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El Cajon SDA

Vincent Bujor

Even if the Pews Are Empty

Oh Father Lord, we surely thank you for everything that you have done in our lives.

And we also thank you for the trials, the sufferings, and the persecution in our lives, reminding us that we are following in your footsteps and experiencing your sweet presence in those trials like nowhere else.

Father, as we turn to your word this morning, free us from all distractions, make it very clear.

Help us to understand what you want us to learn this morning.

But realize this, that in the last days difficult times will come.

For men will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, revilers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy, unloving, irreconcilable, malicious gossips, without self-control, brutal, haters of good, treacherous, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, holding to a form of godliness although they have denied its power.

Avoid such men as these, for among them are those who enter into households and captivate weak women, weighed down with sins, led on by various impulses, always learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth.

Just as Jans and Jambres opposed Moses, so these men will also oppose the truth.

Men of depraved mind rejected in regard to the faith, but they will not make further progress, for their folly will be obvious to all, just as Jan's and Jambres' folly was also.

Now, Timothy, you followed my teaching, conduct, purpose, faith, patience, love, perseverance, persecutions, and sufferings as happened to me at Antioch, at Iconium, and Lystra.

What persecution I endured and out of them all, the Lord rescued me.

Indeed, all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution." That's an interesting chapter, right?

And he starts his paragraph, his chapter here with the words, realize this, we have to understand something.

He goes on with a list of a lot of things that people are like in the last days.

Paul tells us that we are living in the last days, and this is what's going to happen in the last days.

Isn't that interesting that he says people have a form of godliness, a form of religion, a form of spirituality, but they have denied the power.

And then he talks about how this evil enters into the homes of our society, And he talks about how men are doing this, how they are corrupting families, they're rejecting the truth, they're led on by various impulses and not able to control their emotions.

And that's how households break down and society collapses because people cannot control themselves anymore.

And then he makes this comparison, and I don't know if you know who Jans and Jambres are, those are 2 names mentioned in this paragraph.

He talks about Jans and Jambres opposing Moses.

This is when Aaron and Moses went into Pharaoh and they performed this powerful miracle where the rod, Aaron's rod, became a serpent.

And then suddenly these false magicians, these sorcerers, these Egyptian people, they came up and they were counterfeiting the miracle and their rods also became like serpents.

They didn't produce life but it was an illusion.

But he says, Paul says that just like their fault, their fault became obvious to all, The same way it will happen today Impressing the masses with counterfeiting miracles, but at the end of the day you know what happened Moses and Aaron's serpent was eating up the other fake serpents that these Egyptian magicians produced.

And then Paul addresses Timothy directly and he talks about his experiences at these 3 cities.

You can read about those in Acts chapter 13 and 14.

What happened in Antioch, in Lystra, Iconium?

In Antioch, Paul got kicked out of the city for preaching the truth.

In Iconium, a plot was formed against Paul and they wanted to stone him.

And you know what happened at the other city?

Paul was being stoned alive and then he obviously was crushed underneath the stones.

They thought that he was dead and so they carried him out of the city and left him there in the dirt.

And then, in a miraculous way, God preserved Paul's life.

So he came back, he got his consciousness back, and he just went his way.

And so Paul relates these experiences, he talks about these experiences, and then he says after this he makes this powerful and simple statement.

He says, all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution.

When I was in fifth grade, I had a Korean friend, his name was Joey, he was a good friend of mine.

I had in fact a lot of Korean friends because in Frankfurt there where I went to school or nearby there, there are a lot of banks.

And so a lot of people from Asia came, you know, their families came there for a couple years.

The dads would work there and then the families would go to school there.

And so I had my Asian friends there that were going to school with me.

And I remember this conversation that we had, fifth grade, okay, I was actually, I was 9 years old, he was 10 years old.

And we were talking about having faith in God because that was something that, You know, growing up in secular Europe, most people don't even believe that there is a God.

And so we said, no, we believe there is a God, you know, and then we talked about the benefits of being a believer in God.

You know, basically there are no disadvantages.

Like we said, this was our conversation that we were having, right?

We were saying, you know, basically when you believe in God, you can only win because if he exists, you go to heaven, and if he doesn't exist, you didn't lose anything.

That's how we concluded the conversation.

But Paul said, all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution.

Let's analyze that sentence a little bit.

Paul doesn't say, oh, all the elders will suffer persecution.

When you become a pastor, You will suffer persecution.

You know, when you are a spiritual leader, then you suffer persecution.

Or when you are born in the medieval time period, right, when the church is oppressing us, that's when you suffer persecution.

I thought, oh, you know what, if you've been in the church for 20 years if you've been a become a spiritual giant if if you have the masters in theology then you probably suffer persecution but he says all who desire in other words if you're just getting started if you just want to become a Christian and you're right at the beginning, you will suffer persecution.

And then he says, you will, not you shall, not you might, not you could, you will suffer persecution.

In other words, if we don't experience persecution in our lives, If the devil is not attacking us, we are not real Christians.

Now by this point in the presentation, you should already have a question in your mind.

If you've been following along here, you should maybe already feel the discrepancy here in the room here, because you might be wondering, reading this, wait a minute, if Paul says all who desire to live godly shall suffer persecution, how come that right now we are not being persecuted?

Why am I preaching on a 10 acre property here and not in prison?

Why do we have more than 200 mega churches in California, more than in any other state, and by the way, a mega church is defined by more than 2, 000 people coming every week to church, more than 200 of those in California.

How can we meet in our homes and read our Bibles and no 1 cares?

I remember I was in Hamburg, Germany, preaching there a couple years ago and I was with the person that was accompanying me and showing me where I have to go we were taking public transportation and we were in the train or in the bus I don't even remember and I had my Bible with me and then later on she said you know I find it so brave and nice of you that you just you know walk around with your Bible in your arm like that'd be something normal because you know up there it's not normal.

How come I can do this and not end up in prison?

If all who desire to live godly shall suffer persecution.

There's a book called the Acts of the Apostles, and there, 1 famous Christian writer, she puts it this way.

She says that the character of persecution changes with the times, but the principle, The spirit that lies underneath it is the same that has slain the chosen ones of the Lord ever since the days of Abel.

I want to go a little bit here into history with you and kind of remind ourselves this morning what actually happened ever since the first person that died for his faith.

Abel was murdered by his own brother because he worshipped God in spirit and in truth.

Joseph, and I'm just reading a few names here and you remember those stories some of you have read them and studied them You know them very well Joseph.

He was Slandered and persecuted because he preserved his virtue and integrity Being in prison for no reason David the chosen messenger of God, Do you know how many years he was persecuted?

Scholars say up to 10 years, even more than 10 years of his life, this man was fleeing.

He was running from 1 place to another, fleeing because he was persecuted.

And then at the end of his life, even by his own son, Daniel was cast into the den of lions because he stayed faithful to God and chose to pray, although it might cost his life.

Who lost all of his possessions, his family died, but he chose to keep his integrity.

I could go on, there is Jeremiah who just spoke the truth and his words made the king so angry that he was thrown into a dark and empty cistern full of mud and filth.

Christ himself was fleeing from town to town, escaping assassination attempts, and eventually being beaten with a Roman whip that tore his flesh apart, he died on that Roman instrument of torture.

Why do people treat Christianity today like a social club?

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Even if the Pews Are Empty

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