The word, persecution, keeps surfacing and re-surfacing in the midst of my quiet time with the Lord. Persecution as referencing all forms of adversity, whether it be finger-pointing, fault-finding, or critical spiritedness from fellow church members, or the other side of the pendulum where oppression, animosity, and murderous hatred are incubated to birth the demise of undesirable Christian influence and naked Truth.
As the story of what happened when Roman Emperor Constantine outlawed the persecution of Christians unfolded in history, we see the tragic outcome of what happens when adversity against God's people is removed or alleviated by amateur providences. For the first 312 years of Christendom, being a "Christ"ian, especially a leader/early church father, also meant there was a death sentence attached to your life. The words "follower of Christ Jesus the Messiah" being proclaimed from a man's mouth would very likely put him in the mouth of a lion.
With the removal of persecution by Constantine in 312 A.D, the leadership position of a fervent Christian man of God, whose lifestyle was nothing short of holiness, righteousness, love, purity, mercy-doing, lowliness, and humility, ceased from being behind the crosshairs of torture and death, to being behind the crosshairs of selfish ambition. The leadership of Christ's body ceased from being lived out to preserve the gospel at the cost of one's life, to being sought out as a position of power, prestige, and pride in which to wrest God's Word to suit that particular leader's personal covetous desires and self-will. A holy and consecrated platform in which God's fiery love reigned became a defiled and desecrated platform where man's lust for power burned.
We look back and see how many godly men and women were martyred at the hand of "the inquisition." People like Tyndale, Hus, and Wycliffe lost their lives by coming against these modern day Pharisees. Thanks to them we now have God's Word in our own language, but not without their fervency to preserve the pure unadulterated Gospel of Jesus Christ. Their fervency came from one and only one understanding; the acceptance of the fact that their lives in this world were over; they were already dead.
There was a soldier in WWII that had been in Europe for over one hundred days without firing his weapon downrange at the enemy because every time a fire fight would break out he would hunker down in his foxhole petrified with fear. Despite all his training, he could not muster up enough courage to poke his head up and face the enemy. One day his CO (Commanding Officer) discovered that truth of his unfired weapon. And the soldier explained that he did not understand why he could not fight, even though he knew that he must and knew that he would be labeled a coward. His CO simply told him that it would not be until he had accepted the truth that he was already dead that he would fight fearlessly even at the cost of his life.
Rounds flying down-range at our heads only serve to prove we are in the fight. A man who has lost his sight on the things in and of this world by accepting the truth that he is dead to it (Gal. 6:14) will be the most fervent and fearless fighter in Christ's army. Persecution is the ammunition of our three-fold enemy, the world, the flesh, and the devil. Persecution is inevitable and inescapable for the follower of Christ as certainly as suffocation is for a fish out of water. But more important to know than this is the fact that persecution is necessary and good. Persecution is the fire of fervency that God allows to produce purity, sincerity, holiness, and selflessness, which in turn produces a knowledge and likeness of God that we had not before.
I believe an inner spiritual principal, a sort of "wheel within the wheel" if I may, is this: Persecution will come, but how it comes is up to how you react to God's way. As we have seen in the example of Constantine's story, extinguishing the fires of God's divine orchestration is dangerous and fatal. The same way God allowed Satan to sift Peter like wheat, and persecute Job, He allowed the persecution of His early church because He knows what it produces, and He also knows what is produced from its absence; lethargy, complacency, pride, backbiting, spiritual elitism, self-righteousness, love of the world, and on and on down the spiral of degradation.
When God's allowance of persecution of His people is thwarted, avoided, alleviated, or just plain removed, they will eventually turn inwardly and begin to persecute one another. And what is most terrifying about this is, that Christians' persecution of one another is doubly worse; Doubly worse in that at least the oppressors of Christianity, such as Emperor Nero, had the excuse of ignorance. Secondly, in the sad sight of "truth" burning "love" alive at the stake. We see this inhumane act of coldness in the murders of "the Inquisition," all under the roof of Christendom.
Why do God's people not see persecution as the gift of God that it truly is? Why do we run from the crosses he asks ...no...commands us to bear? Why do we try to escape the sifting pan? Let God bring us to the point of considering ourselves to be already dead and then thank Him for the purifying fire of persecution that keeps the fervency of Christ;s blood running warm in our veins.
And to those of you, especially my dear brother and sister in Christ, Rex and Christine, who are fearlessly fighting the good fight and keeping the faith, and having done all; standing.... May the Lord Jesus Christ, the King of Glory flood you with overwhelming floods of need-fulfilling mercies. And I pray that you guys would be overflowing with fulfilling joy and peace, Amen.