| Time | Text |
|---|---|
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Persecution in China
00:05:03
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|
| Thank you, Laurie and Jim, for having me. | |
| I was born and raised up in China. | |
| And I was a Tiananmen student leader, then became a Christian through the wonderful work of American missionaries who were actually teaching English because Chinese Communist Party would not recognize any missionaries in China. | |
| And that's how I came to Christ. | |
| And then I started involving the underground church movement in China. | |
| You were in the famous Tenement Square. | |
| I was there. | |
| There. | |
| Wow. | |
| I was a student leader for that moment. | |
| I mean, in my university. | |
| And then later on, during the political persecution, I became a Christian because of really the effort, the love of our American brothers and sisters there. | |
| So of course, then I continued to really engage with the underground church and started a house church in Beijing and underground seminary. | |
| And then my wife and I were put into prison prison theology. | |
| So that's a reason. | |
| That's what John says all about. | |
| I have a prison tested theology. | |
| And that's what you have. | |
| I just had an intensive course. | |
| Just two months, my wife and I stayed in Beijing prison for sharing the gospel. | |
| But that was 20 some plus years ago. | |
| But today, as we just mentioned, among those half a billion Christians who are facing persecution globally, over 100 million are living in China. | |
| 100 million Christians. | |
| I mean, this actually combined what Kevin just said. | |
| Yes, you know, the persecution is even becoming more and more kind of worse and worse. | |
| And perhaps today, under this Emperor C, now President Xi Jinping, he's already got the nickname Emperor C because he removed the term limit of his presidency. | |
| And basically, the persecution in China today is the worst since 40 some years ago after Chairman Mo launched the Cultural Revolution. | |
| And you have church being burnt, you have thousands of church being shut down, and you have the cross, I mean, hundreds of thousands of crosses of the church building were being forcefully demolished and burned. | |
| We have a Chinese American church pastor, my good friend, Pastor Johns Hall, who pastor church in North Carolina, received a seven years sentence in March this year. | |
| Still in Chinese prison. | |
| Wow. | |
| Yeah, for simply setting up 16 schools for Burmese persecuted children. | |
| With 2,000 children, he helped set up schools. | |
| And we have many, many pastors are still being imprisoned. | |
| And some even were killed. | |
| To illustrate, kind of the under-reporting, you'd call the mainstream media. | |
| I mean, not how much information we know through the mainstream media. | |
| That's right. | |
| What can the church, and this is what I want to do today? | |
| I love information, but I want information that motivates us to do something. | |
| What can we do, do you think, to help the church in China and anywhere in the world? | |
| We are the family of God. | |
| Listen, what's coming to America, we're going to have to stand up for each other soon. | |
| And what we it we can practice right now on what's going on in other countries, I believe. | |
| Thank you, Jim. | |
| Yeah, I think as we all know, the scripture says, you know, remember those who are in prison as if we are their fellow prisoners. | |
| I think, first of all, we pray for them. | |
| You know, in our prayer, that's the best weapon we have. | |
| It's a spiritual battle. | |
| Because after all, why those good, peaceful, caring, you know, loving Christians are chosen to be the persecuted, you know, murdered and killed. | |
| And secondly, of course, you know, you guys have been already doing this to speak up, you know, to be a voice for those voiceless brothers and sisters. | |
| When I was in prison, the hardest time was really I didn't feel that anybody knows about what's happening, the loneliness, the isolation. | |
|
Let Them Know They're Not Forgotten
00:00:34
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| That's why the Communist Party is cutting off all the information, you know, try to censor everything. | |
| And so to pray for them, to speak up for them in any public forums, and I think to let them know they're not forgotten. | |
| Their prison is not being kind of forgotten. | |
| So that itself is a great way to support them. | |