Pathway to Victory

David J. Mullins: Thanks for streaming today's podcast from Pathway to Victory. Pathway to Victory is a nonprofit 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, when I start to suffer negative consequences for my faith, my first reaction is, "God, what's wrong? Are you asleep at the wheel? Don't you see what's happening to me?" The truth is, we ought to be more surprised if we're not suffering for our faith. See, Peter says persecution is the rule rather than the exception for those who have chosen to follow Christ.

David J. Mullins: Welcome to Pathway to Victory with author and pastor Dr. Robert Jeffress. When our nation's fathers founded America nearly 250 years ago, they built our nation on Christian morals and ethics. But every day, our government grows more and more hostile towards believers. Today on Pathway to Victory, Dr. Robert Jeffress explains three essential words to help us prepare for the coming persecution. But first, let's take a moment to hear some important ministry updates.

Guest (Male): Thanks, David, and welcome again to Pathway to Victory. It wasn't long ago when students in public schools would stand together in the morning to recite the Pledge of Allegiance. The Ten Commandments would be displayed on the wall, and children would often bow their heads in prayer. Not anymore. These expressions of faith and freedom have been jettisoned from the classroom.

For 30 years, Pathway to Victory has shown the light of God's Word far and wide, not only in classrooms but in every corner of our great country. That's the essence of the $1.5 million In God We Trust matching challenge that's active right now. This matching challenge gives you a fabulous opportunity to double the impact of your donation. By giving today, you're amplifying God's truth through radio, television, and the internet.

As a way of saying thanks for your generous gift, I'm eager to send a special book to bless your family. It's our 250th commemorative edition of *America is a Christian Nation*. Plus, I'm going to send you the *In God We Trust* DVD featuring teaching from Dr. Jeffress on the future of our nation and a patriotic MP3 format audio disc featuring 12 powerful performances by the First Baptist Dallas Choir and Orchestra. Together, these resources will strengthen your faith and stir your patriotism. More details are coming later on, so please be ready to take down our contact information. But right now, it's time to continue a study we started on yesterday's program. We're talking about what to do when persecution comes.

Dr. Robert Jeffress: 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. How should we respond to the escalating attacks against Christians? How do we get ready for 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. In our culture, you see this growing hatred toward Christians that is festering and is being fueled by the media by using these stereotypes of what Christians are. Notice how any evangelical Christian in a sitcom or a movie is portrayed. It is this growing animosity toward believers that is going to pave the way for a general acceptance in our culture of the persecution against Christians.

Listen to what Peter said in 1 Peter 4, verses 12 to 13. He said, "Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal among you, which comes upon you for your testing, as though some strange thing were happening to you; but to the degree that you share the sufferings of Christ, keep on rejoicing, so that at the revelation of His glory you may rejoice with exultation." Do not be surprised, Peter says. I have to confess to you, those words hit me between the eyes every time I read them.

Do not be surprised, because quite frankly, when I begin to suffer, especially suffer any consequences because of obedience to God, I'm surprised. It kind of knocks me for a loop. When I start to suffer negative consequences for my faith, my first reaction is, "God, what's wrong? Are you asleep at the wheel? Don't you see what's happening to me? Or God, I think you're making a tremendous mistake. I'm supposed to be rewarded, not persecuted for what I'm doing. Or God, if this is how you're going to treat your friends, no wonder you're having such a hard time getting a following these days."

I'm not the only one who feels that way. When hit with hardships, many Christians appear dazed and confused. They walk around in a spiritual stupor wondering, what's wrong? Why is this happening to me? The truth is, we ought to be more surprised if we're not suffering for our faith. Peter says persecution is the rule rather than the exception for those who have chosen to follow Christ. Beyond being surprised, many Christians get disillusioned with a God who would allow them to suffer for doing not the wrong thing, but for doing the right thing.

After all, in Psalm 3, we sing this song, "God is my shield, my shield, my defender, my protector. He's going to keep bad things from happening." Yet when they do happen to us, we think, "God, you need a bigger shield or something. This isn't right. God, if you're really protecting me, why would you allow this to happen to me?" Yet all you have to do is look at how God dealt with His own Son, His beloved Son, to get a different perspective on persecution.

Suffering is not an unexpected detour in God's plan for your life. It is actually a part of God's calling for your life. In 1 Peter 2, Peter writes, "For you have been called for this purpose, since Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example to follow in His steps; who committed no sin, nor was any deceit found in His mouth; and while being reviled, He did not revile in return; while suffering, He uttered no threats, but He kept entrusting Himself to Him who judges righteously."

Peter says suffering is a calling from God for every Christian. It's a calling most of us would like to ignore or forward to somebody else to receive. But if suffering was part of God's plan for His own Son, why are we surprised when God plans it for us as well? Why would God allow, and not only allow but plan, for His Son as well as for you and me to suffer? That leads to the second word that would encourage you in times of suffering. Suffering is not only certain, but suffering is profitable.

While suffering results in some temporary discomfort, the long-term gain far exceeds the short-term losses. In fact, on a personal level, it is the heat of persecution that fortifies our faith. Remember what James said in James 1, verses 2 to 4. He was talking to a group of Hebrew Christians who were suffering. They were being dispersed throughout the Roman Empire because of their faith, and James said, "Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance. And let endurance have its perfect result, so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing."

That word "testing," the testing of your faith, literally means approved. It is a word that was used to describe the process by which a potter would take a clay pot and he would place it in a fiery oven in order to fortify that clay pot. The potter's purpose in putting his work of art into that fiery oven was not to destroy it but to strengthen it. If it survived that fire without cracking, the word was written on the bottom, this Greek word that is translated tested or approved.

That is the same word that James uses to describe God's reason for putting you through the oven of testing, so that your faith can be strengthened. God's purpose is not to destroy you but to strengthen your faith. Persecution testing is not only profitable for us personally, but also for the church as a whole. That truth prompted the early church father Tertullian to remind those Roman governors who were launching an empire-wide persecution against Christians of this simple fact.

Listen to what Tertullian wrote. He said to these Roman governors, "Proceed in your career of cruelty, but do not suppose that you will thus accomplish your purpose of extinguishing the hated sect that is Christians. We are like the grass, which grows the more luxuriantly the oftener it is mowed." And then his famous words: "The blood of Christians is the seed of Christianity." We see that truth, that the blood of Christians is the seed of Christianity, in the early church's history.

Remember Jesus's words to the apostles before He ascended back into heaven. In Acts 1:8, He said, "But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be My witnesses in both Jerusalem, and Judea, and Samaria, and even to the remotest part of the earth." Now, here's the nugget of truth I hope you'll never forget. We often use that verse as a command from Jesus, don't we? We think Jesus was commanding His disciples. This verse is not a command. It is a prophecy of what would happen to the early church.

He said, "You're going to be My witnesses. You're going to start in Jerusalem, then you're going to go to Judea and Samaria, and ultimately you will go to the uttermost parts of the world." How do I know that? Look at what happened after Jesus ascended back into heaven. The apostles were in that upper room waiting for the coming of the Holy Spirit. What did they do when they were in that upper room? Did they get a big map of the globe and say, "Okay, men, remember what Jesus said. We're going to start here in Jerusalem. And then we're going to spread out into Judea and Samaria. And then you're going to take this part of the world and you're going to take this part of the world, and ultimately we're going to go over all the earth with the gospel of Jesus Christ"?

Did they have a strategy planning session like that? No. In fact, what you'll find is that those early apostles stayed in Jerusalem and they would have been content to stay in Jerusalem the rest of their lives. But notice what happened in Acts 8, verses 2 and 4. On that great day, a persecution arose against the church in Jerusalem and they were all scattered throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria. Therefore, those who had been scattered went about preaching the word. It was only because of persecution that the church left Jerusalem.

And where did they go? Just as Jesus prophesied, they went to Judea and Samaria. You go over a couple of chapters to Acts 12, and you find Herod Agrippa laid hands on some of those who belonged to the church. He had James, the brother of John, put to death with a sword. Guess what happened? They went beyond Judea and Samaria. The Bible says they went to the uttermost parts of the world. See, when the church is pressed, it expands. Persecution grows the church.

The willingness of believers to endure mistreatment continues even today to be a powerful catalyst for the spread of the gospel. Sun Ok-lee was a prisoner in North Korea from 1987 to 1992. Although she wasn't a Christian at the time, she was imprisoned in North Korea with other believers. She remembers hearing Christians sing as they were being put to death. Not understanding their faith, she thought they were insane. When those Christians refused to deny their faith, she remembers the guards becoming irate.

She couldn't comprehend why these Christians would not say, "I do not believe," and spare themselves from the horrendous torture they endured. Instead, these Christians would continue to sing hymns as the beatings escalated. The guards would take them to the electric treatment room. Lee says she never saw one Christian emerge from that room alive. Eventually, Lee escaped from prison to South Korea, where she became a Christian. By her own testimony, it was the enduring faith of those persecuted believers that implanted the seed of the gospel in her heart.

Persecution against Christians is certain. It is profitable both personally and for the movement as a whole. Thirdly, suffering is temporary. That's perhaps the most encouraging word about suffering. It's temporary. Several Christmases ago, we were planning to leave on our Christmas trip when our youngest daughter Dorothy started to suffer these severe pains in her abdomen. When she described her symptoms, I knew exactly what it was from my own experience. She was suffering from kidney stones, which a trip to the emergency room later revealed to be true.

There is no pain comparable to those jagged calcium rocks in your urinary tract. I couldn't offer her a lot of comfort, but what I could tell her was, "Honey, as bad as this is, it will subside. The pain will pass." And it did, literally. That's the only comfort sometimes we find in suffering, that as bad as it is, it is temporary. The apostle Peter was writing to Christians who were imprisoned. Others had lost their jobs, their homes, their livelihood. Some were having to choose between their faith and their families, and some were beginning to be executed for their faith.

Listen to what Peter said. He never tried to diminish the reality of the pain they were facing, but he encouraged them with one small phrase. In 1 Peter 3:6, Peter writes, "In this you greatly rejoice, even though for a little while, if necessary, you have been distressed by various trials." For a little while. Those are perhaps the most encouraging words to anyone who is suffering, especially suffering because of his commitment to Christ.

Of course, the question is, how little is little? Think about Pastor Wang in China. Do his 22 years in a Chinese prison camp qualify as a little while? You see, time is a matter of perspective, and suffering is a matter of perspective. Remember we looked in 2 Corinthians 11 at the catalog of Paul's suffering. Beaten five times within an inch of his life, shipwrecked, tortured, and so forth. Yet listen in 2 Corinthians 5 as he describes those sufferings.

He writes in verses 17 to 18, "For momentary, light affliction is producing in us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison, while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen; for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal." Look at all that Paul went through, and yet he described them as momentary light affliction, as if they were nothing more than getting stuck in the slow line at the supermarket.

Paul, what are you thinking? Are you suffering from dementia? Don't you remember how horrible those things were? How can you say they were momentary and light? I think he's reminding us that the length of suffering, momentary he describes it, or the intensity of our suffering, light he calls it, are all simply a matter of perspective. For example, think about time, the passing of time. Do you remember when you were children and we couldn't wait for Christmas to come around, Christmas break? It just seemed like it took forever for Christmas break to come.

And for the end of the year to come, time moved like molasses when you were in grade school. Endless days of class. Now think about how things have changed now that you're an adult. Are you amazed at how quickly time goes by? Can you believe another Thanksgiving is just around the corner again? It's amazing how quickly time goes by now. Think about it. Has the velocity of time changed? No. It's just our perspective of it. Pastor Wang's 22 years in a Chinese prison camp may have seemed interminable at the time.

After all, they represented nearly a fourth of his life. But compared to eternity, those 22 years were simply momentary. That's what Paul is saying. Time is a matter of perspective, and so is suffering. Paul says his afflictions were light. But again, that's a matter of perspective. For example, and maybe this analogy will help you. Would you say that a 2,000-pound concrete block is light or heavy? You'd probably say it was heavy, wouldn't you? But compared to a 747 jetliner, is a 2,000-pound block light or heavy? It's light.

It's all a matter of perspective. Paul's not diminishing the pain he felt or the pain you feel as well. But he said compared to the eternal weight of God's unending rewards, what we suffer in this life is both momentary and it is light. It's nothing when you compare it to the weight of God's blessings that will be ours forever and ever. As Saint Teresa famously said one time, "In light of heaven, the worst suffering on earth, a life full of the most atrocious tortures on earth, will be seen to be no more serious than a one-night stay in an inconvenient hotel." That's what Paul is saying.

Peter Lowe is the founder of a success seminar that bears his name. He was once asked in a seminar how he defines success. He said, "First of all, you have to look at the long term. I like to share with business people, 'If I could show you how to be a millionaire in 30 days, would you like that?'" And of course, they all say, "I'd love that." "Okay," I say. "You'll be a millionaire in 30 days, but only for one day. Then you'll be bankrupt the rest of your life. Do you still want to be a millionaire?"

It's amazing how few people take him up on his offer. However, suppose Peter Lowe changed his offer to say this: "You can be a millionaire for the rest of your life if you're willing to be bankrupt one day of your life." Would you take him up on that offer? Most anyone would. You see, suffering like time is a matter of perspective. We hope we never have to make the choice between faithfulness to Christ and painful persecution.

But the stories of Christians around the world and in history tell us that we are not going to be exempt from making those kinds of choices. I'll have to confess to you that when I read the stories of Christians in past ages, the great martyrs of the faith, or when I read contemporary stories like those of Pastor Wang, I really am fearful that I won't have the same response they did. Sometimes I wonder, do they just simply have a greater threshold for pain than I have? But as I read their stories more carefully, I discover that is not the difference between them and us. It's not that they had a greater threshold for pain. It's that they had a different perspective. They thoughtfully weighed the temporary real pain of persecution against the eternal unending rewards of God. And using that scale, the choice was not difficult to make at all. And neither will it be for most of you when persecution comes.

[–Guest (Male)–] Make no mistake, persecution is coming to America, and it falls on every Christian to be prepared. My sincere prayer is that these biblical principles will help you know how to respond when persecution comes. And right now, I want to share this amazing story of how God is working through Pathway to Victory to reach people in a war-torn corner of our world. This is a testimonial from a Jewish woman living in Israel who has experienced persecution firsthand.

[–Guest (Female)–] As a religious Jew, my journey towards Christianity was unexpected and profound. Pathway to Victory played a pivotal role in this transition. I am grateful for the transformative impact of Pathway to Victory, which has not only changed my religious perspective but also deepened my relationship with God in ways I never imagined possible.

[–Guest (Male)–] God made a promise to Abraham that has never been revoked: "I will bless those who bless you, and I will curse those who curse you." That covenant is still in force today, and America's relationship with Israel has always been a barometer of God's blessing on this nation. And right now, the In God We Trust matching challenge is your opportunity to stand on the right side of that promise. And when you partner with Pathway to Victory by giving a gift toward this matching challenge, you're helping us reach into faraway places like Israel with the hope and truth of salvation through Jesus Christ. We couldn't do this work without you. Here's David with all the details.

[–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 P.O. Box 223609, Dallas, Texas, 75222. Again, that's P.O. Box 223609, Dallas, Texas, 75222.

I'm David J. Mullins. According to biblical prophecy, we are living in the last days, and the return of Christ is imminent. So how should we be living now in light of that compelling knowledge? Hear a message called "Last Days Living" Thursday 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.