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Endurance in Adversity

A Brief Word

When I started shakethegates.org several years ago, my intention was to help believers in Christ not only stand firm in the evil day, but forcefully advance the Kingdom of God despite the overwhelming opposition of society. I’ve been busy living in a developing nation, discipling believers, translating the New Testament, trying to stay afloat. My high aspirations for this website have fallen far short of what I’d hoped to do with it.

Lately, I’ve been feeling increasing urgency to prepare believers for a level of opposition that few have ever known. Intense opposition is the norm for many believers around the world. People in those contexts have endured the unspeakable, yet continue to stand. Not so much in the West.

The best way that I know to prepare believers for what lay ahead is to drill down into the Word of God and draw out the meaning, exhortation, nourishment, and hope found there. After all:

All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.

2 Timothy 3:16-17, ESV

I covet your prayer as I step into a new season of study, writing, prayerful thinking, and preparation. I ask you to pray that the Father will grant me sharp focus, a heart tender toward Him, skillful word-smithing, and clear understanding of His word in order that I might serve Him and you well in this endeavor.


A few weeks ago I published an article entitled At Hand which you can read here. The urgency of the New Testament writers (in that case, Paul, Peter, and John) was unmistakable. The world of their time was pagan and poised against the subjects of the King of Kings. Their rulers were notorious for their extreme immorality and their violent reigns.

Imperial Persecution

Emperor Nero was representative of many of the Roman emperors. According to Henry Halley (Halley’s Bible Handbook), under Nero’s persecution “many Christians were crucified, or thrown to wild beasts, or wrapped in combustible garments and burned to death while Nero laughed at the pitiful shrieks of burning men and women. Paul and Peter suffered martyrdom in Nero’s persecution.”

Nero is most known today for his maniacal fiddling while Rome burned. There were a litany of emperors between Nero and Domitian, who exiled John. Nero committed suicide, leaving the throne to Galba who reigned a grand total of 7 months and 7 days at which time he was murdered by the Praetorian Guard. Then came Otho, appointed by the Praetorian Guard who reigned for 3 months and 1 day. He committed suicide after losing a battle. Vitellius followed, reigning 8 months and 3 days before being murdered by Vespasian’s troops. Vespasian replaced him and ruled nearly a decade before dying of natural causes. Then came Titus, Vespasian’s son, who ruled 2 years and 2 months before dying of fever. Finally came Domitian, who ruled 15 years and 4 days before being murdered by court officials.

During Domitian’s reign, John was exiled to the island of Patmos where he penned Revelation, having survived, according to Fox’s Book of Martyrs, being boiled in oil.

Modern Persecution

Though most of us have not suffered under this sort of rule, patterns and trends would point toward the possibility that, as our societies disintegrate and people attempt to cast off moral restraint, people will eventually demand some sort of powerful rule, whether a government system or a strong individual. What followed the October Revolution of 1917? Stalin’s reign of terror. What followed the Wiemar Republic and the stripping of Germany’s military might following WWI? The rise of national socialism and its leader, Adolf Hitler. Pol Pot led the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia, leaving a legacy of murder. What of Chairman Mao and the cultural revolution in China? Or Fidel Castro in Cuba?

In each of these situations, followers of Jesus have suffered persecution. Stalin instituted the Gulag. Chinese Christians have consistently suffered intense persecution and opposition since the cultural revolution. Hitler’s government not only exterminated 6 million Jews, it imprisoned and executed political opponents and Christians who did not hold with the party’s brutality and extreme evil.

It seems that humanity is once again attempting to set the stage for 20th-century-like upheaval. Creation groans. Humanity is drunk with rebellion and notions of revolution. This generation desires to cast off all restraint. Many of our information sources are merely propaganda machines, spreading dissension and hate toward all that is holy. As we drift along the flow of history (past and future), proponents and servants of the world system increasingly attempt to silence the voice of reason and holiness.

Read more . . .