If I Die...

1. Read Hebrews 13:3. What does this verse mean to you in terms of our responsibility towards those who are persecuted, and how can you take practical steps to remember and support those who are suffering for their beliefs?
2. What does it mean that persecution "purifies" the church?
3. Can you think of ways that challenges in our own lives might help strengthen our faith in similar ways?
4. Why do you think many American Christians lack interest in the struggles of persecuted Christians around the world, according to the speaker?
5. What practical actions can you take to support the persecuted church?
6. In what ways are you feeling led to help the persecuted Church? (Examples could include things like prayer educating yourself, and even contributing financially to support those in need).

Prayer + Practice:

Pray about how you can participate in helping the persecuted church. Go to Vernon Brewer's organization worldhelp.net to find ways to give. Commit to praying for the persecuted church as we approach the day of prayer for the persecuted church. Click HERE for a 2025 prayer calendar.

Pete, thank you for that introduction. I can't wait to hear me.

I thought for a minute, I thought as he was talking, I thought I said, hey, I thought I was speaking today. Who's he talking about? I'm so glad to be here. Just for disclaimer, I was born in Fort Worth at Harris Hospital and yes, thank you, grew up in Greenville. You know what they say about us Texans, you can always tell a Texan, you just can't tell them much.

But I am so glad to be here, Pete, with you. Incredible journey you've had to this and founding this over 30 years ago. So I'm a cancer survivor, so I'm just glad to be anywhere today. I'll never forget when the doctors told me to go home and put my affairs in order. They said, we have to operate immediately.

It doesn't look good and you may not survive. They removed a five pound tumor from off my heart and lungs and said if they'd waited another week, it would have been too late. And they didn't give me much hope for survival because they severed the nerve to my vocal cords in one of those surgeries. I had 18 surgeries.

I couldn't speak with an audible voice. It was like a six year old child whispering. And that was very frustrating. And 18 surgeries a year and a half of chemotherapy and radiation, many times near death's door. And I couldn't believe the day when they told me I was in remission.

Aren't you glad doctors are sometimes wrong? Yeah, I am. And through the miracle of modern medicine, they injected Teflon into my vocal cord so I could speak again. And ladies, as you know, one of the benefits of Teflon is that nothing sticks on the way down. As you can tell, I'm in the epitome of health, robust health.

I ran into a friend of mine, you know, Robbie Heiner. And I hadn't seen him in years. And he said, he said, vernon, you've put on some weight since the last time I saw you. And I said, well, the last time you saw me, I was nearly dead. And then I said, I'd rather be fat than dead.

Write that in your Bibles. That's the best one you're going to get today. So I'll take a minute and give you time to write that down. No, I left Liberty in 1991. I still live in Lynchburg.

My kids went to Liberty Speak at Liberty. But it was God was pushing me out the door to start World Health 33 years ago. Beat in that time. We have printed and distributed 10 million Bibles around the world. We've helped plant 97,000 house churches among persecuted believers, and we've provided $274 million in aid, which has earned us the right to be heard in places like Ukraine and what's happening in the Middle East.

And, Pete, we at world Health, we measure success by spiritual impact, not by dollars and cents. And we've impacted more than 20 million people with the gospel in 33 years. My daughter is. Thank you.

So during COVID I snuck out and went to North Korea, where we've been working for years. And they sat down with me, the leaders, and asked me. They said, vernon, we need you to do something for us. I said, anything. What can I do?

They said, we want you to tell our story. I said, what do you mean? He said, well, we don't think the people in America really understand what's happening. And you've been here. You've seen it.

We want you to tell our story. And I promised them I would. What would. What can you say? And I came home and I started writing down the stories that I knew and decided I was only going to tell the stories of people that I have actually met and knew, not just the ones I've heard about.

And when I got done, I had enough stories to make a book out of it. So I just put them in countries and all the stories from China in one chapter and all the stories from North Korea in another chapter and decided to go on a book tour and sell this book so American Christians could pray for them. On the night before the first event in San Diego, in a church of about 200 in attendance, the Lord really impressed on my heart, I don't want you selling your books. I want you to give them away. And of course, my son, he says, dad, I agree.

He said, don't sell your books. He said, no one's going to give you money for your books. I said, well, son, that's not very kind. He said, no, really, dad. He said, I saw one of your books on Amazon or somewhere, one of your older books, for a quarter.

And he said, and it was autographed. He said, can you imagine how embarrassing that is to me? So.

But no, really, the Lord said, I just don't want money to be an issue. So I decided. I called a few of my friends and I decided to go on a book tour. That was over two years ago during COVID and it's still going strong.

So I just decided I would come for free. No. No one paid my expenses to Be here, hotel, airfare, rental car, all that. And I'm not selling the books back there, I'm giving them away.

So. And I don't get any royalties from the book. All that goes to the persecuted church. And so I want you to know the reason I'm here is to keep my promise. And the books are available.

If you don't have any money, take one. If you've got want to make a gift to the persecuted church, please do. And we have. You can do cash or check or we have a QR code. You can do a credit card and some credit card slips if you want to do credit card.

Next Sunday is the international day of prayer for the persecuted church.

Hundreds of millions of Christians around the world are going to be joining in prayer and praying, especially for the persecuted Christians that are in prison.

The author of Hebrews says in chapter 13, verse three, he said, remember those in prison as if you were there yourself. Remember also those being mistreated as if you felt their pain in your own bodies. I want to read you one page out of the beginning of the book. I promise it's only one page, of course. My son said, dad, if you really want to make money, threaten to read it to them.

If they don't buy it.

I think he's got issues.

Threatened to read it to you one page.

This is one of my favorite stories.

I met Ping several years ago on a trip to Vietnam. Her story of persecution is the kind that haunts you for days and weeks later. And in some respects it still haunts me today. I'll never forget the look on her face as she recounted the abuse and torture she had endured for being a faithful follower of Jesus Christ. This 34 year old woman had once been a Buddhist and lived in a monastery.

She had been sick for many years, but when she accepted Christ, she was immediately healed from her disease. She is now an evangelist and church planter. And when I met her, she had started six churches and had 47 new churches developing.

This young woman has been arrested six times by the secret police. She suffered continuous persecution. She was beaten numerous times, detained for weeks at a time and fined the equivalent of $250, which is six months salary. The police beat her on the head every day for two weeks until she almost died. And when she survived, they decided to tie her hands together and throw her overboard from a boat in the river.

And once again she miraculously survived. The police then forced her to march up and down a mountain for days. She said when she could no longer stand the Beatings. She would pray and ask God for strength. One day, the police publicly humiliated her by tearing off her shirt and parading her through the streets.

And she stood in that public gathering half naked with her hands tied behind her back and said these words. I live for Jesus Christ, and if I die, I die for Jesus Christ. And the title of the book is, if I Die Risking Death to Live for Jesus. And I want to thank you in advance for allowing me to come, for allowing me to tell their stories for the next few minutes, and for what you're going to do on the eve of this international day of prayer for the persecuted church, what you're going to do to help them. Diedrich Bonhoeffer was a German Lutheran pastor who wrote these words in 1937.

He said, When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die. How could he have known that he himself would have been hanged in a Nazi concentration camp? His only crime? Bonhoeffer was a Christian. The persecution of Christians around the world is more severe today than ever, mainly because of communism.

The 20th century saw more martyrs than the previous 19 centuries combined. In Sudan, Christians are enslaved. In Iran, they're assassinated. In China, they are still beaten to death. And in more than 60 countries worldwide, Christians are harassed, abused, arrested, tortured, and still executed specifically because of their faith.

It's estimated that every five minutes, a Christian is killed for their faith. That's an average of 105,000 believers are killed each year simply for being a Christian.

If those statistics or estimates are true, that means in the past 10 years, seen more than 1 million martyrs. And I say to you this morning, church, a million martyrs is more than enough. These are not wild rumors, nor are they simply Christians who are suffering from war and tyranny like in the Middle East. Hundreds of millions of Christians are suffering simply because of what they believe. Stephen was the first martyr of the church.

He was stoned to death. James, the son of Zebedee was beheaded. Philip was scourged and crucified. Matthew was slain with an axe. James the Less was beaten and stoned.

Matthias was beheaded. Andrew was crucified on an X shaped cross. Mark was dragged to pieces. Peter was crucified upside down. Paul gave his neck to the sword.

Jude was crucified. Bartholomew was crucified. Thomas was thrust through with a spear. In India, Luke was hanged. And Simon was crucified.

Only one. Only John, the beloved disciple, was the only apostle to escape violent death. One authority writes that Christian persecution did not stop with the deaths of the apostles. It has continued throughout the centuries and grown dramatically in the past few decades. But make no mistake, Christian persecution is increasing and one way or another, it affects us all.

Mark Patterson, in the introduction of his book Play the Man, tells the gripping story of the martyrdom of Polycarp, one of the early church fathers. Pete I was a 12 year old boy when I read in Fox's Book of Martyrs the Story of Polycarp for the first time. I like the way Mark tells it better. So Mark in this book said, the martyrdom of Polycarp on February 23, AD155, Smyrna, Greece. He said, like Jesus entering Jerusalem, Polycarp was led into the city of Smyrna on a donkey.

And the Roman proconsul implored Polycarp to recant. He said, swear by the genius of Caesar. Polycarp held his tongue and held his ground. And the proconsul prodded. He said, swear and I will release you.

He said, revile the Christ.

Didn't Polycarp wrote those words that are today famous, that have survived the test of time? When Polycarp said, 80 and six years have I served him and he has done me no wrong, how then can I blaspheme my king who has saved me? The die was cast. Polycarp was led to the center of the Colosseum, where three times the proconsul announced, polycarp has professed himself to be a Christian. And the bloodthirsty crowd chanted for death by beast.

But the proconsul opted for fire. And as his executioner seized his wrists to nail him to the stake, Polycarp stopped him and said, he who gives me strength to endure the fire will enable me to do so without the help of your nails. The pyre was lit on fire. Polycarp prayed one last prayer. He said, I bless you because you have thought me worthy of this day and this hour to be numbered among your martyrs in the cup of your Christ.

And soon the flames engulfed him. But strangely, they did not consume him. Like Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego before him, Polycarp was fireproof. And instead of the stench of burning flesh, the scent of frankincense wafted throughout the Coliseum. Using a spear, the executioner stabbed Polycarp through the flames until he bled out.

But not before the 12th martyr of Smyrna had lived out John's exhortation to be faithful even to the point of death. And Polycarp died fearlessly and faithfully. And the way he died forever changed the way those eyewitnesses lived.

Wow.

Seems like every day we hear another news story of a church that has attacked a missionary who is held hostage or a Christian who has been murdered for their faith. But why is it that so many Christians in our country just don't care? One leader working with the persecuted church gives us two reasons for Christians relative lack of interest in the plight of suffering sisters and brothers worldwide. Number one, he said, American Christians, for the most part, are not interested in anything that happens outside the boundaries of the United States and in many cases, outside the boundaries of their own country.

Number two, he said American Christians have no experience of persecution or suffering for their faith that remotely resembles the experiences of many of our overseas brothers and sisters. It is difficult to empathize, and many American Christians refuse to believe what is reported because it's so far outside of their own personal experience. I have seen the actual scars. I've heard the heartache and sorrow in their voices. I've seen the suffering in their eyes.

It's an unforgettable picture that's etched on my heart and in my mind forever. And I hope and I pray that God will never allow me to forget.

Someone suggested that when trying to make sense of persecution and martyrdom, four key reasons are usually given. Number one, persecution purifies the church. There are no nominal believers in the persecuted church. There are no Sunday morning attenders. Only in the persecuted church.

There are no casual Christians in the persecuted church they are all in. Do you know what they do when they get a Bible for the first time in North Korea? They are not presumptive enough to think they deserve a whole Bible. So they tear out one page and hand it to someone else in their house church. And they memorize front and back.

And then when they've memorized it, they give it to someone else and they make a copy of the memorized pages. And they do that over and over until they create handwritten Bibles.

Number two, persecution unifies the church. There are no disputes over minor doctrines or doctrinal issues in the persecuted church. There are no struggles for power in the persecuted church. They don't argue about which translation of the scripture to use when they only have one. Number three, persecution strengthens the church.

Believers in the persecuted church are courageous and bold because every day they're compelled to take a stand for Jesus Christ.

Persecution grows the church. In 1950, when communism took over in China and missionaries were expelled, there were only 1 million Christians in the entire country of China. Today, even the government recognizes that there are at least 44 million Christians in China. And some estimates say it could be as high as 130 million Christians in China. And the reason they don't know for sure is because so many of them are meeting secretly in house church churches.

I'll never forget the day I met pastor met Pastor Lin Xin Gao in Guangzhou, China. His Americanized name was Pastor Samuel lamb. He spent 20 years in prison for doing what I'm doing right now. While he was in prison, his wife died, his mother died, and they never bothered to tell him until 20 years later when he was released from prison. He was under house arrest in an apartment on 35 Damazon Street, a little alley in Guangzhou.

The secret police lived on the first floor, and he turned the second and third floor into a house church where they tore down the walls and used the wood to build pews. And every week, hundreds of people were worshiping there. I remember when I walked in, the first thing I saw Pete was a folding table up front with young people writing feverishly. And I asked him, what were they doing. He said, they're making handwritten copies of the Gospel of John to give to their friends at school tomorrow.

I said, who does that? Who does that?

He told me of how the church was growing. He asked me, please don't pray for the persecution to stop. Get this. I said, what do you mean, please don't pray for the persecution stop? He said, the more persecution, the more God blesses.

And he told me how they had arrested him recently because the house church was growing so fast. They told him he had to go home and shut it down. And they confiscated his Bibles and all their books and all their equipment. And he told them to go home and close down the church. I said, what did you do?

He said, well, the next Sunday, I stood up and said, the government official said we must close the church. I said, what happened? He said, you'll never believe it. The next Sunday, our church attendance doubled. And I thought of that verse.

Upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. One of the greatest honors of my life was standing in that pulpit while Ling Tsing Gao interpreted as I had the awesome privilege of speaking to the persecuted church. As we drove over the Tumen river to North Korea, our guide told us how North Koreans come to the riverbank and wait until evening to attempt the risky swim into mainland China. The border guards have orders shoot to kill. Anyone attempting to cross the border illegally is subject to execution.

Our guide added then, almost as an afterthought, that the Tumen river has probably witnessed more deaths than any other river in the world. Nowhere is persecution of believers more severe than in North Korea. I'm not even able to share with you many of the atrocities committed against these believers, especially the stories of hundreds of Christ followers who are executed every year. In just one instance alone, when a group of church leaders refused to reject Christ, the police directed that a bulldozer be driven over them, crushing them to death. The government in North Korea is rounding up entire families, up to three generations, and throwing them into labor camps.

As you saw in the video, a believer can be sentenced to up to 15 years in a labor camp just for owning a Bible or singing a hymn or praying. All of things we have done already this morning. And it's estimated that more than 25% of the believers in North Korea are suffering in a labor camp. One out of every four Christians in the entire country in prison. And since most Christians in North Korea in the labor camps die within three years, it's really not a 15 year sentence.

It's a life sentence. They're gone after three years. So many of the Christians who go into these labor camps will never come out. They're starved, they're beaten, they're tortured. One man who had been distributing Bibles throughout North Korea for years, when the officers finally discovered what he had been doing, they decided to make an example of him.

So they beat him brutally, over and over again until he died. For 20 consecutive years, North Korea has been ranked the most oppressive place in the world for Christians. And though the exact numbers are difficult to confirm, it's estimated that there are 300,000 Christians in North Korea. And that means there are 70,000 Christians in political labor camps in North Korea. Would you just jot yourself a note that next Sunday on the day of prayer, that you'll stop whatever you're doing for a moment.

Pray specifically for the Christians in North Korea that are in those labor camps. And by the way, the book that I wrote is by chapters, by country, and at the end of every chapter are prayer requests that you can pray for the persecuted church. So if you get your copy today, next Sunday, you can join Christians around the world and praying specifically for the persecuted church.

I don't pretend to understand even a fraction of what these people are going through, but I know that if I were in their shoes, I would want to know that someone still cared about me. North Korea needs more Bibles, needs more churches. It's the one thing they asked me for. And I believe God is challenging you and me. This day to respond to the believers in North Korea.

It's long past time for feeling shocked or even feeling sorry for these Christians. It's time for you and I to act. We must do something. We don't have the luxury of walking out and saying, wasn't that terrible? Yes.

Wasn't that terrible? No. It's time for us to do something about it.

I believe God is challenging you and me to respond to these believers in North Korea. And it's long past time for feeling shocked or even sorry. Christians all across the world must come to the aid of those who are suffering persecution because of their religious beliefs. The late Louis Palau said it this way. How many more Christians will have to suffer and die before we realize that it's our job to try to stop these atrocities?

We are often so caught up with our own petty problems that we don't make time to think about the Christians who are bleeding and dying across the world. There's so much more that needs to be done. They need to have training to plant churches. In India alone, There are over 500,000 villages and cities without a church of any kind. We must train leaders to be church planters.

They need to have buildings in which to meet the Hindus. Say to the Christians in Asia, if your God is so great, why don't you have a place to worship him? They need Bibles. There are still millions of Christians who have never even held a Bible, let alone own one. They need prayer.

Nothing of eternal significance is ever accomplished apart from prayer. We must be mobilized to pray for the persecuted church, and they need us to follow their example. Say, what do you mean? The persecuted church does not understand our lifestyle. The persecuted church does not understand our materialism, our selfishness, our prayerlessness.

It's a mystery to them how they can have so very little and love God so very much. And from their perspective, they see us and the way we live and see that we have so very much. But compared to them, love God so very little.

In First John, chapter 3, and verse 17 in the message translation, we read these words that are so timely for us today. If you see some brother or sister in need and have the means to do something about it, but turn a cold shoulder and do nothing, what happens to God's love? It disappears. And you made it disappear. My dear children, let us not talk about love.

Let's practice real love. And in the words of the famous British abolitionist William Wibberforce, who helped end slavery in the United Kingdom far sooner than it ended here, he said, you can choose to look the other way. But you can never again say that you did not know that first morning in San Diego when with fear and trembling, I said, the books are free. Just get one.

I didn't know what to expect, so I went back and sat down, signed the books. Be happy to sign your book. That will increase the value of 25 cents.

A man came back there. I could see he had tears in his eyes and he had written a check. And he dropped the check in the basket and I was signing the book and gave it to him and thanked him. And the check kind of unfolded. And I saw it was written for $1,000.

And that was God saying to me, I've got this. It's not about you. It's about my people responding.

Thank you for letting me keep my promise to the persecuted Christians.

Thank you for listening to their stories.

And I pray that every one of you will do something. Do something. And I pray that every one of you will do as much as you can.

Yesterday was my wife's birthday. We're used to celebrating from afar or a day or two. Late this year, I had surprised her and bought her brand new curtains.

I can't reach back there to pat it, man. I knocked it out of the park. Pete, I want to be able to say to my grandchildren someday, when they asked me, poppy, what did you do to help persecuted Christians?

I want to be able to say, I gave them hope.

I told their stories and gave them hope. And I ask you, what are you going to do for persecuted Christians today?

Thank you, Pete. What an awesome church. 35 years, incredible. Congratulations. Thank you.

God bless.