Is he a good and gracious King? That's a very poor response. Is he a good and gracious King? That's about time. Some of you are asleep already. Thank you for those beautiful songs of praise and honor to our Lord Jesus Christ. And it's just preparation for revelation four and five when we're with the heavenly choir. It's quite a choir, by the way. Plenty of practice, and we will sing with them, but not with those old voices you have now. No, no, some of you I don't wanna hear. But you will sing with your new glorified body. Now, if you would take your Bibles and open to Acts chapter 20, Dave Anderson asked me if I would take four weeks on going through Acts chapter 20. He felt it's that important. And then we're done, we're gonna go back to Philippians, okay? There's a free book, you can get it downstairs. So let me tell you what this means. It means you don't have to do any work now. If I see you taking notes, I'm gonna come out there and break your pencil. If it's a good pen, I'm keeping it. You don't need to take notes. It's all right here. And if you listen, if you listen, you'll get so much more than when you're trying to take notes. That's the way it is. All right, let's bring up on the power point here, Paul's final charge to the Ephesian elders, an extraordinary meeting. Now from Miletus, he sent to Ephesus and called the elders of the church to come to him. God has given us a very special gift in this encounter between Paul and the Ephesian elders. There's actually nothing else comparable to it in the New Testament. This is a final face-to-face, and I might say highly emotional and touching scene, where Paul says farewell to men he had worked with for almost three years. And although it was written 2,000 years ago by Luke, it is as relevant today as when it was written. And you will see that very soon. These are Paul's final marching orders to the leaders of the significant church in Ephesus. Now, Paul was a missionary in Ephesus for three years, the longest time he spent in any of these churches, from AD 52 to 55. Don't write that down. It's in the book. AD 52 to 55, he labored there in the city of Ephesus. And Luke tells us this. All the residents of Asia heard the word of the Lord, both Jews and Greeks. This may have been one of his most fruitful times of ministry, but it was also marked by severe suffering because he had many, many adversaries. Now, let me just tell you a little bit more about the city of Ephesus. We're not going to go into this very much. Ephesus soon became one of the most prominent. epicenters of early Christianity. You had Jerusalem, you had Syria, Antioch of Syria, you have Rome, and you have Ephesus. Ephesus also, I could not find one of those laser pointers, so I took the rod of Moses Ephesus, do not be afraid. I will not hit you. I might crown you. I'm not that tall. Who's taller than me here? Ephesus is right straight there. So for three years he's at Ephesus, a very successful time. It also became a missionary center. Paul even paid for these people to go out, a missionary center. So three years he's there and then he leaves Ephesus and he travels east. And he goes to Philippi, Thessalonica, Berea, Corinth. This time takes about a year and a half after he leaves Ephesus. He leaves the church in the hands of the elders, and then he heads back to Jerusalem right down here. I can reach that. During this year and a half period, with other Gentile churches, they raise an offering that they're gonna bring to the poor in Jerusalem. And so Paul, now get the picture, is heading to Jerusalem with another group of men, and their ship stops right here, right here at Miletus. And from Miletus, he calls to Ephesus, and he wants the elders to meet him for a final meeting. From Jerusalem, he is gonna head to Rome and Spain. This completes his work in the East and in the West, if you include Philippi and that as part of Europe. This is a very special meeting because he will give them their final marching orders. It also shows us Paul's high view of the elders and of their indispensable work to protect the church. And I would say this to you, every generation of new leaders needs to have a fresh understanding of this powerful passage of Scripture. Now what has amazed me is this. This passage is so important that Dave Anderson wanted to preach four Sundays. You would think there's five or ten books on this passage. There isn't. And so for a number of years I wanted to tackle this passage and produce some kind of expositional writing on this. Now, a role model to imitate. When the Ephesian elders finally come to meet with Paul, Paul begins his message by reminding them of what they already know about him and about his life. Notice it says, you yourselves know, there's nothing new here. Now, three times in this passage, he says, you yourself know, you remember my life. So this sort of gives us the tone to the whole sermon or address, and he's saying, Look at my example. Now, like Jesus, Paul lived among the people. He did not ride into Ephesus on a white horse and lecture in theology and evangelism and church planning. He was not a schooled academic. He did not hold two-hour classes for scholars to listen to him lecture. No, he was a missionary on the front lines of battle. He himself was a mentor to many, many others who he sent out in missionary work. He was a man of prayer, man involved on frontline spiritual warfare. He was an authentic representation of Jesus Christ. Now this will become a theme throughout the whole thing. Paul calls them to remember his example. How did he live among them? But he's leaving. They will not see him again. They're to follow that example, imitation of Christ. Paul urges them, 1 Corinthians 11, 1, be imitators of Christ as I am of Christ. Now, this is not a statement of pride. He is imitating Christ and his great goal for all the other people is to be imitators of Christ. So he says, imitate me because I'm imitating Christ. He can say that without pride because that's how life should be lived as we'll see. Now this idea of imitate Paul. imitate Jesus. I'm going to show you how much this is stated in the New Testament. So earlier in this exact same book, 1 Corinthians, Paul says this, I urge you then be imitators of me and that is why I sent you Timothy. And then to his dear friends, new believers in Thessalonica, he says this, you know what kind of men we proved to be among you for your sake and you became imitators of us and of the Lord. Isn't that an interesting statement, you became imitators of us and then the Lord's second. Why? Because they see the Lord through Paul's life. People see our life imitating Christ and that's how they imitate the Lord. So that's actually the right order that should be. He goes on to say, for you yourselves know how you ought to imitate us. It was not because we do not have the right to financial support, but to give you in ourselves an example to imitate. Now remember, these are brand new, brand new Christians. They do not have a nice, sparkly, new, lever-covered Schofield Bible. Their example of Christ is watching others. to his dear friends at Philippi. Brothers, join in imitating me and keep your eyes on those who walk according to the example you have on us." I wonder if you're doing that. You're looking around saying, who would I like to role model here? Who would I like to follow here? That's what he says. Look around. Who are those that are imitating me? You imitate them. And then the writer of, oh, he goes on to say this, what you have learned and received and heard and seen in me, practice these things, role modeling. Writer of Hebrews says the same thing. Remember your leaders, those who spoke to you the word of God, consider the outcome of their way of life and imitate their faith. Notice. imitate their faith, not their clothes or their hairdo. Some people get that all confused. You're imitating their Christian life and how they live for the Lord. John Wooden was a legendary basketball coach, and he was well-known for saying this statement. It's a powerful statement. The most powerful leadership tool you have is your personal example. That's so good, I'm going to read it again. The most powerful Leadership tool you have is your personal example. That's exactly what Paul is saying. You men have worked with me for three years. Remember my example, follow my example. Follow me because I'm following Christ. Remember followership. Always precedes leadership. Let me repeat that. You might've missed that. Followership always precedes leadership. That's why I think we're having so many problems with our leaders. They're so concerned with leadership, leadership, leadership, principles, but they forget first there'd be a follower. Disciple, that comes first. Example is so powerful. So right now, I'm going to do this in front of you. There's nothing spooky about this. Right now, I'm going to, in my mind, go back 61 years ago to the great state of New Jersey. And after I'd become a born-again Christian, I had to go to the liberal church in which I had been raised in. And finally, my parents let me go to a Bible-believing church. And I can remember right now that first day of going into a real Bible-believing church where people carried Bibles. And I can remember how much they loved the Bible. And what really struck me is their phenomenal, every member, phenomenal knowledge of the Bible. They didn't have all the distractions we have today. I can remember how they sang, and I remember their prayer. I even remember how they dressed. I remember every Sunday morning, them coming to my house, picking me up, taking me to the church, taking me home. Sunday evening, coming to my house, pick me up, take me home. Every Sunday, twice a day. I can remember going to their homes for hospitality. I can remember some of the great meals. I'm not even gonna tell them because you will get all hungry and thirsty now and not listen to me. I can remember how they loved on me and I had dear friends for life from that church. Now, I don't mean to discourage preachers and teachers. I don't remember a single sermon, not one. If my life depended on it, I couldn't, I would die now. But I remember them. I remember how they dressed, how they sang, how they loved the Word. Why do I remember that? Because example is so powerful, has deep impressions on the mind. Can you imagine working with Paul for three years? Could you be the same after that? Oh my heavens. Now, not to discourage you all, even though I don't remember a single sermon 61 years ago, that information is in the mind, and it builds a frame of reference over the years. So it is there. Ask your children. I've been through this for years with children and grandchildren. Hey, what did you learn today in Sunday school? I don't know. Every one of them. Well, my children may be dumber than yours. What did you learn today? I don't know. Actually, they are learning things. They are learning. It's in there. But if they had to articulate, they don't want to, they're all lazy. At least my kids are. Peter says, be examples to the flock. Paul led by example. Now listen to this. Never underestimate the extraordinary power of your personal life example to influence and inspire other people. Positively for God, my friends, your personal influence, you are an influencer is more powerful than you realize. Most of you do not realize it. And that is a shame. I hope you will realize it today. You are an influencer. People are watching you. We're told by sociologists that we all have a minimum of 75 people that we're regularly in contact with family, relatives. neighbors, people at work, people in the church. Some of you may have hundreds of people you're involved with. You are being watched by all those people. You are an example to others. It's important that you understand your influence and use your influence, your example. People are watching. Your children are watching. Your spouse is watching. Your neighbors, they're watching you all the time very carefully. How you respond to things will make a deep impression on them. So let's say a dad and the family gets in a big argument with a neighbor and he starts yelling at him and screaming, threatening him. Mom is watching, the children are watching, other neighbors are watching, and their estimate of you, whoo, comes way down. But let's say you're calm and cool and you're a peacemaker and you say, no, we can, and I had this experience, a next door neighbor tried to kill me. I'm not joking, he came to the church here, he said he'd kill me, and he came to my house, said he would kill me. Luckily I wasn't home, and he didn't kill my wife, and that's really good, I need her. But anyway, he was gonna kill me. So I knew if I call the police and I get all involved, it's gonna make matters worse. And so I called him, I said, let's have lunch together, I wanna talk with you. I had done something to one of his plants, he said, but he told me to do it. But anyway, we met, he calmed down, and I said, John, anytime this bothers you, just tell me. He picks up the phone and called me. By calming the situation, I didn't get killed. Well, then people's estimate of you goes higher. See, you're watched, you're being watched all the time, and you're influencing, influencing your children, your friends, the people you're with, how you live, That's why you can say to people, you can follow me because I'm following Christ. And that's this point. This is a major point of the whole sermon. Three times he says, remember my example. Paul is an influencer and he impacted the lives of many, many people. Now, three things he wants to say about his influence. One, serving the Lord with all humility. And when they came to him, he said to them, you yourselves know how I lived among you the whole time from the first day I set foot in Asia, serving the Lord with all humility. Paul calls upon his beloved friends to remember his example. Well, what should they remember? What is it that he did that's so extraordinary? Now, this is very interesting. What he says, the first thing he says, how I serve the Lord with all humility. Note that Paul doesn't start the rehearsal of all his successes, his expansive travels. his brilliant intellect, his indomitable zeal, the heavenly visions he had, the extraordinary miracles he did, or his divine authority. No, the first thing he says is, remember how I serve the Lord with all humility. Isn't that interesting? I wonder what he must mean by that. Well now, serving the Lord is the Greek verb for serving as a slave. That's how he views himself. In a number of places, he says he's a slave, not just a servant, a slave of the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, from the time of his encounter with Christ on the Damascus Road, his life was lived from that very second under the lordship of the Lord Jesus Christ. Listen to what he writes. For what we proclaim is not ourselves, You see a lot of that on television, don't you? But Jesus Christ as Lord and ourselves as your slaves for Jesus' sake. Isn't that a beautiful verse? From the day he met him on the Damascus road, he could say, Jesus is Lord. Now, let me ask you this. Do you view your life that way? You serve the Lord as a slave, serve as a master. Do you view your life that way? That's the best way to view your life. We just sang a beautiful song. Wasn't this gorgeous, that last song? And I thought how it applies to this message here. Jesus is a good and gracious master. Do you say amen to that? All right. Oh, he's just coming awake here finally. He's a good and gracious master. And if you're going to be a slave to someone, which ultimately you are, your business, your money, Satan, sin, I'd advise against it. Be a slave. Serve as a slave the Lord Jesus Christ, a wonderful master, and someday he will say, well done, good and faithful servant. Now enter into your eternal rewards. Yes, that's how Paul viewed himself. That's why he was humble, by the way. Now, serving the Lord with all humility. Paul served the Lord with all humility. Humility is Christ-like humility, which is a distinctive Christian virtue. Humility permeated his actions, his words, his attitudes, his teaching, his interactions with his fellow workers, his leader-follower relationships. He says, all humility, all humility. It's just saturated. In a world full of ugly pride and self-seeking, Paul says, I served as a slave of the Lord Jesus Christ, and I did it with all humility. He felt deeply the undeserved privilege that had been given to him. He says in 1 Corinthians 15 9, for I am the least of the apostles. He means that's not fake humility, unworthy to be called an apostle. Humility has the idea of lowly mindedness. And so for the Christian, the Christian sees himself under an infinite personal being God. and we are just smaller than ants. We see ourself as sinners, rebels against a God who is absolutely holy. He lives in an unapproachable light. We see there's always people more talented than us, more gifted than us, more successful than us. And so it's a littleness, you see yourself, a right estimate of yourself is humility. Paul says, the writer of Proverbs says this, with the humble is wisdom. You wanna be smart, be humble. Proud people are not smart people. All by grace, there's no false humility here. Paul says, and it says this, by the grace of God, I am what I am. Nothing in myself, it's all of God's grace. Can you see that? Elsewhere, he says, to me, though I am the very least of all the saints, this grace was given. So he sees his whole life, his success, his ministry as a wonderful favor of God, and he takes no credit. He sees his littleness before the greatness of a great God. Let me just very quickly, very quickly, give you some of the virtues of what a humble leader would be like and what you should be like. A Christ-like humble attitude makes a leader more teachable, more approachable, and I love that word approachable, it's a big word, and more receptive to constructive criticism. It makes him better able to see his own limitations and failures. This is what humility does for you. better able to submit to and work with others, and better qualified to deal with sins and failures in other people. A humble leader is less defensive, less prone to fight, quicker to reconcile differences, is more at ease in personal relationships. A humble soul enjoys promoting the gifts and the popularity of others. It's not jealous or envious of others' accomplishments. Only with an attitude of all humility can you lead the Christ-like life. Do you see how important humility is in all our relationships? The problem in many of your relationships, you're so proud, self-defensive, justifying yourself all the time. Now, humility is the glue that holds a church together. A church is a highly relational community. It's a community of close-knit brothers and sisters in Christ. And yet we're still sinners and we have this tendency to fight and we can be very cruel and mean in our fighting. But that's not the humble spirit. Now, I normally don't tell people how to dress to go to church. You can't tell them anyway. One time I was at a conference, a whole group of young people, and I was saying 1 Peter 5, 5, and I was saying to them, I'm gonna tell you how to dress. They're going, oh, no, no, shaking head. Yes, I'm gonna tell you how to dress, and they're all shaking. No, no, you're not gonna tell us how to dress. Yes, I am. I'm gonna tell you how to dress for church. They're going, no, they're actually getting a little violent right now. May have pushed them too far. The apostle Peter says, all of you, clothe yourselves with humility. Do not come to church unless you put on the right clothes and have the clothes of humility, because you're just trouble. That's what you are. You'll get in a fight with people, and you think you're being slighted, of course. Others are passing over you. No, all of you, elders, congregation, that's who he's speaking to, clothe yourself with humility. That's the only clothes in which we can exist in this community. Now, by talking about his humility, he's also dealing with and warning of the universal temptation that church leaders face of pride of position, pride of title, pride of knowledge, pride of giftedness. It's pride that just destroys all our relationships. It's so damaging to people, to marriages, to things at work. At the third Lausanne conference, which was 10 years ago, we sent Danny Pasquale there, they only allow 5,000 people to come. They have world mission leaders from every single country in the world. Billy Graham and John Starr started the Lausanne conference. So at the third Lausanne conference, they tried to identify what we need to know to move forward, and they send this information out to every single church in the world to say, here's what we've discovered as mission leaders from every country in the world. Here is what I found very interesting. There was a general agreement that a lack of humility among pastors was a worldwide harm to believers spiritually and needed to be urgently addressed. That was their conclusion of world leaders in missions. Do you know God hates pride? He says he rejects those who have pride, exalts the humble. In the seven deadly sins, the first one is pride, haughty eyes. And he says pride is an abomination to God. Anyway, what should we be proud about? Make it your aim to serve the Lord as a slave with all humility of mind." This is Paul's first self-description that he wants us all to follow. Now, the second major thing he says, serve the Lord with tears. Now, in saying, I serve the Lord with all humility and saying, I served with tears and with persecution, what he is doing is preparing these men for his absence. They will face these same things and they will face tears. Now, Paul was like Jesus. Jesus wept and Paul wept. Jesus was compassionate. Paul was a compassionate man. Jesus gave his life for others. Paul gave his life. He wept with those who wept. Jesus, like Jesus, Paul, was a deeply empathetic man. That's a beautiful word. If you don't know it, look it up. It's understanding of others, although you're not going through their experience, you step into their shoes. It's a beautiful word. Teach your children empathy for others. Children do not have that naturally. Teach them to understand the pain, the suffering, the experience of other people. He's a very empathetic man. So he is preparing these elders now to be empathetic, and that will mean there will be tears. When you love people, and I love this word, and you're attentive to their needs. Did you hear that word? Attentive. I'm giving you some big words today. Don't write them down. It's in the book. Are you writing now? I'm going to take your pen. Do not write. I forgive you, though, because you helped me earlier. No notes. When you're attentive, attentive to other people's needs, you will weep over the many heartaches and the conflicts and the harshness that people face. You'll weep over broken marriages and divided homes and ugly conflicts among church members and ultimately untimely deaths and crippling sicknesses and dreadful addictions. There's a lot to weep over. Paul had tears of anguish because of the false teachers. for many of whom I have often told you and now tell you, even with tears, walk as enemies of the cross of Christ. To see his sheep torn to pieces by these false teachers brought him tears. He also says to the Ephesian elders, therefore be alert, remembering that for three years I did not cease night and day to admonish each one with tears. Missionaries, whole denominations in the early 20th century, just shred it, shred it, and there's nothing left even today in some of these denominations because of false teachers. It brought him great tears. Pastoral tears. I wrote you out of much affliction. Notice the emotion, affliction, and anguish of heart with many tears. These are not just flippant words. Not to cause you pain, but to let you know the abundance The abundant love that I have for you." This was the Corinthians. They caused him so many problems. It looked like there was a time and they were going to secede from the churches. Brought him many tears. Parting tears. There was much weeping on the part of all. This is at the end of the sermon. They embraced Paul and kissed him. Undoubtedly, Paul was a very affectionate man, a very loving man. And so when he's leaving for the last time, these men break down in tears. And they're hugging and they're kissing him. He must have just built a close devotion with these people. Be prepared for tears, my dear friends. In this world, as you counsel people and help people, you will face tears. I remember many years ago, we had a couple in the church. It was one of the most difficult marital situations I had ever seen. The man was very violent. In fact, I think I told you the story. One time we were confronting him. His wife was there. Doyle Roth was there. I was at the table. And I said, we're going to call the police. And he turned and grabbed me by the throat and just put me right against the wall. And I looked at his face, it was just like distorted. And the only thing I could think of is his wife has to look at this ugly face. That's the only thing I could think of. So when we were leaving, I said to Doyle, why didn't you help me? He said, there's no reason for both of us getting beat up. You might not want to go to him for a counseling. That's a true story. Well, anyway, over many months, we tried to help this couple. In fact, I took him into my home to try to break the violence streak and to deal with him. Every night, we knelt on our knees and prayed. He had this terrible anger problem. And the next minute, he loved the Lord. Then he had an anger problem, he loved the Lord. Well, anyway, after months of dealing with this man, a lot of time, a lot of time, I don't know if that was wise of me to give that much time to this man, every day on the phone, trying to calm things down. So anyway, it's Labor Day weekend, and I'm down at Camp Elam, and I get to Camp Elam, I unpack all my things, and I go and I sit on the bed, and I sit down, there's no notice this is coming, no notice this is coming, and I sit down on the bed, oh, I break out into tears. I am literally, I don't weep. I am literally weeping. It was no warning. It wasn't like I was thinking, boy, you're going to cry. So anyway, I get home from that weekend, and I called Doyle Roth, one of our church counselors, and I said, Doyle, the strangest thing happened to me. I got to Camp Elam. I sat down on the bed, and I just broke into tears. He said, that's amazing. The same thing happened to me. I got home, I sat in my easy chair and I broke in the tears. The emotion we were going through, it just, it exploded. My friends, only in heaven are these tears gonna be wiped away. And there's much to weep over. Now serving the Lord amidst persecution. Since the day Cain killed his godly brother Abel, this world and the God of this world have been at war with God and his prophets and his people and his Messiah. This is the oldest continuous war in the world. It's not Afghanistan. It's between the Lord, between the seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent. And that's why Jesus warned all of us. He said these words, if the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you. If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you. That's a promise. This is a world of persecution. What we have here in America for the last several hundred years has been an anomaly. Throughout church history, Christians have been persecuted. Read the book of Acts, the whole book of Acts. You see the gospel going forward, but constant persecution. They're imprisoned, they're beaten, they're stoned. Here's what you have to grasp. The world hates Christ. I'm not trying to downplay this. It hates Christ to the point of murder, bitterness. Listen to these great words by Jonathan Edwards. When once God became man and came down to dwell here among such vipers as fallen men, they hated and persecuted him. Nothing would do, but he must be put to death. All cry out, crucify him, crucify him, away with him. They'd rather have Barabbas, who greatly deserved death, should live than he should die. Nothing would restrain them from it. even all his preaching and all his miracles, but they would kill him. It was not the ordinary kind of execution that would satisfy them, but it must be the most cruel, the most ignominious they possibly could invent. And they aggravated it as much as they could by mocking him and spitting on him and scourging him. This shows what the nature and tendency of man's enmity with God is. Here it appears in its true colors. Now, let me repeat this. Jesus said, they will hate you. They will kill you. They will torture you because they hate God. Spurgeon said, men love God, but not God on a throne. They do not want a God who says, these are my rules. Now, Paul experienced the same kind of hatred as did Jesus Christ. And in this passage here, he talks about the relentless persecution. The plots of the Jews, what he's talking about is planned, organized persecution. Now, remember his main point is to prepare these elders. He's leaving them and he's preparing them for tears and he's preparing them. Persecution is coming. In a sense, Paul was a buffer. They attacked Paul right in this city of Ephesus. Remember the large crowd that came to try to kill him? Persecution is coming. Paul was preparing them for such organized plan persecution. Now, we live in a democratic, secularized society, and we probably will not be put in concentration camps or tortured or killed, but we will be discriminated against, verbally ridiculed, threatened with lawsuits. Can you imagine trying to work for a big company and you won't sign a paper? celebrates the LGBT community? I just heard the other day, it's hardly believable, but that one of the secretaries of state wants on every single flagpole at every embassy in the world the rainbow flag of the LGBT community next to the American flag. We'll be labeled intolerant, we'll be labeled bigots, people from the dark ages, social dinosaurs, Neanderthals. We'll be told we misrepresent the beautiful teaching of Jesus on love and tolerance and exclusivity. inclusivism and social justice and world peace, flowers and bubbles. We've misrepresented Jesus. Our worldview of God and scripture and truth and gender and abortion and marriage is totally unacceptable to the modern mind today. And I'm telling you, persecution is here and coming in full blast. It may not be a concentration camp, but it will be lawsuits. it will be done through hate speech. I just read, this is just the other day in the news, in Finland, a Finland lawmaker is facing trial now for hate speech for quoting the Bible to her own denomination, the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland, and she sent to them a the scriptural text from Romans chapter one, and now she's under investigation for hate speech. No one should ever quote those verses, verse 24 to 27 in Romans one. And I am not a prophet or a son of a prophet, but I think in just a few coming years, any preacher or pastor that reads those words will come under hate laws and will be prosecuted. As our Western society becomes more and more godless and secularized, expect an escalation in opposition. A new and more aggressive secularism is here. We've lived with secularism all our life, but they've left us alone largely. But this new hostile militant secularism is not going to leave us alone. We're the last bastion to hold back what they believe. It's almost a religious fervor. They're on a holy jihad, and they're intolerant to our beliefs. and they will silence us in any way they can and criminalize the teachings of Jesus. This is here and coming more and more. Now prepare yourself and others for persecution. In recent years, persecution and martyrdom of Christians has increased worldwide. Religious terrorist groups have killed, this is not an exaggeration, thousands of Christian believers in Africa and India. Don't be caught off guard. This is coming. And the ones that are going to be hurt more than anyone else is our children. They're not going to hurt my faith. What can they do? Shoot me? I go right to heaven. I live most of my life anyway. I heard the story. It's a beautiful story. In Cuba, when Castro took over, that he lined up on a wall a whole bunch of significant pastors in Cuba. publicly called them to recant of believing Christ. And just before they shot them, all of them in unity, whether they knew this or in unison, screamed out, Jesus is king! And they shot them all. Brave people, brave people. And by the way, persecution in Cuba is just as much today. It's traumatizing to have someone verbally attack you and ridicule you or physically assault you. And so what is going to happen is we are going to see many Christians turn away. Luke 8 tells us that. Under persecution, many turn away. They can't take you. the trauma of being cursed at and rejected by society and told you can't have a job here. Neighbors don't want it. They won't even look at you. They don't want you around. Your relatives think you're just a moron or worse. How do we deal with this? How are we going to deal with the growing secularism, radical secularism, which despises just about everything we believe? How are we going to deal with it? Well, I have found a way to deal with it. And that is, and I've done the work for you, so just relax. You would be amazed how much the New Testament says about persecution and how we should view it. You would be amazed. The more we know what the New Testament says about persecution, and it talks about the negative side, and it talks the beautiful positive side of what God is gonna do for those who've been persecuted. There's glory awaiting us. You will find that if you have a strong theology of God, you will make it through. If you have a strong eschatology, which is the study of last things, of what the future will bring, you will make it through. If you have a weak God, a weak eschatology, you will be in real trouble. If you go through your Bible and look at this subject, It'll remove all unrealistic ideas about the Christian life. We've been warned and warned and warned about this. The Christ-rejecting world does not like us. It will give you future hope. It'll give you direction and immense encouragement. So here's what I want you to do. Bring on the screen www.Acts20Book.com. Bring that up on the screen. If you will go to that website, Skip down just a little ways, there'll be a little sign, verses on persecution. I have listed with slight comment, all the verses on persecution. See, this is the easiest church to go to. You don't have to take notes. Everything's done for you. I mean, come on. We don't even go down and drink your coffee for you. I've listed every verse, but here's what's encouraging. When you look at these verses, how many verses are encouraging? Encouragements to what God is going to do for those who suffer persecution. Glory awaits you. Even now, there is his praise and his spirit that works in our life in a special way. The way to prepare yourself for persecution is know what the Bible says about persecution and know it well. If you know that, you'll be able to take the insults and the discrimination and the assault. Some of you here may, in situations where you will be in a lot of trouble. Now, the ministry of persecution is something that we all have to join in. Notice Hebrews 13, 3, remember those who are in prison as though in prison with them and those who are mistreated as since you also are in the body. In other words, we're just one body of Christ. For you had compassion on those in prison and you joyfully accepted the plundering of your property since you knew that you yourself had a better position and an abiding one. There's a lot of verses about that. Now, we have a responsibility to persecuted believers. That's what I'm saying to you. The Bible makes that clear. Probably in human history, there have been more deaths and persecutions of Christians in the last 20 years. So, I don't know if you know Open Doors Ministry, World Watch, 50 countries where the most dangerous to follow Jesus. This is an excellent little magazine. I think it's free for donation. It lists the 50 countries, each one where Christians are being persecuted. There are thousands, thousands of believers in prisons right now, worldwide, thousands. North Korea, Iran, Iraq. Thousands of Christians. This is a very informative magazine of how severe, even the last president of the United States and the one before that commented publicly on Christians being persecuted. Well, what do we do? Ho hum, I'm not there. No, no, what does it say? Remember those who are in prison as though in prison with them. That's what he said. In other words, we should have a concern for persecuted brothers and sisters. Use World Watch. Now, one thing you can do is pray for them, right? But don't just pray generally, God bless the people, you know, I'm in prison. Pick a country or two. So the countries I pray for regularly are Cuba, Russia, Iran, and North Korea. Those are my four countries that I specifically pray for persecuted believers. And in some of these countries like North Korea, I can't verify this, but they say there's over 40,000 Christians in North Korea. I know there's hundreds in Iran in prison. Focus and just follow the scriptures. Pray for them. And you can go to World Watch, you can go to Open Door Ministry, and they'll give you any information you need. I received a letter just recently of a 21-year-old girl, I won't mention the country it is, and it's a brand new convert, and she has been arrested for her faith and sent to a dungeon-like prison. She's only 21 years old, a new believer. Now, would you get saved if you were sent to a prison? Family didn't want her around anymore. What an encouragement to this 21-year-old girl and the missionary who sent me this to know thousands of people are praying for her. Can you imagine what an encouragement it is to her? That's what we're told to do, pray for them. Much can be said about persecution, but let me close with this. Romans 8, 18, for I consider that the sufferings of the present time Now, get this, they're not worth comparing. I like that. They're not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed in us. Now, there's a lot of verses like that about suffering. If you wind up like this young lady in a dungeon-like prison at 21 years of age with not a lot of hope to find a Christian husband or anything, it's good to know, yes, it's suffering, but it's not even comparable to what God's gonna prepare for you. Well, I'm praying the team can come up. Lord, we just thank you for these marvelous, marvelous words from the great apostle, and may we take them to heart, and may they not just be empty words on a piece of paper, but may we take our place in praying for suffering believers in many parts of the world. May we be concerned. There's so much we can do to help. Just pray that you would speak to us today. As we worship and remember the Lord Jesus Christ and his substitutionary death, may you be deeply, deeply pleased with our worship. Amen.