Matthew 5:10-12
Today we have reached the final verses of the Beatitudes - the final test to which we hold up our 'salt' and assess whether it has 'savour' or whether it is only good for being thrown away and trodden underfoot.
The question today is a hard one - a searching one - it comes close:
Do you and I rejoice when we are persecuted?
When we are 'reviled' (taunted, defamed, railed at) or have unkind lies spoken about us because we are a Christian, do we rejoice?
When we are hated, ostracised, classed as evil, 'reproached' do we not only rejoice, but 'leap for joy' (Luke 6:22,23)?
Jesus encourages us to rejoice in persecution with 'exceeding' gladness when it is for his sake because we will have a great reward in heaven (Matthew 5:12).
This may seem strange. It seems totally opposite to a natural approach to suffering.
And yet Jesus calls us 'blessed'!
'Blessed', because when it is for his sake, when we take it as a Christian and turn it round to be a matter for rejoicing he brings blessings in our souls' experience in this life as well as eternally.
Before we look at this it just comes to me - dear reader, is the Lord your Saviour? Has he saved you from your sins? Then dear reader, you are 'precious' in his sight (Isaiah 43:4). Those of us who fear, the Lord, speak about him to each other, love him, or secretly and longingly think about him are like precious 'jewels' in his sight (Malachi 3:16,17).
Don't you think he knows when you are persecuted for his sake? Don't you think he feels it? Would you flinch and your heart weep if you saw your child or loved relative, or pet being hurt? How much more our best friend, our Saviour! He knows when people hurt you for his sake - for being a Christian - and great will be your reward. Great will be his love to you as he draws you to himself for comfort and when you reach heaven - such blessings we will have that we cannot imagine!
As the hymnwriter Hart wrote of Jesus in heaven:
Well let us look at some examples, firstly, the Apostle Paul:
Paul and Silas, whilst on a missionary trip to Philippi, Macedonia were thrown into prison (Acts 16).
At midnight in the midst of the black and probably cold darkness, with their feet chained or fixed fast in the stocks, the pains of much beating on their bodies, with all their plans and hopes for ministry abruptly stopped....they sang!
Did they miserably say to each other, 'Why has this happened? What did we do wrong? I don't understand! We are never going to come out of here alive - why did we obey that dream to come here - we must have made a mistake - God wouldn't be so unkind as to let us be thrown into prison!?
No, they prayed and sang praises unto God - and loud enough that other prisoners heard them (Acts 16:25).
What do we say when people sneer at us at school or at work because of our Christian beliefs? How do we feel when the neighbours make fun of us going out in our Sunday best to worship?
Or worse, how do we behave when our bodies or homes are hurt, our way blocked up for getting work, food, finances - or even worse we are sent into a labour camp and our children taken away and forced to convert to another religion?
Paul tells us he 'gladly' gloried and took pleasure in these things which were 'for Christ's sake' because he then knew the strength and power of the Lord's grace helping him (2 Corinthians 12:9,10).
We have another example in Acts 5:41, when not long after Jesus had ascended into heaven the disciples (now called Apostles) were performing miracles of healing and preaching about Jesus in the temple.
Huge numbers of people were swarming to Jerusalem to be healed, and many were being converted. The leaders of the Jews were furious, arrested the Apostles and threw them into prison. An angel then freed the Apostles from the prison encouraging them to continue preaching the gospel, after which the Jewish leaders called them before their council, beat them and forbid them from preaching about Jesus.
But as they left the meeting the Apostles were 'rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer shame for his (Jesus) name'.
Both Paul and Peter later exhort believers to rejoice when suffering for Jesus' sake because of the privilege of taking part in Christ's sufferings and the blessings that await believers.
But perhaps you might be thinking to yourself it was different then. These Apostles had all (except Paul) been with Jesus and witnessed first hand the wonders of this time. Perhaps as we look at them we imagine it would have been easier than it is for us now (but think of the resistance, aggression, isolation and persecution these new Christians endured from their families, their religious and political leaders and society in general).
And think in comparison of the lonely prophet Jeremiah. At one point in his sad life he was sunk in a prison, deep in mud, almost starving and totally isolated - he was one of those prophets persecuted before us which Jesus speaks of.
He was one of those 'mocked...despised...and misused' prophets (2 Chronicles 36:16) which so roused God's anger that he sent the Jews into exile and destroyed their home (2 Chronicles 36:16).
(How much more will the people in this world who mistreat Christians and do not repent, and this world itself be destroyed when Jesus comes again! )
We do not hear of poor Jeremiah leaping for joy - and who would expect it as we read of him witnessing such death and destruction of God's people, city and temple all around him, and as he bore the sorrow of their neglect of God's messages to them through him and his deep grief that they hadn't/wouldn't listen to him and repent before it was too late?
But we do find him 'rejoicing' in Lamentations as he quietly praises the Lord, 'I called upon thy name, O LORD, out of the low dungeon. Thou hast heard my voice...thou drewest near in the day that I called upon thee: thou saidst, Fear not' (Lamentations 3:55-57).
Was not this a blessing?
If you have ever experienced the comfort of the Lord drawing close to you, making his presence felt, speaking words of comfort to you, perhaps delivering you out of your situation is not this a blessing?
Many times we can read in biographies of those who were being cruelly treated, thrown into prison and perhaps tortured for Jesus' sake, and the Lord draws near to them, fills them with his love, comfort and strength, brings them to sing and praise him so that their guards and the people around them look at them in amazement.
Maybe, mercifully you are not suffering from unkind words or hurt because you are a Christian, but I am sure that you endure persecution and suffering in your mind as the devil insults you, whispering all sorts of malicious things, telling you that you will never be a child of God, that you won't be forgiven again, that God can't hear you or doesn't take any notice of you etc
Well dear reader, may you be enabled to look to your Saviour for upholding; may you be enabled to witness well of him - your salt of good savour - may you be encouraged to rejoice in him -may your heart leap for joy that whatever you pass through in this life, you have the reward of his unfailing presence and of totally undeserved eternal life and love.
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