Preparing for Persecution

Acts 4:29 (RSV)

The Preacher:

John R. W. Stott has been since 1950 Rector of All Souls’, Langham Place, in the heart of London’s west end. After a distinguished career at Cambridge University, he was ordained in 1945. Appointed a. royal chaplain in 1959, he is also Chairman of the Evangelical Research Center at Oxford, and a frequent speaker at student conferences. Mr. Stott’s published works include Basic Christianity and Fundamentalism and Evangelism.

The Text:

And now, Lord, look upon their threats, and grant to thy servants to speak thy word with all boldness.

The Series:

This is the fourth in CHRISTIANITY TODAY’S series of sermons from the United Kingdom and Europe. Among the preachers scheduled for future issues are Jean Cadier, President of the Reformed Faculty at Montpellier, France; Charles Duthie, Principal of the Scottish Congregational College; G. C. Berkouwer, Professor in the Free University of Amsterdam; and Ermanno Rostan, Moderator of the Waldensian Church of Italy.

So began the persecution of the Christian Church. Since that clay it has never ceased. It continues unabated today.

Peter and John, after healing the lame man at the Beautiful Gate and preaching to the people, had been arrested, put in custody and brought to trial. The Supreme Jewish Council had forbidden them to speak or teach at all in the name of Jesus, and when Peter and John quietly replied that they must obey God rather than men and that they could not help speaking of what they had seen and heard, the Sanhedrin further threatened them (whether with imprisonment, the dreaded scourging or death we are not told) and released them. Peter and John went straight to their Christian brethren to pray. It was a critical moment in the history of the infant Church. When Jesus had been arrested and tried, the disciples had all forsaken him and fled. And now the power of the enemy was turned on them. Would they falter and fail, or stand the test and hold firm?

In many parts of the world today the persecution of Christians is open and undisguised. Violent attempts are being made to stifle the Church’s witness. In Communist China the present experience of the Church has been exposed by Leslie Lyall in his book Come Wind, Come Weather, published by Hodder & Stoughton in 1961. He describes the subtlety of the indirect attack by the creation of the “Three-Self Reform Movement,” which is pledged to purge the Church of all “imperialist influence.” Disguised as a patriotic movement, it has woefully compromised the truth of God and is in fact a tool of the State. All who dare to disagree with it are publicly accused and imprisoned. In Nepal newly converted Christians have been thrown into prison because of their faith. In Germany recently the East German bishops were virtually prevented from attending the Tenth All German Congress of the Evangelical Church. These things are not far away. Do not let us imagine that we are safe in England, where the Communist domination of the Electrical Trade’s Union has shown us the great power of the Communist Party in this country. The Americans also have Cuba less than 100 miles from their coast to remind them. It is not in the least unlikely that within the next few years we shall have to undergo persecution for Christ.

Their Attitude To God

They trusted the sovereignty of God. The opposition of the authorities did not overthrow their Christian faith. They did not begin to doubt whether God was God. They did not complain against his providence or whine over their sufferings. No. They prayed. And as “they lifted their voices together to God” (v. 24), their hearts and minds were filled with the divine sovereignty.

They called God “sovereign Lord,” using the word despotes, which was used of the Roman emperors and slave owners and signified a sovereign and absolute rule. They also called themselves His slaves (v. 20). Moreover, the fact that Herod and Pilate, Gentiles and Jews, rulers and people, had been arrayed against Jesus did not frighten them. The enemies of God, who had been responsible for the death of Jesus, had only succeeded in doing “whatever thy hand and thy plan had predestined to take place” (v. 28). Twentieth century Christians have great difficulty with the doctrine of divine sovereignty and predestination, but the early Christians do not seem to have had. They held fast to it. They believed that God’s “never failing providence ordereth all things both in heaven and earth” (Collect for Trinity VIII). They did not deny either human responsibility or man’s freedom to choose, but they saw these things within the wider context of the over-ruling sovereignty of God. Herod and Pontius Pilate, Gentiles and Jews, rulers and people were free agents, who set themselves of their own purpose against the Lord and his anointed, and yet in so doing, they were accomplishing the very thing which God s hand and purpose had foreordained. The hands which killed Jesus were wicked and lawless, yet he was “delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God” (Acts 2:23). The same was true in their case; and they regarded the opposition of the world as under the controlling hand of God. What then was the source of their confidence? We must see how they qualified and elaborated the title “Sovereign Lord.”

1. They referred to creation. “Sovereign Lord, who didst make the heavens and the earth and the sea and everything in them” (v. 24). God’s sovereignty is viewed first and foremost in his creative work. The whole universe and its contents (earth, sea and space) were brought into existence by the will of God. They owe their origin and continuance to the purpose and power of God. They have no inherent self-control; they are upheld by the authority of the living God. Only God depends for his being on himself; all things else come from him and depend on him. If we are tempted to doubt that the Most High rules in the kingdoms of men, and that he “orders all things both in heaven and earth,” then we need to do what these early Christians did and look at his work in creation. It is an easy step from faith in God as the Creator, to faith in him as the Sovereign Lord. It is this that we affirm in the Creed when we speak of God as the “almighty (i.e., All-Ruler), maker of heaven and earth.” That is, we state our faith in one who is ruler over all that he has made.

2. They referred to prophecy. In their prayer, the apostles spoke not only of what God had done (in creation), but also of what he had said (in Scripture); not only of his creative work, but of his prophetic word. “Sovereign Lord … who by the mouth of our father David, thy servant, didst say by the Holy Spirit ‘Why did the Gentiles rage …’ ” (vv. 24, 25). This is a quotation from Psalm 2, in which God clearly foretold the raging and rebellious fury of the world against himself. Kings, rulers and people would conspire together saying, “Let us burst their bonds asunder, and cast their cords from us.” But the God who predicted the opposition of the world predicted also its final overthrow: “He who sits in the heavens laughs; the Lord has them in derision.… I have set my king on Zion, my holy hill.”

This prophecy of the world’s opposition to God’s Christ had been historically fulfilled. In that very city of Jerusalem there had been a vile conspiracy of Gentile and Jew, leaders and people, against the anointed Son of God (v. 27). Yet the victory was not in the hands of God’s enemies. God has not abdicated his throne. His own purpose of love will ultimately triumph.

These assurances should bring us comfort. The most frightening fulminations of men against God and Christ should not alarm us. If opposition breaks over our heads in England and we are threatened with extinction, let us take fresh courage from the works and words of God, from the evidence of his sovereignty to be found in what he has made in the universe and what he has said in the Scripture.

Their Attitude To Their Persecutors

They preached the Word of God with boldness. We have seen that the apostles felt no bitterness in their hearts towards God, and complained against neither his love nor his wisdom. But what about their attitude towards their persecutors? Did they show resentment towards them or seek to take revenge? Did they plot against their enemies as their enemies had plotted against Christ and them? Or did they run away and seek safety in the hills and caves of Judaea or Galilee? No. They did none of these things. They stayed at their post, although it meant imprisonment and scourging for some, and death for others, and they prayed for boldness to preach.

How positive they were! They were not content just to grit their teeth, to stay and stick it out. They loved their enemies, and desired the eternal good of their persecutors. They longed to see them won for Christ and saved by him for ever. They thirsted not for the destruction, but for the salvation, of their foes. They wanted them to hear the Gospel, to embrace it and to enjoy its innumerable benefits. So they prayed for utterance, for freedom of speech and courage to preach the word.

And God answered their prayers. The place where they were assembled was shaken. They were all filled anew with the Spirit, and in the power of the Spirit they preached the word of God with boldness. Moreover, as they went forth, the Holy Spirit confirmed the word with signs following. These supernatural signs attending the ministry of the apostles (healings and other miracles) are probably the exception rather than the rule today. But the Spirit still can, and does, confirm the word with his own inner testimony, if not with outward signs.

In the book Come Wind, Come Weather which I have already mentioned, and in which Leslie Lyall gives an account of the present condition of the Church in China, he tells in one of his chapters the moving story of the Rev. Wang Ming-tao, whom he appropriately calls “Mr. Valiant-for-Truth.” Mr. Wang was the pastor of a church in East Peiping, actively engaged in the ministry of preaching and writing. When the Communists captured Peiping, he continued his ministry without fear. In 1951 he wrote these words in his magazine Spiritual Food Quarterly, as the opposition of the Three-Self Reform Movement was growing: “… the one who faithfully preaches the Word of God cannot but expect to meet opposition.… I know that this will come to pass. I am prepared to meet it. I covet the courage and faithfulness of Martin Luther.…” and he quotes one of his prayers. In 1954 Mr. Wang suffered the ordeal of a vast public accusation meeting. But still he continued without fear. In 1955 he wrote in a pamphlet: “We are ready to pay any price to preserve the Word of God, and we are equally willing to sacrifice anything in order to preach the Word of God.… Dear brothers and sisters, let us be strong through the mighty power of the Lord.… Don’t be cowards! Don’t be weary! Don’t give way! Don’t compromise! The battle is indeed furious and the battlefield certainly full of dangers; but God’s glory will be manifest there.… My dear brothers and sisters, let us follow in the steps of the Lord, and, holding aloft His banner, go forward courageously for His Gospel’s sake.”

That was, I think, in May 1955. On August 7, 1955, Mr. Wang preached his last sermon on “the Son of man is betrayed into the hands of sinners,” with reference to the betrayal of Christ by the Three-Self Reform Movement. That night at 1 A.M. he was roused from sleep by the police. They bound him with ropes and took him to prison—“Mr. Valiant-for-Truth.”

Some Helpful Suggestions

Down the Christian ages persecution has too often caught the people of God unprepared. We need to get ready. Let me make three suggestions.

1. We need a deeper confidence in the sovereignty of God. The whole world is in the grip of a vast convulsion. The old order is passing away with bewildering speed. Nothing is secure or certain in the future. Our greatest need is a quiet, serene, unshakable confidence in the sovereignty of God. So we must meditate on the revelation which God has given of himself in his works and in his word, in nature and Scripture, until we are still and know that he is God, exalted among the nations, exalted in the earth. Then no catastrophe can shake us.

2. We need a deeper experience of the Spirit of God. A persecuted Church cannot stand in its own strength or survive by its own power. It will be engulfed, its life stifled and its witness smothered, apart from the power of the Holy Spirit. Perhaps our desperate need in the Church today of the fullness of the Holy Spirit will only come home to us when we are driven to it by the violent opposition of the world.

3. We need a deeper knowledge of the Word of God. If the day comes when we are forbidden to preach or teach in the name of Jesus, we cannot obey. The world can persecute the Church, but it must not be allowed to silence it. Our backs may be against the wall, but our mouths must remain open in testimony. But what would happen if they took the Scriptures from us, or if the Edict of Diocletian in A.D. 303 was re-enacted and all our Scriptures were ordered to be burned or confiscated? We must prepare soberly and sensibly for this eventuality too. We need to store God’s Word in our hearts, meditating on it, memorizing it. digesting it, until it is so much part of us that it cannot be taken away from us. They may take God’s Book out of our hands, but they cannot take his Word out of our hearts. So, if the storm breaks, we shall continue by grace to trust his Sovereignty and preach his Word.

A Poem

I

The age is a bastard

Born without a father to know,

Denying both its own being

And mine.

II

Melon-shaded light to read

The word from Logos-place

Is not enough. Melon-shaded,

Amber-shaded, dulcet, scarlet,

Jaded is not enough.

Spirit is enough.

III

I peeled the skin from my cheeks in a great spiral

As from a ripe orange. This is self-effacing.

I pulled shiny beads in a great shuffle

As on an abacus. This is self-negating.

I paraded God about on a silver chain

As one would a pet. This is self-piety.

God plucked me out of the grave

When I was corrupt with death and He breathed

A breath into me. And I live.

A. FRANKLIN GOODRICH

John R. W. Stott (1921 – 2011) is known worldwide as a preacher, evangelist, author, and theologian. For 66 years he served All Souls Church, Langham Place, in London, England, where he pioneered effective urban evangelistic and pastoral ministry. During these years he authored more than 50 books, and served as one of the original Contributing Editors for Christianity Today. Stott had a global vision and built strong relationships with church leaders outside the West in the Majority World. A hallmark of Stott's ministry was his vision for expository biblical preaching that addresses the hearts and minds of contemporary men and women. In 1969 he founded a trust that eventually became Langham Partnership International (www.langham.org), a ministry that continues his vision of partnership with the Majority World Church. Stott was honored by Time magazine in 2005 as one of the "100 Most Influential People in the World."

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