Greater Persecution Is Coming
A part of the Christian Monitor Devotional
By: Richard Wasserfall
DATE: 24 May, 2004
"Dear friends, do not be surprised at the painful trail you are suffering, as
though something strange were happening to you" - 1 Peter 4:12. Dear friends, we
are indeed strangers in this world, scattered throughout the earth, many of us
living in places not dissimilar to the Asia Minor Peter was writing to (1 Pet
1:1). Asia Minor was a world of brisk trade, and comfortable easy living. But it
was also one in which the churches had become exposed, not to a systematic
persecution, but rather to increasing reproach at believers’ rejecting the
accepted lifestyle of “living in debauchery, lust, drunkenness, orgies,
carousing and detestable idolatry.” Peter gives the reason for the believer’s neighbours’ noses being out of joint saying, “They think it strange that you do
not plunge with them into the same flood of dissipation, and they heap abuse on
you” (1 Pet 4:3b-4).
So the ‘painful trial’ that Peter calls us not to be surprised at is clearly the
abuse of those “lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God” that Paul urges us
to be wary of in 2 Timothy 3:4. And just as Paul had intimated to Timothy that
it would be these lovers of pleasure who would ultimately pour out the lovers of
Christ in sacrifice (2 Tim 4:6), so Peter reprimands the “pilgrims in
dispersion” for thinking it strange that these erratic outbursts of hate and
reproach were beginning to happen. Worth noting at this point is that 1 Peter
was likely written around 64 AD, before Nero’s open and systematic persecution
of Christians began after the fire of Rome in c.66 AD—persecution that was to
provide pleasure for the masses.
Brothers and sisters, if you have begun to feel the increased heat of outbursts
of the world against your godly living, this is how your real suffering for
being a Christian begins. The pressure you feel from your peers and your
neighbours is a harbinger of persecution to come. Many of us may think we live
in a free world, but Rome was a republic before it was a despot’s empire. And
for those of you who think that systematic persecution can only happen in
“communist” countries, then please think again. Kim Jong Il is at root not a
communist but a “lover of pleasure” taking his lust to its extreme, and North
Korea, his self-proclaimed pleasure dome, like Rome was for Nero. It is
important for us to realise that communism is not the evil, just its structure.
In terms of pleasure, a market economy is just another man-made structure for
the evil of men to work within. One structure is pleasure for the few, the other
is pleasure for the many, but both will end up persecuting the godly. Greater
persecution is coming. How then are we going to prepare?
Dear Father, as the “free world” grows more hostile to your Word, we ask that
You prepare us for the trials to be faced. Teach us the glory in sharing your
sufferings so nothing would turn us from You. Amen.
By,
Richard Wasserfall
COPYRIGHT Christian Monitor 2004