In this sermon, the speaker reflects on his experiences in Peru during a time of great persecution and danger. He shares stories of how God miraculously protected and provided for a little Baptist congregation in the mountains. The speaker encourages believers to focus on Christ and fellowship with other believers, rather than being consumed by worldly concerns like money and politics. He urges listeners to seek the Lord's guidance and live godly lives, even in the midst of dark and uncertain times.

Well, is persecution coming and how do we prepare for that? Well, first of all, we never know what's going to happen. We can say that if things continue in the trend that they're going right now, persecution is quite likely. Now, there's a type of socialism in Europe, and there's not a lot of persecution of Christians, hardly any. But here's the reason. The church is so weak in Europe that it's just ignored. There's no reason. It's not a danger to anybody. It's just considered irrelevant. The worst thing that could happen to us is we become the same way. We become so irrelevant to what's going on in society that there's no need to even deal with us. Another thing that's very important is God prepares His people whenever they're going to enter into a time of crisis. I don't think that we need to do some exceptional preparing. I just think we need to be biblical about our daily preparation that we all need, whether there's persecution or not. I believe it was John Wesley, they asked him, what would you do if you knew the Lord was coming back this evening? He said, well, I'd get up in the morning early as always. I'd have my prayers, my devotional, tea, breakfast, go out and preach, come back as I always do every day, have time of prayer, rest, go out and preach, come back. And the point that he was making, although I didn't quote him exactly, please understand that, the point that he's making is I'm living in the will of God. There's no need for me to change anything. And that's the way we need to be. We need to be preparing and living in the will of God every day, growing in our faith, growing in our knowledge of the Word, growing in our ability to defend our faith and give a reason for the hope that's within us. Striving for godliness, disciplining ourselves for godliness. Just keep living like we are. And constantly seeking the Lord for clear direction. Lord, what do you want me to do? I have to admit that with these change of events that I am really earnestly seeking the Lord. Lord, what do you want me to do? How then shall I live? Would you want me to do something different? A different emphasis in the ministry. What do you want? And so, brothers, don't be surprised if the dark days... First of all, I've got one thing I'd like to recommend. Don't listen to a lot of talk radio. Don't listen to a lot of Christian talk radio, please. You're going to get so scared, you're going to do a Y2K thing on us or something. Start hoarding food and go live in Alaska or something. I don't know. Don't do that. Read scriptures, continue on, grow in godliness. And be hopeful and positive. We don't know what's going to happen. I mean, after all, maybe the post-millennialists are right. We don't know. We know that He reigns. We know that already there have been many positive things that have gone on. We are such a people of culture. I mean, just think about this. We actually are convinced that people ought to retire. You realize that? Where did we get that idea? That they ought to retire, have money to live on, live the last 25 years of their life doing nothing. Or like John Piper says, collecting seashells or playing golf or something. That's pretty much getting smashed. That's a good thing. People, you know, heard for so many years, Christians, you know, identifying themselves with the Republican Party. I mean, where is it now? You see, I mean, there are a lot of positive things. People who were hoping in things that they should not hope in, they're no longer hoping in. They're hoping in God. They're crying out to God. Who knows that some of this isn't an answer to praying? Look, they're not the ones that have the power. Christ has all power. You read about wonderful works of God in history. And Christians shining like lights in the midst of a perverted generation. And you read those books and you go, oh, wow, man, I wish I just could live like that, live in that time. And wow, Christ being so real. Well, maybe you're going to get your chance. It'll be wonderful. The best flavor of Christianity I ever knew was those years in Peru. When bombs were blowing up, machine gun fire interrupting our church service, rocket launchers scared to death. Communion was sweet. Standing in line for about four hours to get a bag of milk and a bag of rice. Couldn't drive people out of the church. Fellowship was sweet. That's all anyone had was Christ and the other believers. No talk of IRAs or insurance or anything. See a brother get up, a leader among the Peruvians. Give a word from God, brothers, it has been appointed unto us to suffer. Here's stories from the mountains where God would supernaturally intervene to save an entire little Baptist congregation that no one even knew existed from an approaching army. One terrorist asked, a couple of terrorists asked, why did you guys not come in and kill everybody in that church? Well, how could we with all those soldiers standing around the entire building? And they were the biggest soldiers we've ever seen in our life. There's no way we were going to go up to that church building, a little mud hut Baptist church in the middle of the mountains. Yeah, there was an army around it. You delight to read about those things. They get your chance to live in them. It's exciting times.