HOW THE CHURCH
RESPONDS TO PERSECUTION
We do not know the meaning of persecution here in
Kleefeld. Not really. We do not know the meaning of suffering for our faith to
the point of bleeding and dying.
Other
Christians do. Our brothers and sisters know what it means to be hated for
loving Jesus.
A
19-year old Christian girl in China was beaten and thrown into a filthy cell.
It was dark, but from the smell she knew that the slimy floor was covered with human
excrement. There was no bed or chair. She had to sit and sleep in this filth.
She squatted down so that as little of her bleeding body as possible would
touch the floor and silently gave thanks to the Lord that she was worthy to
suffer for Him. She asked Him for wisdom and strength, not to get out of this
terrible place, but that wherever He put her, she would be able to continue to
preach the gospel.
One day
as she quietly sang a hymn, the Lord impressed upon her, “This is to be your
ministry.” She thought, “I’m all alone. Whom can I preach to?” Suddenly an idea
came to her. She stood up and called the guard. She offered to clean up all the
excrement in all the cells. The guards were surprised but consented. This young
woman found herself scrubbing floors and simultaneously preaching to people who
had lost all hope of seeing another human being.[i]
This
girl knew persecution. She knew what it was to suffer for Jesus. She also knew
how to respond to persecution. She began by praying.
Is our
church experiencing persecution? It depends on your perspective. Let me remind
you of the body principle in 1 Corinthians 12:26, “If one part suffers, every
part suffers with it…” What happens to our brothers and sisters happens to us.
So even if we do not feel the beatings and hardships that they do, we share in
their pain as members of the body. And when the body of Christ suffers
persecution anywhere in the world we are compelled to pray for them. Today we
recognize the International Day of Prayer for the Persecuted Church (a week
late). And after the fashion of the believers in Acts 4:23-31, we are going to
pray in response to persecution.
First, we acknowledge the God to whom we pray
We have studied the text where Peter and John healed a
lame man and the reaction that it brought. They were dragged before the
Sanhedrin to explain their actions. Having been released with threats not to
talk about Jesus, they returned to the believers and told them what happened
(23).
Now if
the supreme court of Canada ordered you not to talk about Jesus in our free
country, what would you do? Canadians might organize a rally, write letters or
tweet about it, or march on Ottawa in protest. But these believers in Acts did
not turn to the government to appeal this injustice; these believers turned to
God in prayer.
I find
that there is much to learn about prayer from the Bible. I am still learning,
and here in this text is a lesson worth noting. Peter, John, and the disciples
lift up their voices together in prayer. They began by acknowledging who God
was, and is, and will always be. Note the four parts of this address:
“Sovereign Lord”
– This is an interesting title for God. The Greek word used here is where we
get the word “despot” from. Though negative in our minds, it is used of a slave
owner with unchallengeable power. What the disciples mean to say is that their
God is the Master of everything.
Creator God –
Then in a seemingly unrelated manner, the disciples acknowledge that God is the
creator of all things, that he made the heavens, the earth, the seas –
everything (24). While this may seem odd, what they were doing was declaring
that nothing is impossible for God. And this situation, these threats and the
looming danger, is not beyond God’s power. (Acknowledging God as creator in
prayer – 2 Kings 19:15; Jer 32:17; Ps 146; Deut. 4:32-35).
Almighty God –
Next, they quote a Psalm of David that speaks of the world’s hostility to god.
By quoting this passage about the nations raging and banding against the Lord’s
Anointed, they affirmed their agreement that the people of the world have
always resisted God and his people. But God is enthroned as Lord over the
universe, David says, and He laughs at the puny efforts to oppose him (Ps.
2:4-5).
Providential God
– Finally, they acknowledge that God is the God of the events of history. Herod
and Pilate conspired to kill Jesus, but they were mere actors in the great
Redemption event. Though God’s people might suffer at the hands of evil men,
they knew the truth – “God’s got this.”
What we
learn from their prayer is that we need to recognize the person and power of
the God to whom we pray. We remind ourselves and declare to God in prayer that
He is God and He is able and He is Sovereign over everything. This is worship!
Prayer needs to begin with worship.
What do we pray for the persecuted church?
So once we have acknowledged the person and power of God,
what do we pray when faced with persecution? What do we pray for our brothers
and sisters who suffer?
Let me
tell you what they did not pray for: They did not pray for deliverance from
these threats. They did not ask that this suffering be alleviated (though that
would be okay). They did not ask for the members of the Sanhedrin to be judged
and punished. And let me tell you, that surprises me a little. What did they
pray?
They
prayed, “Now, Lord, consider their
threats…” They asked God to take notice of this, to pay attention to what
they are doing to them. But they knew that God knew. What we demonstrate in
prayer is that we know that he knows. God knows what happens to us. There is
never a time when God is unaware of what happens to you and me. But as we pray,
we cry out and admit our need for his help. It’s like a young swimmer who
struggles to stay above water, sinks time and again, and could just call out to
the swim coach for help but won’t.
“Now,
Lord, consider their threats,” they prayed, “and
enable your servants to speak your word with great boldness” (29). Isn’t
that remarkable? Speaking God’s word is what got them into trouble. Now they
pray for greater boldness to keep doing it, just like the Chinese girl in our
opening story.
As we
think of Christians throughout the world and pray for them, we have two
requests: Lord, take note of their suffering, and give them power to keep
speaking the name of Jesus, even in the face of suffering.
But the
disciples prayed one more thing: “Stretch
out your hand to heal and perform signs and wonders through the name of your
holy servant Jesus” (30). In other words, God, make yourself known. Show
the people that you are real and that Jesus is your Son.
This is
what the church prayed for in the face of persecution, and it is what we can
pray for the global church of Christ.
God’s Answer to Prayer
What did God do in response to this prayer?
God
answered their prayer in three ways:
The place where they were praying was
shaken. This was a sign of God’s presence, an affirmation that God’s Spirit
was with them.
They were all filled with the Holy Spirit.
This was not another Pentecost. They had the Holy Spirit permanently dwelling
in each of them. But, as we learned from Eph. 5:18, we are to be continually
filled with the Spirit. The Holy Spirit enables us to do God’s will and to
recognize God’s purposes.
They spoke the word of God boldly. They
preached to anyone who would listen. To preach is to proclaim, to declare – so,
just so you know, not just the preachers were doing this, everyone who believed
in Jesus preached. And we see a pattern emerging in this: We preach – the World
persecutes – the church prays – We preach.
Check
out what happens next in Acts 5:
5:12 The apostles performed many miracles
5:14 Many people were saved
5:16 Crowds gathered around the apostles
5:18 The apostles are arrested and thrown in jail
5:19 God sets them free that night by a miracle
5:21 The apostles resume their public preaching
5:27 The apostles are questioned by the high priest who
reminds them of the order not to preach in the name of Jesus
5:29 Peter replies, “We must obey God rather than men!”
5:30 Peter preaches to the Sanhedrin
5:40 The apostles are beaten and released
5:41 They leave the council rejoicing
5:42 They continue preaching the gospel everywhere
When
Christians are filled with the Spirit, you can’t stop them. Go ahead and arrest
them – they’ll preach in prison. If you kill them, people get convicted of
their sin and believe in Jesus and carry on the mission.[ii]
God will
answer our prayers for our brothers and sisters. Will we pray for them?
John Piper said, “If you do not know that life is a war,
you will not know what prayer is for.”
We may
be immune to the spiritual battle that rages around the world. Oh, we do feel
the tremors here – we feel the political pressure to conform to the Canadian
version of common morality. It doesn’t jive with the Biblical standard, but we
do not yet feel the heat for sticking out. But there is a battle, an invisible
war, taking place in the spiritual realm. The real enemies are not the LGBTQ
activists or the Right-To-End-Life proponents, but the principalities and
powers that are behind them (Eph 6:12).
Prayer,
though, is our chief weapon in this struggle. We can do a lot of things when we
have prayed; we can do nothing until we have prayed. If we believe this then we
will pray every chance we get. We cannot fight this fight on our own; we need
the Lord to fight for us.
I want
to invite you to pray this morning. Open Doors ministry (opendoors.org) has
identified the top 50 countries where it is most difficult to be a Christian.
This ministry measures persecution by the degree of freedom a Christian has to
live out his or her faith in five spheres of life – private, family, community,
national, and church life – as well as by tallying acts of violence. For the
past 14 years, North Korea has topped the list. The top three drivers of
persecution worldwide are Islamic extremism, dictatorial paranoia, and
organized corruption which affects Christians economically.
But as
Li Tien En, a famous house church Christian in China used to say, “Persecution
is two parts opportunity, one part crisis – God always brings opportunities out
of a crisis.”
So
please join me in prayer for these nations where it is difficult to be a
Christian. My hope is that each of you will adopt a country and pray regularly
for our brothers and sisters according to Acts 4.
AMEN
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