PERSECUTION

Yea, and all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution.

—II Tim. 3:12

4310 What Have You Suffered?

We do not know who it was who had this dream, quoted in the Presbyterian Survey. But the unknown dreamer could be any one of us, could it not?

I saw in a dream that I was in the Celestial City—though when and how I got there I could not tell. I was one of a great multitude which no man could number, from all countries and peoples and times and ages. Somehow I found that the saint who stood next to me had been in Heaven more than 1,860 years.

“Who are you?” I said to him. (We both spoke the same language of heavenly Canaan, so that I understood him and he me. )

“I,” said he, “was a Roman Christian; I lived in the days of the Apostle Paul, I was one of those who died in Nero’s persecutions. I was covered with pitch and fastened to a stake and set on fire to light up Nero’s gardens.”

“How awful!” I exclaimed.

“No,” he said, “I was glad to do something for Jesus. He died on the cross for me.”

The man on the other side then spoke: “I have been in Heaven only a few hundred years. I came from an island in the South Seas—Erromanga. John Williams, a missionary, came and told me about Jesus, and I too learned to love Him. My fellow-countrymen killed the missionary, and they caught and bound me. I was beaten until I fainted and they thought I was dead, but I revived. Then next day they knocked me on the head, cooked and ate me.”

“How terrible!” I said.

“No,” he answered, “I was glad to die as a Christian. You see the missionaries had told me that Jesus was scourged and crowned with thorns for me.”

Then they both turned to me and said, “What did you suffer for Him? Or did you sell what you had for the money which sent men like John Williams to tell the heathen about Jesus?”

And I was speechless. And while they both were looking at me with sorrowful eyes, I awoke, and it was a dream! But I lay on my soft bed awake for hours, thinking of the money I had wasted on my own pleasures; or my extra clothing, and costly car, and many luxuries; and I realized that I did not know what the words of Jesus meant: “If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me” (Mark 8:34).

4311 Only The Exceptions Healthy

In describing the Nicene Council, Vance Havner said that not more than a dozen of the 318 delegates had not lost an eye or a hand or did not limp upon a leg shrunk in its sinews by the burning iron of torture.

—Bible Expositor

4312 Diocletian’s Hasty Medal

Many Roman Emperors tried to destroy Christianity. One of them, Diocletian, was particularly violent in his hatred of the Bible and Christianity. He killed so many Christians, with such outrageous cruelties, and destroyed so many Bibles, that many Christians “ went underground” and hid themselves from his wrath. When it seemed to Diocletian that he had made an end of them, he had a medal coined with this motto on it: “The Christian religion is destroyed, and the worship of the (Roman) gods is restored.”

—Christian Victory

4313 Poor Governor Pliny!

Pliny, Roman Governor in Asia Minor in the early Second Century, was so puzzled about the Christians brought before him for trial that he wrote his famous letter to the Emperor Trajan asking for his advice. This was the kind of thing he found himself up against:

A certain unknown Christian was brought before him, and Pliny, finding little fault in him, proceeded to threaten him. “I will banish thee,” he said.

“Thou canst not,” was the reply, “for all the world is my Father’s house.”

“Then I will slay thee,” said the Governor.

“Thou canst not,” answered the Christian, “for my life is hid with Christ in God.”

“I will take away they possessions,” continued Pliny.

“Thou canst not, for my treasure is in heaven.”

“I will drive thee away from man and thou shalt have no friend left,” was the final threat.

And the calm reply once more was, “Thou canst not, for I have an unseen Friend from Whom thou art not able to separate me.”

What was a poor, harassed Roman Governor, with all the powers of life and death, torture and the stake at his disposal, to do with people like that?

—Selected

4314 Eusebius: “Nothing To Lose”

When the Emperor Valens sent messengers to lure Eusebius into heresy by fair words and glowing promises, the saint answered them: “Alas, sirs, these speeches are fit to catch children; but we, who are taught and nourished by the Sacred Scriptures, are ready to suffer a thousand deaths, rather than permit one tittle of the Scriptures to be altered.”

Then the emperor threatened to take by force all his goods, to torture him, banish him, and even kill him. Answered the courageous Christian:

“He needs not fear confiscation, who has nothing to lose; nor banishment, to whom heaven is his country; nor torments, when his body can be destroyed at one blow; nor death, which is the only way to set him at liberty from sin and sorrow.”

—Tonne

4315 Nero And Bible Characters

Curiously, a number of men on Nero’s inside circle were related to characters mentioned in the New Testament. Seneca—Nero’s tutor, advisor, and speech writer—was the younger brother of Gallio, who found Paul “not guilty of wrong or wicked lewdness.” Pallas, one of the real rulers of the Empire, was brother of Felix, the Governor of Judea, before whom Paul pled his case. And Vitellius, the senator who arranged with the Senate to legalize the marriage between Agrippina and Claudius, was a former governor of Syria. Indeed, he dismissed Pontius Pilate!

—Charles Ludwig

4316 Carnage Went On

Millions of Christians were put to death in the Dark Ages by Rome in her effort to keep unity. In Spain alone between 300,000 and 400,000 died in the Spanish Inquisition.

And one does not have to go back to the Dark Ages to see a demonstration of this principle. In the 1940s and 1950s, hundreds of Christians died at the hands of Rome in Columbia, South America.

—Homer Duncan

4317 “Nevertheless”

The old Reformed churches of Europe, and some of their successors in this country, with scriptural and historical appropriateness chose for their motto a phrase referring to the burning bush—”Nevertheless, it was not consumed” (Exod. 3:2). That is the sentence with which you must conclude every chapter of the history of the church. After every fire of false teaching, of schism, of persecution, of corruption and apostasy, that is the record: “Nevertheless, it was not consumed.”

—C. E. Macartney

4318 Wearing Out The Hammers

The French reformer, Theodore Beza, made a famous retort to King Henry of Navarre. “Sire, it is truly the lot of the Church of God, for which I speak, to endure blows and not to strike them. But may it please you to remember that it is an anvil which has worn out many hammers.”

—Selected

4319 Primer Still There

One of the most blood-thirsty leaders in the French Revolution was a ferocious character by the name of Carrier. He was largely responsible for the horrifying drowning at Nantes. One day he told a peasant of Brittany, the district noted for its strong faith:

“We are going to tear down your belfries and churches.” “That could be,” replied the Breton, “but you will have to leave the stars, and while that primer is left, we shall teach our children to spell from it the name of God.”

4320 Wesley’s Expectation Of Persecution

John Wesley was riding along a road one day when it dawned on him that three whole days had passed in which he had suffered no persecution. Not a brick or an egg had been thrown at him for three days.

Alarmed, he stopped his horse, and exclaimed, “Can it be that I have sinned, and am backslidden?”

Slipping from his horse, Wesley went down on his knees and began interceding with God to show him where, if any, there had been a fault.

A rough fellow, on the other side of the hedge, hearing the prayer, looked across and recognized the preacher. “I’ll fix that Methodist preacher,” he said, picking up a brick and tossing it over at him. It missed its mark, and fell harmlessly beside John. Whereupon Wesley leaped to his feet joyfully exclaiming, “Thank God, it’s all right. I still have His presence.”

—J. G. Morrison

4321 Like Being Whipped With Roses

In 1651 in Massachusetts, Rev. Obadiah Holmes, because he held a prayer meeting in his home, was ordered to be whipped by Governor Endicot. So severe was the whipping that for days he could lie only by resting on the tips of his elbows and his knees and yet when the last lash had fallen, he looked at his tormentors and through bloodstained lips cried, “Gentlemen, you have whipped me with roses!”

4322 Stalin’s Religious Strategy

Only once did Stalin ever relax his unrelenting opposition to Christianity, and then only when circumstances forced him to do so.

When Hitler invaded Russia on June 22, 1941, he already had trained Orthodox priests standing ready to take over and operate the churches throughout the newly-acquired territory. In addition, he broadcast in the Russian language that religion would soon be completely free throughout the Soviet Union. What a caricature of the truth: Adolf Hitler, Liberator of Religion! At that moment 1,300 German pastors were behind bars in his own Reich.

When Stalin learned that his people were going over to the enemy, he became frightened and began to give a larger measure of freedom to the Russian churches. He sent his emissaries into the Russian mines, internment camps, and the frozen reaches of Siberia to ferret out almost-forgotten Orthodox priests and bring them back to newly-opened churches. It might have fared well with Stalin and his government had not the Metropolitan Nikolai come forward and urged the Russian people to rally to the motherland’s defense and rout Nazi invaders.

—Christianity Today

4323 Modern-Day Agony

Christians in modern-day Chad, Africa, were being persecuted for refusing to participate in old tribal initiation rites they say are pagan. Reliable sources reported the tortured deaths of pastors, evangelists, and other church leaders who declined to commit acts counter to their faith: drinking chicken blood offered to idols, handling fetishes, and the like. The accounts told of persons buried alive with just part of a leg left above ground or—for slower death—with only the head exposed, a terrifying warning to others who resist.

The persecution originated when President Francois N’garta Tombalbaye launched a cultural revolution assertedly to rid the nation and its four million inhabitants of unwanted foreign influences and to establish an identity with the country’s past. But church leaders reportedly met and agreed to oppose the rites, and some church groups say they would not readmit members who take part. The evangelical churches in Chad number more than 1,500 congregations with tens of thousands of members.

See also: Martyrdom ; Troubles ; Dan. 7:25–26; 12:10; Matt. 5:10; 10:17; 24:9; Luke 21:12; John 15:20; Acts 7:52; Rev. 12:17; 13:17; 17:6.