Matthew 5:10-12

Matthew 5:10–12

10 “Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

11 “Blessed are you when men revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account.

12 Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so men persecuted the prophets who were before you.[1]

Matthew 23:34–37

34 Therefore I send you prophets and wise men and scribes, some of whom you will kill and crucify, and some you will scourge in your synagogues and persecute from town to town,

35 that upon you may come all the righteous blood shed on earth, from the blood of innocent Abel to the blood of Zechariah the son of Barachiah, whom you murdered between the sanctuary and the altar.

36 Truly, I say to you, all this will come upon this generation.[2]

The following is A block quote from a Topical Christian Project the topic is Persecution The title is Principles for the Gathering of Believers Under the Headship of Jesus Christ (PGBUHJC)

Principle 1

Solely Looking to the Person of Jesus Christ

WE NEED the kind of humility that was expressed in the early Church as recorded in the Book of Acts. This kind of humility is today manifested in many underground and persecuted Churches across the world because they have dealt the death blow to pride and independence.39 These persecuted believers have become solely dependent on Jesus Christ as the Head to lead them and guide their meeting as Churches.40 A brother stated this truth, in another way: “Christ should be the gathering center of His people. We should be drawn by His presence, not by a man. When believers see this and act upon it, the local Assembly need not be shaken by the departure of any man. An Assembly where Christians gather to Christ has strength, stability and solidarity.”41There is more for Principal 1 on the link below

Principle 2

Where 2 or 3 are Gathered Together

THE GENESIS of a Church in Scripture is seen in this simple statement of our Lord: “For where two or three gather in My Name, there am I with them.”56

A gathering of believers where the Lord Jesus is present is the Church, even if there are only two or three believers there. When believers gather in smaller groups it allows the Lord’s people to meet more frequently during the week, even daily, as the early Church did.57 This provides the confidence and expectation to meet with other wholehearted disciples of Jesus Christ, to meet with the Lord Jesus who is in the midst, to receive direction from the Lord and to benefit from mutual encouragement 58 and prayers.

The meeting of the Church does require thought and guidance from the Lord as 1 Corinthians tells us: “Everything should be done in a fitting and orderly way.”59 Matters to be considered include the establishment of leadership 60 by the Holy Spirit, and the keeping of traditions 61 that were practiced in the early Churches. Two important practices as revealed in the Word of God are Baptism 62 and the Lord’s Supper.63 As we submit our minds and wills to the Word of God then He will establish the Church He desires through us.[3]

As you can tell by now this is good stuff and you are thinking Where can I get this book?

I am glad you asked that: I found it in my resources from Logos Bible Software. This https://biblia.com/books/9781625391865 will bring up a chance to click on it as being 0.00 and you can add it to your cart which means they are providing it free to the public as stated in the paragraph below in my bibliography. I noticed the link takes you to a parallel environment. The resource on the left is https://biblia.com/books/nlt/Ps91.14# which doesn't mention persecution but I was blogging about it last week so since I was logged in, it came up. The resource on the right is Principles for the Gathering of Believers Under the Headship of Jesus Christ (PGBUHJC) https://ebooks.faithlife.com/products/34023/principles-for-the-gathering-of-believers-under-the-headship-of-jesus-christHere is the exact image I got of the price after I signed out:

One explanation about the website of the publisher being down could be that hackers have taken over the website. Another explanation could be that the publishers did not want to continue a domain name just to be able to give away all the resources going forward so they found other ways to distribute the resources and then let the domain name go automatically. I am not making this into a link because I do not want any of you to visit the terminated website which is in a language I can't translate. When I selected translate, the website has a lot of gambling junk going on. Do not try to visit the publishers terminated website here: http://gospelfellowships.net/Another way to get the resources is to look below at the christ centered christianity website address which has been reproduced in the below section of this post which is showing the s after the http: (https:) That means it is encrypted. 

This is a secure website https://christcenteredchristianity.com/resources/principles-book-gospel-fellowships that is a place to obtain free books and other materials from the publisher. One of the commenters under the above link when you visit their website sounded like they were fine with the publishers website no longer being there. They even sounded happy about how nice christ centered christianity's website looks.

       I consider the secure website as my preferred place to go for materials over the faithlife.com website because they provide  PDF, Kindle, Nook, Vyrso and audio mp3. 

       I am providing a block copy of the way the christ centered christianity web page appears today Aug 19 2018 below:

PRINCIPLES Book (Complete – PDF, mp3 and more)

Gospel Fellowships has produced the monumental book, Principles for the Gathering of Believers Under the Headship of Jesus Christ, and is offering it for free download in a number of different formats, including PDF, Kindle, Nook, Vyrso and audio mp3. A copy of the print edition may also be purchased, at cost, through Amazon.

This book is the collaborative work of over 100 brothers and sisters, from many different nations and backgrounds, and is a clarion call to the Church to return to her Christ-centered, New Testament roots and expression in these last days. It is, likewise, a sobering call to prepare the Church for the coming global persecution which is prophesied at the end of the age. (Matt.24:9)

In response to Gospel Fellowships’ invitation to host the complete PDF and mp3 book on my blog, I have, with their permission, reproduced the Principles Book‘s download page from their website. This page has all of the links needed to access both the print and audio versions of it, along with links to all formats it is being offered in. (Please see below.)

I highly recommend this book as one of the most Christ-centered, comprehensive and spiritually practical books on the Church that I have read in a long time.  It not only communicates the truth concerning the life and practice of the New Testament Church, but also the spirit of the New Testament Church comes across powerfully through its pages. In addition, it’s testimonies and insights from the underground churches in China, North Korea and Iran are powerful, convicting and compelling.

I believe this is a strategic manual for the Church in this last day, given by the Spirit, to help prepare the Body of Christ for its end-time mission, as well as for the persecution that will undoubtedly accompany it.

The Church in the West desperately needs to hear this message…NOW!

Please take time to read and/or listen to this book! I assure you, you will be richly edified and challenged by its contents! -David

For an introductory sample of one of its audio/video chapters, here is the YouTube post of Principle One. (Keep scrolling beyond that to access the reproduced download page from their website, and at the bottom of the page, the full YouTube playlist.)[4]

In some nations visiting encrypted web addresses is an issue because the censorship technology employed by the governments of those nations cannot see what the person online is doing. Secure the server and keep it running and get the government censorship technology to raise a flag that your visitors have violated their rule which means they pay your visitors a personal visit asking them all to stop going to encrypted web pages, or face the consequences, or give up on your visitors, let your http://"insecure" domain expire or time out after however many years you had paid to have it. Here is the comment I am trying to understand from the https://christcenteredchristianity.com/resources/principles-book-gospel-fellowships site

David Bolton says:

04/29/2015 at 10:02 am

Hi Andre,

Glad to see this being hosted by other bloggers! Gospel Fellowships’ desire is that it be distributed in this decentralized way, which is such a blessing!

To copy it to your blog from this page, you can select/highlight the section that you want to copy, i.e. the part that I copied from their webpage (when it was up), then copy and paste it into a new post or permanent page on your blog. All of the hyperlinks should transfer. You can then add your own words of introduction, or whatever you would like, and publish it.

When you’re done, please send me a link here. I will also let Gospel Fellowships know for their encouragement.
All blessings,
David[5] 

I am trying to understand "(when it was up)" I believe the meaning is "they were planning all along to let the domain expire, and give up on their visitors, possibly hoping an http://blogsite would come along who could fight the hackers while giving the people in the government censorship offices something to do while the business of distributing free items could continue unhindered. I wish I could help with that, but both the blogspot host and the wordpress host require that I secure my blogs at all times to protect my readers from hackers who would use a blog without the s at the end of the http:// as an invitation to hack them all. The reason I am so focused on this is my blogsite with a huge number of visitors over the past few years from Russia. The blog was unsecured and never hacked and it had widgets where the readers could do searches on the Logos Bible Software and the Bible Gateway servers without having to worry that they were breaking Russias rules about encryption. I am reproducing the world map and all the countries who have visited the blog as of today so you can see the Russian number as a percentage of the overall visitor number. 

PAGEVIEWS 14,428

Pageviews by Countries Entry Pageviews United States 4457 Russia 2957 Germany 662 France 544 Ukraine 421 Poland 331 Romania 261 Canada 207 China 204 India 173

here is the website that I am talking about as having a lot of interest from Russia: It is still an active site but it now has the https encryption. It refers visitors to visit this blog if they want new content and if my readers want to, they can run searches on 3 different servers from 3 different widgets here. It also refers visitors to visit this blog if they want the old content.

Appendix / Bibliography

[1] The Revised Standard Version. (1971). (Mt 5:10-12). Oak Harbor, WA: Logos Research Systems, Inc.

[2] The Revised Standard Version. (1971). (Mt 23:34-36). Oak Harbor, WA: Logos Research Systems, Inc

[3] PRINCIPLES FOR THE GATHERING OF BELIEVERS UNDER THE HEADSHIP OF JESUS CHRIST
Fellowships, G. (2013). Principles for the gathering of believers under the headship of jesus christ. Abbotsford, British Columbia: Gospel Fellowships.Copyright ©2013 GospelFellowships.net - All rights reserved. This volume is meant for free distribution only and is not to be offered for sale unless offered at cost value. Gospel Fellowships does not receive any royalties from this book nor do authors mentioned therein. All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. (All references to the Godhead throughout this book have been capitalized by the editors.)

[4] https://christcenteredchristianity.com/resources/principles-book-gospel-fellowships

[5]https://christcenteredchristianity.com/resources/principles-book-gospel-fellowships Reply to Comment number 2

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