persecution

• diverts religion into sociology or theology

99:3.8There is al­ways the great dan­ger that re­li­gion will be­come dis­torted and per­verted into the pur­suit of false goals, as when in times of war each con­tend­ing na­tion pros­ti­tutes its re­li­gion into mil­i­tary pro­pa­ganda. Love­less zeal is al­ways harm­ful to re­li­gion, while per­se­cu­tion di­verts the ac­tiv­i­ties of re­li­gion into the achieve­ment of some so­ci­o­logic or the­o­logic drive.

• for righteousness’ sake

140:3.11“Happy are they who are per­se­cuted for righ­teous­ness’ sake, for theirs is the king­dom of heaven. Happy are you when men shall re­vile you and per­se­cute you and shall say all man­ner of evil against you falsely. Re­joice and be ex­ceed­ingly glad, for great is your re­ward in heaven.

• for righteousness’ sake

140:5.204. “Happy are they who are per­se­cuted for righ­teous­ness’ sake, for theirs is the king­dom of heaven. Happy are you when men shall re­vile you and per­se­cute you and shall say all man­ner of evil against you falsely. Re­joice and be ex­ceed­ingly glad, for great is your re­ward in heaven.”

• progress always final harvest of

140:5.21So of­ten per­se­cu­tion does fol­low peace. But young peo­ple and brave adults never shun dif­fi­culty or dan­ger. “Greater love has no man than to lay down his life for his friends.” And a fa­therly love can freely do all these things—things which broth­erly love can hardly en­com­pass. And prog­ress has al­ways been the fi­nal har­vest of per­se­cu­tion.

• be not anxious about what you shall say in

140:9.3Je­sus ad­vised them to take nei­ther money nor ex­tra cloth­ing, say­ing, “The la­borer is wor­thy of his hire.” And fi­nally he said: “Be­hold I send you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves; be you there­fore as wise as ser­pents and as harm­less as doves. But take heed, for your en­e­mies will bring you up be­fore their coun­cils, while in their syn­a­gogues they will cas­ti­gate you. Be­fore gov­er­nors and rulers you will be brought be­cause you be­lieve this gospel, and your very tes­ti­mony shall be a wit­ness for me to them. And when they lead you to judg­ment, be not anx­ious about what you shall say, for the spirit of my Fa­ther in­dwells you and will at such a time speak through you. Some of you will be put to death, and be­fore you es­tab­lish the king­dom on earth, you will be hated by many peo­ples be­cause of this gospel; but fear not; I will be with you, and my spirit shall go be­fore you into all the world. And my Fa­ther’s pres­ence will abide with you while you go first to the Jews, then to the gen­tiles.”

• world will not treat believers better than it did Jesus

157:6.8“From this time on, if any man would have fel­low­ship with us, let him as­sume the obli­ga­tions of son­ship and fol­low me. And when I am no more with you, think not that the world will treat you bet­ter than it did your Mas­ter. If you love me, pre­pare to prove this af­fec­tion by your will­ing­ness to make the su­preme sac­ri­fice.”

• Jesus predicted bitter

163:4.112. True cour­age. He warned them that they would en­counter hos­til­ity and be cer­tain to meet with per­se­cu­tion. Pe­ter told them their mis­sion was no un­der­tak­ing for cow­ards and ad­vised those who were afraid to step out be­fore they started. But none with­drew.

• Jesus predicted bitter

171:2.4“Now, then, must each of you sit down and count the cost of be­ing my dis­ci­ple. From now on you will not be able to fol­low af­ter us, lis­ten­ing to the teach­ing and be­hold­ing the works; you will be re­quired to face bit­ter per­se­cu­tions and to bear wit­ness for this gospel in the face of crush­ing dis­ap­point­ment. If you are un­will­ing to re­nounce all that you are and to ded­i­cate all that you have, then are you un­wor­thy to be my dis­ci­ple. If you have al­ready con­quered your­self within your own heart, you need have no fear of that out­ward vic­tory which you must pres­ently gain when the Son of Man is re­jected by the chief priests and the Sad­ducees and is given into the hands of mock­ing un­be­liev­ers.

• creates sympathy

174:3.5The Sad­ducees had thought to sub­ject Je­sus to the with­er­ing in­flu­ence of ridicule, know­ing full well that per­se­cu­tion in pub­lic would most cer­tainly cre­ate fur­ther sym­pa­thy for him in the minds of the mul­ti­tude.

175:2.1The fact that the spir­i­tual lead­ers and the re­li­gious teach­ers of the Jew­ish na­tion one­time re­jected the teach­ings of Je­sus and con­spired to bring about his cruel death, does not in any man­ner af­fect the sta­tus of any in­di­vid­ual Jew in his stand­ing be­fore God. And it should not cause those who pro­fess to be fol­low­ers of the Christ to be prej­u­diced against the Jew as a fel­low mor­tal. The Jews, as a na­tion, as a so­ciopo­lit­i­cal group, paid in full the ter­ri­ble price of re­ject­ing the Prince of Peace. Long since they ceased to be the spir­i­tual torch­bear­ers of di­vine truth to the races of man­kind, but this con­sti­tutes no valid rea­son why the in­di­vid­ual de­scen­dants of these long-ago Jews should be made to suf­fer the per­se­cu­tions which have been vis­ited upon them by in­tol­er­ant, un­wor­thy, and big­oted pro­fessed fol­low­ers of Je­sus of Naz­a­reth, who was, him­self, a Jew by nat­u­ral birth.

175:2.2Many times has this un­rea­son­ing and un-Christ­like ha­tred and per­se­cu­tion of mod­ern Jews ter­mi­nated in the suf­fer­ing and death of some in­no­cent and un­of­fend­ing Jew­ish in­di­vid­ual whose very an­ces­tors, in the times of Je­sus, heart­ily ac­cepted his gospel and pres­ently died un­flinch­ingly for that truth which they so whole­heart­edly be­lieved. What a shud­der of hor­ror passes over the on­look­ing ce­les­tial be­ings as they be­hold the pro­fessed fol­low­ers of Je­sus in­dulge them­selves in per­se­cut­ing, ha­rass­ing, and even mur­der­ing the later-day de­scen­dants of Pe­ter, Philip, Mat­thew, and oth­ers of the Pales­tinian Jews who so glo­ri­ously yielded up their lives as the first mar­tyrs of the gospel of the heav­enly king­dom!

175:2.3How cruel and un­rea­son­ing to com­pel in­no­cent chil­dren to suf­fer for the sins of their pro­gen­i­tors, mis­deeds of which they are wholly ig­no­rant, and for which they could in no way be re­spon­si­ble! And to do such wicked deeds in the name of one who taught his dis­ci­ples to love even their en­e­mies! It has be­come nec­es­sary, in this recital of the life of Je­sus, to por­tray the man­ner in which cer­tain of his fel­low Jews re­jected him and con­spired to bring about his ig­no­min­ious death; but we would warn all who read this nar­ra­tive that the pre­sen­ta­tion of such a his­tor­i­cal recital in no way jus­ti­fies the un­just ha­tred, nor con­dones the un­fair at­ti­tude of mind, which so many pro­fessed Chris­tians have main­tained to­ward in­di­vid­ual Jews for many cen­turies. King­dom be­liev­ers, those who fol­low the teach­ings of Je­sus, must cease to mis­treat the in­di­vid­ual Jew as one who is guilty of the re­jec­tion and cru­ci­fix­ion of Je­sus. The Fa­ther and his Cre­ator Son have never ceased to love the Jews. God is no re­specter of per­sons, and sal­va­tion is for the Jew as well as for the gen­tile.

• be not anxious about what you shall say in

176:1.1In an­swer­ing Na­than­iel’s ques­tion, Je­sus said: “Yes, I will tell you about the times when this peo­ple shall have filled up the cup of their in­iq­uity; when jus­tice shall swiftly de­scend upon this city of our fa­thers. I am about to leave you; I go to the Fa­ther. Af­ter I leave you, take heed that no man de­ceive you, for many will come as de­liv­er­ers and will lead many astray. When you hear of wars and ru­mors of wars, be not trou­bled, for though all these things will hap­pen, the end of Je­ru­sa­lem is not yet at hand. You should not be per­turbed by famines or earth­quakes; nei­ther should you be con­cerned when you are de­liv­ered up to the civil au­thor­i­ties and are per­se­cuted for the sake of the gospel. You will be thrown out of the syn­a­gogue and put in prison for my sake, and some of you will be killed. When you are brought up be­fore gov­er­nors and rulers, it shall be for a tes­ti­mony of your faith and to show your stead­fast­ness in the gospel of the king­dom. And when you stand be­fore judges, be not anx­ious be­fore­hand as to what you should say, for the spirit will teach you in that very hour what you should an­swer your ad­ver­saries. In these days of tra­vail, even your own kins­folk, un­der the lead­er­ship of those who have re­jected the Son of Man, will de­liver you up to prison and death. For a time you may be hated by all men for my sake, but even in these per­se­cu­tions I will not for­sake you; my spirit will not desert you. Be pa­tient! doubt not that this gospel of the king­dom will tri­umph over all en­e­mies and, even­tu­ally, be pro­claimed to all na­tions.”

• kingdom will prosper in

178:1.10Un­der the soon-com­ing per­se­cu­tions by those who hate this gospel of joy and lib­erty, you will thrive and the king­dom will pros­per. But you will stand in grave dan­ger in sub­se­quent times when most men will speak well of king­dom be­liev­ers and many in high places nom­i­nally ac­cept the gospel of the heav­enly king­dom. Learn to be faith­ful to the king­dom even in times of peace and pros­per­ity. Tempt not the an­gels of your super­vi­sion to lead you in trou­blous ways as a lov­ing dis­ci­pline de­signed to save your ease-drift­ing souls.

• for righteousness’ sake

180:3.1The eleven had scarcely ceased their dis­cus­sions of the dis­course on the vine and the branches when the Mas­ter, in­di­cat­ing that he was de­sirous of speak­ing to them fur­ther and know­ing that his time was short, said: “When I have left you, be not dis­cour­aged by the en­mity of the world. Be not down­cast even when faint­hearted be­liev­ers turn against you and join hands with the en­e­mies of the king­dom. If the world shall hate you, you should re­call that it hated me even be­fore it hated you. If you were of this world, then would the world love its own, but be­cause you are not, the world re­fuses to love you. You are in this world, but your lives are not to be world­like. I have cho­sen you out of the world to rep­re­sent the spirit of an­other world even to this world from which you have been cho­sen. But al­ways re­mem­ber the words I have spo­ken to you: The ser­vant is not greater than his mas­ter. If they dare to per­se­cute me, they will also per­se­cute you. If my words of­fend the un­be­liev­ers, so also will your words of­fend the un­godly. And all of this will they do to you be­cause they be­lieve not in me nor in Him who sent me; so will you suf­fer many things for the sake of my gospel. But when you en­dure these tribu­la­tions, you should re­call that I also suf­fered be­fore you for the sake of this gospel of the heav­enly king­dom.

• doubt not truth in

181:1.6“Doubt not any of these truths even af­ter you are scat­tered abroad by per­se­cu­tion and are down­cast by many sor­rows. When you feel that you are alone in the world, I will know of your iso­la­tion even as, when you are scat­tered ev­ery man to his own place, leav­ing the Son of Man in the hands of his en­e­mies, you will know of mine. But I am never alone; al­ways is the Fa­ther with me. Even at such a time I will pray for you. And all of these things have I told you that you might have peace and have it more abun­dantly. In this world you will have tribu­la­tion, but be of good cheer; I have tri­umphed in the world and shown you the way to eter­nal joy and ev­er­last­ing ser­vice.”

• of early Christians by Jews

194:4.13And then broke out the new and re­lent­less per­se­cu­tions by the Jews, so that the ac­tive teach­ers of the new re­li­gion about Je­sus, which sub­se­quently at An­ti­och was called Chris­tian­ity, went forth to the ends of the em­pire pro­claim­ing Je­sus. In car­ry­ing this mes­sage, be­fore the time of Paul the lead­er­ship was in Greek hands; and these first mis­sion­ar­ies, as also the later ones, fol­lowed the path of Alexan­der’s march of for­mer days, go­ing by way of Gaza and Tyre to An­ti­och and then over Asia Mi­nor to Mace­do­nia, then on to Rome and to the ut­ter­most parts of the em­pire.

• caused by Christians’ use of term “kingdom”

195:2.2Much of the early per­se­cu­tion of Chris­tians in Rome was due solely to their un­for­tu­nate use of the term “king­dom” in their preach­ing. The Ro­mans were tol­er­ant of any and all re­li­gions but very re­sent­ful of any­thing that sa­vored of po­lit­i­cal ri­valry. And so, when these early per­se­cu­tions, due so largely to mis­un­der­stand­ing, died out, the field for re­li­gious pro­pa­ganda was wide open. The Ro­man was in­ter­ested in po­lit­i­cal ad­min­is­tra­tion; he cared lit­tle for ei­ther art or re­li­gion, but he was un­usu­ally tol­er­ant of both.

• power in way early Christians died from

195:3.4That which gave great­est power to Chris­tian­ity was the way its be­liev­ers lived lives of ser­vice and even the way they died for their faith dur­ing the ear­lier times of dras­tic per­se­cu­tion.