God’s Constitution, Pt 9: Persecution
Matthew 5:10-12 10Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. 11“Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. 12Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.
Isaiah 51:7-8 7“Hear me, you who know what is right, you people who have taken my instruction to heart: Do not fear the reproach of mere mortals or be terrified by their insults. 8For the moth will eat them up like a garment; the worm will devour them like wool. But my righteousness will last forever, my salvation through all generations.”
John 15:18-25 18“If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first. 19If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you. 20Remember what I told you: ‘A servant is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted me, they will persecute you also. If they obeyed my teaching, they will obey yours also. 21They will treat you this way because of my name, for they do not know the one who sent me. 22If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not be guilty of sin; but now they have no excuse for their sin. 23Whoever hates me hates my Father as well. 24If I had not done among them the works no one else did, they would not be guilty of sin. As it is, they have seen, and yet they have hated both me and my Father. 25But this is to fulfill what is written in their Law: ‘They hated me without reason.’
I recently bought a new car; it is one of those models with 19” wheels and low-profile tires which makes for a great look. I’m sure the designers had nothing else in mind when they made that decision, but the consequence of the decision is something entirely unexpected. Nearly every pothole is the source of a blow-out and every curb the source of scratches on the wheel. Many in the believing community would refer to such incidents as “attacks from the enemy” or be concerned for such a person as being “under a great burden”. None of this is true because the incidents are just unintended consequence of poor design.
Still, as Tevya might say, “on the other hand”….. When I was attempting to replace the tire with inadequate equipment on the local highway in a snowstorm, someone driving the opposite direction on the service road 30 feet away, stopped, brought over good tools and had the tire replaced in about 5 minutes. I am sure I was visited by an angel that day!
This is not the sort of thing presented by these verses. Persecution is different from difficulty. Persecution is oppression with intent to harm. Specifically, persecution because of righteousness is oppression because of faith in Jesus Christ.
Carrying the road hazard example to an absurd extreme, here is where the “rubber meets the road”. Have any of us really experienced persecution? Many in the 21st Century have and here I’m thinking of those believers who live in Muslim or Hindu dominated countries. In many such places it is illegal to believe in Jesus Christ as one’s Savior and such belief often carries extreme consequence, even death sentences. But most of us in the affluent West have not faced such persecution. Why do you suppose that is? Well, the simplest answer is that, in general, believers in the West are not much of a threat to Satan. We are satisfied in our comfort, are generally C&E (Christmas and Easter) Christians who don’t have a very active faith. But in the awareness of the unrest, wars, and political intrigue in the world, there is a growing minority of on-fire, fully engaged, and Christ-centric believers who are vocal and demonstrative in their faith.
Which group do you think is most likely to face persecution? Clearly the second. But just what does ‘persecution for righteousness’ mean? Why do people face it? How should people respond to it? Why should we care? Certainly there are extreme forms of persecution but most of us don’t face that kind. But we do face milder forms of it. When we are simply being serious about our faith and focused, but people lie about us and declare we are simply being intolerant, that is persecution. If we express a strong faith that holds to Biblical values but we are called narrowminded, that is persecution. This sort of thing is not injurious to our physical body, but it is persecution nonetheless. And why would anyone say such things about another human being? The answer is, in a word, Satan. I suppose Satan is feeling the pressure of the approach of the End of Days, because he certainly has been successful in perverting the usage of Biblical values. Tolerance used to mean allowing another person to hold views different from one’s own and still get along. Now it means to accept those other views as truth. To be firmly convinced of a value system and hold to it determinedly used to be an admired quality; now it is deemed narrowminded.
Biblical persecution is negative, even evil, treatment of someone on the basis of Godly values. As the End of Days approaches this will happen more and more regularly until the Antichrist arises. And then it will get worse. We who believe in the Name will face increasing opposition because we hold to the divinity of Christ, because we ascribe to His authority, because we wish the world to see such things also, because we wish divine good for all men. These are the sorts of things that occasion persecution for righteousness. And do we really think we can escape such things? After all, as John 15 mentions, Christ suffered for us, shouldn’t we expect to also?
In the end though Christ wins; we achieve the holiness and righteousness God intended all along. O praise that holy day! The idea of walking with Jesus, of feeling His breath on our brow, of smelling the sweet aroma of His Spirit--those things are sometimes the only things that help us through the dark nights of the soul. It is human nature to respond to difficulty with the ‘poor me’s’ and the ‘woulda coulda shouldas’. That is not Jesus’ way. He looks at these things and thanks God for them. Paul underscored this idea in Hebrews 10:39 when he wrote
39But we do not belong to those who shrink back and are destroyed, but to those who have faith and are saved.