Fear of Man (Part One)

Once our church had a few short term missionaries from the church testifying about their trip to Romania. 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 the preaching of the gospel. As they were speaking, my thoughts went to the UK and other similar countries in affluent Europe. Because of the wealth of these countries, real poverty is not such a problem and wherever people are poor due to bad administration 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 the availability of 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 are headed for hell.

Every so often we get reports of Christians being persecuted in the The UK when they try to testify, to pray for someone or lead somebody to the Lord. My wife worked 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 shared the gospel at work I can sense that some were sniggering at me. It probably happens to most of us. Maybe this is why we are reluctant to share the gospel – we fear persecution.

On 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, in a few isolated cases of doing the Lord’s will people get 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 did not stop them from spreading the gospel and they grew rapidly. So it is with 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 does not necessarily mean the loss of general religious freedom, but it can do. The 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 laborers are few; therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers 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 this thought in the next chapter.

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