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.
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
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