Our Brothers in Bonds

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Transcript:

Good evening. Turn with me, if you would, to Hebrews chapter 13. Hebrews chapter 13.

We’re going to look at a few verses here tonight. Really just a few. Focus in on one of them.

Hebrews chapter 13, starting in verse 1, says, Let brotherly love continue. Be not forgetful to entertain strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unawares. And that brings to mind the stories of Abraham and Lot in the book of Genesis.

And we read the end of the stories and we see that these men who have come to visit Abraham and Lot were angels. So we know the ending of the story, that they’re angels, but it says at the beginning that these men came to see them. And I wonder at what point they knew that they were entertaining angels and weren’t they glad that they had treated them with kindness and hospitality.

And so the writer of Hebrews is reminding us of how we’re to treat one another. Let brotherly love continue. Be kind to strangers.

Now that pretty much runs the whole spectrum. That we’re to be kind to those who are close to us, that brotherly love. Not only our biological family, but our brothers and sisters in Christ. Be kind to one another.

And also take care of strangers. Be not forgetful to entertain strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unawares. We’re called on as believers to do all we can in demonstrating the love of Christ, to take care of those we know as well as those we don’t know.

And then it says in verse 3, Remember them that are in bonds as bound with them, and them which suffer adversity as being yourselves also in the body. Folks, I remember reading this passage before and having always thought, and some translations will say to remember those who are in prison. And I’ve read this, remember those who are in bonds, remember those who are in prison, and took that to mean, okay, if we know people who are in prison, we’re supposed to visit them, support them, uplift them, do what we can.

I remember when I first started pastoring and I was in Bethany, there was a lady there in the church who wanted me to visit her nephew at the Oklahoma County Jail. I’ve never been in there before. Thank goodness I’ve never been in there before.

I never was, I couldn’t understand what was wrong with me because I went down there to try to get in to see him. It ended up I wasn’t able to get in to see him. But just walking in the door of that place gave me the willies.

And I thought, I don’t want to do this. It’s not that I don’t care about people in prison. It’s not that I don’t think we ought to reach out to them.

It’s not that I don’t think we ought to love them and do whatever we can to share the love of Christ. But God, I know you’ve gifted some people to do that. and maybe not others. And my thought always was anytime I’ve been around somebody who’s lived a hard life, I don’t necessarily have the most credibility with them because I say hard life, a rough life, I should say, has gone down rough roads and made wrong choices.

I haven’t necessarily gone down those same roads and I thought, well, Lord, what’s wrong with me? Because you tell us to remember those who are in bonds and it’s just not anything that I was ever comfortable doing. I mean, I’ve been to visit people since in jail or in prison, and it’s an important thing to do.

I’ve even been to visit people in jails in Mexico, but it just never was a passion. Please don’t hear me wrong in this and think, well, he doesn’t care about people who are behind bars. I do.

It just makes me really uncomfortable to walk in there. But I know there are some men in ministry who can just walk in and it’s like they own the place. They’re there to do the Lord’s work and thank God they are.

I always thought, what’s wrong with me? Because you said we’re supposed to do this. And as I’ve reread this and gone back to understand it, it’s not that we’re not supposed to take care of those who are in prison and reach out to those who are behind bars who’ve committed crimes that have put them there.

But what this is talking about, if you look at the history, if you look at what was going on in their day, who would the churches have been most familiar with who were now in bonds? Their own people. And why would they have been in prison for being Christians?

It was illegal in their day to be Christians. I am not, I will not and am not arguing against prison ministry. I think it’s a wonderful thing.

But we read this in our 21st century time in the United States, where we are in, at this point, one of the freest countries that ever has been. I know we see the news and we think our freedoms are being eroded. We are still better off than over 99% of the people who have ever lived as far as freedoms. We’re reasonably secure in our churches and our homes to practice our faith.

And we read this and we think, okay, it’s talking about prison ministry. And there’s not a thing wrong with that. But what this is talking about, I believe, is remembering those who are persecuted for their faith.

And I shared with you just briefly this morning that I heard an interview. I think it was an interview a few weeks ago on the radio that has really bothered me ever since I heard it. And especially this week, I’ve had, even though I’ve been busier this week than I normally am, I feel like I’ve had more time to stew over it and think about it, which brings me to this point.

I mentioned to you this morning the Coptic Christians in Egypt. And most people, I don’t blame you if you don’t know what a Coptic Christian is. I had to look it up when I first heard the term a few years ago.

Copt, C-O-P-T, used to be just a generic term for an Egyptian. And at one point, Egypt was, I believe, 60% to 70% Christian. Now, it’s been a lot of years ago.

That was before the Muslim conquests. But Egypt used to be 60% to 70% Christian. Now, when I say Christian, I’m using the term in the sense that they identify themselves as Christian.

Would they agree with our doctrinal statement? Probably not. As a matter of fact, there are lots of people in the world who call themselves Christian and don’t identify with our doctrinal statement.

As a matter of fact, most of their churches I probably could not be a member of. I look at the Pentecostal or the Lutheran, and if they’re teaching the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ, if they’re teaching salvation by grace through faith, and they identify with Christ, I’ll call them a Christian. I’ll take them at their word.

They’re my brother and sister in Christ. Now, it doesn’t mean I can be a member of their church because we have too many disagreements, but we are still ultimately on the same team.

We are still ultimately working toward the same goal, which is to serve Christ. now beyond that we need to get some teaching straight but I just preface that to make sure you understand when I’m using the term Christian in tonight’s discussion in what I’m talking about most of these people are not Baptist but you know what taking them at their word if they really do mean what they say they’re my brothers and sisters in Christ and they’re your brothers and sisters in Christ and they may be wrong you know what we could be wrong on some teaching I don’t think we are that’s why I’m a Baptist but we could be wrong on some teaching too you know the Lord will straighten that out we’ll find out by and by until then we keep preaching proclaiming the word as we understand it as the Holy Spirit reveals it but if they preach the death burial and resurrection of Christ salvation by grace through faith if they’re right on the fundamentals our brothers and sisters in Christ for that matter I don’t want to see anybody being persecuted I don’t care if they’re a Muslim if they’re a Buddhist, a Jew, a Jehovah’s Witness, an atheist. I don’t want to see anybody being persecuted for their religion or lack thereof.

But especially for our brothers and sisters, we have a responsibility to remember them in their bonds because it says, remember them that are in bonds as bound with them and them which suffer adversity as being yourselves also in the body. We are to remember our brothers and sisters in Christ. We’re to support them. And I heard this interview.

I know I keep circling here a little bit. I heard this interview a few weeks ago where they were talking about the Coptic Christians. That’s how I got off on that.

What do I mean by Christian? The Coptic Christians who were persecuted and other times tolerated since the Muslim conquests of Egypt. And now they’re down to about 10% of the population of the country.

A lot of people have been killed. A lot of people have been forced to convert. A lot of people have fled to other lands.

But there are still about 10% of Egypt that’s Christian, and a lot of people don’t know that. Well, in the last year or two, enter ISIS into the picture, and some of the other more militant Islamic groups. Coptic Christians are being slaughtered.

They’re being forced to convert. If they are even given the opportunity to convert, they’re being forced to convert. Some of them are just being killed.

And we have congregations of foreign Christians in the United States. There evidently is a congregation in Dallas. And what I heard being discussed on the radio was saying, we are Egyptian Christians.

We have Christian families still back in Egypt, and they’re being killed. They’re being persecuted, and they’re being killed. And you would think as the largest Christian nation on earth.

Now, is all of America Christian? No. But just by sheer numbers, we’re the largest Christian nation.

We should be caring. We should be doing something about it, and yet we never hear anything. And so their question seems to be, do the American Christians, do we just not care, or do we just not know?

And so it was said on the radio, you know what? The churches need to get involved, need to be supporting their brothers and sisters. I don’t care if you’re a different denomination.

Need to be supporting our brothers and sisters in Christ in times of persecution. And they said, go and research this stuff and take it to your pastor. Push your pastor to get involved in the stand against persecution.

And I thought, that’s a sad state of affairs for American Christianity. If the people are having to lead the pastor. Now, I understand one person can’t know about everything.

And I would not have been offended if one of you had brought this information to me and said, why don’t you take a look at it? But I heard it and thought, okay, the pastor needs to say something. And so I’m bringing this to you tonight.

And some of the things, you know, I got up here with only minimal plans because there are so many stories that I’ve heard. And I don’t know how much you’ve heard or need to hear or want to hear, but we need to understand the persecution that’s going on in the world around us. And I just went, I go from time to time to the Voice of the Martyrs.

Some of you have heard of this organization. The Voice of the Martyrs headquartered in Bartlesville here in Oklahoma. And they’ll have stories about things that have happened.

And I’m just scrolling down through here, and just the headlines are worrisome. Pakistan, young believers killed. China, making wigs in prison.

People are being, Christians are being put in forced labor in China. India, mob attacks pastors. Kenya, a somber Easter, it talks about the attacks on Christians in Kenya.

India, people fined for sharing their faith. Algeria, people being detained and tortured for carrying Bibles. Tanzania, people being forced out of their church property.

Pakistan, two churches bombed. And we could scroll back through here and the list is incredible. In Libya, on the shores of Tripoli, earlier this year, either one or two dozen, I don’t remember the number exactly, but if it was one, that was too much.

One or two dozen Christians were marched out to the shores of the Mediterranean. and this was on video. It’s been put on video.

Libyan Christians were marched out to the shores of the Mediterranean and the ISIS commanders pointed across the Mediterranean and made some threats toward Europe. And they beheaded these people just for being Christians. I didn’t watch the video.

You know, you hear watch the video because we need to see how ugly this really is. When they talked about the tide being red with blood, what I saw in my mind was ugly enough. When you hear about things that are going on in northern Iraq and eastern Syria, where Christians and Yazidis, and if you don’t know what Yazidis are, that’s okay.

I had to go look it up too. Yazidis are an offshoot of Islam. Christians and Yazidis, folks, when they corner these communities, they kill the men and they turn women and children over to human trafficking for sex slavery just because they don’t conform to what the persecutors believe.

And I’m not telling you this tonight to tug at your heartstrings and force you to do anything. I’m not trying to frighten you into action either. It’s just a fact though, we need to know what’s going on in our world.

And this is not a pleasant thing to talk to you about either. And yet the Bible says to remember those who are in bonds as bound with them. We need to remember our brothers and sisters in Christ and support them where we can and encourage them where we can and lift them up where we can as though we are bound with them.

It’s not only a kind idea, but it’s what the Word tells us to do. And we can’t remember them if we don’t know what’s going on with them. So ladies and gentlemen, this is the only reason I bring this to you tonight because this is very different from any other message that I ever bring you, but it’s part of what the Word says and it’s something going on in our world right now.

Unless we keep it in front of us on purpose, it’s easy to forget because we go to sleep securing our homes every night. I tuck my kids in every night and pray with them, spray homemade monster spray in Benjamin’s room so he’ll go to sleep, and never give a second thought. Never give a second thought that we might be rounded up for being a Christian family.

Never give a second thought to there’s going to be a loud banging on the door in the middle of the night and we’re going to be forced out into the street and separated. You know, we come home from school, we have dinner, we play in the backyard. I bathe them, I put them in bed.

I get some things done around the house. I go to bed, we wake up the next morning, go to school, and start it all over again. It’s easy to get caught up in our routine.

And there’s nothing wrong. Folks, don’t feel guilty. Don’t feel guilty that we’re not being persecuted.

Don’t feel guilty about that. I read an article on Friday that was talking about things that we can do to support the persecuted believers. And one thing that it said was don’t feel guilty.

When we talk about persecution, we tend to talk about it from a standpoint of, well, you know, I feel bad that I’m not persecuted. I feel bad that I’m not suffering and others are. Do you think our brothers and sisters in Christ wish the persecution on us?

Lord, take the Americans, not me. No. Don’t feel guilty that we’re not persecuted.

Thank God that He’s blessed us to be in this country. And consider the fact that maybe He’s put us in the position He’s put us in to be able to do something about it. If we just take the freedom and the security for granted, then maybe we should feel guilty about that.

But let’s not feel guilty about the blessings God’s given us if we use them for what He’s put us here to do. Let us not get caught up in our everyday routine to the point that we forget what the Word says. to remember them that are in bonds as bound with them.

Doesn’t the word say, didn’t the Lord say in red letters that whatsoever you’ve done to the least of these, my brethren, you’ve done unto me. He went through and said, you saw me hungry and offered food. You saw me naked and offered clothing.

You saw me thirsty and provided water. And they said, when did we do that? If I saw Jesus starving, I think I would have remembered that.

And that’s when he said, Whatever you’ve done to the least of these, my brethren, you’ve done unto me. We’re called to serve our fellow believers. We’re called to serve those outside the household of faith.

I believe it’s Galatians says to use every opportunity to do good unto all men, especially those that are of the household of faith. I don’t want us to think, though, that we’re supposed to just help and support believers. Well, you’re not a Christian, so I don’t care what happens to you.

That’s not our position. That can’t be our position. We’re to do good to all men, but especially to those that are in the household of faith.

So I want to share a few things with you tonight. Well, let me share one more thing. It’s a little out of order, but I looked this up specifically because I saw it Friday and wanted to share it with you.

Each month, 322 Christians are killed for their faith worldwide. Now, some months it’s probably higher than that. Some months it’s probably lower than that.

This is an average. But 322 Christians are killed for their faith. Why is that not on the news?

Every night. 214 churches and Christian properties are destroyed. And 722 forms of violence are committed against Christians, such as beatings, abductions, rapes, arrests, and forced marriages.

Now this comes from Open Doors USA. Our brothers and sisters all around the world are struggling. Folks, there is an answer.

There is a response to us. I know what we as Americans normally think. We just need to go in there and bomb those countries.

No. No. We as Christians should not buy into the idea, well, they’re going to do it to us, so let’s do it to them before they can do it to us.

No. That’s not what the Lord taught. We don’t want to see violence against anybody.

We don’t want to see bloodshed unnecessarily. Nobody should be killed or persecuted for their faith. I know there are some, and I’ve talked to them, there are some American Christians who disagree with me on that.

But I maintain nobody should be killed on account of their faith or lack thereof. And we need to support our brothers and sisters around the world who are undergoing that. Now, this would just be a depressing message if I left it off there and said, this is happening, go stew on it.

But I want to share with you five things tonight that I think you can do, that we can do to support our brothers and sisters around the world. Some of these I’ve borrowed from other places, and some of them I’ve put together with my own mind. You’re welcome to write down any of these that you see fit.

I think all five of them are things that every one of us could or should do. And if you want any more information on any of them, I’ll try to, especially if you don’t have the internet at home, I can try to get you the information you need or at least tell you where to find it. First of all, we as believers need to educate ourselves.

How can we do anything about the problem if we don’t know that it’s going on? How can I support my brothers and sisters in Christ if I don’t know they’re being persecuted? Do you know that Mexico is one of the top 50 places in the world where people are persecuted for their Christian faith?

Mexico. They did mission trips there and never thought a thing about it. Now, admittedly, they are low on the list of this top 50, but our neighboring country, one of the top 50 places where people are persecuted for being Christians.

And in all honesty, most of it is not the government. As a matter of fact, very little of it is the government, I’m sure. A lot of it’s the organized crime and the drug cartels and such.

But it’s going on right here. How many of you, and I don’t ask you to raise your hand to embarrass you, but how many of you knew it was that bad in Mexico? I didn’t.

How would we know to pray for our brothers and sisters undergoing persecution in Mexico if we didn’t know it was going on? We’ve got to know what’s going on in the world. Fifty years ago, we were at the mercy of the media.

If ABC, NBC, and CBS didn’t report on it going on in other parts of the world, we didn’t know. We don’t really have an excuse now. Not only do we have 500 channels on our television and a bunch of them are news, but there’s internet, there’s radio, even social media.

You know, a lot of the messages coming out of ISIS territory come on Twitter. That was incredible to realize. ISIS puts out a lot of their messages on Twitter, as well as a lot of the people saying we’re in such and such place and we need help.

We have access to so much information today that it’s almost information overload. But we’re in a time and a place in history where we can’t just turn a blind eye and say, well, I didn’t know. Information’s out there.

We’ll just look for it. Two places. If you do have the internet at home, two places that you can find some of this stuff are from Voice of the Martyrs, which is persecution.

com, easy to remember, or OpendoorsUSA, which is opendoorsusa. org. And you can go to either of those places and find a.

. . It seems wrong when we’re talking about stories of persecuted believers to say a treasure trove of information, but that’s exactly what it is.

You can sign up. Some of these places will send you things in the mail. They’ll send you emails.

They will let you know what’s going on as much as you want to know about it. So the first thing we as believers can do is educate ourselves. Let’s not be ostriches sticking our heads in the sand and saying, well, that’s going on all the way across the world.

What can I do? Nothing I can do. We need to know what’s going on first. Second of all, pray.

I wanted to put pray first, but I thought, how can we pray about it if we don’t know what’s going on? We need to pray. I know, I know, I know.

It feels like, because we are action-oriented people, we’re taught as Americans, go do something. But it feels like we’re just doing nothing if we pray about it. We’ve got a wrong idea about prayer sometimes.

are calling on the God of heaven. We are calling on the creator of the universe. We are interceding on behalf of others around the world who we may never meet, but God knows exactly who they are.

He knew them before they were formed, and he knows what they need today. Do you think there’s anything that we can do from around the world, from the other side of the globe, that is more powerful than what God can do? We need to lift our brothers and sisters up in prayer.

Prayer is not powerless. Prayer is not a last resort. It’s a direct line to the God of the universe.

Asking Him to intervene. Asking Him to strengthen believers in the midst of persecution. Asking Him to get them out of harm’s way.

Asking God to work on the hearts of the government officials or the criminals or the terrorists. There are different groups in different countries who are persecuting people for different reasons. But God can change any of their hearts.

And so we pray. Something every one of us can do. It doesn’t cost you any money.

It doesn’t require you to have internet access. Just take some of your time. Third of all, we can educate others.

We need to educate ourselves, and we need to pass along what we’ve learned. That’s sort of what tonight was about. I can keep this to myself, and I can pray, and I can try to do something, or I can try to get other people involved in doing something.

We educate others. Christians should not be cold, heartless people. If we are, there’s something wrong, And we need to examine whether we ought to be calling ourselves Christians or not.

If Christians just know what’s going on, there should be something in us that says we’ve got to do something different. I can’t just ignore this. You know what?

Americans as well, Christian or not, by and large Americans are not cold heartless people. I’m hard pressed to think of a country that has done more. Now, I love America.

We’ve done a lot of things wrong, But we’ve done a lot of things right, too. The American people have done a lot of things right. And when there’s a disaster anywhere in the world, we’re among the first to start making donations.

What can we do to help? And I think by and large, if Americans, Christian, Jewish, atheist, I don’t care. Christians are not.

If Americans know that there’s genocide, if Americans know there’s religious persecution, if Americans know there’s violence going on in another part of the country, or another part of the world, they want to know what they can do to help. So we find out what’s going on for ourselves. We pray, and then we raise awareness with other people.

More of all, we can write letters. I never thought of this until I saw it on some of the websites. We can write letters.

A kid in English class told me the other day, nobody writes letters anymore. Well, maybe we need to start. We can write letters.

We can write letters of encouragement to people who are in prison. Now, you have to be very careful what you say. If you are interested in doing this, let me know and I will get you some more information.

We have to be very careful about what we say. Sometimes the letters will be returned unopened. But Voice of the Martyrs, I know, has a program to set you up to be able to write letters to people who are in prison.

And they say, don’t be discouraged if you don’t get a reply or if it comes back unopened. Some of these letters do get through and they make a huge difference. Imagine sitting in prison, persecuted for your faith, and thinking the whole world has forgotten you.

Some of these people are cut off from their families for years at a time. The families may not know where they are. Sometimes the families know where they are, and the government won’t let them in to see them.

They’re being cut off from your family, your church, everybody you know for years at a time, and thinking the entire world has forgotten you. Then you get a letter from a believer in the United States. It may not be anything long.

It may not be anything even all that profound. But would you not treasure that letter as a blessing from heaven that you’ve not been forgotten? We can write letters to encourage those who are in prison.

We can write letters to encourage the families. Imagine how you’d feel if your child, your grandchild, your spouse, your brother, somebody in your family who’s close to you, who you love, has been carried off somewhere and you don’t know where just for being a Christian. Would that encourage but not be a blessing to you?

I thought this one was interesting as well. we could write letters to government officials and they’ll tell us who to write to. Now, we have to stay out of politics and government issues.

But you know, most of the countries in the world officially have in their constitution freedom of religion. Now, they follow it about as well as the constitution is sometimes followed here. But you can use that.

I saw a sample letter, Dear So-and-So, I’m thankful for the law that guarantees the freedom of religion in the Republic of Vietnam. somehow, fill in the blank, has been arrested for being a Christian. I ask that you release this person at once.

Sincerely, I’m filling your name. Get enough of those letters. It might have an impact.

Okay, fine, I’m going to release them just so I can quit being annoyed. Doesn’t Jesus tell the story about the unrighteous judge who gave into the widow’s petition just so he could get some peace? Gave her justice just so she’d leave him alone.

You remind them their own law says you can freely practice your religion. So we can write letters. If you’re interested in that, let me know and I’ll get you some more information on it.

And number five, various places say you can volunteer your skills. Now one place I think it was, I don’t remember who it was. Somebody wrote about if you’re a videographer, use your skills to make a video to raise awareness on the subject of persecution.

I’m not a videographer. You know what, we’ve all got skills. we’ve all got things we can volunteer maybe you’re an organized person I did happen to see on the website for Voice of the Martyrs where you can send care packages to prisoners and families overseas maybe you’re somebody who likes to shop sure I’ll go down to Walmart and buy I’ll track down two dozen fleece blankets and toothbrushes and we’ll get it all put together in a care package maybe you’re somebody organized folks there are literally endless opportunities that we can that we can undertake to volunteer our time and our resources to support persecuted brothers and sisters.

All we have to do is be creative in our approach. God will bless our efforts. Because it says to remember them that are in bonds as bound with them.

We are bound with them. Maybe not in the sense that we are literally in chained with them, but they are my brother and sister in Christ, and we are bound together in the family of God. And one day we will be together in heaven, And where one Christian is persecuted, we have a responsibility for all Christians to stand together.

We’re going to disagree. We’re going to have some raucous disagreements on teaching. But when it comes right down to the fundamentals, we’re brothers and sisters in Christ if we stand for the same word of God and the same gospel.

And we have a responsibility to uphold them. Let us not think because I’m this age or I have this disability or I’m tucked away here in a corner of Oklahoma, safe and secure away from all of it, that I can’t have an impact. We have a wider open door now because of technology, because of information.

We have a door open far wider now than it ever has been to aid persecuted Christians. Let’s not forget them in their bonds. Let’s remember to borrow a phrase that I heard Brother Hodges use when he talked to Baptist leaders behind the Iron Curtain.

Let’s pray for them and support them in their persecution, even as they pray for our relationship with God and our prosperity.