Faith, Persecution, and the Power of Prayer
Devotional
Sermon Summary
Sermon Clips
"Let me tell you something about your faith today. If you're a true believer in Jesus Christ, this should be universally applicable to all believers in Jesus Christ. And it is this. Your faith will cost you something. If you're a true believer in Jesus Christ, your faith should cost you something. That is what the Bible says. I'm not making that up on my own. And we're going to be talking about that today." [00:25:33] (27 seconds)
"These Christian soldiers had been given a choice, either renounce Jesus Christ and then come out of the water and warm themselves by the fire and have a nice bath in the baths that they prepared on the shore, or stay out there and freeze to death. That was a choice that was given to them. The Roman commander in charge of the soldiers doing the squad there was very clear that only those who renounced Jesus and denied Jesus would be allowed on the shore and to save their life." [00:27:32] (34 seconds)
"Now these believers in the Acts church had already seen the shocking death of Stephen. But now here in chapter 12, it's not just one person. It's a governmental authority literally going around and rounding up believers, taking them to prison, some being executed. This wasn't just occasional persecution. This was a systemic elimination of Christians in and around Jerusalem. How would they respond? I want you to think about that question. How would believers respond? How would the church respond to this terrible threat? Would they fight? Would they flee? Would they be afraid and hide?" [00:37:57] (51 seconds)
"Paul restates it in his second letter to Timothy, chapter 3, verse 12, 2 Timothy 3, 12. Listen to what Paul says. Indeed, all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted. Now again, how blessed are we in this country? And not only in this country, but how blessed are we in the corner of the country that we lived in, which is named after the Bible itself, the Bible belt." [00:40:00] (31 seconds)
"Let's continue talking about persecution. We talked about the reality. Let's talk about some of the dangers that the Acts church was facing, the danger of persecution. Look at verses 3 and 4. And when he, that's Herod, when he saw that it pleased the Jews, he proceeded to arrest Peter also. This was during the days of unleavened bread. And when he had seized him, he put him in prison, delivering him over to four squads of soldiers to guard him, intending after the Passover to bring him out to the people." [00:41:16] (35 seconds)
"Throughout history the world and our enemy our spiritual enemy has proven that he'll go after the church in any way he can there was one Roman emperor maybe it was two even who who his whole goal was to eliminate the written word of God burn copies everywhere he could he didn't succeed there's been movements against the church who discredit the leaders of the beliefs there's been movements against the church to strike against the under shepherds and there has been movements against the church to to infiltrate it with heretical beliefs and cause splits and dissension and in some corners these things seem to have had an effect and yet the church of Jesus still prevails today his true are still true and my friends there's something bigger than the attacks that are against us Jesus said Matthew 26 31 you will all fall away because of me this night talking about his own crucifixion for it is written I will strike the shepherd and the sheep of the flock will be scattered and they were we know that the disciples ran every which way and they were missing in action for the most part during the crucifixion but they came back they came back and they changed the world through the power of the Holy Spirit within them you know sometimes bad things do happen if you go to enough churches you're gonna find bad things happen to churches too if you read the news you'll find bad things happen to pastors and sometimes pastors are the bad things that happen right and if you read the news if you read comment court comment boards online yeah the Christian church has been guilty of a lot of stuff we don't even need the attacks against us sometimes we've been guilty of a lot of stuff hurting a lot of people in this world and I get that but my friends there's something bigger than this there's something bigger than this we have a true high shepherd we have a true high shepherd who will come catch his bride the church and in good times and in bad and plenty and in persecution when the church is under attack and when believers are under attack you" [00:44:11] (132 seconds)
"To prayer, we must go. It is our answer. It is our strategy. It is our tactics. I don't need to buy hundreds of dollars of strategical programming from a Christian organization to tell me how to keep a church together when the Bible says, go pray. It's as simple as that. We know what our weapon is, and it is prayer. This is what the church did as they experienced the reality and the dangers of persecution. I want to show you. My final point today is let's look at the priority of the persecuted, the priority of the persecuted. Look in verse 5. So Peter was kept in prison. Here it is. But earnest prayer for him was made to God by the church." [00:47:51] (48 seconds)
"Let's consider what the church did not do for just a moment. Consider what the church did not do. They didn't take up arms. They wasn't passing out swords. They didn't form a nationwide resistance movement. They didn't boycott anybody. They didn't sign any petitions. And they didn't go sit down in front of City Hall and have a silent protest. Now, are all these things bad? Not in and of themselves necessarily, but they're bad when we neglect prayer first. This is the strategy. This is our reaction. This is what we must do. The priority of the persecuted is prayer. It is the first step. It is the most important step because when we take our problems to prayer, we are talking to the only one who can truly do something on our behalf." [00:48:39] (58 seconds)
"The early church, they knew that God was faithful. Do you know that? Do you know God is faithful? Does anybody doubt that? I know God is faithful. And I've read the stories of what he can do. You have too. And furthermore, in my life, there's been times that God has miraculously answered prayer, without a doubt. The church had that in Acts 2. Consider eight chapters earlier, in Acts chapter 4, when the first bit of persecution began to arise against the church, and they began to really go to the Lord, saying, we see that" [00:51:06] (33 seconds)
"and he is who he says he is god almighty then we must do what we know we should do pray persecution is a reality it can be dangerous but as dangerous as persecution is prayer is more powerful i want to remind you of one more thing about this church and this church in acts is that even though they were under persecution even though the governmental authorities were literally taking away their leaders with the intent to execute them the church did not split it did not collapse it did not shrink it did not divide it stayed unified and continued to grow with people coming to know jesus every day god can thrive the church during times of persecution in fact the church grows best during times of persecution i'm not ready to pray for persecution just yet but if it starts happening you better hang on because this church will explode more than this ever has in its history because that's the way god works just as early church turned to prayer must be a people who respond to every trial even the trials you're going to go through today before you close your eyes tonight may we respond to those trials with prayer let's pray together" [00:55:39] (87 seconds)
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"These Christian soldiers had been given a choice, either renounce Jesus Christ and then come out of the water and warm themselves by the fire and have a nice bath in the baths that they prepared on the shore, or stay out there and freeze to death. That was a choice that was given to them. The Roman commander in charge of the soldiers doing the squad there was very clear that only those who renounced Jesus and denied Jesus would be allowed on the shore and to save their life." [00:27:32] (34 seconds)
"Now these believers in the Acts church had already seen the shocking death of Stephen. But now here in chapter 12, it's not just one person. It's a governmental authority literally going around and rounding up believers, taking them to prison, some being executed. This wasn't just occasional persecution. This was a systemic elimination of Christians in and around Jerusalem. How would they respond? I want you to think about that question. How would believers respond? How would the church respond to this terrible threat? Would they fight? Would they flee? Would they be afraid and hide?" [00:37:57] (51 seconds)
"Paul restates it in his second letter to Timothy, chapter 3, verse 12, 2 Timothy 3, 12. Listen to what Paul says. Indeed, all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted. Now again, how blessed are we in this country? And not only in this country, but how blessed are we in the corner of the country that we lived in, which is named after the Bible itself, the Bible belt." [00:40:00] (31 seconds)
"Let's continue talking about persecution. We talked about the reality. Let's talk about some of the dangers that the Acts church was facing, the danger of persecution. Look at verses 3 and 4. And when he, that's Herod, when he saw that it pleased the Jews, he proceeded to arrest Peter also. This was during the days of unleavened bread. And when he had seized him, he put him in prison, delivering him over to four squads of soldiers to guard him, intending after the Passover to bring him out to the people." [00:41:16] (35 seconds)
"Throughout history the world and our enemy our spiritual enemy has proven that he'll go after the church in any way he can there was one Roman emperor maybe it was two even who who his whole goal was to eliminate the written word of God burn copies everywhere he could he didn't succeed there's been movements against the church who discredit the leaders of the beliefs there's been movements against the church to strike against the under shepherds and there has been movements against the church to to infiltrate it with heretical beliefs and cause splits and dissension and in some corners these things seem to have had an effect and yet the church of Jesus still prevails today his true are still true and my friends there's something bigger than the attacks that are against us Jesus said Matthew 26 31 you will all fall away because of me this night talking about his own crucifixion for it is written I will strike the shepherd and the sheep of the flock will be scattered and they were we know that the disciples ran every which way and they were missing in action for the most part during the crucifixion but they came back they came back and they changed the world through the power of the Holy Spirit within them you know sometimes bad things do happen if you go to enough churches you're gonna find bad things happen to churches too if you read the news you'll find bad things happen to pastors and sometimes pastors are the bad things that happen right and if you read the news if you read comment court comment boards online yeah the Christian church has been guilty of a lot of stuff we don't even need the attacks against us sometimes we've been guilty of a lot of stuff hurting a lot of people in this world and I get that but my friends there's something bigger than this there's something bigger than this we have a true high shepherd we have a true high shepherd who will come catch his bride the church and in good times and in bad and plenty and in persecution when the church is under attack and when believers are under attack you" [00:44:11] (132 seconds)
"To prayer, we must go. It is our answer. It is our strategy. It is our tactics. I don't need to buy hundreds of dollars of strategical programming from a Christian organization to tell me how to keep a church together when the Bible says, go pray. It's as simple as that. We know what our weapon is, and it is prayer. This is what the church did as they experienced the reality and the dangers of persecution. I want to show you. My final point today is let's look at the priority of the persecuted, the priority of the persecuted. Look in verse 5. So Peter was kept in prison. Here it is. But earnest prayer for him was made to God by the church." [00:47:51] (48 seconds)
"Let's consider what the church did not do for just a moment. Consider what the church did not do. They didn't take up arms. They wasn't passing out swords. They didn't form a nationwide resistance movement. They didn't boycott anybody. They didn't sign any petitions. And they didn't go sit down in front of City Hall and have a silent protest. Now, are all these things bad? Not in and of themselves necessarily, but they're bad when we neglect prayer first. This is the strategy. This is our reaction. This is what we must do. The priority of the persecuted is prayer. It is the first step. It is the most important step because when we take our problems to prayer, we are talking to the only one who can truly do something on our behalf." [00:48:39] (58 seconds)
"The early church, they knew that God was faithful. Do you know that? Do you know God is faithful? Does anybody doubt that? I know God is faithful. And I've read the stories of what he can do. You have too. And furthermore, in my life, there's been times that God has miraculously answered prayer, without a doubt. The church had that in Acts 2. Consider eight chapters earlier, in Acts chapter 4, when the first bit of persecution began to arise against the church, and they began to really go to the Lord, saying, we see that" [00:51:06] (33 seconds)
"and he is who he says he is god almighty then we must do what we know we should do pray persecution is a reality it can be dangerous but as dangerous as persecution is prayer is more powerful i want to remind you of one more thing about this church and this church in acts is that even though they were under persecution even though the governmental authorities were literally taking away their leaders with the intent to execute them the church did not split it did not collapse it did not shrink it did not divide it stayed unified and continued to grow with people coming to know jesus every day god can thrive the church during times of persecution in fact the church grows best during times of persecution i'm not ready to pray for persecution just yet but if it starts happening you better hang on because this church will explode more than this ever has in its history because that's the way god works just as early church turned to prayer must be a people who respond to every trial even the trials you're going to go through today before you close your eyes tonight may we respond to those trials with prayer let's pray together" [00:55:39] (87 seconds)
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