Spiritual Rest Part 2: Persecution

Persecution

Persecution is one of the ways in which a Christian often looses spiritual rest. This should come as no surprise to us, as the trials and troubles that come on us are often designed in the very pit of hell. But many times when we encounter a fellow believer in great distress, we are surprise to see them down and depressed. And often when great troubles come on us, we feel the need to keep the pretence of a cheerful, joyful face, forgetting the scripture that reminds us to rejoice with those that rejoice, and weep with those that weep. I would like to look at persecution from a Christian point of view for a while, and see what the Bible says about it in the context of Spiritual Rest.

What is persecution? Well, here is a Dictionary definition:

Persecution
PERSECU'TION, n. The act or practice of persecuting; the infliction of pain, punishment or death upon others unjustly, particularly for adhering to a religious creed or mode of worship, either by way of penalty or for compelling them to renounce their principles.

We can see from this definition, persecution is the infliction of pain, punishment or death on others unjustly, particularly for believing on God. This is a much broader definition of persecution than many of us picture of right away. We may tend to think of how the Roman Empire threw Christians to the lions, or the Jews beating and imprisoning the early church. In this day and age, there are many governments all over the world that actively seek out and suppress Christians in their countries. This is certainly persecution for your faith, and we should be in prayer that the Lord would strengthen and support our brothers and sisters in these situations.

But when we truly consider how many of us have suffered persecution in the light of the definition, a wider picture becomes apparent. We may not think that we suffer persecutions, but we should be aware that any unjust suffering for our faith comes under this heading. We can find this principle clearly shown in the Scriptures that show us about the life of the Apostle Paul. We know that he suffered many things for his faith, but among them he counts a certain messenger from Satan, which was a cause of physical distress.

2Co 12:7
(7) And lest I should be exalted above measure through the abundance of the revelations, there was given to me a thorn in the flesh, the messenger of Satan to buffet me, lest I should be exalted above measure.

Was this persecution? Certainly! It was a problem that caused him unjust pain, from the devil, because of his life and revelations of Jesus Christ. So there are persecutions that come on us from the Devil because of our beliefs, and these cause us worries, pain and troubles, just as they caused Paul problems. The Bible warns us to defend ourselves against the fiery darts of the enemy with the shield of faith. These are not problems in the physical, but in the spiritual, for we are told to take the shield of faith, breastplate of righteousness and helmet of salvation with which to defend ourselves.

These fiery darts come in many ways. Evil thoughts, depression, worry and doubts all come from the wicked one. God is not the author of any of these things, for they do not spring from love, but from fear. And if we have made the decision to live Godly in Christ Jesus, the adversary will be sure to send all of his evil messengers against us. Can these messengers of the enemy take our spiritual peace? Certainly they can! Just read the book of Job. He was such a wonderful example of a believer that the Lord himself took pride in pointing out his conduct to Satan. Is it any surprise then that the Devil took a personal interest in trying to bring Job to the point of turning away from God?

As Satan's fiery darts started to strike home in the life of Job, how did he react? We know from the testimony of the Scriptures that he didn't sin with his mouth. But he did curse the day that he was born, and wish for the day of his death. These are not the actions of a man in Spiritual Rest, but rather one sinking in the depths of despair. However, through all his trials he had peace with God in his soul – even to the point where he demanded to see God, where he would approach him as a prince, confident in his position. But this peace in the soul was accompanied by great trouble in the spiritual and physical realms.

I hope that you can see from these scriptural examples that persecution and trials from the Devil are a natural part of the life of a Believer. Although this sounds unpleasant, we have the promise from God that all things work together for our good. These trials are very grevious to us at times. Often we can go though them with a song in our heart, as Paul and Silas did when they sang in the jail at midnight. But sometimes the trial is so heavy we can only cry out to God as our spirits are overwhelmed with despair and pain. This does not mean that we are lost, or even separated from the love of Jesus. Indeed, we know that nothing can separate us from Jesus' love. But it does mean that we have lost our spiritual peace, and have been separated from our spiritual rest.

Persecution is only one of the ways in which we can loose our spiritual rest. Sometimes the Lord himself can take our peace away for a time. We are going to look at that in the next part of our study.