Persecution, An Unavoidable Reality

Persecution is an unavoidable reality for the church. 

Strangely, much of the evangelism and marketing material that the church has produced over the last half century has tried to make people forget this. The church has been presented as a place where you can “fulfill your purpose” and “live your best life now." People make it seem like anyone who wants to be a better athlete, a more fulfilled person, or successful in business should try adding Jesus to what they are doing. This has been unhelpful, to say the least.

Watering down of the cost of disciples created significant issues in the church:

• It has produced a massive number of false converts;

• it has left true disciples woefully unprepared to face the real-life sacrifices required to follow Christ;

• and, on top of all this, it is one of the most historically ignorant views of Christianity imaginable.

The possibility of persecution has always been a defining feature of discipleship.

Only one of the original disciples lived to old age, and he spent his golden years exiled on an island prison called Patmos. This why Jesus said that anyone who wishes to follow him must be willing to take up their cross (an implement of execution) in order to do so. This is exactly what many brothers and sisters have done over the last 2000+ years of church history. In fact, some researchers have estimated that there have been 40 million martyrs in the church’s history! If you think this is a thing of the past, those same researchers estimate that there were 26 million martyrs in the 20th century alone!

This should not surprise us. The New Testament makes it clear that people will be dying for for Christ right up until the moment that He returns. Consider Revelation 6:9-11, where the millions of believers already martyred are described in heaven:

“When he opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain for the word of God and for the witness they had borne. They cried out with a loud voice, “O Sovereign Lord, holy and true, how long before you will judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell on the earth?” Then they were each given a white robe and told to rest a little longer, until the number of their fellow servants and their brothers should be complete, who were to be killed as they themselves had been.” (Revelation 6:9–11, ESV)

The possibility of persecution will always be a reality just as it always has been.

The story of Hugh Latimer is a perfect example of what Christians in every age have experienced.  Latimer was a faithful, gospel-preaching pastor in the days of Queen Mary—who had 288 evangelicals executed during her reign. Latimer was sentenced to death under her reign for refusing to compromise the truth of the Gospel. He was sentenced to be burned at the stake with another evangelical, Nicholas Ridley.

Here is how Foxe describes his demise:

Then the smith took a chain of iron and fastened it about both Ridley’s and Latimers middles to one stake. As he was knocking in the a staple, Ridley took the chain in his hands, and said to the smith, ‘Good fellow, knock it in hard, for flesh will have its course.’ A bag of gunpowder was tied about the neck of each. [Kindling] was piled up around them, and the horrible preparations were completed. Then they brought the [kindling] kindled with fire, and laid it down at Ridley’s feet, to whom Latimer spake in this manner: “Be of good comfort, master Ridley, and play the man; we shall this day light such a candle by Gods grace, in England, as I trust shall never be put out.”  And so the fire being kindled, when Ridley saw the fire flaming up towards him, he cried with a loud voice, Lord into thy hands I commend my spirit: Lord receive my spirit! Latimer, crying vehemently on the other side of the stake, Father receive my soul! received the flame as if embracing it. He soon died, as it appeared with little pain.

Following Christ requires that we take up our cross. Anyone who presents Christianity in a different light is clearly not being straightforward with the facts of history. The fact of the matter is that following Christ may cost you your life, and Jesus was unmistakably clear about this with his disciples.

“I have said all these things to you to keep you from falling away. They will put you out of the synagogues. Indeed, the hour is coming when whoever kills you will think he is offering service to God. And they will do these things because they have not known the Father, nor me. But I have said these things to you, that when their hour comes you may remember that I told them to you. I did not say these things to you from the beginning, because I was with you.” (John 16:1–4, ESV)

You must count the cost to follow Christ because those who are unwilling to follow Christ unto death are not really following Christ in their life.