With regard to us as believers, persecution and trial are used to hinder our departure from God. There is the constant tendency in the heart to take rest in prosperous circumstances, for the flesh turns to what is agreeable in the world, but this will not do. God says, “Arise ye, and depart; for this is not your rest” (Mic. 2:1010Arise ye, and depart; for this is not your rest: because it is polluted, it shall destroy you, even with a sore destruction. (Micah 2:10)). Persecution is the natural portion of the children of God. When the church was taking rest at the beginning, persecution soon came in. In Matthew the principles and character of the kingdom were brought out in the sermon on the mount. Blessing is the character, for then the grace of Christ was just beginning to be manifested. The miracles had begun to be performed, and God was now showing them what was “blessed” in His sight. Towards the end of the Gospel, instead of blessing it is, “Woe” — “your house is left unto you desolate,” because the opposition was fully brought out by the perfect manifestation of what was in Him.
Tribulation
God sends us tribulation, opposition from without, to bring out grace and to hinder decay. With Christ it was always and only the former. But take the case of Job: God uses Satan as an instrument of blessing to him, as He does with the church. About Job, God begins the conversation, “Hast thou considered My servant Job?” and God uses the trial to bring out to him what Job had never known before. Again, take the case of Paul. He had to be taken up into the third heaven, to get such a sight of the glory as to fit him for the peculiar service to the church to which he was called. Then what use would the flesh make of this? It would puff up. Then a messenger of Satan is sent to buffet him, and he prays that it may be removed. But he is not allowed to have the thorn in the flesh removed, but gets the assurance, “My grace is sufficient for thee: for My strength is made perfect in weakness” (2 Cor. 12:9). It was this that strengthened him for after service, not the being in the third heaven and the sight of the glory, in one sense, for it was to be God’s strength, not Paul’s. Take another case in Peter. He needed to be sifted, because of his self-confidence; therefore the Lord allows Satan to sift him, but He prayed for him. When confidence in self was pulled down, then he could be used to help others.
God’s Use of Satan
It seems astonishing that God should use Satan as the instrument to try the saints here, but it is so, and He says, “The devil shall cast some of you into prison, that ye may be tried” (Rev. 2:1010Fear none of those things which thou shalt suffer: behold, the devil shall cast some of you into prison, that ye may be tried; and ye shall have tribulation ten days: be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life. (Revelation 2:10)). In this church we find the state is decaying (they have left their first love), and God has to put them into the furnace. They are put in the place where Satan persecuted them — where Satan’s seat was. “I know thy works, and tribulation, and thy poverty (but thou art rich)” (Rev. 2:99I know thy works, and tribulation, and poverty, (but thou art rich) and I know the blasphemy of them which say they are Jews, and are not, but are the synagogue of Satan. (Revelation 2:9)). God knew that they were rich; they were multiplied in the world, and then there was a tendency to rest in their circumstances, instead of in the Lord Himself. The Lord would not suffer this. He must put them into trouble, because He would make them lean on Him. He will give them to find the hostility of the world, in order that they may be brought back to know their own privileges in their own real position. How strange that the church should need persecution, not only that Christ should suffer them to be cast into prison, but also that they were to be faithful even to death! And the promise to them is “the crown of life.” They may be martyrs, but there is positive blessing and honor for them. Christians are seeking what the world does. If the Lord turns the current, He puts them through the fire. If the church has the world in any sense down here, it must give up a heavenly, a crucified, Christ.
Carnal Ordinances and Heaven
You cannot associate the world and religion like in Judaism; there it was the object to connect them. It set about to mingle the tastes and feelings of nature with God, and whenever the world is connected with religion, there must be priesthood to bring them together, because the moment you get man as he is, he cannot stand before God. But now all Christians are priests — no need of an order of priests between God and you; you are a heavenly, not an earthly people. “Jesus ... suffered without the gate. Let us go forth therefore unto Him without the camp, bearing His reproach” (Heb. 13:12-1312Wherefore Jesus also, that he might sanctify the people with his own blood, suffered without the gate. 13Let us go forth therefore unto him without the camp, bearing his reproach. (Hebrews 13:12‑13)). The moment the blood is carried into the heavenly places, we are associated with Him; we are taken outside the world altogether and connected with the heavenly places. Judaism connected these two in an earthly tabernacle. Our place is outside the camp and inside the veil, with Him. Carnal ordinances connected man with God under Judaism, but when Christ is rejected on earth, the meeting place is in heaven, and there cannot be a mixture of the two. We are raised up together and made to sit together in the heavenly places in Him. We have no middlemen between us and Christ who is our portion. The moment we lose the sense of this, God must let loose the power of Satan to keep us in a straight path.
J. N. Darby, adapted