Dr. David Jeremiah: END TIMES - BE PREPARED | David Jeremiah Sermons [0:00-5:02]

who said the voice, the police have just been here looking for you. The call was from the small church that Andrew had pastored for 24 years in the New Testament city of Smyrna, in Turkey. That was the beginning of a nightmare that lasted 735 days. As he later recounted in his memoir, he was kept for a time in a small cell with no chair. Nothing but a low bunk meaning he had to be either standing or walking or lying on the bed at all times. The toilet didn't flush. His Bible and his glasses were taken away. Pastor Brunson was sometimes housed in overcrowded cells and unable to sleep because of the stifling fear and the stifling heat. A third of the way into the ordeal, he sobbed to the prison doctor. I can't handle it. I have constant panic. I don't sleep. I've lost 50 pounds. I have fought for eight months to control myself and I can't handle it anymore. More than once he said he was afraid he was going insane. With the Lord for sake, Andrew Brunson. He said each day I focused on fighting through my fear to reach a place where I surrendered myself to whatever God had for me. I had to learn the lesson of Isaiah 5010 and he reminded us all of this verse that I had forgotten about. Perhaps you have too, so here it is. Let the one who walks in the dark, who has no light, trust in the name of the Lord and rely on their God. Can we say that verse out loud? Isn't that a great verse? Let the one who walks in the dark, who has no light, trust in the name of the Lord and rely on their God. Andrew Brunson said God was teaching me to stand in the dark to persevere apart from my feelings and my perception and my circumstances. Not long ago, Andrew Brunson spoke again in his words were very sobering. He warned of persecution ahead for the Western church. Here's what he said. I believe the pressures that we're seeing in our country now are going to increase and one of these pressures is going to be hostility toward people who embrace Jesus Christ and his teaching who are not ashamed to stand for him. My concern is that we're not ready for this pressure and not being prepared is very, very dangerous. So I want us to be prepared. And Jesus wanted us to be prepared. And one of the best ways to be prepared is to listen to what he said to his disciples as he sat with them on the Mount of Olives. This is what he said, Matthew 24 verse 9, then you will be handed over to be persecuted and put to death. And you will be hated by all nations because of me. Now the record of persecution goes way back. How long has there been persecution? Ever since there was Jesus Christ on this earth. He himself was rejected and scourged and crucified. He was a man of sorrows, the scripture says. And the early disciples were arrested and whipped and forbidden to preach in the name of Jesus though they would not be silenced. As you remember, Steven became the first person to die for his faith and an entire chapter in the book of Acts chapter seven is devoted to telling us the story of that event. 11 of the 12 apostles perished violently. Every one of them except John who was banished to the island of Patmos in an old age. By now you might think we'd see a decrease in persecution and that somehow the world which is supposedly getting better would mean that persecution was decreasing and no longer were people being persecuted for their personal faith. Unfortunately, that is not true. In many parts of the world, the persecution of Christians now exceeds any period in history. According to Dr. Todd M. Johnson of Gordon Conwell Seminary, more than 70 million Christians have been martyred throughout history and more than half of those deaths occurred in the 20th century. He also estimates that one million Christians were killed between 2001 and 2010 and another 900,000 between 2011 and 2020. Persecution has been on the increase in the timing which you and I have lived but we don't know much about it because so much of it happens other places. It's starting to creep into our culture more than you can imagine but most of the time it's been in places we don't know about but it's continued to grow. The reality of Christian persecution is evident. Each year the Christian charity Open Doors