COVID-19 and the Final Persecution

good morningeverybody it's a privilege to standbefore you here today on this kind ofovercast Sabbath day um but it is goodto be alive in good health and strengthand to be able to share with you thismorning uh we're coming aside from aworld of work and for many of us a worldof worry and as we come to Worship theLord on the Sabbath we're asking to stepinto a world of Wonder to come into thepresence of Jesus our Lord and saviorand to receive the Assurance once againthat he is he is coming again I'd liketo bring you greetings from my wife andmy two kids and um it's uh they're downin beran Springs right now and um Ithink I preached here once before aboutfive or six years ago uh but it's aprivilege to stand before you here todaywe're going to be talking today uh thesermon is entitled covid-19 and the endtimepersecution uh which uh is is a topic Ibelieve is time family and as we've gonethrough this Co crisis um it's forcingus to ask some very hard questions someexistential questions not just uh how isthe economy doing but who am I wherehave I come from and where am I goingand do I know where I'm going and sowe're going to be discussing today umwhat the covid-19 is telling us aboutthe final persecution that we read aboutin Revelation 13 of God's people Iinvite you to Bow your heads with me andwe'll open with a word of Prayerdear heavenlyfather as We Gather heretoday Lord we live in a world wheretruth is no longer in the PublicSquare where we no longer know what tobelieve and so father we would hear yourvoice speak to our heartstoday father still the voices of thisworld may they be left outside the wallsof this sanctuary and I pray that yourspirit will speak through me and to eachone of us today I thank you for hearingthis prayer in Jesus name I askamen so we're going to be looking todayat what the the co persecution Co isrevealing about the end time persecutionof God's people oh there we are okaythis thing is working um uh working withAdventist Frontier missions we come intocontact with people who have beenpersecuted for their faith persecutionis the norm in the world it is not theexception we in America have freedomstoday um at least we we theoreticallyhave some freedoms but the reality is isthat we need to learn lessons as theFree Church from the persecuted churchand um we divide the world into you knowMuslims Hindus Buddhists Christians andso forth but another way of looking atthe world is look at the Free Church andthe persecuted church and at these twowebsites up there persecution.com isfrom voice of the martyrs that wasestablished by um Pastor Richard uh vandafter he escaped from cha jesu'spersecution and open doors USA theytrack the persecution of Christiansaround the world it matters not whetherthey are Orthodox or Protestant orCatholic but persecution is a very realreality and it's happening even as wesit here today and we won't go throughstories today but the persecution isvery real it is in human nature topersecute minorities of various kinds ifthey don't agree with the dominantnarrative and so um one day thoseTendencies will arrive on our Shoreshere in the United States well let's setsome historical context here showing uhthe Russian Empire uh went from west ofRuss west of Moscow all the way acrossto the to the shores of Japan almost uhled by the Zar and the last 20 years ofthe Russian Empire under the Zars Russiawas in a state of philosophical fluxRussia was torn apart by variousideological groups there were theagrarians there were the aristocratsthere were the workers there were theBolsheviks there were the menik therewere the nobility there were those whowant to push for modernity in Russia andthere were those who clung to the oldways after 20 years of philosophicalflux and you can read about this and saythe writings of doovi you you get aglimpse of this philosophical chaoswithin the nation there arose a strongregime known as the USSR and with theUSSR came the persecution of Christiansand millions of people died throughoutthe history of the Soviet Union um theimposition of Marxism cost over 100million lives in the 20th century we seethe same Trend happened within Germanyin the 1920s Germany was reeling fromthe impact of the Versa treaty which wasa national humiliation in the eyes ofmany they were suffering with thecollapse of the currency there was veryhigh unemployment and on the streets ofGermany there were running battlesbetween the frore between the the um theuh soldiers to come back from theWestern Front between the Communists andthe Socialists they were running battleson the streets Germany was torn apartduring the last years of the viarRepublic and it was replaced out of thatchaos came a strongman and that ofcourse was Adolf Hitler in1933 societies that go through chaostend to swing to a strong authoritarianleadership we see the same possiblyhappening in America now America theland of the free and the home of thebrave a nation that uh many love verydearly but America is now experiencing astate the philosophical and ideologicalflux would you agree with me we see itin our streets we see on the streetsbattles between people from the hardleft and from the hard right we'reseeing in America that that the economyis being divided along political linesyou have a bycott or a boycott if yourcompany or if your church or if yourbusiness or if you personally take astand on any issue people will eitherbuy from you or they will not dobusiness with you we're seeing theideological decision are affecting theimpact of consumers in our nation we'reseeing in America today that we havespecial interest groups activist judgeswoke corporations and media factions allon various War paths and we are seeingthe rejection of our judeo ChristianHeritage we are seeing coercion takeplace economically uh we are seeingemployment purges we have cancel culturefor those who disagree with whateverdominant narrative is out there we areseeing physical intimidation and Streetviolence becoming all more Al togethermore common this is Unthinkable maybe 5years ago but this is happening in frontof our eyes and the covid-19 pandemichas revealed to us that the tools are inplace for the persecution of God'sEndtime people we've also seen with theco9 and this is a wakeup call for us asAdventists is that we have normallythought that the Sunday laws and theoppression of God's people will takeplace through one of three mechanismseither an act of Congress a SupremeCourt decision or an executive orderfrom the presidency and what we've seenin America in the last 5 months is thatthe tools of persecution can be put inplace with without an act of Congresswithout an executive order and without aSupreme Court ruling so the traditionalmechanisms we thought would take placethat have to take place before thepersecution of God's people takes off wesee that you don't actually need thoseto happen but this Society can be closeddown so as we look at America today andas you look back at our Last 5 Yearssince the co outbreak here in Americawe've seen that constitutional rightsand religious Liberties have beenrevealed to be little more than thanthan really a mirage in many casesacross America today uh despite the bestintentions of legislatur and governorsand mayors of all political Stripes asthey battle L this terrible pandemicwhich is real and people are dying fromthis pandemic there's no question aboutthat but we see that with the lockdownswe see the the suspension of supposedlyinalienable rights such as thosecontained in the US Bill of Rights forinstance our first amendment rightsperhaps inadvertently this pandemic hasrevealed that all the ingredients are inplace for the persecution of God'speople and that political leaders acrossthe political Spectrum are ready andwilling to use them given an opportunityand given an excuse so what are some ofthe ingredients that we see in thecovid-19 scenario that may apply uh toAdventists at the of time firstly we seethat tragically we have a corruptNational media on all sides of theequation from whom truth has departedbut the corrupt National media pushes anational agenda whereby our civilliberties our constitutional rights andour religious freedoms are indefinitelysuspended during a state of emergencyand now this doesn't happen in everystate in the United States but if youkeep your eyes open you'll realize thatchurches Across America have been closedthey've been banned there was a veryfamous case just recently where agovernor he said churches can open to25% capacity and casinos to 50% capacityand so the entrepreneurial Pastorpromptly booked a room in a local casinoand held had the whole church meetingthere uh the casino was in fact fine forthat I'm not sure why but the point isthat governors in America and localcities and and Mayors have beenattempting to close down religiousliberty in America we're familiar withthe police going I think it was in mourito a church sitting in a drive-intheater in their cars with the windowsup socially distanced from each otherand the police were saying and this wascaught on video your rights aresuspended and that that church wasdispersed on that Sunday Gathering wealso see in America that social medianow is the Giants are restricting anddeplatforming any voices that questionthe dominant narrative if you saysomething that does not meet that thecommunity guidelines of Facebook orYouTube or any other social media Giantyou will be deplatformed your voice willbe cut off in America today we also seein America today that those who are whoare denters to the dominant narrativeyou are demonized online and uh in themedia and in online mobs they areascribed the worst possible motives bynational and local leaders we see inAmerica today that during the covidpandemic that Gatherings for worship andevangelism are banned in the allegedinterests of Public Safety and deputiesare sent by local Mayors they they havebeen sent by local Mayors at differentlocations in the last 5 months to F andarrest those who've gathered for worshipeven as I minutes before in Drive-InServices we also see that in some statesin America hotlines have beenestablished in which Americans have beenencouraged to report on their neighborsfor failing to comply with the dominantnarrative this is Unthinkable even 5months ago my wife was raised in theSoviet Union if you know anything aboutthe Soviet Union you know that duringthe time of Joseph of Stalin you couldwrite an anonymous letter ofdenunciation to the KGB about X Y Ozindividual there was no trial that andthere was a knock at the door atmidnight and that person was taken offcondemned as an enemy of the people andsent to deeper Siberia and because ofthe legal system in in the Soviet Unionafter when your 10 years were over youcould not come back to your family youhad to stay in a penal colony outsidethe walls of that prison and in Americawe've seen hotlines being establishedwhere you can snitch on your neighborsif they don't comply with the dominantNar artive this is Unthinkable inAmerica we've also seen seen so-calledtrack and Trace apps I don't have myphone with me uh I have a teenage son Iwish I had a track and trace app off himbut um we have these track and Traceapps that have now been downloaded andif if you use a Mac an iPhone or a Droidum in the latest updates they've got theenabling software for track and Traceapps you don't have it yet the app onyour phone but the enabling software isalready in place and in Britain thegovernment is rolling out track andtrace app so that if you are if you arediagnosed with covid they can look atyour phone and see who was in closecontact with you track and Trace appsgive the government unprecedentedintrusion into yourprivacy we also see that smart toolssuch as Siri and Alexa and Amazon's EchoDot and Google's Nest mini they're usedin millions of Home Across America andthey're very convenient I get that butthey do have the ability to record everyword that you speak and if you wonderare they listening to you when you thinkI'm a paranoid nutcase up here thismorning I'm not paranoid but I do knowthis if I talk to my wife about two orthree times tomorrow morning about I'mthinking that we should get a new foodprocessor within about 24 hours in yoursocial media feed you will have advertsfor food presses showing up in your feedand how does that happen if the onlyperson who've spoken about it to is yourwife and you don't do a Google searchall right so we have these um smartdevices in our homes that I have theability to record every word you everspeak we see that in the Corona virusthat the full force of theadministrative State at a state levelhas been used to threaten thelivelihoods of families we've seen thethreat of children being removed fromtheir homes the homes of business ownerswho refuse to comply with the compliantwith the dominant narrative this hasbeen happening not in all the states butit has happened in a number of statesthat your children will be removed fromyou for failing to comply with thedominant narrative we've seen indifferent states the attorney generalshave arbitrarily revoked businesslicense and registrations denyingindividuals their ability to buy to sellto bank or to make a living this hasbeen happening even here in Michigan umwe have had um some businesses have hadtheir licenses revoked for failing tocomply with the dominantnarrative we also see that internationaltravel has been brought to a shudderinghalt at the stroke of a pen and in advenFrontier missions some of ourmissionaries are stuck overseas theycan't get home for their fellows andsome people who are preparing to launchthey can't launch because there's noplanes to where they're supposed to begoing it's all very well if your familylives in America but what happens mymother-in-law lives in Russia which wasthankfully is a long way away but in thecrisis we I cannot get to see her andshe cannot get to see me maybe it's asilver lining you might say but myparents they live in England and if myparents are in their 70s my father wasIll he had to go to the hospital if hewere to die I cannot get back for afuneral and so families are separatedand there's no knowledge of when you canbe reunited with your loved ones we alsosee that during the crisis uh When ItCame Upon Us in March most us collegesand churches were ordered shut again inthe interest of Public Safety nowthankfully and by the grace of GodAndrew is now opening we can gather heretogether like this but that is not thecase across the United States someuniversities are open some are closedsome schools are open some are closedand I I used to walk by PMC in March andApril horrified that all that life wouldjust come to a close at a stroke of apen not by our own valtion our bigchurches are just standingempty we also see that in the publicsphere truth has been declared dead andin many cases it is now declared to behate speech and it has been driven fromthe PublicSquare this is what's been happeningduring the covid-19 experience it hasn'thappened maliciously I believe as ourGovernors have tried their level best tobattle the pandemic but our Governorshave discovered um executive and almostauthoritarian powers to rule by TheStroke of a pen without any input fromthelegislatures effectively here inMichigan now we have a governor whorules by executive order and declaresshe can do it indefinitely as long asshe declares there to be an emergencyand the legislature that is ourRepresentatives have no say in whathappens in Michigan right now so truthhas been declared hate speech in much ofAmerica today if you try and preachabout biblical principles ofmarriage or human sexuality as I'veexperienced you will receive a lot offeedback and some of that feedback isnot something you want to share withyourchildren so what happens when it comesto the end time persecution we've readin our scripture reading thank yousister bam Garden for reading for uswhen that persecution comes our way whatwe've leared is that it doesn't requireCongress or the Supreme Court or thepresidency to put this persecution thesetools of persecution in place what werealize as we read Revelation is that wemay face real persecution from thegovernment without all these normalmechanisms being in place and all itrequires is a political excuse to makeit happen that's all it requires is apoliticalexcuse so what may happen to Adventistsbased on what we've seen in Co 13covid-19 well we're going to see that umour civil and religious Liberties willbe revoked we've discovered so far incovid that your constitutional rightsare hardly wor the paper they're writtenon our constitutional rights will berevoked the First Amendment the freedomto worship God or not to worship Godwill effectively be rendered meaninglessdoesn't require an act of Congress we'relikely to see the closing of all ourchurch buildings our colleges ourconferences our unions our divisionssupporting Ministries all Adventistinstitutions May well beclosed we will discover that evangelismwould be declared to be hate speech itis already happening in some parts ofthe world that are more secular but theproclamation of the Gospel the call torepentance is a repudiation of thedoctrine of safe spaces on our collegecampuses the doctrine of safe spaces oncollege campuses means that nothing canbe allowed to to question or cause somediscomfort to your personal livedexperience and so we create safe spaceson our college campuses and the call torepent is no longer welcome on manycollege campuses because that is adenial of your safe space and soevangelism and preaching the Everlastinggospel El will eventually be declared tobe hate speech because the call torepentance implies that your subjectivelived experience is not valid that's theimplication we will bedefamed deplatformed on social media andcanel from public culture this has nothappened in America yet but I I see thatsome some members in this congregationhere I know some of you come from formerEastern Europe and you know what it islike that Christians and Adventists werewere persecuted they were locked awaythe Clos the churches were closed downand sooner or later it's going to comeour way and we will be deplatformed onsocial media and our voice taken awayfrom us our ability to buy sell bank andtravel will be suspended probably forall time until Jesus comes again we'veseen it happening right now over covidand one day those tools can be turned onGod's people and we'll discover thatyour IRA your bank account your creditcard will be worthless in the finalcrisis it will mean absolutely nothingwe may find that our savings Ira'sinvestment accounts will be frozen neverto be used again we'll be unable to payour mortgages or our rents thus we'll beforced from our homes and ourpossessions will be gone bit by bit theworld will take away the things thatmany of us hold very dear we'll bedemonized across the political spectrumand in all media as Jesus himself toldus you'll be hated by all men for myname's sake Mark 13 and verse 13 we alsosee that away anticipates and this isn'ta a prophecy uh but this is based onwhat we see right now if you are on thestreets and you don't comply with thedominant narrative what happened inPortland recently you can be shut downin thestreets or mobs will attackyou this isn't a political statementthis is a statement offact and state bureaucrats drunk on thepowers of emergency directives can makeall kinds of rulings against you and youhave no way of appealingthose track and Trace apps on our phoneswill Trace our every movement and oursmart devices will record every wordthat we everutter our children may indeed beforcibly removed by Child ProtectiveServices to be placed within protectivecustody within the Foster system you saywell that could never happen I servedfor 12 years in the former Soviet UnionI met many devoted Adventists babushkasby then they were babushkas grandmaswhose children were taken from them theywere forcibly divorced by the KGBprecisely because they were Adventists Imet one lady who hadn't seen herchildren for 45 years when the SovietUnion collapsed she tracked them down tothe city of rostov on Don and it was aglorious reunion to see her childrenagain don't think that governments willnot take the children of those whodisagree with the government onreligious grounds it's happenedthroughout the Soviet Union and one dayit may happen in our Shores the onlything that remains is a political excuseuse for politicians to turn all thesetools of Oppression on God's faithfulRemnant and if you're kind of depressedabout this well yeah I'm kind ofdepressed about it as well but the goodnews is Jesus is coming again and if youlook at the Statue of Daniel 2 we don'thave time to look at it now the verywhen when when Daniel see talks aboutthe dream we focus on the interpretationof the head of gold and the chest armsof silver and so forth but the firstthing that Daniel says about the text hesays I saw this dream and this thisimage in the dream and the image wasterrifying we miss we we kind of SK overthat little phrase Daniel says that theimage is terrifying which means that allEarthly powers from Daniel to the comingof Jesus have a terrifying element tothem no matter what we may say about ourNations where we come from EarthlyNations when push comes to shove have aterrifying element aboutthem so how do we prepare for suchpersecution our scripture reading talkedabout this the the final persecution ofGod's people those who will not receivethe mark of the beast in their head intheir head on their or in their handshow do we prepare for this and thechallenge we have as Adventists is thatwhen we talk about the final persecutionwe tend to talk abouttimelines we like to talk about as I puton the screen there we tend to focus onthe sequencing and the road map when isthe little time of trouble going tohappen when is the closing of probationgoing to happen when is the cealing ofthe Saints when is the time of the endor the end of time you know even we evenhave acronyms for these things intheological books we talk about the tote the time of the end and we talk abouteot the end of time and we differentiatebetween them based on on on certainaspects of Daniel and Revelation and welove to sequence out what the P finalpersecution is going to look like andyou know I like going through withpeople um Ellen White's book uh end timeevents it's a powerful little book andthere's a beautiful study guide with itI encourage you to go through it and welove to analyze when is Jacob's time oftrouble what is Jacob's time of troublehow do we know it's Jacob's time oftrouble and so forth but these are thewrong questions because it's going tocomeanyway more important is are we readyforit there are two very commonly heardstatements when it comes topersecution the first is ah persecutionwill never happenhere and the second is well we neverthought persecution would come here youhear this in many parts of the world ahdon't be a naysayer persecution willnever come to in Springs orreally well one day we're going to besaying we never thought that persecutionwould ever come to ourShores how do we prepare for persecutionwell the Apostle Paul says this in 2Corinthians 13-4 he says blessed be the God andfather of our Lord Jesus Christ thefather of mercies and the God of allconsolation who consoles us in ourAffliction Paul is talking from theperspective of the persecuted Churchand he's talking to a church yet toexperience persecution that's thecontext here then he says so that wethat is the persecuted Church may beable to console those who are anyAffliction with the consolation withwhich we ourselves are consoled by GodPaul is saying this that the Free Churchneeds to learn lessons from thepersecutedchurch we don't just pray for thosegoing going through persecution is ourspiritual responsibility to learnlessons about how do you go throughperson persecution how do we respond asindividuals and as a church family tothe reality of persecution you seeintellectually as Adventists we knowwe're going to experiencepersecution but spiritually are we readyforit and from a paral perspective as apastor you want to know you preparedyour congregation and your family forwhen you aregone uh we have a Advent Frontiermissions who work in a country inSoutheast Asia I won't say which countryit is right now um but uh we have alocal leader she works for us and she'sa very gifted lady and uh that churchthat that country is had significant andsustained persecution against Christiansin general and Adventists in particularand back in the 70s her fatherdisappeared he was a local Pastor hedisappeared nobody knew where he was 8years later he reappeared oh where wereyou I was held in a prison cell withoutcharge no communication to the familythis happens if you spend time in Chinayou will realize ize that hundreds ofthousands of Christians as we sit hereare in labor camps for theirfaith this is very real brothers andsisters and so as we talk aboutpersecution um we need to think not onlywhat's going to happen to me but if I gointo jail or I'm taken away what happensto my family are they prepared can theysurvive without me do they have thespiritual roots that are deep enough towithstand the storms oflife and so these are importantquestions for us to ask there arecertain biblical responses topersecution I want to go through thosenow with you these are responses that wefind modeled within the Bible and uhthey are they are biblical they aregiven to us by God to provide us umoptions for how we deal with persecutionuh the general principle of persecutionis given us by Jesus in Luke 6 he saidbut I say to you who listen love yourenemies do good to those who hate youbless those who curse you and pray forthose who spitefully use you perhaps thehardest teach teaching in the entireBible is to love yourenemies you can make a case that'sperhaps the hardest teaching in theBible to love your enemies you can loveyour family you can forgive your familyyou want to forgive your family but yourenemies those who want to destroy youthose who want to tear your life apartthis is perhaps the hardest teaching ofJesus but if we are to be his disciplestoday we cannot live a lives filled withanger and rage maybe the two dominantemotions in America today are fear andrage and neither of those shouldcharacterize God's people when we seethese things happening we are leastshould lift our heads up high because Iknow that our Redemption draweth nighand we are not to have rage againstanybody or any political party anybodyon the streets we're to have love forthem because what we see in the anger onthe streets are souls that have no hopeand they are seeking formeaning and so they pour their livesinto this ISM or thatideology and so the overall theoverarching principle responding topersecution is to love those who hurtyou maybe the most uh many examples isin the Bible but think for a momentabout the case ofNebuchadnezzar Nebuchadnezzar was bytoday's standards amonster in the ancient times when theyconquered Nations it was not a prettysight if you ever want to read whatancient Conquest was like at Jones wrotea three-part history the generalconference kind of sent him off intoExile many years ago and he did a worldtour um Tred to get him out of theirhair for a bit and while on that WorldTour he wrote three books called oneempires of the Bible and the first bookwas on the earlier Syrian Empire whichlast over a thousand years then hetalked about Dan the the statue ofDaniel 2 and then he talked aboutecclesiastical Empire was his third bookThey're brilliant books i' encourage youto reach them I think they're publishedby teach services but in the first onehe describes that the writings of theSyrian Kings when they conquered a citythey talked about holocausts they wouldburn all all the people and make themrun around a hole fill the oil the holewith soil with oil make them run aroundthat hole until they exhausted and pushthem in they'd be burnt alive this iswhat happened at ashit it wasn't new ithappened by the ancient Assyrians youread the writings of asab banipal andesad on II and so forth these NeoAssyrian Kings who lived in the time ofthe kings of Judah they were absolutemonsters and Nebuchadnezzar himself inmany ways followed in their traditionwhen he conquered Nineveh when heconquered in karish in the North ofSyria when he conquered all the way downto Egypt those conquests were notpretty and yet how was Nebuchadnezzarbrought toconversion in Daniel chapter 1Nebuchadnezzar is a polytheist thatmeans he believes in many gods and hecomes across suffering Hebrew boysDaniel Shadrach mhach and Abednego theydon't curse him they don't hate him theydon't bring they don't pray for God tobring leprosy upon this man they don'tpray for scurvy to fall upon him no theyserve him in his court and chapter onenebuchad is a is a polytheist in Chapter2 Daniel answers the king's questionabout what the dream was and by the endof Daniel chapter 2 Nebuchadnezzar hasmoved as you see in his prayer frombeing a polytheist to a henthe whichmeans he believes there are many godsbut he recognizes the god of Israel issupreme above all other gods Danielchapter 3 he sees the three Hebrews inthe fin fiery furnace once again he'sconfirmed the god of Israel the Supremeabove all the other gods and finallyDaniel 4 his the dream about the treeand Daniel speaks to him and and Danieldoesn't say to the king oh King he saidthis this dream is that God is going tochop you down and good riddance and youdeserve it because I've spent my life asa slave in your court he doesn't saythat he appeals to the king to showMercy to the oppressed Nebuchadnezzardoes not listen he go has his sevenyears of Madness at the end of thatchapter Nebuchadnezzar the text says Ilifted my eyes to the heavens and myreason returned to me and by the end ofthat chapter Nebuchadnezzar is amonotheisthe has gone from polytheism tohenotheism to monotheism in fourchapters and at each stage of thatJourney it was the oppressed to agracious to him who helped him alongthat spiritual journey that spiritualpath and so just see in the example ofNebuchadnezzar a great example thatloving your enemies they may not beconverted today but so sooner or laterit it works upon their hearts we seethat in the example of Paul as he waspersecuting people it was the HolySpirit was pricking his heart but thereare some other B iCal responses topersecution one of them here is um toflee uh we think well I'm not going toleave my home I'm not going to leave myjob I'm not going to leave my loved onesbut the reality that is in the worldtoday there are hundreds of millions ofdisplaced people for variousreasons and many of them are displacedfor no fault of their own we find in theBible that an angel commanded Joseph andMary to flee to Egypt to protect thechild and Christ from the the he the theAng of Herod we also see that it'sbiblical to hide Rahab hid the two spiesmany modern-day Christians are forced tohide in times of persecution many yearsago back in about 96 997 I was inTajikistan there was a Civil War thecommunist government against jihadisfrom Afghanistan one of those Jihadileaders decided that he was going to uphis political profile in the country andthe best way to do that was to kill aWesterner at the time there were aboutmaybe 100 westerners in that countrynobody wanted to go to at Tajikistan itwas a pretty VI vicious Civil War sothese jihadis are coming to the officersof Aid agencies trying to find them tokill them so what did I do did I stay inmy office no I was a young man I was 23I didn't want to die and so I hid and anold Adventist man who lived in an oldRussian apartment block a one roomapartment I think some of lived in someof you lived in sov you know what I'mtalking about this is very small in factit's so small that the to when you go tothe toil to which you just off the mainliving room you open the door you sit onthe toilet and the the front of thetoilet is flush with the door you knowwhat that means don't you you sit downin the toilet and the door is wide openfor everybody to see in a one roomapartment there's no privacy for 3months I stayed with that dear old manwhile they came to my office the jihadisa couple of times where is the guy wholives works here we don't know where heis it's true they didn't know where Iwas but for 3 months I had to hide outwaiting until one day the governmentannounced that this Jihadi had beenkilled and everybody could come out ofhiding again it is biblical to hide itis not a shameful thing sometimes youhave no option at other times though wecan remain in the world as the salts andlights of the world if you open yourBibles to the Beatitudes uh MatthewChapter 5 most of us have Bibles thathave um paragraph divisions most of uswe don't use Bibles to just have solidtext and in Matthew Chapter 5 my Bibleit has the Beatitudes here then there'sa paragraph break then it says Salt andLight does your Bible say thesame is anybody out there can see yesdoes anybody have the Beatitudes ofMatthew 5 and then you come to the endof verse 12 the end of the Beatitudesand then there's a paragraph break doesanybody have that yes and what comesafter that after the Beatitudes what'sthe first thing Jesus talks about afterthe last beatitude is about blessed areyou when people persecute you on myaccount now take out the paragraph breakand the next thing Jesus said says isyou are the Sal of the earth and you arethe light of the world the paragraphbreak breaks up the stream of of jesus'teaching we lose the emphasis and thepoint is this that if you have a candleif we if we light a candle here now andand and it sits here nobody really seesthat light you know that it's there butyou don't see it because there's so muchlight around but when the darkness ofpersecution descends or midnight comesto this sanctuary and that candle isstill shining there that candle thatdidn't seem to give out much light atmidday everybody can see it in the roomatmidnight and so the teaching of Jesusthat you are the light of the earthlight of the world and the salt of theearth makes sense in the context ofpersecution just bearing the name ofChrist in times of persecution is amassive witness I once baptized someIranians and I said to them why why doyou want to be baptized because when yougo back to Iran in the next 24 hours orso you'll face persecution they said weknow that but we want to Bear the nameof Christjust bearing the name of Christ willincur the Wrath of the government itwill come down upon us but we want toBear the name of Christ we affirm anonviolent response Disciples of Jesuswe place our pain in our desire ofVengeance which is real at times in thehands of God who knows everything andwho will one day execute perfect Justiceif you're not following the persecutionaround the world I invite you to openyour eyes to this reality as an exampleNigeria on a weekly basis maybe a couplehundred Christians are burnt and hackedto death by the jihadis coming down fromthe north it's not politically correctto say it but it's true those Christiansare those Villages are raised to theground by certain tribal groups and theythey're destroyed because they areChristians there is a cry to God for forjustice sometimes we are called to laydown one's life this is indeed alegitimate response to persecution andthe God promises a special Crown isreserved for those who lay down theirlives for their faith in Jesus Christ weare also able according to the Bible toexercise our legal rights the ApostlePaul was willing repeatedly to use hislegal rights as a Roman citizen todefend himself when he was captured bythe mob in Jerusalem in Acts 20 and theRoman soldiers rescued him and they tookhim inside the pretorium and they weregoing to um Scourge him he said to themis it lawful to to to Scourge a Romancitizen without first being condemnedand all the soldiers pulled back fromhim because it was illegal to toimprison the Roman citizen and to tiehim up unless he was first condemned andso it is it is biblical to use yourlegal rights to defendyourself biblical response topersecutions we should not be surprisedthe Apostle Peter explicitly counselsdisciples to not be surprised whenfacing persecution and when when we leaddisciples to Jesus in in parts of Asiaor Africa one of the most importantlessons we have to teach them is this ifyou follow Jesus you will facepersecution it is not a theoreticalpossibility this is a reality in manyparts of the world today so we shouldnot be surprised as American Adventistswhen persecution comes our way rather weare commanded in scripture to Rejoice weare commanded to rejoice in the goodtimes and in the bad times and this notkind of hahaha happiness is the Deepassurance that in the midst of your painJesus is with you he walked with theHebrews through the fiery furnace beforethey were delivered from the fieryfurnacewe are to pray with thankfulness as theApostle Paul commands Us in the letterof Philippians written from prison inRome we are to pray in all situationsand this includes praying for our fellowsufferers and also for ourpersecutors Ecclesiastes chapter4 it says that the the Solomon says Isaw there was much suffering in theworld he said in the first couple ofverses he said those who are facingoppression have nobody to comfort themand we say Amen true and then Solomonsays and those who are those who areoppressing others they have no one to tocomfort them as well the God sees bothsides of the a coin and often those whooppress are driven by fear of what theoppressed would do to them were thecircumstances to bereversed just look at the Arab Israeliconflict okay the Israelis are hard onthe Palestinians on the West Bank butthey know that if the Palestinians hadthe upper had the upper hand and there'sa thirst to Slit the throat of every Jewin Israel todayso that a lot of this is driven by fearpeople areafraid we are to refuse to beashamed it is a privilege to Bear thename ofChrist and when you bear the name ofChrist your witness goes a longway uh in a country many years ago thecountry of aaban I used to visit thePrime Minister every month we'd praytogether he was a communist and I gotaccess to him because I was one of threeChristians in that Republic at the timethree Christians Christians and um hewanted to know what is a Christianbecause I've spent my life imprisoningthem now I get a chance to meet one faceto face and so we we should not beashamed of being Christians and weshould not be ashamed of of followingJesus in his sufferings and neverforgetting that we are being persecutednot because of who we are but becausethis world has rejected Jesus Christ byand large We Trust in God's abidingpresence nothing indeed can separate usfrom the love of God and God will neverallow persecution to become unbearableon a personal level we see that in 1Corinthians 10 and verse13 there and so what do we these arebiblical responses to persecution and uhthey are um they're all they're allfound in the scriptures how do werespond as adventi so how have weresponded historically well in the co9lockdown we've all responded indifferent ways would you agree somepeople wear masks at church some peopledon't I know some people haven't L theirhomes since March their food isdelivered to them everything they buy isdelivered to them they are terrified ofleaving their homes and some of themthat their immune systems arecompromised they have good reason to beafraid other people say ah the wholething is a fake or it's a politicalconspiracy and you have the wholespectrum of views within the AdventistChurch it's a reality that we have notresponded to this persecution with anysense of unity historically Adventistshave never responded to persecution withunity in World War I the Kaiser wantedto conscript the young men of Germanyand the Adventist Church split down themiddle over the question of should Iyoung men serve in the Kaiser vilhelmsarmies and out of that split we have thereformed Adventist Church today and thatsplit is still present they have theirown General Conference they show theirown Sabbath school lessons if you pickup one of their Sabbath School quarterlyand read it through you think oh this isthis quarter Sabbath School quarter andso you look at who's publishing it oh nothis is the reformed Adventist Churchwhere did they come from we split inGermany in 19161 17 and that church hasnever recovered all the way throughcommunism Adventists split the questionwas do you send your children to schoolon the Sabbath the official Adventistssent their kids to school on the Sabbaththeir kids completed their education theAdventists who wouldn't send theirchildren kids to school on Sabbathbecame the underground Adventists allacross parts of the Soviet Union andtheir children could not complete theireducation when communism collapsed whichside of the church provided leaders forthe Adventist Church the official ChurchCU their kids finished theireducations and that bitterness is stillthere in some parts of the former SovietUnion Adventists do not respond withunity to persecution and I want tosuggest to you today that in the endtime persecution we will probablyfracture along multiple lines as welljust as we have all respondeddifferently to the covid-19 um pandemicthat we are still enduring today someare going to excuse and even justify thepersecution of the troublers of Israelothers are going to accommodate thepersecution other Adventists will rejectit and hunker down and simply wait forthe second coming nothing in our historyindicates that we will have a unifiedresponse to persecution if you don'tbelieve me you don't know your Adventisthistory covid-19 brothers and sisters isa wakeup call there is much for us to bethinking about on this sabbath day arewe uniting in prayer are we putting downroots in the word of God do we know ourscriptures are we treasuring thescriptures in our hearts for one daywhen we no longer physically have a copyof the Bible in front of us are wesewing the seed of the word of God whilewe have the freedom to do so and whileour liberties last are we buildingkingdoms and Empires on Earth or are weserving the kingdom of God are we layingup Treasures on Earth or are we layingup Treasures in Heaven above is anythingin this earth overriding our Fidelity toour Heavenly Father and what maybe moreimportantly is our message clear to ourDying World we are living in a worldthat is increasing reject re in themoral foundations of scripture asAdventists we traditionally Champion theseparation of church and state but whatis happening in America is much morefundamental we are seeing the separationof Jesus Christ fromAmerica it's a much more fundamentalchallenge we're now facing in Americait's not we're not talking question ofseparation of church and state it's Godfrom America as increasingly our secularElites are imposing a secular Utopiauponus and is our message clear in a nationthat is increasingly rejecting the moralFoundation of scripture I want tochallenge us today to recommit to to toproclaiming a certain message with witha loud and a clear voice there is nootherFoundation let's go back here there's noother foundation for the body of Christand ChristAlone there is no other gospel than theGospel of JesusChrist there is no other way to God thanthrough JesusChrist there is no other mediatorbetween God Humanity than JesusChrist there is no other being worthy ofour worship than our Creator God and ourheavenly father there is no other daythat's going to replace the Sabbath as aday of worship there is no other hopethan the Blessed hope there is no othername by which Humanity may be saved isthis what people know about us if peoplewere to look at our Facebook feeds wouldthey hear a message of Hope would theyhear a lot of you know the nonsense thatgoes on on Facebook these daysI I I see Adventist social media and Idon't want anybody who's thinking aboutbecoming an Adventist to read some ofthose message boards Frankly Speakingthey're brutal they're absolutely Savagewhat message are we giving to the worldare we giving a message that Jesus iscoming again and his kingdom is akingdom of justice and righteousness andthat his kingdom is based on theprinciple of sacrificial love and we arecalled to love each other and model theprinciples of those Kingdom today or dothey see that we are as divided as theworld aroundus I want to challenge ustoday the the judeo-christianfoundations of America are fasteroding the secular Elites are seekingto impose a brave new secular Utopia andwe are seeing as inevitable resultssocial and political and moral chaoswithin our nation I've only been inAmerica for 13 years and I've seenAmerica change a lot in those 13 yearsthose of you been here longer than meyou can say that America is verydifferent to the ' 50s or the 60s or the70s we're almost at the edge of aprecipice as a nation in Stalin's prisoncamps When you entered a camp the guardswould often allow you one personal itemone personal item it could be a pencilit could be a comb something personal apicture of your wife maybe now why didthey dothat because they knew that if you weregoing to be a prisoner for 10 years inthat camp they could guarantee your fullcompliance through the threat of takingthat one personal possession from youthat's all it took to buy humancompliance a pencil a comb a picture ofyour wife the human heart can becaptured by one measlything let's ask ourselvestoday are our hearts captivated by theways of thisworld is there something in our heartstoday that holds us away from thekingdom of Godis there something in my life today thatactually comes between me and JesusChrist and I'll give up anything exceptthat onething there's a prayer I want to put upthe board here but my PowerPoint is goneit's this dearfather I confess today that false godshave infiltrated myheart my heart like Lot's wife iscaptive to thisworld please heavenly father todayduring these Sabbath hours remove thosefalse Gods from me today take away theirhold on my heart and may my whole beingbe captive to you and to your word aloneamen may that be our experience todayJesus is coming again he will have apeople ready and waiting for him andwhen he comes there is a promise ofeternal life it's not worth a comb or apicture or a pencil let us commit ourwhole lives to Jesus Christ today amen