Sermon Tone Analysis
Overall tone of the sermon
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*Intro*
If you have been following the news, you probably heard about Abdul Rahman.
The 41 year old Afghani, who converted from Islam to Christianity 16 years ago, was charged with apostasy, which according to Muslim law, mandates death.
Prosecutors have asked for the death penalty for Abdul Rahman, calling him a "microbe."
Prosecutor Abdul Wasi demanded his repentance and called him a traitor: "He should be cut off and removed from the rest of Muslim society and should be killed."
The Afghan Attorney General was quoted as saying that Abdul Rahman should be hanged.
When facing a possible death sentence, Abdul Rahman held firm to his convictions: "They want to sentence me to death and I accept it… I am a Christian, which means I believe in the Trinity… I believe in Jesus Christ."
One Judge could not believe Rahman’s refusal to repent that he stated that his mental state was to be examined.
If he was found to be mentally unfit, the case would be dismissed.
Abdul Rahman's conversion to Christianity, while knowing that doing so is punishable by death, was viewed by some as evidence of mental incompetence.
One prosecutor said, "We think he could be mad.
He is not a normal person.
He doesn't talk like a normal person.
Doctors must examine him.
If he is mentally unfit, definitely Islam has no claim to punish him.
He must be forgiven.
The case must be dropped.”
Other sources said Rahman is "perennially jobless and mentally unbalanced.”
To this Rahman has said, “"I am serene.
I have full awareness of what I have chosen.
If I must die, I will die…somebody, a long time ago, did it for all of us.”
Rahman is now in exile in Italy after being freed from the Afghan govt due to pressure from the West.
When I heard this, I began to ask myself: What would I do in this situation?
What would/ you/ do in this situation?
Thankfully we live in a country where we can gather like this without fear of getting killed, but if you were Abdul Rahman, accused of converting to Christianity, would you fight or flee or forfeit?
Is following Christ worth it?
Church history testifies to us that the answer is “yes!” Listen to how according to ancient traditions, the apostles fought for the faith until death:
James the son of Zebedee was beheaded in Jerusalem, the first of the apostles to die, during the Easter season in about the year A.D. 44.
Matthew was slain with the sword in a city in Ethiopia.
Mark was dragged through the streets of Alexandria until he expired.
Luke was hanged on an olive tree in Greece.
James the Less was thrown from a pinnacle or wing of the temple.
Philip was hanged up against a pillar in Phrygia.
Bartholomew was flayed alive.
Andrew was scourged then tied to a cross where he preached to the people for two days before dying.
Jude was shot to death with arrows.
Thomas was run through the body with a lance.
Simon Zelotes was crucified.
\\ Peter was crucified upside down.
Matthias was stoned and beheaded.
John was exiled to the penal island of Patmos and later became the only apostle to die a natural death.
There have been more martyrs in the twentieth century than in all the previous nineteen combined.
The Global Evangelism Movement reports the average number of people martyred for their faith each year is 160,000.
There are currently an estimated one million people in prison for religious reasons.
World Evangelical Fellowship shares that more people have died in circumstances related to their faith in this century than in all the twentieth-century wars combined.
How about us?
Do we fight for our faith?
Do people in our schools, workplaces, our neighbors aware that we are followers of Christ or is it purely a weekend~/Sunday part of our life?
Do we often avoid talking about Christ because it is not cool and we are afraid of what people will think of us?
When the Lord’s name is taken in vain, do we stand up for Him?
There are many who fight in committee meetings, fighting for the wrong things, but how far will we go for the gospel?
“We are not persecuted,” you say, “what’s the big deal?”
John Macarthur says:
“Today, Satan usually directs persecution not to a person's physical body, but to his ego.
He focuses on pride, the desire for acceptance, or the desire for status.
That's very effective.
Satan doesn't often threaten a Christian by saying, "If you witness, I'll cut your head off."
He threatens a believer by saying, "If you witness, you might lose your job, your status--or someone might think you are strange."
The techniques Satan uses today have a tremendous effect in a subtle way.
He has found that it is very effective to kill the church by making it complacent, indolent, fat, rich, and socially oriented.
The church has watered down its theology to accommodate the world.
That is a more successful form of persecution than having all Christians boiled in oil!” /John MaCarthur/
As someone said, “if you were arrested for being a Christian, would there be any evidence to convict you?”
If you are like me, I want to stand up for the Lord and His gospel so many times, but I crumble under the pressure.
I, like Peter, follow him afar off warming myself around the fire of the world.
I am addicted to people’s approval.
I am scared to tell people sometimes that I work at Moody Bible Institute, afraid of what they will think of me.
So how do we do it?
How can we as believers fight for the faith that has saved us and changed us?
We need to fight.
But how do we fight?
Paul will help us answer that question as we begin our study through the book of Galatians.
Last time, we said the theme of this book was “Faith fighting and Freedom Living in Christ.”
Today we are going to talk about the gospel and how to stand up for it in a world that wants to destroy it.
*BACKGROUND*
v False teachers came from Jerusalem, saying they were friends of James and John, into the churches that Paul planted in his first missionary journey.
v They were called the “Judaizers.”
v They taught that, “It’s good to believe in Christ, but you need Moses too.”
You need to be circumcised and you need follow some other rules for God to accept you.
v The Judaizers saw their message as Jesus Christ /plus Moses/, not just Moses, not just Jesus Christ.
v They also undermined Paul’s authority.
Paul?
Who’s he?
He was that persecutor guy wasn’t he? Was he even with Jesus like Peter and James and John?
v Perversion of the truth is more difficult to spot than blatant falsehood.
v The believers in Galatia succumbed to the pressure.
Paul says, “I can’t let this go on.
I need to fight for the faith.
So how can believers fight for the faith?
How can we, as Christians, stand up for the gospel?
Paul says we are soldiers of Jesus Christ and we have principles that keep us going, like the US ARMY Warrior Ethos:
I am an American Soldier.
I am a Warrior and a member of a team.
I serve the people of the United States and live the Army Values.
I will always place the mission first.
I will never accept defeat.
I will never quit.
I will never leave a fallen comrade.
*I.
We can fight for the faith by asserting our divine authority (Gal.
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