Would you stand up for your faith?

Jesus lived a perfect life and they crucified him. Is it any wonder that those who took up his cause would get the same kind of reaction? By only chapter 5 in the book of Acts, these new “fanatics” were facing persecution. The story is laid out in verses 17-20: 
            *The religious authorities were “filled with jealousy” (v. 17)
            *The apostles were “arrested” and “put in jail” (v. 18)
            *An angel “opened the doors of the jail” and the apostles were “released” (v. 19)
            *The apostles were charged to proclaim this “message that brings new life (v. 20)
It is the familiar sequence repeated throughout history of opposition followed by divine empowerment. Truth will always be opposed by the forces of evil, yet in the long run it will triumph. The New Testament brings it altogether in the book of Revelation — God wins!
       As a Christian believer living in the United States, it is difficult to grasp the fact that around the world right now there are fellow believers who are being persecuted. And by that I don’t mean minor incidents like, “They laughed at me at school because someone found out that I went to Wednesday evening prayer meeting.” Awkward, but not life threatening. Fox news recently reported that in 2016 some 600 million Christians were prevented from practicing their faith in that year. In Iraq alone the Christian population has dropped from well over a million to about 275,000. The magazine Christianity Today reports that the killing of Christians in Nigeria saw an increase of more than 60%. For 14 straight years, North Korea has remained the most dangerous country in the world for Christians. The Voice of the Martyrs records incidents too graphic for this article, except to say that the persecution goes way beyond social opposition — in involves the burning of houses and churches, physical beating, torture, starvation, cruelty to one’s children to cause a parent to convert to the faith that is behind it all. 
       The question is, “Will Christian believers here in the United States ever be subject to persecution of that sort? All I know is that toward the end of what we call time, there will be a great apostasy and the anti-Christ will be revealed (2 Thess. 2:3). That apostasy will result from severe opposition to the Christian message. That is what Paul predicted in 2 Thess. 3:12 when he wrote, “Everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted.” Some form of opposition has been going on since the beginning; whether it will be in the more violent form for believers here in the United States is yet to be seen.