Turning Point

Guest (Male): Losing the battle but winning the war. For Christians, persecution is a lot like that. In the near term, pain, perhaps even death, but ultimately victory. Today on Turning Point, Dr. David Jeremiah considers the proper perspective to embrace when persecution comes your way. From *The World of the End*, here's David to introduce the conclusion of his message, "In a World of Persecution, Be Prepared."

Dr. David Jeremiah: On Friday, we were talking about what is happening in our world today with the persecuted church. I've heard all kinds of estimates. Some people say there are more people being persecuted right now in this generation than in all the generations leading up to right now. The reason we don't know about that is much of the information is protected. We have all been aware of what has happened in Nigeria, some other places in America where we see persecution slipping into our churches and into our communities, and anti-Semitism is very much alive.

These words from our Lord in the Olivet Discourse, His words about persecution, are important. In just a moment, we'll be back and share with you part two. Here on my desk in the studio is a copy of the book, *The World of the End*, which is our resource for the month of April. You can get this book for a gift of any size. Please get your gift in the mail as soon as possible, and when you do, simply say, "Send me the book, *The World of the End*." We'd be happy to send it to you as our way of saying thank you for your investment in what we do.

There's also a study guide you can get from turningpoint.org, and if you want the audio portions of this teaching series, those are available as well. We create these products to help you take the word we teach so that you can facilitate the teaching of it and the learning of it in other settings, whether it's a small group or a Sunday school class or wherever. Take advantage of that as you have opportunity. We'll be back at the end of this message with a few words of announcement. Right now, this is part two of "In a World of Persecution, Be Prepared."

I would ask this question: have you ever felt anything negative because people know you're a Christian? Have you ever felt any pushback or anguish or maybe even fear or rejection because people know that you're a Christian? One of the grimmer realities of Jesus' revelation in this verse is that persecution against His followers is not clinical or detached. It's the persecution of God's people during the world of the end fueled by emotion. We will be hated.

Of course, such hatred is unwarranted. It will be unwarranted in the future. But for 2,000 years, the world has raged against us, seeking to disband the movement that Jesus began, seeking to ban the Bible that He gave, seeking to disrupt the ministries He started, and seeking to destroy the souls that He saved. You don't have to look very far or listen very long to find out the world isn't standing up to applaud the Christian faith.

So what motivates people to do that? I mean, we're good people. We help our neighbors. We try to be kind. Why do they hate Christians? Why do the people of the world, especially people in places of responsibility, in media, the elites, if you will—why do they look down their nose at Christians? The motivation behind it is the motivation that goes back to who Jesus is and what He has done. He came to deal with sin. He came not to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved.

He offers salvation, but in order for you to be saved, you have to admit that you're lost. My dad used to tell me as a pastor the hardest thing about getting people saved was getting them lost because most of them don't think they're lost. They think they're pretty good. They think they got it made. They think they're good enough to go to heaven without God. They don't need Jesus.

Jesus said you'll be hated by all nations, and then He said for this reason: "for My name's sake." The reason Christians experience persecution is because we have aligned ourselves with Jesus Christ, and the world hates Jesus Christ. "If the world hates you," Jesus said, "you know that it hated me before it hated you." John 15:18. John 15:20 says, "If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you."

Now, it's important for me to clarify this because I hear this word used a lot improperly. "I got a D on that test. I'm just going through persecution." No, you didn't study. Or, "I don't have any money left in my account. I'm going through a time of persecution." No, you should have saved some. We use the word persecution as sort of a cover word for everything that's negative in our lives. But persecution doesn't fit any place except in this narrow place. Persecution is what happens to you particularly because of the fact that you are a Christian, a follower of Christ.

And that raises an important question I'm going to ask you, and I hope you'll think about it. I'm not asking you about your salvation. I'm asking you, have you ever publicly identified yourself with Jesus Christ in such a way that those who know you know what you believe? And have you ever told anybody that you didn't think wanted to know this that you are a Christian, that you're a follower of Christ?

Here's another way to ask that question. This is a great question for all of us, especially for the younger ones. If you got arrested for being a Christian, is there enough evidence to prosecute you? Everywhere you look today, there are people who are tucking their New Testament in their inward pocket and walking by because they don't want anybody to know that they belong to Jesus. "If they don't know I'm a Christian, I'm still a Christian." Yeah, but not a very good one.

He doesn't want us walking around sticking our faith in everybody's nose, but He doesn't want us covering up our faith in any situation for any reason. We're to stand up for what we believe and not be ashamed to do it. Sometimes you have to confront what's wrong. When I was a pastor back in Fort Wayne and I was first getting started, I was probably in my late 20s, early 30s. Much to my wife's frustration, I played in two industrial basketball leagues every week. One was in the Y in downtown Fort Wayne, and another was in another place. So I played basketball two nights a week.

I made a lot of friends there. It was the only contact I had with people who weren't Christians because if you're a pastor, as soon as you walk in the room, they get on report, you know? "Pastor's here, you gotta behave" and all that. But when you're playing basketball, nobody cares about that. So I'm playing against this guy, and this one particular game I remember, he was using the Lord's name in vain every time down the floor.

He was having a bad day and he wasn't making his shots, and every time he missed his shot, he took the Lord's name in vain. Finally, during a timeout, I went over to him and I said, "You know what? You've got to quit doing what you're doing." He said, "What's that?" I said, "First of all, Jesus isn't missing the shots, you are. So quit using His name. And secondly, Jesus Christ is very special to me, and you use His name in a way that's very dishonoring to Him, and it's hurtful to me. If you keep doing it, I'm going to have to not play in this league anymore, and you know that wouldn't be good." The rest of the year, I never heard him peep one word.

He might've said "jeepers" once, but I'm not sure. Now you say, "Well, Pastor Jeremiah, that's a silly little story." Yes, it is. But how easily do we just accept what happens by other people because we don't want people to know that we are Christians? The Bible says that's not being a Christian. We will have to stand up for our faith, and when we do, we will have issues. Jesus is telling His disciples this because He wants them to get ready. He knows they're going to face some stuff like this.

So we have the record of persecution and the reality of it. Here's the response to it. Let me tell you another story, most of which you may know. Coach Joseph Kennedy has inspired those of us in America with his example. As a high school football coach in Seattle, he would always take a moment to kneel in prayer on the 50-yard line after the game. No matter win or lose, sometimes members of his team joined him for the prayer, and sometimes even players from the other team joined in. But whether in a crowd or alone, Coach Kennedy prayed after every game, and he did it for seven years.

Then in 2015, an opposing coach noticed what he was doing and reported him to the Bremerton High School principal. Soon after that, the school athletic director told Kennedy to stop praying, citing the school district's policy regarding religious expression. The coach tried to do as instructed. In fact, he skipped his weekly prayer after one game and felt so guilty and regretted his decision so much that before he got home, he turned his car around, went back to the empty stadium, tearfully returned to the 50-yard line, asked God to forgive him for not doing what he should do, and expressed his love for the Lord.

He resumed the ritual of post-game prayer the following week and the week after, and that's when the officials placed him on leave and then declined to rehire him for the following season. Joseph Kennedy had spent 20 years serving his country as a United States Marine, and he was fired for 20 seconds of prayer. The coach is a fighter. He sued the Bremerton school district in 2015, claiming they violated his religious freedom and constitutional guarantee of religious liberty.

Seven years later, in January of 2022, his case was taken up by the United States Supreme Court. On June 27th of that year, the news flashed across the internet that in a six-to-three decision, the Supreme Court ruled in the coach's favor. I say hallelujah. May his tribe increase. May there be more Joe Kennedys. Whenever possible, we need to kindly and bravely stand up for the freedoms that allow us our faith.

In some places, there's no concept of religious liberty. Followers of Christ will have to navigate the best way to handle instances of persecution. We don't have solid answers for every particular situation we face or that you face. But we have one deep desire, and that is to honor the Lord with our lives. Not to be cowardly, not to run away from our faith and cover it up because it's under attack, but to be God's people and be God's people in a gracious, godly way.

So here are some principles I want to give you, and I'll give them to you quickly. Here's what's happening, here's what to do. Here's the first thing: recount your blessing. One of the most enigmatic verses in the Bible is Matthew chapter 5 and verse 10. Here's what it says: "Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." Now, I know there are some passages in the Bible that are just really confusing when we first read them, and this is a great example of that.

Blessed are those who are persecuted? I mean, what kind of sentence is that? What kind of sense does it make? How could Jesus join together blessed and persecuted in the same sentence talking about the same people? Well, the key is to understand that being persecuted by the world reminds us that we're not in the world. We are members of God's kingdom. We are children in His family. Therefore, we can choose to minimize the importance of what we experience in the world because it does not matter in the face of eternity.

We would much rather focus on where we're going to be forever than worry about where we are now, what we're going to know in the future than what we now know. And so it is kind of a back-door blessing when people persecute you. It just reminds you: I'm on the right road and I'm going in the right way. There's the broad way and the narrow way. I'm on the narrow way. I'm headed toward heaven. That's not some sort of sick acquisition of our faith. That's just what the Bible teaches. Blessed are you when you're persecuted for righteousness' sake, for yours is the kingdom of heaven.

Secondly, respond with worship. And here's one of my favorite points. If there's anyone in history who understood the reality of what it's like to be persecuted, it was the apostle Paul. In fact, there are three special places in the New Testament that describe the stuff he went through, kind of three lists that Paul has in his books about what he went through. I mean, he went through a lot of stuff. From the moment he accepted Christ, he was forced to deal with haranguers and harassers who were after his life. They wanted him gone.

He scaled city walls in a basket. He endured beatings and stoning. He was arrested and accused. He was shipwrecked and snake-bitten. And because he refused to let go of Christ, all these things happened to him. On one particular occasion, he and his buddy Silas were beaten with rods and tossed into jail. This was in Macedonia, and the scripture says the jailer even fastened their feet in the stocks. For the first time in studying this passage many times over the years, I realized that this wasn't just for security.

They were an additional form of punishment. A square log was split in two with holes drilled for the prisoner's ankles. The top half was removed, the prisoner's ankles were positioned in the bottom half, the top half was then laid down on top of the ankles and fastened. And the prisoners were left in this position for days, which meant they were unable to move their legs at all. This was torture, just because Paul and Silas were telling people about Jesus.

How did they respond? Listen to this: "But at midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the prisoners were listening to them." Now, I remember the first part of that verse very well—Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God. But I did not realize they were holding a concert in the prison. They gathered everybody and they had a concert. It says they were singing hymns and the prisoners were listening to them.

You remember the rest of the story, I'm sure. An earthquake shook the foundation of the prison. Paul and Silas were freed, but they didn't run away because the jailer would have been killed if they got out of his jurisdiction. So they stayed. Guess what happened? The jailer got saved. The Bible tells us that. They were praying and singing hymns to God, and in doing so, they eventually led the jailer and his whole family. Why? Because they acted in such an uncommon way. They didn't run away as you would expect. They stayed there because they didn't want anything bad to happen to him.

He would have been killed because the rule was, you are responsible for your prisoners. If they get gone, you get gone. And instead of getting gone, they got saved and are going to spend eternity in heaven. Don't miss this. After being stripped, beaten, locked, and left to suffer, Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God. They chose to praise God in the middle of horrible circumstances. If we're worshipping God with resolution today, we will learn to worship God in persecution tomorrow.

We need to learn how to worship God. Know this: when you come to church every Sunday, this is a rehearsal. We're learning to praise God, not just for now, but for the days coming when we will not need praise just for our own edification, but for our own protection. Praise is a weapon. You and I get to choose how we respond to persecution. We can respond in anger, or we can resolve to worship and amplify the values of God's kingdom. When the time comes, I pray that you and I will have the courage to make the right choice. And when you do, when we do, and we resolve to worship even in the midst of mistreatment, God will get the glory and victory will be ours.

They praised God. One of the ways you deal with persecution is through worship. Here's the third one: reevaluate your suffering. Verse 18 of Romans chapter 8: "I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that shall be revealed in us." Paul says one of the ways you deal with this is here's what I'm going through right now, here's what God has planned for me in the future.

And I realize that what I'm going through right now is not even worthy to be evaluated against the promises and the glory that is before me. Someday when we're in heaven and experiencing the bliss and joy of being in the presence of Almighty God in that beautiful place that is promised to us, if we are allowed a little time of memory, we will look back and remember the things we went through and we'll think, "Why did I get so upset over that when this was waiting for me?" That's what Paul is saying. He said you just evaluate your suffering in light of the glory that is promised to you. One day in eternity our sufferings will reveal God's glory, not because we look back at this moment that seemed so terrible and so large and so unbearable; we will realize it because there is nothing in comparison with the wonders of God, and that's what He's promised.

So recount your blessing, respond with worship, reevaluate your suffering, and the final one: receive your reward. In the book of Revelation, there are two chapters that are often overlooked because they're not really prophetic. They're present-day historic. It's chapters 2 and 3 because they tell the story of the churches of Revelation to which John wrote from the Isle of Patmos. In the book, Jesus directed seven letters to seven churches, and one of those churches was a church in the town of Smyrna. That was the suffering church. They went through great suffering in that city.

And I want you to hear what Jesus had to say to this church specifically in this letter from Revelation. He said, "Do not fear any of those things which you are about to suffer. Indeed, the devil is about to throw some of you into prison, that you may be tested, and you will have tribulation ten days. Be faithful unto death, and I will give you the crown of life."

As you consider what we experience as human beings and as the church during the world of the end, I encourage you to remember Jesus' words: "Do not fear any of those things." We have nothing to be afraid of. Don't leave here today saying, "Oh, I went to church today and Pastor Jeremiah scared me to death." No, I'm not trying to scare you with anything. I'm trying to tell you, this is it, and you know I'm telling you the truth because you already know some of it's started. You feel it. You say, "This is different than what it's ever been before."

So I'm just telling you, you've got nothing to be afraid of because God is in control. He's already told you how to deal with it. Stand up and be counted and know that you're on the winning team. You're going to win. Amen? Well, let me finish the story with which I started. Andrew Brunson, the day finally came when he was placed on trial before the Turkish court. And they were going to get him. They determined that he was not going to leave. He was terrified, but he was resolved.

After one accusation after another after a host of false witnesses, the judge asked Brunson if he had anything to say in his defense. By now, the eyes of the whole world were on him, for his case had garnered global publicity. Brunson stood up, he looked the judge right in the eye, and he said, "Jesus told his disciples to go into all the world and preach the gospel. That's why I came to Turkey, to proclaim this. There's only one way to God, and that's Jesus. There's only one way to have our sins forgiven, and that's Jesus. There's only one way to gain eternal life," he said, "and that's Jesus. There's only one savior, and that's Jesus. For the last 25 years, I've declared Jesus as savior. For 23 years I did it by choice, and the last two years I've been forced to do it from prison. But my message is the same: it's Jesus."

And that was how he defended himself, and I say hallelujah and praise God for a man like that. And somehow, in spite of his bold declaration, God moved the levers of leadership and diplomacy, and he was released to return home to the United States. And he continues now to tell his story. He's written a book, and what God did for him and through him is a great encouragement to all of us. He's sort of a prototype of what's coming and how we can live for God in spite of the pressures.

So in a world of persecution, we must be vigilant, we must be prepared, but we don't need to be anxious. God will give you the grace when you need it. You say, "Well, what would I do if something like that happened to me?" You don't know what you'd do and you don't have to worry about it, because when the time comes, you'll know what to do because you're a believer. God will show you what to do, and you'll have to make a choice whether to do it or not, but you'll know what to do.

The devil cannot win. The gates of hell cannot prevail against the church of Jesus Christ. Whether we live or die, the gospel is true. Did you know the gospel is true whether you believe it or not? You cannot say the gospel isn't true just because you don't believe it. The gospel is true whether you believe it or not, whether you accept it or not. It's true, always has been true, it always will be true. And the gospel is Jesus. Jesus is true. Jesus is the truth.

And I'm here to declare to you today that we are on the winning side. We're going to go through some rough periods as we head toward heaven. Some of us will experience it more than others. But what I'm challenging you to do is this: ask yourself, "Am I a real Christian? Does anybody know that I'm a Christian?" Why don't you tell somebody, just bravely, kindly, graciously, in the right setting, "Hey, did you know I was a Christian?" It will shake them up. And the first question they'll ask is, "What do you mean?" And then you can tell them. And when you do that, the Bible says you will feel a sense of God's presence like you've never felt it before. And you will be blessed, and you will be reminded that the Christian life isn't just all about the good things God provides. It's about the testimony we have in this world to which He has called us. We need to stand up and be God's people and not worry about the future because God has it under control.

Amen. I hope you never have to feel the sting of persecution, but no matter who you are, if you live for the Lord, somebody's not going to be happy about it and you'll have to learn how to take rejection and sometimes negative attitudes. We can still be confident. We know we please the Lord, and when we please Him, we can walk each day in confidence. Tomorrow, we're going to talk about how to be faithful in a world of betrayal, once again more from the Olivet Discourse in the book of Matthew.

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Guest (Male): Our message today originated from Shadow Mountain Community Church and senior pastor, Dr. David Jeremiah. Will you take a moment to tell us how our ministry is an encouragement? You can write us at Turning Point, P.O. Box 3838, San Diego, California 92163. Visit our website at davidjeremiah.org/radio, or call 800-947-1993. Ask for your copy of David's book, *The World of the End*, with a special "Be the Answer" bookmark, yours for a gift of any amount. You can also stream more than 1,200 of Dr. Jeremiah's messages on demand on any screen with our streaming service, Turning Point+, for a monthly gift of any amount. Visit turningpointplus.org for details. That's turningpointplus.org. This is David Michael Jeremiah. Join us tomorrow as we continue the series "The World of the End" on Turning Point with Dr. David Jeremiah.