Fear of Man (Part One)

Good morning.

The other day our church had a few short term missionaries from the church testifying about their trip to Rumania. They told of the drug problem and of the young people sleeping in the sewers. Mission work generally seems to focus on the poor and the needy in other countries and usually on the material provision for such people, along with which the gospel is preached. As they were speaking, my thoughts went to our country, the UK, and other similar countries in affluent Europe. Because of the wealth of our country and her peers in Europe, real poverty isn’t a problem and wherever people are poor due to misadministration of their funds, some missions do meet their needs for food.

A question then came up in my heart; what about the souls of the other residents of our own country? How are they hearing of the gospel? Most people in this country have a good life due to either enough work or the social care structure, so they have no need for physical care and therefore their need for spiritual care seems to be ignored. It seems not to matter that they’re headed for hell.

Every so often we get reports of Christians being persecuted in the UK when they try to testify, pray for someone or lead somebody to the Lord. My wife works for care houses run by Christians and supported by a local church, but because they are government funded they are not allowed to share the gospel or pray with the residents. Whenever I share the gospel at work I can sense some sniggering at me. It probably happens to more of us. Maybe this is why we are reluctant to share the gospel – we fear persecution.

At more than one occasion I heard someone during a church service praising the Lord for our religious freedom and lack of persecution, and then I asked myself why we have a lack of persecution. If, at a few isolate cases of doing the Lord’s will people got persecuted, what will happen if we “obey God rather than men” (Acts 5:29)? Persecution may become rife if we start to obey relentlessly, but souls will be saved and Christianity will grow much more rapidly. The first church was violently persecuted, but it didn’t stop them from spreading the gospel and they grew rapidly and so is the current persecuted church. Some years ago we met some members of the underground church in China. I suggested that they pray for Communism to fall so they could get religious freedom. Their reaction was quite adamant: “No, for it is persecution that keeps the church active and alive.” When people got imprisoned for their faith, they simply saw it as a new opportunity to spread the gospel.

Having religious freedom and external peace is a dangerous sign, since “all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted,” (2 Timothy 3:12). If we are not persecuted it means we are not a threat to the devil and his people. Persecution doesn’t necessarily mean the loss of general religious freedom, but it could be. Fact is, people go to hell in their millions and the Lord is concerned about it. “When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. Then he said to his disciples, ‘The harvest is plentiful, but the labourers are few; therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out labourers into his harvest,’” (Matthew 9:36-38). How are we going to answer before Him one day, since we must obey God more than we do men? We will continue tomorrow.

Lord, please prepare me to tolerate persecution for the gospel’s sake.

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