“… unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains a single seed. But if it dies,it brings forth much fruit.” John 12:24
There is a kind of robust Christianity that is steadfast, strong enough to develop an understanding about suffering and persecution and martyrdom. To those kinds of Christians, persecution and facing danger for being a witness of Christ is quite simply a normal Christianity. Such believers point out, Scripture and history bear this out, it validates them.
A spiritually mature woman who has given much in support for Christian education, when talking to any president of a seminary, asks a question that often is embarrassing: “Do you have a course on the subject of martyrdom and suffering for the sake of the gospel?” If the answer is no, this woman follows it by asking, “Why not? You must have it to give a worthy degree.”
Today’s Christians seem to have lost the New Testament edge on missions and have grown fat and soft on the subject of suffering and persecution. We must address today two neglected subjects: perseverance and persecution. Billy Graham reminded us in one of his books that “it is unnatural for Christianity to be popular.” We might wonder if we have forgotten the teaching of Jesus on this subject; He believed we were sheep among hungry wolves! And He said to expect it. Whenever the true teaching of Jesus and the message of the cross are proclaimed, there will be ill will, resentment, persecution, and even martyrdom. (Galatians 5:11, II Corinthians 12:10)
Let us take at face value the words to young Timothy, “You know how many troubles I have had as a result of my preaching the Good News. You know about all that was done to me … but the Lord delivered me. Yes, and those who decide to please Christ Jesus by living godly lives will suffer at the hands of those who hate him. In fact, evil men and false teachers will become worse and worse …” (II Timothy 3:11-13, Living Bible) The point Paul was making is that this is normal Christianity, which we must be prepared to experience; that cannot be denied!
The early evangelists were courageous and realized the danger before them—Stephen sets the example, and millions more have followed him. All the saintly people in the early church knew and fully understood that life lived as the Bible taught with truth preached, the Lord Jesus taught would produce suffering and persecution. It can be wrongly challenged that Christians born and living in freedom have very skillfully dismissed the valid place it has as a central mark of the authentic follower of Jesus. The true church lives under the shadow of the cross. Thomas Watson, the Puritan pastor, said that “Persecution is the legacy bequeathed by Christ to His people.” And he knew what he was speaking about; he had faced it.
Persecution is almost totally dismissed and even denied by the Christian in the West—it is not part of our mindset nor our identity. And yet it was the very thing that powerfully attracted many to the Christians in the former Soviet Union. And when at last Western Christians got among them in the late 1960’s, they heard them say, “This is normal, we live victoriously in the midst of this. It’s the sure sign of our faith being genuine!”
Many could not keep from falling to their knees before people who endured and even excelled in the midst of cruel persecution. And even today younger Christians in the former Soviet Union say, “This is what I learned from my grandparents. They are my spiritual heroes. They kept the faith and they believed to wear a crown, you must carry the cross.” With the passing of time there are a few modern-day giants of the faith left, but we should ask, “Who will teach us how to live for Christ in a time of persecution and who among us would even be prepared to die for Him?” Such thoughts are too radical for the superficial Christian. It’s almost impossible to find anyone able to teach on the subject except those outside western culture and who have lived through it. Unfortunately most of those people have grown too old to be outspoken and articulate. To get the truth, it must be “begged out of them.” It is difficult to tell the stories, but from them we must hear it, as painful as it is to speak of it. But we must hear it!
And yet, here is their testimony: “How happy we were when our bitter trials produced in us a stronger faith.” And again, “Learning how to suffer persecution was one of my greatest lessons in the faith.” Here is a prayer prayed in Eastern Europe and recorded on paper: “Lord, I yield all to You, and if persecution comes, it will be in Your will and it will come as a frowning friend to teach me. And, Lord, I embrace a friend that frowns before I will accept an enemy that smiles.”
Tozer taught, if God selects a person to be used for His glory, He goes to work to honor him with “stricter discipline and greater suffering than less favored ones are called upon to endure.” No effective Christian ever carried a velvet cross, and the grace of God does not exempt us from trouble and trials. Paul said those that “live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution.” He said, “watch thou in all things, endure afflictions … make full proof of thy ministry.” (II Timothy 4:5) Remember, these are some of Paul’s final words to us.
So then, for many, totally off the charts is the belief that God actually allows it and even sends it. To hear words like these are just too much for us. One bodily scarred believer said, “God puts us in the darkness to make the light stronger and brighter. Persecution is designed to purify His people. It has a positive purpose.” It has been said, “It is an act of God when the cup of bitterness is put on our lips and we are forced to drink. It helps us fall out of love with this world and makes the coming of His kingdom more wanted.” And even, “Pain produces love for Jesus, and a willingness to suffer like Him. Persecution is a gift that is entrusted to us; it makes His glory more real and it makes our goodness more evident to unbelievers!”
A prophetic word was sounded, “If I were going to destroy a nation, I would give it too much”—too much prosperity, too much pleasure, too much of everything! We are often spoiled by prosperity. Rutherford once said the walls of his prison cell glistened like gold and diamonds and that he blessed God that these terrible troubles had come and that it was “the messenger of the Lord” in his life. Spurgeon even called pain and persecution “surgery” from the hand of the Great Physician. Listen as I repeat the words of Matthew Henry, “Christ’s followers cannot expect better treatment in the world than their Master.” And is it factual, the world has not changed toward Christ, who was more pure and innocent and yet more mistreated and then crucified with pleasure?
We are forced to say this is not something of the ages past and it was not a novelty of history. There are more Christian martyrs today, for example, than in the year 100 AD of the Roman Empire. The World Christian Encyclopedia reported that over 150,000 Christians were martyred in 1998. There are estimates that in the year 2020 it was near 200,000!
We must prepare by being encouraged by the heroic lives and faithful deaths of brothers and sisters in Christ. We must not find strange the confession of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who was hanged by the Nazis in 1945. Some of his last words were, “This is the end. For me, the beginning of life.”
Cannot we all come to agree with the Christian historian Tertullian that “The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church”? Thank God today for those willing to lay down their lives for the one that laid down His life for them. May God help us come to understand this dimension of Christian faithfulness. These words challenge us, “Remember the Lord’s people who are in jail and be concerned for them. Don’t forget those who are suffering, but imagine you are there with them.” (Hebrews 13:3, CEV) May God help us grow to be like them!
Here is the lesson we must learn: We must never seek persecution if God has chosen us to live in a time of His peace and blessings. And never must we fear persecution because it is part and parcel in following Christ in any age; it is often used to make believers fall out of love of this world and long for the kingdom to come.
The words of Peter, the apostle, who died for his witness of Christ, scholars say, in 65 AD, are more than enough for us. He wrote, “Dear friends, don’t be surprised at the fiery trials you are going through, as if something strange were happening to you. Instead, be very glad—for these trials make you partners with Christ in his suffering, and afterwards you will have the wonderful joy of sharing his glory when it is displayed to all the world.” (I Peter 4:12-13, NLT) For us, that’s a final word on that subject even in a period of history when few of us will face severe persecution.
Let us have the courage to admit an impotence of Christianity produced by human wit and wisdom. So that, at this vital point each of us and all of us must be taught by the Spirit of God after we have emptied ourselves of anything but New Testament Christianity. We must depend with a sense of total yielding upon the Spirit of God to interpret what God has said and is saying. And it’s ongoing, we need to be daily taught by the Spirit with a sense of His fresh voice spoken from the Word. Let all true students of Scripture read again passages and see ones they never saw before. It was always there, we just didn’t see it. So, there is progressive revelation in that since it’s “precept upon precept and line upon line” (Isaiah 28:10). The Holy Spirit gives us light, and then more light, and for the first time, even after years of study, He reveals truth or confirms it. And He must continue to do that as our minds are enlightened and we grasp glorious truth that we somehow missed before. In the end we grow in grace.
“Blessed Lord, teach me … [I] rejoiced in them more than in riches. I will meditate upon them and give them my full respect. I will delight in them and not forget them … Open my eyes to see wonderful things in your Word.” Psalm 119:12-16, 18, Living Bible
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