Jesus says when you see these things happening, lift up your heads, for you know that your redemption draws an eye. Number three, keep your nose clean. And as I started to say, it doesn't mean you have to be without sin, but it means that we're honest, we walk with integrity, we take responsibility, we live transparently, and the rest we leave up to God, because we know that if God is for us, who could be against us? That's where we're gonna leave it for now. Next time we come back to this one more time, Lord willing, and we're gonna talk about the biggest battle that you and I will face when stuff starts going wrong, and I can tell you what that is. It is fear. It is the fear of what's going to happen to me if I step out into this and if I try to be faithful [PROPOSED CUT 2 START at 00:40:45.000; remove through 00:40:46.000] to the Lord Jesus. [CUT] [CUT] [PROPOSED CUT 2 END at 00:40:46.000; resume after this marked segment]