{"id":11101,"date":"2019-09-28T10:13:39","date_gmt":"2019-09-28T14:13:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.westpark-baptist-dev.com\/?p=11101"},"modified":"2022-06-08T17:16:24","modified_gmt":"2022-06-08T21:16:24","slug":"the-secret-weapon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.westpark-baptist-dev.com\/the-secret-weapon\/","title":{"rendered":"The Secret Weapon"},"content":{"rendered":"<style type=\"text\/css\"><\/style><blockquote>\r\n<p>That your faith should not stand in the\u00a0wisdom of men, but in the power of God.\u201d \u2013 I Corinthians 2:5<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n<p>We remember the words, \u201cSaul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?\u201d from Acts 26:14. With that singular event on the road to Damascus, the well-learned, cause-driven Saul was met by the power of God unknown to all around him except his horse. Saul ceased to persecute early Christians and became Paul, a follower of Jesus. Paul went on to become one of the greatest voices of the gospel, proclaiming the message to the gentiles in countries beyond Israel.<\/p>\r\n<p>Nothing is impossible with God. He is quietly working in the hearts and minds of people in some of the most treacherous countries of the world where Christianity is being eradicated. We find the gospel of Jesus Christ burning brightly where we least expect it. What follows are excerpts from some hard-hitting news stories recently reported by Caleb Parke, an associate editor of Fox News\u2026<\/p>\r\n<h3><strong>Christian Genocide<\/strong><\/h3>\r\n<p>Christian <a href=\"https:\/\/www.foxnews.com\/world\/christian-persecution-close-to-genocide-levels-largely-ignored-due-to-political-correctness-report\">persecution is reported<\/a> to be reaching genocidal levels in some countries. Iraq Christian Relief Council president Juliana Taimoorazy says that one out of nine Christians across the world are being persecuted. <a href=\"Iraq%20Christian%20Relief%20Council%20president%20Juliana%20Taimoorazy%20says%20that%20one%20out%20of%20nine%20Christians%20across%20the%20world%20are%20being%20persecuted.\">Watch the news clip\u2026<\/a><\/p>\r\n<p>The Iraq Christian Relief Council helps support, protect, and defend persecuted Assyrian, Syriacs, and Chaldean Christians in Iraq and other countries in the Middle East by providing emergency humanitarian aid, prayer support, and advocacy.<\/p>\r\n<h3><strong>Fastest-Growing Church<\/strong><\/h3>\r\n<p>People in Iran, a Muslim-majority nation, are fleeing Islam in droves as believers bow their knee to Jesus and become aggressively pro-Israel, according to the documentary <em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?time_continue=5&amp;v=9SAPOLKF59U\">Sheep Among Wolves Volume II<\/a><\/em>.<\/p>\r\n<p>\u201cWhat if I told you Islam is dead?\u201d one unidentified Iranian church leader says in the film directed by Dalton Thomas and\u00a0produced by Frontier Alliance International Studios.<\/p>\r\n<p>\u201cWhat if I told you the mosques are empty inside Iran?&#8221; he continues. &#8220;What if I told you no one follows Islam inside of Iran? Would you believe me? This is exactly what is happening inside of Iran. God is moving powerfully inside of Iran.\u201d <a href=\"https:\/\/www.foxnews.com\/faith-values\/worlds-fastest-growing-church-women-documentary-film\">Read the rest of the article\u2026<\/a><\/p>\r\n<h3><strong>I Didn\u2019t Burn<\/strong><\/h3>\r\n<p>An Iraqi\u00a0Christian\u00a0who said Jesus appeared to him twice in his dreams recounts being\u00a0imprisoned by ISIS, tortured and burned three times by the\u00a0terrorist group.<\/p>\r\n<p>The man, a Yazidi, recounts his harrowing story in a documentary by Sean Feucht and\u00a0Bethel Music entitled <em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=qqXLY_COouo\">Heart and Hands: Iraq<\/a><\/em>.<\/p>\r\n<p>The man said he was stoned and ISIS members drenched him in\u00a020\u00a0gallons of gasoline. But even though he was burned alive, he said he inexplicably survived unharmed. He credited Jesus for surviving. Read the rest of the report <a href=\"https:\/\/www.foxnews.com\/faith-values\/isis-christian-burned-survived\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\r\n<h3><strong>A Light in True Darkness<\/strong><\/h3>\r\n<p>Newly discovered\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=wGe4xjp96HQ\">North Korea\u00a0propaganda footage<\/a> sheds light on how the Communist regime trains state security agents on how to identify and silence Christians in the Hermit Kingdom.<\/p>\r\n<p>The video obtained by The Voice of the Martyrs (VOM), a Christian nonprofit that supports persecuted believers all over the world, was shared with Fox News and translated\u00a0by VOM-Korea staff. The previously unseen film shows the story of Cha Deoksun, whose life otherwise might not have been known to the world, and\u00a0her belief in a deity other than Kim Jong Un. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.foxnews.com\/world\/north-korea-christian-video-propaganda\">Read the report\u2026<\/a><\/p>\r\n<h3><strong>1,000 Souls<\/strong><\/h3>\r\n<p>A <a href=\"https:\/\/www.foxnews.com\/faith-values\/christian-china-north-korea-bible-persecuted-church\">pastor on the\u00a0China-North Korea\u00a0border<\/a> shared his\u00a0faith\u00a0with at least 1,000 North Koreans in the Hermit Kingdom\u00a0before he was assassinated\u00a0in 2016, a defector claims.<\/p>\r\n<p>Rev.\u00a0Han Chung-Ryeol, a Chinese pastor of Korean descent,\u00a0who ministered on the border town of Changbai since the early 1990s, was reportedly on Pyongyang&#8217;s most-wanted list as early as 2003 for his faith-based charitable work.<\/p>\r\n<p>Han fed and sheltered thousands of North Koreans over the years \u2014 many of whom had fled the famine-stricken country in search of food and jobs. One of them, Sang-chul, shared his story in a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=oGqEgxkF7I8\">short documentary<\/a> from The Voice of the Martyrs, as a way to encourage believers around the world to participate in the\u00a0International Day of Prayer for the Persecuted Church\u00a0on Sunday, Nov. 3.<\/p>\r\n<h3><strong>The Secret Weapon Revealed<\/strong><\/h3>\r\n<p>So what is this secret weapon? It is God\u2019s love towards us that is so powerful that the whole world through Him can be saved. It is God\u2019s love that has the power to convict a person\u2019s heart and can cleanse him from all sin &#8212; a love so powerful that it delivers enduring hope that the world is unable to take away, a living hope not even death can conquer.<\/p>\r\n<p>The secret weapon resides in believers and we are to live it, breathe it, use it, share it, in season, out of season. Be unafraid, because the secret weapon that is the love of God is so powerful, it always prevails.<\/p>\r\n<p>==&gt; Also learn about <a href=\"http:\/\/www.westpark-baptist-dev.com\/rise-up-as-eagles-2\/\">Rise Up as Eagles<\/a>.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\r\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>With &#8220;The Secret Weapon&#8221; we find the Gospel burning brightly in countries where Christianity is being systematically eradicated.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":14180,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[365,306,361,334,147,56,247,367,366,67,224,362,364,360,320,99,357,359,368],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v21.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>The Secret Weapon of the Gospel - West Park Baptist Church<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"With &quot;The Secret Weapon&quot; we find the Gospel burning brightly in countries where Christianity is being systematically eradicated.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"http:\/\/www.westpark-baptist-dev.com\/the-secret-weapon\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Secret Weapon of the Gospel - 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