Why Does God Permit Such Persecution?
AT Chilomoni in the Blantyre area, attackers said to Jehovah’s witnesses: “If there is a God, let him see what is happening to Jehovah’s witnesses and let him answer them, since he sees, doesn’t he?”
At Chalunda, forty-two Witnesses were taken to the local Party head, E. Y. Zenengeya, who ordered them to be beaten by Youth League members. One of these, named Chimombo, said: “Let your God rescue you. If he exists, let him throw a bomb and kill me.”
In the face of such statements, one may wonder: ‘Just why does God permit those who worship him to suffer grave atrocities?’
Why Persecution Comes
God’s Word shows that he permits such persecution today for the same reason that he permitted his own Son to undergo indignities, suffering and death at the hand of opposers. Christ Jesus was seized, beaten, mocked and ridiculed. When he was nailed to a stake and dying, men sneered and made fun of him, saying: “Others he saved; himself he cannot save! He is King of Israel; let him now come down off the torture stake and we will believe on him. He has put his trust in God; let Him now rescue him if He wants him, for he said, ‘I am God’s Son.’” (Matt. 27:39-44) Yet God did not strike the ridiculers dead on the spot. Why not?
Because of a great issue that involves all creatures in heaven and earth. The issue is over the rightfulness of God’s Sovereign rule of the universe. The Bible shows that this has been challenged by God’s adversary. The word “adversary” in the Hebrew Scriptures is sa·tanʹ and so this chief adversary is called “Satan.” The issue he raised millenniums ago in Eden was not one of power. For, how easily the Almighty God could crush any opposition to his rule in a moment of time! (Num. 16:45) Rather, the issue raised was a moral issue. It placed in question all creatures’ devotion and loyalty to God’s rule, demonstrated by faithfulness to his laws and expressed will.—Gen. 3:1-5; Job 1:6-12.
Jehovah God has allowed time for this universal issue to be settled. He has allowed men on earth to demonstrate whether they favor and support His rule or not. Those who love righteousness have opportunity to prove fully their faithfulness and loyalty under test.
The purpose of God’s adversary therefore is to break the faithfulness of those who do worship God. Satan gains little by causing their death when they maintain their integrity to God. Thus, God’s Son, though facing death, could say to his disciples on his last night with them: “I have conquered the world.” (John 16:33) All the efforts of his Father’s adversary to turn him aside from a course of integrity had failed. By dying faithful to God on a torture stake, Christ Jesus gave the superlative answer to Satan’s challenge, showing that no suffering was great enough to break his love for his Father or his loyalty to God’s sovereignty.
Thousands of years earlier, in the Middle East, a righteous man named Job had endured similar testing. The historical account shows that God’s adversary caused Job to lose his children and his property. The marauders who stole Job’s livestock and killed the men caring for them may have thought in their hearts that God did not care. They may have said: ‘Where is Jehovah now? If he is God, why does he not send a sword, or a fire, to kill us?’ Yet, even though God did not destroy them at that time, nevertheless, the invisible Adversary who sent them met complete defeat. How so? What defeated Satan and his agents was the fact that “in all this Job did not sin or ascribe anything improper to God.” He maintained faith in God and endured the test with integrity.—Job 1:22.
Note that, unlike Jesus, Job was not killed during his test. He survived his troubles to see happiness and long life. Similarly, the great majority of Witnesses in Malawi have survived with their lives. Does this survival of Job and of the majority of Witnesses from Malawi mean that they are specially favored by God over those who died under persecution? Obviously not, inasmuch as Jehovah God permitted his own Son to be put to death. But the fact that some do die gives positive proof that neither death itself nor the threat of it will cause God’s true servants to disobey his Word and its righteous principles.
Just as in ancient times, so God’s servants today meet a wide variety of tests. Thereby they provide a full, complete answer to Satan’s challenge, no aspect of loyalty and endurance being left out. We read of God’s servants in the past who died under torture, “in order that they might attain a better resurrection,” while “others received their trial by mockings and scourgings, indeed, more than that, by bonds and prisons. They were stoned, they were tried, they were sawn asunder, they died by slaughter with the sword, they went about in sheepskins, in goatskins, while they were in want, in tribulation, under ill-treatment.” (Heb. 11:35-37) But they remained faithful to God and received his favor. In due time, they will reap the reward of life in God’s new order, for God is “the rewarder of those earnestly seeking him.”—Heb. 11:6.
Some faithful women in modern times have had to endure grave indignities, inhuman treatment that is shocking, repugnant. Yet thereby further proof is given that no form of suffering—rape included—can break the integrity of God’s witnesses. Some brutal attacks leave physical scars; others, such as sexual attacks or seeing one’s child beaten to death, may leave mental and emotional scars.
Yet Jehovah God will wipe away all such scars under the rule of his Son’s kingdom. As with his people Israel of long ago, His promise will hold true concerning such suffering: “The former things will not be called to mind, neither will they come up into the heart.” The blessings of that righteous new order will cause all earlier sufferings to fade away as they are replaced by joys and pleasantness that are unending. (Isa. 65:17-19) Seen in retrospect, all those tests and trials will appear as the apostle Paul viewed them, as “momentary and light” in comparison with the grand and eternal reward gained.—2 Cor. 4:17, 18.
What Else Is Accomplished
Other valuable things are accomplished by God’s allowance of persecution. One of these has to do with the persecutors themselves.
Some persecutors may be like Saul of Tarsus, who was “breathing threat and murder” against Christ’s disciples. He actually approved and shared in the murder of some, while hounding others throughout Palestine. (Acts 9:1; 7:58-8:3) Yet, when he saw matters in their true light, Saul thereafter became one of Christ’s most zealous apostles. He then proved his own faithfulness under persecution. And he was deeply grateful and thanked God for His great patience and undeserved kindness that allowed him to turn from his misguided course.—1 Cor. 15:9, 10.
So the Christians who suffer today can rejoice that God’s patience may allow some persecutors to turn and gain eternal life in God’s new order. A]so, many other persons who observe or read about what is taking place may be enabled to see the true issue in its clarity and take their stand on God’s side.
Of course, something else is accomplished. God’s permission of persecution in time exposes those who are really his hard-set enemies and who refuse to change. Their persistence in attacking Christians even when faced with the evidence of their innocence will condemn them as knowing, willful opposers of God. It will give God full justification for judging them worthy of destruction when he brings this earth-wide unrighteous, violent system of things soon to its end.—2 Thess. 1:6-9.
Long ago the apostle Peter wrote fellow Christians: “Beloved ones, do not be puzzled at the burning among you, which is happening to you for a trial, as though a strange thing were befalling you.” (1 Pet. 4:12) Jehovah’s witnesses today, in Malawi and elsewhere in the world, are not puzzled at what is happening. They know why persecution is being allowed by God. And they are confident of the final results, to God’s honor and to their own everlasting blessing.