Persecution and the Spread of the Gospel

In Mark 13 Jesus alerts His disciples to the persecution that is coming for those who have chosen to follow Him and he warns them about seeking to escape it by following false Messiahs. Instead, Jesus calls His disciples to rely on the Holy Spirit and to endure all the way to the end. Instead of being alarmed by persecution Jesus tells his disciples that God intends to use persecution to be the very means by which the Gospel goes out into the world. In this sermon we will see how God has used persecution to spread the Gospel both in the book of Acts and throughout church history. My prayers is that God would use this sermon to lead all of us to become more dependent upon his Spirit and more bold in our proclamation of the Gospel to others.