Remembering The Persecuted Church

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I want to invite you to open up your Bibles and turn with me to Hebrews chapter 13.
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I want to begin this morning by having you paint a picture in your mind.
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I want you to really think existentially.
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Think that just kind of put yourself in this place mentally.
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I want you to imagine that you woke up tomorrow and that you had no religious liberty at all.
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The Bibles which are now in your homes on your shelves and coffee tables have become illegal.
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They are considered to be hate speech and are worthy only now of being confiscated and burned.
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The Christian television and radio programs which you enjoy have all been banned from the airways.
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Imagine there is no church in your town or your community in which to congregate, worship or pray.
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The only chance you have of genuine Christian fellowship is done in homes hidden from the view of a government that no longer tolerates your expressions of faith.
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Imagine your spouses, your children, your friends and relatives were arrested for proclaiming their faith.
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Imagine even still that there was the penalty of death if they did not immediately recant their fidelity to Christ.
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Now such a frightening scene sounds like the type of events which are reserved for a Tim LaHaye novel.
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Something like a left behind or a tribulation force.
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However, the reality is that there are Christians all over the world right now, today, this very moment, who live in conditions just like the one that I just described above.
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For these Christians, the great tribulation is not something which is coming.
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These Christians live in a daily great tribulation.
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In today's message we are going to be looking at a verse which commands us to remember those who are suffering for their faith in Christ.
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They are the suffering servants of Christ.
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This morning I want to ask that you try to imagine, with your mind's eye, I want you to try to see the current tribulation which our brothers and sisters in Christ are facing all around the world.
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And during this sermon I want us to grow in our empathy for them.
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You know what empathy means? It's different than sympathy.
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Sympathy says, I feel bad for you.
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Empathy says, I am putting myself in your place.
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It literally means to be in the other person's shoes.
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And I want us for this time to begin to grow in our understanding of what our brothers and sisters are facing for their faith.
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That being said, let us stand together and read the word of God.
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Hebrews chapter 13 and verse 3.
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We will only look at this one verse today from the text.
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It says, remember those who are in prison as though in prison with them.
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And those who are mistreated since you also are in the body.
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Our Father and our God, we thank you for this opportunity to look at your word, to seek to understand it, and to have it move on our heart.
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I pray, Lord, as I always do, that you would keep me from error, both for my sake and the sake of the congregation.
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And Lord, that you would open their hearts to the truth and put a hedge of protection around them.
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Father, I pray that this message will not only be a reminder, but that this message would be an encouragement towards more action in prayer, more action in giving, more action in empathy.
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That we might truly seek to remember, as the scripture would use the term, remember those who are suffering for their fidelity to you.
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In Jesus' name we pray.
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Amen.
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Well, beloved, we have been studying the book of Hebrews for the past few years.
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We're getting close to the end.
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We're closing in on the conclusion of this very important book.
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The writer has engaged his hearers and us with deep and profound theological truths throughout its pages, and has now, in these final chapters, moved toward very practical admonitions in the faith.
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In the beginning of chapter 13, he admonished us toward loving our brothers and sisters in Christ, and he has admonished us towards being hospitable, not only towards our brothers and sisters in Christ, but also being hospitable to those from outside.
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And in today's text, he moves out from his focus on what is going on inside the church, and he broadens his focus on what is happening outside the body of believers in which he is addressing.
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He said already, he said, okay, as believers you are to love one another in the church, as believers you are to welcome outsiders who come into the church, and now we are to start focusing on those who are outside of our particular body.
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We're to start focusing on those who are outside of our particular church.
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Particularly those who are imprisoned.
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And the group who is in focus in passage 3 here, chapter 13, verse 3, are those who are imprisoned for the sake of their faith.
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Now, this verse has been used by many as a verse to support prison ministries and countless prison ministries.
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I think Chuck Colson is one famous prison ministry leader, or was, and there are many ministries out there, and they use this verse as the reason to go into prisons to make proselytes, to go into prisons to evangelize and to share the gospel.
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And I think that that application is, while it is noble, it is admirable, it is valuable, I don't think it's the intent of the verse.
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That might surprise you for me to say that.
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Well, I believe, again, and I want to make this clear, prison ministry is valuable, it's important, it's noble.
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But I think prison ministry, in the sense that you go there to evangelize, I think that falls under the call to evangelize.
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I think that falls under Matthew 28, that we are to go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature.
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And I think that pretty much sums up, and prisoners fall under that category because they're in the world.
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And we're to go into the whole world and evangelize.
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So that's not what's in view here.
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While that is an important, noble and valuable ministry, it's not what's in focus here.
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What is in focus in this particular text are those who are in prison for the sake of their fidelity to Christ.
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Prison ministry is noble, but there is also a ministry to those who are imprisoned or who are shackled because of their faith.
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And the concern of the writer is for those who are members of the church and who are being mistreated and imprisoned for their commitment to Christ.
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The word remember in this text doesn't simply mean to call something to mind on occasion.
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The word remember here means to be mindful of, to keep this on your mind.
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What are we to keep on our mind? We are to keep on our mind those in the body who are suffering.
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Those in the body who are imprisoned.
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Now, this interpretation would agree with other places in Scripture where imprisonment is mentioned.
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And I want to just show you a few places where we see this actually coming to bear.
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Just so you know, this isn't just Keith Foskey's opinion.
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This bears out with the Scripture.
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Earlier in our service, I read Matthew 25 to you.
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It was our opening text.
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I want to ask that you turn back to that passage, Matthew chapter 25, verses 31 through 40.
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This is another passage which I think is often misunderstood.
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Jesus is talking about His return.
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He's talking about coming back.
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He's talking about what's going to happen when He returns in judgment.
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Verse 31 begins like this.
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It says, When the Son of Man comes in His glory and all the angels with Him, then He will sit on His glorious throne.
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Before Him will be gathered all the nations.
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And He will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats.
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This is the great judgment.
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And He will place the sheep who are His followers on His right and the goats on the left.
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Then the King will say to those on His right, Come, you who are blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.
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For I was hungry and you gave Me food.
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I was thirsty and you gave Me drink.
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I was a stranger and you welcomed Me.
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I was naked and you clothed Me.
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I was sick and you visited Me.
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I was in prison and you came to Me.
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Then the righteous will answer Him saying, Lord, when did we see You hungry and feed You and thirsty and give You drink? And when did we see You a stranger and come to You or naked and clothe You? And when did we see You sick or in prison and visit You? And the King will answer them, Truly I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these My brothers, you did it also to Me.
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Beloved, the focus in the text is Christ's people, His brethren, the followers of Christ.
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Now you might say, well, shouldn't we feed and clothe and help and hunger everyone? Yes, but the focus of Christ is those who are His, these who are His brethren, those who are among the sheep.
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This is who we have put out our concern and our care for.
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We have shown love to the brethren.
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By this, all men will know that you are My disciples, that you have love for one another.
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Beloved, there is a lot of pain that goes on in the church because that simple command is not obeyed.
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And this is why the church at large is laughed at by the world, because we're so eager to please the world and not eager to love one another.
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And we're so willing to hurt one another very quickly or ignore the pain of one another very quickly.
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But yet we reach out into the world and try to do everything to satisfy the world.
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It's ridiculous and it hurts our cause.
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First and foremost, our responsibility is to love one another as Christ has loved us.
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It is to reach out to those among us who are hurting the brethren, first within the church and then outside of the church.
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And Jesus says, as you've done it to these My brothers, you have done it also to Me.
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Turn to Revelation chapter 2.
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Revelation chapter 2 and verse 8.
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Talking to the church of Smyrna, the Lord Jesus said these words.
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Chapter 2, verse 8 through 11 in the book of Revelation.
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And to the angel of the church of Smyrna write the words of the first and the last who died and came to life.
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I know your tribulation and your poverty, but you are rich.
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And the slander of those who say that there are Jews and not, but are a synagogue of Satan.
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Do not fear what you are about to suffer.
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Behold, the devil is about to throw some of you into prison that you may be tested.
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And for ten days you will have tribulation.
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Be faithful unto death and I will give you the crown of life.
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Here Jesus is telling a church, a very specific church, one of the churches of Revelation.
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You're about to suffer and some of you are even going to die for your faith.
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But be steadfast.
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Be faithful even unto death.
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Why did I mention this passage? I'm mentioning this passage because the reality is that there are those believers, and there have been believers since the beginning, that have been persecuted even unto death.
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And I don't think that this is a reality for the American Christian.
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I don't think that we even really begin to imagine the reality of it as American Christians.
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Because unless you were born elsewhere, and I know some of you were, but the vast majority in this room were born right here in the good old U.S.
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of A.
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And because you were born here in America, you have never suffered under persecution for your faith.
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Well, they made me take my Christmas tree down.
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That's not suffering for your faith.
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It's the first steps towards rejecting Christianity, to have the vestiges of Christianity taken down, whether it's a cross or a tree or what have you.
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But that is not persecution.
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And none of us that have grown up with the freedom that has been given to us as Americans are really able to fathom at the heart what it is like to live in a country that it is absolutely illegal to do the expressions of faith which we do on a daily basis.
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Pray, read our Bibles, listen to Christian music, proclaim the name of Christ freely and openly, hand out gospel tracts, tell people about Jesus on a street corner.
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I mean, this is what we grew up with.
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This is what we live with.
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This is what we know.
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And if that were to change, we wouldn't know what to do.
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But beloved, for so many in the Christian community from the very inception of Christianity, that idea of freedom did not even exist.
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And the reality is that in the first century, the potential to be persecuted and imprisoned for simply being a Christian was a very real threat.
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And beloved, even though it's hard for us to understand, that is still a threat today.
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It is still something that is happening today.
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The government has not outlawed our gatherings, our expressions of worship, our Bibles, at least not yet.
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But that is only here.
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That is only in America and other countries that allow such freedom.
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There are many places in our world today where there are people who are suffering and dying for their faith.
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Across the globe, there are people who live under the fear of the same type of persecution that the church of Smyrna was under.
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The same type of persecution which Jesus was talking about in Matthew 25.
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In fact, I want to give you a small statistic.
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And I'm not one that usually uses a lot of statistics.
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I don't think they're overly helpful.
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But on this case, I want to give you this.
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Since the death of Jesus Christ 2,000 years ago, the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ 2,000 years ago, 43 million Christians have been martyred for their faith.
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43 million Christians have been martyred for their faith.
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Over 50% of that number happened in the last 100 years.
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So when you think about persecution, and you think persecution is something that happened 2,000 years ago under Nero and guys like that, or you think the persecution was something that was going on in the early church when Christians were being fed to lions for sport.
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Beloved, the methods have changed, but the atrocities remain.
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More than 200 million Christians face persecution every day.
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60% of whom are children every day for their faith.
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With the rise in Islamic Sharia law in so many nations, Christians are often forced into hiding, and in certain circumstances brought up on criminal charges because of their faith.
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Most of you are familiar with the drama which went on in the life of Pastor Yusef Nadarkhani, who was only recently released from prison to go back and be with his family.
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After three years of being in prison for preaching the gospel in Iran, he ran three years in an Iranian jail, and he sat under the fear of death all three years, and only recently by God's amazing grace was he able to be released, but yet still is in fear because he lives in a nation where in a law called Sharia law would allow for his life to be taken.
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Just as the church was admonished by the writer of Hebrews in their day to remember those who were suffering for their faith, so we too are supposed to remember in our day those who are suffering for their faith.
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We maintain this remembrance.
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We maintain this idea that we don't forget.
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And this morning I want to give you three reasons why we need to as a church and as individual believers three reasons why we need to take the time to remember those who are suffering persecution.
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Why are we given this command in Hebrews chapter 13 and verse 3? Why are we told to remember those who are suffering? Why indeed? I want to give you three reasons why it's so important.
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If you take notes, here's the first.
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Number one, we regularly remember those who are being persecuted so that we will not grow lackadaisical in our own faith.
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That's the first reason.
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Why do we remember those who are being persecuted all around the world? So that we will not grow lax in our own faith.
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One of the easiest ways to grow lax in our faith is to forget that there is an active enemy in the world whose sole desire is to see the church destroyed.
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The Bible tells us that the gates of hell are always working against the church.
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Even though Jesus promised us that the gates of hell would never prevail, that doesn't mean they're not at work.
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It doesn't mean they're not fighting against it.
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It doesn't mean that there's not an enemy.
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And one of the most dangerous things that you can do in battle is to forget that the enemy is there.
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Most of you know I teach personal protection classes.
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One of the things I teach in personal protection is something we call condition white.
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Some of you have taken my class and you know what condition white is.
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Condition white is where a person is not alert to their surroundings and they're not paying attention to what's going on around them.
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You know, we joke about the cell phone person.
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They get out of their car, they got the cell phone in their hand, and they walk towards the mall, cell phone in hand.
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And I have videos, video after video of people who got hit by cars, people who've been attacked, who have been robbed, because they weren't watching what was going on.
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They weren't paying attention to what was going on around them.
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We call it condition white.
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It's oblivious to what's going on.
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Beloved, there are Christians who live in that same state.
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We don't watch what's going on all around the world and our Christian brothers and sisters who are suffering.
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And as a result, as it begins to creep in, and our religious liberties begin to be put aside and trampled underfoot and taken away.
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There will be those whose face are in the cell phone.
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There'll be those who are not paying attention.
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So, beloved, I say the first reason why we need to remember those who are suffering is because it keeps us from going lax.
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It keeps us from relaxing to the point that we're no longer paying attention to the fact that the enemy is out there.
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We are in a spiritual battle.
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This is why the Bible tells us to take up the full armor of God, because this is a battle.
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We are at war with the devil and his work.
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The devil is our enemy.
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He is the warring lion seeking out whom he may devour.
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He has evil forces at work all around the world.
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And if we forget that we are just as much the focus of his attention as are our persecuted brothers and sisters all around the world, we will be unready to respond when his attacks come.
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We need to remain steadfast, focused, and reminded that he is out there.
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We have an enemy who actively seeks our destruction.
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So, we remember our persecuted brethren, first and foremost, so that we will not fall into spiritual lethargy, but that we will stay in the fight, that we will keep our eyes open and not grow lax.
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That's first.
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Number two, we regularly remember those who are being persecuted, first, so we won't grow lax, and second, so that we can examine how and where we can lend aid.
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We remember our brothers and sisters in Christ so that we can examine how and where we can lend aid.
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The New Testament is filled with passages about the church being responsible to lend aid to other churches.
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This is something, I think, that we often forget in our modern day.
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When we read the text, Paul, in various places, writes about an encouragement to the church, either for the aid that they gave or for the aid that they should be giving.
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Romans 15, verse 25.
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The Apostle Paul writes, At present, I am going to Jerusalem bringing aid to the saints.
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For Macedonia and Achaia have been pleased to make some contribution for the poor among the saints of Jerusalem.
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For they were pleased to do it, and indeed they owe it to them.
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For if the Gentiles have come to share in their spiritual blessings, they also ought to be of service to them in material blessings.
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When therefore I have completed this and have delivered to them what has been collected, I will leave for Spain by way of you.
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This is the end of Paul's letter to the Romans.
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He's giving sort of an account of what he's going to be doing, and he's talking about here the gifts that have been given to the church of Jerusalem.
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He's giving a praise for those gifts, but at one point he says this is actually what was owed to them.
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Not owed in the sense of obligation, but it's owed to them because they're our fellow brothers and sisters in Christ, and you've lended aid to them because it was our responsibility to do so.
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It is not charity to give to those who are in need in the body.
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It is responsibility to give to those who are in need of need in the body.
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It is not charity.
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If you think of your body as an organism, your body has blood flowing all through it.
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If for some reason the blood in your arm was restricted, maybe it was a tourniquet or maybe you had one of those rubber things that they put on when they take your blood, when you go down to the blood mobile, they put that rubber thing on your arm and the blood is restricted from your arm.
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When that is finally released and the blood flows there, is the body giving charity to that arm? No! It's feeding that arm because that's part of the body.
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So too, we have a responsibility outside of ourselves to one another who are in Christ.
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Years ago, in this church, we used to try to send money everywhere.
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We did.
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And Brother Bunning remembers a lot.
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Because there were so many worthy places which we wanted to send money to.
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And we just realized as a small congregation, if you try to give everybody something, you give everybody nothing.
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Because it's just not enough.
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So we have reduced the places where we give, but we have increased what we give to each place.
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Because we want to be a blessing to these ministries.
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We work towards being a blessing to the Women's Resource Center because we believe in what they are doing.
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We believe they are one of the places that stand against the Holocaust, which is abortion that is going on in our nation.
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And we support them because we believe in that cause.
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And we believe in what they are doing.
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We support missionary Walter Heaton because we believe that he is training pastors to go out in Croatia and preach the gospel of Christ.
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And I know some of you might ask, well, could we be doing more? Yes! We always need to be looking for what we can do more.
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But it doesn't always have to be what's going on over there.
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There may be people suffering here that we can help.
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Or if it is going on over there, it doesn't always have to be just money.
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The reality is though, brethren, this is what we are called to do.
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We are called to look where can we be of aid to those in our family, this Christian family which we are a part of.
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Where can we be of aid to them? This is what the action of remembering, this is what makes that action so valuable.
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Because first we learn about them, then we remember them and we are encouraged to empathize with them so that we will lend aid to them.
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And this is why we do things like the shoebox ministry and things like that.
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Because we do know there are those who are hurting and those who are in need and those who we want to reach out to.
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Are there people in the world suffering for their faith which we could make contact with and encourage? Are there people hurting and in prison for Christ that we could send aid to? Are there those who are under the threat of death that we could be praying for? Yes, there are things we could be doing.
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Why are we not? We don't like to think about those things.
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Beloved, we are commanded to think about those things.
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Remember those who are in prison, those who are hurting.
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Finally, we remember so we don't grow lackadaisical in our faith.
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We remember so that we can examine where to send aid.
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And finally, we remember those who are persecuted.
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This is number three.
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We remember those who are persecuted so that we will be prepared ourselves when times of persecution come for us.
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The reality is we will all face persecution in varying degrees.
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And with the winds of political change that seem to be brewing, it may be that the younger among us, our children and our children's children, may even face the worst of it all.
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This is especially on my heart, of course, as I look at my baby who is about to be born and the changes that I've seen in only 32 years of life.
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What's the world going to look like when she's 32? And it's frightening.
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But looking out at the world, looking at those who are suffering now and yet are persevering, gives me encouragement that while Satan may win a battle here and there, the war is already won.
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And I see those brothers and sisters who are suffering and yet persevering and they give me confidence that there is no weapon that is formed against us that will prosper.
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I look at those who are hurting and I remember the Lord is with them and He will be with me.
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And it gives me that confidence to know I will be okay.
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The Lord will not have me go through anything alone.
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And we can do it.
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No matter what may come, no matter what the devil tries to do, no matter what problems he brings to our shores, the gates of hell will not prevail against the Church of Christ.
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Beloved, that is the confidence of seeing Christians who are suffering and persevering and knowing we too will persevere.
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If tomorrow the freedoms we enjoy in regard to our faith were gone, where would we be? We would be in the same place as many of our Christian brothers and sisters are right now.
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It's not a positive reality, but it is the reality of the world.
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We are blessed to not be suffering at this moment, but remember what Jesus said.
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The reality is that those who are suffering are even more blessed.
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Matthew chapter 5 and verse 10.
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Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness sake, for theirs.
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We need to remember our suffering believers, our suffering saints.
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We need to remember them in prayer.
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We need to remember them with our causes.
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We need to remember them with our stances.
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We need to remember them with our finances.
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Because in remembering them, we find our strength to remain steadfast in our faith.
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We find the causes for which we need to be standing and contributing to.
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And we find the motivation to stand when our time of persecution comes.
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Our Father and our God, we thank you.
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We thank you for this opportunity to remember those around the world who are suffering.
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And Lord, while their stories are so numerous, and the list of names is so long, we pray for each and every one today who are suffering for the name of Christ.
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We pray your blessing be upon them, your peace be upon them, your strength be upon them.
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And Lord, we pray for our own empathy and our own desire for their blessing to be encouraged.
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That we would seek in every way we can to minister to those who suffer for the name of Christ.
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In Jesus name we pray and for his sake.
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Beloved, we come now to our final song.
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Let us stand.
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If you have a need for prayer, you can come forward as we sing.