Titus 3 v3-8 - Open Doors

the book of Titus and chapter three.

So the focus of our evening tonight

is to hear from Daniel about the work of Open Doors

and Liz, also one of our church members

who volunteers with Open Doors,

is going to be leading some of that time

for us together as well.

But before we hear from them

and we pray for the work of Open Doors

and get a chance to ask our questions about that,

I want us to turn our attention

just to a brief section from Titus

chapter three.

So let me read it, I'll pray

and then we will just consider it together.

So Titus chapter three, beginning at verse three.

At one time, we too were foolish, disobedient,

deceived and enslaved by all kinds of passions

and pleasures.

We lived in malice and envy,

being hated and hating one another,

but when the kindness and love of God,

our Saviour appeared,

he saved us,

not because of righteous things we had done,

but because of his mercy.

He saved us through the washing of rebirth

and renewal by the Holy Spirit,

whom he poured out on us generously

through Jesus Christ, our Saviour,

so that having been justified by his grace,

we might become heirs,

having the hope of eternal life.

This is a trustworthy saying.

I want you to stress these things

so that those who have trusted in God

may be careful to devote themselves

to doing what is good.

These things are excellent and profitable for everyone.

But avoid foolish controversies and genealogies

and arguments and quarrels about the law,

because these are unprofitable and useless.

Warn a divisive person once,

then warn them a second time.

After that, have nothing to do with them.

You may be sure that such people are warped and sinful.

They are self-condemned.

Well, let's pray and ask for the Lord's help

as we look at that passage together.

Let's pray.

Heavenly Father, we want to just thank you

for your word to us

and pray that you might help us now

as we consider it together.

We may be tired.

We may be distracted by thoughts of tomorrow

and what's happening.

And we pray, please, that by your spirit,

you might speak to us from your word

and give us ears to hear, we pray.

In Jesus' name, amen.

My intention is not to delay us for super long,

but I want us to set the scene for the rest of the evening

by looking at this passage in Titus.

And it will help you

if you have the book open in front of you.

I'm probably not going to tell you anything new.

So much of what I say tonight is not groundbreaking,

but it's probably just a reminder

of things that you have heard before

or might already know.

I think it might help us just to start

with a few facts about the book of Titus

so that you know what we're looking at in that way.

Titus is a letter from the apostle Paul

to his friend called Titus.

Okay, just one of you awake on the back row.

Titus, who is working in a church in Crete.

The church there seems to be planted

at a point that we're not sure of

and by a group of people who we're not sure of.

And Paul and Titus have visited.

And again, we're not sure exactly when they went.

But whenever it was, Paul left Titus in Crete

with his task of appointing elders in the church.

So the church had started already,

but it had no elders.

And so Paul says to Titus in verse five of chapter one,

I left you in Crete that you might put in order

what was left unfinished by appointing elders.

It's an interesting point there, isn't it?

That basically churches without elders

are kind of an unfinished job.

But once they have elders, the task is really theirs

to carry on with.

And that's Titus's job.

And what you've got really in this letter

is a kind of job description from Paul to Titus

about what he's to do in Crete

in this appointment of elders.

So it contains things like what you should look for

in elders as you appoint them

and recognize them in the church.

What to get the church teaching to one another.

How to deal with difficult or divisive people in the church.

And so what you've got here really in the book of Titus

and one Timothy and two Timothy are very similar as well.

What you've got essentially is church 101, right?

This is basic teaching of how to run

and organize the life of a local church.

Church at 101, what ministry is meant to be like

and what you're supposed to do.

Now, there is lots of detail here,

but I'm going to oversimplify it

and tell you essentially that Paul has one goal

for the church and one method for the church.

Okay, so he has one goal and one method.

It is a slight oversimplification,

but just run with me for a moment

because I think it does help us.

This is the one goal.

What is the one goal of the local church?

What is it they're aiming for?

Well, the local church wants members

to be devoted to doing what is good.

You see that in the passage that we just read.

Look at verse eight.

So that those who have trusted God may be careful,

here you go,

to devote themselves to doing what is good.

These things are excellent and profitable for everyone.

If you glance your eyes back to chapter two, verse 12,

you'll see it's the same there.

saying no to ungodliness and worldly passions

and to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives

in this present age while we wait for the blessed hope,

the appearing of the glory of our great God and savior,

Jesus Christ.

This is what we want.

We want people who are devoted to doing what is good.

Those are excellent and profitable

for everyone to be doing that.

We want people to be living self-controlled

and upright godly lives in this present age

saying no to worldly passions.

At the end of verse 14,

we see this goal is not just Paul's personal agenda,

but it is God's agenda for the church too.

This is what Christ gave himself for.

Chapter two, verse 14,

Christ gave himself to purify for himself

a people that are his very own,

eager to do what is good.

Eager to do what is good.

In other words,

Christ has rescued and saved a company of people

with the commitment that they might live good lives,

doing what is good,

doing what is good.

Now, although this is the one goal,

still living like that is important,

not only for its own sake,

but also for the sake of those outside the church.

These good lives are not inwardly looking lives.

It's not that we live good lives like ornaments on display

just for their own sake.

Rather, the church members devoted to what is good

is important for the witness to the world.

So look at chapter two, verse 10,

so that in every way,

they will make the teaching about God,

our savior, attractive.

The negative is used in chapter one, verse 16,

about people who claim to know God,

but their actions deny him.

They're detestable, disobedient,

and unfit for doing anything good.

Here it is that the church,

by devoting themselves to doing good,

is to display to the world the attractiveness

of belonging to Jesus,

of being his people.

So here you have it.

Paul wants, and Jesus wants,

local churches full of people

who are committed to doing what is good.

And good in the broadest sense.

So as you read through the letter,

being good in the letter involves

telling one another the truth,

it involves loving one another,

it involves being self-controlled,

it involves not losing your temper,

not being motivated by getting rich,

not stealing from others,

being concerned for the poor,

concerned for one another,

concerned for brothers and sisters in the world as well,

who are persecuted,

as we're thinking tonight.

That's the goal.

Now I want to suggest to you

that no one can argue with that goal

for a local church.

That is a great thing.

Everyone can see it's a good thing.

Growing Christians who are reaching the world.

That's the goal of every church

in every place and every time.

Grow Christians to reach the world.

That's Church 101 in Titus.

But the big question is how?

How do you get that?

How do you get a church full of Christians

who are committed to doing what is good,

displaying the greatness of Christ the world?

Well, one answer might be

you could run very strict churches, couldn't you?

Maybe that's how you're to do it.

Maybe you run churches where you tell everybody

exactly what they're to do

with every part of their lives.

And you make them feel guilty

when they don't do it.

That's certainly been the method of some churches.

The medieval Roman Catholic church

was like that for sure.

That's how it controlled people.

Made them feel guilty

and told them that if they didn't obey,

terrible things would happen to them

and their family.

But that's not the method in Titus or Timothy

in these pastoral epistles.

Instead, here's Paul's method.

It's Jesus's method really.

It's there in chapter three, verse eight.

You achieve this goal

by stressing these things, verse eight.

That's the goal is achieved

by stressing these things.

That's what he says, isn't it?

In verse eight,

this is a trustworthy saying

and I want you to stress these things

so that those who have trusted in God

may be careful to devote themselves

to doing what is good.

What are these things?

What is the trustworthy saying?

Well, that then is the content

of verses three to seven.

So look at what's there.

The thing to stress

if you want church full of people

devoted to doing what is good.

Well, verse three,

you need to stress the fact

that the church is full of people

who at one time were foolish,

disobedient, deceived,

and enslaved to their passions.

Ouch.

Stress this, says Paul.

If you want a church

that's going in the right direction,

that's achieving the goal

for which Christ has given himself,

then stress that no one

has joined the church

by being perfect.

Remind them of that.

Remind them of that often,

that the qualification

for church membership

is not perfection,

but actually the qualification

for belonging to the church

is at one time

having been a slave

to your passions.

Sinfulness.

You are a sinner.

There's more than that,

though, isn't there?

Because that's not

the case anymore, is it?

There is a,

that is the past.

But people enslaved

to their passions

and are not committed

to living good lives.

So what has changed?

Look down at verse four.

But when the kindness

and love of God,

our Savior, appeared,

that's what's happened.

The kindness

and love of Jesus has appeared.

Jesus came.

And what is it that Jesus did?

Well, verse five.

He saved us.

And how did he save us?

Well, carrying on in verse five,

look down.

Not by the good things

that we have done,

but by his mercy.

Mercy in washing.

Rebirth and renewal,

he calls it,

making us new people

by the Holy Spirit.

The Holy Spirit

who now, verse six,

lives in us,

given generously to us.

Verse seven,

summarized it, doesn't it,

by being,

calling us being justified

by grace.

In other words,

declared not guilty

before the God

who made us

by a function of his kindness

and not our works.

So that we are heirs

of eternal life with him.

And Paul says,

verse eight,

that is a trustworthy saying.

It's a saying

that the church must stress.

So that, verse eight,

people will devote themselves

to doing what is good.

And now,

if I've lost you in the weeds,

come back to it for a moment.

Church 101,

one goal,

members devoted

to living good lives

that commend the gospel

and one method,

consistently stressing

the gospel of grace

in the Lord Jesus Christ.

That's it.

That's what the local church

is to do.

One goal,

that we might live good lives

that commend the gospel

to the world around us.

one method

by stressing continually

the message

of the gospel of grace

in the Lord Jesus Christ,

reminding one another

that we are not here

because we're better

than anybody else,

but we are here

because God has been kind

to us in the Lord Jesus

and has rescued us

by his blood

and his mercy alone.

Now,

I want to suggest to you

that that is

quite simple,

right?

That is not

rocket science.

You don't need to be

a rocket scientist

to understand that.

One goal,

one method,

I think we probably

all get that.

But although it's not complex,

it is, I think,

quite hard

and quite counterintuitive.

So, in verse 9,

you'll find that

to stress the gospel

like that means

that you need to resist

foolish arguments.

And, Titus,

you'll find that people

love foolish arguments

in the church.

Stressing the gospel

means resisting

foolish arguments

and people who would

drag you away from it.

Stressing the gospel

means empowering men

and women

to teach one another

in chapter 2.

And that will be hard

because as you read

chapter 2,

you find that life

gets in the way.

People would rather

give themselves

to other things

than to teaching one another.

And so,

it will be difficult.

Stressing the gospel

means having leaders

who,

chapter 1,

verse 9,

hold firmly

to the trustworthy messages

that has been taught

so that he can encourage

others by sound doctrine

and refute those

who oppose it.

In other words,

you are going to have

to train the leaders

of the church

to understand the gospel

so that they might

proclaim the gospel

and that they might

be able to refute people

who are opposing the gospel.

It's also hard,

I think,

because at times

the tool will seem

slow and ineffective.

I think it will seem

easier for Titus

and maybe for the church

in Crete

and maybe even for us

to use other tools

rather than just

the proclamation

of the gospel.

Maybe it's easier

to guilt trip people

into living

what we consider good lives.

Maybe it's easier

for us to set rules.

Maybe it's easier

to browbeat people.

Maybe it's easier

to generate a culture

of judgmentalism.

Those might get you

quick responses

but the fact is

none of those things

have any transformative power.

They're the operating tactics

of dying churches.

Living churches

remind their members

that they were sinners

and that what changed

was they encountered

the grace of God

in the Lord Jesus Christ.

He gave them new birth

by the Spirit

for his glory.

And that is what

makes us new people

with new motives

and new desires

and new longings.

So tonight

what we're sort of

setting out before us

as a church

is we want to be

a church

that is committed

to doing good

for the persecuted church

around the world.

How do you get a church

to commit themselves

to doing good

for the persecuted church

around the world?

Let me tell you.

You do it with the one method

by stressing

the gospel of Jesus Christ.

None of us are here

because we're perfect.

We're here because

we've encountered

the grace of God

in Jesus Christ

and that will motivate us

to do good

to the worldwide church

as we pray for

and stand alongside

those for whom

following Christ

is costing their lives.

So we stress,

don't we,

the one tool

of stressing the gospel.

It's the only tool

that we have

for the liberation

of ourselves

from our selfish desires

that we might live

to the praise

and glory of God.

Well, let me pray

and then we'll sing

and then we will hand over

to Daniel

and to Liz.

Let's pray.

Heavenly Father,

we want to be

this kind of church

full of people

who devote themselves

to doing

what is good

and so we pray

that we might be

a church

that stresses

this trustworthy saying

that once we were foolish,

enslaved

to all kinds of passions

and pleasures,

living in malice

and envy,

being hated

and hating one another,

but

we have encountered

the Savior Jesus,

not because of the good things

that we have done,

but because of his mercy,

he has saved us

and washed us

by the Spirit

that we might live lives now

to your praise and glory

doing what is good,

excellent

and profitable.

Help us,

we pray,

to be that church.

Help us especially

to do that

in response

to the needs

of the worldwide church.

Bless the rest

of our time together

this evening

as we hear

how we might do that.

in Jesus' name.

Amen.

Amen.

Instead of Steve,

talking to Daniel,

I just want to say

a little bit about

why I'm here

and then I'm going to

introduce you to Daniel

who is going to ask,

is going to answer

a couple of questions

and then tell us

a little bit more

about Open Doors.

So,

I have volunteered

to work with Open Doors

as an advocate,

so it's part

of the advocacy team

and that requires

us

or me

to get you

and others

to really take

the role seriously

to understand

what the persecuted church

is all about

and for us

to be able

to write

to our local MPs

and for Open Doors

to send me information

and for me

on behalf of Open Doors

to talk

about the situation.

And so really

the whole idea

is that we

as Christians,

part of the whole body

of Christ,

see

not just our brothers

and sisters

as people over

in Africa

or in India

or in Sudan

or in other places

that are far off

but actually see

that we are part

of the body of Christ

and that together

we are going to

not just pray for them

but do things

that are practical

which will enable

MPs to speak

on our behalf

and have influence

on people

in other governments

across the world.

So that's why I'm here

because that's

hopefully my role

it's a volunteer role

about three times a year

I think it is

to represent

Open Doors.

So that's me

for now.

So this is Daniel

and so Daniel

is the parliamentary

officer

for Open Doors.

UK and Ireland

and I'm going to

just tell us

a little bit

about yourself

that's the first question

and the second question

why Open Doors

when there are

quite a few

other

organisations

that deal

with the persecuted

church.

Open Doors

is hiring?

No I'm joking.

A little bit

about myself.

So my name is Daniel

I'm the parliamentary

officer for

Open Doors

UK and Ireland.

I did that

full time

for about

two and a half years

and I now

do that

three days a week

and I serve

a couple of days a week

with another

ministry

Jews for Jesus

from a Jewish

background.

I'm married

I've been married

almost five years

my wife's American

she also works

for a church

so we're a proper

Christian family

as you can see

I'm joking

and one of my

favourite passages

in the Bible

is Titus

Titus 3 · chapter mention

chapter 3

so I'm really pleased

to have heard that

this morning

as God's really

used it to encourage

me in my walk

why Open Doors

so I heard

when I was

gosh maybe

17 or 18

a speaker

come and speak

at my church

about the work

of Open Doors

and I was really

touched

that they

cared about

both the

physical health

you know

with humanitarian aid

and food

and water

and things like that

of the people

to whom they

were ministering

and the spiritual health

and that both of those

were as essential

if not the spiritual health

being more essential

to Open Doors

and there were

it sort of felt

with lots of other

organisations

that you had to choose

either to support

people through

material

aid

or spiritual aid

like the Bible

and church networks

and things like that

and Open Doors

seemed to marry

the two very well

so I worked

in politics

for some years

in sort of

standard secular politics

and so when the

opportunity came up

to combine

my experience

in theology

and in ministry

with my experience

in politics

you know

it was a real

opportunity

that you know

the Lord

blessed me

to sort of

walk into

okay

can I just ask

one other question

sure

we know that

there are 100

and I think

195 countries

in the world

and of those

the world watch list

list 50

I don't know

if you're aware

of that

50 countries

in the world

that are high

or extremely high

in terms of persecution

so 195

50 countries

that's just

over 25%

of countries

that suffer

very high

persecution

are there

any particular

countries

that are

close to

your personal

heart

or that's

very close

to Open Doors

yeah I think

the countries

that have really

sort of

stuck with me

are Nigeria

I've done a lot

of work on Nigeria

and some of the

stories you hear

from Nigeria

I mean frankly

they're the most

brutal and the most

unpleasant

often

they're the ones

where you sort of

go okay I need to

step away from my

desk for a moment

India

has stuck with me

I suppose partly

because it's not

a country you'd

expect to have a

large amount of

persecution

India

I've spent a lot

of time with

North Koreans

recently and

they all have

quite incredible

stories

North Korea is

obviously a

fascinating country

you know

so North Korea

is very important

to me as well

and what about

Open Doors

as an organisation

are there sort

of you know

countries that

would flag up

to say you know

these are the

main countries

that we when we

meet in groups

later on

so we will be

talking about the

top 10 countries

but I think

outside of the

top 10 as well

you know

increasingly

concerning is

India which is

at number 11

China which is

at number 19

Nikolagra which

has shot up the

list from 50 to

30 or something

after imprisoning

a large amount

of bishops

and then exiling

them

so those are

countries which

aren't we aren't

going to discover

India I will

briefly discuss

but are countries

to remember in your

prayers

so I'm going to

hand over to you

to do a bit

and what will

happen after that

is that there will

be an opportunity

for questions and

answers

questions and

answers

yeah that's it

so you can ask us

questions about the

work of Open Doors

but Daniel obviously

will answer

nearly all of them

and then we'll

break up into

groups as we

normally do to

pray specifically

about the work

thank you thank

you so much

so firstly my

first question

you see you never

know when you go

into a church the

level of knowledge

and it seems like

the level of

knowledge is very

high here so I'm

not sure I'm going

to inform you of

anything but I'll

do my best I'll

tell you some good

stories but I'm

going to ask has

anyone heard of

the world watch

list I suspect the

answer may be yes

yes okay good

so the world watch

list is sort of

the flagship research

project of Open

Doors which has

been going on since

1993 and details

the worst places in

the world to be a

Christian it's

fortunate that we

really trust is a

resource and it's a

resource that's used

by governments

across the world to

help inform policy

and shape the way

that aid is

delivered and things

like that so before

I'm going to show

you a brief video

about the top 10

countries but before

I do that the only

bit of audience

participation I'll

ask for what do

you guys might know

this as well no

no hints less but

what countries do you

think might be in the

top 10 the hardest

places in the world to

be a Christian North

Korea any others

Somalia okay South

Korea sorry Eritrea okay

Iran Iran okay okay

yeah yeah okay any any

others any any more for

any more before we see

the answers sorry

Bangladesh okay

interesting I don't think

I've ever you know I

don't think I've ever

had Bangladesh that's a

really interesting one

well let's watch the

video and see if any of

those countries come up

oh one more slide there

you go

could praying put you in

danger could go into

church risk your life

could following Jesus cost

you your job your home or

your family around the

world today our Christian

brothers and sisters are

counting the cost of their

faith and these are the 10

countries where the price of

following Jesus is highest

number 10 Afghanistan the

Taliban hunts for hidden

networks of believers

suspected Christians can be

arrested interrogated and even

killed and number nine Iran

house churches are seen as a

threat to national security

pastor Anushivan has started

serving a 10-year prison sentence

after 30 agents raided his home

Sudan is at number eight in the

chaos and conflict of civil war

Christians are especially

vulnerable believers have been

attacked their property looted and

churches closed number seven

Pakistan Pakistani Christians are

seen as second-class citizens false

accusations of blasphemy result in

innocent believers facing mob

violence Christian girls continue to

be abducted and forced to convert to

Islam Nigeria is at number six more

Christians are killed for their faith

in Nigeria than in all the other

countries of the world combined

pastor Zachariah came home one day to

find his village attacked and his wife

and son murdered by militants number

five Yemen the very small number of

Yemeni Christians must worship in

secret house church leader Salah is on

the wanted list but despite death

threats he courageously continues his

ministry at number four is Eritrea

Christian activities are severely

restricted when Abdullah told people

about Jesus he was sent to prison the

conditions were so terrible that he never

came out alive Libya is number three on

the list Libya considers itself to be a

completely Islamic nation Libyan

believers who tell others about Jesus

risk arrest and violent opposition

number two Somalia in this highly

restrictive Islamic society even the

suspicion of being a Christian is

extremely dangerous converts who are

discovered may instantly pay with their

lives and at number one North Korea

this remains the most costly place in the

world to be a Christian even owning a

Bible is illegal Jiho's father was taken

away when security agents discovered his

secret book she never saw him again

Christians are sent to appalling labor

camps or simply killed on the spot

more than 365 million Christians face high

levels of persecution and discrimination

that's one in seven Christians globally and

every one of them a son or daughter a

mother a father a child of God for nearly 70

years open doors has been supporting our

persecuted church family helping them to

stand strong they are counting the cost of

following Christ and with your help they can

keep believing knowing that Jesus is

worth everything

so as you can see this paints a fairly

sobering picture of the state of the

world for many of our brothers and

sisters and I don't want to share these

stories just for sort of just because it's

interesting or for some sort of voyeuristic

thrill but because I hope that it

encourages your faith and it's certainly

encouraged mine and challenged my faith as

well so briefly just before we start I do

want to mention that I've shied away from

some of the less than pleasant stories but

some of these still will be quite heavy so do

please bear that in mind firstly a little bit

about the world watch list so open doors

researchers on the ground use first second

and third hand sources to verify allegations

of persecution against Christians so we need

to remember when we look at these numbers that

they are vastly underestimated a colleague of

mine just got back from Nigeria and told me how much he believes they are

underestimated by so if a report of persecution

could not be verified by an outside organization is not included

now you may have seen in the video that more people die for their faith in

Nigeria than anywhere else in the world and you may be thinking well why is it

not number one then and it's true 89 percent of those killed for their faith

are killed in Nigeria on average 14 Christians are killed for their faith

every day so in fact let me tell you briefly about one girl before I move on

who you may have heard of and this is again on the lighter end of the

spectrum of what happens in Nigeria her name was Deborah Samuel or

Deborah Emmanuel depending on how you understand her name

she was a young girl from a school in northern Nigeria and she was part of a

class whatsapp group and after her exams she posted or a

student sorry posted asking how everyone had done in the exams

and Deborah posted that she wanted to thank Jesus that she had done well

as a result of that she was dragged out by some boys in her class and stoned to

death because she had committed blasphemy in

their eyes and they were filmed doing this and the videos are over social media

you can see them and the police have seen these videos and not one of those

individuals have been arrested by the Nigerian police force so this is an

example of what we call in the methodology the smash so this is the smash of

persecution the outright violence and then we also have something that we

call the squeeze and this is those daily forms of persecution

like financial educational and health exclusion or community ostracism that make

up these sort of more pervasive forms of persecution so the world watch list

takes into account the smash the outright violence as well as the squeeze the

sort of daily grind the christians face around the world as well as things like

population sizes now i'm delighted to say that this is well received the world

watch this last year the parliamentary launch we had over a hundred members of

parliament from across every party when i say every party we even had

andrew bridgen who briefly started his own party reform parties you may remember

before losing his seat so we have literally every party exception fame but what can you do

anyway um god has in his mercy used this world watch list as a way of sharing the

stories around the world now earlier we heard a passage um written by paul to titus

and many of the early christians that paul wrote to experienced persecution and it can be easy for us to

assume that this is something of the past but it is really not for the vast majority of the world so i

want to tell you briefly about a friend of mine timothy cho now timothy is from north korea he's the first north

korean in this country to receive a master's degree he works in parliament he works for cchq as well and

he stood for election for the conservative party um now when he was born he was born when kim il-sung

was still the leader of north korea so the founder of the north korean state and when timothy told me that

when kim il-sung died the first thing that he did was to ask his father when he would die because he assumed

kim il-sung is his god he receives life from his god and so his god's dead he must be dead

timothy uh who is now christian he was put in in a concentration camp eventually and he was tortured in

horrendous ways and regularly beaten and he still bears the scars of this on his body and frankly on his

his mind and spirit to this day um one of the things that open doors partners do around the

world including in north korea is to get people bibles that they can understand in their own language

and i've heard stories from north korean women who are in these labor camps where they work all day

intense hours and they've buried a bible by a tree or something in the camp and they risk their lives to

leave the the dormitories where they're kept in the middle of the night to get their bible and to pray

quietly one with another and to sing to whisper the words of a song and to study the bible together

instead of sleeping i think you know if i was working that amount of time i'd probably be like ah you know

maybe another time i'd easily sleep but no they have the faith to get up in the middle of the night

and do that and even if they manage to escape um you know before they're killed um you know it's it's

a miracle it is a miracle and open doors helps to facilitate people when they can escape by providing

them safety in in neighboring countries and ways out of danger so in the ancient roman days that we just

read a document from many of the caesars were regarded as gods and i just googled actually when

titus was written it was written under the reign of emperor nero who was very much regarded as a god

and we can think of a time where leaders of countries are regarded as gods as being long dead but in north

korea that is still very much the case i remember reading a story of a north korean man in every north

korean home you need to have a wall which has a picture of the three leaders and nothing else can be

on this wall and you can get inspected and this man a flood hit his house and he saved the two most

important things in the world to him which was his baby daughter and a picture of kim il-sung and

as the door opened a wave hit him and he felt the picture begin to slip and he let go of his baby

daughter and he saved the portrait of kim il-sung and he was given a medal and paraded as a national

hero similar things have happened in other countries and in china i was speaking to a chinese man recently

who was six years old when chairman mao died and he recalled to me believing that chairman mao was god

he said twice a day every day him and his classmates were hauled before a portrait of chairman mao and

forced to silently confess their sins against him the party and the state and they had to vow to do better

in the future in a sort of parody of faith now you may wonder how it's possible that christians can

survive and the light of christ can remain in such darkness but as it did under nero so it does today

under xi jinping and kim yong un in china today there are more christians more members of illegal

christian churches than there are members of the communist party so this year open doors launched

its arise africa campaign which i think uh liz has done a wonderful job of of getting you to sign

and it will be a multi-year campaign focused on sub-saharan africa now i've just briefly briefly

touched on nigeria as i say nigeria is the place you're most likely to die for your faith most

likely to be kidnapped for your faith the level of persecution in this part of the world is unimaginable

we're talking uh tens of millions displaced tens of thousands hundreds of thousands murdered and in

long-term kidnap and i want to show you one brief story from a guy called manga who i met just a couple of

just a couple of weeks ago in northern ireland uh we had to do a speech together he gave his story

this incredible testimony i'll share a little bit of it and then i had to stand up and talk about

government works i felt a little bit uh i was like how do i follow that couldn't i go on first anyway

um he told the story and i will i'll i'll take it down a little bit because it's a hard story

he was he didn't take his faith very seriously he lived in northern nigeria and one day boko

haram came to his house and they demanded everything in his house that was expensive you

know that was worth anything and then they beat his mother in front of him and left her for dead

and they took him and his brother and his father outside and um i won't get into detail because it

is pretty horrific but they they believe that the more they cause christians to suffer uh the greater

glory they receive so you know do with that what you will but they asked his father and brother to

renounce their faith and they didn't and they were killed brutally and he realized at that moment as he

watched his father die it's what he told me that his life flashed before his eyes and he saw his sin

and he saw that he had not taken his faith seriously and he repented on the spot

and they came to him and they said uh will you renounce your faith and he said no i will die as

a christian and they began to kill him again in a long and very unpleasant way and as they were

doing this the lord's prayer ran through his head and he said he got to the point where it says father

forgive them for they know not what they do and he realized he needed to forgive these people who were

killing him while they were killing him and so he did he prayed in his head uh father forgive them

for they know not what they do those famous words of our lord and he said that moment the pain stopped

unimaginable pain stopped and they left him for dead they believed they killed him

he lost an incredible amount of blood was rushed to hospital and died in the hospital and you know by

god's grace miraculously um was resuscitated and came back and survived and has incredible scarring now

he was actually taken out of the area because the extremists found out he was alive and continued

hunting for him and open doors took him out of that area and helped him with counseling um trauma

counseling safe networks and that sort of stuff and you hear stories like this across the region of africa

now there's one other brief thing i want to touch on which is what we call digital persecution and

it's defined well i define it as the use of new and emerging technologies as a tool of persecution so

a couple of years ago open doors held a digital persecution conference the result of which was a

document which you can find on our website which the with the universities of birmingham and rohampton

and we found that there were three major ways in which new technologies are used to persecute which is

surveillance disinformation and censorship now where ai is a concern for many people around the world

not many are thinking about the impact on already marginalized groups so of course it's not just

christians that face persecution i do want to briefly touch on one example of a non-christian group because

it's it shows us the extent to which this technology can be used and that's the uyghurs in china who are not

christian most of which are muslim but there are a minority of whom uh that are christian they live in in a

digital police state cameras have facial technology facial recognition technology and technology that

can recognize your ethnicity based on markers they're constantly tracked through their phones

and daily go through these big integrated gates that take all the data from your phone and analyze it

all by ai and then the ai ranks you according to a traffic light system green normal surveillance amber

maybe you get a camera put in your home maybe you get a you know bug put in your home and red you're

arrested the system tells the police to arrest you and then the ai interviews you it measures your heart

rate it measures your blood pressure it measures all sorts of things and if it determines that you

are guilty you're then sent to a re-education or labor camp now china is using xinjiang this region

where the uyghurs live as a showroom for the world's dictators and uyghurs are being used to show off

their authoritarian wares to the rest of the world and it's alleged that chinese technology has been

used against lots of people including christians as far as north korea iran myanmar and russia

likewise in china when uh during covid when when churches met um online the equivalent of zoom uh

listened out for words like jesus and christ and christian and if these occurred repeatedly would

shut down the meeting the only place you can get an online uh version of the bible the the characters

for christ and christian have been replaced in india disinformation spreads like wildfire christians

are frequently accused of forcibly converting people and of being cow murderers um there was a local

pastor only 21 years old and he was accused of um there was some villagers came became ill and he was

accused of using christian witchcraft against them and they killed him in a brutal way and it turned out

to be uh the water was infected but this lie spread so fast that the newspapers reported it as true that

this christian witch was doing this in manipul last year one social media lie led to 240 churches being

burned down the public sexual assault of at least five christian women the deaths of many and the

displacement of tens of thousands there are still 20 000 people living in camps supplied by organizations

like open doors because they face persecution in the mainstream camps so what can you do and i'll wrap up

here what can you do the first thing that you can do uh as manipul there the first thing that you can do is to give

um obviously none of this work is free and unlike many other charities open doors is entirely funded by

churches by people like you we take no government money and have no corporate backers if you want to

give you can come and chat with me afterwards you can chat with liz chat with your pastor you can chat with

whoever but do come and chat and the second thing you can do is act and liz has touched on this so i won't

hammer the point home because i want some time for some questions but you you are your boss's mp right

uh you you are your mp's boss other way around you are your mp's boss they do what you say i remember

once a guy coming down to meet me an mp he had a stack of letters from open door and he put them on

table he said how do i make this stop that you did that right we get 101 mps turn up to open doors

world watch it's the largest ngo event in parliament i mean that's incredible i went to another comparable

charity's launch of their report last week and they had three which is a very respectable number for an ngo

god has graced us with 101 and he's done it through people like you so talk to your mp um you can talk

to me about doing that talk to liz about doing that and finally pray which is the most important one and

we'll be doing that later prayer changes the world if you take nothing away from this except this i'll be

happy pray if your family who are persecuted again we have ways of doing this we we have a free um

prayer journal that i can sign you up for at the back uh if you want to chat afterwards um

um and and remember that they pray for you whenever we speak to persecuted christians they ask for

prayer and they say they pray for the western church which never ceases to amaze me um but i will stop

there

you

you

you

you

you

you

you

you