Four Year Old Suffers Persecution for Sharing the Gospel
September 30th, 2007 at 10:26 pm (Preaching)
Last night was amazing. We went to a county park for a festival and handed out a bunch of gospel tracts. Stephen, my four year old was all excited and was doing the pink and blue illusion for lots of folks. Toward the end of the evening, he wanted to go to the concession stand to give them some ‘big money’. It was so cute, as he started walking he told me, “I can go by myself. I’m brave enough.” So I smiled and told him I’d watch from a distance. I was far enough away that I could not hear the conversation between a lady (turns out she was the organizer of the festival) and my son. So I was shocked to hear this woman yell at my son, “You listen to me!” then more unheard conversation for a few moments with an even louder, “NO! You listen to ME!” yelled at my son again. A few moments later, Stephen walked back to me with a folded up ‘big money’ (the yeller obviously didn’t receive the tract) and I asked him what happened. He said, “She said that we’re not supposed to give out gospel tracts, but I told her yes, we’re supposed to.” Stephen had tried to give her the big money but she rejected it and told him we can’t give them out, to which he replied, “But we HAVE to give out the gospel tracts because some people may not love the Lord, like you.” It cracks me up as I think about it. I can imagine that the loudest yell probably came after that statement from my four year old.
So I asked Stephen if he had bought the apple juice that I had also asked him to get and he smiled and said he forgot. The best thing about this whole encounter was the way that Stephen handled it with the help of the Lord. God gave him the strength to not be discouraged AT ALL. The persecution just flowed off him like water off a duck’s back. Now, if it was my 6 year old girl, I can imagine her coming back to me in tears. But praise the Lord, Stephen was matter of fact about it. Late on he simple stated, “Yeah, they’re wicked.” Referring to the people who try to stop Christians from preaching the gospel. So anyways, we walked over to the concession stand and the lady comes up to me and basically is all flustered (I don’t think she realized that I was close enough to hear her yell until we walked back to her) and says that there’s no soliciting, we can’t give out tracts here. She says, “I appreciate what you’re doing, I’ve done it myself in the past, but you just can’t do it here.” Well the interesting thing is that by this time we had already given gospel tracts to about 90% of the folks who were there anyways, so I didn’t make a stink about it. I just politely said, “Oh that’s fine.” Which probably made her feel like even more of a fool. Another lady there got us our drink and you could tell she was embarrassed for the ‘yeller’. So we got our juice and walked away and Stephen turned to me and said, “We’re not going to obey them, right?” To which I replied, “Of course not. We must obey God rather than men.” It was such a blessed time. I just wish I had my voice recorder on me to record his telling of the story. Then the next morning one of the statements he said to me, unrelated to the event, was “If I go to jail for the gospel, I’ll just preach the gospel in the jail and sing praises to the Lord.” What a blessing! Please continue to pray for my little guy that God would cause him to be a mighty warrior for the Lord, walking in the strength of meekness, gentleness and humility.
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Patrick Burwell said,
October 1, 2007 at 9:03 pm
Well done….
Craig W. Booth said,
October 2, 2007 at 12:49 am
What a wonderful inspiration!!!
Nathan said,
October 3, 2007 at 12:01 am
Keep training them in the way they should go, Tony. We could all learn a lot from the little guy! That’s a great story.
Aric said,
October 9, 2007 at 11:28 am
That is wonderful to hear that your son is learning to present the gospel in the face of opposition.
It is a bit disconcerting, however, that you taught him to ignore the rule regarding solicitation by stating “We have to obey God, not men.” I am confused, were you forbidden from preaching the gospel or just not passing out tracts? Are we not supposed to obey the governmental authorities God has placed over us unless they require something that is in opposition to God’s commands? I cannot find in the translation of the bible I currently use that passing out tracts is mandated by God.
I am not trying to be condescending. I am trying to point out the difference between being forbidden from preaching the gospel and being forbidden from handing out a tract. I think your son did not learn the difference. It looks like he learned that if a rule is at all related to a method for giving information about the gospel, then you can ignore it. I guess then all rules pertaining to solicitation can be ignored because preaching the gospel is at statke, as well as ordinances controlling the size of signs or noise levels can be ignored.
As great as it is to see your son so intent on proclaiming the good news, the lack of obedience to rules that do not prohibit the preaching of the gospel taints the entire story.
tramsek said,
October 10, 2007 at 4:59 pm
Hello. Thanks for the insightful comment. I was wondering if anyone might pick up on that aspect of the post. I believe that “preaching the gospel” can include many forms. I think we can ‘preach the gospel’ by writing a letter, or by verbally telling someone the good news, or by giving a Bible away or biblical literature away, etc. So when someone tells me that I cannot verbally tell someone the good news or write a letter to the same effect or give away literature to that same end, it seems to me they are forbidding me to ‘preach the gospel’.
There are only two times when we should preach the gospel, “in season and out of season”. On the other hand, there are many places where we as Christians can and should ‘preach the gospel’, for instance on public property. The arena we were in was a public county park, so we had the constitutional freedom of speech to pass out gospel literature there. According to Romans 13 we are to obey the governing authorities at all times but with two exceptions: 1) When the authorities forbid you to do what God has commanded and 2) When the authorities command you to do what God has forbidden. In those two exceptional cases, we must imitate the apostles and respectfully say, “We must obey God rather than men.”
By passing out the gospel literature we were attempting to ‘teach in the name of Jesus’ like the apostles in Acts 5. Like the governing authorities in Jesus’ time, the authorities of the public park system forbade us to spread Jesus’ teaching.
By the way, I do not think that handing out literature (gospel or otherwise) is soliciting. The dictionary’s primary definition for solicit is “make a solicitation or entreaty for something; request urgently or persistently”. I understand soliciting as basically asking or requesting something from someone. We were giving away material to folks for free, we weren’t asking them for money or anything.
Another insight into my heart and reasoning for training my son this way is my desire that my children be bold and sensitive witnesses for Jesus Christ. I would rather nurture my child to firstly (primarily) obey God’s law to preach the gospel no matter what the consequences and secondarily to assess man’s law regarding preaching the gospel. The opposite alternative seems to be the norm in our Christian culture today, i.e. to timidly make sure we obey man’s law (even though it may be unlawful in God’s eyes) before we ever think about obeying God’s law to preach the gospel to every creature.
There is a time and place when we must obey governing authorities, and praise the Lord in our nation, that is most of the time. But in China, for example, when Christians are ordered to murder their babies under man’s “law” of restricting parents to have only one child, Christians must disobey that unlawful decree and obey God’s command to not murder.
As parents, we are teaching our children to submit to proper authority. At the same time, we are teaching them to not submit to improper authority. This was one of those times when the governing authority believed they had more authority than they really had. In other words, public property is fair grounds for preaching the gospel and any authority who forbids the teaching of Jesus in that setting has gone beyond his jurisdiction.
Another important biblical principle that we are trying to install in our children is that they should fear God rather than men. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, what can men do to us if we are in the will of God? Prayerfully my children will have a trembling reverence for the holiness of God and realize that men are but dust and ashes, so we do not have to fear them.
If my children get thrown in jail or even martyred for the sake of Jesus, praise the Lord. What joy if my son could have such an intimate walk with the Lord Jesus that he could follow in the steps of his namesake Stephen in the Bible. Stephen was a man full of faith, full of the Spirit who knew the Scriptures like the back of his hand. He didn’t fear man even when faced with punishment for preaching the truth of the gospel. He forgave his murderers even while being stoned. Praise the Lord! My prayer for my Stephen is that he would love the Lord and be in such a strong relationship with Jesus, that he could be live and die like the Stephen in Acts.
By the way, in case anyone might be wondering about the propriety of a 4 year old saying, “They’re evil” in regards to folks who try to stop the propagation of the gospel, let me give my thoughts. First off, this is not a comparative statement. In other words, he wasn’t saying, “They’re evil and I’m good. I’m better than them.” It was simply a statement of fact. Those who forbid the preaching of the gospel, presumably are unregenerate and thus wicked. They have no goodness in them. Of course there is none good, not even one, when it comes to fallen human beings. This is a foundational truth that every child should know. In fact, the very first Bible verse we taught our first child was Romans 3:10-12. Another interesting note is that we have not had any of our children memorize John 3:16 yet (they have memorized Romans 5:8 which is essentially the same). This may go against the grain of some modern evangelism techniques, but we believe it to be the biblical pattern. First the bad news, then the good news.
If you were to ask Stephen if he is evil, I believe he would quickly reply, “Yes.” All of this is simple training, in other words, I’m not sure that Stephen has really been born from above yet (I pray that will come soon, if not already). So he knows the biblical answers intellectually, but I’m not sure if it has been combined with true repentance toward God and saving faith in Jesus Christ. The Bible is a very black and white book. There are tons of dichotomies in the Bible: Heaven and Hell, wicked and righteous, wise and foolish, God and Satan, saved and lost, etc. I want myself and my children to have enough biblical sense, biblical language and boldness to call sin “sin”. To call evil “evil”. Prayerfully, we will do this in meekness and not in pride, in compassion and not in condemnation, for there but by the grace of God go I.
Hopefully that helps. It’s not a comprehensive answer, so I’d be happy to discuss it further. May the Lord bless you as you seek to obey and fear Him above our natural fear of man.
Craig W. Booth said,
October 11, 2007 at 12:24 pm
Our constitutional freedoms are constantly being tested (and slowly errorded–such as the loss of personal property rights in favor of private investors who promise greater tax revenue, and the loss of the right to pray in the name of Jesus in front of certain state legislatures). When we lose the right to freely preach the gospel on public property, we will be obligated to preach the gospel illegally.
When they had brought them, they stood them before the Council. The high priest questioned them, saying, “We gave you strict orders not to continue teaching in this name, and yet, you have filled Jerusalem with your teaching and intend to bring this man’s blood upon us.” But Peter and the apostles answered, “We must obey God rather than men.” …
They took his [Gamaliel’s] advice; and after calling the apostles in, they flogged them and ordered them not to speak in the name of Jesus, and then released them. So they went on their way from the presence of the Council, rejoicing that they had been considered worthy to suffer shame for His name. And every day, in the temple and from house to house, they kept right on teaching and preaching Jesus as the Christ. ( Acts 5:27-29, 40-42).
Though the temple officials did not technically own the temple (for it was pulic land) they were the official adminitrators of the grounds. Even they did not have the God-given right to stop the disciples from teaching and preaching the gospel, though they did have the legal force to punish them for it.
Good post, Tony.
Craig W. Booth