Persecution
In 2018, our Canadian Liberal government denied summer jobs grants to professing Christians and moralists. The prime minister accomplished this persecution by requiring all applicants to declare that they respect abortion and an assortment of other evils, which conscientious pro-life advocates would not do. Even though there have been times when the persecution of saints has been minimal, as in this case of denying grants, the norm is persecution of a more extreme degree. Men are born in sin. They are born with a proclivity to commit sin. It is consistent with their sin nature to take offense at calls to repent, the presence of righteousness, and especially Spirit-filled preaching of an apostolic character. Therefore there is persecution.
Silence from God in a trying time is the worst thing that a saint can endure. Desertion, then, is good preparation for persecution; persecution, in turn, is the surest way out of desertion. It is the surest way, because then the face of God is sought as never before. The saint is likely to hear the voice of God during persecution more than at any other time. Of persecuted brethren on their way to grisly deaths, John Foxe relates, “The faithful proceeded with cheerful steps…the others [who had denied the Saviour during tortures] went on dejected, spiritless, and forlorn” (John Foxe, Acts and Monuments, Volume I, p. 686.) Infinitely better is it than hell, to suffer desertion by God and persecution at the hands of men on our way to heaven, especially considering that where severe persecution begins, the comforting presence of God is more likely than at any other time. “But there shall not an hair of your head perish” (Luke 21.18.) The meaning is that all things work together for good for persons for whom death is termed ‘sleep in Jesus’ (1 Thessalonians 4.14.) For them the sting of death has been absorbed by their Saviour; it is as if they do not die, Christ having died in their place. If they are martyred, they are merely put to sleep, as it were, so safe for a good eternity that even the hairs of their heads are accounted for. If the would-be disciple counts the cost, even the hairs of his head will be counted by God both here and hereafter, and each one preserved.
Shedding blood is a popular response to preaching, and the presence of God in, or about, saints. It was popular before the time of Jesus Christ, even ‘from the blood of Abel unto the blood of Zacharias’ (Luke 11.51.) It has been popular since Jesus Christ prophesied tribulation to his disciples. “And ye shall be hated of all men for my name’s sake” (Luke 21.17.) All four gospel records include some version of this prediction. Persecution is a cost that every would-be disciple should count on. We used to laugh and scoff in our platoon room at the possibility of going to war. The idea seemed absurd. About a dozen years after that, men from that very platoon (not me) were fighting in Afghanistan. Saints can go from enjoying peace to suffering persecution just as surprisingly as that. Our churches would be persecuted much more than they are if our pastors actually preached the gospel, and reproved sin as boldly as John the Baptist did just before he was beheaded. We are not greatly persecuted; the reason is that our gospel is not greatly preached. In fact, it is hardly preached. What is our gospel nowadays but something other than a Christological proclamation? A gospel without Christ is no gospel. And what is no gospel but a false gospel? What are pastors without a gospel but false prophets? Imagine the uproar if, after so much niceness and negligence among pastors, a bold man of God began suddenly to preach as he ought? Cowardly pastors make it hard on faithful preachers who, we hope, are on their way.
Much persecution is going on in the Middle East against professing Christians: in Syria, Afghanistan, and Iraq particularly. Their villages are destroyed; their livelihoods are rendered impossible to practice; some are kidnapped and raped; others are tortured; multitudes are slaughtered. Only alternative media sources report on this because as far as the mainstream media is concerned, that which calls itself Christian is deserving of persecution of whatever sort and to whatever degree. Moreover, when Muslims are the culprits, mainstream media outlets not only ignore the crimes, but cover them up if they are exposed. As near as I have been able to tell, these professing Christian sects who are being persecuted, though, are not much different in belief and practice from Roman Catholicism. What a pity to suffer persecution for being merely nominal in the Christian Faith! Sadly, it appears that nominal faith is generally the case with persecuted members of these sects. A church member is not likely to believe above the standard of his church; therefore, if the standard is heretical, the member is likely a beguiled hypocrite. A theory of salvation by ceremonies, rituals, and works is not effectual for getting to heaven merely on account of persecution being appended to one’s life. Perfunctory prayers in Mary’s name will get the sinner nowhere near the kingdom of heaven. Rosary beads and Mary are poor substitutes for faith and Jesus Christ. What good are substitutes like those when no one but Jesus bore ‘our sins in his own body on the tree’? (1 Peter 2.24.) Jesus took the place of sinners; he is the sole substitute for them. He who prays through some other substitute than Jesus has no faith in what the biblical substitute did. If he does have faith in Jesus, why does he continue to pray to Mary? While reading through an old book from 1842 about a mission of inquiry concerning Jews in Israel in 1839, I came across some interesting, though not surprising, facts regarding churches of the superstitious, ritualistic, liturgical kind. There is an anecdote in there of a man, mistaken for a Jew, who saved his life only by agreeing to kiss a picture of the Virgin. This persecution by monks is an example of the satanic hatred that can creep into a soul through the adoration of Mary—Mary, a holy woman who has been made into a perpetual virgin-goddess by counterfeit Christianity. “The professing Christians here—Greeks, Armenians, and Roman Catholics—are even more bitter enemies to Jews than Mahometans; so that in time of danger, a Jew would betake himself to the house of a Turk for refuge, in preference to that of a Christian. How little have these Christians the mind of Christ! Instead of His peculiarly tender love for Israel, they exhibit rooted hatred, and thus prove that they are Anti-christ” (Andrew Bonar & R. M. M’Cheyne, Narrative of a Mission of Inquiry to the Jews from the Church of Scotland in 1839, p. 149.) In Lebanon, ‘Greek priests threw obstacles’ in the way of a man attempting to settle on the land to evangelize (Ibid., p. 169.) Greek Orthodoxy and Roman Catholicism are squabbling, persecuting sisters, not sisters in the Christian Faith. False beliefs yield persecution, not good fruit. In her stunning account of growing up in Lebanon during the war there in the 1970s, Brigitte Gabriel tells about how she was indoctrinated to hate Jews. She is of the Maronite persuasion, which is a Roman Catholic sect. How much the Maronites contributed to this anti-Semitism, she does not say. But it is obvious that her religion did not counteract the aversion to Israel that had been instilled in her; only by a true experience of Israel’s kindness did Brigitte realize that she had been brainwashed. “The [Israeli] doctor treated my mother before he treated an Israeli soldier lying next to her because her injury was more severe than his. The Israelis did not see religion, political affiliation, or nationality. They saw only people in need, and they helped” (Brigitte Gabriel, Because They Hate, p. 77.) Religions whose adherents are brainwashed to hate Israel are little connected with, much less rooted in, the Bible. They have not been schooled to count the cost of loving the heritage that Christians are said to be grafted onto. “Boast not against the branches. But if thou boast, thou bearest not the root, but the root thee” (Romans 11.18.) Persecution of Israel does not agree with being grafted onto its stock.
When counting the cost, the would-be disciple must count on being persecuted; if he becomes a disciple who persecutes, it is likely that he has counted the cost amiss, and is a false professor of faith. And if a disciple happens to be persecuted for nothing but his profession, which profession is false, how foolish he is! No one pretends to be a social conservative at a convention of violent leftists. The person who professes faith but has none is even more foolish than a man pretending to conservatism, for he adds to whatever faults he is guilty of, the grand fault of being a spiritual hypocrite, and greatly increases the judgment that he will receive for his hypocrisy. Hypocrites “take away the gospel’s good name. Therefore the Lord reserves the most deadly arrows in his quiver to shoot at them. If heathens be damned, hypocrites shall be double-damned. Hell is called the place of hypocrites (Matt. 24.51), as if it were chiefly prepared for them and were to be settled upon them in fee-simple [unconditional inheritance]” (Thomas Watson, The Doctrine of Repentance, p. 69.)
During times of terror, some persons are glad to run toward death rather than live any longer on a loveless earth. Had France’s Reign of Terror continued for much longer, some historians allege that despairing citizens would have begun to line up, without being ordered to do so, to have their heads taken off. A young widow, says Du Broca, “being come to the foot of the scaffold, she ascended the steps with resignation and even unaffected pleasure. She received the fatal blow [of the guillotine] without appearing to have regarded what the executioner was doing” (H. N. Moore, The Reign of Terror, pp. 241, 242.) This is like the Christian martyr tripping along to the stake because the Holy Spirit has endued him with a lively sense of imminent hope. Anecdotes like this one from the French Revolution are not rare; but there is no reason that I have been able to find to believe that such victims were Christians. This woman, the narrative shows, was merely anxious to follow her husband, who had been killed some time before. Being glad in the face of death is no sure sign of being a saint. Since our uncritical churches have adopted the habit of crediting faith at the faintest hint of some parallel with Scripture, this observation is not casually annexed.
The average pastor is not fond of being known as a Protestant; he does not protest what Protestants once protested against and does not want anyone to be turned off by an ‘intolerant’ spirit. Reformers are now broadly regarded as men who took doctrine too seriously. If Reformers are mentioned in our churches, it is usually only generally done. A pastor will sometimes mention a Reformer in his sermon in order to make a show of historical knowledge or to keep his congregation awake. But mark how careful he is to avoid telling why exactly the Reformer was persecuted or burned alive. How seldom will he drop an excerpt like this: “I believe that the Holy Supper of the Lord is not a sacrifice, but only a remembrance and commemoration of this holy sacrifice of Jesus Christ. Therefore it ought not to be worshipped as God, neither as Christ therein contained; who must be worshipped in faith only, without all corruptible elements. Likewise I believe and confess that the Popish Mass is the invention and ordinance of man, a sacrifice of Antichrist, and a forsaking of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, that is to say, of His death and passion; and that it is a stinking and infected sepulcher, which hideth and covereth the merit of the blood of Christ, and, therefore, ought the Mass to be abolished, and the Holy Supper of the Lord to be restored and set in his perfection again” (J. C. Ryle, Five English Reformers, pp. 65, 66.) This is the kind of belief that the Reformation was about. This is what John Hooper was burned for believing and professing. This is what being a Protestant is. The Reformation was not about being persecuted for beliefs that a Christian can afford to be ignorant, open-minded, or undecided about. Salvation hinges on doctrines that are in conflict with the Roman Catholic Mass. “Rather than admit the doctrine of the real presence of Christ’s natural body and blood under the forms of bread and wine, the Reformers of the Church of England were content to be burned” (Ibid., p. 27.) It is offensive to be this frank and graphic in the account of a Reformer because Transubstantiation is still Rome’s dogma, and so-called evangelical pastors commonly fraternize with Roman priests as if they are brothers in the same Christian Faith. They extend the right hand of fellowship in spite of the fact that Transubstantiation denies the finished work upon the cross, which final, sufficient act is a doctrine necessary to salvation, if any doctrine is. So the pastor will mention the part about the martyr’s death and perhaps a funny story about him if that can be found, but will include nothing about why he was excommunicated and burned and what the significance of these things are. Pastors who pal around with Roman priests as if their Mass is not a denial of Christ’s once and for all sacrifice upon the cross, are not Protestant Christians; and they are not evangelicals, though this is what they are called. The lamentable truth is that the conduct of so many of our pastors is more in line with how priests live than the lives of the heroes they quote for effect. They have not so much as counted the cost of losing a popish priest for a friend. If these pastors and their pals, the priests, are brothers in the same faith, that faith is not Christian, and therefore not saving faith.
