Those Who Turn the World Upside Down

What is Christian Persecution? - A Historical Look

Have you heard of the Theban Legion? Also known as the Martyrs of Agaunum. They were a entire Roman legion of 6,666 smen who had converted to Christianity. On September 22nd 286 ad, they were martyred when Emperor Maximian summoned them to march to Gaul and assist with the rebels of Burgundy. Maximian wanted to destroy Christianity in Gaul, and ordered all his troops to partake in Emperor worship and sacrifice to him. The legion refused, both to destroy Christianity and sacrifice to the Emperor. So he ordered the other troops to decimate the legion. Now this doesn’t mean that they completely destroyed it, no instead what they did they took 1 out of every 10 men and put him to death. This did not get the rest of the Legion in line, so he ordered a 2nd decimation. Still they preserved and the Emperor was so enraged at their continued perseverance, he ordered the entire legion to be killed.

https://www.persecution.org/2020/10/16/christian-community-india-left-devastated-attack-extremists/?utm_campaign=coschedule&utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=persecutionnews

Jump forward 1700 years to 2020 and September 22, members of the Sarya Adivasi Samaj (SAM) group summoned 15 Christian families to a meeting in Kakadabeda village, located in the Kondagoan district of India’s Chhattisgarh state. At this meeting, the Christians were told they had to recant their faith or be forced to leave their homes (VOP Story). This story is nothing new in history. Throughout history since our Lord Jesus created his church, it has faced persecution and death.

Christianity has a long history of persecution in this world, but we also have a long history in the face of persecution of praying for the church. We all know what yesterday was, the bane of diets everywhere, it was Halloween. And many of you are likely aware that Halloween comes from the day called All Hollows Eve, but did you know that this day is part of a triduum known as Allhallowstide? It encompasses the 3 days, All Hallows Eve, All Hallows Day, and All Souls Day. All Hallows Eve is a day traditionally where a vigil was held for people to prepare themselves for All Saints Day, which is a feast day for all saints and those departed, and then later All Souls Day was added, a day to honor ALL the faithful Christians. Obvious with the Protestant split came also a split from a lot of the practices that the Roman Church and the liturgical calendar that has continued but still today, there are protestant denominations that still celebrate these days as Christian Holy Days, and you will get a different degree of following the liturgical calendar based on the church and denomination. So there has always been this practice and tradition of praying for marytrs and those who have lost their lives in the name of the faith within the Christian tradition. But we’re not all Roman catholic or Lutheran and what have you, and really for evangelicals, in the 20th century a new day was created.

Why we are commemorating this day

The International Day of Prayer for the Persecuted Church originated in the 20th century to raise awareness of the increasing violence, torture, death, worship restrictions, public humiliation, and social isolation that some Christians face in atheist states, such as in North Korea, as well as in South Asia and the Middle East; the observance was spearheaded by the World Evangelical Alliance. Now I don’t we’ve ever partaken in this day to this extent, and while we may not actually be members of the WEA this is a day we want to partake in. We want to be part of this movement and this day. I’ll give you 3 reasons why? First, because we are an Alliance church. What we believe determines what we value, and what we value defines how we live. And one of the Christian & Missionary Alliance’s core values is prayer. We believe that Prayer the primary work of God’s people

On this point the C&MA says:

We believe that nothing of lasting value can be done unless it is bathed in prayer. So passionate was his belief that prayer undergirds all ministry, Alliance founder A. B. Simpson was compelled to create a prayer league to focus on the world’s evangelization. He believed that the Prayer Alliance would “prove to be the mightiest force in the spread of missions;” that force still drives The Alliance today.

On a side note on Thursday was the 101st anniversary since A.B. Simpsons departure from this earth to be with the Lord.

That’s not just an Alliance belief or mindset, no second reason is that prayer is an important thing to us here at Connect Church. It is the desire and prayer of the leaders here that we would be a church that prays, that’s why we’ve started doing things like our prayer and fasting. We believe as the Alliance says, that prayer is the work of God’s people. And Third, praying for the persecuted church is in the DNA of this church, every Sunday we pray and remember the persecuted church, it’s part of our prayer gram every week. So in a denomination that takes seriously prayer, and in a church that takes seriously praying for the Persecuted Church, it only makes sense then for us to participate in an international day of praying for the persecuted church and join with all the other churches who are praying today for our brothers and sisters like Janette and the 30,000 Christians in the Central African Republic who were displaced from their homes.

And so that is what we are going to do today, we are going to pray, as a whole congregation, and we’ll celebrate the Lord’s table afterwards. But before we do that, it would behoove us if took time and learned what Christian persecution is and how to pray for it. Because not everything that happens to the Christian is Christian persecution. When Christian speeds and gets a ticket, right we understand that’s not Christian persecution. A Christian who goes out and starts a fight and then gets ganged up on, that beating isn’t Christian persecution. The Christian who cheats on his taxes and is sent to prison, that Christian’s imprisonment is not a form of Christian persecution. So what does it take for something to be Christian Persecution? We are going to look at what at an example from the Apostle Paul both to help us define what it is and then how he shows us the example of how to pray for it.

Background: So this is during Paul’s 2nd missionary Journey. They’ve left Asia going from Troas into and entered Europe via Macedonia. So he’s gone through Philippi where we hear of the conversion of Lydia. Paul and Silas were jailed there, and were beaten and let go. That’s where Paul said uh uh, they beat Roman Citizens uncondemned and now want us to go out secretly? Nope they gotta come and apologize. So they come and apologize and they leave.

Acts 17:1-10

A Specific Message

Paul, as is his custom has now come to Thessalonica, and he began to reason first with the Jews that Jesus was the Christ and that it was necessary for the Christ to die. That was likely a point of contention and confusion for the Jews in the 1st century. How can you say that Jesus is the Christ, he died! And so Paul would show them, he died because this is what scriptures said would happen. It was necessary for him to suffer, this is what the oracles of God foretold, he probably took them to Psalm 22:14-18, He showed them Isaiah 53, where it says he was pierced for our transgressions. So he’s showing to them, the Kingdom of God that we’ve been waiting on, this is how it comes, and this is how it was always suppose to come because this is what the scriptures have said all along.

You know in Youth group the High Schoolers we are going though and doing a high overview of theology, and this past Wednesday, our subject was on the Word of God, and since our time is short and we are just doing a high high level overview of theology. So with our limited time we focused on this question, why can we believe the bible, and we said the answer to that is I believe the bible because it’s a collection of reliable historical documents made by eyewitnesses during the lifetime of other eyewitnesses that reports supernatural events in fulfillment of specific prophecies and claim that there writings were divine and not human in origin.

That is what Paul is saying here, there were specific prophecies made and their fulfillment has happened and needed to happen because the word of God does not fail. And so if the word of God did not fail here, then it will not fail when it speaks of how one truly enters into the Kingdom of God. It is not by keeping the law, but it is by faith in this Jesus whom I proclaim to you. We know that Paul must have spoke in ways similar to thus, and he proclaimed the Kingdom to come. Cause later in vv. 7, one of the charges is that Paul is preaching a different King than Caesar. So he’s not simply just saying Christ died and now sins are forgiven, that wasn’t what the Jews were waiting for, the Messiah was a political figure, he was coming to establish a Kingdom, and Paul is saying that Kingdom has come, and that King is Jesus.

Persecution begins with Witness

So we see here first that Christian Persecution stems from Christian faith. That’s what you see in verses 2 and 3, and not just Christian faith, but we are seeing here is a faith that leads to ACTION. And a specific action, it leads to bold and faithful witness of Jesus. Something we are all called to do, you may have noticed that we have put up new posters to call attention to this very fact right, that the work is Unfinished. Pastor Bert spoke on the Ministry of the New Covenant last week, and we are all to be ministers of this new covenant telling the world to come and be reconciled to God.

Persecution Needs a Persecutor and an Attack

What do we see happen? Verse 5. So Christian Persecution requires a Persecutor. But specifically a persecutor who is against the witness of Jesus and his message specifically. You can have people who just don’t like things you say, I experience that every day at home. The Jews got jealous, why? Cause verse 4 tells us that people were hearing and believing. We know from when our Lord Jesus was on earth that the Jewish Leaders liked the focus on them, they liked the places of honor and people calling them Rabbi, it puffed them up and make them feel important. This message of Paul was doing the opposite. In fact this message said they were responsible for the death of the Messiah. We see this play out all throughout Acts, the Jewish leaders are opposed to the witness of Christ and try how ever they can to stop it.

So the third item in our definition of Christian persecution is an attack. Verses 5-9 What is the purpose of the attack to stop the witness and the message of Christ. Peter and John were arrested, what were they told? Stop preaching this message. This is persecution, this is Christian persecution. You can read it through acts everywhere Paul went the Jews came, why they wanted to stop him from preaching this message. So we have a definition of Christian persecution. So attack, oppression, intimidation, harassment, meant to stop the Christian faith and witness, this is Christian persecution.

How do we Pray for it?

This is what occurred to Paul in Thessalonica, now that bail that they took from Jason and the others, that was security, basically saying no more trouble or else. So Paul and Silas leave, Persecution has sprung up here and they want no more trouble for them or the church here and move on, eventually making their way to Corinth. And it’s from there he writes back to this church the two letters of Thessalonians.

In 1 & 2 Thessalonians Paul is writing back to these Christians who aware and persecuted along with him during these events, and now he is likely in Corinth, experiencing the same things. Now a quick note we have more evidence that Paul preached a KINGDOM message is the subject matter of the 2 letters and that they were confused concerning the coming of Jesus and this Kingdom.

2 Thessalonians 3:1-5

We Pray for the Gospel to Spread

So what do we see here from Paul teaching a persecuted Church to pray for others who are persecuted we see two things. We pray for the work to continue and we pray for deliverance. First, Paul says pray that the work of the Lord may speed ahead and be honored. They heard the word and believed, even though it brought Paul and them persecution. The same in Corinth, they heard the word and were believing and persecution was coming there as well. Paul says we pray for the work to speed ahead. This is the purpose of the Church, this is the purpose of our Denomination, we said prayer was a core value, another core value of the C&MA is Completing the Great Commission. Our Purpose statement of Connect Church is to bring glory to God through gospel powered proclamation. We are all about as a Church, as a denomination, as a local church, that the word of God would speed ahead and be honored. And here we see that first we pray that since Christian persecution is about stopping the witness of the word, we pray and that the word of God will not be hindered and the word goes forth.

We Pray for Deliverance

The second part then is we pray for deliverance. Paul prayed that they’d be delivered from wicked and evil men. There are 3 specific deliverances we can voice and ask for and that we should ask for when we pray for the persecuted church. 1) Delivered from prison - Release of captives 2) Delivered from torture and anguish - Joy that advances the gospel 3) iii. Delivered to heavenly reward - God glorifying deaths

We have More we can Pray for

But that’s not all you have more ways you can pray. On the back table You can find one of these I commit to pray cards and it comes with 10 ways to pray card. When we pray for the Persectued Church we can pray 10 Ways to Pray.

Why we Pray?

We are Called

Before we enter a time of prayer the last thing I want to touch on is why we pray. We pray because we are called to pray. Hebrews 13:3 “Remember those who are in prison, as though in prison with them, and those who are mistreated, since you also are in the body.” If you haven’t yet, look at that poster across from the bathrooms that shows a map of the hostile and restricted countries.

God is Glorified

We pray because that is how God is glorified. He’s glorified because by sincerely and earnestly seeking him in this we show we believe he is powerful to act, and mighty to save. As Paul said in 2 Thessalonians 3:3, the Lord is faithful. Our prayers then gives opportunity for the Lord to respond and demonstrate his faithfulness and what do we do in response? In Acts 4 Peter and John were arrested because of bold and faithful witness, and their attackers the Jewish leaders demanded of them to stop preaching their message and after threatening them released them and what happened?

Acts 4:23-31

To God be the glory, when we pray and he answers and delivers, we see his power, his sovereignty, his faithfulness and we worship. So with bold witness of Jesus Christ and persistent reliance on God who saves and delivers, let us be like those who turn the world upside down

So Let us go in prayer before the Throne.

Some Requests:

https://www.icommittopray.com/requests/

So Let us Pray.

----------------------------Communion -------------------------------------------

Ask for Children to be summoned

Invitation to Communion:

Brothers and sisters, as we draw hear to the Lord’s Table to celebrate the Communion of the body and blood of Christ, we are grateful to remember that our Lord instituted this ordinance:

· For the perpetual memory of his dying for our sakes and the pledge of his undying love

· As a bond of our union with him and each other as members of his mystical body

· As a seal of his promises to us and a renewal of our obedience to him

· For the blessed assurance of his presence with us who are gathered here in his name

· As an opportunity for us who love the Savior to feed spiritually on him who is the Bread of Life

· As a pledge of his coming again.

So, It is fitting that we are celebrating communion today. Because even as we were praying for deliverance. We have a reminder and a memorial that ultimate deliverance has already been secured because of the cross.

Fencing

· Need not be a member

· Take seriously and faithfully believe the words of Paul and if so you are welcome to join in

· Children are the responsibilities of Parents.

Revelation 5:1-10, we read. Ask for Communion to be passed out

Bread

Prayer: Christ Jesus, when you came into the world you said to the Father, “Sacrfices and offerings you have not desired, but a body have you prepared for me; in burnt offerings and sin offerings you have taken no pleasure. Then I said, “Behold, I have come to do your will, O God, as it is written of me in the scroff of the book” Then you came in the incarnation and by the single offering of your body on the cross, you did what all the offerings on Israelite altars could never accomplish – the complete forgiveness of our sins.

Bread of heaven, as we now partake, ravish our hearts and refresh our souls. Amen

Directive: take and eat this in remembrance that Christ died for you, and feed on him in your heart by faith with thanksgiving.

Cup

Prayer: Our gracious God, we thank you this day for the new covenant, the covenant sealed through the blood of Jesus Christ. And we drink this cup in remembrance of Christ’s sacrifice for our sins, asking him even now, through the Spirit, to commune with us as we commune with each other. With grateful hearts, O Christ, we drink to you and of you. Amen.

Directive: Drink this in remembrance that Christ’s blood was shed for you, and be thankful.

Benediction: The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.

Go in Peace.