C.H. Spurgeon once said: "Never did the church so much prosper and so truly thrive as when she was baptized in blood. The ship of the church never sails so gloriously along as when the bloody spray of her martyrs falls on her deck. We must suffer and we must die, if we are ever to conquer this world for Christ".
Whilst none of us particularly relish the accuracy of Spurgeon's comments, when we read church history we cannot but agree with the thrust of them - the church always grows when it is persecuted. The Bible tells us that, in the end times, there will be much persecution raised against evangelical Christians both before and after the rapture.
