That is a phrase that I have heard frequently, especially as we have had discussions about taking the Gospel to people who have routinely shown a disdain for the message of Christ.
God will protect his people.
…Or other similar types of sayings.
Except I think that this is more of a hope from a human perspective who lack understanding of the story of God instead of anything that was actually ever promised by Jesus to any of his disciples.
Today, reading in Acts 12, I saw that in the midst of the first followers of Jesus being persecuted, Herod decides to compound the persecution, going on to begin arresting the believers themselves and putting them to death.
It was about this time that King Herod arrested some who belonged to the church, intending to persecute them. He had James, the brother of John, put to death with the sword.
Acts 12:1-2
Then the situation just continued to get worse:
When he saw that this met with approval among the Jews, he proceeded to seize Peter also. This happened during the Festival of Unleavened Bread. After arresting him, he put him in prison, handing him over to be guarded by four squads of four soldiers each. Herod intended to bring him out for public trial after the Passover.
Acts 12:3-4
Reading about the plights of James, who was arrested and quickly killed, and subsequently Peter, who was put in chains and thrown into prison, it makes me wonder how they would think about us saying that God protects his people. God didn’t stop these terrible things from happening. Instead, those things were allowed to happen.
Yes, Peter was ultimately led out of prison by an angel, but did that make the arrest, any beatings that he may have received, or any chains that he was shackled with, any less painful? No, of course not.
Jesus never promised his disciples that God would protect them. In fact, instead, Jesus warned them of the persecution that would come as a result of the work that they would do to tell others about him. They would be betrayed. They would be beaten. And they would be killed. These are the things that Jesus warned the disciples would happen…even at the moment that he sent them out to do exactly that for which they would be harmed.
Yet Jesus did tell them that he would be with them. He would go with them. Not that they wouldn’t be harmed, but that he would be with them.
So a natural question would come up… Why would God allow his people to be beaten? To be killed? What possible good could come from this persecution, from this misery and death?
At first glance, it doesn’t seem that any good could come from the suffering that the disciples experienced. But as we look further, we see that it is through their suffering that God received more and more glory.
First, we see that Jesus suffered, bled, and died on the cross. That suffering and death is what opened the door for us to come back into relationship with God because, despite not deserving the punishment that he received, he took the punishment upon himself as a result of his love for his people. In that way, his suffering became one of the greatest ways in which God would be glorifed as a result of his love and mercy, and as a result of all peoples now having a way to be reconciled back to God.
Second, it is through suffering that the church has always grown. We see this throughout the writing of the book of Acts as well as through the Apostles subsequent writings in the epistles. There is no special protection that they experienced. No, instead, it was through their suffering that the Gospel was carried to people everywhere!
And that is the same that we see today. The advance of the Gospel comes at a cost. The advance of the Good News of Christ happens through suffering. The Church has grown the most quickly over the last few decades in places like China and Iran, countries where the Gospel and the name of Christ are not welcome and those who bring the Gospel in those places will likely suffer, and possibly die for what they believe.
Instead, I find that it is really only in the hearts and minds of Christians who have been led to believe that to follow Jesus means that they should have a better life now are the ones that discuss their belief that God will protect his people. The “prosperity” Gospel which offers health, wealth, and other types of properity. In short, the Good News is diluted into that which we can gain today.
Yet that is far from what we see in the scriptures. That is not the story of the Bible. No, the headline is not God will protect his people. The true story is that we are to live to give him glory.