Sermon Tone Analysis

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Happiness in persecution?
You’ve got to be kidding, right?
Can you imagine all those Christians in the arena about to be devoured by dozens of half starved lions and one of them gets up and says, “Hey gang, let’s sing!
Ready?
‘I’ve got the joy, joy, joy, joy down in my heart, down in my heart, down in my heart ... ‘”
Sounds pretty ridiculous doesn’t it?
Yet, this is exactly what Jesus is telling the throngs who have followed him up that mountainside.
We do not have to look very for within the Scriptures to find examples of those who could, and did, rejoice in persecution.
Peter and the apostles were persecuted, but they rejoiced that they could suffer for the Lord, (Acts 5:41).
Paul and Silas were beaten and imprisoned, but they found grace to sing at midnight, (Acts 16:25).
The Bible says that Jesus, as he trudged up the slope of Golgotha, did it “ ... for the joy set before him enduring the cross, and despising its shame ... “
Happiness in persecution?
Sure there is.
The happiness is not in the persecution, but in the knowledge of why we have been singled out.
We can be happy in persecution because it is evidence that we are committed to Christ, and this pleases our heavenly Father.
Our reward is a Crown of Righteousness which Jesus Himself will give us.
!
I. THE FACE OF PERSECUTION
* /"But we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us.
8We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; 9persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; 10always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies.
11For we who live are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh."/
(2 Corinthians 4:7-11, ESV)
#. when we think of persecution most of us think of the early church and the Christians being fed to the Lions in the Roman Coliseum
#. actually, the very few Christians were ever killed in the Coliseum
#. it was the Circus Maximus – the arena where the chariot races were run – where most of the Christians of Rome were tortured and killed
* ILLUS.
The reigns of the Roman Emperors Diocletian and Galerius at the end of the third and beginning of the fourth century marked what historians call The Great Persecution.
Before then, persecution of the church had been sporadic and regional.
It was Diocletian and Galerius who instituted an Empire-wide persecution of believers.
Beginning with a series of four edicts banning Christian practices and ordering the imprisonment of Christian clergy, the persecution intensified until all Christians in the empire were commanded to sacrifice to the gods or face immediate execution.
Over 20,000 Christians are thought to have died during Diocletian's reign.
#. we may also think of Old Testament saints – particularly the prophets – who were persecuted for their faith and their messages
#.
Jesus speaks of this in Matthew 5:12 /“ ... for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you."/
#. the Apostle Paul, writing in the Book of Hebrews, says of the Old Testament prophets:
* /"Some faced jeers and flogging, while still others were chained and put in prison.
They were stoned; they were sawed in two; they were put to death by the sword.
They went about in sheepskins and goatskins, destitute, persecuted and mistreated— the world was not worthy of them.
They wandered in deserts and mountains, and in caves and holes in the ground."/
(Hebrews 11:36-38, NIV)
#. we may even think of some of the great persecutions in history
* ILLUS.
A Catholic missionary by the name of Francis Xavier first introduced Christianity to Japan in 1549.
More missionaries followed and soon a thriving Church existed in Japan.
In 1633 the Shogun Tokugasa signed an edict outlawing the Christian faith, and he vowed to crush the Church in Japan.
In 1622, 51 Christians were executed at Nagasaki, and two years later 50 were burned alive in (Tokyo).
In 1633 some 30 missionaries were executed.
Over the next several years 4,000 were executed and others died in prisons or in exile.
They were speared to death, crucified, beheaded, drowned, or dismembered.
In 1865, when Japan was opened to the western nations for trading, Christian communities that together totaled some 60,000 Christians were discovered.
These Christian communities had perpetuated the faith in hiding for two centuries.
* ILLUS.
One of the most horrendous acts of carnage took place on the other side of the world in France–a Christian nation.
In this case it was Christian persecuting Christian.
We’ve come to call the St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre.
In October 1572 French Catholics went on a Holocaust-type rampage, killing every Protestant they could find.
Men, women, and children fell in heaps before the mobs and bloodthirsty troops.
In one week, over 100,000 Protestants perished.
It is said that the rivers of France are so filled with corpses that for many months no Frenchmen ate fish.
In the valley of the Loire, wolves came down from the mountains to feed upon the bodies.
* ILLUS.
In 1900 the Boxer Rebellion in China saw 189 missionaries and their children, and 32,000 Chinese Christians are martyred.
* ILLUS.
Between 1894-1923 the Ottoman Empire conducted a policy of genocide against the Christian population living within its territory.
The Sultan, Abdul Hamid II, issued an official governmental policy of genocide against the Armenians of the Ottoman Empire in 1894.
Over the next thirty years, systematic massacres took place.
In one town of Adana alone government troops killed over 20,000 Christian Armenians.
During the thirty years of genocide, 1.5 million Christians were slaughtered.
* ILLUS.
During the 20th century, the Communist dictators of the Soviet Union systematically set out to destroy any vestige of the Church in Russia.
Toward that end, the Communist regime confiscated church property, ridiculed religion, harassed believers, and propagated atheism in the schools.
Organized religions were never outlawed.
It is estimated that some 20 million Christians (17 million Orthodox 3 million Roman catholic) died or were interned in gulags.
#. in Western culture, we no longer see this kind of persecution
#. we have stopped burning people at the stake
#. we have stopped disjointing people on the rack
#. we no longer have inquisitions
#. when Jesus says, /“rejoice when you are persecuted”/ most of us really don’t understand what that means
#. however, many Christians around the world do
#. in this passage Jesus reveals that persecution has many faces to it
!! A. THE BIBLE SPEAKS OF PERSECUTION BY CRUEL ACT
#. though most of us will never experience real physical persecution of the kind our Christian forefathers did, many fellow believers around the world are not so lucky
#. in Matthew 10:16-36 Jesus paints a picture of what many saints are experiencing
#. for believers in places like China, Indonesia, Pakistan, India, and virtually any place where Islam is the dominant religion, believers fully understand what Jesus meant when he said, /“I am sending you out like sheep among wolves ... “/
#. around the world tonight, Christians are being persecuted for their faith
#. some will be beaten and tortured for their faith
#. some will be arrested and thrown in jail for their faith
#. some will be betrayed to the authorities by a brother or a close friend because of their faith
#. some will be maligned or disparaged because of their faith in Christ
#. these things may not happen to you, but if they do, be aware that you are in good company
* /“If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first.
If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own.
As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world.
That is why the world hates you."/
(John 15:18-19, NIV)
* ILLUS.
In places like Bhutan, public worship by non-Buddhists is illegal.
Christian families have been forced to seek refuge outside their country because of their faith.
In China, hundreds of Christians, from evangelical house church members and teachers to Roman Catholic priests and bishops, are currently in Reeducation Through Labor camps.
Chinese Communist government leaders have declared their intent to eradicate Christianity in China, saying they will “strangle the baby in the manger.”
Despite their efforts the underground church in China is flourishing.
In North Korea, Christians are arrested and never heard of again.
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