Sunday, April 11, 2021 PM

Persecution of the Church as Escalating Civic Pressure

Okay, so that's, so in answering, okay, persecution of the church can happen in a variety of ways. Often our focus is, of course, on what? The violent, physical, like the burning of churches, the imprisonment of Christians, the execution of Christians, and so on, the murder of Christians, and so on.

I say, well, that's persecution. Did it start that way? I mean, did it start that way? No, it started with other things before that, lesser forms of persecution. But there's a buildup, there's a growing escalation.

That occurs.

As an example of Emperor Valerian was fighting the Persians and he sent two letters home to the Senate and he informed the Senate. He said, all Christian clergy are to perform sacrifices to Roman gods and he forbade Christians from holding meetings in cemeteries, which was the place that was left to them.

Certain points, they had no public houses that they could gather in, and so they were just meeting in cemeteries. In the 300s, we started having actual buildings in which Christians would gather. And they knew this because they're excavating things from the 300s and there's baptistries in them, which the other houses didn't have.

So here's an interesting exchange. There was a Bishop of Carthage, Cyprian, and the procouncil in Carthage, Galerius Maximus, on the 14th of September, the year 258, this is the transcript. This is the transcript.

Galerius says, are you Fascius Cyprianus? And Cyprian says, I am. Galerius says, the most sacred emperors have commanded you to conform to the Roman rights. Do as the Romans do, for whatever reason. Is there a plague that we need to push off?

Is there a war that we need to succeed in? Whatever it is, you need to toe the line and be unified with the civic religion, okay? Cyprian says, I refuse. Galerius says, take heed for yourself. Cyprian says, do as you are bid.

In so clear a case, I may not take heed. So Cyprian says, this is a clear cut case for me. I am not going to do what the Roman emperors have told me to do. I'm not going to do it. Galerius talks to his counsel, and then he says, you have long lived an irreligious life and have drawn together a number of men bound by an unlawful association and professed yourself an open enemy to the gods and the religion of Rome and the pious, most sacred and august emperors have endeavored in vain to bring you back to conformity with the religious observances, whereas therefore you have been apprehended as principal and ringleader in these infamous crimes.

You shall be made an example to those whom you have wickedly associated. The authority of law shall be ratified in your blood. And then he read the sentence of the court from written tablet. It is the sentence of this court that Fascius Cyprianus be executed with the sword.

And Cyprian said, thanks be to God. And that's the end of the transcript. So usually the whole idea of a persecution is if there has to be a civic religion of unity, everybody must conform and do the same thing.

And then if Christians say, no, that's disobedience to Jesus. We're going to have to do something different. And then the cry is, you are selfish. You deserve some kind of punishment and deterrence because of your selfishness, right?

That's the way it's been for a long time. I mean, you can just observe that in all manner of history and all certain situations. That's just what you call a theory of persecution. That's how it works.

Why Christians Must Physically Gather for Worship

So the other part of the question is this. Also, please articulate why physically gathering together to worship is required by God and counter the argument. Well, we can worship anywhere because our worship is not bound to a place in time.

It can be done anytime, anywhere, and is fully acceptable to God. So why is physically gathering together to worship required by God?

Isn't that what's at stake?

That's what has been taken away so much in the last year, a direct decree from the state. Thou shalt not gather together. And then when Christians do, find or imprison or whatever, and one side of evangelicalism is saying, well, that was pointless, right?

That was totally in vain. You're just, you're causing a stink, right? You are shaming the name of Christ. That's actually been said more than once. You're shaming the name of Christ among the world, refusing to obey these very sensible instructions.

Why is it so important that we gather together? Is that really essential? It is commanded, anybody know where? Yes, Hebrews chapter 10, Hebrews chapter 10. Verse 23 says, let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering.

For he who promised is faithful, and let us consider one another in order to stir up love and good works. There's a comma there, meaning the thought is continuing, not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together as is the manner of some, but exhorting one another and so much the more as you see the day approaching.

So let's make a little connection here. Stirring up love in one another, loving one another is part of the very same sentence as not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together. So it's an awful ironic and sadly humorous tragedy that the cry of one side of the North American church has been in order to love one another, do not gather.

When the passage most clearly calling us together says we're doing this in order to love one another. So that's what we're left with. Now, again, these are all very difficult things.

To work through.

And I know there's concern for health and safety and so on. However, the question is, is it required by God? Does God want us to physically gather together? And the answer seems to be apparently yes. The assumption is made in all of Paul's letters as being read to the church that are gathered together at the same time.

They did not take the letter from house to house and each family got to read it in their turn. They were gathered together. It was not simply for logistics sake. It's not about logistics. How do you have communion together?

How do you take the Lord's Supper together if you don't gather? How do you, the instructions to sing Psalms, hymns and spiritual songs to each other and exhort one another.

How do you do that?

If you don't gather together, right? I mean, the assumption in the scriptures is that we gather together. The example that we have of the early church in Acts. Oh, they just gathered together all the time.

And of course, in that day, there were no diseases. In retrospect, we can see that perhaps we overreacted. But again, remember the great call for unity. Everybody do the same thing in this society. Real patriotism is doing what everybody is saying that everybody should be doing.

Unity, unity, unity. That's called a civic religion. And the nonconformity with the civic religion is then called selfish and is persecuted. So that's nothing new.

This is just nothing new.

God’s Prescription for Worship and the Limits of Human Preference

So the, yes, well, you can worship anywhere. Yes, that's true. But it's not up to us. God has described how it is that he wants to be worshiped. And of course, he gets to say that because he's God and we're not.

And he has given us a prescription, what it looks like, and actually some prohibition. Do not forsake. And some examples of how we are together. You know, God is wiser than we are. And God is a lot more good than we are.

He's a lot more holy than we are. And it's okay to trust our Heavenly Father in the things that he calls us to do and lean into that. So I hope I've answered the question. Yeah, so I hope that's been helpful.

Any other thoughts or questions about that subject? Yes, brother Ken.

Just in light of how we define the way Islam means submit, Muslim means one who submits. So in, but there's an extreme tax. And the whole point of it is to make one that you will convert.

Yes.

And the opportunity for people in those situations.

Yes.

And so.

Yeah, and of course, the civic religion is different in the US and the Dominion of Canada versus Saudi Arabia. The civic religion is different, but what's the same is the demand for unity. All must do the same, say the same, be the same at all costs.

And so you can see that there is a great temptation among Christians. They say, well, this seems very, very important to the people around us. Now we want Jesus to be important to them. But it seems that all these other things are very important to them.

So if I show that I value what's important to them, perhaps they will value what's important to me. And kind of move forward in a kind of synthesis in the name of reaching people for Christ. But that has never ever worked in all of church history.

And didn't work in the Bible, but it's never ever worked. That the syncretism, the synthesis has never worked. It's only weakened the church. And so it's not by the flesh, it's by the spirit. It's not by the arm of the flesh, will of the flesh, and so on.

It's by the power of the Holy Spirit, by the power of the word, and so forth, that we see the success. All right, well, I hope that's been helpful. And please be in prayer. I am going in conjunction also with the elders, and we're gonna be praying by this together.

And I will be trying to actively call upon them for prayer.