The Beauty of Jesus Found in Persecution 

By John E. Thomas

In November 2010 I released a prophetic word I’d been mulling on for a few years. Recently I was talking with a friend who suggested the word was timely and I should rerelease it.  

When I released it the first time, I didn’t explain how the word came to me, but this time I thought I would share the word’s “backstory” so you can see how the revelation came together and matured. 

One Sunday morning at the church I was pastoring, I began praying for unity in the church and saw an internal picture of a toe drawing a line in the sand. As often happens in this kind of experience, I understood a lot of things that didn’t need to be communicated! But I knew it was God drawing the line and that the line represented where people stood on two issues: holiness and Israel. 

 
I heard God say in my spirit, “I am bringing division before I bring unity.” I knew that this line in the sand represented a division coming to the church. Some would stand for biblical holiness and love righteousness, while others would throw these things away. I also knew that some in the church would stand for God’s revealed plan for the land of Israel and its people (read Romans 9–11), while others would take a stand against Israel. 

That division would be the beginnings of persecution against believers in America. This is what I wrote in 2010: “The direction of legislation and ‘popular opinion’ has made it very easy for laws to be passed that will lead to the persecution of Christians in America in the name of freedom. They will point to everyone else’s freedom—freedom to sin, to live in homosexual relationships, to defile the Name of the Lord, to exploit other human beings in the name of pornography (commonly called entertainment)—and remove the ability to make a stand against any choice another person makes.” 

Those who called themselves the church in America would lead the charge to institute this persecution, calling believers who hold to biblical truth extremists and terrorists. That would be the “legal” grounds for the persecution to take place. “You are welcome to be a Christian, but do it like the rest of us.” 

It seems this time of division is even closer than when I first saw it. I’ve been praying for over twenty years about the persecution coming to America—that we would suffer well, that it would cause us to see Jesus as more beautiful.  

I remember hearing a story about someone visiting the underground church in China in the ‘90s. After meeting a number of leaders and different groups and hearing their stories, this person mentioned that when they returned home, they would begin to organize prayer for the persecution to end in China.  

The Chinese pastor replied, “Please don’t. We have been praying for persecution to come to America. You have no idea how beautiful He is until you have suffered for Him.” 

I don’t long for persecution—but I do long to know Him as more beautiful. The early church taught that being a martyr was one of the greatest honors God would give someone. According to Scripture, there’s a crown only martyrs can receive. We’ve forgotten these things. We don’t understand them today. But there’s a grace poured out in proportion to our need for that grace.  

If you haven’t read it, or if it’s been a while since you picked it up, go check out Foxe’s Book of Martyrs. The idea of being persecuted for our faith may be foreign to our Western minds, but that book is so encouraging and faith building! 

May the mercy of the Lord turn things around! May the words of Isaiah 5:20 no longer be true in our land. May we stop calling evil “good” and good “evil.” May the counsel of God have a voice in our public spaces, and may the church rise up, no longer polluted by the ruler of this world and the spirit of this age—and declare holiness as beautiful.  

May His power move through us so completely that we stand as witnesses to the reality of the Risen King of Israel, who is sitting on His throne ruling and reigning until all His enemies are put under His feet. And may we stand with His chosen ones, the Israelites, who still have a part to play in this cosmic story He has written.