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Who Persecute and Why

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Evil Men Persecute Righteous

 

Because Jesus had not kept the Sabbath according to their ideas, what did the Jews do?

 

“So, because Jesus was doing these things on the Sabbath, the Jews persecuted him.”

John 5:16.

 

What kind of fast is most acceptable to God?

 

“Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen: to loose the chains of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke, to set the oppressed free and break every yoke.” Isaiah 58:6.  

 

Note – This is what Jesus did. He, the Author and Lord of the Sabbath, in addition to attending and taking part in religious services (Luke 4:16), went about doing good, healing the sick, relieving the oppressed, and restoring the impotent, lame, and blind, on the Sabbath day. But this while in perfect accord with the law of God, the great law of love, was contrary to the traditions and perverted ideas of the Jews respecting the Sabbath. Hence they persecuted Him, and sought to slay him.

 

Why did Cain kill Abel?

 

“This is the message you heard from the beginning: We are to love one another. Do not be like Cain, who belonged to the evil one and murdered his brother. And why did he murder him? Because his own actions were evil and his brother’s righteous.”

1 John 3:11,12.

 

Note – If you will read the Word of God, you will find that from the beginning all good people were persecuted because they were good. Abel was slain by his brother because he was good, and Cain could not endure the sight of him.

 

Commenting upon the treatment of Isaac, the son of Sarah, by Ishmael, the son of the bondwoman, what principle does the Apostle Paul lay down?

 

“At that time the son born in the ordinary way persecuted the son born by the power of the Spirit. It is the same now. Galatians 4:29. 

 

Note – Other instances of persecution mentioned in the Bible are:

 

a.   Esau, who sold his birthright, persecuted Jacob. Genesis 25:29-34; 27:41.

 

b.   The wayward and envious sons of Jacob persecuted Joseph. Genesis 37; Acts 7:9.

 

c.   The idolatrous Egyptians persecuted the Hebrews. Exodus 1 and 5.

d.   The Hebrew who did his neighbor wrong thrust Moses as mediator, aside. Exodus 2:13, 14; Acts 7: 26,27.

 

e.   Saul, who disobeyed God, persecuted David, who feared God. 1 Samuel 15, 19, 24.

 

f.   Israel, in their apostasy, persecuted Elijah and Jeremiah, who were prophets of God. 1 Kings 19:9, 10; Jeremiah 36:20-23; 38: 1-6.

 

g.   Nebuchadnezzar, while an idolater, persecuted the three Hebrews captives for refusing to worship idols. Daniel 3.

 

h.   The envious and idolatrous princes under Darius persecuted Daniel for daring to pray to the God of heaven. Daniel 6.

 

i.  The murderers of Christ persecuted the apostles for preaching Christ. Acts 4 and 5.

 

j.   Paul, be fore his conversion, persecuted the church of God. Acts 8:1; 9:1,2; 22:4,5, 20; 26: 9-11; Galatians 1:13; 1 Timothy 1:12,13.

 

The history of all religious persecutions since Bible times is but a repetition of this same story – the wicked persecute the righteous. And thus it will continue to be until the conflict between good and evil is ended. (See Psalm 37:12, 14, 32.)

 

What does Paul say shall suffer persecution?

 

“In fact, everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted.”

2 Timothy 3:12.

 

What is essential to religious persecution?

 

Ecclesiastical control of the civil power, or a union of church and state.

 

Since persecution is invariably wrong, what must be true of persecuting governments?

 

They likewise must be in the wrong.

 

Note – “There are many who do not seem to be sensible that all the violence in religion is irreligious, and whatever is wrong, the persecutor cannot be right.” – Thomas Clarke, History of Intolerance (1819 ed.), Vol. 1, p. 3.

“Have not almost all the governments in the world always been in the wrong on religious subjects?” – MaCaulay, Essay on “Gladstone on Church and State,” in his Critical and Historical Essays (1865 ed.), Vol. 2, p. 60.

God never forces the will or the conscience; but, in order to bring men under sin, Satan resorts to force. To accomplish his purpose, he works through religious and secular rulers, influencing them to enact and enforce human laws in defiance of the law of God.

Under what terrible deception did Christ say men would persecute His followers?

 

“All this I told you so that you will not go astray. They will put you out of the synagogue; in fact, a time is coming when anyone who kills you will think he is offering a service to God.John 16: 1,2.

 

Who is the original murderer?

 

“You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father’s desire. He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him.” John 8:44.

 

When James and John wished to call down fire from heaven to consume the Samaritans who did not receive Christ, what did Christ say to them? 

 

‘But Jesus turned and rebuked them, and they went to another village.” Luke 9:55, 56.   

 

Note - The disciples did not understand what manner of spirit they were speaking of, because Jesus said that the Son of Man did not come to destroy men’s lives but to save them.

 

Some Who Would Justify Persecution

 

Has the Papacy claimed authority to persecute?

 

Yes!

 

Note – “That the Church of Rome has shed more innocent blood than any other institution that has ever existed among mankind will be questioned by no Protestant who has a competent knowledge of history. The memorials, indeed, of many of her persecutions are now so scanty that it is impossible to form a complete conception of the multitude of her victims, and it is quite certain that no powers of the imagination can adequately realize their sufferings.” –W.E.H. Lecky, in History of the rise and Influence of the Spirit of the Reformation in Europe (1910 ed.), Vol. 2, p. 32.

“This claim to exercise coercive jurisdiction has, as might be expected, been denied by various heterodox writers. Thus Masilius Patavinus (Defensor Pacis II, iv), Antonius de Dominis (De rep. Eccl, IV, vi, vii, ix), Richer (De eccl, et pol. Potestate, xi-xii), and later the Synod of Pistoia, all alike maintained that coercive jurisdiction of every kind belongs to the civil power alone, and sought to restrict the Church to the use of moral means. The Holy See has always condemned this error. Thus, in the Bull ‘Auctorem Fidei,’ Pius VI makes the following pronouncement regarding one of the Pistoian propositions: ‘[The afore said proposition] in respect of its insinuation that the church does not possess authority to exact subjection to her decrees otherwise than by means dependant on persuasion: so far as this signals that the Church “has not received from God power, not merely to direct by counsel and persuasion, but further to command by laws, and to coerce and compel the delinquent  and contumacious by external and salutary penalties”

 

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