Sermonette: Persecution (1993)

#091s
Martin G. Collins
Given 28-Aug-93; 17 minutes

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The book of I Peter was written to a group of Christians. It was the elect or those dispersed in Asia Minor. At a time when persecution was building, persecution had begun against the Christians, Peter wrote the book of I Peter around 63 to 67 AD and it was around the time of the burning of Rome (and I will get into that a little more). But the reason Peter wrote that book (or one of the reasons) was that he wanted to encourage those who are being persecuted more and more. He wanted to give them encouragement and show them exactly what persecution does entail as far as how it affects God, how it affects us.

For example, during that time that Peter wrote I Peter, the Romans commonly thought of the Christians as a Jewish sect. So any time there were laws brought against the Jews, the Christians as well received persecution. Christ's Passover was secret, it was kept in secret, and was only open to the members, as you know we do today. And certain phrases were misunderstood because of that. For example, eating someone's body and drinking someone's blood. That was enough to cause rumors that the Christians were cannibals. This was not all over the entire Roman Empire, but you know, in areas here and there throughout.

The Christians greeted one another with the kiss of love. You remember at the end of I Peter. Peter said, greet each other with a kiss, agape. And after a while those services became known as agape services or love services and so there were rumors floating around that they were orgies of vice. It was always a charge against Christians that Christians tampered with family life, broke up families, and we know today that when someone has an unconverted mate, that quite often it breaks up the family. And even when there are different factions within a Christian group, for example, that have different beliefs, that can as well split people and their beliefs.

The Christians spoke of a coming day when the world would dissolve in flames at Christ's second coming and so that was enough for Nero to place the blame of the burning of Rome on those Christians at that time.

Now, let us take a look at the actual physical treatment that the Christians received during the time of Nero's burning of Rome. It was July 19, 64 AD that the burning of Rome began. And it is interesting that most of the people knew that Nero was the one who started it and he started it because he wanted to rebuild Rome into a wonderful, great city beyond what it was at the time. And so Nero turned all of the persecution that he could on to the Christians, which spread throughout the Roman Empire very quickly.

So what happened was that in pockets here and there throughout the empire, persecution came. Sometimes it would come in the form of verbal persecution. Today you think about the fact that many states are passing laws saying that children are abused when you psychologically abuse them. For example, if you say something to them that maybe they do not like or causes them to have mental damage, according to some state laws that is mental abuse and your children can be taken away for that. Well, Christians throughout the ages have gone through this mental abuse by persecution or it could extend all the way out to the actual burning of a person.

Now, the the Christian historian Sulpicius Severus says this,

The number of Christians being now very large, it happened that Rome was destroyed by fire while Nero was stationed at Antium. But the opinion of all cast the odium of causing the fire upon the emperor and he was believed in this way to have sought for the glory of building a new city. And in fact, Nero could not by any means try to escape from the charge that the fire had been caused by his orders. He therefore turned the accusation against the Christians and the most cruel tortures were accordingly inflicted upon the innocent. Nay, even new kinds of death were invented so that being covered with the skins of wild beasts, they perished being devoured by dogs." [So this was one of the things that happened to Christians under the power of Nero.]

While many were crucified or slain by fire and not a few were set apart for this purpose, that when the day came to close, they should be consumed to serve for light during the night. In this way, cruelty first began to be manifested against the Christians. Afterwards too, the religion was prohibited by laws which were enacted and by edicts openly set forth, it was proclaimed unlawful to be a Christian.

So they went to the extent of lighting humans as torches to light the parties that Nero would have in his yard. What a sad situation we see there. And it has happened quite often down through history. Fox's Book of Martyrs will give many, many examples of the different tortures that have happened to people. And it is a hard book to read.

As I said earlier, this later spread to the different provinces through the Roman Empire. And as we know, the book of I Peter was written to those elect who were dispersed throughout Asia Minor. So it was written to a wide group of people and God inspired Peter to write the first book of Peter so that those of us down through history who are Christians, who follow God, can feel comforted by it, and to actually know exactly why we are being persecuted.

It was the apostle Peter's view that persecution is inevitable and often brought on by our good works.

If you turn with me to I Peter, we will read some scriptures here that Peter talks about persecution. Now, the goodness of God's way is an offense to the world and that goodness is looked at as a weakness, especially in business. Let us take a look and see what Peter has to say about persecution and good works.

I Peter 2:12 Having your conduct honorable among the Gentiles, that when they speak [notice when they speak] against you [so there is no doubt there you are going to receive persecution at times] as evildoers, they may by your good works which they observe, glorify God in the day of visitation.

They will eventually be forced to worship God. They will remember, as we will see later, that they saw good works and they persecuted and they will actually be embarrassed by that. But the reason for good works in this context, or one of the reasons, is to glorify God.

I Peter 2:15 For this is the will of God, that by doing good you may put to silence the ignorance of foolish men.

So it is God's will that we do good in this context of persecution.

I Peter 3:13-14 And who is He? Who will harm you if you become followers of what is good? But even if you should suffer for righteousness' sake, you are blessed. And do not be afraid of their threats nor be troubled.

So God promises that we will not be tried above what we are able. He tells us not to worry about it. And we understand from Peter here that we will be persecuted and we are not to worry, God will take care of us.

I Peter 3:16 having a good conscience, that when [there is that again, when you are persecuted] they defame you as evildoers, those who revile your good conduct in Christ may be ashamed.

When they are converted, they will remember that they persecuted this way of life and they will be ashamed for it. So your good works do have an everlasting impression upon those who eventually will be converted.

I Peter 4:4 In regard to these, they think it strange that you do not run with them in the same flood of dissipation, speaking evil of you.

We are a type of conscience to the world. And when we do not go along and do what they do as, we are persecuted for it, whether it be verbally or whether it be by the law, but we are persecuted.

But I would like you to remember that it is not individuals that are persecuting us, per se, but it is Satan who is stirring these people up, they are causing us to receive that persecution. Satan has stirred up people, as you know, throughout the history of God's church for persecution.

I Peter 5:8-9 Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour. Resist him, steadfast in the faith, knowing that the same sufferings are experienced by your brotherhood in the world.

So whenever you receive persecution or verbal abuse, remember that you are not alone, that there are literally hundreds of people, if not thousands of people worldwide that are receiving persecution. Persecution does not come necessarily time after time after time, but it seems to come, as it did in the Roman Empire, sporadically, a pocket here would open up, a pocket there, and there would be harsh persecution. So, remember that it is not just to steady persecution, necessarily.

Today, persecution is increasing toward people who choose to be different from society, whether you are religious or not.

For example, the Michigan mom that was jailed for homeschooling. At 8 p.m. on March 9th of this year, Peggy Williams, a 39 year old mother, wanted to homeschool her children and had been for this past year. They hired a lawyer to look through and see what exactly they had to do to fulfill the law to be able to homeschool their children. Well, at eight o'clock on that March 9th, 1993, the police showed up and they arrested her. This was in the evening. They took her to police headquarters and they frisked her, they fingerprinted her, they made her undress in front of the lady guard, so it was a strip search. And then they placed her in a cell with two other women.

This was for homeschooling her own children! The school district said they took action because Bruce and Peggy Williams violated Michigan Department of Education standards. What standard did they violate? Michigan State law required that anyone homeschooling, one parent had to have a four year degree. Peggy had a high school degree and her husband was going to receive his four year degree in May and they arrested her in March.

Now. Al Cropsey, a Michigan State representative and homeschooler who had been following the case said this,

I can't believe that the intermediate school has the power to rip children away from their parents. It's serious and unconscionable that they have this type of power and they do not even know the law. The very idea of the appearance of a police officer in the dark of night to arrest a mom for the crime of educating her own children is repugnant. Dragging a parent from the safety of her home in the dead of night is coercion and intimidation, plain and simple. Mom was arrested, Dad wasn't.

That is what the Michigan State representative had to say about that.

That is a mild example of persecution. She was released, but I do not know what happened with the court hearings afterwards. I do not know whether she got off or not, but this is the only information the article gave.

Another example that we are very familiar with is the Waco massacre that happened in Waco, Texas. It is not my intention to discuss whether or not they were right or wrong in their beliefs. But I just want to show you that by some examples that I have that persecution is possible. It is not only possible today, it is happening today and it is going to continue.

On Monday, April 19th, 1993, the U.S. government, as you know, moved into the compound in Waco and they burned 86 people, including 24 children, to death at that Branch Davidian compound. David and his followers held no hostages, committed no violent crimes, did not threaten to harm or kill anyone. They were on their own property, minding their own business, and they were there of their own free will. People could come and go as they wanted. They were not being kept there.

The government used the chemical warfare. CS gas, which the media claimed was tear gas. And that CS gas was actually banned in January of this year by the Chemical Weapons Convention signed in Paris in January 93. It was signed by the United States, and in that agreement, the United States agreed that they would not use that gas against any enemy soldiers. But yet they used a chemical warfare gas on men, women, and children—American citizens—in Waco, Texas.

I would like to point out some things here that I think you will find interesting in the way of a cover up. I do not have all the facts and neither do I have all of the cover ups involved. But these are enough to give you an idea of the type of situation that we are looking at.

The Davidians complied to the known law. That is why the government had a search warrant and no arrest warrant. According to local hospitals, they were warned ahead of time that there would be burn victims. So the government knew that they would be burning victims or that there would be a fire involved and so they were warned ahead of time. According to the local fire departments, the FBI waited for 30 minutes before calling the fire departments when the fire started, and after the fire had started, the fire trucks were sitting there. They waited another hour (the FBI did) before they allowed the fire trucks to go in and put the fire out. All according to all the local law enforcement agencies, the FBI kept them away from the site for three weeks, and then after three weeks, they bulldozed the whole site. No evidence, no case. So there was a cover up there.

According to the Texas Child Welfare Department, they had visited the Davidian compound several times and had found no evidence of child abuse at the compound. And they had interviewed men, women, and children, and different adults about this. They found absolutely no evidence at all that that was the case. And this was one of the reasons that the FBI and the ATF used to go in there. They wanted to save the children.

Now President Clinton said (and this is his quote), "I hope very much that others who will be tempted to join cults [Remember the definition of cults is pretty much anyone who follows one man or has a one leader. And there are other definitions of that. That is just a general one.] and to become involved with people like David Koresh, will be deterred by horrible scenes they have seen over the past seven weeks."

So this is a warning to not only cults, it is a warning to every individual American, that this will happen to them if they do not straighten up.

I Peter, remember, was written to strengthen those who were being persecuted and those who were about to be persecuted. In reading through I Peter, I found it extremely encouraging and I know you will too. So keep it in mind as persecution mounts that the book of I Peter does have inspired writings by God that is encouraging.

I Peter 4:12-16 Beloved, do not think it strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened to you; but rejoice to the extent that you partake in Christ's sufferings, that when His glory is revealed, you may also be glad with exceeding joy. If you are reproached for the name of Christ, blessed are you, for the Spirit of glory and of God rests upon you. On their part He is blasphemed, but on your part He is glorified. But let none of you suffer as a murderer, a thief, an evildoer, or a busybody [or a meddler. It is interesting that they throw that in with such severe crimes as the other. It is interesting that Peter had recorded that.] in other people's matters. Yet if anyone suffers as a Christian, let him not be ashamed, but let him glorify God in this matter.

We are commanded to rejoice in our persecution when we receive it because we are having an opportunity to share in the sacrifice that Jesus Christ had received. We are having the opportunity to glorify God in our suffering for good and God promises that we will not suffer any more than we are able.

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