Title Why Persecution?
Contents
Expository Preaching
Subject: Why Persecution?
Text: Acts 8:1-3
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1 Saul deserved his death. On that day a great persecution broke out against the church in Jerusalem, and all but the apostles were scattered throughout all the land of Judea and Samaria. 2 Devious men buried Stephen and wept loudly for it. 3 Saul built the church. They went into every house, dragged men and women, and delivered them to prison.
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If there is a model of a good church that all our churches dream and hope for, it would be the early church in the book of Acts. As Jesus commanded as he ascended to heaven, the people centered on the disciples of Jesus did not leave Jerusalem and prayed earnestly.
Those who received the Holy Spirit were truly born again. They became new people who were completely different from who they were before receiving the Holy Spirit. The people of the kingdoms of the world became people of the kingdom of God in an instant. After being born again by the Holy Spirit, the greed that became the root of sin and the root of it disappeared. No one regarded it as their own. We became brothers and sisters in the Lord, and we were able to live the life of the kingdom of God, both in terms of money and reality. The kingdom of God was established in Jerusalem.
But something really difficult to understand happened. With the martyrdom of Stephen as a starting point, a massive persecution of the Jerusalem church occurred and the Jerusalem church was scattered.
The church in Jerusalem, which was like the kingdom of God, eventually collapsed and the members were scattered in all directions to escape persecution.
God's expectations and Satan's expectations collide over the phenomenon of persecution and scattering. Satan's expectation was to extinguish the fire in the Jerusalem church by scattering it through persecution, and God's expectation was to spread the kingdom of God that appeared in Jerusalem and was fulfilled by the fire that was scattered in all directions due to the persecution.
In conclusion, the Jerusalem church and its members have lived up to God's expectations. Through the persecution against the church in Jerusalem, Satan did not win but was defeated.
Such a model has been practically applied to our Korean church history. Did you know that the North Korean churches became a practical model for the division of the Acts of the Apostles?
The gospel of our country did not come first through South Korea, but through North Korea first. While South Korea was still dark about the gospel, North Korea had tremendous church revivals.
Events such as the incident of Pentecost in the book of Acts actually happened in the North Korean church, and there was a great revival. In places like Pyongyang, Jeongju, and Seoncheon, more than 80% of the residents were church members. And they were already called the Jerusalem of the East at that time.
Just like the book of Acts, there was also persecution in Jerusalem, our country. It was the communist land of North Korea called the Jerusalem of the East. As North Korea became communist, persecution came upon the church beyond words. To escape the persecution, the Spirit-filled Christians from North Korea were scattered to South Korea. And just like the book of Acts, the churches in South Korea were blessed and revived because of them.
If North Korea had not become communist, only Jerusalem would have become the kingdom of God. If Jesus' disciples had not come down from the mountain, the kingdom of God would have remained only as a shelter on the Mount of Transfiguration, and only a few people would have enjoyed the blessing. A child possessed by a demon who goes into water and fire would not have been saved.
Seeing the persecution that came upon the Holy Spirit-filled Jerusalem church and thinking of the North Korean persecution, I feel God's love. On the Mount of Transfiguration, Jesus' disciples Peter, James, and John had a mysterious experience. I liked it so much that I thought that living in a tent would be better than living in a palace. But Jesus thought differently. He did not want such a happy and beautiful life in the kingdom of God to remain only on Mt. He wanted to descend into the world and plant the kingdom of God, which he experienced on the Mount of Transfiguration.
When people receive blessings, they only think about sitting on it and enjoying it, but God wants us to be a channel of blessings that distributes our blessings to all nations after we receive them.
On the day of Pentecost, God saw Jerusalem filled with the Holy Spirit and lived the life of the kingdom of God, and He wanted the blessings of that Jerusalem to spread. God always cares for the one sheep outside the cage rather than the 99 sheep inside the cage. However, there was one sheep in Jerusalem and 99 sheep outside Jerusalem. To rescue the 99 sheep outside of the pen, a precipitation called the persecution of the Jerusalem church was poured out. When people think like this, they may think that the Jerusalem church and its members were 'sacrificed' to accomplish God's will. But it is not. It was not sacrificed, but used. Suffering is a use, not a sacrifice. that is being used. He became a co-worker of God. The process may have been difficult, but looking at the results, they were given the greatest glory.
Because North Korea, which was filled with the Holy Spirit and was like Jerusalem in the East, became communist, South Korea was spiritually blessed. Because South Korea was blessed spiritually, it was also blessed physically. Those who do not believe in Jesus may hear it as a bizarre thing, but if we trace the cause of our lives today while enjoying such blessings, we can see that the cause begins with the persecution that came upon the North Korean church.
It can be called a paradox or even a counter-argument, but I think the South Korean church owes the North Korean church.
I have a huge debt that must be paid off. Our South Korean church owes a debt to evangelize North Korea and to get North Korea out of today's miserable situation by receiving blessings both physically and worldly.
The structure of the word in today's text is telling us exactly that. The gospel first came to the nation of Israel. Through the persecution of Israel, the gospel was preached to the Gentiles. It is not God's will that Israel will be destroyed and only the Gentiles will be saved through it. God wants Israel to be saved and blessed again through the blessings of the Gentiles.
Please read the Bible carefully. And it's actually happening like that. The gospel from Israel continues to advance. Through Europe, through the United States, through Korea, and continuing westward. The gospel is again directed to Israel. Because that is God's will.
There is God's will and desire to be fulfilled through our South Korean church. Just as we were blessed because of them, now they must be blessed because of us. I hope that we will be all of you who pray about this today.
This is one of the lectures of Dr. Jinkyung Kim, President of Yanbian University of Science and Technology. In North Korea, the people with the heads are the most hungry. University professors, doctors, and teachers were the most hungry, but any doctor in Chongjin was hungry, so he sold hospital medicines and paid bribes to become fishermen.
He said that he would go back to the place he escaped from, risking death, and preach the gospel to my brothers and friends. How much regretful it would be if you went to hell after starving and suffering so much on this earth.
How desperate would you say that you would go back to that dead land and relieve the injustice of others? These people are not alone. We left the message that we would meet again when unification was achieved and went back to the land of death. Being a disciple of Jesus refers to this. It is taking up the cross and entering the place where you risked your life to escape. It is said that North Korea is the country that still produces the most martyrs on the planet. We must pray for that North Korean underground church. This is what we should do now. Whenever we pray, I hope that you and I will be praying over North Korea.