“All That Will Live Godly in Christ Jesus Shall Suffer Persecution” by Ellen G. White (1898)

After hearing Christ’s words in regard to the destruction of Jerusalem, the disciples came to him with the question, “When shall these things be? and what shall be the sign of thy coming, and of the end of the world?” In answer, Christ gave them important lessons, interweaving with the destruction of Jerusalem a still greater destruction,—the final destruction of the world. The warning here given as to what the disciples would have to meet at the hands of their fellow men is a warning to us also.“Then shall they deliver you up to be afflicted,” Christ said, “and shall kill you: and ye shall be hated of all nations for my name’s sake. And then shall many be offended, and shall betray one another, and shall hate one another.” These words will be fulfilled. Those who have been our companions in Christian association will not always maintain their fidelity. Envy and evil-surmising, if cherished, will separate very friends. When a man loses the shield of a good conscience, he loses the co-operation of heavenly angels. God is not working in him. He is controlled by another spirit.We must not think that Satan will cease for one moment his efforts to do to Christ’s followers as he did to Christ. “If the world hate you,” Christ said, “ye know that it hated me before it hated you. If ye were of the world, the world would love his own: but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you. Remember the word that I said unto you, The servant is not greater than his lord. If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you; if they have kept my saying, they will keep yours also. But all these things will they do unto you for my name’s sake, because they know not him that sent me.... This cometh to pass, that the word might be fulfilled that is written in their law, They hated me without a cause.” Can those who claim to be followers of Christ say, with their Master, “They hated me without a cause”?“The mystery of iniquity doth already work: only he who now letteth will let, until he be taken out of the way. And then shall that Wicked be revealed, whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of his mouth, and shall destroy with the brightness of his coming.” “Son of man, say unto the prince of Tyrus, Thus saith the Lord God; Because thine heart is lifted up, and thou hast said, I am a god, I sit in the seat of God, in the midst of the seas; yet thou art a man, and not God, though thou set thine heart as the heart of God:.... therefore thus saith the Lord God; Because thou hast set thine heart as the heart of God; behold, therefore I will bring strangers upon thee, the terrible of the nations: and they shall draw their swords against the beauty of thy wisdom, and they shall defile thy brightness. They shall bring thee down to the pit, and thou shalt die the deaths of them that are slain in the midst of the seas. Wilt thou yet say before him that slayeth thee, I am God? but thou shalt be a man, and no God, in the hand of him that slayeth thee. Thou shalt die the deaths of the uncircumcised by the hand of strangers: for I have spoken it, saith the Lord God.”The time is fast approaching when this scripture will be fulfilled. The world and the professedly Protestant churches are in this our day taking sides with the man of sin; and to those who have the light of the commandments of God is the message given, “Let us therefore fear, lest, a promise being left us of entering into his rest, any of you should seem to come short of it. For unto us was the gospel preached, as well as unto them: but the word preached did not profit them, not being mixed with faith in them that heard it.... For he spake in a certain place of the seventh day on this wise, And God did rest the seventh day from all his works.” The great issue that is coming will be on the seventh-day Sabbath. This day God would have us reverence. “I am the Lord your God,” he declared; “walk in my statutes, and keep my judgments, and do them; and hallow my Sabbaths; and they shall be a sign between me and you, that ye may know that I am the Lord your God.”There are many who would serve Christ, provided they could serve themselves also. But this cannot be. The Lord will not accept cowards in his army. There must be no dissembling. Christ’s followers must stand ready to serve him at all times and in every way that may be required. “He that is not with me is against me,” Christ declares; “and he that gathereth not with me scattereth abroad.”Many have tried neutrality in a crisis, but they have failed in their purpose. No one can maintain a neutral position. Those who endeavor to do this will fulfill Christ’s words, “No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and Mammon.” Those who begin their Christian life by being half and half, ...