When Persecution Comes

All one has to do is look around today and see how a God-hating society is lining up to begin persecution of Christians. It is starting small with lawsuits and courthouses and soon will be against the law to preach on street corners. There's a fight brewing in this country and it will be against born-again believers who are willing to take a stand for Christ.

They'll be throwing rocks at our heads for preaching Christ and him crucified. Hot persecution is coming, friends. You'll be here before we know it.

But the blood of the martyrs has always been the seed of the church. When the church is persecuted, she thrives. When she lies in prosperity, she dies.

Look at China and the underground church that meets in barns and houses and see their vital Christianity willing to lay down their lives for the sake of Christ and the gospel and compare that to the deadness in our churches that have plenty of money and keep expanding our own campuses. Jesus in the Gospel of Matthew told his disciples, If the world hate you, you know that it hated me before it hated you. 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 hateth 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.

With that in mind, friends, before we go to our time of prayer for revival this evening, I want to read us some quotes of those who have gone before us and knew persecution for their testimony in Christ Jesus. When George Whitefield preached, he often had rotten eggs and pieces of dead cats thrown at him. One time, while he was preaching in Moorfields, a man climbed a tree and tried to cut his head off with a sword.

Whitefield was almost stoned to death by an angry mob in Ireland, and when Whitefield came to America, he was greeted by a Boston minister who was from Ireland, to which Whitefield removed his beaverskin hat and leaned forward pointing to a large scar on his forehead and remarked, This wound, sir, I received while preaching Christ in your country. Charles Wesley related about his brother John. My brother had been dragged about for three hours by the mob of three towns.

Many blows he escaped through the lowness of his stature. His feet never once slipped for in their hands the angels bore him up. Allow me to read you, friends, this account of persecution in Wales under the preaching of Hal Harris.

Here are his words. When I proceeded to discourse, they began to roar horribly, pelting us with dung and dirt, throwing eggs, plumb-stones, and other hard substances in our faces, while they howled so loud as entirely to drown my voice. Brother Seward had a serious blow on his eye, which caused him much anguish.

As this affected his left eye, he was obliged to be led by the hand for a few days, and at length he became totally blind of the other. And what happened to William Seward, friends, was his eventual death from these blows to his head, thus becoming the first Methodist martyr. Few suffered persecution for their faith as the Scottish Covenanters, while John Dick stood upon the scaffold at the grass market in Edinburgh.

He had this to say to his hearers, and these were his last words before he was hung to death. I am come here at this day. It would not change my lot with the greatest in the world.

I lay down my life willingly and cheerfully for Christ and His cause, and I heartily forgive all my enemies. I forgive all them who gave me my sentence, and them who were the chief cause of my taking, and I forgive him who is behind me, my executioner. I advise you, who are the Lord's people, to be sincere in the way of godliness, and you who know little or nothing of the power thereof, to come to Him.

Oh, well, friends, I hope these stories of persecution for Christ and the gospel has stirred your own hearts as it has mine. For in America today, the bane of the church is self-indulgence, self-preservation, and self-centeredness. The gospel message is all about us, served on a man-centered platter at a sumptuous banquet table, laden with delicacies.

Other generations knew the price of discipleship, and the cost of following a crucified Savior. John the Baptist had a platter with his head upon it. Stephen was baptized with stones as he saw Jesus rise from his throne.

Paul finished his ministry not with accolades and applause, but with a fallen axe. The blood of the martyrs cries out against the self-absorbed church of this generation. Heaven help us.

Let us pray.