This broadcast is dedicated to spreading the Gospel in Hostile Regions. Our guest, Paul Carrington, is a missionary in a land hostile to Christianity. How should we think of ministry in places like this? What is the history of the persecution of the church where Paul is ministering?

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Welcome to the Church and Family Life podcast. Church and Family Life exists to proclaim the sufficiency of Scripture. And we're here to talk about the persecuted church and we have a missionary with us to talk that through in his context and of course we have Jason Dome here with us, pastor of Sovereign Redeemer Community Church. Hey Jason. Hi Scott, always a pleasure.

Well it's a pleasure to be with Paul. Yes. You know, our churches and others sent Paul and his family to Izmir, Turkey a little over a year ago. Right. And so we're really delighted to have Paul with us.

He took his large family over there and has been getting his feet wet there and he's here in the States for a short period of time. So Paul, welcome. Thank you so much for joining us. Thank you Scott and Jason for having me today. Appreciate it.

So yeah, Paul and I, you know, we're fellow pastors in our church at Hope in Wake Forest. And, and then we sent him out and Sovereign Redeemer and others were just very pivotal in deploying them and it really has been a blessing to see what has happened there. But we want to talk about the church existing in hostile countries and of course Turkey is a hostile country. There are very few Christians there and we want to talk about the history of Christianity in the region and then just talk about stories about the spread of the gospel in lands that are hostile to Christianity. So Paul, why don't you open us up a little bit, tell us about the history of Christianity in Smyrna or modern day Izmir.

Sure, yeah, Most of what you can find about the church in Izmir is really found in Revelation chapter 2. There's not a whole lot. We know a ton about Ephesus and some of the other churches, but Smyrna just gets one mention in the Scriptures. But what we do know about them as we read Revelation chapter 2 is it was a church that really stood in contrast to the pagan culture that was all around it. It was one of the churches, one of the two churches that only received commendation from the Lord Jesus Christ because of their stand for the gospel amidst hostility.

So they were suffering because of their stance for the Lord. They simply would not compromise. It seems like they were in a situation where their livelihoods were likely threatened in the sense of being able to provide for their family, and all they would have to do is perhaps offer a pinch of incense to the local deity or even to the emperor, but they refused to do that. And so the Lord commends them. He says that, I know your poverty, but then you have those brackets, but you are rich.

And so what a commendation for such a church is that. And then as we go further down a little bit in history, so into the second century, maybe the middle of the second century, we hear probably of their most famous bishop, the Bishop of Smyrna, a man by the name of Polycarp. And so he was an older man that had obviously taught the people well, taught them about the doctrine of suffering and the sovereignty of God. And he himself really suffered at the hands of the proconsul of Smyrna. He wouldn't bow the knee, he would stand the test, and as a result he ended up being martyred.

Quite an amazing story of how he stood, even though they tried to kill him, They tried to tie him to a stake, all of these different things. He just said, leave me. I promise you as you burn me, I'm going to stand. I'm not going to try to flee. And just an amazing testimony of a man who loved the Lord.

And as he died, You know, he passed the baton to other people like Irenaeus and I'm sure others that we were not familiar with. So quite a history in that part of the world in that city particularly. And the Lord prepared that church for their suffering in Revelation 2. I'll just read part of it here. I know your works, your tribulation and poverty, but you are rich and I know the blasphemy of those who say they are Jews and are not but are a synagogue of Satan.

Do not fear any of those things which you are about to suffer. Indeed, the devil is about to throw some of you into prison that you may be tested, and you will have tribulation ten days. Be faithful until death, and I will give you the crown of life." So the church was warned about the persecution and it certainly did break out. It did, yeah. And he's famous for that quote, you know, 80 and six years I have served my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and he has never done me any harm.

Should I deny him now as I stand? And so he went to that stake and He survived all the mockery and so on, but obviously the flames in the end devoured him, but his testimony spread throughout that region. Who knows what the fruit of that was over the long term. You know, if you fast forward to 1839, Robert Murray McShane visited Smyrna. He was on a journey, eight months, he'd left his church for eight months to go on this journey to the Holy Land and he got very sick and they took the ship into the harbor in Smyrna.

He almost died there. He was cared for by an English couple. And he says that there were no churches in any of the other cities except Smyrna and Philadelphia the two churches that didn't receive any condemnation From the Lord. So it's a very interesting Snapshot at that time. I believe he said that there was one Christian that they could find in Ephesus, but no church at all.

Just an anecdote, he left his church for eight months and before he left he wrote to the church and he told him he prayed that revival would break out while he was gone. And it did! It did. And he came back to a church in hot revival. It was really, really amazing.

And then he died just a couple of years later. But, you know, so we don't know very much, like you said, Paul, about the church from the time of Polycarp and Irenaeus. But there is this other snapshot in 1839 that we have. So you're there now. So what's what's happening now?

Right. So we yeah, we're in Turkey, Turkey, just for context, it's about the size of Texas in terms of geography, geography, but the population is about 82, 83 million people. So quite a populous country. But in the country it's probably the most or the least reached country in the world just in terms of percentage and population. There's anywhere they say between two and four or five thousand Christians kind of scattered among the eighty-two, eighty-three million people.

So very, very sparse Christian population. And unfortunately, where we live, say for example in Izmir, There are a few churches that are there, but the Charismatic Movement's really taken root in a lot of different places where the Word of God is not really held forth. It's a lot about private revelation and so on. So it's hard to get a real true picture of the solidity of the church there, but needless to say it's very, very, very sparse, and the need is immense for faithful churches to be planted and hopefully for the work to spread into the rest of the country. Paul, an overwhelming majority of missionaries that are sent out today are sent out by missions agencies.

Your deployment was different. You have a primary sending church, a church where you were an elder before you were deployed, And then there are a number of other churches that rallied around to provide support structure for you. So would you just sort of compare and contrast missions agencies' deployments versus a local church that deploys outside the structure of a missions agency? And then secondly, how would you advise a church that feels like they need to be more engaged in international missions but don't know exactly where to start. That's a really good question, along.

Hopefully I can answer that. So in terms of, first of all, the local church, I am so, so thankful that we as a family were sent out from a local church just in terms of the care and the strength that we get from that just being there in Turkey. So we're grateful. In terms of who's carried the ball though for the last two centuries, it really has been missions agencies. So they've been able to develop a lot of different experiences and ways of qualifying and so on.

But there's also a huge mess as a result of missions agencies that have been responsible for sending people out. And so I think one of the things that I would say, just by way of encouragement, is that churches here in the United States really do need to have a vision that extends beyond the borders of this land. And of course, as Right now in 2021, the beginning of 2021, as things appear to be somewhat unraveling right before us, it's easy to just be so laser focused on all of the problems, political, economic, and everything like that, and forget about the Great Commission. But the author of the Great Commission is also the head of the church, the Lord Jesus Christ, and he's given the task of the Great Commission to the church. And so, I think it's not through agencies that are responsible for fulfilling the Great Commission, but it's directly through those churches that the Lord himself has established.

And I just want to read, if I can, from John chapter four, just a couple of verses, and we're all familiar perhaps with the story when the Lord had spoken with the woman by the well, and then as she's going back, his disciples are coming to him, and he leaves him with this account here. It says this, I have food to eat of which you do not know, and the disciples are wondering what's going on. Did he eat something while we were absent? And then he clarifies it to, and he says, My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work. Do not say there are still four months and then comes the harvest, But I say to you, lift up your eyes and look at the fields for they are already white for the harvest." And so what you find is that Christ's food, the very thing that sustains him as that woman is leaving and then perhaps even coming back with the people from the town of Sychar, his very food is for the gospel to be preached and for people to come to know the Lord.

And I think that needs to be reset perhaps in a lot of different churches that that becomes the focal point, not just the side thing, but a key thing that is focused on. So that would be one area. I think the other area would be being very specific. And so when I say being specific, what I mean is that there's a lot of things that are done in the name of missions that aren't really advancing the gospel. It's not a proclamation ministry, but it might be humanitarian based or something else.

But as churches think about missions, hopefully it's around planting and establishing churches in places where there aren't churches or strengthening churches that are in need of strengthening. And one thing I would just also add is perhaps an appeal on behalf of the places where there are no missionaries or very few missionaries or faithful missionaries laboring. It would be a plea perhaps on behalf of the unreached part of the world. When we were preparing to go to Turkey, one stat that just brought me up short was the fact that 30 times as many missionaries go to reached parts of the world versus those who actually go to unreached parts of the world. So that might be something that churches have on their radar as they consider sending people or being involved some way in missions.

Not just sending people who have a desire to go, but people that they feel are qualified to go, families that they think will be able to weather the storms, and so on, just going through the steps. So those would be some things that I would perhaps just lay out there as considerations and encouragements for churches. I know being on the inside of the, kind of, on the front row to watch the deployment of your family, Ben, very grateful to be part of a local church that was directly involved in a deployment. I think we would all say, though, wow, missions agencies and their ability to focus single-mindedly on deploying families to the field has given them a level of expertise that we, I mean, we sort of covet the level of expertise that they have, and we're just very thankful for. And there are some particular missions agencies like HeartCry Missionary Society for sure, very thankful for the expertise and the things that we can learn that local churches can learn from them.

Absolutely, yeah. I read hardcore all the time. So let's talk about what's happening in Turkey and in this sense. I mean you're living in a land where Christianity is constrained fairly significantly. We're feeling the pressure of that here in the United States like never before, even though we're very, we're still very, very free.

You know, you came from Canada, you know, there's a church in Canada that's just been fined 10.8 million dollars because they kept meeting during the COVID crisis. Their elders, first of all, were charged $10,000 apiece, and they've been threatened with jail if they're convicted. Now, They did meet. They actually were guilty. You know, the United States over the last year, for the first time we've seen churches being fined for meeting, you know, a couple of churches in California, you know, $340,000.

Another one, you know, $113,000 and their smaller fines churches in America for meetings. So, you know, churches in America are wondering what's going to happen. We still have tremendous freedom here. But you know, you've been functioning in Turkey where it's very different. So talk to us about that.

Yeah, it is. I think one thing that's important and something I'm realizing by no means an expert in is how normative throughout church history and not only throughout church history, but outside of the United States or Western nations, how normative it is that there's hostility towards those that claim the name of Christ or proclaim the name of Christ. I think as you mentioned Scott, that now we're gonna be, I think in the next year or two in the United States and Canada, other parts of the Western world, getting a taste or a feel for what's normative for the rest of the world. You know, we're somewhat softened and shielded over here in the West, but in the places where you're in a great minority, there's also threats. There's also difficulties as well.

And I think one of the things that I think is so important, just as you're living in a land like the one we're living in right now, is not being worn down. I think what happens in these places is not so much even the outward full frontal assaults of persecution in these lands, but just the wearing down, it can kind of grind you down over time. And so one of the things I'm trying to keep focus on and keep our family focused on right now is keeping the Lord Jesus Christ central. You know, when you think of what happened in the church in Ephesus, where they had left their first love, that's something that we just have top of mind. How can we just keep our hearts set on the Lord himself and letting him be our strength and our portion, the one who sustains us.

So that's a real critical factor. And of course, for the churches that are in these places, one of the things I think it's very important to do, and it almost goes without saying perhaps here among some of the churches that might be listening to a podcast like this is keeping the Word of God central. Like Isaiah says, to the law and to the testimony, let that be your rock, the very thing that you build on. You don't divert, build on another foundation or soften the gospel. One of the things we're realizing is in a Muslim country, for example, when you think of the difficulties that are there, they don't believe that Christ died, number one, and they also don't believe he died on the cross.

And so when it comes to the very central message of Christianity that our Lord, he lived on this earth, but he also died and rose again. Someone I was reading the other day said, without the cross, there's no Christianity. With the cross, there's no Islam. And so you have this offensive message and so you have to, I think upfront, realize that and there's really no softening of that message. Why did Christ come and the problems that he came to solve What does he do as the risen King and Lord?

That's super important that we keep front and center and then of course one thing I'm trying to do daily and again trying to encourage my family on is is that Christ is risen When he gives that great commission and he says, all power has been given to me in heaven and in earth. And then he gives the great commission and then he says, lo, I'm with you always, even to the end of the age. And really drawing confidence from that. They're not just sayings but things that are really rocks for us. That's something that we're finding is the solid foundation that we find ourselves going to time and time again.

You know the church as you said has always been persecuted in most places in the world. America, people say, is the last bastion of freedom in the world for the church. I think that really is true. There's a man in our church who's lived in about 20 different countries, exotic countries, and he became an American citizen recently, and he says America is the last bastion of freedom in the world. And so the church normally exists in a persecuted state.

We just don't know anything about that here in America. We've just had so much fun here, you know? And so when freedom is threatened, the slightest degree, you know, we think the world is coming to an end, but the world has been like this for a long time. And, you know, the kinds of things that were being experienced in Sumerna have been experienced all over the world and they continue on in in country what we call closed countries. We all have always known that Christianity thrives under persecution.

So let's talk about that. There are different places we could stop in history to illustrate that. Paul, what comes to mind for you when you think about just the blessed progress of the gospel in the midst of persecution? What stories? Yeah, The first thing that comes to mind just as you asked that question is what Paul asked and who is sufficient for these things.

And as you mentioned at the beginning, we're just getting our feet wet. There are people that have suffered much more than we have. We've gone through some difficulties and so on, but there are many I'm sure that I would be able to sit at the feet of and learn from. But in terms of stories, probably my favorite account because it speaks of the sovereignty of God, the unstoppable nature of the message that we have is an account by the name of a young man by the name of Robert Jermaine Thomas. And he was a Welsh missionary.

He was in China in the 1800s. And he went to China with great, great hopes. But over time, his wife died. And, you know, there he is. He went through a terrible time with depression, but over time he, he began to understand the great need of the gospel, not so much in China, but in the hermit kingdom, which at that time was Korea, a place that just shut out all foreigners.

You couldn't go there for any means, for business or whatever. Well, he made plans. Long story short, he ended up going up the Pyongyang River and He had a sack of Bibles. He tried his best to take them ashore. You know, he was, he had them in his hands and he was kind of throwing them as he was being attacked.

And finally, he was arrested there. He was taken before the the government and he was beheaded. And you would say, well, what a waste. Well, those scriptures that he was casting on the beach as he was walking to the shore, some of those were picked up and read. And one of the men that was responsible for his beheading actually wallpapered his his house with those scriptures, almost like a trophy of conquering kind of Western powers.

Well, that man over time ended up becoming a believer. And so when a few years later, when missionaries actually went to the same place, when things had opened up a little bit. They had found people that were familiar with the message of the gospel and people that were actually professing Christ and believed in the name of the Lord simply from reading the wallpaper on that man's wall. You fast forward a couple more decades and you have the Korean Pentecost where it's in the early 1900s where there's just an amazing movement of God and thousands of Koreans amidst persecution get saved. Well, you fast forward even to our present day and Korea is after the United States, really the greatest sending nation of missionaries in the world, and Korea itself is largely a Christian nation.

So you can see the small beginnings in God's power on display through suffering, through death. That's one of my favorite accounts. But even if you look today, that's 150, 200 years ago, one of the stories I keep checking in on, even up until this morning, is a pastor by the name of Pastor Wang Yi. You probably heard of him. He was a pastor in early rain covenant church in Chengdu, China.

He wrote something called a declaration of faithful disobedience. And in that declaration, he was simply saying that we will not become a government church and only say what the government says, but we will preach the gospel. Not trying to provoke or anything like that, but just simply saying that the Word of God is our foundation. Well, he was sentenced to nine years in prison, a place no one knows quite where he is, but here he is serving simply because he would not bow the knee and he would be faithful to lead his church. Obviously, a church is still being persecuted.

I think even up until yesterday there were some problems. But there are faithful men and faithful women, tons of them probably in obscurity that we don't know their stories, but they're suffering even today for the cause of Christ and they're being faithful. And so, what a wonderful testimony. This great cloud of witnesses, not just in antiquity or even in history, but even in our present day. And when we go through suffering, we can know that we have brothers and sisters also that are suffering the same types of things, and it gives us encouragement, I think, and strength to go on.

You know, Jesus' words to the church in Smyrna focused on two things, do not fear and be faithful unto death. In other words, just be a Christian. Do the, you said it earlier, my food is the will of him who sent me. My food is to do the will. We can do that.

You can do that any day, whether you're persecutor or not. You know, what church history teaches us is that the church doesn't need a First Amendment. The church doesn't need the right to vote, to thrive, and to flourish. The church needs the Word of God. The church needs to be faithful unto death fearlessly.

So what the world needs is a happy church that's not afraid of the persecution. And right now in America, you know, people are getting afraid and there's no reason to fear. God's in control, He's the ruler of the kings of the earth. He's orchestrating every bit of it. He's the first and the last and everything in between.

And that's really the message to the churches in Revelation. Any final thoughts, Jason? So Scott and Paul, some people are going to watch this. My request of anybody who watches this is that the second it goes off, the second they stop watching, that they spend a minute or two just crying out for the nation of Turkey, because our hearts are towards the nation of Turkey. Paul, would you just give people who would do that a little guidance on what they can be praying for for the nation of Turkey?

Yeah, thank you. If you look back just in recent 200 years, you do have a lot of missionary work going on in the Far East. For example, China, you've got famous missionaries like Hudson Taylor, you go to Africa or even to South America, but largely the Middle East and the Muslim lands have been largely neglected and forgotten, perhaps because they're hard lands. You have faithful men like Henry Martin, who translated the Bible into Persian, or Samuel Zwemer. But I would just appeal to you to bring these Muslim lands before the Lord.

It seems impenetrable at times. It seems like there's a steel fortress that repels the Word of God, but the Lord is able not only to penetrate these places, but he says, I'm Lord of all powers given to me in heaven and in earth. And so please be in prayer that the Lord would see fit to establish his name in little outposts scattered all around these places. I have a heart specifically for the Turks we love, the Turks, the people, the food. You know, we would just beg you to please keep them in prayer, that he would turn them, as Paul says, from darkness to light and from the power of Satan unto God.

I just want to read something from Philip Schaff, and you probably know him, he's a historian that wrote in the 1800s, and he's writing at a time, but look at his hope, he says this, in the mysterious providence of God, those lands of the Bible and the early church have been conquered by the prophet of Mecca, the Bible replaced by the Quran, and the Greek church reduced to a condition of bondage and stagnation. But the time is not far distant when the East will be regenerated by the undying spirit of Christianity, a peaceful crusade of devoted missionaries preaching the pure gospel and leading holy lives will reconquer the holy land and settle the eastern question." So I just pray and ask people to pray that faithful churches that preach the Word, that hold forth the Word of Truth unashamed and boldly would be placed and established in these places and that Turks and other people would come to a knowledge of the truth as it is in Jesus Christ. We have a great hope. Amen. Paul, thank you so much for talking to us.

It really is a blessing and we can't wait to do it again. Oh, thank you, Scott. Thank you for joining us at Church and Family Life, where we so desire to proclaim the sweetness of the sufficiency of Scripture for everything and particularly in this broadcast to the persecuted church. Until we meet again we'll see you next week. Thanks for joining us.

Thanks for listening to the Church and Family Life podcast. We have thousands of resources on our website, announcements of conferences coming up. Hope you can join us. Go to churchandfamilylife.com. See you next Monday for our next broadcast of the Church and Family Life podcast.