| Time | Text |
|---|---|
|
Persecution and Unity
00:02:06
|
|
| This book is dedicated to all members of the church currently under attack around the world. | |
| To Christians unable to practice their faith and freedom without fear of convert or avert persecution, incarceration, or execution. | |
| We feel your pain. | |
| We grieve and bleed with you. | |
| We are one in the body of Christ. | |
| Amen. | |
| We should feel. | |
| We're the body of Christ. | |
| You're a physician. | |
| So you understand this so well. | |
| Lydia is also almost the co-author of the book. | |
| She's helped me so much. | |
| But when we were talking about, this is about a 20-year project. | |
| I would sit down with Lydia on the couch and we'd talk as kind of our quiet time together. | |
| And gradually ideas coalesced. | |
| We wrote the book. | |
| At the time we started writing this book, there was very little overt, I mean, sure, in some areas in the Arab countries or maybe in China, there was persecution. | |
| But in the United States, you know, we think we're persecuted if, you know, we struggle with the parking lot with the city or something. | |
| You know, not existential threats. | |
| But it was just on my heart that we need revival in the church because persecution is coming. | |
| And I think I don't want persecution to come and I don't want to predict it coming, but I feel in the last few years, especially just the rapid change, the rapid decline of institutions, the things that we rely on, that you combine that with technology that is available. | |
| And we have to prepare for a persecution of the church. | |
| Absolutely. | |
| And so what does that mean when we can't meet together? | |
| What does that mean when we can't talk with people about Christ? | |
| Does that mean the church is destroyed? | |
| And the whole purpose of the book is to say, no, the church lives in the spiritual realm. | |
| It's the living body of Christ. | |
| It can never be destroyed, even though tyrannical powers could come against it to destroy the buildings and the institutions. | |
| Right. | |