Why does God allow persecution?

Let us take heed of becoming persecutors: some think there is no persecution but fire and sword; yes, there is persecution of the tongue. … Reviling is called persecution, "men shall revile you and persecute you"; this is tongue persecution. "His words were softer than oil, yet were they drawn swords" (Ps. 55:21). You may kill a man as well in his name as in his person; a good name is as precious ointment. Now to smite another in his name, is by our Saviour called persecution. Thus the primitive saints endured the persecution of the tongue. They "had trial of cruel mockings" (Heb. 11:36). Slandering is tongue persecution, "When men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely." Thus Paul was slandered in his doctrine; it was reported he should preach, men might do evil that good might come of it. Thus Christ, who did cast out devils, was charged to have a devil (John 8:48). "They laid to My charge things that I knew not" (Ps. 35:11).

Why there must be persecution. First, it is God's decree, "We are appointed thereunto" (1 Thess. 3:3). Whoever brings the suffering, God sends it. God did bid Shimei curse; Shimei's tongue was the arrow, but it was God that did shoot it. Second, it is God's design for the trial of His saints. "Many shall be tried." It discovers true saints from hypocrites; unsound hearts pretend fair in prosperity, but in a time of persecution fall away (Matt. 13:20-21). Hypocrites will follow Christ to Mount Olivet, but not to Mount Calvary. Suffering times are sifting times. "When He has tried me, I shall come forth as gold" (Job 23:10). God lets His children be in the furnace that they may be "partakers of His holiness" (Heb. 12:10). "I am black but comely" (Cant. 1:5). The torrid zone of persecution made the spouse's skin black, but her soul fair.

Down the ages, God has often allowed His own to be evilly entreated, and it is not always possible for us to understand why He should allow wicked men to persecute and slay His saints and His servants. We do know that God allows these things for the purifying of His people, and that all His actions towards His own are in the perfection of His love and wisdom; and even if wicked men seem to prosper, and the righteous are put to grief, yet the day is surely coming when, at the judgment seat of Christ, we shall understand as we cannot now, the ways of God, which are past finding out.

Why did they suffer? Became they were God's sons. Men, the instruments for their sufferings, might seem to be dealing with them as they chose. It was not so. God indeed allowed it. He had His own purposes in it all for the rich blessing of His saints. He can even use Satan to carry out His ends on behalf of His people. He then was above it all, and was really by their trials training His children. Behind the hand that smote them was the Father, permitting it in His love to them and for their profit. "It is for chastening that ye endure," so wrote the Apostle; "God deals with you as with sons; for what sun is he whom his father chastens not? But if ye be without chastisement, whereof all are partakers, then are ye bastards, and not sons" (12:7-8). It is of the training up of children that we here read. How stimulating was such ministry! To have ease in the midst of their countrymen, who were bitterly opposed to God and His Son, would indicate for them a state of spiritual bastardy. Which of them would desire that?

God allowed Satan's persecution of His Church and used it to arrest the decline which had started in the Ephesus period. His love for His people allowed Satan to stir them up by persecution so that He might accomplish the purification and restoration of His saints and that the light of the Church might shine brighter. The afflictions and fiery trials they passed through brought out wonderful faithfulness to the Lord. Thus the testimony of the Church shone bright and the candlestick, that was in danger of being removed in Ephesus, was preserved. Satan's object was to destroy the testimony of the Lord, but God wrought in blessing and used His efforts to awaken and brighten His Church. So God ever overrules Satan's efforts and brings about greater blessings.

If in this life the devil is permitted, at times, to raise persecution against the saints, it is not that they may be vanquished, but, as the Lord says to these suffering saints "that ye may be tried." This trial is not for the trial of the flesh, but for the trial of faith, therefore the Lord says, "Be ye faithful." The Lord could say to Peter, "Simon, Simon, behold Satan has desired to have you, that he may sift you as wheat: but, I have prayed for thee that thy faith fail not: and when thou art restored, strengthen thy brethren." Years afterwards we are permitted to hear Peter strengthening his brethren. He reminds them that men try their gold with fire, but the believer's faith is much more precious than gold that perishes. So they must not be surprised if God tries the faith of His saints by passing them through the fiery furnace of persecution. If He does thus try them it is in order that their faith may be found to praise and honour and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ. The martyr's death in the day of suffering, will lead to the crown of life in the day of glory.

The second end to which God uses Satan's power, in persecutions and trials to the saints, is to hinder a further departure from Himself. There is a constant tendency in the heart of the saints to take rest in prosperous circumstances, because the flesh naturally turns to that which is agreeable in the world for rest, the result of which is a decay of vitality within; but this will not do. Therefore God says, "Arise and depart, for this is not your rest, it is polluted." Persecution is the natural portion of the church of God, while down here, in a world of sin. And when the church began to take rest at the beginning, God was obliged very soon to bring in persecution amongst them.

God will have holiness in His house, and He chastens His own in the judgment of His house, that they might be partakers of His holiness. We may "suffer as a Christian" in the judgment, but in the wisdom of God this is allowed that we might be the more freed from the influences of the world, to be more wholly for Himself. In persecution, the church is purified, but it may be the godly that are taken to be with the Lord that those who are left may be exercised to be faithful.

God does not cause the suffering to His own, but He allows it to happen, so that His servants can benefit from the experience (e.g. increase their faith), and also for His own glory. Two examples are: Job, whom Satan tested to the uttermost, see Job 1 & 2, and Peter, whom Satan desired to sift as wheat, Luke 22:31.

(V. 5) Still, the patience and faith of the saints in bearing persecution and tribulation was a manifest token of the righteous judgment of God. Their endurance indicated the fact that they depended upon divine intervention at the time God saw fit. Even the ungodly ought to have discerned this, for it was a testimony that conscience could not easily ignore. To take patiently wrongful suffering requires faith in a righteous God, who will not always allow evil to go unchecked, but will judge in proper time. But it is also added, "that ye may be counted worthy of the kingdom of God, for which ye also suffer." This present allowance of persecution against saints of God is intended of God for their own good, a training that molds character, producing a true submission to authority as subjects of the King and thus "worthy of the kingdom of God." How thankful we ought to be for this divinely wise means of God by which He secures for us the greatest good.

The wicked being allowed to persecute, without the power of God being presently exercised against the persecutors, led Paul to say by the Holy Ghost, "If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable." But does not God really watch over and protect His saints? Yea, truly, and the church's pathway through the world is both for the glory of God and for the brighter shining of His saints when the glory comes. Saints are conscious of God's care and love, and know that during this present dispensation it is not so much by delivering them from the sorrows and trials of life, as by maintaining their faith and bringing them triumphantly through all. "My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations [not temptations to sin] , knowing this, that the trying of your faith works patience" (see James 1:3-4 & 13-14). This is not mere resting upon God during the trial, but joy because the trial is sent. This is one of faith's victories, whose eye is fixed not on present suffering but on God's glory in it. "That the trial of your faith, being much more precious than of gold that perishes, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and honour and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ" (1 Peter 1:7). Many instances of God's special interposition might be adduced, but the general and normal aspect of this dispensation is that the saints of God have to suffer, whatever a Christ-rejecting world may do. So it appears that the seed grows up "he knows not how." But faith goes beyond the appearance, trusting and confiding in God.