The Persecution and Endurance of Christians, Part 2 (Luke 21:12-19) John MacArthur

We return in our study of the Word of God to the twenty-first chapter of Lukes gospel. Luke is the predominant historian of the New Testament, having written this gospel as well as the entire book of Acts. And, of course, the focus in Lukes writing is on the person and work of Jesus Christ and the spread of the gospel of Christ after His ascension and sending of the Holy Spirit...

The Persecution and Endurance of Christians, Part 1B (Luke 21:12-19) John MacArthur

Before the end comes, the gospel is going to go to the end of the world. How could that possibly happen? How could it possibly happen that the gospel could go to the end of the world when were going to be arrested, imprisoned and killed? Thats only part of the story. Its going to create opportunity for your testimony. Persecution of Christians has allowed Christians to give, strong, bold, confident, faithful testimony to the glory of the gospel. You read Foxes Book of Martyrs, Ive been reading it my whole life, just pieces and bits, and pieces, and over and over again. And you hear these incredibly stirring, beautiful testimonies of those who were brought to the edge of the flames, about to be burned to death, or to the edge of the sword, the guillotine for their love for Christ and how powerful their testimony is now resounding.

The Persecution and Endurance of Christians, Part 1A (Luke 21:12-19) John MacArthur

We have had an unusual week here in Southern California, as you know, and yet it's not something unexpected. We have had our lives dominated this past week by the horrific fire storms that have torched Southern California. The combination with which we are very family, severe drought, dry brush, excessive heat, dry Santa Ana winds with gusts up to 100 miles an hour, fallen power lines, and a few crazy arsonists have engulfed our communities in an inferno that has for a while, at least, put a million people out of their homes...the largest mass evacuation of people in the history of the state of California.

We are all fully aware of the terrible danger of wind and fire in our community. We see it with our own eyes and have friends who even lost their homes in these fires last week. But fire is not new. We've seen it before here in Southern California, the world has seen it throughout all of its history, really. In fact, the world has a long history of fire. Though we can't do without fire, even the ancient world was dependent on fire for warmth, dependent on fire for cooking, fire could also destroy and fire can also kill.

Just in the last few hundred years, there have been some severely devastating fires even in our own country. In 1846, a period of twenty years of fires in the state of Oregon burned about two million acres of forest there. Eighteen-seventy one, a very famous fire took place in Wisconsin, it burned 1.2 million acres and it started the same day as the famous Chicago fire which burned down the city of Chicago to the ground and thousands were consumed in that fire...