(Clip) the Gospel Will Soon Be Hate Speech — Francis Chan

The Gospel and the Threat of Future Hate-Speech Restrictions

Because, here's the thing, and I'm not trying to be prophetic right now, I'm just using my logic, and I'm going, I think the way the world is going, the way the U .S. is going, I think there's going to come a time, and it's probably going to be sooner than later, when what I do in a public forum is going to be labeled as a hate crime.

That a lot of things that we teach will be labeled as hate speech, and will these public forums even be able to take place? And as we get closer to that, and there becomes this little war of whether we can do it or not, we'll be so consumed with winning this war that we'll forget about preparing for the future.

Learning from the Church’s Historical Persecution

And again, let me just throw a couple examples out at you, and I'm not saying this is where the U .S. is going, understand me. I just want to throw a thought out at you, and again, it's from history, which I'm terrible at history, but this I do know, because I read it in a book.

We had these communist revolutions in China and in Russia. In both revolutions, they were trying to kill the church, right? I mean, the whole point is, we're going to destroy the church. And now in Russia, everything was built around cathedrals and these priests.

The Vulnerability of Church-Centered Structures

Everything was centered around these buildings and these teachers. The moment the government took away these teachers and the church assets, the people didn't know where to turn. They didn't know how to grow.

They didn't know how to disciple. And so the church basically died. In China, same thing happened. And under Mao Zedong, they got rid of all the buildings. But there was something different about the church in China.

Empowering Ordinary Christians in China

See, before all that happened, they had empowered the ordinary Christians. And the ordinary Christians knew how to lead others to the Lord. The everyday church attender knew how to teach others how to grow in their faith.

So when they took away the leaders and they took away the church buildings, the church was fine. The people were fine. In fact, under Mao Zedong, the church, the persecuted church, grew from 2 million to an estimated about 80 million in these underground gatherings.

Preparing Believers for Leadership Without Buildings

Why? Because the people, they understood how to minister to other people. They knew how to teach other people. And I just want you to look at your life and go, okay, which camp would I fall into? Would I be one of those that's just lost?

Like, wow, what do we do now? The building's gone. The leadership's gone. Or do you just go, we don't really need a building. And I know the Word of God. And I know how to lead other people. And when I look at what God's doing with people craving this type of leadership and this type of movement, I go, it could be the Lord preparing us for the future.

Personal Discipleship as Preparation for the Future

And it's pretty exciting to be a part of that. And I hope you get excited about that. And I hope you go, okay, what would it look like for me? And am I this leader? Am I making a disciple? Because regardless, biblically, that's what we're supposed to be doing.