Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
So this church was a church that was experiencing a lot of persecution. It is interesting as you study church history, persecution never hurt the church. The church always thrived in persecution. The church in China has been severely persecuted as the result of the communist takeover. And yet during this period of great tribulation, when in some of the provinces they have only one Bible for every one hundred thousand believers, yet the church has grown and expanded tremendously until there are some who estimate that there are as many as one hundred million believers within the home church in China.We had Mama Quan with us awhile back, who was one of the leaders of the home church in China. And she was sharing with us of the millions that are coming to Jesus Christ even in the face of great persecution. You see the effect of persecution of the church is really separating the wheat from the chaff, and it causes the true believers to really make their stand and their faith grow. So in a church that was being persecuted, their faith was increasing exceedingly, and of course, it really brings you together. Persecution brings the body close together, the support of one another and the love of one another.During the early period of the church history from the book of Acts, the result of the first persecution against the church in Jerusalem is that the church was scattered throughout the whole area, but the results of the church being scattered churches opened up all over the area. Wherever they went, they started their faith in Christ and the result of the persecution was actually just an expanding, a rapid expanding, of the ministry of the church. And the church grew exceedingly under the persecution in the first century, second and third.The church began to wane when the persecution ceased, the influence, the power of the church. As the church began to be an accepted institution within the society, and as they began to be embraced by the world and accepted, the effect was a diminishing of the power of the church, of the faith in the church, of the effectiveness of the church. And so persecution has really never hindered the work of the Lord, but oftentimes has had the opposite effect of really expanding.So here in Thessalonica persecutions and tribulations. They were enduring them with patience, but the net effect of them in their lives was this increasing faith and the abounding love. Now these persecutions and tribulations that they were enduring was