 Grace to all of you in Jesus' precious name. How did those early disciples go off to war? They went off to war, seeing the heavens opened and the Son of man standing at the right hand of God. May that be our way of preparing for persecution. I would like to say at the very beginning, I think that if we can get the vision of those early disciples, of this living Savior whom they had observed for three years, doing the miracles, the amazing teaching that came from His mouth, the suffering that He taught and then exemplified in front of them, the garden, the cross. But before that, some of them at least saw Him on the Mount of Transfiguration. And they all heard Him there on the Mount of Beatitudes. And now they come to the cross and they think it's all over. And for three days, His body was in the grave and then He rose again and they realized something is going on. And then He was with them for another 40 days and taught them about the kingdom and taught them how to understand the Scriptures. And then they watched Him ascend to heaven. A church prepared for persecution. And if we want to prepare ourselves for persecution, we can prepare today by asking Him to give us the same kind of vision that our dear brother Stephen had. I have a clearer slide in a moment. The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church, is a quote that we have often heard attributed to Tertullian. And here we have an image taken from the martyr's mirror, an image by Jan Leichen who did the engravings for this book. And for those of you who may not be familiar with this volume, The Martyr's Mirror, it's a collection of stories of the martyrs and of their letters and the writings that they sent home, these people who were the radical reformers from the 1500s and 1600s. And the volume begins with the martyrs of the early church. So I'll be showing a series of slides that shows the death of those apostles. So the reason, let me just give a little more on the martyr's mirror for those of you who may not be familiar with it. The reason this book was published, first compiled in the mid to late 1600s by Dutch ministers, was because in their country they had experienced a heavy persecution about 125 or 150 years prior. But now in the late, mid to late 1600s, the churches had grown comfortable and prosperous. And these ministers were concerned that their people would forget that the way of the cross is a way of suffering. And so they compiled this volume of the stories of the martyrs to help us, to help their people and us today now remember these accounts. So here is Stephen and his portrayal of his stoning. And of course, the image here has at the very center, Stephen looking up at heaven at the moment he is declaring, behold, I see the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God. And off to the left, if you look closely, and this image is a little dark, there is a man coming out of the city gate with his hands over his ears trying to block out what he thought was blasphemy. In the middle of the picture, you can see three men that are raising stones. In the very center, there is a man with a block of stone over his head ready to bring it crashing down upon dear Stephen. And then to the left of him, there is a man that has like a backswing with a rock in his hand. He's getting ready to bring a rock down upon poor Stephen. And he has a rock in his left hand ready to exchange it to throw it. And then in the very center, you see that man with a stone raised in his right hand. But I think perhaps the most mysterious and one of the most significant parts of this picture is off to the right. You see that slight figure standing there with his arms crossed. And he's standing there over the clothes. And we know who this is. This is Saul of Tarsus. And the way his stances portrayed their arms crossed, kind of confident, maybe self-righteous, and indignant, ready to stamp out this heresy. And we know the rest of the story. He did set out to stamp out the heresy. But he got arrested. And he realized what he thought was heresy was actually the truth. And he gave his life for it. And I have a portrayal of his death later on. Now here's what happened in the early church. Here is how they prepared for persecution, Acts 8 verse 1. And Saul was consenting unto his death. And at that time, there was a great persecution against the church, which was at Jerusalem. And they were all scattered abroad throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria, except the apostles. Now, OK, so here we've got a problem. There is heavy persecution. There is a scattering of the disciples all over. So we have two hardships. Number one, there's the hardship of persecution. Number two, the hardship of the scattering. So what is their solution to this great hardship? Do we make a petition to the local authorities to ease the persecution? Their solution and their preparation for persecution was that they went everywhere preaching the word. Their preparation was to go on the offensive, preaching the word. We conquer in dying. We go forth victorious at the very time we are subdued. Kill us, torture us, condemn us, grind us to dust. Your injustice is the proof that we are innocent. Nor does your cruelty, however exquisite, avail you. Rather, it is a temptation to us. The oftener we are moaned down by you, the more in number we grow. The blood of Christians is the seed. And we've seen that throughout the history of the church. And here we have following then the apostle, the disciple Deacon, Stephen, we have the beheading of James, the son of Zebedee. Here is a portrayal of the stoning of the apostle Philip. And we see here that they put his head against a pillar. And the stones are raised. They have his head tied to the pillar. And they're getting ready to crush his skull. Now I might say that these portrayals are based on the church's tradition of how the apostles were murdered. Here we have a significant picture. And I'm sorry it's a little bit dark for those of you in the back. But maybe you can see in the middle of the picture, the apostle James is kneeling with his hands raised to his mouth. And prominent in the very center of the picture at the bottom, it's lighter. You might be able to see it, are his two knees. Because what the apostle James was known for were his prayers. And legend has it that he spent so much time on his knees praying that the calluses on his knees were the size of camel's knees. And so the artist gave those knees prominence in the picture. Here we have the burning of Barnabas. Our dear brother Barnabas, who's encouraged so many people, suffered this indignity of a rope around his neck being dragged to the flames. And we have the offering of Mark the Evangelist in the town where the mob attacked. They grabbed him by hooks and by ropes, and they dragged him through the streets of the town until they reached the stake. And by that time, he had already died. And here we have the apostle Peter, of whom the Lord prophesied that he would die in a way which he did not wish. And tradition has it that when he was being taken to be crucified, he requested that he be crucified upside down because he felt he should not have the honor of being crucified in the same manner as his Lord. Now here we have another portrayal of Paul now, Paul the apostle. Now he's an old man and has suffered the wounds of the war. And he's about to give his life, tradition has it, at the hands of Nero. And the executioner is drawing the sword from the scabbard. And in a few minutes in this portrayal, our apostle Paul would have met the Lord Jesus whom he had first met there on the way to Damascus. The crucifixion of the apostle Andrew. Bartholomew, skinned alive and beheaded, we won't linger long. And here we have, as brother Dale already alluded to, the apostle Paul, apostle Thomas got his wish. Let us go with him that we may die also. Well we know tradition has it that the, and actually we have good archeological evidence that the apostle Thomas ended up all the way over in India. Doubting Thomas, preaching to those people all the way to the east. And legend has it that they captured him and threw him into this burning fiery furnace. And I'm sure that the son of God was walking with him in those flames. Matthew the evangelist beheaded, pinned to the ground with nails and beheaded with that large axe. The crucifixion of Simon the zealot and the crucifixion of the apostle Matthias and the hanging of the evangelist Luke. That's the end of that slide presentation. So again, we could ask the question, what was their cause? And we know that their cause was not a doctrine, not a creed. Their cause was a man, a man whom they had followed, whom they had seen and felt and touched as the apostle John teaches us in first John chapter one. They had heard him. They had seen his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the father full of grace and truth. This was their cause. This is how they prepared for persecution. The vision of the suffering, risen, ascended Christ and a commitment to follow him and the teachings that he gave them. This was their preparation and we could elaborate on this and sit down and we would be done and I think we would have adequate preparation. Let's go on and have a few more thoughts. From Jesus' teachings, let's look at the certainty of preparation and I'm going to read these scriptures and make no comment. The question before us is, can we expect persecution today? Let's listen to Jesus' teachings from Mark chapter 10 verses 22 to 25. I invite you to turn there. Mark 10 verse 22. Well, I have the wrong reference. Let's go on to John chapter 15 verse 19 to 21. John chapter 15 verse 19. Jesus says, if you were of the world, the world would love his own but because ye are not of the world but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateeth you. Remember the word that I said unto you, the servant is not greater than his Lord. If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you. If they have kept my saying, they will keep yours also. Second Timothy chapter three. Now we will hear from the apostle Paul who experienced his share of persecution. Second Timothy chapter three in verse 10. But thou hast fully known my doctrine, manner of life, purpose, faith, longsuffering, charity, patience, persecutions, afflictions, which came unto me at Antioch, at Iconium, at Lystra. What persecutions I endured but out of them all the Lord delivered me. Yay and all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution. First Peter four, the scripture that was memorized. Verse one, first part of the verse. For as much then as Christ hath suffered for us in the flesh, arm yourselves likewise with the same mind then over in verse 12. Beloved, think it not strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you as though some strange thing happened to you. Now let's go on to the benefits and the blessings of persecution. Matthew chapter five, verse 11 and 12. Those familiar verses at the end of the sermon on the mount Jesus says, blessed are you when men shall revile you and persecute you and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely for my sake, rejoice and be exceeding glad for great is your reward in heaven for so persecuted they the prophets which were before you. Here I see two benefits in being persecuted. Number one is it gives us a good reason to rejoice because we can after that person say at the restaurant you've just given him a tract or maybe at the drive through and you wished God's blessing on that person and as you drive away you hear the ripping of paper and you think, oh, that person has spurned what I offered him. Well at that moment you can thank God. Now that may be a very mild form of rejection obviously but it did happen recently and I thought of this. Here's an opportunity to rejoice. Secondly, at the end after we have endured faithfully there will be a great reward in heaven. On to John chapter, I'm sorry, Romans chapter five, three through five, Romans five, three through five. Here we have Paul giving us the benefits and the privileges of tribulation. So let's read verse three and not only so but we glory in tribulations also knowing that tribulation worketh patience and patience experience and experience hope and hope maketh not ashamed because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us. So patience could be translated endurance and experience could be translated character. So here if we endure tribulation we can look forward to having our endurance built up which will then lead to greater godliness in character. So right there's two more benefits. Endurance and character coming out of persecution. First Peter chapter four back to the passage we had just read in verse one. First Peter four one says that we should arm ourselves since Christ has suffered. We should also expect to suffer and prepare ourselves to suffer and the benefit there is that he that has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin. You want to help get some victory over sin well then endure some suffering. One of the benefits of persecution in verse 13 but rejoice in as much as you are partakers of Christ's sufferings that when his glory shall be revealed he may be glad also with exceeding joy. There you have that same combination that two part facet of reward as we saw there in Matthew chapter five. So we can rejoice now because of the glory and the rejoicing that we will have promised to us in the future. All right then in verse 14 if you be reproached for the name of Christ, happy are ye for the spirit of glory and of God resteth upon you on their part he is well spoken of but on your part he is glorified. There we have a couple of benefits. Do you want the spirit of glory and of God resting? Well go through some persecution and you're gonna experience the spirit of God and the spirit of glory resting upon you. And we've probably all felt that at times when we've kind of gone out on the edge a little bit and talked to somebody or handed somebody a track or witnessed in some way. And we have felt that spirit of glory and of God resting upon us. What prevents us from seeking more of that through the right kind of witness? May God help us now in chapter five verse 10. But the God of all grace who hath called us unto his eternal glory by Christ Jesus after that ye have suffered a while. Now what's gonna happen after you've suffered a while? Well God is gonna make you perfect. God's gonna bring you to maturity. He's going to establish you. He's going to plant your feet so that you can stand securely. And it says there that he will strengthen you and settle you. So do you want to mature and grow more secure in your salvation than endure some persecution? Do you see the blessings and benefits of persecution? Now here in the West, we tend to because of the rights, the inalienable rights that are guaranteed to the citizens of the United States under the First Amendment, freedom of religion and all that. The tendency is to fight for religious freedom when persecution comes. Instead of seeing the benefits of persecution, can we kind of turn things upside down a little bit and embrace the blessings and the benefits of persecution? Now let's talk about America. Is America a major exception? Because since 1791, the United States Bill of Rights in the First Amendment guarantees religious freedom as an unalterable right to the citizens of the United States. It says Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof or abridging the freedom of speech or of the press or the right of people to peaceably assemble. And the Constitution backs that up by saying, this can never be changed. Legislature can't change it. Federal government can't change it. This is the right of all the residents of the United States of America. And for 230 plus years, this country has guaranteed its citizens religious freedom. And we could ask the question, is this good or not? Because in 2000 years of church history, this is more of an exception than the norm. We are living, we have been living in very exceptional times in terms of religious freedom. What kind of persecution is likely to happen in America? We are guaranteed persecution by the promises of scripture. So we will declare that we should expect persecution. There is persecution happening. Of what kind? So my personal opinion is that there is a soft kind of persecution and more of a hard overt kind of persecution. And now brother in the back, if you could bring up that last slide, the slide of Augustine the baker. And if it takes a little time, that's okay. I'll bring up that story at some point. So in America here, what kind of persecution should we expect? It's of my opinion that so long as the, so long as the present government of the United States with its guarantee of religious freedom. My personal opinion is that we will not face is not likely that we'll face the kind of persecution that the martyrs faced in the early church and in the days of our forefathers. Under the present governmental system, but if, let's say due to some catastrophe that a new form of government would come in, a dictatorship, anything could happen or some undemocratic form of government of some kind or the other, anything could happen. And so we live in uncertain days and we're not sure what will happen. But until such a time, I see the U.S. drifting toward a very liberal kind of society, kind of indifferent to religion, maybe similar to the way the Netherlands are today. And I think it's likely we will, we will experience a more soft kind of persecution. Such as being charged with hate speech for calling people out of sexual sins as the apostle Paul did in Romans chapter one in which were common in his day. Of course, I am aware that there are people who have actually gone to prison in recent years for the sake of loved ones and for conscience sake. I am aware of that. But I think that it's pretty much a rarity in this country unless the democratic system collapses entirely. But if it would happen, and if we would have to experience persecution, we could do it. The grace of God would help us to endure and we will have cause for rejoicing. And the burning question is though, the burning question for us today is if the church were all that she should be, would there be more persecution? And we've been living in freedom for 230 years but we shouldn't forget that in many parts of the world there is persecution, the hard kind of persecution. Right now in India, for example, India for the last three or four years has been moved up to the number 10 country in the world where it is most, where Christians are most likely to be persecuted. For example, there are villagers, I've got a story here that I won't give the time to refer to in detail. But there's many examples like this where people go to their villages and the Hindu extremists ask them to worship the local Hindu gods at the threat of their lives. And people have to flee. It's a lot like it was in the days of the Roman Empire when the Christians were asked to do just a little thing, just offer a pinch of incense to the emperor once a year or so, that's all. And they said, no, we have one Lord and his name is Jesus Christ. And these Hindu Christians today are being persecuted in a similar way. Either you worship the local Hindu gods or you leave the village. And if you don't leave, some of these people are dying for their faith. So let's remember to pray for our brothers and sisters in other places where persecution is actually going on. Preparing for persecution. I think that we should be realistic, number one, about the threats that the church is facing today. I think that we have greater threats than persecution right now. And one of those greater threats is prosperity. And I'll read a little bit from a portion of a paragraph that the compilers of the martyr's mirror put in a later edition of the martyr's mirror because they were concerned about the prosperity. They said, in the former times, in the times of the cross, when men could assemble under peril of their life, our zeal drove us into the night and at unreasonable times into nooks and corners, fields and woods. How precious then was one hour which could be employed in stirring up and establishing one another in godliness. Men did not ask for ingenious or flowery sermons but hunger devired all that was present. The sole treasure was diligently sought since bodily possessions could give but little comfort. Then heavenly riches were sought above all things for earthly possessions were altogether insecure. How is it now? Temporal avocations have the preference throughout. The oxen must first be proved and the field be inspected before one can come to the heavenly marriage. Simplicity is changed in pomp and ostentation. Possessions have increased but in the soul there is leanness. Clothes have become costly but the inward ornament has perished. Love has waxed cold and diminished but contentions have increased. Prosperity is a greater threat I think right now. I believe that with all my heart and soul, brothers and sisters. And the second thing is pleasure. If the church can overcome the threat of porn the church can overcome the threat of persecution. Politics, as kingdom Christians, I think this is a third greater threat than persecution right now. But politics, as kingdom Christians we are called to be politically neutral. Are we in reality politically neutral? The problem with losing political neutrality is this. In the world it has always been this way. One of the major causes of persecution has been religion and the church sadly and other religion but it has also been the state. So if I align myself with a political party left or right, eventually I might find myself aligned with the persecutor. We saw that happening in the days of 1940s under Hitler. So let's identify our major threats and work on those. Prosperity, pleasure and politics. Secondly, preparation for persecution. We are to arm ourselves as first Peter 1 teaches us. We are as non-resistant Christians we are to arm ourselves. But our armor is a different kind of armor. It's the armor of God on the right hand and on the left. And it's the armor of the breastplate of righteousness of the sword of the spirit of the shield of faith and of the word of God. And it's the armor of a mind that is prepared for persecution because our master has endured persecution Peter tells us we ought to also prepare ourselves for that same kind of experience. And the martyrs mirror says that if you find that you live in a time when persecution is waning, persecute yourself. If you find that the time of freedom from persecution has given liberty and room to your lusts then persecute yourself. That's pretty good advice. Three, consider the early church. They went everywhere preaching the word. It says there in Acts chapter one verse four, we read it that the persecution scattered the believers and they went everywhere preaching the word. Now I'm not sure if we're going everywhere preaching the word, but we're really good at scattering. Just follow the vehicles out of the parking lot today and we're gonna be scattering all over the place. And we have the means and the method of scattering the word across the world in ways which the apostles couldn't even dream of. We have the opportunity to scatter and share the word. Now how are we doing with that? I think we tend to reduce, well I'll leave that. I won't make a judgment. But I think that we could leave this place with a desire to make preaching the word our vocation in whatever ways God gives us the grace to do it. So while we lived in the country of Ireland, we met at a large convention of a gentleman who was carrying a cross. I'm going to raise this as an idea. So there may be some young men out here who would wish to maybe do a little crossbearing in a literal sort of way and use this as a means to offer a witness for our Lord. This man was from America and he would go around to these large events and this one was a tall ships festival in the town of Waterford. So I'm there with my family enjoying this and just seeing the tall ships and then we went to the town center and here we saw off to the side this most unusual sight. Here was a man with a cross on his back. Now we've probably all heard of this or maybe seen it and we think this is weird. Why would anybody do this? Well, I'm saying it's one opportunity to preach the word and this man had a wheel on the back of his cross and he was pulling it along but he said, I asked him about that wheel and he said, yeah, you've got to have that wheel or you will lose about one inch per mile. And he said, it's the Christians who are legalistic who ask about that wheel. Everybody else understands. So I'm driving down 81 and occasionally I come to this overpass. I go under this overpass every day but occasionally on my way home from work I see a man up there on that overpass over this very busy artery in the east. He's up there demonstrating his allegiance to his country and he's got this flag up there that is waving in the wind and he is smiling and waving at the traffic passing below. And I thought to myself, what if some young man would have the courage to build a cross like that and stand at that overpass and just be friendly. This gentleman that we met in Ireland was a radiant face, a beaming testimony. This wasn't some grim experience for him and he used this as a witnessing opportunity. People came up to him and asked him what is this cross about? Well, was he ever ready to tell them what it was about? And it was an opportunity to present the cross and people came and asked questions. So we're in a visually cued society and I'm offering that as a suggestion. I know it's a little bit edgy but our family has done a few edgy things, other things. They went everywhere preaching the word. How about going into Wal-Mart or somewhere with a handful of tracks? If you've got some children, they're young and innocent you can go over to the beer section. And did you know that the beer boxes, a lot of them have a little slot in the middle and you can drop a track right down into the heart of that beer box? And I'm not sure now if it's quite legal or not but the worst thing that could happen is the store manager could come and tell you to stop doing it then you can move on to the next store. So yeah, and you might wanna be careful what address you have on the back of the track also. So many ways that we can go everywhere preaching the word. I think we could, I don't think that the days of the printed track are over. Yeah, it may be more limited now but I don't think the days of the printed track are over. Maybe the printed track is now for me too. To help me remember that I'm to be out on the front lines preaching the word and of course we don't want to neglect the deeper things such as conversations with neighbors. And I know there's a lot of good Bible studies going on with foreign students. There are short encounters inviting people to church and I know there's probably people here that are involved with refugee ministry and by God's grace my home community in Stuart Strat we're now about to offer help to a second refugee family. And these are ministry opportunities, people who've come from the Middle East out of terrible suffering and we can show them the love of Christ and hopefully some of them will choose to follow the lamb. I think we could prepare for persecution by memorizing the martyrs. We should read the stories of the martyrs to our young children and maybe have students in school write papers on the martyrs and on what they taught. We could have a memorial day for the martyrs. Our brother James Hershberger back at Stuart Strat has kind of gave us this idea. So the world has memorial day to celebrate the fallen soldiers who died to protect this country. What if we would set aside a day to celebrate and to remember those who've given their lives for the king? But then I want to talk about faithfulness in ordinary life. You know, many of, most of us probably won't get to do anything all that heroic in life. We may never, probably none of us will be called upon to offer our lives as a martyr for Jesus. We live pretty ordinary lives. We may never get to do something that the world calls heroic, but we can be faithful in the small things. And I want to close with an example from athletics and apologize if this is a poor way to close. But back in 2003, the British bicycling team re-organized because in 110 years, they hadn't won the Tour de France and they had won only one gold medal in the Olympics since 1908. And their performance was so poor that a major bike manufacturer in Europe refused to sell them bikes for fear that it would harm their sales. But in 2003, the British bicycling team hired a new performance director and his philosophy was the aggregation of marginal gains. The philosophy of seeking for marginal gains in everything you do, he called it the 1% principle and they decided they would break everything down that break everything down in riding a bike and then try to improve everything by at least 1%. Put it back together and see what you get. So they did things like they improved the seat on the bicycle, they provided heated clothes for their athletes to get the muscle tone just right. They experimented with the right kind of pain gels for muscle recovery. They even painted the inside of their van white so that dust particles might appear a little better. Dust particles that might actually harm the performance of their finely tuned bikes. All that and much more. They took apart the process of riding a bike, tried to improve in many ways and put it back together and the results of those tiny changes added up more quickly than anybody could imagine. In 2008, just five years after that new takeover the British team won 60% of the gold medals at the Olympics and four years later they won nine gold medals and set seven world records and in the 10 year span won five Tour de France's. All by taking everything apart, examining themselves and trying to improve a little bit here and a little bit there. And what would happen to us, with us and in our churches if we could examine what we do in the light of Jesus and his teaching and seek to be just a little more faithful in a number of things. A little more obedience, a little more testimony, a little more praise to God. Maybe we can't sing all day long but could we sing one hymn a day? Maybe I can't pray for all the people in my church once a day but maybe I can pray for them in once a week by dividing them into a number of lists for each day. Could I be a little more considerate of my wife and the people I work with? Try the 1% rule on the Lord's Day worship. What if we'd come to church, we'd set up and sing with all our might and first of all get there on time so we can prepare our hearts. Do you like try to be there at least 1% earlier than what you are, I might say 10% earlier would be better. Try it on the Lord's Day service. Take notes when the word is preached and think about those notes later on Monday. If you're the father in the home, revitalize family devotions and maybe I'm not that great at sharing my testimony. Well you can practice it with an older person. That will do two things. It'll get you to visit the older people and it will help you practice your testimony and then you can share it with the world. Take a snack to the neighbors, seek to honor your parents a little more than you do today. If we can try to be a little more faithful with the help of God, we can make a difference and we can prepare ourselves for persecution. Every small act of obedience done out of honor, respect and admiration for our master will strengthen us and we'll prepare the church for persecution. May God help us.