WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO BE PERSECUTED?
Matthew 5:10-12

One of the most gripping books I have ever read was not a book about doctrine or theology.  It was not a book describing some great Civil War battle, nor was it a book commenting on the Word of God.  This book produced an ache in my heart as I was challenged in my own commitment to Christ.  I was greatly humbled as I read it.  This book was first published in Basel, Switzerland, in the year 1559, and yet today has a powerful grip upon its readers.  The name of the book:  Foxes' Book of Martyrs.  Allow me to read from the introduction:  Here is self sacrifice, springing not from pride, but from humility; founded not upon ignorant prejudice, but upon a faith based upon conviction; arising not from hatred or contempt for man, but from the love of God.  Truly theirs was the victory that overcame the world, even their faith -–a faith which, accepting the future as a true inheritance, enabled them to give up for Christ’s sake houses and lands, children and relationships, yea, and their own lives also, rather than be false to their conscience and their God.  The history of Christian Martyrdom is, in fact, the history of Christianity itself; for it is in the arena, at the stake, and in the dungeon that the religion of Christ has won its most glorious triumphs.

This last Beatitude is the climax of the previous seven.  The value of the previous ones is found in our willingness to share in the sufferings of Christ.  So, what does it mean to be persecuted?

First, it is not being persecuted for wrongdoing, nor for being fanatical.  It is not being persecuted even for following a cause.  Listen to these words from that great British theologian, Dr. Martin Lloyd-Jones:  I say that there is a difference between being persecuted for righteousness' sake and being persecuted for a cause.  I know that the two things often become one, and many of the great martyrs and confessors were at one and the same time suffering for righteousness' sake and for a cause.  But it does not follow that the two are always identical.  I think that in the last twenty years there have been men, some of them very well known, who have suffered, and have even been put into prisons and concentrations camps, for religion.  But they have not been suffering for righteousness' sake....This is not the thing about which our Lord is talking. 

It is not being persecuted for being objectionable.  In the book titled The Gospel Blimp, Dr. Joe Bayly describes a group trying to witness to their town by dropping tracts from a blimp.  For a time the town is tolerant, but then the believers go through town with a sound truck blaring messages.  The following editorial appeared in the town newspaper:  For some weeks now, our metropolis has been treated to the spectacle of a blimp with an advertising sign attached at the rear.  This sign does not plug cigarettes, or a bottled beverage, but the religious beliefs of a particular group in our midst.  The people of our city are notably broad-minded, and they have good-naturedly submitted to this attempt to proselyte.  But last night a new refinement (some would say debasement) was introduced.  We refer, of course, to the air-borne sound truck, that invader of our privacy, that raucous destroyer of communal peace....  Although the people in this story were good intentioned, the persecution which followed was not because of the cause of Christ, but because of their using objectionable ways to promote the gospel.

So, we have now discovered what persecution is not.  We have yet to discover what it is.  That will be the topic for our next study.

Father, We hear a lot of talk these days about the coming persecution of Christians.  Yet, we confess, that we do not even understand what persecution is all about.  We have never faced what other Christians in times past or even in other countries in our present age face when they stand up for the cause of Christ.  Yet, Father, we want to be prepared when those times do come.  Teach us, through this Beatitude, what it means to suffer for the cause of Christ.  We pray this in His name.  Amen.

 

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