"Confirming the souls of the disciples, and exhorting them to
continue in the faith, and that through many afflictions we must enter into the kingdom of God." Acts 14:22
The Lord has chosen that His people should pass through deep and cutting afflictions, for it is "through many afflictions" they are to enter the Kingdom of God above, and into the sweetness and power of the Kingdom of God below. But every man will resent this doctrine, except God has led him experimentally into it. It is such a rough and rugged path�it is so contrary to flesh and blood�it is so inexplicable to nature and reason�that man, proud, rebellious man, will never believe that he must enter into the Kingdom of God through many afflictions. And this is the reason why so many find, or seek to find, a smoother way to glory than the Lord has appointed His saints to walk in. But shall the Head travel in one path�and the members in another? Shall the Bridegroom walk and wade through seas of sorrow�and the bride never so much as wet her feet with the water? Shall the Bridegroom be crucified in weakness and suffering�and there be no inward crucifixion for the dearly beloved of His heart? Shall the Head suffer, grieve, agonize, groan, and die�and the members dance down a flowery road, without inward sorrow or outward suffering? But, perhaps, there are some who say in their heart, "I am well convinced of this�but my coward flesh shrinks from it. I know if I am to reach the Canaan above, I must pass through the appointed portion of tribulation. But my coward flesh shrinks back!" It does! it does! Who would willingly bring trials upon himself? Therefore the Lord does not leave these trials in our hands�but
He Himself appoints a certain measure of tribulation for each of His people to pass through. They will come soon enough�you need not anticipate them�you need not wish for them. God will bring them�in His own time and in His own way. And what is more, God will not merely bring you into them, but God will bring you through them, and God will bring you out of them! It will be our mercy if enabled to ask the Lord to bless us with faith and patience under tribulation�to give us strength to bear the storm�to lie as clay in His hands�to conform us to the image of His Son�to guide us through this valley of tears below�and eventually to take us to be with Him above!
"Through many tribulations we must enter the kingdom of God."
Jesus said, "Truly I say to you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or farms, for My sake and for the gospel's sake, 30but that he will receive a hundred times as much now in the present age, houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and farms, along with PERSECUTIONS; and in the age to come, eternal life. 31"But many who are first will be last, and the last, first." Mark 10
ohn 15:18
"If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me (JESUS) first.
John 15:20
Remember what I (JESUS) told you: 'A servant is not greater than his master.' If they persecuted me, they will persecute you also. If they obeyed my teaching, they will obey yours also.
John 16:33
"I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have TROUBLE. But take heart! I (JESUS) have overcome the world."
2 Timothy 3:12
In fact, everyone who wants to live a GODLY life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted
1 Peter 2:21
To this (SUFFERING) you were called, because Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you should follow in his steps.
19 For this is commendable, if because of conscience toward God one endures grief, suffering wrongfully. 20 For what credit is it if, when you are beaten for your faults, you take it patiently? But when you do good and SUFFER, if you take it patiently, this is commendable before God. 21 For to this you were CALLED, because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an EXAMPLE, that you should FOLLOW His steps
HOW should we act in sufferings?
Romans 5:3-5
More than that, we REJOICE in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces ENDURANCE, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.
James 1:2-4
Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the TESTING of your faith produces STEADFASTNESS. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be PERFECT and complete, lacking in nothing.
Romans 8:18
For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us.
1 Peter 4:12-19
Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to TEST you, as though something strange were happening to you. But REJOICE insofar as you SHARE Christ's sufferings, that you may also rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed. If you are INSULTED for the name of Christ, you are blessed, because the Spirit of glory and of God rests upon you. But let none of you suffer as a murderer or a thief or an evildoer or as a meddler. Yet if anyone suffers as a Christian, let him NOT be ashamed, but let him glorify God in that name.
2 Corinthians 4
16 Therefore we do not lose heart. Even though our outward man is perishing, yet the inward man is being renewed day by day. 17 For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, is working for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory, 18 while we do not look at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen. For the things which are seen are temporary, but the things which are not seen are eternal.
Our God Jesus said:
Matthew 5:10
�Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
1 Peter 1:6-7
In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various TRIALS, so that the tested genuineness of your FAITH�more precious than GOLD that perishes though it is tested by fire�may be found to result in PRAISE and GLORY and HONOR at the revelation of Jesus Christ.
2 Timothy 2:3-4
SHARE in SUFFERING as a good SOLDIER of Christ Jesus. No soldier gets entangled in civilian pursuits, since his aim is to please the one who enlisted him.
Philippians 1:29-30
For it has been granted to you that for the sake of Christ you should not only BELIEVE in him (the SON of GOD) but also SUFFER for his sake, engaged in the same conflict that you saw I had and now hear that I still have.
The SON of God says:
Mark 13:13
And you will be hated by all for my name's sake. But the one who endures to the end will be SAVED.
Philippians 3:8-11
Indeed, I count everything as LOSS because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have SUFFERED the LOSS of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in HIM, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through FAITH in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith� that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may SHARE his SUFFERINGS, becoming like him (JESUS) in his death, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead.
Romans 8:35-39
Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? As it is written, �For your sake we are being KILLED all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.� No, in all these things we are more than CONQUERORS through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Revelation 21:8
But as for the cowardly, the faithless, the detestable, as for murderers, the sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars, their portion will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur, which is the second death.�
In this past century alone, an est. 200 million Christians were murdered for their faith.
Officials Forcing the Abandonment of the Christian Faith on the Assumption of American Religion
Natahall village, Phin District, Savannakhet Province, Laos
Human Rights Watch for Lao Religious Freedom (HRWLRF)
Advocacy Alert No. 01/2014
March 14, 2013
On December 2, 2013, five Christian families (namely Mr. A-boun, family of 4; Mr. Lahaw, family of 4, Mr. Bountun, family of 4; Mrs. Achak, family of 2, and Mr. Sorn, family of 10) received eviction order from the Natahall village authorities (namely, Mr. Amka, village chief; and Mr. Juayjong, village religious affairs official) and the Phin district police stationed at Saybanghiang sub-district (namely, Mr. Bounthong). The 5 families, who are legal residents of Natahall village, decided to exercise their constitutionally guaranteed religious right in embracing the Christian faith. However, acting in contrary to the Lao constitution, these Lao authorities deemed that believing in the Christian faith was contrary to local religious beliefs and customs and therefore acted to ban the Christian faith from the village and expulse village residents who are Christians from the village if they continue to exercise their religious freedom to embrace the Christian faith.
After Natahall Christians insisted on and defended their religious right to the Christian faith, the village chief took further action in order to coerce the Christians to abandon their faith. On December 8, the village chief publically declared that the Christians would be personally responsible for any death coming upon Natahall villagers because the village chief and the village elders maintained that believing in God violated the village�s longstanding spirit beliefs and customs. The village chief was prepared to issue legal documents for relocating Christians to other Christian communities in the province.
Amidst continuous threats by the officials, 3 more families have joined the Christian faith, totally 8 families who now adhere to the Christian beliefs. In a recent effort to stop the spread of the Christian faith in Natahall and eradicate it from taking root, the village chief, along with the Phin district police stationed in Tathai sub-district, summoned the 8 Christian families for a 4-hour meeting on March 11, 2014. The officials jeered the Natahall Christians and directed them to abandon their Christian faith, stating that the Christians are believing in a foreign American religion. The officials said to the Christians, �We fought to rid of the Americans before and now you are leading their religion into our homes.�
Christian residents of Natahall village are fighting hard to keep their homes as well as their constitutionally guaranteed right to believe in the Christian faith. They have appealed to the Phin district religious affairs to intervene; however, nothing has happened.
The HRWLRF urges the Lao government to respect the right of the Lao people to religious freedom and the accompanying right to gather for corporate worship as guaranteed in the Lao constitution and the U.N. International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, ratified by Laos in 2009, upholding the individual�s right to adopt a religion/belief of choice as well as the right to manifest that religion/belief in a corporate worship (Article 18). Any form of coercion impairing the freedom to have and manifest one�s religion/belief of choice is condemned in the Covenant.
Myanmar's Christian minority clings on despite severe persecution
Displaced Kachin Catholics pray at Sunday Mass in Mai Ja Yang. At least 66 churches have been destroyed in the state since mid-2011
When government forces attacked Mansi township in northern Kachin state on October 22 last year, soldiers fired 60mm mortars at civilian homes for an hour before storming the village. Many of the thatched wooden buildings were burned to the ground.
To escape the shelling, 700 residents holed up in a nearby church where they remained trapped for 22 days. After state security forces finally left Mansi at the end of December, Christian relief groups that re-entered made a gruesome discovery: in a shallow grave lay three charred bodies. All showed signs of torture.
Since war erupted between state forces and the rebel Kachin Independence Army (KIA) in mid-2011, destruction of this predominantly Baptist region of Myanmar has ranked among the most severe of recent times against any Christian group in Asia.
At least 66 churches � 61 Baptist, four Catholic and one Church of God � have been destroyed in less than three years, according to Kachin Baptist Convention (KBC) data collected last year. Many more remain crumbling and may well need to be demolished and rebuilt, said the KBC. As a result of the conflict at least 75,000 people have fled to temporary camps in KIA-controlled areas, leaving entire Christian communities wiped off the map.
Benedict Rogers, East Asia team leader at Christian Solidarity Worldwide, says the Kachin situation is more complex than in other Asian countries where persecution against Christians is also severe � by Islamists in Indonesia and Pakistan and hardline Hindus in India. Aggression against Christianity in northern Myanmar represents the collateral damage in a war designed to stamp out Kachin designs on autonomy, he adds.
�There is a religious dimension, in that successive military regimes have been hostile to non-Buddhist religious minorities, particularly Muslims and Christians, and have used religion as a political tool,� says Rogers. �But the war is primarily ethnic and political.�
Kachin Baptist Pastor Chyauchyi Tanggun says persecution against Christians in northern Myanmar is no less deliberate.
When he fled his village soon after the start of the war in November 2011, Myanmar soldiers looted donation boxes at his church, burned the altar and stole the electric generator, he says. The Catholic church in the village had already been abandoned after the military used it to store munitions and food supplies for battalions fighting against the rebels.
�It�s because we�re Christians that they intentionally do these things,� he says. �They wouldn�t even place a finger on a Buddhist temple.�
Chyauchyi is one of three Baptist pastors now living in an internally displaced persons (IDP) camp in Mai Ja Yang, the largest KIA-controlled area on Myanmar�s border with China. His congregation remains scattered in different camps across this remote frontier.
In his bamboo and brick hut in the camp, Chyauchyi shows photographs of his looted home, his clothes and possessions strewn across the floor. He took the pictures four months after fleeing his village, sneaking back through military lines in an attempt to find out what was left of his congregation.
One deacon and two young Christian men who attempted the same dangerous trip never made it back.
�At first, we thought we had just lost contact with them,� says Chyauchyi. �But as time went on we assumed they were killed. Their bodies were never found.�
After more than two years living in the camp � a former lumber mill now with a school and a covered yard for church services � religious life here remains makeshift but structured. Every evening after dinner, Chyauchyi holds a prayer service in his sector of the camp. The dispolaced people huddle on plastic chairs clutching Kachin-language prayer and hymn books. A dangling light bulb illuminates the service.
Church masses across the pockets of KIA-controlled territory in northern Myanmar are not only for preaching the word of God. They have also turned into a platform for rebel politics.
Faith in resistance
On a recent Sunday, the camp�s Catholic leader Thomas Galau Thuring preached about the KIA but summarized with a message of forgiveness.
�We lost some of our KIA men, and the Myanmar army came back again with much force. That�s how they respond to the KIA soldiers,� he told the congregation of more than 120 people. �But we don�t need to care about what the Myanmar soldiers do � we need to love them and forgive them. It�s not an eye for an eye. God doesn�t want that, Jesus doesn�t want that. He wants us to love our enemies.�
In a bid to spur religious fervor in support of the insurgents, the Kachin Baptist Convention regularly declares prayer marathons across KIA-controlled territory.
Last month, the Mai Ja Yang church called a 12-hour prayer relay in which members of the congregation were instructed � by name � to pray in half-hour shifts in a prayer room built within the church compound after the start of the war. A notice on the door was clear on what the prayers were designed for � Kareng Kaw Ja, one of those involved, followed the instructions to the letter. Independence was again the order of the day.
�I prayed for the state to be righteous and holy in front of God and for religious leaders to be able to lead the people � the Christians � through the Holy Spirit�s guidance. And also for the leaders of the KIO and the KIA that they would be successful leading the state so that the people can be more prosperous,� she said after her prayer shift was over.
At Sunday Mass the following day there was yet more politics to attend to. Later this month, the Myanmar government will send out thousands of volunteer census workers door to door across the country, which has 135 officially recognized ethnic groups.
Many Kachins are furious that the census questionnaire subdivides their group into four tribes, which in the past have been at war, but then in 1961 united against the Myanmar military.
�We shouldn�t be separated,� said a female announcer at the end of mass, reading from a KBC statement. �If they�re going to do the census you need to put your nationality as �Kachin.� This is to preserve our culture and our nation.�
The future of the Kachin resistance looks anything but bright. At the end of last month, the KBC ordered yet more prayer marathons as the Myanmar military surrounded Laiza, the KIA stronghold. Few expect government forces to take it over � Laiza lies right on the Chinese border and the international outcry would no doubt be loud. Myanmar�s government has become increasingly keen to appease the international community since the West ended a strict sanctions regime in response to recent political reforms.
On January 18, the government announced a unilateral ceasefire with the Kachin, the last of more than 30 rebel groups in Myanmar still fighting the military, but clashes have continued. The next round of peace talks are due in the coming weeks and a framework agreement is 80 percent complete, said a KIA commander who declined to give his name because he was not authorized to speak to media.
Many ordinary Kachins � aid workers, displaced people, Christian leaders and KIA � say that nothing will be solved unless the Myanmar government agrees to a federalist system, a common refrain from the many ethnic groups on the country�s restive periphery.
But some quietly admit there are signs things are getting better in Myanmar amid a shift towards civilian rule.
Seeking religious order
Bishop Raymond Sumlut Gam of Bhammo, Kachin state�s second-largest town, says that when he sent a letter to the government asking to �please protect our churches� in August 2011, two months after the conflict began, the army did appear to respond.
Only four Catholic churches have been destroyed, and all of these were hit before the letter was sent, he says.
�After that, there was no response, but the army seemed to be more careful,� he adds.
he also says that, with the war ongoing and dozens of communities entirely abandoned, there are no immediate plans to rebuild any churches. The bill is likely to be considerable for a region among the poorest in the country, itself one of the least developed in the region: new brick churches in northern Myanmar start at about US$10,000 each and those made out of wood and bamboo around $5,000. Many will have to be demolished first, at a further cost.
In the past, Myanmar�s military regime would have been happy to smash churches down with no thought of helping with reconstruction, says Bishop Raymond. �But now the government might be different. If there is at least a chance, we will ask them to help us rebuild our churches.�
