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)

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.

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.