John 15:18-16:4
The “they” that Jesus is talking about in this case is all the Jews, and especially the leaders, who don’t believe that Jesus is the Savior, and what they will do to anyone who continues to believe that Jesus is the Savior. Jesus is the persecuted Savior. So, his followers can expect to be persecuted too, not by everybody, but especially by people who are in power and who hate those they cannot subdue, or conquer, or force to obey.
For those of you who have been following along in the Chronological readings, you know that last week we read of the suffering and death of Jesus, the passion of our Lord and Savior. He was persecuted and killed by his enemies, enemies he loved, enemies he forgave from the cross. In our text today, Jesus was explaining that because the world hates him, the world will also hate anyone who tries to live like him. Nevertheless, Jesus calls us all to live like him.
The Bible history we have read this last week fits very well with the fact that today is also the International Day of Prayer for the Persecuted Church. In keeping with that, I just want to tell you three stories that come from overseas. These stories are true stories from some of our brothers who have been persecuted for their faith. The world in which they lived certainly hated them, as Jesus had warned.
The first is about Richard Wurmbrand. He was born in 1909 in Romania. He was a Jew, but he and his Jewish wife, Sabina, came to Christian faith in 1938 through their acquaintance with a Christian carpenter. Soon, Richard was ordained as an Anglican, and later Lutheran, minister.
The Wurmbrands became bold evangelists, even sharing Christ with the German forces who occupied Romania during World War II. They also preached in bomb shelters and they rescued Jewish children out of the ghettos. Richard and Sabina were repeatedly arrested and beaten and, at least once, nearly executed. Sabina lost her Jewish family in Nazi concentration camps.
Then in 1945, the war was over, but Romanian Communists seized power and a million Russian troops poured into the country. Now Pastor Wurmbrand helped to hide the fleeing German troops as he continued to minister to his oppressed countrymen and began to engage in bold evangelism to the Russian soldiers. In “Tortured for Christ,” the movie about Pastor Wurmbrand’s life and ministry, Kathy and I saw how he did this evangelism.
First, you need to know that the Russian soldiers stole people’s watches. But then they let it be known that you could buy “new” watches at the Russian soldiers’ barracks. Many citizens felt they needed a watch. They would often find in the barracks the very watch that had been stolen from them. But they couldn’t just claim it. They were forced to buy it back from the soldiers.
So Wurmbrand would go to the soldier’s barracks on the pretext of looking for a watch. That’s how the door was opened. But once inside he would not be able to find a watch. However, he would keep a conversation going. In the movie he asked, “Is there any one here named Paul or Peter?” Common names. If a soldier answered to his name, then Wurmbrand would mention that “This name is also in the Christian Bible, would you like to hear about it?”
These tough looking soldiers, with guns and a high level of suspicion and disdain for the citizens made for a very tense atmosphere, in the barracks where Wurmbrand was helpless against them. Wurmbrand could be shot for this! But more often, the soldiers, who could appreciate what nerve it took for him to risk his life this way, would close the door to the barracks and invite Wurmbrand to tell them more! Later, he personally baptized at least one of those soldiers.
That same year, 1945, Richard attended a meeting called the Congress of Cults. It was organized by the Romanian Communist government to get all the religious leaders together to cooperate with the new government. Many religious leaders came forward to praise Communism and to swear loyalty to the new regime. They had already been threatened that they would their jobs if they didn’t and get paid more if they did. Richard Wurmbrand walked up to the podium as one of those respected religious leaders but declared to the delegates, whose speeches were broadcast to the whole nation, that their duty was to glorify God and Christ alone, not any government.
Between 1945 and 1947, Richard distributed 1 million Gospels to Russian troops, often disguising the books as Communist propaganda. Richard also helped arrange the smuggling of Gospels into Russia. And the soldier that Richard had baptized volunteered to serve in this dangerous way. As a result, many were saved. But there was a price to pay. That missionary soldier was never heard from again. Then, on Feb. 29, 1948, the secret police kidnapped Richard as he traveled to church and took him to their headquarters. He was locked in a solitary cell and labeled “Prisoner Number 1.” There he suffered torture for 14 years.
In December 1965, he was finally released. Two Christian organizations paid a $10,000 ransom to allow the Wurmbrand family to leave Romania. He was reluctant to leave his homeland, but was convinced by other underground church leaders to go and become a “voice” to the world for the underground church. Richard, Sabina and their son, Mihai, left Romania for Norway and then traveled on to England. They founded the Voice of the Martyrs Ministry to tell the world what was happening to Christians and establish connections to support and help those who were suffering for Jesus. And that’s why you and I know what is going on in the world today.
My second story comes from Richard Wurmbrand’s own writings about somebody else. He wrote: Together with many Christians I suffered 14 years in Romanian communist prisons. This heavy cross gave us the possibility of knowing a love which we had not known before. I was in the communist prison of Tirgul-Ocna, Romania. On my right was the Abbot of a Monastery, named Iscu. He had been so beaten and tortured that now he was dying in agony. On my left was a communist torturer, the one who was the cause of the death of the Abbot.
It is not true that the Communists are anti-Christian or anti-Semites. They are simply “anti.” It is a “religion of hatred.” They are anti everybody, even their own comrades. Now the Priest was on my right, and the murderer of the Priest was on the other side. He had also been charged with some crime, and he was so horribly tortured by his comrades that he was dying too.
The Abbot was quiet, so happy, confident that he was going to heaven. The murderer woke me up during the night and said, "Pray for me, what shall I do?" And as I was trying to answer him, I saw the priest, in agony, leaning on two other prisoners, going slowly, with great difficulty, to the one who had tortured him. He caressed him on his head and said, "You have been young. You have not known what you have done. I forgive you with all my heart, and Jesus is surely better than I. If I can forgive, Jesus can forgive even more than I. Only believe, only repent." The murderer received Our Lord.
The Priest received his Confession and gave him Absolution, then, in our limited prisoner’s way, the priest gave Holy Communion to his murderer. They kissed each other and they died on the same day, going hand in hand to heaven.
My third story is from more recent days. It was a story that was featured in Life Magazine in 1965, so you may have heard this one before. Dr. Paul Carlson, ordained in the Evangelical Covenant Church, was a medical missionary to Africa, the Congo. He was leading a communion service in 1964, during a time of unrest in the region. Missionary work had become dangerous there. Leading up the service of Communion he said, “We do not know what will happen in 1964—and in 1965—until we meet together again. We do not know if we will have to suffer and die during this year because we are Christians. But it does not matter. Our job is to follow Jesus.…My friends, if today you are not willing to suffer for Jesus, do not partake of the elements….To follow Jesus means to be willing to suffer for him.”
Later that year, Paul Carlson was taken prisoner and ultimately accused of being a mercenary fighting against his captors for money. In November, he was almost rescued, along with other prisoners, but as they ran away from gunfire, Paul helped another missionary over a sheltering wall before he himself would go over. He didn’t make it. The missionary Paul had helped later said, “By letting me go first, he died that I might live.”
These stories move us. But we do not live them. In America we try to do evangelism nicely. That’s fine. But we are much too timid! We don’t like to take risks of being shunned or pushed away. Wurmbrand took risks of being shot! We don’t like to go into dangerous neighborhoods either. Wurmbrand walked right into the enemy barracks! How fortunate for us that there are no dangerous neighborhoods in Lake City. But it is almost as if we think we can do evangelism in a way that will result in all new believers and nobody hating us.
Well, we pretty much have the nobody hating us part down, but where are all the new believers? Could it be that nobody is hearing the gospel? Could it be that nobody thinks it’s all that important because none of us is willing to pay the high price of a little suffering to get it announced? If we don’t take any risk at all to share the gospel, we are saying by our small faith that it is not worth the risk! But Jesus said it IS worth the risk to life and limb when he called us to take up a cross and lay down our lives for the sake of the gospel.
We are so fortunate to live in America, where Christians are not hated. The problem is, we are simply ignored! And sometimes I wonder if even the people who regularly attend church are often disappointed that they are not being used by God to save new souls. I know that I am. Or maybe it’s God who is disappointed with us because we are not trying hard enough. But this does not make him love us any less. He encourages us to try again and renew our efforts to share the gospel.
We live in a land where many people claim to believe in God, but do not agree with how the church is doing things. They just don’t like organized religion. They say they are spiritual but not religious. And their spirituality is based on being nice to people who need some encouragement. It really is very inspirational to see those videos on Facebook where the whole school lets the autistic kid play on the team and score points. Or where the sweet little girl shares her ice cream with the lonely old man.
Those are important moments that give good examples of great ways to love one another, stand up to bullies and make the world a better place in which to live. And I really want to see more of that! But, those inspiring acts of love still fall short of leading people to salvation through faith in Jesus. Without the addition of the Word of God, those acts of love preach a distortion of the gospel that calls us to love one another as if that’s all that matters, as if this life is all there is. Those cute and inspirational videos represent a toxic form of works righteousness that believes even God will be impressed by how good we can be.
What we need is truth. And the truth is that all our righteousness is as filthy rags. And people aren’t going to like it if you tell them that. But that truth is what Jesus is most concerned about. He said, “I will send you the Advocate—the Spirit of truth. He will come to you from the Father and will testify all about me. And you must also testify about me.”
The only worthwhile ministry is the one Jesus calls us to. And he says we must testify about Him. Godly, loving ministry is supposed to open doors to a presentation of the gospel, not just make us look like nice people to hang out with. Church growth must be based on us discerning and enacting the best strategy we can for reaching people with the gospel, winning souls unto salvation for the glory of the Lord. If we don’t get a chance to talk about Jesus, we have abandoned the faith, no matter how many nice things we do for people, even if they make videos about us!
Jesus paid a high price to give us the gift of life. They ripped his body open with the cat-o-nine tails. His flesh was torn. So, we tear the bread that symbolizes his body. His blood was poured out by the hands of cruel mockers and torturers. So, we pour this blood of the vine with our own hands, because it symbolizes his blood. Symbolically we go even further than those who crucified him, for we eat his flesh and drink his blood, just as Jesus said we must where that is recorded in John chapter 6.
But we are not sacrificing him again. We are only acknowledging or own sin, our guilt that makes us complicit in his murder. And by this we remember how the hateful world killed him. But now we, by faith, know why it happened, and so we love him because he first loved us and gave himself for us. All is forgiven. And we live under the ongoing blessing of his love, and mercy, and grace, and forgiveness.
Jesus loves you and wants you to feel his love for you in receiving his body and blood and remembering the high price he paid to have you for his very own. Jesus knows, that if you feel his forgiveness and remember that he laid down his life for you, that the love he has for you is the only thing that has the power to motivate you to lay down your life for him and for the sake of those lost ones that you may reach with the gospel. Amen.
The “they” that Jesus is talking about in this case is all the Jews, and especially the leaders, who don’t believe that Jesus is the Savior, and what they will do to anyone who continues to believe that Jesus is the Savior. Jesus is the persecuted Savior. So, his followers can expect to be persecuted too, not by everybody, but especially by people who are in power and who hate those they cannot subdue, or conquer, or force to obey.
For those of you who have been following along in the Chronological readings, you know that last week we read of the suffering and death of Jesus, the passion of our Lord and Savior. He was persecuted and killed by his enemies, enemies he loved, enemies he forgave from the cross. In our text today, Jesus was explaining that because the world hates him, the world will also hate anyone who tries to live like him. Nevertheless, Jesus calls us all to live like him.
The Bible history we have read this last week fits very well with the fact that today is also the International Day of Prayer for the Persecuted Church. In keeping with that, I just want to tell you three stories that come from overseas. These stories are true stories from some of our brothers who have been persecuted for their faith. The world in which they lived certainly hated them, as Jesus had warned.
The first is about Richard Wurmbrand. He was born in 1909 in Romania. He was a Jew, but he and his Jewish wife, Sabina, came to Christian faith in 1938 through their acquaintance with a Christian carpenter. Soon, Richard was ordained as an Anglican, and later Lutheran, minister.
The Wurmbrands became bold evangelists, even sharing Christ with the German forces who occupied Romania during World War II. They also preached in bomb shelters and they rescued Jewish children out of the ghettos. Richard and Sabina were repeatedly arrested and beaten and, at least once, nearly executed. Sabina lost her Jewish family in Nazi concentration camps.
Then in 1945, the war was over, but Romanian Communists seized power and a million Russian troops poured into the country. Now Pastor Wurmbrand helped to hide the fleeing German troops as he continued to minister to his oppressed countrymen and began to engage in bold evangelism to the Russian soldiers. In “Tortured for Christ,” the movie about Pastor Wurmbrand’s life and ministry, Kathy and I saw how he did this evangelism.
First, you need to know that the Russian soldiers stole people’s watches. But then they let it be known that you could buy “new” watches at the Russian soldiers’ barracks. Many citizens felt they needed a watch. They would often find in the barracks the very watch that had been stolen from them. But they couldn’t just claim it. They were forced to buy it back from the soldiers.
So Wurmbrand would go to the soldier’s barracks on the pretext of looking for a watch. That’s how the door was opened. But once inside he would not be able to find a watch. However, he would keep a conversation going. In the movie he asked, “Is there any one here named Paul or Peter?” Common names. If a soldier answered to his name, then Wurmbrand would mention that “This name is also in the Christian Bible, would you like to hear about it?”
These tough looking soldiers, with guns and a high level of suspicion and disdain for the citizens made for a very tense atmosphere, in the barracks where Wurmbrand was helpless against them. Wurmbrand could be shot for this! But more often, the soldiers, who could appreciate what nerve it took for him to risk his life this way, would close the door to the barracks and invite Wurmbrand to tell them more! Later, he personally baptized at least one of those soldiers.
That same year, 1945, Richard attended a meeting called the Congress of Cults. It was organized by the Romanian Communist government to get all the religious leaders together to cooperate with the new government. Many religious leaders came forward to praise Communism and to swear loyalty to the new regime. They had already been threatened that they would their jobs if they didn’t and get paid more if they did. Richard Wurmbrand walked up to the podium as one of those respected religious leaders but declared to the delegates, whose speeches were broadcast to the whole nation, that their duty was to glorify God and Christ alone, not any government.
Between 1945 and 1947, Richard distributed 1 million Gospels to Russian troops, often disguising the books as Communist propaganda. Richard also helped arrange the smuggling of Gospels into Russia. And the soldier that Richard had baptized volunteered to serve in this dangerous way. As a result, many were saved. But there was a price to pay. That missionary soldier was never heard from again. Then, on Feb. 29, 1948, the secret police kidnapped Richard as he traveled to church and took him to their headquarters. He was locked in a solitary cell and labeled “Prisoner Number 1.” There he suffered torture for 14 years.
In December 1965, he was finally released. Two Christian organizations paid a $10,000 ransom to allow the Wurmbrand family to leave Romania. He was reluctant to leave his homeland, but was convinced by other underground church leaders to go and become a “voice” to the world for the underground church. Richard, Sabina and their son, Mihai, left Romania for Norway and then traveled on to England. They founded the Voice of the Martyrs Ministry to tell the world what was happening to Christians and establish connections to support and help those who were suffering for Jesus. And that’s why you and I know what is going on in the world today.
My second story comes from Richard Wurmbrand’s own writings about somebody else. He wrote: Together with many Christians I suffered 14 years in Romanian communist prisons. This heavy cross gave us the possibility of knowing a love which we had not known before. I was in the communist prison of Tirgul-Ocna, Romania. On my right was the Abbot of a Monastery, named Iscu. He had been so beaten and tortured that now he was dying in agony. On my left was a communist torturer, the one who was the cause of the death of the Abbot.
It is not true that the Communists are anti-Christian or anti-Semites. They are simply “anti.” It is a “religion of hatred.” They are anti everybody, even their own comrades. Now the Priest was on my right, and the murderer of the Priest was on the other side. He had also been charged with some crime, and he was so horribly tortured by his comrades that he was dying too.
The Abbot was quiet, so happy, confident that he was going to heaven. The murderer woke me up during the night and said, "Pray for me, what shall I do?" And as I was trying to answer him, I saw the priest, in agony, leaning on two other prisoners, going slowly, with great difficulty, to the one who had tortured him. He caressed him on his head and said, "You have been young. You have not known what you have done. I forgive you with all my heart, and Jesus is surely better than I. If I can forgive, Jesus can forgive even more than I. Only believe, only repent." The murderer received Our Lord.
The Priest received his Confession and gave him Absolution, then, in our limited prisoner’s way, the priest gave Holy Communion to his murderer. They kissed each other and they died on the same day, going hand in hand to heaven.
My third story is from more recent days. It was a story that was featured in Life Magazine in 1965, so you may have heard this one before. Dr. Paul Carlson, ordained in the Evangelical Covenant Church, was a medical missionary to Africa, the Congo. He was leading a communion service in 1964, during a time of unrest in the region. Missionary work had become dangerous there. Leading up the service of Communion he said, “We do not know what will happen in 1964—and in 1965—until we meet together again. We do not know if we will have to suffer and die during this year because we are Christians. But it does not matter. Our job is to follow Jesus.…My friends, if today you are not willing to suffer for Jesus, do not partake of the elements….To follow Jesus means to be willing to suffer for him.”
Later that year, Paul Carlson was taken prisoner and ultimately accused of being a mercenary fighting against his captors for money. In November, he was almost rescued, along with other prisoners, but as they ran away from gunfire, Paul helped another missionary over a sheltering wall before he himself would go over. He didn’t make it. The missionary Paul had helped later said, “By letting me go first, he died that I might live.”
These stories move us. But we do not live them. In America we try to do evangelism nicely. That’s fine. But we are much too timid! We don’t like to take risks of being shunned or pushed away. Wurmbrand took risks of being shot! We don’t like to go into dangerous neighborhoods either. Wurmbrand walked right into the enemy barracks! How fortunate for us that there are no dangerous neighborhoods in Lake City. But it is almost as if we think we can do evangelism in a way that will result in all new believers and nobody hating us.
Well, we pretty much have the nobody hating us part down, but where are all the new believers? Could it be that nobody is hearing the gospel? Could it be that nobody thinks it’s all that important because none of us is willing to pay the high price of a little suffering to get it announced? If we don’t take any risk at all to share the gospel, we are saying by our small faith that it is not worth the risk! But Jesus said it IS worth the risk to life and limb when he called us to take up a cross and lay down our lives for the sake of the gospel.
We are so fortunate to live in America, where Christians are not hated. The problem is, we are simply ignored! And sometimes I wonder if even the people who regularly attend church are often disappointed that they are not being used by God to save new souls. I know that I am. Or maybe it’s God who is disappointed with us because we are not trying hard enough. But this does not make him love us any less. He encourages us to try again and renew our efforts to share the gospel.
We live in a land where many people claim to believe in God, but do not agree with how the church is doing things. They just don’t like organized religion. They say they are spiritual but not religious. And their spirituality is based on being nice to people who need some encouragement. It really is very inspirational to see those videos on Facebook where the whole school lets the autistic kid play on the team and score points. Or where the sweet little girl shares her ice cream with the lonely old man.
Those are important moments that give good examples of great ways to love one another, stand up to bullies and make the world a better place in which to live. And I really want to see more of that! But, those inspiring acts of love still fall short of leading people to salvation through faith in Jesus. Without the addition of the Word of God, those acts of love preach a distortion of the gospel that calls us to love one another as if that’s all that matters, as if this life is all there is. Those cute and inspirational videos represent a toxic form of works righteousness that believes even God will be impressed by how good we can be.
What we need is truth. And the truth is that all our righteousness is as filthy rags. And people aren’t going to like it if you tell them that. But that truth is what Jesus is most concerned about. He said, “I will send you the Advocate—the Spirit of truth. He will come to you from the Father and will testify all about me. And you must also testify about me.”
The only worthwhile ministry is the one Jesus calls us to. And he says we must testify about Him. Godly, loving ministry is supposed to open doors to a presentation of the gospel, not just make us look like nice people to hang out with. Church growth must be based on us discerning and enacting the best strategy we can for reaching people with the gospel, winning souls unto salvation for the glory of the Lord. If we don’t get a chance to talk about Jesus, we have abandoned the faith, no matter how many nice things we do for people, even if they make videos about us!
Jesus paid a high price to give us the gift of life. They ripped his body open with the cat-o-nine tails. His flesh was torn. So, we tear the bread that symbolizes his body. His blood was poured out by the hands of cruel mockers and torturers. So, we pour this blood of the vine with our own hands, because it symbolizes his blood. Symbolically we go even further than those who crucified him, for we eat his flesh and drink his blood, just as Jesus said we must where that is recorded in John chapter 6.
But we are not sacrificing him again. We are only acknowledging or own sin, our guilt that makes us complicit in his murder. And by this we remember how the hateful world killed him. But now we, by faith, know why it happened, and so we love him because he first loved us and gave himself for us. All is forgiven. And we live under the ongoing blessing of his love, and mercy, and grace, and forgiveness.
Jesus loves you and wants you to feel his love for you in receiving his body and blood and remembering the high price he paid to have you for his very own. Jesus knows, that if you feel his forgiveness and remember that he laid down his life for you, that the love he has for you is the only thing that has the power to motivate you to lay down your life for him and for the sake of those lost ones that you may reach with the gospel. Amen.
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