Blessed Are the Persecuted

In 2004, I traveled to Iran with a delegation of Protestant Christians from the United States to meet with the vice president of the Iranian parliament. While in Iran, I preached at the Garden of Evangelism in Tehran, which was founded by the twentieth-century missionary William M. Miller. Over the following days, dozens of Iranian Christians told me stories of the many ways they had been persecuted. Many who had been converted to Christ from Islam had been disowned by their families, shunned and despised by their neighbors, or fired from their jobs. Some had been imprisoned, and one man's father had even been executed. Many of my Iranian brothers and sisters expressed how they lived under the constant threat of persecution. Many told me how much they would love to live in the United States of America because it is a free country where Christians are not persecuted.

Although we in America are by no means under the same kind of persecution as Christians in Iran, we are beginning to face persecution in unprecedented ways. Many of the freedoms my father fought to defend in World War II are at risk of being stripped away from my children. America is changing rapidly. Following the path of Europe, we are entering a day in America wherein Bible-believing Christians are viewed as suspect and even as traitors to humanity. Relativistic tolerance has become America's religion, and its dogma is tolerance for anything except Christian dogma. Someday, our grandchildren might find themselves admitting to foreign missionaries their desire to live in a free country where Christians are not persecuted.

As Christians of conviction, we will continue to fight for our constitutional freedoms. Yet, in the final analysis, we must always remember that ultimately we fight not against men but against the spiritual forces of evil (Eph. 6:12). Ultimately, we fight on our knees, praying for all who are in authority over us (1 Tim. 2:2). We are citizens of our nations, and we are citizens of Christ's kingdom. As such, we can pray for national leaders even when we must vote against them. We pray for the persecuted and for our persecutors. We love our enemies while praying for their defeat—their coming to the end of themselves in repentance and faith (Matt. 5:44; Rom. 12:13; 1 Cor. 4:12–13).

In the face of persecution, we must not lose hope. We must not fear our enemies but fear the Lord as we stand our ground in the battle ahead. Jesus told us we would be persecuted, but He also told us He has overcome the world (Matt. 5:10–12; John 16:33). Regardless of whether we ever die as martyrs for our faith, we are all witnesses of Christ. Though they may imprison us, shun us, despise us, or kill us, they can never really hurt us. For we conquer by dying—humbly dying to self that we may, under any persecution our Lord sovereignly allows, boldly proclaim Christ and Him crucified. And when we are persecuted for Christ's sake, not for being obnoxious, we can count ourselves blessed. As Charles Spurgeon said, "Christians are not so much in danger when they are persecuted as when they are admired."