Acts 8:4 Those who had been scattered preached the word wherever they went.

This is the true, Godly response to persecution: you don’t just sit and take it, but you don’t shut up, either. They got out of town so they wouldn’t be arrested, but they didn’t stop the very activity for which they were being persecuted. Such a contrast to the majority of Christians today, who don’t proclaim God’s Word even though they aren’t being persecuted! The pattern given here has been followed countless times over the past 2,000 years, but there was one exception. When persecution started in Japan about 400 years ago, some believers were martyred and some were scattered, becoming what has been called the “Hidden Christians,” but what they didn’t do was keep evangelizing. Why that was is a mystery. Even today, I know of pastors who don’t require their families to attend church, because they “don’t want to press faith on them.” That is incredible to me. I feel the much more natural, actually, response is what Peter and John said to the Sanhedrin when they were arrested: “For we cannot help speaking about what we have seen and heard.” (Acts 4:20) I find myself wondering about the experience of those who claim Christ as their Savior and Lord, yet won’t talk about Him with others. The Church would never have grown the way it did if the believers had responded to persecution by shutting up. Social persecution has indeed started in the US, but believers must not let it shut them up. We aren’t to offend needlessly, and we are always to speak the truth in love, but the point is, we must keep speaking the truth, or it will disappear from society.

Having written that, I am reminded that the confirmation that I had been baptized in the Holy Spirit was that I was talking to a total stranger about Jesus for the first time in my life, even though I had been a Christian since childhood. I’m not a “natural” evangelist, but if I am yielded to Holy Spirit, allowing Him full control, I will certainly be making use of the opportunities God gives me to share the Gospel. My “comfort zone” is reading and playing with machines, but I must not stay in my comfort zone to the exclusion of proclaiming Christ. As Paul told Timothy, I am to “Preach the Word; be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke and encourage–with great patience and careful instruction.” (2 Timothy 4:2) In all of that I am not to fail to listen to people, because if I won’t listen to them, they won’t listen to me. However, I am never to hold back from sharing Christ because of convenience or fear of rejection.

Father, thank You for this strong reminder. I ask You to enable me to communicate this message not just to this congregation but widely, so that Japanese believers may wake up to be the sort of disciples You desire, for the salvation of multitudes and for Your glory. Thank You. Hallelujah!