Abiding Hope through Persecution/Thursday, August 13, 2009/by Dr. Paul Chappell
Acts 16:23–24
Persecution is an opportunity to rejoice in the Lord and hope in His Word.
The book of Philippians has encouraged multitudes of Christians to rejoice in the Lord and persevere through difficulties with abiding hope. The church in the city of Philippi, to which this epistle was originally addressed, saw a powerful demonstration of God’s sustaining hope in Paul’s own life.
When Paul and his missionary companion, Silas, first entered Philippi, they saw a few immediate converts, but the receptivity to the Gospel soon changed when Paul commanded an unclean spirit to depart from a young slave woman. Previously, she had brought much financial gain to her masters through fortunetelling, but when the power of Christ set her free, everything was different. When her masters realized that she would no longer bring them financial gain through sorcery, they reacted to the loss of business in hateful meanness. They dragged Paul and Silas to the marketplace where they could get a crowd stirred, and they accused the missionaries to the rulers of the city: “These men, being Jews, do exceedingly trouble our city, And teach customs, which are not lawful for us to receive, neither to observe, being Romans” (Acts 16:20–21).
The plan worked for the girl’s masters: “the multitude rose up together against them: and the magistrates rent off their clothes, and commanded to beat them” (Acts 16:22). After an undeserved and unmerciful beating, Paul and Silas were cast into a dungeon-like prison. Simply for obeying God and loving people enough to share the Gospel, Paul and Silas were persecuted!
Paul faced adversity throughout his entire ministry. To the Corinthian church he wrote, “Of the Jews five times received I forty stripes save one. Thrice was I beaten with rods, once was I stoned, thrice I suffered shipwreck, a night and a day I have been in the deep; In journeyings often, in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils by mine own countrymen, in perils by the heathen, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils among false brethren; In weariness and painfulness, in watchings often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness” (2 Corinthians 11:24–27).
Walking with the Lord and being faithful to share the Gospel does not make a Christian immune to trials. In fact, persecution is to be expected in the lives of godly believers: “Yea, and all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution” (2 Timothy 3:12).
Sometimes when Christians suffer persecution, they are tempted to question their effectiveness for the Lord; they feel that antagonism to their message must be an indication of their own insufficiency or clarity in presenting the Gospel. But notice that the opposite was true in the lives of Paul and Silas. The persecution they received at Philippi was an evidence of their effectiveness for the Lord. It was because they were making a difference in the city that ungodly men were moved to try to stop them.
Are you facing mistreatment because of your faithfulness to God? Has Satan tried to convince you to give in to despair? Persecution is no time to give up—rather it is an opportunity to “rejoice, inasmuch as ye are partakers of Christ's sufferings; that, when his glory shall be revealed, ye may be glad also with exceeding joy” (1 Peter 4:13). Choose to hope in God’s promises in times of trial and persecution and “rejoice, though now for a season, if need be, ye are in heaviness through manifold temptations: That the trial of your faith, being much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and honour and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ” (1 Peter 1:6–7).
