Please turn with me in your Bibles to Romans chapter 5 verses 1 to 8.

Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.

Through whom also we have obtained our introduction by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we exult in hope of the glory of God.

And not only this, but we also exult in our tribulations. Knowing that tribulation brings about perseverance

and perseverance proven character and proven character hope and hope does not

disappoint because the love of God has been poured out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us.

For while we were still helpless at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will hardly die for a righteous man, though perhaps

for the good man someone would dare even to die. But God demonstrates his love toward us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died

for us.

I hope in the next four weeks to help you prepare to suffer for Christ.

The reason I make this my aim for the next four weeks is because I believe that the Bible

says we should prepare to suffer for Christ and for righteousness sake and because I believe that the contemporary situation in which we find ourselves

says that we should prepare to suffer for Christ and for his righteousness.

David Barrett is a well-known mission scholar who edited the World Christian Encyclopedia for Oxford University Press and every year puts out a new

updated statistical statement about the state of the Christian movement in the world and he estimated that in 1980 there were 270,000

Christian martyrs and that this year there will be 308,000 Christian martyrs and and in the year 2000, probably 500,000 Christian martyrs.

That is people who will die more or less directly because they are a Christian.

In Somalia, this aspect doesn't make the news,

even though I'm glad what does make the news makes the news.

There are tens of thousands of Christians in southern Somalia

that are being systematically starved to death

by rival factions precisely because they're Christians, cut off from the availability

...