How should believers in God act when the State or community becomes hostile to their faith? When is it ok to resist? Is suffering silently the only option? Answering these questions and living under oppressive conditions are both very ancient and thoroughly modern problems.
Open Doors ministry estimates that almost one out of seven people in the world suffer high levels of persecution and discrimination for their Christian faith today. The stories are very personal. Ning was arrested by hostile Chinese police and exported to an “internment camp,” and vanished from her family indeterminately. When Kashmir’s Muslim father discovered she had a Bible hidden in her mattress, he beat her senseless. She fled the next day before her father and brothers could avenge their honor by killing her. In the United States and Canada, public education, businesses, and counseling services have become a battleground where gender ideology or liberal sexual agendas are assaulting traditional Christian values and free speech.
Next week, we will address the question: When is it permissible to defy the government? Before we do, however, there are a few lessons we learn from history, the book of Revelation, and from other Scriptures, about how to maintain a strong faith under fire.
Wait a Little Longer!
If God is the Judge who enforces justice in the earth (Psalm 82), how can He allow injustice to run so rampant? Habakkuk’s entire three-chapter book grapples with this question. God reassures Habakkuk that the powerful and godless nation that looks so ruthless today will be judged by the Lord tomorrow. Justice on a global scale is God’s prerogative. God will bring about His justice in the future, even if our present situation doesn’t reflect His justice in the moment. The innocent and oppressed peoples today lament and cry out, “How long, Sovereign Lord, holy and true, until you judge the inhabitants of the earth and avenge our blood?” (Revelation 6:10). They are told to “wait a little longer.” Psalm 37 also describes the evil person who is succeeding in their wickedness today, but “like grass they will soon wither” and “the power of the wicked will be broken.” The righteous person should “trust in the Lord and do good…commit your way to the Lord.”
Brace Yourself for Impact
“Everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted,” Paul warns Timothy (2 Timothy 3:12). Jesus’ way of living is attached to convictions and standards that are different from the world’s values. Followers of Christ pledge ultimate allegiance to a different “Lord” than Caesar, the Ayatollah, the Chairman, the family, the CEO, or the social clique. Christians are a threat and a disruption to state power, religious-ethnic identity, or other people’s personal sensibilities. Even as a Christian teenager, my values were a target of religious slurs and demeaning commentary. Jesus consoled, “If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first,” (John 15:18). Like football players getting ready for a collision, we are to brace ourselves for confrontation.
“Cut My Hands Off, I’ll Get Them Back”
The Greek ruler Antiochus Epiphanies (174 B.C.E.) targeted the Jewish community through a series of tyrannical laws. Jews were prohibited from circumcising their boys. Sabbath was outlawed. They were forced to eat impure meat and so defile themselves. Inspectors traveled from town to town to force citizens to offer an idolatrous sacrifice to the pagan deity and display commitment to the Greek community standards. The only alternative offered to compliance was death.
In 2 Maccabees 7, one faithful mom watched all seven of her sons brutally murdered. She stood stoutly, encouraging her sons to remain faithful to God, and then offered her own life as well. In a memorable detail, the Greek overlords threatened to cut off her son’s hands. He replied, “God gave me these hands. I will not violate His laws with them, so you can have them. God will give me new ones in the resurrection” (my summary). Jesus’ words echo this confidence, “Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather, be afraid of the One who can destroy both soul and body in hell,” (Matthew 10:28).
Standing firmly in your convictions requires that you view life and suffering as a momentary difficulty in your eternal journey with God (read 2 Corinthians 4:17 or 2 Timothy 2:11). When our suffering is viewed as an act of worship, it also gives us the determination to offer God our most costly commitment.
God Has Not Abandoned You
Neither Daniel nor the three young Jewish nobles wavered in their confidence in God’s faithfulness. They refused to be unfaithful to God even when threats and pressure were applied,
Daniel 3:16–18
The psalmist, too, promised that the Lord loves the just and will not forsake His faithful ones (Psalm 37:28). Suffering does not mean you are forsaken. The righteous person can have confidence that God is with them in the furnace.
You Are a Watchman and Witness
Jesus compares innocent and righteous people to salt that slows down the decaying process within a society of people. Both righteousness and wickedness have an accelerating effect. Righteous people, by virtue of their faithfulness, can slow down the decomposition of sin in a community. For those righteous people living in wicked times, they are promised a reward for paying such a steep price for their faithfulness: “The one who stands firm to the end will be saved” (Matthew 10:22). “The one who is victorious, I will give the right to sit with me on my throne” (Revelation 3:21).
God chooses to use His prophets and servants as His mouthpiece. He will send messengers and missionaries to violent nations. In Jonah’s case, Nineveh repented. In Jeremiah’s case, Israel threw him into a well to die. In Jim Elliott’s case, he was murdered by the Indians in Ecuador. But if the prophet doesn’t deliver the message, God warned, “I will hold the watchman accountable for their blood” (Ezekiel 33:6). The prophet is given the strength and courage of the Lord to confront (see Jeremiah 15:20). While not every person may carry the responsibility of a prophet to confront wickedness openly, God calls all of His children to live in the truth no matter what the cost.
Persecution Evokes God’s Intervention
There is more than one way to respond to tyranny. We’ll explore a more active response next week. Many have little choice but to suffer righteously. The Apostle Peter warns, “But how is it to your credit if you receive a beating for doing wrong and endure it? But if you suffer for doing good and you endure it, this is commendable before God” (1 Peter 2:20). Likewise, Paul exhorted the persecuted Philippian church, “Let your gentleness be evident to all” (Philippians 4:5). Gentleness stops the cycle of violence and bears witness to Christ’s sacrificial death on the cross.
The Second Maccabees portrays martyrdom as a revolutionary activity. Gentleness is not necessarily weakness. It is often an intentional choice. God, the compassionate, intervenes when He hears the cries of His people, “I have heard them crying out because of their slave drivers” (Exodus 3:7; see also Exodus 22:22–24). By suffering justly, we provoke God’s merciful intervention instead of human retaliation. Preparing yourself to be the target of snide comments, financial pressure, or ruthless physical abuse, yet remaining unwavering in your commitments, is a sign of maturity and strength, not weakness.
Conclusion
When you stand up for what is right, and you suffer for it, your suffering is credited to your account. You can maintain a strong faith under fire by preparing for resistance, remembering that God is with you in the middle of the trial, and knowing that justice will be on your side at the end of the ordeal. Don’t compromise or become a tool for lies. Rather, offer your suffering to God worshipfully and let your lifestyle be a prophetic witness to the truth of God’s holy character.
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