A New Pentecost?

When we read in the Acts of the Apostles about the fire of Pentecost falling, and 3,000 people being converted in one day, we often forget to read what followed very shortly -- severe persecution, leading to the stoning of Stephen and the dispersal of every believer except the apostles from Jerusalem to the ends of the earth.

It seems that whenever there is a great move of the Holy Spirit, even today, it is quickly followed by severe persecution.  Every one of the four Gospels quotes Jesus as telling the apostles that they will be hated and persecuted:  If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first. If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own...He who hates me hates my Father as well...I have given
them Your word, and the world has hated them (Jn. 15 & 17).

Someone once asked me why the Jews have suffered so much throughout history.  Somewhere in the Old Testament it is written, "The blows of those who hated You have fallen upon me."  My guess is that this quote is from Isaiah, who writes of the Suffering Servant of Yahweh.  We tend to think of the Jews as the "chosen" people, but part of their being 'chosen' means that all who hate God will also hate them.  The darker the world around Jews and Christians, the greater will be the hatred of the light that is in them.  In the late 1980's, 300,000 Hmong people, who number in the millions and who live in the mountainous regions where China, Vietnam, Thailand, and Laos converge, converted to Christianity.  Obviously, this had to be a "New Pentecost;" the conversion was so dramatic that it made international headlines.  Shortly afterwards, the new Christians were terribly persecuted:  believers and pastors were interrogated, tortured, and imprisoned for their faith.  Some were fined a full year's salary and forced to sign papers renouncing their faith in Jesus.

This same kind of persecution is being found in Muslim countries today against both Jews and Christians.  Anyone who becomes a Christian will be tortured, imprisoned, and killed.  It was no accident that the instant the Light came into the world with the birth of Jesus, evil entered into the heart of man to extinguish the Light.  Herod was determined to find and kill the newborn king of the Jews, and in the process, He destroyed every child in his path.

Early in Genesis, God had set Abraham as a touchpoint of blessing or of curse for the world:  Be thou a blessing....every nation will bless themselves through you...I will bless those who bless you, and I will curse those who curse you.  I'm sure by this time, someone must have done a study of all the nations of the world who have persecuted Jews and Christians.  It would be interesting to see what has happened to those nations over time.  Today, Jesus is the touchpoint of blessing or curse for the world---those who love the Light will come to Him; those who love the darkness will hate the Light.

We are still free in America to proclaim the Light of the World because there is still enough light left from our early inheritance, but darkness is on the horizen even in this country.  Persecution is rising against the light even now.  When I read about the persecution of the Jews in Hitler's Germany, I wonder if the same could happen in America.