Pathway to Victory

David J. Mullins: Hello podcast listeners. Thanks for streaming today's podcast from Pathway to Victory. Pathway to Victory is a non-profit ministry featuring the Bible teaching of Dr. Robert Jeffress. Right now, your generous gift will have twice the impact thanks to the In God We Trust $1.5 million matching challenge, active now through July 5th. To give a special matching challenge gift, go to ptv.org/donate or follow the link in our show notes. Now, here's today's podcast from Pathway to Victory.

Dr. Robert Jeffress: Hi, this is Robert Jeffress, and I'm glad to study God's Word with you every day on this Bible teaching program. On today's edition of Pathway to Victory, I think even the most casual observer realizes that our culture is more hostile toward Christianity than at any other time in our nation's history. Realizing that positivity and hostility is more likely to increase than it is to subside means we ought to get ready for persecution.

Welcome to Pathway to Victory with author and pastor Dr. Robert Jeffress. To many Christians, persecution is something that happens in a far-off place like Asia or the Middle East. But in reality, persecution is already taking place in America, and it's going to get worse. Today on Pathway to Victory, Dr. Robert Jeffress shares why our country's hostility toward Christians will only continue to rise.

But first, let's take a moment to hear some important ministry updates. Thanks, David, and welcome again to Pathway to Victory. In a moment, I'll be addressing an issue that every Christian is going to face in today's culture where we're often singled out as narrow-minded, intolerant bigots. So how are we, as Christian patriots, to respond?

Well, the answer is clear. In his letter to the church at Corinth, the Apostle Paul shared some wise counsel. He said, "Be on your guard, stand firm in the faith, be courageous, be strong." Pathway to Victory is devoted to helping you stand strong on the principles of your Christian faith. Right now, we're in the middle of the In God We Trust matching challenge in the amount of $1.5 million.

There's never been a better time to leverage your generous gift because every dollar you give is automatically doubled in size and impact. It was Jesus who gave us our marching orders. He said, "Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations." For more than 30 years, Pathway to Victory has been a trusted source of discipleship. Your gift to the In God We Trust matching challenge puts the Great Commission into action.

Later in the program, I'm going to describe the thank-you gifts we've set aside to send anyone who gives to the matching challenge. But right now, it's time to open our Bibles together. Today, we're talking about what to do when persecution comes.

David J. Mullins: Welcome to Pathway to Victory with author and pastor Dr. Robert Jeffress. Today, we're talking about what to do when persecution comes.

Dr. Robert Jeffress: Millions of Christians around the world have been blessed by the books of best-selling author Randy Alcorn. You've read his novels perhaps, or read his non-fiction books like The Treasure Principle. However, many people are not familiar with his personal story that redirected his life and ministry.

Guest (Male): When Randy was 22, he joined another man to form a church in Boring, Oregon. Isn't that a great name for a town? Boring, Oregon. Needless to say, it was a sleepy town, but it wasn't a sleepy church. It quickly became one of the largest churches in the entire area of Portland. While he was a pastor, Randy Alcorn also frequently spoke out against abortion and served on the board of a local pregnancy center.

He said later in an interview that the issue of life was consuming his mind and heart. When that light for life is turned on, you can't turn it off. In January of 1989, Alcorn asked his elders for permission to participate in local peaceful protests at abortion clinics. The elders acquiesced to their pastor's request, and so Alcorn and his fellow protesters would march in front of these abortion clinics, sometimes blocking access with their bodies.

The abortion clinics fought back, pursuing every legal remedy at their disposal in order to protect the rights of the women who used them. Alcorn was arrested frequently. He recalls hearing one lawyer for an abortion clinic saying in court, "My clients have every bit as much right to perform abortions as McDonald's does to serve hamburgers."

Although that was true legally, Alcorn knew that under God's laws, murder was never permissible, and so he continued his protest. One of the clinics that Randy Alcorn blocked sued him, followed by another, and eventually, they won a judgment against the pastor of $8.2 million. Alcorn told the judge that he would pay any money he legitimately owed, but his conscience would never allow him to turn money over to an abortion clinic that would be used to kill babies.

When Alcorn discovered that the court was going to garnish one-fourth of his wages from the church to help satisfy the judgment, he realized he was placing his church in an untenable situation. If the congregation defied the court order, they could face possibly years of expensive litigation. To keep that from happening, Randy Alcorn resigned as pastor and lived off of his modest book royalties at the time.

But then he faced another challenge. He was still adamant that no portion of his earnings should be used to kill babies. The only way to prevent the garnishment of even his book royalties was to agree to work for minimum wage. Fortunately, frugality had always been a part of his family's way of living. Although his book sales have exploded during the last 20 years, Randy Alcorn still lives in the same modest three-room home and works for minimum wage, plus some speaking honoraria, writing his best-selling books.

He has not used an ATM or written a check since 1990. Randy and his wife Nancy are quick to point out the many benefits that have accrued to their family because of this experience. He said it would have been very difficult to leave the pastorate to become a writer and speaker, and suddenly he had no choice. His wife Nancy also refused to wallow in self-pity over their situation.

However, after seeing one of their best friends and fellow abortion protesters spend nine months in jail after losing his job and home because of his abortion protest, Nancy Alcorn observed, "This experience has taught us we will not always receive justice in this world." Any Christian who seriously takes God's command to be light and salt in this dark and decaying world needs to understand you may not and will not always receive justice, but you always can be guaranteed to receive persecution.

Jesus said in John 16:33, "In this world you will have tribulation, but be of good courage, I have overcome the world." The Apostle Paul, who before his conversion had been an instrument of persecution against Christians, almost overnight became a target of persecution. In 2 Corinthians chapter 11, he details some of the suffering that he experienced as a Christian.

He said in 2 Corinthians 11:24-27, "Five times I received from the Jews 39 lashes. Three times I was beaten with rods, once I was stoned, three times I was shipwrecked. A night and a day I have spent in the deep. I have been on frequent journeys, in dangers from rivers, dangers from robbers, dangers from my countrymen, dangers from the Gentiles, dangers in the city, dangers in the wilderness, dangers on the sea, dangers among false brethren. I have been in labor and hardship, through many sleepless nights, in hunger and thirst, often without food, in cold and exposure."

That was Paul's experience. Or listen to the experience of the first-century Christians that followed Paul. As the writer of Hebrews notes, "Believers were tortured, not accepting their release in order that they might obtain a better resurrection; and others experienced scourgings, yes, chains and imprisonment. They were stoned, they were sawn in two, they were tempted, they were put to death with the sword; they went about in sheepskins and goatskins, being destitute, afflicted, ill-treated—men of whom the world was not worthy—wandering in deserts and mountains and caves and holes in the ground."

When we read passages like that, let's be honest, we try to assure ourselves that we won't have to go through that kind of suffering because, after all, we live in a different time in history. And yet it's pointed out that more Christians died as martyrs in the 20th century than all the other centuries combined. The reason we in the West, in America specifically, feel immune from this kind of suffering is we're not aware of what is happening to Christians around the world today.

For example, since 2003, Iraqi Christians have been frequent targets by Islamic extremists. In Iran, authorities arrested 70 Christians over a six-week period of time in an effort to target grassroots Christian groups. In January of 2011, a judge in Afghanistan told Shoaib Assadullah that if he did not renounce Christ within one week, he would face up to 20 years in prison or even be sentenced to death.

Today more Christians are imprisoned in China than in any other country in the world. Hundreds of thousands of believers are detained in work camps each year without even a court order so that they can participate in a "re-education through labor" program, as the Chinese like to call it. The only legal churches allowed by the Chinese government are those controlled by the government.

Those who meet in house churches not sanctioned by the government risk torture, imprisonment, and death. Philip Yancey describes a visit with Pastor Allen Yuan, who helped to found the house church movement in China during the Japanese occupation. Pastor Yuan was 90 years old at the time of his interview. He had spent 22 years in prison.

He had been tortured and spent months in solitary confinement in a windowless cell. Listen to what he said to Philip Yancey. He said, "I pulled blankets over my head and prayed. For ten years no letters from my family got through. I had no Bible, but a few passages and psalms stayed with me." Yuan spent 13 years of his sentence in China's most northern province.

He said, "It was a miracle. I had only a light jacket and in the freezing winter weather I never caught a cold or the flu. Not sick a single day." Pastor Yuan is convinced that persecution for Christians is not only inevitable but profitable for believers. Listen to what this pastor said. He said, "We live in a time like the apostles. Christians are persecuted, yes. But look at the Hong Kong and Taiwan church. They have prosperity but they don't seek God. I tell you I came out of that prison with a faith stronger than I went in. Like Joseph, we don't know why we go through hard times until later looking back. Think of it, we in China may soon have the largest Christian community in the world, and in an atheistic state that tried to stamp us out."

Christians experienced intense sufferings in the first century. They are now experiencing suffering around the world. The Bible also predicts that in the final years before Christ's return, Christians will also experience unprecedented hardship. The Apostle John describes a large group of believers who will be slain during the tribulation.

In Revelation 6:9 he says, "And when he broke the fifth seal, I saw underneath the altar the souls of those who had been slain because of the word of God and because of the testimony that they had maintained." Of course, the instigator of this persecution will be the Antichrist. In Revelation 13:7 John says, "And it was given to him, the Antichrist, to make war with the saints and to overcome them, and authority over every tribe and people and tongue and nation was given to him."

The special target of Antichrist's persecution will be Christians. What way will Antichrist make war with God's people? One way he will do so is by restricting the purchase of necessary goods and services for survival to those who agree to worship him. You know from our study in the Revelation that Antichrist will have a lieutenant, a right-hand man known as the False Prophet, who will enforce this global mandate to worship the Antichrist.

This False Prophet will mandate that everyone has to receive a mark of some kind that will demonstrate his allegiance to Antichrist if he wants to purchase any good or any service. Think of commodities like food; think of services like healthcare. In Revelation 14 verses 16 to 18, John says, "And he causes all, the small and the great, and the rich and the poor, and the free men and the slaves, to be given a mark on their right hand or on their forehead, and he provides that no one should be able to buy or sell except the one who has the mark, either the name of the beast or the number of his name. Here is wisdom: let him who has understanding calculate the number of the beast, for that number is that of a man and his number is 666."

Author Grant Jeffrey claims that the technology to essentially barcode human beings like you do a bottle of toothpaste or a book is already available through radio frequency identification chips. Grant Jeffrey writes, "Using existing technology, the mark or number 666 can be implanted under the skin of every person using an RFID microchip. A powerful electronic scanner could detect the chip from a distance and reveal all of your personal information—far more than your name, address, age, and marital status. While the implanted microchip and its information would be readable by a radio frequency scanner, a person would not know when or where his private information was being accessed or who was accessing the information."

Dr. Robert Jeffress: Such a thought is not just fanciful imagination. It is guaranteed reality if you take seriously the Revelation from John. There is a coming time, a time of great, intense persecution. If we know that Christians in past ages have suffered persecution, if we know that Christians around the world are now suffering persecution, and if we know there is a time coming in the future when every believer will suffer persecution, doesn't it make sense that we who live in America are also going to face a time of persecution as well?

We know that the last seven years of Earth's history will be intense persecution for every believer in the world. Listen to Jesus' words in Matthew 24 verse 36. Jesus said, talking about his return, "But of that day or hour no one knows, not even the angels nor the Son, but the Father alone." Nobody knows. Nobody knows.

But I want you to notice something what this text says. No one knows the day or the hour, but God knows the day and the hour, which means there is a day and an hour fixed on God's calendar when the Lord is going to return. And that means that every second that passes means we are moving toward that great climactic event.

And that means every second that passes, we are moving toward this time of great tribulation and persecution against believers on the Earth. Now, I think it's important to define terms here. What do we mean by persecution? By persecution, I'm talking about any negative consequences you experience for being salt, that is, restraining evil, or by being light and trying to share the Gospel with other people.

Obviously, there is a spectrum of persecution that people experience. That spectrum can range from not being invited to a dinner party because you're too opinionated, all the way to being tortured and even executed because you don't recant your faith. There is a spectrum of persecution. And I want to suggest to you that the degree to which you, as a Christian, will experience persecution is dependent upon two factors.

First of all, the intensity of your conviction will determine the intensity of the persecution you face. Let me say it again: the intensity of your conviction will determine the intensity of the persecution you face. The pastor who never preaches against homosexuality or abortion or talks about the exclusivity of the Gospel will never face ridicule from the media.

The Christian student who refuses to challenge his non-Christian professors' erroneous teaching will never have to worry about a lowered grade. A believer who decides not to offend his non-Christian parents by sharing the Gospel with them will never risk experiencing their disapproval. The intensity of your conviction will determine the intensity of the persecution you experience.

Secondly, the extent of the persecution you face is determined by the spiritual climate of the culture in which you live. The extent of the persecution you face is also determined by the spiritual climate of the culture in which you live. Thursday night we had another one of our dinners with the pastor. We had 200 folks there, half of them were prospects—a great evening.

But during the question and answer time, somebody asked me the question. They said, "Pastor, do you think this world is getting worse?" I said, "Well, worse than what?" I mean, is our culture more decadent, more ungodly than that of the first century during the Roman Empire? Well, no. But is our culture, especially in America, more ungodly than it was 40 or 50 or 100 years ago?

The answer would be yes. In fact, if you don't believe that the culture in which we are living right now in America is more ungodly than it has been in the past, I want you to ask yourself how the American people, especially the media, would respond if the President of the United States made these remarks during a televised speech from the Oval Office: "The general principles on which the fathers achieved independence were the general principles of Christianity. I will avow that I then believed and now believe that those general principles of Christianity are eternal and immutable as the existence and attributes of God, and that those principles of liberty are unalterable as human nature."

Can you imagine how people would respond if the President said this country was founded on Christian principles? Why, there would be howls and cries and calls of impeachment all around the country. And yet those are the words that were spoken by the second President of the United States, John Adams. We have become increasingly hostile toward Christianity in our country.

Now secularists would attribute that change to our nation's collective open-mindedness and tolerance. They would say we now are much more sophisticated than earlier generations. We recognize that there are multiple paths to God and no one religion can claim exclusivity. Biblicists would say no, it is Romans chapter 1 in action. Because our nation has rejected the truth of God, we have fallen into a time of darkening in our understanding.

But regardless of the reason, I think even the most casual observer realizes that our culture is more hostile toward Christianity than at any other time in our nation's history. And realizing that negativity and hostility is more likely to increase than it is to subside means we ought to get ready for persecution. How should we respond to the escalating attacks against Christians? How do we get ready for persecution?

In Hebrews chapter 10 verse 25, the writer says we ought to encourage one another, and all the more as we see the day drawing near. Now one way we can encourage one another as Christians is to help prepare one another for this inevitable time of persecution. I want to share with you three words that I believe are essential in strengthening yourself and preparing for the coming persecution that every genuine follower of Christ will experience.

The first word, and write it down, is the word "certain." Suffering is certain. The first recorded case of persecution against Christians as a whole occurred under Emperor Nero in 64 AD. However, as in our culture, this awful persecution against Christians didn't happen suddenly. Instead, it happened progressively. Nero was allowed by the population to commit these atrocities against Christians because, as the historian Tacitus notes, Christians were already a class hated for the abominations by the populace. There was a growing hatred toward Christians that finally allowed Nero to commit these heinous crimes against believers.

There's much more I want to say about what to do when persecution comes, so please tune in tomorrow. As you know, we're coming up on a milestone for America: our 250th birthday. And I know that our Pathway to Victory listeners care deeply about the future of our great nation. So as you feel stirred in your heart to take action, let me urge you to partner with Pathway to Victory by giving to the $1.5 million In God We Trust matching challenge that's active right now.

From her earliest days, America has been blessed by God because generation after generation, this country bowed its knee to God, and he responded with a blessing that stunned the world. Well, my friend, that blessing is not guaranteed. The scripture is eminently clear: nations that forget God forfeit his favor. And I believe that we are watching that forfeiture happen in real-time.

But I also believe it's not too late. The same God who blessed this nation can restore her. This matching challenge is our chance to take action. Every dollar you give today is immediately doubled—reaching more souls, strengthening more families, and calling this nation back to the God who made her great.

And when you respond today, I'm going to send you our 250th commemorative edition of America is a Christian Nation. This is a stunning, full-color celebration of the faith that built this country. In a culture that's working overtime to erase that heritage, this volume stands as a permanent, beautiful reminder of the truth. Here's David to tell you more.

David J. Mullins: When you give a generous gift to support the ministry of Pathway to Victory, you're invited to request the brand-new 250th commemorative edition of America is a Christian Nation. In addition to the book, you'll also receive In God We Trust, a brand-new two-disc set featuring music performances by the First Baptist Dallas choir and orchestra and teaching from Dr. Robert Jeffress. To request these resources, call 866-999-2965, visit ptv.org, or text PTV to 78800.

And when you give $100 or more, we'll also send you the America and the Bible message series on DVD video and MP3 format audio disc. And remember, because of the In God We Trust matching challenge, your gift to Pathway to Victory will be matched and therefore doubled in impact. So be sure to get in touch with us today. One more time, call 866-999-2965 or go online to ptv.org. You could also send your donation by mail; write to PO Box 223609, Dallas, Texas, 75222. Again, that's PO Box 223609, Dallas, Texas, 75222.

I'm David J. Mullins. Every day our government is growing more and more hostile toward believers. Learn more about what to do in part two of the message, When Persecution Comes, Wednesday on Pathway to Victory. Pathway to Victory with Dr. Robert Jeffress comes from the pulpit of the First Baptist Church of Dallas, Texas. You made it to the end of today's podcast from Pathway to Victory, and we're so glad you're here.

Pathway to Victory relies on the generosity of loyal listeners like you to make this podcast possible. And right now, your ministry gift will be matched and therefore doubled in impact thanks to the In God We Trust $1.5 million matching challenge. Take advantage of this opportunity to double your impact before the deadline on July 5th. To give toward the matching challenge, go to ptv.org/donate or follow the link in our show notes. We hope you've been blessed by today's podcast from Pathway to Victory.