Biblical Persecution Quotes

The European upper-class could not decide if the Jews were a noble race of persecuted biblical heroes, everyone a King David and Maccabee, or a sinister conspiracy of mystically brilliant, hook-nosed, hobbits with almost supernatural powers.

The testimony of the apostles is some of the most compelling evidence for the truth of the Resurrection. That a band of persecuted men would willingly suffer and even go to grisly deaths rather than break down and confess something that every one of them knew to be a lie stretches credulity beyond the breaking point. If Jesus’ Resurrection had been a fraud, the apostles, of all people, would have known it. While a fanatic might die for a lie he thought to be true, only a lunatic would die for a claim that he knew to be false. Yet even the apostles’ enemies knew that they were far from mad; they marveled that such untutored fishermen were so erudite (Acts 4:13).

The biblical lifestyle is always a witness of resistance to the status quo in politics, economics, and all society. It is a witness of resurrection from death. Paradoxically, those who embark on the biblical witness constantly risk death - through execution, exile, imprisonment, persecution, defamation, or harassment - at the behest of the rulers of this age. Yet those who do not resist the rulers of the present darkness are consigned to a moral death, the death of their humanness. That, of all the ways of dying, is the most ignominious.

Believers in the early church were not persecuted for worshipping God. They were persecuted for worshipping no god or emperor apart from God.9

Believers, in order to sound spiritual or godly, will say they are willing to die for Christ. While this may sound noble, what God is really looking for are people who are willing to live for Christ.

it is much easier to unite people around a Jesus who hates our enemies and blesses our wars than it is to unite people around a Jesus who calls us to love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us.

With the growth of civilisation in Europe, and with the revival of letters and of science in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, the ethical and intellectual criticism of theology once more recommenced, and arrived at a temporary resting-place in the confessions of the various reformed Protestant sects in the sixteenth century; almost all of which, as soon as they were strong enough, began to persecute those who carried criticism beyond their own limit. But the movement was not arrested by these ecclesiastical barriers, as their constructors fondly imagined it would be; it was continued, tacitly or openly, by Galileo, by Hobbes, by Descartes, and especially by Spinoza, in the seventeenth century; by the English Freethinkers, by Rousseau, by the French Encyclopaedists, and by the German Rationalists, among whom Lessing stands out a head and shoulders taller than the rest, throughout the eighteenth century; by the historians, the philologers, the Biblical critics, the geologists, and the biologists in the nineteenth century, until it is obvious to all who can see that the moral sense and the really scientific method of seeking for truth are once more predominating over false science. Once more ethics and theology are parting company.

I learned that it is much easier to unite people around a Jesus who hates our enemies and blesses our wars than it is to unite people around a Jesus who calls us to love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us.

Fellowship is much, much more than food and fun and even more than reading and studying the Scriptures with another believer. Fellowship at times may involve blood, sweat, and tears as we stand side by side with our persecuted brothers and sisters.

Every disciple is a believer, but not every believer is necessarily a disciple. Anything short of discipleship, however, is settling for less than what God really desires for us. Loving God more than anyone or anything else is the very foundation of being a disciple. If you want to live your Christian life to its fullest, then love Jesus more than anyone or anything else. Either you will have harmony with God and friction with people, or you will have harmony with people and friction with God. You become a disciple in the biblical sense only when you are totally and completely committed to Jesus Christ and His Word. As a true disciple, your life won’t only be characterized by practical results and a hunger for Scripture, but you also will have love for others — especially fellow believers. Without all of these characteristics, you can’t really claim to be His disciple. A person who has been with Jesus will boldly share his or her faith. A person who has been with Jesus will be a person of prayer. A person who has been with Jesus will be persecuted. If for you, the Christian life is all about feeling good and having everything go your way, then you won’t like being a disciple. Being a follower of Christ is the most joyful and exciting life there is. But it also can be the most challenging life there is. It’s a life lived out under the command of someone other than yourself. Most prayers are not answered because they are outside the will of God. Once we have discovered God’s will, we can then pray aggressively and confidently for it. We can pray, believing it will happen, because we know it is not something we have dreamed. A forgiven person will be a forgiving person. A true disciple will harbor no grudge toward another. The disciple knows it will hinder his or her prayer life and walk with God. It is far better to sit down for an hour and talk genuinely with one person than to rattle off trite clichés to scores of people. Attending more Bible studies, more prayer meetings, reading more Christian books, and listening to more teaching without an outlet for the truth will cause us to spiritually decay. We need to take what God has given us and use it constructively in the lives of others. You were placed on earth to know God. Everything else is secondary. The more we know God, the more we should want to make Him known to a lost world. Your life belongs to God. You don’t share your time and talents with Him; He shares them with you! He owns you and everything about you. You need to recognize and acknowledge that fact.

There will be active and open persecution because of the biblical worldview of churches. . . . When you have national leaders who say Baptists and other evangelicals are guilty of hate speech because of our recitation of simple scripture, then you are going to see the alienation and active persecution of churches in the United States.”20

brings some blessings to unbelieving people. Jesus tells us, “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you” (Matt. 5:44), and since there is no restriction in the context simply to pray for their salvation, and since the command to pray for our persecutors is coupled with a command to love them, it seems reasonable to conclude that God intends to answer our prayers even for our persecutors with regard to many areas of life.

Ruth and I often share the stories that we have heard and the things that we have learned to help the western church and many of its congregations grasp a new, and perhaps more biblical, perspective on suffering and persecution in our faith. We share often about how suffering and persecution relate to our faith. We desperately want our western brothers and sisters in Christ to realize that the greatest enemy of our faith today is not communism, Buddhism, Hinduism, Atheism, or even Islam. Our greatest enemy is lostness. Lostness is the terrible enemy that Jesus commissioned His followers to vanquish with the battle strategy that He spelled out for them in Matthew 28:18-20. He was addressing this same enemy when He plainly clarified His purpose in coming: 'I have come to seek and to save those who are lost.' Our hope is that believers around the world will get close enough to the heart of God that the first images that come to mind when we heard the word 'Muslim' are not Somali pirates or suicide bombers or violent jihadists or even terrorists. When we hear the word 'Muslim,' we need to see and think of each and every individual Muslim as a lost person who is loved by God. We need to see each Muslim as a person in need of God's grace and forgiveness. We need to see each Muslim as someone for whom Christ died.

As a black man Al, who went through the Civil rights fight in the 60s just like you did, and saw the first freedom bus burn in my home town of Anniston, Alabama, on May 14, 1961; I hated Dr. King for his non-violent philosophy. That did not change until I became a Christian later in life. Then I understood God’s biblical truth of love your enemy and do good to those who hate and persecute you. I think I have the right to tell you this sir; I think the likes of you and Jesse Jackson have done more damage to the black race than any white man will ever accomplish. You see as long as you can produce an ethnicity with a victim mentality to keep them in poverty, as the two of you get richer – you know like poverty pimps – and convince them that it is the white man’s fault because he has his boot on their necks, and as long as you teach our beautiful black women that there is a government out there to be their baby’s daddy, the two of you win. You are the self-proclaimed, appointed leaders of the black people. How we as black people have swallowed the lie that we have to have certain black leaders to get on the government teat escapes me.

The Deepening Though in the wake of 9/11 Americans gathered in houses of worship across the land and it appeared as if there would be a national return to God—it never came. In place of the revival was a spiritual and moral apostasy that was unprecedented in its scope and accelerating pace. There was now increasing talk concerning the end of “Christian America.” Polls noticed a growing departure from biblical ethics and values. The turn was most pronounced among the younger generation, portending a future of even greater moral and spiritual departure. In the fall of ancient Israel the nation decided it could rewrite morality and change what was good and evil, sin and righteousness—so too in America. What had once been recognized as right was now attacked as evil, and what had once been recognized as sin was now celebrated as a virtue. Morals, standards, and values that had undergirded not only the nation’s foundation, but also the foundation of Western civilization and civilization itself, were increasingly overturned, overruled, and discarded. And those who would not go along with the change—who merely continued to uphold that which had once been universally upheld—were now increasingly marginalized, vilified, condemned by the culture and the state, and persecuted. And not only did the blood of unborn children continue to flow, as it did in ancient Israel, but the number of those killed was now well over fifty million, a population of many Israels. The nation’s moral descent had now reached the point where the government was seeking to force those who held to God’s Word to go against that Word, punishing resistance with fines, damages, and condemnation. Any deviation from the new ethics of apostasy was swiftly punished. At the same time, the name of God increasingly became the object of attack, mockery, and blasphemy.

May God’s people never eat rabbit or pork (Lev. 11:6–7)? May a man never have sex with his wife during her monthly period (Lev. 18:19) or wear clothes woven of two kinds of materials (Lev. 19:19)? Should Christians never wear tattoos (Lev. 19:28)? Should those who blaspheme God’s name be stoned to death (Lev. 24:10–24)? Ought Christians to hate those who hate God (Ps. 139:21–22)? Ought believers to praise God with tambourines, cymbals, and dancing (Ps. 150:4–5)? Should Christians encourage the suffering and poor to drink beer and wine in order to forget their misery (Prov. 31:6–7)? Should parents punish their children with rods in order to save their souls from death (Prov. 23:13–14)? Does much wisdom really bring much sorrow and more knowledge more grief (Eccles. 1:18)? Will becoming highly righteous and wise destroy us (Eccles. 7:16)? Is everything really meaningless (Eccles. 12:8)? May Christians never swear oaths (Matt. 5:33–37)? Should we never call anyone on earth “father” (Matt. 23:9)? Should Christ’s followers wear sandals when they evangelize but bring no food or money or extra clothes (Mark 6:8–9)? Should Christians be exorcising demons, handling snakes, and drinking deadly poison (Mark 16:15–18)? Are people who divorce their spouses and remarry always committing adultery (Luke 16:18)? Ought Christians to share their material goods in common (Acts 2:44–45)? Ought church leaders to always meet in council to issue definitive decisions on matters in dispute (Acts 15:1–29)? Is homosexuality always a sin unworthy of the kingdom of God (1 Cor. 6:9–10)? Should unmarried men not look for wives (1 Cor. 7:27) and married men live as if they had no wives (1 Cor. 7:29)? Is it wrong for men to cover their heads (1 Cor. 11:4) or a disgrace of nature for men to wear long hair (1 Cor. 11:14)? Should Christians save and collect money to send to believers in Jerusalem (1 Cor. 16:1–4)? Should Christians definitely sing psalms in church (Col. 3:16)? Must Christians always lead quiet lives in which they work with their hands (1 Thess. 4:11)? If a person will not work, should they not be allowed to eat (2 Thess. 3:10)? Ought all Christian slaves always simply submit to their masters (reminder: slavery still exists today) (1 Pet. 2:18–21)? Must Christian women not wear braided hair, gold jewelry, and fine clothes (1 Tim. 2:9; 1 Pet. 3:3)? Ought all Christian men to lift up their hands when they pray (1 Tim. 2:8)? Should churches not provide material help to widows who are younger than sixty years old (1 Tim. 5:9)? Will every believer who lives a godly life in Christ be persecuted (2 Tim. 3:12)? Should the church anoint the sick with oil for their healing (James 5:14–15)? The list of such questions could be extended.

In fact, everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted. 2 Timothy 3:12

We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not despairing; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed

Religion commandeered both sides of the slavery issue. Lincoln made this point in his Second Inaugural: “Both [sides] read the same Bible, and pray to the same God; and each invokes His aid against the other.”8 The bloodshed might have been stemmed were it not for the unmovable certainty religion breeds in the faithful. We might say today that abolitionists motivated by religion were correct to be certain on such an obvious issue, but their brethren south of the Mason-Dixon Line were just as certain, and they had the stronger side of the biblical argument. As William Lloyd Garrison, a leading abolitionist, put it, “In this country, the Bible has been used to support slavery and capital punishment; while in the old countries, it has been quoted to sustain all manner of tyranny and persecution. All reforms are anti-Bible.

They were kicked out of their homes, abandoned by their families, turned away at every door. So, when Rastas read the biblical accounts of Jewish persecution and strife, they recognized a similar suffering in their own tribulation. From those psalms of Jewish exile came the Rastafari’s name for the systemically racist state and imperial forces that had hounded, hunted, and downpressed them: Babylon. Babylon was the government that had outlawed them, the police that had pummeled and killed them.

As Strauss demonstrated with inescapable lucidity many decades ago, the two nativity stories of Matthew and Luke disagree at almost every point, one exception being the location of Jesus' birth in Bethlehem. [...] Matthew assumes Jesus was born in the home of Mary and Joseph in Bethlehem, and that they only relocated to Nazareth in Galilee after taking off for Egypt to avoid Herod the Great's persecution. Luke knows nothing of this but instead presupposes that Mary and Joseph lived in Galilee and "happened" to be in Bethlehem when the hour struck for Jesus' birth because the Holy Couple had to be there to register for a Roman taxation census. [...] For the moment, my point is to suggest that Luke and Matthew both seem to have been winging it, just as they did with their genealogies. They began with an assumption and tried to connect the dots. This time, their common assumption was that Jesus was born in Bethlehem. Whence this assumption? Was there historical memory that Jesus was born there? Hardly; if there had been, we cannot account for Mark's utter lack of knowledge of the fact. No, it seems much more natural, much less contrived, to suggest that Matthew and Luke alike simply inferred from their belief in Jesus' Davidic lineage that he must have been born in Bethlehem. [...] Matthew and Luke both placed the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem because they mistakenly thought prophecy demanded it. They went to work trying to connect the dots with narrative or historical verisimilitude, but with limited success.

Many professed Christians have conformed to the world, embracing idolatrous lifestyles that neglect the vulnerable and ignore the biblical mandate to care for the least of these. As the end days approach, many will succumb to deceiving spirits, demonic doctrines, and hypocrisy, leading to a great apostasy. But amidst the chaos and persecution, afflictions and hardships, we must stand firm in our faith, refusing to abandon our trust in Christ. For it is in the darkest moments that our allegiance to Him is tested and proven. Let us hold fast to the anchor of our hope, Jesus Christ, and persevere in His truth, even when all else fails.

The three future occurrences that scripture tells us we should be expecting and watching for are:                   1.) Israel will truly be “at peace” for the first time since its founding in 1948;            2.) The Daughter of Babylon will severely persecute many of God’s people;            3.) The Daughter of Babylon will betray Israel, by not coming to its defense when a Russian-Muslim coalition invasion of Israel occurs, causing many in Israel to die.

Those whose First and Second Amendment rights are taken from them won’t like it and will most likely fight back, leading to the “violence in the land” that Jeremiah describes. These future events will lead, in part, to the government of the Daughter of Babylon’s persecution of God’s people. One significant result? Many under persecution will flee the nation.

Christianity, the humblest of all faiths, degenerated into the most power-hungry and hierarchical religion on the face of the earth. After the emperor Constantine elevated Christianity to the status of a state religion in A.D. 312, the once-persecuted faith became a fierce persecutor of all its opposition.

As I retold those stories, I watched the faces of the house-church leaders. They were listening in rapt attention. I felt that the Holy Spirit was moving and working in that farmyard. I could sense that these leaders were pulling real biblical principles out of the stories. Then, in the middle of the final story that I was going to tell, I heard a noise, a disturbance. I looked around and, in the back corner, I saw a movement. It was those two brothers that I had tried to interview a little earlier. They were standing up and waving their arms. I couldn't imagine what they were doing. I tried to ignore them, hoping that no one would notice the commotion. But they rushed forward. Weaving their way through the crowd, they made their way toward the platform. I tried in vain to figure out some way to keep them from coming up on the stage. As they drew closer though, I could tell that they were crying. Instinctively, I moved back and gave way. By the time they stepped up on the platform, they were shaking and sobbing. They said to the assembled group: 'Listen to this man! Listen to this man! The stories he tells are true! You can only grow in persecution what you go into persecution with.' Then they opened their hearts to their Christian brothers and sisters seated before them. What they said sounded like a confession: 'You have honored us and you have made us leaders just because the authorities arrested us and we went to jail for three years. But you never, ever asked us our story. We know that when most of you went to prison, you shared your faith, you preached the word of God, and you brought hundreds if not thousands of people to Jesus. You started dozens of churches, and you began a movement that has grown out of the prisons. The Lord used you in a might way. But when we were arrested, we barely knew who Jesus was! We did not know how to pray! We did not know the Bible! We did not know many songs of faith. We have to confess this to you today and beg your forgiveness. For three years in prison we did not share our faith with one person. We hid our faith. And yet, when we came out of prison, you made us leaders just because we had been put into jail. The truth is, we failed Jesus in prison. Would you please forgive us? You must listen to this man! Listen to this man! What he is teaching is true: You can only grow in jail what you take to jail with you. You can only grow in persecution what you take into it.' There seemed to be nothing more that I could add to that. I silently asked for God's forgiveness. I had been upset about my interview with these two brothers. Evidently, God had a purpose in bringing them to the front.

CONCLUSION TO THE SEVEN CHURCHES The church at Ephesus represents the danger of losing our first love (2:4), that fresh devotion to Christ that characterized the early church. The church at Smyrna represents the danger of fear of suffering and was exhorted, “Do not fear what you are about to suffer” (2:10). With persecution against believers worldwide so strong today, the church can take heart that Christ is aware of her suffering. The church at Pergamum illustrates the constant danger of doctrinal compromise (2:14–15), often the first step toward complete defection. The modern church that has forsaken so many fundamentals of biblical faith needs to heed this warning! The church at Thyatira is a monument to the danger of moral compromise (2:20). The church today may well take heed to the departure from moral standards that has invaded the church itself. The church at Sardis is a warning against the danger of spiritual deadness (3:1–2), of orthodoxy without life, of mere outward appearance. The church at Philadelphia commended by our Lord is nevertheless warned against the danger of not holding fast (3:11), and exhorted to keep “my word about patient endurance,” to maintain the “little power” that they did have and to wait for their coming Lord. The final message to the church at Laodicea is a telling indictment, a warning against the danger of lukewarmness (3:15–16), of self-sufficiency, of being unconscious of desperate spiritual need. Each of these messages is amazingly relevant and pointed in its analysis of what our Lord sees as He stands in the midst of His church. The

Today, evangelical Christians, Catholics, and other conservative students are routinely subjected to programs on campuses that amount to little less than overt intolerance and intellectual persecution. For example, recently at the University of Pennsylvania, Cornell University, and Dartmouth College, campus activists stole and burned conservative student newspapers without facing any significant penalty from administrators. The idea expressed in these newspapers and by these students were obviously unwelcome by the thieves in question, but they also were, apparently, not deemed worthy of toleration by the schools' presidents, provosts, and deans. At Purdue, Vanderbilt, and Syracuse, as well as smaller universities like Castleton in Vermont, many Christian campus organizations cannot operate without violating expansive "non-discrimination" policies. Administrators at many colleges now require all student organizations to draft constitutions on the basis of sexual morality. All lifestyles and worldviews are acceptable except those of orthodox Catholics, Evangelicals, and other conservatives who want to live their lives in a manner consistent with the biblical standards of sexual fidelity and the traditional morality prescribed in Scripture. Such missional clarity is simply not tolerable in these bastions of tolerance.

DAY 17: How does Paul describe the return of Jesus Christ in 1 Thessalonians 4:15, 16? It is clear the Thessalonians had come to believe in and hope for the reality of their Savior’s return (1:3, 9, 10; 2:19; 5:1, 2). They were living in expectation of that coming, eagerly awaiting Christ. First Thessalonians 4:13 indicates they were even agitated about some things that might affect their participation in it. They knew Christ’s return was the climactic event in redemptive history and didn’t want to miss it. The major question they had was: “What happens to the Christians who die before He comes? Do they miss His return?” Clearly, they had an imminent view of Christ’s return, and Paul had left the impression it could happen in their lifetime. Their confusion came as they were being persecuted, an experience they thought they were to be delivered from by the Lord’s return (3:3, 4). Paul answers by saying “the Lord Himself will descend with a shout” (v. 16). This fulfills the pledge of John 14:1–3 (Acts 1:11). Until then He remains in heaven (1:10; Heb. 1:1–3). “With the voice of an archangel.” Perhaps it is Michael, the archangel, whose voice is heard as he is identified with Israel’s resurrection in Daniel 12:1–3. At that moment, the dead rise first. They will not miss the Rapture but will be the first participants. “And with the trumpet of God.” This trumpet is illustrated by the trumpet of Exodus 19:16–19, which called the people out of the camp to meet God. It will be a trumpet of deliverance (Zeph. 1:16; Zech. 9:14). After the dead come forth, their spirits, already with the Lord (2 Cor. 5:8; Phil. 1:23), now being joined to resurrected new bodies, the living Christians will be raptured, “caught up” (v. 17). This passage along with John 14:1–3 and 1 Corinthians 15:51, 52 form the biblical basis for “the Rapture” of the church.

Amillennialists thus hold that the “thousand years” is a symbolic reference to the entire period (which we are now in) between Christ’s resurrection until shortly before his return. This age will be characterized by the spread of the gospel but also by the spread of sin, i.e., there will be no “golden age” before Christ returns. Satan is now bound in the sense that he can no longer absolutely prevent the spread of the gospel to the nations or unite the world to destroy the church. Shortly before the second coming, he will be loosed and persecution will increase. That will be ended by Christ’s return in victory. “The biblical millennium, therefore, is not the glorious age to come, but this present era for giving the message of salvation to the nations.

As we have just read, the betrayal of Israel is the ultimate reason given in scripture for the destruction of the end times “Mother of Abominations” nation, also labeled the Daughter of Babylon. Scripture discloses to us that this rich, powerful, influential, fallen end times nation will also persecute God’s people.

The Daughter of Babylon prophecies are all world events that will happen before the following prophetic events:            a.) the rise of the Antichrist and False Prophet;          b.) the second peace treaty with Israel;          c.) the Rapture of the Church;          d.) the seven year Tribulation period;          e.) the Second Coming of Christ.            The Daughter of Babylon will be removed from the world stage before the above listed prophetic events. In fact, it is the removal of this rich, powerful and influential end times nation that precipitates and leads to the rise of the Antichrist (see Chapter 12 for details). Until the rise of the Antichrist there won’t be a second peace treaty with Israel, nor the seven year Tribulation period which starts with the signing of the treaty. Thus, though escaping the destruction of America by way of a heavenly Rapture would be much preferable to living through it, scripture doesn’t support that option. God’s people, as throughout history, will live in perilous times, with accompanying persecution.

Our nation was settled and populated by Christians who could not abide persecution. Shipload after shipload of our Christian ancestors, for decade after decade, chose to move from their homeland in Europe immigrating to a land known for its religious freedom. Their decision to leave their own nation, leaving most of their family members and lifelong friends, in almost all cases to never see them in this world again, had to be gut-wrenching and tearful. They left their nation because the level of religious persecution they were experiencing was not tolerable.

In Matthew 10:28 Jesus says, “And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell.” Jesus speaks about hell in order to encourage the persecuted believer. He does not teach the persecuted believer to delight that others will be in hell. Rather, Jesus reminds the persecuted believer that God is more to be feared than any evil that may come his or her way. Evil can harm us physically, but God and not evil will have the last word about our lives.

Even while we care for the poor, we will be tempted to forget the gospel at every turn. Christian history is unfortunately littered with stories of people who passionately worked on behalf of the poor but subtly loosened their grip on the gospel. The so-called “social gospel” of the twentieth century stripped Christianity of its core truths and set many churches on a course toward theological compromise and biblical heresy. As a result, many Christians who believe the Bible are cautious about care for the poor.

The church is assailed by Islamic fundamentalism in the East and secular fundamentalism in the West. I hate going into book stores because the religion section is soiled with volumes filled with ultraliberal, antiorthodox propaganda, wishy-washy nonsense of spiritual fuzzy-wuzzy feelings, biographical ramblings of Christian apostates, and greedy charlatans promising wealth and prosperity as if God were some kind of slot machine. I’m not bothered so much that people write these books, but I’m deeply troubled by the fact that so many people buy them. The world is cold, brutal, and dark, and it is only getting worse. If this is the hour approaching the millennium, I tremor to think what a tribulation might be like! Evidently postmillennialists do not receive email updates from Christian parachurch groups that minister to the persecuted church like Voice of the Martyrs and Barnabas Fund because Christians in Sudan, Iran, and North Korea know full well that the millennium ain’t getting closer from their point of view.

As for me, I would rather be wrong for doing right than to be right while doing wrong. In other words, obey God rather than the cultural mores, denominational standards, religious traditions, and theological interpretations and practices. Sometimes society norms will try to make you think you are wrong when you are right. Other times, you may even be persecuted for doing the right things in the eyes of God. Whichever way the tides turn, you just have to be prepared to stand on holy ground for God.

Today a Kafir (infidel, non-Muslim believer) living in an Islamic nation can avoid death and physical persecution at the hands of Muslims by paying a Jizyah (poll) tax, annually. However, Muslim Last Day literature provides that once Jesus returns to earth the Jizyah tax will no longer be available, leaving only two options for Christians and Jews: become a Muslim or be decapitated.

The three future occurrences that scripture tells us we should be expecting and watching for are: 1.) Israel will truly be “at peace” for the first time since its founding in 1948; 2.) The Daughter of Babylon will severely persecute many of God’s people; 3.) The Daughter of Babylon will betray Israel, by not coming to its defense when a Russian-Muslim coalition invasion of Israel occurs, causing many in Israel to die.

Two of the three events that must take place before the fall of the Daughter of Babylon, i.e.: 1.) the persecution of God’s people and 2.) the betrayal of Israel, may be linked. God may well expect that His American Believers will take Him at his Word, believe His Word, and conclude that His people have an obligation to: 1.) bless Israel (Genesis 12:3); 2.) pray for the peace of Jerusalem (Psalm 122:6)  insure that their nation keep its sworn covenant treaty obligation to come to Israel’s defense if Israel is attacked (Romans 1:31). The failure of His people to do these things may be tied to their own persecution and martyrdom. What has His church in America, with very limited exceptions, done to help, defend, pray for, and bless Israel? God is a God of linkage.

APRIL 15 BREAK AND DIVIDE EVERY DEMONIC CONFEDERACY I WILL NOT be silent when those who hate me have lifted up their heads and taken crafty counsel against My people. They have consulted together against My children and put a confederacy in place to cut you off so that you will be remembered no more. I will deal with them as I dealt with the enemies of the Israelites, and they will become refuse on the earth. They will be like the whirling dust and the chaff that blows before the wind. I will cause them to confounded and dismayed forever, and I will put them to shame that they may perish. For My name alone is the Lord, and I am the Most High over all the earth. PSALM 83 Prayer Declaration Father, I break and divide every demonic confederacy against my life in the name of Jesus, and I loose confusion into every demonic confederacy directed against my life, family, and church. Persecute them with Your tempest, and make them afraid of Your terrible storm. Let them be confounded and troubled forever. Let them be confused and attack each other until they perish.

A biblical theology of persecution creates a framework for understanding God’s sovereign purpose in allowing the evil dominions of darkness to inflict suffering on His children.

The kingdom of God is not advanced or defended through the sword of political power but through the Word of God and the faithful testimony of believers. As an act of love of neighbor, it is right to want biblical values to be reflected in public life. But we should not expect the state to defend the church or its doctrines. We should not expect it to afford us special privileges. Indeed, if we read the book of Revelation seriously, we should expect the state to persecute us. If we try to create Christendom then we deny the cross. The irony is that those who continue to cling most tenaciously to the remnants of Christendom are often from within evangelicalism when Christendom is so self-evidently an unevangelical model. Evangelicals are defined by their commitment to the centrality of the gospel. For them the sufficiency of God’s Word is central. But for some reason, when we engage in the political and social realm, many of us look to the state to defend Christianity. The Word is no longer sufficient to defend the name of Christ or the cause of his kingdom. We evoke the notion of a Christian society or Christian heritage when evangelicals of all people should know that people and communities are Christian only through faith in Christ. No amount of legislation can create a Christian society. The sad reality of this is that our political engagement becomes focused on self-centeredness. Kenneth Myers says: “Surely we ought to be more preoccupied with serving our neighbours than with ruling them. The involvement of Christians in cultural and civic life ought to be motivated by love of neighbour, not by self-interest—not even by the corporate self-interest of the evangelical movement.”20

In typical fashion, Peter jumps in and clarifies how much he and the disciples have given up to follow Jesus: “See, we have left everything and followed you” (Mark 10:28). Jesus responds with a significant explanation of self-denial and kingdom blessings: Truly, I say to you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or lands, for my sake and for the gospel, who will not receive a hundredfold now in this time, houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands, with persecutions, and in the age to come eternal life. But many who are first will be last, and the last first. (Mark 10:29–31) Is Jesus teaching us a simple formula that if we give up our possessions, we can receive the kingdom? Is this a divine promise that if you forsake family and lands, God is obligated to restore family and lands, like he did at the end of Job? No. Jesus is applying a kingdom filter to his disciples’ understanding of blessing in the present age. As we saw in the Old Testament, a growing family and fertile land were both ideas frequently associated with divine blessing. However, Jesus redefines these very images based upon a transformed vision of blessing in Christ’s kingdom. “Jesus speaks of the extended family of his followers (cf. 3:34–35) with new familial relationship and the sharing of possessions (cf. Acts 2:44–45; 4:32–37)—a new reality whose value is far greater than the security that personal possessions can ever give.”23

It is a biblical blunder to reduce the great tribulation to a future period when God is doing nothing but pouring out wrath for the purpose of retribution. Instead, we should read the so-called great tribulation as a time of the greatest evangelistic impact in history, a reaching-out that occurs in the midst of clashing empires. Babylon’s persecutions are met by faithful witnesses and martyrdoms, and the flying angel of 14:6 that we just read about is a summons to the entire globe to “fear God and give him glory” (14:7). Even those committed to the dragon and the wild things convert!

Alexander, the Bishop of Alexandria who began the persecution against Arius, describes Arius’ belief regarding Christ being called Wisdom, saying: [Arius teaches that] he is neither like the Father in regards to his essence, nor is he by nature either the Father’s true Word, or true Wisdom. He is one of the things made and produced, but he is called Word and Wisdom inexactly, since he himself came into being by God’s own Word and by the Wisdom of God, whereby God made not only all things, but him also.68

I believe we have arrived at a time when many of the end-time biblical prophecies will be fulfilled. Some are positive in their fulfillment, and others are quite troubling. When the time comes for a global government, a universal tracking system, currency changes, and selective judgments, we must all learn how to be strong and take lessons from faithful believers in the past. They learned how to fast, pray, endure persecution, and remained true to the faith until the end.

Paul tells us: “because our gospel came to you not only in word, but also in power and in the Holy Spirit and with full conviction” (1 Thessalonians 1:4 – 5). The gospel they believed and received wasn’t just a theological construct or a churchy platitude. Sure, it came through spoken and written words, and it was preached, taught, and shared. But it also came in power. Often Christians are either “word” people or “power” people. On the one hand, we may lean toward a rationalized Christianity. This type of Christianity holds to the gospel Word without gospel power. It preaches, teaches, catechizes, studies, memorizes, and shares the word but with little effect. It possesses “wise and persuasive words” but not “demonstration of the Spirit and of power” (1 Corinthians 2:4). This kind of Christianity can master systematic, biblical, and historical theology without being mastered by Christ. It can identify idols but remains powerless to address their power. Why? Because it replaces the power of the Spirit with the power of knowledge. On the other hand, there is an equal danger in spiritualized Christianity. Such Christianity prays, sings, shouts, and claims victory over a lost world without lifting a finger to share God’s gospel. It is not enough to pray for power; we must proclaim God’s Word. The power of the Spirit works through the proclaimed Word. Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ. My pastor during college, Tom Nelson, always said: “Don’t just stand on a shovel and pray for a hole.” Spiritualized Christianity tends to stand and pray, emphasizing private or emotional experiences with God. What we need is prayer and proclamation, power and Word. The Thessalonians had word and power, they grew in understanding and experience, but they also had full conviction. It is not enough to have spiritual power and good theology. These must also be coupled with faith, an active embrace of God’s promises in Christ, which brings about conviction. Full conviction comes when we are set free from false forms of security and experience Spirit-empowered faith in the word of Christ. It springs from genuine encounter with Christ. Full conviction transcends intellectual doubt and emotional experiences, and in the silence of persecution it says: “Christ is enough.” True security, deep security, comes through the reasonable, powerful, Christ-centered conviction that Jesus is enough, not only for us but for the world. When we falter, the church is present to exhort, encourage, and pray for one another to set apart Christ as Lord in our hearts. May we toss out the penny stocks of the fear of man to invest deeply in the limitless riches of Christ.

the reason we in the West do not suffer more persecution is because we have accommodated ourselves too much to the world around us.

594 1 Peter 3:22 concludes that the context of the proclamation Christ made was the subjugation of “angels, authorities, and powers.” Heavenly “principalities, powers, and authorities” is a recurring concept in the New Testament (Col. 1:16, 2:13-15; Eph. 1:20-23). It is a concept that assumes earthly rulers and powers are animated and empowered by spiritual or cosmic rulers and power behind them. Thus, Paul could encourage those Christians who were suffering from the earthly rulers and powers who persecuted them; “For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places” (Eph. 6:12-13). In other words, the real enemies of the persecuted Christians were the spiritual powers behind their earthly persecuting powers. This is not a denial of the human evil, but rather a drawing back of the curtain to see the ultimate enemy with more clarity. These spiritual and earthly “powers, rulers, authorities, and thrones,” are the Seed of the Serpent that had been involved in the cosmic War of the Seed against Messiah. It is these rulers, both heavenly and earthly, who did not understand the mystery of the Gospel of redemption through Messiah’s suffering. They thought that killing the Chosen One, the Messiah, would bring them victory. 1 Corinthians 2:7–9 But we impart a secret and hidden wisdom of God, which God decreed before the ages for our glory. None of the rulers of this age understood this, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.

In a now-familiar paradox of punishment it was explained again and again that all these physical attacks were a kindness. The Church persecutes, Augustine said, in the spirit of love. Jerome, the biblical scholar and saint, concurred: it was not cruel to defend God’s honour – in the Bible sinners suffer punishments up to and including death. Chrysostom agreed: if he were to punish your earthly body, he reassured his listeners, it was only to protect your eternal one so that ‘you may be saved, and we may rejoice, and God may be glorified now and always, for ever and ever without end. Amen.’ Those receiving such salvation might, not unreasonably, have felt otherwise. One monk in Shenoute’s care was saved with beatings so savage that he died of his injuries. And what if people, disinclined to rejoice, became frightened by the fact that their neighbours were spying on them, reporting on them, hounding them in their homes? Well, fear too had its benefits. Better to be scared than to sin. ‘Where there is terror,’ said Augustine, ‘there is salvation . . . Oh, merciful savagery!’ The intellectual foundations for a thousand years of theocratic oppression were being laid.

MAY 3 IN MY POWER YOU WILL REBUKE AND BIND THE PRINCES OF DARKNESS BELOVED, MEDITATE ON My statutes, for they will be your delight and counsel when demonic princes sit and speak against you. When they persecute you without a cause, let your heart rejoice in My Word as one who finds great treasure, because My Word will bring great peace to you and My righteous judgments will keep you from stumbling. My Holy Spirit has given you the power to rebuke and bind the princes of darkness. You do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places. I am with you, and My power will give you the victory. PSALM 119:23–24, 161–165; MATTHEW 12:28; EPHESIANS 6:12 Prayer Declaration Father, in Your Spirit’s power I will bind the prince of the power of the air. I command all principalities of darkness to fall at the name of Jesus. I rebuke and bind all demonic princes that would speak against me and persecute me. I will rejoice in Your Word and in Your promise of great peace and righteous judgment. I cast out Beelzebub and all his demonic princes, and I rise victorious in Your power.

civilizations. Why then, they asked themselves did they need to portray many ancient heroes and heroines as Blacks? That, they reckoned, was self-defeating. And so when White people finally adopted Christianity, they gradually but effectively changed the images and other artifacts of Jesus Christ and other Biblical characters from Black to White.     Whites themselves were not the original Christians as as already pointed out. Most of us know how they severely persecuted the early Christians. They brutally executed them and threw them to lions and other wild animals to devor in their arenas for their viewing pleasure. Yes, many of the early Christians left behind frescos and other images in the catacombs of Rome that indicated that the historical Christ was Black.. Many Hebrews/Jews lived in Rome

Why, then, did the traditional view "win"? How did eternal conscious torment for all non-Christians become the dominant view, while universal salvation has come to be considered heretical? ... When the Christian faith went from being a persecuted minority to a state-sponsored majority in the Roman Empire, this changed the tone of the church's theology and the means by which the church could settle theological disputes. Now church leaders could settle theological disputes not only with philosophical and biblical arguments, but also with political power and military action. So, just because a belief survived as the majority belief doesn't necessarily mean that it is the right belief. It may just mean that the people who believed it had more political power than those who did not. ... Along those same lines, it could be argued that ... a belief in the eternal conscious torment of non-Christians became very politically useful for its leaders. After all, what better means of social control is there than this? And if everlasting Hell is what awaits all non-Christians, then shouldn't any means necessary to get them to convert to the Christian creed (and, by implication, Roman imperial rule) be used, including force?

The final thing I want to consider about the olive is the best way to preserve it for the long run. It must be crushed in order to extract the oil. The same is true for us. The biblical way to be preserved is to be pressed. And being pressed can certainly feel like being crushed. But what about 2 Corinthians 4:8, where it says, “we are … pressed … but not crushed”? Let’s read verses 8 and 9 in the King James Version: “We are troubled on every side, yet not distressed; we are perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed.” This was one of the biggest aha moments for me while standing in the shadow of the olive tree: crushing isn’t the olive’s end. Crushing, rather, is the way of preservation. It’s also the way to get what’s most valuable, the oil, out of the olive. Keeping this perspective is how we can be troubled on every side yet not distressed … pressed to the point of being crushed but not crushed and destroyed.

Followers of Christ are the most widely persecuted religious group in the world.. the most fundamental freedom is the privilege of each person to explore truth about the divine and to live in light of his or her determinations..from the beginning God has given men and women the freedom to decide whether to worship him..God did not (and does not) remove human responsibility..the Bible indicates the importance of willful choice and personal invitation..the gospel message is fundamentally invitation, not coercion..no one can believe except willingly..faith must be free in order to be genuine..What our government calls this "right" is commonly known as the "freedom of worship," but this label can be somewhat misleading because the way it is often applied in our culture unnecessarily and unhelpfully limits the "free exercise" of religion to the private sphere..This is part of the "free exercise" of religion: the freedom of worship not just in episodic gatherings but in everyday life. And it is such "free exercise" that is subtly yet significantly being attacked in American culture today..you have a hard time conceiving how you can participate in a celebration of something that you are convinced God condemns..in your heart you can't avoid the conviction that such participation would dishonor God..while [she] is free to exalt he God in the church she attends, she is not free to express her beliefs in the business she owns..while we have certain obligations to our government, our ultimate obligation is to our God..Church history..contains other examples of shameful attempts to spread Christianity by force or military might..none of this was, or is, right..the search for religious truth is often supplanted by the idolization of supposed tolerance. The cardinal sin of our culture is to be found intolerant, yet what we mean by intolerant is ironically, well, intolerant..the very notion of tolerance necessitates disagreement..I don't tolerate you if you believe exactly what I believe..it would be wise and helpful for us to patiently consider where each of us is coming from and why we have arrived at our respective conclusions..we can then be free to contemplate how to treat one another with the greatest dignity in view of our differences..tolerance applies to people and beliefs in distinct ways..toleration of people requires that we treat one another with equal value, honoring each other's fundamental human freedom to express private faith in public forums..toleration of beliefs does not require that we accept every idea as equally valid, as if a belief is true, right or good simply because someone expresses it. In this way, tolerance of a person's value does not mean I must accept the person's views.."Hey, as long as someone believes something, that makes it right.." Either Jesus is or isn't the Son of God..I lament the many ways that Christians express differences in belief devoid of respect for the people with whom they speak. Likewise, I lament the many ways that Christians are labeled intolerant, narrow-minded, and outdated whenever they express biblical beliefs that have persisted throughout centuries..The more we become like Jesus in this world, the more we will experience what he experienced. Just as it was costly for him to counter culture, it will be costly for us to do the same..It's only when we stand up and counter the culture around them with the gospel of Jesus Christ that they will experience suffering..On the other hand, if they stay quiet, they can remain safe. But they know that in so doing, they will violate their consciences and disobey the commands Christ has given them to share grace and gospel truth with the people around them..in a country where even our own religious liberty is increasingly limited, our suffering brothers and sisters beckon us not to let the cost of following Christ in our culture silence our faith.

Some couch their laziness in spiritual language, saying they're waiting to figure out what God wants them to do, all the while ignoring the glaring biblical reality that God wants them to work for others' good and his glory. This trend should not surprise us in a culture that minimizes the value of work by magnifying the goal of retirement. Success..is arriving at the place where you no longer work..but Christ never called us to this sort of retirement.

Our bodies have been created not only by God but also for God..We are driven today by whatever can bring our bodies the most pleasure. What can we eat, touch, watch, do listen to, or engage in to satisfy the cravings of our bodies?..in his love, gives us boundaries for our bodies: he loves us and knows what is best for us..[there are] clear and critical distinctions between different types of laws in Leviticus. Some of the laws are civil in nature, and they specifically pertain to the government of ancient Israel..Other laws are ceremonial..However, various moral laws..are explicitly reiterated in the New Testament..Jesus himself teaches that the only God-honoring alternative to marriage between a man and a woman is singleness..the Bible also prohibits all sexual looking and thinking outside of marriage between a husband and a wife..it is sinful even to look at someone who is not your husband or wife and entertain sexual thoughts about that person..it is also wrong to provoke sexual desires in others outside of marriage..God prohibits any kind of crude speech, humor, or entertainment that remotely revolves around sexual immorality..often watch movies and shows, read books and articles, and visit Internet sites that highlight, display, promote, or make light of sexual immorality..God prohibits sexual worship-- the idolization of sex and infatuation with sexual activity as a fundamental means to personal fulfillment..Don't rationalize it, and don't reason with it-- run from it. Flee it as fast as you can..We all have a sinful tendency to turn aside from God's ways to our wants. This tendency has an inevitable effect on our sexuality..every one of us is born with a bent toward sexual sin. But just because we have that bent doesn't mean we must act upon it. We live in a culture that assumes a natural explanation implies a moral obligation. If you were born with a desire, then it's essential to your nature to carry it out. This is one reason why our contemporary discussion of sexuality is wrongly framed as an issue of civil rights..Ethnic identity is a morally neutral attribute..Sexual activity is a morally chosen behavior..our sexual behavior is a moral decision, and just because we are inclined to certain behaviors does not make such behaviors right. His disposition toward a behavior does not mean justification for that behavior. "That's the way he is" doesn't mean "that's how he should act." Adultery isn't inevitable; it's immoral. This applies to all sexual behavior that deviates from God's design..We do not always choose our temptations. But we do choose our reactions to those temptations..the assumption that God's Word is subject to human judgement..Instead of obeying what God has said, we question whether God has said it..as soon as we advocate homosexual activity, we undercut biblical authority..we are undermining the integrity of the entire gospel..We take this created gift called sex and use it to question the Creator God, who gave us the gift in the first place..[Jesus] was the most fully human, fully complete person who ever lived, and he was never married. He never indulged in any sort of sexual immorality..This was not a resurrection merely of Jesus' spirit or soul but of his body..Repentance like this doesn't mean total perfection, but it does mean a new direction..in a culture that virtually equates identity with sexuality..Naturally this becomes our perception of ourselves, and we subsequently view everything in our lives through this grid..When you turn to Christ, your entire identity is changed. You are in Christ, and Christ is in you. Your identity is no longer as a heterosexual or a homosexual, an addict or an adulterer.

It is difficult to imagine, for example, how one can say that the preaching of the prophets and apostles was successful. Many of them were persecuted or killed because of their sermons.

Supporters of gay marriage were quite as influenced by the Church’s enthusiasm for monogamous fidelity as those against it were by biblical condemnations of men who slept with men. To install transgender toilets might indeed seem an affront to the Lord God, who had created male and female; but to refuse kindness to the persecuted was to offend against the most fundamental teachings of Christ. In a country as saturated in Christian assumptions as the United States, there could be no escaping their influence—even for those who imagined that they had. America’s culture wars were less a war against Christianity than a civil war between Christian factions.

The current dogma of the "wall of separation" between Church and state is thus a far cry from our founding fathers' intent. It is, in fact, a denial of the multiplicity of institutions and jurisdictions. It cripples the Church and exalts the state. It denies the universal sovereignty of God over all institutions and asserts the absolute authority of the state. It excludes believers from their God-ordained ministry of social, cultural, and political involvement. This "wall of separation" idea was slow to catch on in our nation. Until the War Between the States erupted, Christianity was universally encouraged at every level and by every level of the civil government. Then in 1861, under the influence ofthe radical Unitarians, the Northern Union ruled in the courts that the civil sphere should remain "indifferent" to the Church. After the war, that judgment was imposed on the Southern Confederation. One hundred years later in 1961, the erosion ofthe American system of Biblical checks and balances continued with the judicial declaration that all religious faiths were to be ''leveled" by the state. By 1963 the courts were protecting and favoring a new religion — "humanism" had been declared a religion by the Supreme Court in 1940 — while persecuting and limiting Christianity. The government in Washington began to make laws "respecting an establishment of religion" and "prohibiting the free exercise thereof." It banned posting the Ten Commandments in school rooms, allowed the Bible to be read in tax supported institutions only as an historical document, forbade prayer in the public domain, censored seasonal displays at Christmas, Easter, and Thanksgiving, regulated Church schools and outreach missions, demanded IRS registration, and denied equal access to the media. It has stripped the Church of its jurisdiction and dismantled the institutional differentiation the founding fathers were so careful to construct.