How to Do Exploits as a Christian Under Persecution

Editor’s note: The following is the first in a series of six articles by WCFS graduate, missionary, and current WCFS project manager Tim Shell. They are adapted from a sermon series he presented in January and February of 2021. You can watch this message on the WCFS YouTube Channel. It is titled “How to Live Under Persecution as A Christian.”

Why an Article About Persecution?

Ancient Bible prophecies from the Old and New Testaments state that the end of the world will host conditions of an iron kingdom that “smashes in pieces all things” and persecutes Christians (Daniel 2:40-43). Jesus promised that Christians will have tribulation in this world. 2000 years of church history documents the persecution of Christians and currently there is worldwide news of persecution of Christians. There is real potential for persecution of Christians in the United States in our lifetimes.

Therefore, Christians in the 21st century are encouraged to prepare and arm themselves with a mind to suffer. A healthy, fearless attitude of acceptance of persecution is to be the default mindset for Christians and this series is intended to promote that attitude of triumph and overcoming in the spirit of Daniel 11:32, “But the people that do know their God shall be strong and do exploits.”

This particular article is based on the concept of Jesus as the Good Shepherd and the story of Sung Do, a believer in North Korea. For better comprehension please read the following before reading this article:

• Bible: Gospel of John, Chapter 10

• Book: These Are the Generations, by Pastor Eric Foley, (Pub. 2012, ISBN:978061568351)

Introduction: Current Events

The prospect of persecution of Christians in the US is increasing daily and some conditions are moving quickly toward those similar to what has been in effect for the past seventy years in North Korea. As much as many Christians have prayed and longed for North Korea to open and be free like the rest of the world, Bible prophesies predict instead, that the rest of the free world in the end times will become like North Korea – a place of totalitarian control, suffering and misery where everything good is smashed to pieces. Just as in North Korea, global powers today are taking complete control of all information, travel, and medical treatments, and setting up full time live monitoring of all human movement, finances and messages. Those who attempt to live in resistance to such controls are being eliminated or placed in captivity.

It is reminiscent of domesticating chickens where the most wonderful, up to date,

chicken paradise is set up in which the birds have all they need inside a fence and in facilities under complete control. Their freedom exists only in the boundaries of the system created and most of them will be content to stay there. But, to the intense frustration of the keeper of the chickens, there will always be a few chickens that keep getting out! How dare they! Those are eliminated with the greatest sense of satisfaction before they can teach the others how to escape. Chicken soup!

In like manner, those who rule the world will, once again, as in the past, eliminate the Christians with the greatest satisfaction who don't comply with their system. Society in the West will be turned against the Christian, (who will be dehumanized as the Jews were in Nazi Germany), and go along with their elimination. Most people will submit to the system and are more willing to sacrifice their freedoms than their lives. This has been endlessly predicted by secular writers like Orwell and Huxley as well as Bible prophets. Regardless of whether or not this is the final pattern and mark of the Beast system, the first steps of this pattern are playing out today with the global dehumanization of the unvaccinated.

Two decades ago many in the US were not interested in hearing this message, but with the coordinated, worldwide efforts manifesting today as medically justified tyranny and oppression of free speech, etc., some are beginning to listen. If persecution on par with North Korea came to your town tomorrow, what would you do? Would you be ready?

Living Under Persecution

Most people will not be ready, but a few who know their God will do exploits. Christians want to survive persecution without losing their faith, but how? How should believers live under persecution? Can they survive? The testimony of the church, past and present, is that they can not only survive, but thrive and overcome adversity and “do exploits”: heroic acts of courage and victory over evil. But how can they do exploits?

Sung Do, a Christian North Korean and his family, will be an example for us in doing exploits for God in the midst of persecution. (You can read Sung Do’s story in These are the Generations by Eric Foley). How did they do it? The answer is very simple, they learn to hear the Shepherd's voice and follow. Sung Do was willing to do whatever his Shepherd, Jesus, told him to do, even if it meant doing strange things that went against his natural reasoning, like burning their Bibles. Let us consider together five points describing how to do exploits.

Obey the Holy Spirit

If you have not developed a personal, functional relationship with the Holy Spirit then forget doing exploits. He is the “how” of doing exploits. He gives unexpected, unusual, inexplicable, uncomfortable instructions:

◦ Israel at Red Sea: God told Moses to “Go forward!” How?! There's a sea in the way! ◦ Israel at Canaan: God told Israel to, “Go fight giants!” How?! We're like grasshoppers to them!

Following the Holy Spirit is counter intuitive, because it often makes no sense! Why should you obey anyway? Because you are His sheep!

Do you know the Holy Spirit? Does He speak? Do you hear? Do you obey? Do you know your Shepherd's voice as in John 10? Develop a lifestyle of listening to and depending on the Holy Spirit's words to you. He speaks to the heart and mind, not often in an audible voice. Once you come to learn it you will understand Him even better than hearing an audible voice.

The Holy Spirit has real intelligence information for us that no intelligence agency is privy to:

◦ 2 Kings 6:12: “the prophet tells the King of Israel what you [the King of Syria] say in your bedroom”. ◦ Joshua 9:14: The children of Israel checked the Gibeonites’ bread and shoes but failed to check with God. God had the intelligence they needed.

Back to the Basics

Sheep are trained to hear the shepherd's voice. They comply because they have been trained to comply. It doesn't just happen; it's something they learn. For believers it happens when they read God's word and pray. We need to go back to basic training as in all victorious sports programs or the military. Basics!

Are you in the Word? It is as essential as eating. God speaks primarily through Scripture to your heart and mind. Sung Do was being led by the Word of God daily even when there was no audible voice telling him what to do. If you aren't in the Word daily, how can you be led by the Holy Spirit? Everything God wants to say to you He already said and wrote it down for you. Most of what the Holy Spirit does to guide us is to remind us of Scripture, of what Jesus said. But on special occasions He gives special instructions.

Are you in prayer? As essential as breathing. God knows that humans only solve their problems when they verbalize them to someone so He offers to listen.

Get serious, stop playing around. Are you mesmerized by entertainment and a-muse-ment? How many hours have you devoted to entertainment this year? How many to reading the scriptures? So, what shape are you in spiritually? Get fit!

Fasting is essential and must be practiced before the spiritual conflict comes. It's twice as easy to hear the Shepherd when fasting than when eating- sometimes 10x easier, which is an incredible mystery. Your body has two methods of getting energy, a glucose metabolism and a fat metabolism. When your glucose is exhausted ketosis starts and you can live for extended periods of time without food. Get used to it. Gain experience. Embrace hunger. If it were not for ketosis athletes would collapse and die halfway through a game. It is not possible for them to build up enough glucose to play a game through to the end, and they cannot stop to eat and they cannot depend on glucose. Their bodies learn to switch quickly from one to the other. Train your body to do so. The Scripture assumes that believers will fast and Jesus led by example. Sung Do fasted more and more toward the end of his life.

Chinese Pastor Samuel Wang was imprisoned for the Lord many years in China. He explained how the Chinese believers prepare for their captivity: 1) memorizing as much Scripture as possible; 2) exercising as much as possible; and 3) gaining as much weight as possible.

Arm the mind for Suffering

Visualize and role play being in a concentration camp. Whenever you do a difficult task, visualize how much more difficult it would be in a prison camp. How will you behave? What will you do? Will you waste energy hating your enemies or will you develop a lifestyle of prompt forgiveness? If there is someone in your life today you haven't forgiven, how will you in a prison camp?

Read books about prison camps so you know what to expect. Develop the ability to tune out mass suffering emotionally. You will not be capable of caring about every injustice you observe. Get your priorities in order.

Prepare to die, face the fear now. Learn to make a distinction between a sense of danger which is healthy and an attitude of fear which is debilitating. Recognize risk, but reject fear.

“Fear not!” is commanded over 100 times in the Bible.

Hold Convictions Loosely

The people you need the most under persecution are the same people you have divided yourself from now over differences of doctrine and convictions. Unite! The idea that Christians will have convictions and opposing convictions and argue about them is assumed in the New Testament. Healthy criticism is never condemned in the Bible. However, contentious, divisive arguing is forbidden and is a sign of spiritual immaturity in I Corinthians.

Nowhere does God instruct us to be led by our convictions. On the contrary we are to be led by the Holy Spirit who has a habit of leading believers contrary to their convictions at times. (What if Sung Do had had a conviction against burning the Bible?) Convictions are you speaking to you, convincing yourself over and over why you are right about something. They matter little to God in the end.

Most Christian's convictions are untested, yet they can speak at great length to others about them and try to win them to their point of view. What is the value of an untested conviction?

◦ Paul had a conviction he was serving God by persecuting believers, God showed him otherwise. ◦ Peter had a conviction not to eat with Gentiles, God showed him otherwise. ◦ Muslims have a conviction not to lay a Koran or Bible on the floor, what if they need to bury one to hide it? ◦ Russian immigrants, Mr. Khatman and his family, had a conviction to respect bread and never throw food because it was precious to them from having gone through starvation. What if that was the only way to reach a person with it was to toss it to them?

Convictions don't last long in a prison camp. They are quickly abandoned in order to have unity with other believers of any persuasion. The fellowship becomes that valuable.

Be about the Father's Business Today

In or out of a prison camp, the believer's assignments are the same: make disciples, share the good news, obey the commandments of Jesus, and lead by example.

Kim Il Sung, the grandfather of Kim Jong Un who is the current leader of the DPRK, was raised in a Christian home. He reached out to Christians in the beginning of his rule, but they set themselves as his vehement political enemies and took up political activism against him to the point of violence. That is why he determined to eliminate them. Some wise Korean pastors believe that the church in that day should have focused primarily on evangelism, not political activism. What about us? What is our focus? Are American believers about to make the same mistake? Why are we all active in politics but not evangelism? Only the Gospel can heal our nation. Is not the root of our political problems that we have ceased to be good? How can anyone make America great again if the average American is not good? There should be a, “Make America Good Again”, slogan and the greatness will take care of itself. Alexis De Tocqueville is quoted as saying, “America is great because America is good, if America ever ceases to be good, America will cease to be great”. That quote cannot be documented from him, but it's true no matter who said it.

How many Christians marching in Washington, D.C. are porn addicts? Can God honor the prayers of believers with secret sins?

How many believers are protesting abortion clinics while refusing to have reasonable numbers of children themselves. Why should Christians be allowed to say to people who don't have God's love for children in their hearts, “I'm not having children, but you should? I'm free to reject the responsibility of reproduction but you aren't?” Jesus welcomed children; shouldn't we?

How many Christians right now are entertaining thoughts of hatred and violence toward the government officials and big tech CEO's who have become their enemies and betrayers? How many Christians are practicing forgiveness today and praying for their enemies in the political theater?

We have to take righteousness seriously, it's not just an outward act. Where a nation is truly righteous it will be exalted, and there is no political power or movement on the earth that can prevent it. Equally there is no power that

can make a corrupt people great. Am I against America being great? No! But being good is the only way for that to happen. If the goodness is a given, the greatness happens by default. Greatness is the default setting of a good

people. And good people come from the regenerating work of Jesus Christ; only He can make a person good. We have the answers. Will we be busy sharing them?

Concluding Considerations

Are you ready for persecution and threat of physical harm, imprisonment and death as a believer? Will you follow the example of Sung Do who knew his Shepherd's voice and followed even though it made no sense over and over again? Do you hear God's voice and follow now? How will you then if you haven't trained yourself to do it now? Have you

learned to forgive all enemies and persecutors? Have you learned to live in the absence of fear of any kind? What are you doing spiritually to prepare yourself and your family and those you influence to “be strong and do exploits?

This article discusses the “how” of living under persecution. Next time we will discuss the “what” of living under persecution. What exploits will the strong who know their God do?

God bless your preparations for living in the end times.