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Lesson 3: God uses persecution for His purposes.
How, then, should we respond? With anger? With the demand for our rights? Marching with signs for our freedom of speech or freedom of religion? Jesus only gives one command to Smyrna, and it’s not new.
In fact, He gives Smyrna the most often repeated command in the whole Bible: fear not.
“Do not fear any of those things which you are about to suffer,” Jesus says. “Indeed, the devil is about to throw some of you into prison, that you may be tested, and you will have tribulation ten days.”
The devil has a plan, but God has a greater one, and God always uses persecution to accomplish His purposes. Even during the reign of Diocletian, when Christianity came so close to extinction, the emperor was fighting a losing battle.
He was losing soldiers, not because the Christians were killing them, but because the soldiers were being converted.
They would lead the Christians into the arena, lay down their armor, and die with them.
They’d lead Christians to the stake, put down the colors of Rome, and walk into the flames with them.
When ten thousand Christians were taken to a cliff and told to recant or they’d be thrown off, for everyone that died, people were coming to Christ because of the testimony of the faithful.