Sermon Tone Analysis

Hebrews 13:3

Christians in the Furnace of Oppression

 

Remember the prisoners, as though in prison with them, /and /those who are ill-treated, since you yourselves also are in the body.[1]

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ne year ago, the world was shocked and horrified when Islamic radicals murdered three thousand American citizens—innocent people cherished by the families who lost them.

Among the dead, buried in the rubble of the World Trade Center in the borough of Manhattan, were citizens from around the world, including a number of Canadians.

Shocking as that event is, imagine September 11 happening 666 times.

Imagine two million Americans being killed by radical Islam—then you’ll have an idea of what the citizens of southern Sudan have endured at the hands of the Islamic North.

Sudanese Christians are victims of slavery, rape, starvation, and torture—all in the name of a cruel, wicked religion.

Two million and counting have been murdered by Sudan’s radical Islamic government.

Five million people have been driven off their land.

These situations share in common religious oppression and persecution at their root.

They are not the only instances of religious oppression which could be cited.

Other instances of Muslims, driven to vicious and violent acts by the bitter religious invective of their religious leaders, seeking to slaughter Christians have passed across my desk during the past several weeks.

Here are a few of the headlines.

Assist News Service, October 10, 2002, headlined a story detailing how a Jordanian Christian widow was given five days to surrender her children to an estranged Muslim relative.

The courts had ruled that she had proved herself to be “unfit to be a custodian of her children” by “distancing them from Islamic rituals and doctrine.”[2]

A Compass News item dated October 15, 2002 confirmed that an Egyptian convert to Christianity who disappeared five months ago has been imprisoned on criminal charges.

He is accused of reviling Islam.

The basis for the charge is that he became a Christian, although he had been born a Muslim.

Open incentives are offered to encourage Christians to convert to Islam, but for a Muslim to become a Christian invites official persecution.

In addition to jailing this man, his fourteen-year-old daughter has been subjected to threats of kidnap and rape.

In fact, on April 8, Sarah was kidnapped for four days and yet another attempt at kidnap was made which forced the family to spirit her away to England where she is kept in safety.[3]

In Nigeria, at least twelve Christian students were killed and over fifty injured in a riot at the Federal College of Education, according to a report by the Barnabas Organisation on October 15.

The rioting broke out after a Christian candidate won the annual student union elections.

Disgruntled Muslim students whipped up resentment among local Muslims who attacked Christian students.[4]

Persecution of the Faith is not limited to Muslim attacks.

Hindus, Buddhists, Communists and secularists have all increased assaults against the Faith in recent years.

Christians in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu are subject to imprisonment and severe fines if in the course of preaching the Gospel someone should be converted to the Faith.

This law is similar to laws passed by Madhya Pradesh state in 1968, by Arunachal Pradesh state in 1978, and by Orissa in 1968.

Though Christians constitute less than six percent of the population, the Indian government fears them because of their faith and courage.

Moreover, money raised by Hindu organisations in the United Kingdom and in the United States is being used to prosecute Christians in India.[5]

Religious gatherings in Vietnam are being broken up and Christian leaders are jailed as local authorities forbid villagers to worship, or conduct weddings or funerals.[6]

Four Chinese Christian women have been re-arrested, after they were found innocent of a charge of being members of an underground church.

They were arrested to keep them silent of the fact that they were sexually abused and tortured during their first captivity.

Now, they face three years of what the Chinese call “re-education through labour.”[7]

The History of the Faith is the Story of Suffering Saints.

Jesus cautioned that those who followed Him could expect persecution.

This was not an occasional theme, but rather it was constant.

Consider just a representative sample of the instances in which Jesus warned against becoming too popular.

Woe to you, when all people speak well of you, for so their fathers did to the false prophets [*Luke 6:26*].

If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you.

If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you.

Remember the word that I said to you: “A servant is not greater than his master.”

If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you.

If they kept my word, they will also keep yours.

But all these things they will do to you on account of my name, because they do not know him who sent me.

If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not have been guilty of sin, but now they have no excuse for their sin.

Whoever hates me hates my Father also.

If I had not done among them the works that no one else did, they would not be guilty of sin, but now they have seen and hated both me and my Father.

But the word that is written in their Law must be fulfilled: “They hated me without a cause” [*John 15:18-25*].

I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace.

*In the world you will have tribulation*.

But take heart; I have overcome the world [*John 16:33*].

As He prayed His high priestly prayer, Jesus spoke these telling words before the Father.

I have given them your word, and the world has hated them because they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world [*John 17:14*].

These warnings were iterated by the Apostles, as is demonstrated by this summary statement of the first missionary journey.

[They strengthened] the souls of the disciples, encouraging them to continue in the faith, and saying that through many tribulations we must enter the kingdom of God [*Acts 14:21, 22*].

The catalogue of the Apostle’s tribulations and trials is astonishing to say the very least.

Listen, as he relates what it was like to live as an Apostle of Christ Jesus.

Whatever anyone else dares to boast of—I am speaking as a fool—I also dare to boast of that.

Are they Hebrews?

So am I. Are they Israelites?

So am I. Are they offspring of Abraham?

So am I. Are they servants of Christ?

I am a better one—I am talking like a madman—with far greater labours, far more imprisonments, with countless beatings, and often near death.

Five times I received at the hands of the Jews the forty lashes less one.

Three times I was beaten with rods.

Once I was stoned.

Three times I was shipwrecked; a night and a day I was adrift at sea; on frequent journeys, in danger from rivers, danger from robbers, danger from my own people, danger from Gentiles, danger in the city, danger in the wilderness, danger at sea, danger from false brothers; in toil and hardship, through many a sleepless night, in hunger and thirst, often without food, in cold and exposure.

And, apart from other things, there is the daily pressure on me of my anxiety for all the churches.

Who is weak, and I am not weak?

Who is made to fall, and I am not indignant [*2 Corinthians 11:21-29*]?

There is no question but that the Christian Faith is under assault.

One scholar has offered his opinion that more Christians have been martyred in the Twentieth Century then were martyred during the previous eighteen hundred centuries.

Though Islamic adherents are not the only ones attacking this Faith, they stand out at the present time as primary persecutors of the Faith.

The current raging of Islamic clerics is but a skirmish in the long war against the Name of Christ the Lord.

If Christians could say that Jesus is but a god among gods, there would be no particular cause for persecution.

However, we are convinced that He is Lord of lords and King of kings.

This Jesus is very God who rescues us from the coming judgement by His mercies and by His grace.

We cannot deny Him.

With the Apostle, we confess, Great indeed … is the mystery of godliness:

 

He was manifested in the flesh,

vindicated by the Spirit,

seen by angels,

proclaimed among the nations,

believed on in the world,

taken up in glory.

[*1 Timothy 3:16*]

 

We need to again receive the encouragement provided by the Apostle, who urged, Remember Jesus Christ, risen from the dead, the offspring of David, as preached in my gospel, for which I am suffering, bound with chains as a criminal.

But the word of God is not bound!

Therefore I endure everything for the sake of the elect, that they also may obtain the salvation that is in Christ Jesus with eternal glory.

The saying is trustworthy, for:

 

If we have died with him, we will also live with him;

if we endure, we will also reign with him;

if we deny him, he also will deny us;

if we are faithless, he remains faithful—

for he cannot deny himself.

[*2 Timothy 2:8-13*]

If the Christian Faith is only another religion among the religions of the world, I would not bother to keep its precepts.