2 Timothy 3:12

To persecute means to ‘pursue, or to run swiftly after someone, so as to cause them to run or flee for their life. This is an apt description of the hatred, disdain and enmity that is in the heart of hardened sinners against the Person and Work of the LORD Jesus Christ. Perhaps the most descriptive example we have in Scripture is the disdain of the self-righteous leaders in our LORD Jesus earthly sojourn who sought daily to put Him to death,Matthew 12:14, Mark 11:18.

1.What is the origin of persecution?It originated in the fall of Adam and Eve when God declared that HE would put enmity between the seed of the serpent (sinners under the dominion and spirit of anti-christ), and the seed of the woman (Christ and His chosen, redeemed seed), Genesis 3:15.“It shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.”This enmity we find all the way through Bible history on up into modern times, whether Cain’s hatred for Abel (Genesis 4:1-8), Saul pursuing David (1 Samuel 19), the crucifixion of our LORD Jesus Christ (Acts 2:23), or Saul (Acts 8:3).

2. How is persecution ordained and directed of God for the good of His Church?Leaven in preaching and doctrine is of more lethal and devastating consequences for a congregation than persecution. To be feared is the turning again from the pure, unadulterated grace of God in Christ Jesus to another gospel, more so than persecution at the hand of the enemy, Galatians 1:6-10. As with the early church, God purposed the persecution to spread the Gospel of Christ from Jerusalem into Judea, Samaria, and into the outer regions of the world, according to what Christ declared would occur in Acts 1:8. What is certain is that the enemy can do nothing more or less than what God’s Sovereign Hand has determined should be done, Acts 4:28.

3. What are the blessed effects of persecution? The Scripture declares that “all that will live godly in Christ Jesus SHALL suffer persecution.” This means then that the evidence of being one of the LORD’S is that the world will hate us even as they hated our LORD, John 15:18. Any who can and do compromise the truth as it is in Christ in order to avoid persecution show by that mindset that they are NOT the LORD’S. A parallel thought is that of chastening of the LORD. Hebrews 12:8- “But if ye be without chastisement, whereof all are partakers, then are ye bastards, and not sons.” To live godly in the world is to have our conversation in the world in accord with the truth of the Gospel, and refusing to give place to those who would compromise the singular message exalting the Person and Work of the LORD Jesus. We are to “Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage”, Galatians 5:1.

4. What is the conduct of those who suffer persecution for Christ’s sake? There is no clearer instruction than that given by the apostle Paul to the Philippian church.Philippians 1:27-29- “ ²⁷ Only let your conversation be as it becometh the gospel of Christ: that whether I come and see you, or else be absent, I may hear of your affairs, that ye stand fast in one spirit, with one mind striving together for the faith of the gospel; ²⁸ And in nothing terrified by your adversaries: which is to them an evident token of perdition, but to you of salvation, and that of God. ²⁹ For unto you it is given in the behalf of Christ, not only to believe on him, but also to suffer for his sake.”