February 23, 2026 · 52:40

Todd Nettleton, Vice President of Voice of the Martyrs, steps into “The Corner.”

Politics & Policy

Show notes

0:00 - 15:00. 2 Timothy 3:12. The matter is not a question of “if,” but rather “how” and “when.” 15:00 - 31:00. Todd Nettleton, Vice President of Voice of the Martyrs, steps into “The Corner.” 31:00 - 48:00. The LORD warned His church would face persecution, but by His grace we overcome. or call: 800-326-4543 To donate call : 877-616-2396

References & links

Phone lines mentioned

800-326-4543
877-616-2396

Full transcript Auto-generated · 9,429 words

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1:01This is not an affirmative force simply reoccupies the space vacated by the light.
1:06This is the Hamilton Corner on American Family Radio.
1:11It should be uncomfortable for a believer to live as a hypocrite.
1:15Delivery people out of the bondage of mainstream media.
1:18And the philosophies of this world.
1:20God has called you and me to be his ambassador.
1:24Even in this dark moment.
1:27Let's not miss our moment.
1:28And now, the Hamilton Corner.
1:31Good evening everyone welcome to the Hamilton Corner. My name is Abraham Hamilton the third host of this program
1:39We are broadcasting right now from the floor of the exhibit hall at the National Religious Broadcasters
1:47Convention this is an annual gathering that takes place this year. We are at the Opry Land
1:53Hotel and Convention Center and we're looking forward to having a wonderful program today Ben. We've been here this entire week
2:01It really is amazing to see what God is doing all over the world, but in particular in our
2:07own nation.
2:08At this very moment, at this very moment, many of you are making your transition from your
2:13part-time jobs where you generate an income to your full-time jobs, where you cultivate
2:18an outcome.
2:19And as you do so, I want to remind you to do so with intentionality, recognizing the primacy
2:26that God places on family and allowing his view to govern, guide, guard, and direct your
2:34engagement in your families.
2:37I say on a regular basis and I will continue to say that what goes on in your house is far
2:42more important than what goes on in the White House.
2:45My purpose in saying that is not to denigrate with transpires in the White House, but to
2:50aid us in recalibrating our thought lives.
2:53our culture works feverishly to get us to be
2:57conformed to the world around us instead of first
3:00being transformed by the renewing of our minds
3:03and having that transformed mindset to dictate how
3:08we do life.
3:10And so what you do when you leave your income generating
3:13capacity is your full time jobs because outcome
3:16cultivation, in my full time job frankly, outcome
3:19cultivation is our job.
3:22We will never be able to be out politic.
3:26We'll never be able to out Supreme Court opinion,
3:29to out lobby, to out voter register,
3:33persistent deficiencies that abound in the home.
3:36We must, we must be about our father's business
3:39starting right in our homes.
3:41If the Lord, if we would welcome the Lord
3:44to capture us in our homes, there's no question
3:47as the would transpire, what could transpire in our societies.
3:51I've been saying this quite a bit,
3:52I'm going to continue to say this as well.
3:54I am grateful for people who are in the front lines
3:57engaging in civic matters.
4:00And we live in a constitutional republic
4:01with democratic features by God's divine providence.
4:04And so we must be salt and light in that area.
4:07But however, if we get all of the right candidates that we want,
4:10and we have all of the people running for office that we want,
4:15but we are not making disciples on the ground in our society,
4:19we are actively working against ourselves.
4:21to kind of punctuate that reality.
4:23I asked this question often.
4:25If we are citizens in our American Republic,
4:29guaranteed by Article 4,
4:31where each citizen has the lawful right and duty,
4:35I would argue, to select and elect our servant leaders.
4:39But our populace is increasingly wicked.
4:41How long should we expect an increasingly wicked populace
4:47to choose God the leadership?
4:51The answer seems pretty obvious.
4:52seems pretty plain and we should understand that.
4:57This is not an either or proposition, however.
4:59I'm not saying do this and don't do that.
5:01But I'm saying yes, continue to do this,
5:04but we must make disciples at the exact same time.
5:08So as we are contributing ourselves
5:10and investing ourselves in the execution
5:12of the Great Commission, we must do so with intentionality.
5:17We must do so with intentionality.
5:20With that, let us turn to the Word of God.
5:22Second Timothy chapter three, verse 12 is the text that we're going to go to today.
5:27Second Timothy chapter three verse 12.
5:29Excuse me, I had to get the first knees out of the way.
5:32That's all right.
5:33People used to be sneezing.
5:34I had to say they used to be sneezing.
5:36Second Timothy chapter three verse 12, you'll recall as we talked about this, that this is an
5:40epistle that Timothy wrote to the latter part of his life shortly before his execution at
5:45the hands of Nero.
5:47And he makes this statement.
5:49Paul writing to Timothy says this.
5:51indeed, verse 12, indeed, all who desire to live godly in Christ
5:56Jesus will be persecuted.
6:00I'm going to read it again.
6:01Indeed, all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will be
6:07persecuted.
6:08Notice the text doesn't say, might be persecuted.
6:12The text doesn't say, there's a chance, depending on who you are,
6:15where you are, when you live, that this might happen.
6:17Note the description says, all who desire to live godly in Christ
6:20Jesus will be persecuted.
6:21It should be instructive for us
6:24that this is coming from an incarcerated Timothy writing to,
6:27I'm sorry, an incarcerated Apostle Paul writing to Timothy.
6:31The same one had a reminder,
6:33hey, I understand Timothy, you could be a little shook up.
6:37But God has not given us the spirit of fear,
6:39the lea because Timothy is facing the reality that,
6:44hey, my servant service to Christ could result in me being
6:49me being imprisoned just like Paul to which the apostle would say yes, but it's
6:57worth it. The cause of Christ is worth it. The reality brothers and sisters very
7:04plainly is not a matter of if we will face a persecution. The question is when,
7:10how, and to what degree we will face persecution. Right now I was just
7:16having a conversation with the sister and this might not seem like it could be
7:20along the trajectory of persecution, but there's always soft persecution that
7:25precedes hard persecution and she was talking to me about her young son, he was
7:3020 years old, got married a week before his 21st birthday, right? This young man
7:38is a Christian, lived to chase before the Lord, he and his wife, and as they were
7:45preparing for marriage, yeah, some of you already know where I'm going, he had lots
7:51of unsolicited opinions expressed, lots of people sharing their two cents, lots of,
7:58wow man, you sure you want to do that?
8:01You know, certainly that's not overt physical hostile persecution.
8:07But it also is not comfortable and welcome, especially coming from people.
8:11You expect me, you know my testimony, when Marie and I met, I had no discouragement from
8:18peers and coworkers, you guys know we met in the office where I was working here at the
8:23district attorney's office. It was not until I had proposed to Maria and we're
8:27preparing for marriage. I proposed her a couple of months after we met and we were
8:31married less than a year following that proposal. There are lots of people that
8:35I was saying, y'all don't need to get married. You're too young for this. And I'm
8:38like, what are you talking about? This young couple I mentioned, I was not 20
8:42years old, but this young man was 20 years old and I was talking to his mom just
8:45now and she was just telling me, you know, Abe, that was hard. That was a
8:48challenge because you had lots of people that were people that he respected and
8:52looked up to and they were discouraging him from getting married.
8:55Think about that.
8:59Our culture gives a lot of relationship advice,
9:03but they object to people getting married,
9:05but what does the scripture say?
9:06Marriage is honorable before the Lord.
9:09Now, I am by no means representing that,
9:11again as overt hostile physical persecution,
9:15but is it not a challenge to maintenance
9:19of a biblical worldview?
9:21Is it not a challenge to a personal commitment
9:24to be chased until marriage?
9:27And no doubt about it, it is on that trajectory.
9:30Some of us, we're not facing over at hostile physical
9:33persecution, some of us, we're facing nasty comments
9:37on social media.
9:39And we don't want to say what the truth is because
9:43we don't want to deal with the nasty comments.
9:45Some of us, and I did a whole program on people like James
9:50Alarico who are lying about the scriptures as he's running for office.
9:53People are twisting the scriptures in our presence.
9:56All of that are steps that precipitate the overt hostile physical persecution.
10:01And all of it is opposition that must be stood against.
10:07The same apostle Paul said, to Timothy, another portion of his epistles to Timothy, that we
10:11must train ourselves for godliness.
10:17ourselves for godliness, train ourselves to live counter culturally, train ourselves for
10:23peculiarity. Why does the scripture give us that admonition? Because it doesn't come to
10:29Adam naturally. It doesn't come to the fallen Adam naturally. So as Paul is talking about
10:35this in the verse that proceeds, verses that proceed, Paul says to Timothy, you know all
10:40of the sufferings I went through an Antioch and Iconium and Lystra and Derby, you know what
10:45we faced in all of those areas, why would Paul say that?
10:47Because that's what Timothy was from.
10:50And he said those things because he knew Timothy was aware
10:54of all of those persecutions.
10:55My point in sharing this with you now is for this audience,
11:00for us to understand persecution is a reality
11:05that every believer will have to confront.
11:08Some of you listen to me,
11:09you're the first believers in your family.
11:11So you know what that comes with,
11:13that comes with a challenge to your ability to live life.
11:21Like how are you gonna educate your children?
11:23What do you believe about parenting?
11:24What do you believe about spanking?
11:25Some of you, you're on the opposite end.
11:27You are in an inheritor of a Christian legacy,
11:31but like anything else, you look at the scriptures.
11:34I've been talking quite a bit about what is revealed
11:37in the book of Judges and how you have descendants
11:40of Israelites who have questions that Gideon had.
11:44You could be a beneficiary of a legacy of a Christian family,
11:49but confronting the temptations to drift,
11:53to approach the truth of God with a casualness
11:57that would undergird the vitality of your life in Christ.
12:00The scripture says, indeed, all who desire to live God
12:04in Christ Jesus will face persecution.
12:09Because that is the truth, my question for us is,
12:12are we ready for that?
12:16Have we yielded ourselves to the Lordship of Christ
12:19and some of the most challenging aspects of our lives?
12:22And when I'm talking about these challenging aspects,
12:24I'm not talking about the lights and camera moments
12:26where there's broad audiences
12:27and there's a bunch of people around watching.
12:29I'm talking about in the quietness of your own hearts
12:33and the quietness of our own hearts
12:35when there is nobody else around.
12:37Because the real us is who we are when nobody's looking.
12:41In those moments, who are we?
12:43Have we developed the muscle memory of being able
12:46to stand in the face of hostility?
12:49Have we developed the muscle memory
12:52to stand in the face of temptation?
12:56Indeed, all who live God in Christ Jesus,
12:58in Christ Jesus will face this.
13:01Are we ready for it?
13:03I often reflect on the reality of the Hebrew boys.
13:06Azariah, Miss Iyel, Hananiah,
13:10standing before Nebuchadnezzar.
13:11If you're going to truly understand the quality of their witness before an African
13:16desert, you can't start at the fiery furnace.
13:19You have to go back to the 10 day table of testing.
13:22It is because they became fully persuaded as to who God was in the overarching sense,
13:29but in a more particular reality as to who he was to them.
13:33The reality of the conviction that they cultivated in anonymity is what they were
13:37able to draw upon in the light's camera action moment before
13:41Nebuchadnezzar.
13:42Indeed, all who live godly, all who desire, all who desire to
13:48live God in Christ Jesus will face persecution.
13:51How will you deal with it?
13:53When we think about persecution, there's some of the overt
13:55things that are happening that we've talked about in Nigeria,
13:58for example.
14:00Some of the overt hostile things we've talked about that the
14:02Iranians are facing currently.
14:04All over the world that are being faced.
14:07and there is an appreciable uptick of what's happening in our own country.
14:11Hostility towards a Biblical worldview.
14:14The way that Christians often are mocked, not if they profess to be Christians, no, no,
14:20no.
14:21No, if you profess to be a Christian, you have a Bible, you read it and you live according
14:25to what is revealed herein, then, then you're brought into the realm of mockery.
14:33I was looking not too long ago at an interview that former US Senator Ben Sasse did with Peter
14:40Robertson at the Hoover Institution.
14:45And Pete asked former Senator Sasse a question.
14:48You're facing death as a result of a pancreatic cancer diagnosis.
14:52And yet you're saying that you're now at this stage, you're willing to commit yourself
14:57to prayer.
14:59How could a modern man of the 21st century say he's committed to prayer?
15:03the sense of the sense of the sense of the sense of the sassist answer was simple.
15:08It's because God's word is true.
15:13If you have not pondered this notion, pondered this biblical admonition indeed all who desire
15:19to live godly in Christ Jesus will face persecution.
15:23I encourage you to do so now to settle your heart, resolve it in your heart, that come
15:29with me that I will stand.
15:31In addition to that, to set our hearts as well, having the freedom that we endure currently
15:37in our nation, the resources that God has entrusted to our care, that we do all that we can to support
15:44persecuted brothers and sisters all around the world. If you are a member of the family
15:47of God, you are a member of the eternal family of God, which is not confined to borders or
15:53any parochial considerations, but that you are a part of the universal family of God,
15:59glory to His wonderful name.
16:00Hiding to the darkness, this is the Hamilton Corner, an American family radio.
18:13Welcome back to the Hamilton Corner, my name is Abraham Hamilton III and I am excited to
18:17have on the program with me here on the exhibit hall floor of the National Religious Broadcasters
18:212026 Convention, vice president of message for Voice of the Martyrs, none other than Todd
18:28Nettleton who is seated to my right.
18:30Physically Todd, thank you for joining me here in the program.
18:32It is a blessing, thanks for having me.
18:34Oh, it is truly my pleasure.
18:35I personally use Voice of the Martyrs' resources.
18:38in the major ways I do so, is in trying to inculcate
18:41within my own family a real notion that we are members
18:45of the universal body of Christ, that even with my four-year-old
18:49that we pray for the brethren in places like Nigeria
18:52and Iran and all over the world, and so your resources,
18:55your ministry's resources have aided me in doing so
18:57and I commend our audience to do the same.
19:01But I wanted to start our conversation
19:02by just giving those who may not be familiar
19:05with the voice of the martyrs, and if you're not familiar
19:06with it. Where have you been? Where have you been living under a rock? You must be
19:11familiar with Voice of the Martyrs, but just if you don't mind, share a little bit
19:14about the founding of Voice of the Martyrs. I know a person dear to my heart though I
19:18never met him personally. His life and witness has impacted me. He and his wife
19:21Richard and Sandra Wormbrand, would you share a little bit about how your
19:24ministry was founded? Yeah, so the Voice of the Martyrs is a ministry to
19:27persecuted Christians. We are working today in more than 70 nations around the
19:32world helping Christians who face persecution. As you mentioned, our founders were persecuted
19:38Christians. Pastor Richard Wernbrand spent 14 years in prison in communist Romania. His
19:43wife Sabina spent three years in prison, including many of the months of her imprisonment were
19:49in a labor camp building the Danube Canal. So you can actually go into the history books
19:54and look at the history of the Danube Canal. It was a failed project, but she was building
19:59the Danube Canal and when they came out of Romania, the communists were still in charge,
20:05they were actually ransomed out of the country.
20:07So the Christians in the West paid $10,000 to the Romanian government to get them out.
20:14At the time, the going rate for a political prisoner was $1,500.
20:17So Richard Wormbrand, this pastor, was seen as like a high-value prisoner.
20:22It's going to cost $10,000 to get him out of prison.
20:25Before they left Romania, the secret police took them aside.
20:28He said, listen, Pastor, and we're in the West.
20:30You can talk about the Bible all you want, you can preach,
20:32you can talk about God all you want,
20:33but don't talk about us.
20:35Don't talk about what we did to you.
20:37He came to the West and did exactly what they told him not
20:40to do.
20:41I was tortured.
20:42And he's a man.
20:42I spent three years in solitary confinement.
20:44I have the scars literally before a US Senate committee.
20:47He took off his shirt to show the scars of the torture.
20:51And more important than just I was tortured,
20:55He said, hey, there are still pastors in those prisons.
20:58And when you hear that, when I hear that,
20:59we say, well, how do we help them?
21:01What can we do for those pastors?
21:03That's really how the voice of the martyrs was founded,
21:05was to be the answer to that question.
21:07How can we help them?
21:08How can we get assistance and encouragement and aid to them?
21:11And on the other end of the line,
21:13how can we bring out their stories,
21:16the stories of their suffering,
21:17but their faithfulness and God's faithfulness?
21:20How can we get those stories out
21:22and get them into the hands of American believers?
21:24That's what the Voice of the Martyrs has been doing now,
21:26almost 60 years.
21:28So.
21:30That's phenomenal.
21:31One of the things that I was so excited,
21:33you don't know this, but I've been praying about having a guest
21:36on to help me kind of articulate this even more
21:38so of our audience here, because the world is standing kind
21:41of with baited breath watching what's happening
21:43in Iran, for example, as much as possible with their
21:46intermittent access to the internet and things
21:48of that nature and the government's pinching
21:50for miscalculating or under calculating certain atrocities.
21:54but we've known here in this program for quite some time
21:57that the largest number of people coming to faith
22:00in the world is happening in Iran.
22:02And when you think about our own nation's history,
22:05the American Revolution was really precipitated
22:08by the Great Awakening, really.
22:10And so it put in my mind, hmm,
22:13I wonder how much the gospel being propelled in Iran
22:18has contributed to the citizenry's willingness
22:20to stand up against the regime of the Ayatollahs.
22:23and you have some information that I was unaware of,
22:27that helps to answer that question.
22:30This is such an amazing story,
22:31and I hope it's an encouragement to people who are listening,
22:34because sometimes we think,
22:35well, if the government turns against us,
22:38the church will be destroyed.
22:39No, no, no, no.
22:40That ain't gonna happen.
22:41So you look at 1979, the Islamic Revolution in Iran,
22:45the mullahs take over the government,
22:47they are the Islamic leaders, the Islamic teachers,
22:50they're running the government,
22:52and they're telling Iran's people,
22:54we're gonna do everything just how Islam teaches us to do it.
22:57We're gonna do it exactly how the Quran says to do it.
23:00So that was 1979.
23:01Now we're 45 years down the road,
23:04the economy isn't shambles.
23:05Iran has one of the highest drug addiction rates
23:07in the world.
23:08The people see the corruption of the government,
23:11and they're like, if that's the Islamic way
23:14of doing things, well, what are the other options?
23:16Like what else could we do?
23:17Because clearly Islam doesn't work.
23:20And so you have an entire generation of Iranians who look at that and say,
23:23well Islam doesn't work.
23:24I saw it in my government and they're looking for something else.
23:28They're looking for answers and thousands of them have become atheists.
23:31Like, hey, I don't believe in anything.
23:33That's a lie.
23:34But hundreds of thousands of Iranians are following Jesus Christ because they were
23:39looking, hey, Islam doesn't work.
23:41What are the other options?
23:43We have broadcast partners at the Voice of the Waters that are sending in the
23:46gospel on satellite television and radio and internet and even in chat rooms like
23:51social media outreach and Iranians are hungry for something that is true that
23:57does work. I've had Iranian Christians tell me the greatest missionary in the
24:01history of Iran was the Ayatollah Khomeini and you know it's like how could he be
24:08the greatest fit like he wasn't even a Christian and they're like no he showed
24:11the people the true face of Islam and it made them want something else and you
24:15You know, so we talk about that with Iran,
24:17and I want to encourage people,
24:18that pray that for Afghanistan, with the Taliban,
24:22pray it for the new government in Syria,
24:24as they see what Islam looks like there.
24:27Pray that for these governments that are showing the face
24:31of Islam, that it will make the people hunger
24:33for something different.
24:34We've seen it happen in Iran, we know God answers that prayer.
24:37Let's pray that he does it again in some of these other places.
24:40Now you said something that will be a bit jilting
24:44and we'll be novel for people listening when you say
24:47that one of the highest rates of drug addiction
24:49is actually in Iran.
24:52That's remarkable to consider.
24:54When people are hopeless and desperate,
24:57what do they reach for?
24:59That's one of the things they reach for.
25:01And you know, you've got Afghanistan right next door,
25:04clearly a big crop heroin-producing country.
25:07So it's not hard to get,
25:10but it's that heart issue, that hopelessness in the heart.
25:13And so it is, it's one of the highest,
25:15the places with one of the highest drug addiction rates
25:18in the world.
25:18It's amazing.
25:19Now I know voicing the martyrs has been involved
25:21in helping to get Bibles into Iram.
25:24Would you speak a little bit about that?
25:25Yes, we have.
25:26And actually I was in a meeting just last week
25:29and our Central Asia person announced
25:32that last year 2025 we were able to deliver 100,000 Bibles
25:36into the nation of Iran.
25:38And I always remind people, you know, it's a close nation.
25:40And by the way, they had a war with Israel
25:43in the middle of the year, and yes,
25:44we still got 100,000 Bibles into Iran last year,
25:48and our brothers and sisters there are hungry for God's word.
25:53They're hungry to have God's word as a tool
25:55to reach out all these desperate people
25:57who think Islam is hopeless.
25:59I'm hopeless, what do I do?
26:01What if their neighbor had a Bible?
26:02What if they could give it to them?
26:04So it is such an important thing to get God's word
26:08in the hands of his people, even in places like Iran.
26:11And the other thing that I would just encourage people
26:14to think about is if you're distributing Bibles in Iran,
26:17you're risking going to prison.
26:19Like you know at the end of this road is prison.
26:22At some point they're gonna discover who I am,
26:24they're gonna know who I am,
26:25and I'm probably gonna pay for this.
26:27And yet you have these bold brothers and sisters who say,
26:30no, this is so important that even if I do go to prison,
26:34it's worth it.
26:34I want you to have God's Word.
26:36I want to put this in your hand.
26:37And so that's the thing that I'm so encouraged by.
26:40is just the boldness and the courage
26:43and the faithfulness of our brothers and sisters
26:45who say, yep, I probably will go to prison sometime.
26:48But this is so important, it's worth it.
26:50You know, this is the first time we've met in person,
26:53so I know you don't know this about me,
26:54but this is near and dear my heart.
26:56I grew up as a young man.
26:57I was blessed as a boy really to grow up in a church
27:00where some of, we call them the season saints in our church.
27:04Older, retired women, we supported an underground church
27:07network in China.
27:08This is in the 90s.
27:09Wow.
27:10And I personally was able to witness several of our older seasoned
27:15grandmothers and great-grandmothers smuggling Bibles into China.
27:20Yeah, and literally.
27:21I love your church.
27:22I've never been there.
27:23I love your church.
27:23Yeah, literally being there as they were strategizing to tape
27:28Bibles to their bodies the way that unfortunately,
27:31don't deal as smuggled drugs into America.
27:33and seeing that and having the suitcase giving time
27:41for these sisters who are going, all women, all women,
27:44and praying for them, and then celebrating
27:47as they returned home with empty luggage
27:51that has stuff in it but no Bibles.
27:53And so that's a part of my formation as a child.
27:56So hearing about that and seeing that is something
27:58as a part of who I am.
27:59And so when you talk about over 100,000 Bibles
28:03to China just last year in the midst of war and a close country and all of these things,
28:07it overwhelms me.
28:09It overwhelms me because the Word of God is just that, the Word of God.
28:14And as you said, no matter how much government of hostility, the Lord has already said that
28:19the gates of hell won't be able to against his church.
28:21Amen.
28:22You about to say something but I started going.
28:23I was just telling people when you go through a border checkpoint like that with a suitcase
28:28full of Bibles, it is the best thing for your prayer life that you will ever experience.
28:33because you are there like Lord,
28:34you gotta get me through this.
28:36I don't wanna go to jail.
28:37And so it is one of those things.
28:39And I love it to hear that your church was part of that,
28:42that it was something like your whole church was invested in.
28:46That makes me excited.
28:47I wish that was contagious.
28:49I hope more churches can catch that.
28:51That one of the things we really emphasize
28:54at Voice of the Martyrs is the fact
28:55that we're part of the body of Christ.
28:57And so our brothers and sisters in Iran,
28:59they're part of us.
29:01They're part of our family.
29:02Our brothers and sisters in China are part of our family.
29:05And so once I understand that,
29:08you don't have to try to guilt me or manipulate me to care
29:13or to pray or to do something.
29:15That's my family.
29:16Of course I'm gonna do something.
29:17Like it's the most natural thing in the world
29:20because it's our family.
29:21And so one of the things,
29:23and it sounds like your church got that from the get-go.
29:26Not every church does.
29:27Sometimes it's like, oh yeah, that's a problem to solve.
29:29Or that's a cause that we should pick up.
29:32No, no, no, it's not a cause.
29:33It's our family.
29:34It's our brothers and our sisters.
29:36Once we understand that, man, we're all go to help them.
29:39Now you have a resource in your hand.
29:42I do.
29:43That you manage to make available free of charge for people.
29:45Would you share a little bit about that?
29:46We do. So this is our brand new 2026 Global Prayer Guide.
29:49The first thing Persecuted Christians ask us to do
29:52is to pray for them.
29:54And the Global Prayer Guide is a tool to help you do that.
29:57And all it is, every country where Christians are persecuted
30:01is listed in the prayer guide and it tells you,
30:03hey, who are the persecutors?
30:04Is it the government?
30:05Is it your family?
30:06Is it some terrorist group?
30:07Who's gonna persecute you if you're a Christian?
30:10What does it look like to be a Christian?
30:11Are you gonna go to jail?
30:12Are you gonna get beaten up?
30:13Are you gonna lose your job?
30:15And how hard is it to get a Bible?
30:16Like we talked about with Iran and China.
30:18How hard is it if you're a follower of Christ
30:20for you to get access to God's word?
30:22And the goal is to help people.
30:25I love the prayer, God bless persecuted Christians.
30:28I will never complain about anyone praying that prayer.
30:30but I want to help you pray, God bless our brothers and sisters in China who are in prison
30:35for their faith and here are their names.
30:38And God bless our brothers and sisters in prison and Eritrea and here are their names.
30:41And Lord, help Bibles to get into these countries because I see how hard it is to get a Bible.
30:47So it just helps you to be more specific in your prayers, which then I think helps you be
30:52more consistent because it's easy to say, God bless persecute Christians, but it's also
30:56easy not to say that.
30:57Like if you do that every day,
30:58this helps you pray more specifically.
31:00And again, I would just hit this point one more time.
31:03The first thing they ask us to do is to pray for them.
31:05It is not, you know, bring me to America.
31:08It's not, hey, protest against my government.
31:10It is, pray for us, pray for us, pray for us.
31:12It's the first thing that persecute increases us.
31:14That's the first thing they want us to do.
31:17Now you mentioned different mechanisms
31:20of the persecution, whether it's governmental,
31:22whether it's familial, would you just share
31:23a little bit of those distinctions?
31:25Because in our country, it's easy
31:26to kind of paper over it and to say what's all government
31:29towards all this source, but that's not always the case.
31:32It's not always the case.
31:33So we think about China.
31:35It is a communist government that is opposed to the church.
31:38They want you to wake up every morning and think,
31:41how can I serve the Communist Party today?
31:43If you wake up every morning and think,
31:45how can I serve Jesus?
31:46Well, you're a problem for them.
31:47You're a threat to them.
31:48And so that is government persecution.
31:51They arrest you, they put charges against you,
31:53they put you on trial in the court and you go to jail.
31:56In other places like, for instance, Northern Nigeria,
32:00you are likely to be persecuted by Boko Haram,
32:03which is a terrorist group,
32:04but it's not the Nigerian government.
32:06And so you're not charged with a crime,
32:09your church gets blown up, or you get shot,
32:11or there's a car bombing or something like that.
32:14That's more of a terroristic kind of persecution
32:17from an entity other than the government.
32:20A lot of times, and I think particularly of North Africa,
32:23but a lot of times in an Islamic context,
32:25The first line of persecution is not any government or police or anything.
32:29It's your family.
32:30It's your dad, it's your big brother, it's your uncle who comes to you and says, listen,
32:35we're a Muslim family and you say you're not a Muslim anymore.
32:39We got to solve this problem.
32:40Like you got to come back to Islam because otherwise you can't be part of our family.
32:44And so sometimes that is sort of ostracizing them, pushing them out of the family.
32:50But other times it is like we're going to lock you in a room until you decide to come back
32:53to Islam and we're not going to feed you.
32:55So, you know, how many days are you gonna wait?
32:58That kind of persecution, but again,
33:01not from a government, from a family.
33:04Before we get too far, how can people keep up
33:06with Voice of the Martyrs and what you're doing
33:08in addition to that, to get the prayer guide
33:11that you just mentioned, how can people do that?
33:13Come to all of those things, I should say.
33:14Yes, come to persecution.com.
33:16That's the main Voice of the Martyrs website.
33:18Easy one to remember, persecution.com.
33:21One of the ways you can connect with us
33:23is through a free monthly magazine.
33:24So we send that out, it's actually right at the top of the page, it says Free Magazine, just
33:28click on that.
33:29The other place besides Persecution.com, we actually have an app for your phone.
33:34It's just called the VOM app.
33:35If you search for the Voice of the Martyrs or VOM app, you'll find it every single day,
33:40a new prayer request, a specific prayer request for Persecutor Christians.
33:44Our prayer guide information is in the app.
33:47We have videos, we have eBooks and audio books, lots of material inside the app, and that's
33:52all free.
33:53VOM app or come to persecution.com and make sure you sign up for the magazine.
33:58VOM app, the VOM app or come to persecution.com to sign up for the magazine.
34:04That is one of the tools my family used.
34:05We got the map out of the magazine.
34:07Put it up on the wall and the house and we utilize that in our home.
34:11My guest is Todd Nettleton.
34:12This is the Hamilton Corner.
34:13You do not want to miss the rest of this interview.
34:16We're going to talk a bit about a podcast episode coming up and I want to talk to Todd
34:20about an op-ed he wrote for the Christian Post not too long ago, sharing a cool story
34:24of how Bibles are being utilized, the Gospel is advancing, but this time we're talking
34:29about in Vietnam.
34:31Stay with us, we'll be right back.
34:33Y'all know how it goes.
34:34The disrespectful clock is even with us here in Nashville at NRB.
34:38We'll be right back after this great Todd Nutterman.
34:40Vice President of Voice of the Martyrs is our guest.
34:43Stay with us.
37:06A Hamilton Quarter podcast and one-minute commentaries are available at afr.net.
37:12to the Hamilton Corner on American Family Radio.
37:16Welcome back to the Hamilton Corner.
37:17Todd Nettleton with Voice of the Martyrs is our guest.
37:21We're having a wonderful conversation.
37:22I wanted to invite you, Todd, to share a bit
37:24about a recent podcast episode, what it's about,
37:29and how people can tune into it.
37:30Well, I know some of our listeners
37:31will have heard it last Sunday, but if you didn't,
37:34be sure you listen.
37:35We have had the last two weeks a pastor
37:38from India named Pastor Paul.
37:39And I actually went to South Asia, sat down with him.
37:42We recorded it there.
37:44His English is spectacular.
37:45So even people here can understand him telling the story.
37:49He was arrested.
37:51He was put in a jail cell that was doubled as a latrine
37:55for the police.
37:56So literally he's sitting in like puddles of urine
37:59on the floor of this prison cell.
38:01There were thousands of mosquitoes that bit him.
38:03He was miserable.
38:05And God sustained him through that.
38:08And one of the things he prayed that was really beautiful to me
38:11is he said, even as he was being beaten,
38:14he was praying, Lord, help me to forgive them.
38:17I don't wanna be bitter towards them.
38:18I don't wanna be angry towards them.
38:20Help me to forgive them.
38:22And the Lord answered that prayer.
38:23And the other thing he prayed that I've never heard
38:26another persecutor Christian tell me before.
38:28He was sent to prison the first few weeks he was doing good.
38:32Like the Lord was watching out for him.
38:33He actually they had kind of a big brother
38:35who took him under his wing.
38:36And he's like, oh, the Lord's looking out for me.
38:39This is great.
38:39Thank you, Lord.
38:40And then, you know, a week turned into a month,
38:43and then it was like four months.
38:45And his wife came to visit him.
38:46He was very, very sick.
38:48The food was terrible.
38:49He was very, very sick.
38:50And he honestly said, he said, when I told my wife goodbye
38:53after she came to visit, I just thought we'd see each other
38:55in heaven again.
38:56Like, I didn't think I would see her again.
38:58And he became so discouraged and downtrodden
39:01that he prayed this prayer.
39:03He said, Lord, I need another Christian.
39:05He was in a prison of 1200 people.
39:07He was the only Christian.
39:09He said, Lord, I need some Christian encouragement here.
39:11Would you allow another pastor to be arrested
39:15and come to the prison and comfort me and encourage me
39:19and we can minister together.
39:21That way I'll be stronger if I have another brother here
39:23with me.
39:24And the Lord answered that prayer.
39:26Another pastor got arrested.
39:28Then he got sent to this prison of 1200 people.
39:31Then he got assigned to the section of the prison
39:33where our brother was housed.
39:35Then he got assigned to the bed right across from his.
39:38So there's two Christians in this entire prison
39:40and they just so happened to have the beds
39:42right across from each other.
39:43And he said, it was exactly what he had prayed.
39:45He said, this brother came in and said,
39:47you've got to hold on brother.
39:48Don't give up your faith.
39:49Don't give up hope.
39:51God's gonna do something with this.
39:53And it is just a phenomenal story of a faithful brother.
39:58And the other thing that blew me away
39:59is at the end of our time together,
40:01he said, would it be okay if we pray?
40:02Of course I'm like, yeah, I would love for you to pray.
40:05his prayer and we actually share this in the podcast episode.
40:11He said, Lord, thank you that you allowed me
40:14to go and minister in that prison.
40:16Thank you for giving me that experience
40:18and that opportunity.
40:21And I just thought, I don't know that I could come
40:24to the point of being thankful for prison, blood like,
40:27but he was so genuine and so blessed.
40:29And he saw it as an opportunity.
40:31Like the Lord has blessed me to allow me
40:34to come to this dark place and be a representative of the
40:37gospel. So I would just so encourage people find voice of
40:40the martyr's radio, wherever you listen to podcasts, our radio
40:44website is vealemradio.net. You can find it there too. His name
40:47is Pastor Paul. Go listen to this. You will be encouraged 100%
40:53guarantee money back guarantee for our free episode. You will be
40:57encouraged. Wow. Man, it's I'm just thinking about this because
41:02I started to show off today with second Timothy chapter 3 verse 12 when Paul is selling Timothy
41:08Indeed all who desire to live God in Christ Jesus will face persecution and sometimes that communication
41:14Can fail to land with people in our own country?
41:19If it's even preached on and like that's not a verse you hear a lot of sermons on in our country
41:24Yeah, and sometimes I think we can misconstrue
41:28through the reality of persecution
41:30can take several different forms.
41:32You know, we often think facing a latrine slash cell
41:37as being a source of persecution.
41:40And I wouldn't say this is persecution,
41:42but this is a challenge in and of itself.
41:44How do we handle being in a nation as prosperous as ours
41:47and still remain faithful to the Lord
41:50without having, without your, for the Lord, blunt it?
41:53You know, I've been talking quite a bit on our show
41:56about how do you have a people who walk through the reds
41:58and you on dry ground and then generations later,
42:00even after memorials are erected,
42:02to remind you what Christ has done,
42:03would you have a getting to say,
42:04what is it about this God you told us about?
42:06How does that happen?
42:07I don't think in many ways we're living in that,
42:09in our own nation.
42:10You know, would you want to say anything about that?
42:12Because I see you smiling and nodding.
42:14Well, I am reminded I met a Chinese pastor
42:18who had spent 20 years in prison.
42:20And so it was one of kind of the great saints
42:22of the Chinese Underground Church.
42:24And he said, and I'll never forget it,
42:26he said, you know, in China,
42:28Satan uses persecution against the church.
42:31He said, but in America, Satan uses prosperity
42:34against the church.
42:36And I was like, wow, what an insightful comment
42:40from this brother who, again, 20 years in prison,
42:43like he knew persecution, he knew what that looked like.
42:46But to say, no, that can be a tool
42:48that Satan uses against you as prosperity.
42:51Well, but we want prosperity.
42:53Like we like prosperity.
42:54But how could you say that that's a tool of Satan?
42:57But it is, like you say, we get distracted
42:59and we forget the past and we forget the Lord
43:02and somebody's got to come along and bang the drum
43:04and say no, no, come back to your first love.
43:06Amen, amen.
43:08You wrote an op-ed not too long ago that was published
43:11by the Christian Post, which was greatly heartening for me.
43:16And I encourage everybody to read it,
43:19but as you explain it, share the title if you will,
43:22so people can read it.
43:23but just to show how God and his divine providence,
43:26he protects his people even some of the most,
43:28the least ideal circumstance he protects his people.
43:31Amen.
43:32Well, this is Bibles Month at Voice of the Martyrs.
43:34So we are focusing on getting people to donate Bibles
43:37to go and be delivered in hostile and restricted nations.
43:40And I tell the story, I didn't hear it firsthand.
43:43It actually came from Murv Knight
43:44who founded our ministry in Australia.
43:47So he worked right alongside Richard and Sabina Wormbrand,
43:50founded the ministry there,
43:51and he heard it from the person who lived it.
43:54This is a Vietnamese brother who was felt called by God
43:58to take Bibles up into the highlands of Vietnam.
44:01And in places like Vietnam, this is often true in China too.
44:04Like if you're in a big city, you might be able to find
44:07a Bible and be able to get one.
44:09But if you're off in the sticks, no, you have no chance.
44:12And so he felt called of God to take this box of Bibles
44:16up to the highlands, to the rural area of Vietnam.
44:19And he said, you know, I'm, I'm scared.
44:21God, you're going to have to help me.
44:24So he got on the bus with a lot of prayer, Lord.
44:26Okay, I'm going to do this.
44:27I'm going to be obedient, but you got to help me.
44:29Got on the bus, sat down.
44:30He put the box on the floor, right beside his scene on the bus.
44:34And he said, right before they left the Capitol City,
44:37Hanoi, a police captain, full uniform, the dress screens,
44:42got on the bus, he walked right down the aisle
44:43and sat right next to this guy with the box of bottles
44:46right there.
44:46Uh oh, this is not going to go well.
44:50But as they rolled out of town, the police captain took off his cap and he put it on top
44:54of the box of Bibles and then he went to sleep.
44:58And 12 hours later, after multiple checkpoints, this guy was still asleep.
45:04His hat was still sitting on top of the Bible, but at every checkpoint they had stopped at,
45:08they would get on the bus and they would say, okay, show us your ID.
45:11Okay, we're going to have to search your material.
45:14But when they saw that police captain's hat on top of the box of Bibles, they just assumed
45:17that was his box.
45:19He was asleep.
45:20They didn't want to wake him up and risk, you know, getting reprimanded.
45:23So it's like, okay, we're going to leave that one alone.
45:25And so they would walk right on by, get out of the bus.
45:27Okay, go on to the next stop.
45:28Next checkpoint, same thing happened.
45:30Next checkpoint, same thing happened.
45:32Those Bibles got a safe delivery to the Highlands of Vietnam with a police captain escort that
45:39you can only say, God did that.
45:42God sent him.
45:43allowed him to sleep all those hours and hips caps sitting there and like you say
45:48the message of the story is if God calls you to do something he's gonna make a
45:53way for you to do it. You can be afraid but also get on the bus also get you
45:59know start doing it and you know that story just encourages me and we have
46:03heard over the years so many stories like that of how God protected and God
46:07provided and God closed the eyes I heard a story from Iran
46:12actually of a guard stopped a guy with a trunk full of boxes of Bibles and he's
46:18like okay open up your trunk and the guy's like oh this is gonna go poorly and he
46:22opened up one of the boxes and he pulled out the book and somehow super
46:26naturally he saw blank pages and he was like what why are you taking boxes of
46:32blank looks like what kind of idiot are you but he put them back shut the box shut
46:37the trunk and waved him through. No explanation for that other than God
46:42intervenes supernaturally to protect his word and so like I say it's Bible month so
46:48we're kind of celebrating those stories this month of Voice of the Martyrs.
46:51That's amazing you know as you're speaking I'm reminded of how C.S. Lewis would talk
46:56about miracles and anybody knows him the former atheist and the academic and he
47:02would say that would be a stumbling block from any of his peers concerning
47:05miracles, but he would say the distinction between nature and super nature is not
47:10really that broad and having really humanistic hubris to cause people to
47:15deny the reality of miracles is really succumbing to a demonic effort, you know.
47:22I'm pretty sure you, as you said, you hear stories like that all the time.
47:28Witnessing those kind of miracles, how does that impact you, your work, and the
47:33the work of voice of the martyrs concerning,
47:36the willingness to continue to trust God
47:38in the face of hostility.
47:41You hear enough of those stories
47:43and you just know God can do it.
47:46Now, at the same time you know that like right now
47:49there's Christians in prison.
47:50Well, God, why aren't you doing a miracle to get them out?
47:53Why can't you rescue them?
47:55So I don't ever want to assume a miracle,
47:59but I also want to walk in faithfulness
48:01that if God calls me to do something,
48:02He's gonna make a way for me to do it.
48:05And the other part of that is,
48:07I don't have to worry nearly so much about me.
48:10And what abilities I have or don't have,
48:12or do I have the technology,
48:14or do I have the tools, or no,
48:15if God calls you to do it,
48:17he'll make sure you have what you need to get it done.
48:20So, you know, and the other thing I think about
48:23is how God uses power,
48:24and we see this in the book of Acts,
48:26to bring people to faith.
48:28So many Muslims are having dreams and visions
48:32of a man in white who appears to them and says,
48:35follow me or says something oftentimes quoting the scripture.
48:39And that they've never read.
48:40Yeah, that they've never read.
48:41And it's like, well, why is he doing that?
48:43Because he wants them to follow him.
48:45That he wants that.
48:46We see in the Hindu world a lot of healings,
48:49a lot of supernatural healings.
48:50Like, you know, I went to all the temples
48:52and I did all the offerings and I said all the spells
48:54and I paid to the witch doctor and nobody could help me.
48:57And then I went to the Christians and they prayed for me
48:59and I'm well now.
49:00Well, you can argue all day long about,
49:04well, you should come back to Hinduism,
49:05it's like, no, I was sick and now I'm well.
49:07You can't talk me out of that.
49:09I'm going to follow the God who heard me and healed me.
49:13So it is the, I have a co-worker at VOM who says,
49:17this is the greatest time in the history of the gospel
49:19to be alive because we see it going everywhere.
49:22We have the technology to push it even further.
49:25But God is the one who is empowering all of that.
49:28That's so good what you said about not assuming miracles.
49:31It maybe thinks about Philippians 1 when Paul is incarcerated and he said, but I know this
49:36will work out for my deliverance along with the prayers of the saints.
49:40In our modern context we might think of deliverance.
49:43Oh yeah, Paul is going to get out of jail.
49:45Yes Lord, Paul is going to be liberated.
49:47But Paul says that either by my life or by my death that Christ will be exalted in my body.
49:57You know, his concept of deliverance is not a twenty verse entry concept.
50:01And it is one that I, I, one, endeavored to inculcate with myself and to pray for myself,
50:07but also to encourage our audience here to embrace that our concept of our own personal
50:13deliverance will be tied into Christ being exalted.
50:17No matter the circumstances of that exaltation and adopting an eternity based, you know, living
50:23from heaven down, so to speak.
50:25in the internal perspective, govern and guide our practical
50:28and temporal engagement, the concept of being so heavenly
50:31minded that you're not earthly good, really,
50:33is a misnomer if you're appropriately heavenly minded.
50:36And so I am so grateful for the work that you're doing
50:39through Voice of the Martyrs, and I would pray
50:41that even more people would embrace that mindset,
50:44embrace that heart condition.
50:45What are some of the primary tools you would say,
50:48or recommendation you'd make to encourage the body
50:51of Christ here in America to develop a universal understanding
50:55the Lord's bride and the understanding that we really are part of one household of faith.
51:00You have to find ways to be in fellowship with the global body of Christ and the voice
51:05of the martyrs is one way to do that.
51:06We will help you, we will tell you their stories, we will introduce you to them.
51:10Maybe it's your denominational mission board, maybe it's some other mission agency, but you
51:14have to develop an understanding that we are one part of the body of Christ, but there's
51:19lots of other parts.
51:21And we have to somehow connect with them and be a part of that fellowship.
51:25We have to understand they're our family.
51:27They're fellow members of the body of Christ.
51:30You know, I love when I walk in a church and I see flags waving like different country flags.
51:35I'm like, okay, good.
51:36I like this church.
51:37They have an eye outside of this county, outside of this city, outside of this country.
51:43So flags and maps are a great, really practical way to draw your eyes to the rest of the body
51:49of Christ.
51:50Todd Dettleton, thank you so much for joining me here on a Hamilton Corner American Family Radio.
51:56VOM at the VOM app you need to get it.
51:59Persecution.com is the website.
52:01Support the work of Voice of the Martyrs, support the work of the church universally, and be a part of what God is doing now.
52:07The Gospel is advancing and Jesus said that the gates of hell would not prevail against against his church.
52:13The best way to spend your time on this side of eternity is being about our Father's business.
52:18Thank you so much for joining me here in the program.
52:20Thanks for having me.

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