Persecution is a mark of Bible Christianity.  There are several signs of true Christianity, but Satan tries to have people believe that anyone is a Christian—if their name is on the church list, they live an honest life, and know a few Scripture verses.  He has convinced the Christian world that as long as a person talks and looks religious, they are okay with God.  There is, however, a vast difference from just looking righteous, and actually living by first-century faith in Christ.

            Satan tries to lower the standard of Christianity, and then move a person further and further away from the Word until there is no trust or faith in God for anything.  If anyone thinks they can be God’s true child, but not walk in the light and obey the Word, the devil has the advantage over them and will quickly take them out of God’s will.

Satan will do anything to distort the truth of God’s Word—that is why the apostle said 2 Co­rinthians 4:2 ”We practice no cunning tricks, nor do we adulterate God’s Message.  But by a full clear statement of the truth we strive to com­mend ourselves in the presence of God to every human conscience.”  He gave the unaltered and pure truth of God’s Word.

God wants us to be entirely His and sepa­rated from sin, self, and Satan.  2 Corinthians 6:17-18 "Therefore come out from them and be separate, says the Lord.  Touch no unclean thing, and I will receive you."  "I will be a Father to you, and you will be my sons and daughters, says the Lord Almighty."  That statement says much concerning our commitment to God’s truth, and about separating ourselves from those who do not live His truth.

True Christianity is absent in the life of many professing Christians.  The first mark is living in the will of God—all that is written in the Bible.  Matthew 7:21 "Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of hea­ven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.”  There are all too many who are professing, but not living by faith in Christ.  1 John 2:4 ”He who says, ‘I know Him,’ and does not keep His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him.”

Bible Christianity includes obedience to the Word of God—not in human strength, but through the power of the Holy Spirit, after we have forsaken and confessed our sins.  Another mark of true Christianity is being healed and protected by the divine power of God, when believing faith is placed on the atonement sacri­fice of His Son.

Bible Christians will be tempted and perse­cuted, but God will deliver them.  Satan does not want us to know that Bible Christians received answers to prayer for healing and pro­tection.  He wants us to forget the warnings.  Matthew 7:13-14 "Enter by the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it.  Because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it.”  Matthew 22:14 "Many are called, but few are chosen." 

            Those who truly believe and trust God would be as scarce as those who entered the Ark during Noah’s time, Jesus said.  Luke 17:26 "As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be also in the days of the Son of Man.”  Only eight per­sons met the standard of true Christianity in that time—the rest of the world perished in the flood.

            It will be in these closing days, as it was in the days of Lot, when only three persons es­caped with their souls.  Luke 17:28-29 "Likewise as it was also in the days of Lot: They ate, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they built; but on the day that Lot went out of Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven and destroyed them all.”  When speaking about the unjust judge and the widow, Jesus asked Luke 18:8 "When the Son of Man comes, will He really find faith on the earth?"

            We all need a spiritual revival in our life, and a re-commitment to God’s truth.  The Holy Spirit inspired a very important statement when He had the apostle write Ephesians 5:14 "Awake, you who sleep, Arise from the dead, And Christ will give you light"—Isaiah 60:1.  That is desperately needed in the world today.  Divine protection was such a sure thing in the Bible Psalm 91 that Moses said, no terror, pestilence, or plague could touch us, and that a thousand could fall at our side or ten-thousand at our right hand, but we would come to no harm.

            Another mark of Bible Christianity is persecution.  The church fell to the level of the world in the third century, so there has been lit­tle to no persecution of the Christian church since that time.  Any group or any individual who truly believes and lives by the unadulterated Gospel, will be persecuted—just as they were in the first two centuries.  Their lives did not please the world, the flesh, or the devil.

            If our Christianity does not bring the direct attacks of Satan, and if it does not bring perse­cution, hatred, malice, and opposition from those who belong to the world, then we do not have the first-century brand of truth.  When anyone follows the steps of Jesus and the dis­ciples, they will encounter the same opposition from the world, the flesh, and the devil.

            Persecution is someone trying to do some­thing to you from the outside, but the power in back of it all is Satan.  When someone wants to live the truth of the Bible, Satan will begin to fight them.  It is a spiritual battle Ephesians 6:12 ”For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the [unseen] powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.”

            If we are a friend of the world, we are an enemy of God.  If the world is friendly toward us and does not persecute us, we need to take stock of our life, because there is something missing—spiritually.  We have lost our salt—if we had any.  Matthew 5:13 "You are the salt of the earth; but if the salt loses its flavor, how shall it be seasoned?”  If we have the real salt of the Gospel, Satan will be after us and persecuting us in any way possible.

            A physical attack is not persecution, but it is an oppression from Satan, who wants to rob us of our atonement rights of health and heal­ing.  We are promised deliverance from sick­ness, trouble, and sorrow—because these are charter rights of the Atonement Isaiah 53:4-6, but there is no promise to be exempted from perse­cution.

The apostle said 2 Timothy 3:10-12 “You know all about my teaching, my way of life, my pur­pose, faith, patience, love, endurance, persecu­tions, sufferings”—etc.  “Yet the Lord rescued me from all of them.  In fact, everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted.”   Satan tried to reach the apostle through people from the outside. 

The devil wants us to be fearful and to think we will be defeated, so he causes trouble in the home, inspires unscriptural laws, or tries to rob our peace in some way.  Even though persecution seems to be less than what first-century Christians faced, the human heart is just as wicked, and Satan is just as evil today as he was then.

2 Timothy 3:1-5 “Mark this: There will be terri­ble times in the last days.  People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrate­ful, unholy, without love, unforgiving, slander­ous, without self- control, brutal, not lovers of the good, treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God—having a form of godliness but denying its power.  Have nothing to do with them.”

            Jesus said John 15:18-19 "If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first.  If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own.  As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world.  That is why the world hates you.”  He said John 15:20 “If they persecuted me, they will persecute you also.”  If they persecuted the Master of the house and nailed Him to the cross, how much more will they persecute those of the house­hold!

            The apostle Paul writes to the church 1 Thessa­lonians 2:13 ”And we also thank God continually because, when you received the word of God, which you heard from us, you ac­cepted it not as the word of men, but as it ac­tually is, the word of God, which is at work in you who believe.”

            Anyone who truly accepts and believes and lives by the Word of God, will be persecuted by those who do not accept, believe, or live that truth.  1 Thessalonians 2:14-16 ”For you, brothers, became imitators of God’s churches in Judea, which are in Christ Jesus: You suffered from your own countrymen the same things those churches suffered from the Jews, who killed the Lord Jesus and the prophets and also [persecute] drove us out.  They displease God and are hostile to all men in their effort to keep us from speaking to the Gentiles so that they may be saved.  In this way they always heap up their sins to the limit.  The wrath of God has come upon them at last.”

            The most spiritual churches in the New Testament were the most persecuted.  The Laodicean church was not persecuted because it was not zealous.  Jesus said to that church Revela­tion 3:17 “You say, ‘I am rich; I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing.’  But you do not realize that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked.”  Satan would not bother a wretched, pitiful, and spiritually blind church.  He will lull them to sleep, and convince them that their minister is teaching them the way to heaven.