Rose Publishing - Strong in the Storm: Lessons From the Persecuted Church

The printed version of this eBook is the Strong in Storm pamphlet, ISBN-13: 9781596364172

Contributors: Writers and researchers of Open Doors USA and Open Doors International. Photos provided by Open Doors unless otherwise specified.

Scripture taken from THE HOLY BIBLE: NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION.NIV. 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan Publishing House. All rights reserved.

It is illegal to photocopy, transmit electronically, post on the internet, or reproduce this pamphlet in whole or in part in any form.

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Rose Publishing, LLC
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• Reveals 6 lessons we can learn from the persecuted Church and explains how to apply these lessons of faith, strength, and forgiveness to our own lives.
• Shares 6 amazing stories of believers who faced incredible hardship in countries, such as China, Korea, Egypt, Iran, and more. The lives of persecuted Christians have much to teach us about how God gives courage, peace, and even joy through life's toughest storms.
• Explains 8 practical ways we can help those who are persecuted through prayer, advocacy, and more.

THERE IS SOMETHING about hardship that allows us to know God deeply. When times get really tough, we discover more about who God is and how he works. Christians who have endured persecution for their faith know this well.

There are no easy answers for why God allows his followers to face suffering. However, the lives of persecuted Christians reveal that even when things look out of control, believers can rest secure knowing that God is still in control. He is able to give courage, peace, and even joy to enable believers to stand strong in the storm. It is through these storms that believers discover Gods love in new and powerful ways. The stories of persecuted Christians have much to teach us all.

Persecuted Christians are believers who face severe hardship, torture, imprisonment, or death because of their faith in Christ. They come from every age, race, and gender in more than 50 countries. Some believers remain steadfast, even to the point of death. Others give in to the pressure when faced with intimidation and impossible choices (such as to denounce Christ or see their children taken away). Persecuted Christians are as faithful, flawed, and human as any other Christian.

• Christians face severe hostility. Intimidated by propaganda about Christianity, some Christians are forced to worship in secret and practice other religions in school or at work.
• Christians are deprived of justice. They are denied standard education, barred from all but menial labor, and told by crooked authorities to pay impossible fines. They are required to pay for baseless legal charges upheld by corrupt court systems. Those who must identify their faith on public documents can face discrimination. Christians are denied permits to build churches, which is the only way they can legally meet in groups.
• Christians are imprisoned, tortured, and murdered. They are harassed, attacked by mobs, beaten, kidnapped, interrogated about church locations and leaders, hunted by family or law enforcement, and publicly mocked.

Christians are persecuted in many countries around the world. Countries with totalitarian regimes (such as North Korea) or large populations of Muslims (such as Saudi Arabia) typically persecute Christians most severely. However, countries such as India, Vietnam, and Eritrea also have dismal records of abusing the religious freedom of Christians.

Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

Matthew 5:1012

WANG MINGDAO was one of the most well-known church leaders in China. He was an evangelist and an accomplished author. During the Chinese Cultural Revolution in the 1960s and 70s nearly all religious activity was severely persecuted. Wang Mingdao spent much of that time in solitary confinement in prison for his faith. He was finally released after 23 years of incarceration.

His years in prison have inspired millions of Chinese Christians. In the words of one Shanghai pastor, Wang Mingdao proved that God existedno one goes to jail for that long and comes out with their faith still intact if God is not real. This is Wang Mingdaos reflection on his experience:

When I was put in jail, I was devastated. I was sixty years old, at the peak of my powers. I was a well-known evangelist and wished to hold crusades all over China. I was an author. I wanted to write more books. I was a preacher. I wanted to study my Bible and write more sermons. But instead of serving God in all these ways, I found myself sitting alone in a dark cell. I could not use the time to write more books. They deprived me of pen and paper. I could not study my Bible and produce more sermons. They had taken it away. I had no one even to witness to, as the jailer for years just pushed my meals through a hatch. Everything that had given me meaning as a Christian worker had been taken away from me. And I had nothing to do. Nothing to do except get to know God. And for twenty years that was the greatest relationship I have ever known. But the cell was the means.

His advice to believers is this: I was pushed into a cell, but you will have to push yourself into one. You have no time to know God. You need to build yourself a cell so you can do for yourself what persecution did for mesimplify your life and know God.

The busyness of life can quickly pile up unnoticed. It crowds out God before we even realize it. With never-ending to do lists, we must slow down and remind ourselves that the most important thing is knowing God. Even Christian service can become a distraction that keeps us from focusing on the greatest relationship we can knowour relationship with the Lord.

NORTH KOREA is the most Communist society in the world and also the most religious. The new gods are [leaders] Kim Il Sung and his son, Kim Jong Il. They are believed to have supernatural powers, and the whole society is a vast coercive network to force continual worship of these deities. The worship is not subtle. You can see bands of school children laying offerings at the feet of huge golden statues of these figures at the center of every town. Everyone is taught to revere them. Refuse and the penalty is to rot in a carbon copy camp of Auschwitz.