About the Author
Born in 1945 and raised in Cleveland, Ohio,
Ron Brackin entered the seminary at the University of Notre Dame in 1963, immediantly after his high school graduation.
He lasted three months. That short stint set the tone for the next two decades.
In and out of college, in and out of the military, in and out of one job after another. Grocery clerk, stockboy, bingo caller, used car salesman, nightclub comedian, carnival joint operator, even a bag man for a couple of small-time hustlers.
Drugs and alcohol came too. Then a series of cults.
For years, Ron smoked pot, drank beer, and went from one bad marriage to another, and chanted mantras underneath pyramids.
In 1980, not very long after a failed suicide attempt, God caught up with him and turned his seedy world upside and inside out.
The drugs, alcohol, and profanity slipped away almost unnoticed. Cigarettes took a little longer. For the first weeks after a former drug customer led him to Christ, Ron's nose rarely came out of the Bible. He slept a few hours and went right back to it, amazed at what he read.
Over the past two decades, God has continued to remold and retool Ron Brackin. He has restored everything the devil store... and much, much more.
Ron has worked with many ministries since then and turned his typewriter to the Lord's work.
At 50, Ron realized that he had been writing for other people all the time and took a shot at writing fiction. The result was a mystery novella featuring Sherlock Holmes solving the mystery of the Bank of England robbery as described by Jules Verne in Around the World in Eighty Days.
That was followed by a series of Bible studies called A Biblical Companion to the Classics. The first volume, published in 1998, is called The Gospel According to Dickens to be followed by The Gospel According to Shakespeare, currently in progress.
Sweet Persecution was written in the wake of a round-the-world trip with an Open Doors team to minister to persecuted Christians in the underground church. Ron recognized that the Western church has little or no theology of suffering.
"We're told that everything will be wonderful after we go up to the altar," he says, "and when that doesn't happen, we think something is wrong. But suffering comes with the territory, and persecution is part of salvation. I wrote the devotional with the hope of setting some people free, believers who are frustrated and frightened. I want them to understand that suffering and persecution are okay. In fact, they're normal. And that Jesus didn't promise to deliver us from them; He promised to accompany us through them."
Ron and his wife, Annie, live in Texas where they home school their four children.
size : 4.8 x 6.8
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Day 1
PERSECUTION BEGINS After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, during the time of King Herod, Magi from the east came to Jerusalem and asked, “Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews? We saw his star in the east and have come to worship him.” When King Herod heard this he was disturbed, and all Jerusalem with him. (Matthew 2:1–3)
Dr. Paul Negrut pastored the largest Baptist church in Europe, located in Oradea, Romania. He served the church faithfully under the cruel Ceausescu regime and often suffered personal mistreatment.
One night, after a very successful evangelistic crusade, he returned home to find his wife weeping and his nine-year-old daughter trembling.
Through her tears, his wife explained that when their daughter was coming home from school, the Securitate (secret police) tried to rape her to destroy her and the family.
“That night I was in a great struggle,” Paul said. “For the first time I was thinking to emigrate from Romania. I asked the Lord, ‘Should I leave the blessing of suffering or should I endure to see my girl like that?’
“I talked to my wife, and we chose to stay.
“Two days later, they tried again to rape my daughter. And two days later they tried to rape my wife. But every time God was protecting them in a miraculous way.”1
A Few Observations The persecution of the church began before it was even established. It started when Satan stirred up the fear, greed, and rage in the heart of a man named Herod and wielded him like a sword to pierce the heart of Jesus. If he could destroy this Messiah as soon as He arrived, Satan thought, there would be no church, no cross, and no redemption. And Satan would win his war against God. But Jesus was not alone on this earth. His Father was with Him, watching over and protecting Him. And God sent an angel to warn Joseph and Mary to escape. Satan tried many other times during Jesus’ life to stop Him from reaching the cross.
He used temptations, riotous Jews, proud religious leaders, and finally, when all seemed lost, Satan used the spirit of rejection that caused Jesus to cry out, “ ‘Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?’—which means, ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’ ” (Matthew 27:46).
There was, however, no persecution that could separate Jesus from the love of His Father. He did indeed accomplish His mission. And from that time to this, Satan has turned his hatred against the church—Christ’s physical body on earth.
Food for Thought Every Christian has a unique mission on earth. How has Satan used persecution to discourage you from accomplishing your mission? Persistent temptations? Life-threatening accidents? Choices that led you in the opposite direction from the way God would have you go? Persecution by family members, your community, classmates, co-workers, government officials?
For Further Study Jesus was not the only one the devil tried to kill in his youth. Satan used this strategy over and over throughout the Old Testament.
Read Genesis 37 to see how Satan used Joseph’s jealous brothers to try to destroy the child and prevent the birth of the nation of Israel in Egypt.
Read Exodus 1 and 2 and watch Satan use Egypt’s pharaoh to try to destroy the fledgling nation of Israel—and Israel’s newborn deliverer, Moses.
And in 1 Samuel 17 and 18, Satan used a bear, a lion, a giant Philistine warrior, and even a king of Israel to try to kill a boy named David and destroy the God-ordained lineage of Jesus.
In the book of Esther, Satan uses wicked Haman to try to kill the beautiful young Esther and destroy the remnant of Israel.
Read Daniel 3 to see how Satan used King Nebuchadnezzar to try to destroy the three Hebrew youths—Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. Then read Daniel 6 and watch the jealous satraps and administrators of King Darius persecute young Daniel.
Notes:
1. Paul Negrut, Romanian pastor. Audiocassette of message presented at Open Doors International Headquarters, Holland, April 1990.
