From His Heart

Dr. Jeff Schreve: The devil has two means that he uses to attack the faith and to attack Christianity. The first one is persecution. Persecution is an attack from the outside. But infiltration, that's an attack from the inside. With persecution, the devil tries to root out the church. But with infiltration, he tries to rot out the church, putting termites into the structure to eat it up from the inside.

Guest (Male): As believers, we are called to earnestly contend for the faith, standing firm on God's word without compromise. Christianity is under attack in our world today, we all know that, and it's vital that we recognize the dangers of deception and boldly defend the truth.

This is From His Heart with Pastor Jeff Schreve. Thank you for joining us for this Thursday edition. In today's powerful lesson, he'll encourage us to live courageously, holding fast to the gospel once for all delivered to the saints.

The lesson we're about to hear is from Pastor Jeff's new six-lesson series, Faith Under Fire: A Study of Jude. For information about today's message or the current series, our gift to you for your support this month of any amount, just go to FromHisHeart.org. Now, open your Bible to the book of Jude. Here's Pastor Jeff to begin the lesson entitled, Christianity Under Siege.

Dr. Jeff Schreve: If you think about Christianity, we're always just one generation from extinction. Christianity, as it keeps rolling down the pages of future history, has to keep passing the baton from one generation to the next. Any of you who ever ran track know that in a relay race, it doesn't necessarily matter how fast each individual person is; what matters in the relay race is the passing of the baton. We've had Olympic teams over the years that have been faster than anybody else, but they couldn't pass the baton. If you drop the baton, you're out of the race.

Psalm 145, verse 4, says, "One generation shall praise Your works to another and shall declare Your mighty acts." And so we have to pass along the truth. Jude says this as he starts his letter. We talked about this last Sunday. He says in verse 3, "Beloved, while I was making every effort to write to you about our common salvation, I just wanted to bask in what we have in Jesus Christ, which is so wonderful. He's the God who provides for all our needs." He said while he was wanting to do that, he felt constrained, he felt the necessity to write to you appealing that you contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all handed down to the saints.

Contend earnestly. It's an interesting Greek word, only used here in the book of Jude. It comes from a root, agonizomai, that's used eight times in the New Testament. Paul told Timothy, "Fight the good fight of faith." Agonizomai, fight. And so it's a struggle. But this is a word that puts a little prefix to agonizomai, epi. Epi-agonizomai just intensifies it. So he's saying, listen readers, you need to fight with every fiber of your being. Fight for the faith that was once for all handed down to the saints. Fight so that we keep the faith intact so we can pass it to the next generation. Because if we don't, and if we let the devil pollute the faith and destroy the faith, then we have nothing to pass on to our children, our grandchildren, or our great-grandchildren.

So today we want to ask the question: are you contending for the Christian faith that is under siege, that is under attack? The devil wants to attack the things of God. We see that from the very beginning. When Adam and Eve fell in the garden, Genesis chapter 3, verse 15, we have what is called in theological circles the proto-evangelium. There'll be a quiz later. Proto-evangelium means the first gospel. And the first gospel is where the Lord says to the serpent, "There is coming the seed of the woman, and you're going to crush his heel, but he's going to crush your head."

That's a reference to Jesus Christ, the seed of the woman. A woman doesn't have a seed; a woman has an egg. But the seed of the woman is Jesus, who was born of a virgin. The devil heard that. There's coming a seed of the woman who's going to crush my head. So what do you see in Genesis 4? He gets the offspring of the woman, Cain, to kill the offspring of the woman, Abel, and says, "I'll destroy this so there can't be a savior who would crush my head." From the earliest times in Genesis, we see this.

What happens when Jesus is born and the wise men tell Herod, "We've come to see him who has been born King of the Jews, for we saw his star in the east and come to worship him"? Herod said, "I'm the king of the Jews." And so he told those guys, "When you find the child, tell me so that I can come and worship him." But he wanted to come and kill him. We see as the wise men didn't go back to Jerusalem, as they went home another way, Herod realized he had been tricked by the wise men. What does he do? He goes into Bethlehem and he kills all the baby boys two years old and under, trying to destroy Christianity, trying to destroy God's plan of salvation.

Well, that continues to this day. We have a very real enemy, the devil, and the Christian life is not a playground; it's a battleground. We are in the Lord's army. Paul told Timothy, "Suffer hardship as a good soldier of Christ Jesus." In the book The Art of War, you've heard about The Art of War, business leaders talk about it. In his book, he says that it is critical to know your enemy. You need to know yourself, and you need to know your enemy. So we're going to look at the enemy today and how he works so that we can rightly contend for the Christian faith.

The devil has two means that he uses to attack the faith and to attack Christianity. The first one is persecution. The devil attacks the faith with persecution. Persecution means hostility, oppression, to pursue with the intent to harm, either verbally or physically. You can be persecuted without being put in prison, without them putting your little finger in the old-time pencil sharpeners. Sometimes we think that's the only way you're persecuted is if somebody beats you or tortures you, but many people are persecuted online. They're persecuted verbally. They're castigated in public for their Christianity. That is a sign of persecution.

In Acts chapter 8, after the martyrdom of Stephen: "And on that day a great persecution began against the church in Jerusalem, and they were all scattered throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria, except the apostles." But Saul of Tarsus, who later is going to become Paul the great apostle, was ravaging the church, entering house after house and dragging off men and women, and he would put them in prison. To ravage the church means to devastate, it means to ruin. It's a picture of a wild boar destroying a vineyard. That's what Paul was doing to the church.

Persecution was coming to the church. Saul didn't claim to be a Christ-follower. He hated Christianity. He saw that as an enemy to the truth. Persecution is always an attack from the outside to the church. It's a head-on attack from the outside, ardent unbelievers going after believers. That's what Saul did. He went after the church. It goes on to say that he was breathing out threats and violence against the church, dragging them to prison. When they stoned Stephen, a young guy was there, Saul of Tarsus, before he became a Christian, and he gave hearty approval. He was all for it. Paul said of himself that he was a blasphemer and a persecutor and a violent aggressor, yet he found grace in the Lord.

Persecution comes to people as we read in history, Foxe's Book of Martyrs. We read about all the apostles. Judas was a betrayer, and Judas was never part of the Lord's flock. He said, "Did I not choose you the twelve, yet one of you is a devil?" Judas went and hanged himself after he betrayed Christ. Of all the apostles, the eleven others, they all died a martyr's death except John. John was the only one who died of natural causes. He lived to be the longest. Then from there, we read about all the martyrdom that took place with believers throughout the years.

I asked AI today: "How many Christians were martyred in the first 500 years of the church?" They said a realistic estimate would be about 100,000 people were martyred in the first 500 years of the church. Then I said, "How many people have been martyred for their faith in Christ since the year 2000?" AI said between one to two million. Many of our brothers and sisters in Muslim countries are confronted by Islamic extremists who say, "Pledge allegiance to Muhammad and to Allah or die." And they stand up for Jesus. They don't deny the Lord, and they're killed for their faith.

Persecution is the devil's way to try and root out the church. We're just going to rip it out. We're going to kill people. We're going to put so much pressure on you that you give up. That's how you can tell the difference between the true and the false. When Jesus said the sower went out to sow some seed, and some of the seed fell on the rocky soil, it springs up very quickly. But then it doesn't last; it's only temporary because when the sun comes out, it doesn't have any root to keep it, and it just withers and dies. He said the sun is the sun of persecution. Persecution for those who aren't really true wipes them out.

Guest (Male): We'll continue to explore this truth when Pastor Jeff returns in just a moment on From His Heart. Today we're listening to part one of the lesson, Christianity Under Siege. It's from the brand-new six-lesson series, Faith Under Fire: A Study of the Book of Jude.

This short New Testament book of Jude was written during a time that was in many ways like ours. False teaching was infiltrating the church and leading people away from God's truth. Jude urged believers to contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all handed down to the saints. That message continues to be relevant today. Christians need courage, they need discernment, they need confidence in God's word. Most importantly, they need to know that God's truth can still be trusted in a world filled with deception.

That's what your generous support makes possible. For your gift to From His Heart this month, we'd like to say thank you by sending you Pastor Jeff's new five-lesson series, Faith Under Fire: A Study of the Book of Jude. Just go to FromHisHeart.org or call 866-40-BIBLE. Make that gift today to join the mission to bring biblical truth to people who may never hear it otherwise. Now, let's return to today's lesson, Christianity Under Siege.

Dr. Jeff Schreve: When unbelievers see people willing to die for their faith, that causes them to perk up and say, "Wait a minute, there must be something to this." I was reading just this morning about a Christian in communist Russia. He had become a Christian and then he had gotten arrested for his faith, and they put him in prison. He had only been a Christian for about three months. They put him in prison, tortured him to death, and then they delivered his dead body back to his family. They said they could tell he had been tortured to death.

They had a funeral for this guy in one of the villages, and they knew that it was going to be dangerous to attend the funeral because this guy was an outspoken Christian. But the people came and they rejected the fear of not coming. They said, "We're going to come." There were so many people that came, and the gospel was preached at this man's funeral, and 80 people prayed to receive Christ as a result of that man's faith and that man's martyrdom.

Tertullian, the early church father, said, "The blood of the martyrs is the seedbed of the church." When a person stands up like Stephen did, stands up and preaches Jesus and preaches salvation by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone, and the enemies of the cross come against him, and that person is willing to die for his faith, God uses that in great ways.

The Bible calls us to be witnesses. Jesus said in Acts chapter 1, verse 8, "But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you, and you shall be My witnesses." That word for witnesses in Acts chapter 1, verse 8, is the Greek word martus. Martus, from which we get the English word martyr. A witness was a martus. He was somebody that witnessed and told what great things the Lord had done for him. He witnessed to the cross and the empty tomb, but because so many of those people were killed for their faith and persecuted and run down for their faith, that word martus became known as martyr, and a witness so often was killed. Those terms went together.

It was the apostles who were told by the Sanhedrin, "Don't preach anymore in Jesus' name." Peter said, "Whether it is right in the sight of God to obey you or to obey God, you be the judge. We cannot stop speaking what we have seen and heard." Acts chapter 4, when they're released from the Sanhedrin after they were arrested, they go back and they have a prayer meeting, and this is what they pray: "And now, Lord, take note of their threats and grant that Your bondservants, Your doulos, Your slaves, may speak Your word with all confidence, with all boldness, while You extend Your hand to heal and signs and wonders take place through the name of Your holy servant Jesus."

When they had prayed, the place where they had gathered together was shaken, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak the word of God with boldness. They didn't cower down because of the persecution. They were ready to fight and endure the persecution and just prayed God, "Give us a heart for boldness to boldly proclaim the message regardless of what happens to us."

The devil attacks the faith with persecution, and we need to be ready for that. If persecution comes your way, as Jesus said, "Blessed are you. Blessed are you when men revile you and persecute you and say all manner of evil against you falsely on account of Me. Rejoice and be glad, for the same way they treated the prophets who were before you. That's what they did to them." And so if you're persecuted for the name of Jesus and for living for Him, if you're made fun of at work or made fun of at school and you feel ostracized, you just remember the Lord says, "I'm proud of you."

I remember when I was working a summer job in between my first and second year at UT, and I wanted to make an impact. I wanted to be salt and light. Those people knew, I let them know that I was a believer in Jesus. I remember they would laugh at me and say Jeff wouldn't say certain words even if he had it in his mouth, and they thought that was so funny. They were all laughing at me, and I felt the Lord say to me, "You're doing good, boy. You're making an impact. They notice you." All who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus, Paul told Timothy, will suffer persecution. It's okay if they laugh at you. We stand up and we endure in the face of persecution.

But now the second method that the devil has and the second mode of attack: he attacks not with persecution alone, he attacks with infiltration. Infiltration is this attitude that says, "If you can't beat them, join them." And that is really the crux of the book of Jude. He is focusing in not so much on persecution, although the church was being persecuted in his day. Paul was beheaded during the persecution of Nero. Peter was crucified upside down during the persecution of Nero.

But he is saying now, watch out and contend earnestly for the faith, fight with all you've got for the faith because, verse 4, certain persons have crept in unnoticed. Those who were long beforehand marked out for this condemnation, ungodly persons who turn the grace of our God into licentiousness—that's like a license to sin—and deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ. He's warning them about apostates, about these people who have snuck into the church, these people who said, "If you can't beat them, join them."

The devil always sows tares among the wheat. Matthew 13, you can read about the wheat and the tares parable. He says, "Did you not sow good seed in your field?" And the Master says, "Yes, good seed." And he says, "Then why are there tares among the wheat? Why are there weeds there?" And he said, "An enemy has done this."

A tare looks just like wheat as it's growing up. What you see is in the end result, a tare is a weed, it doesn't have any fruit. Wheat is going to have fruit; a tare is not going to have fruit. That's why Jesus said, "You will know them by their fruits." How do you know if someone's genuine or not? Look at their lives. You will know them by their fruits. Grapes are not gathered from thorn bushes, nor figs from thistles. Every good tree produces good fruit, every bad tree produces bad fruit. A bad tree cannot produce good fruit, he said, and a good tree cannot produce bad fruit. Therefore you will know them by their fruits.

But they creep in to the church. It's an interesting word that is used, this "creeping in." It means to slip in stealthily. It's kind of like if you've ever watched National Geographic or some kind of nature show when you see crocodiles. Crocodiles can get in the water, they just kind of slip in without making a ripple. I've seen some shows, there was a show that I used to like called I Shouldn't Be Alive. Some of you may remember that show. It would be reenactments of these people that had this horrific accident. Something happened, maybe they were on some kind of raft or some kind of vessel on a swampy area and there were crocodiles in that area in Africa.

Somehow their boat gets overturned and now what am I going to do? I'm in this water, I got to get out of this water, and you got to go through the crocodiles. They're just there, and they don't really let you know they're there. All of a sudden, they just kind of pop up. You see their eyes. They slip in unnoticed. They don't even make a ripple. And that's what has happened here. They creep in.

Now this is an attack from the inside. Persecution is an attack from the outside. Nobody is claiming the name of Christ. Saul of Tarsus wasn't claiming to be a Christian. He was claiming, "I hate Christianity, I'm going to destroy Christianity." The Muslims aren't claiming to be Christians that are beheading people in the Congo and other places. That's very obvious, this is an enemy of Christianity. But infiltration, that's a different ballgame. That's an attack from the inside. That's an attack from somebody who says he's part of the team. With persecution, the devil tries to root out the church. But with infiltration, he tries to rot out the church, putting termites into the structure to eat it up from the inside.

Guest (Male): There's so much more to be said about this on our next broadcast where, after a brief review, Pastor Jeff will continue this lesson entitled, Christianity Under Siege. Make sure that you're with us then.

Before we go, a mention of three free resources from Pastor Jeff that may interest you if you've ever asked or are wondering about these questions. One: If God loves me, why doesn't He answer my prayers? Two: If I'm saved and I'm going to heaven, can I mess up enough to lose it? Three: I know myself, so how can God still love me? You're not alone. Many people ask those questions and want some answers, some timely answers.

Pastor Jeff has some booklets for you that you can download for free at FromHisHeart.org and find the answers that you're looking for. Just go to FromHisHeart.org and click the "Read" link followed by the "Free Stuff" link on our website. That's FromHisHeart.org. That's also all we have time for today with part one of the lesson, Christianity Under Siege. We'll have part two tomorrow. Join Pastor Jeff Schreve on Friday as he speaks truth, love, and hope to a lost and a hurting world. Remember that no matter what, God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life. Find out more at FromHisHeart.org.