Happy Are the Harassed, Part 1
Matthew 5:10-12
I want to read for you the verses that are the setting for our thoughts: Matthew 5:1-12.
"Seeing the multitudes, he went up into a mountain, and when he was set, his disciples came unto him, and he opened his mouth, and taught them, saying, 'Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted. Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. Blessed are they who hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled. Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God. Blessed are they who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake. Rejoice, and be exceeding glad, for great is your reward in heaven, for so persecuted they the prophets which were before you."
When all of these other realities have found their place in the life of an individual, the result is in verses 9-12. The first result of living in the Beatitudes is a positive thing. Verse 9 says, "Blessed are the peacemakers; for they shall be called the sons of God." A person like this, who lives according to these principles and life patterns is going to be a peacemaker in the world and will thus identify himself as a son of God. But how strange it is that, in an absolute contrast to that, we have verse 10. "Blessed are they who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake. Rejoice, and be exceedingly glad; for great is your reward in heaven; for so persecuted they the prophets who were before you."
It is fascinating to me that the believer who lives in the Beatitudes will be both a peacemaker and one who creates persecution. You will both make peace and make trouble. There is an almost awesome ambivalence. The believer is a peacemaker, and yet, the believer is one who stirs up strife. We hear it from the lips of the Lord Jesus Christ Himself, who said that He came as the Prince of Peace to bring peace, and then elsewhere, He said, "I came not to send peace, but a sword." There is this constant ambivalence where the believer is, in the world, a peacemaker who is able to make a man at peace with God by the presentation of the Gospel. But on the other hand, where there are those who will not respond to his peacemaking effort, he is a troublemaker, and invariably, brings about persecution.
After studying the Beatitudes and realizing that they are the characteristics of the man or woman in God's Kingdom, it is easy to feel inadequate, isn't it? You see the tremendous power and impact of these truths. This kind of person seems a little too good to be true. You feel like you are looking at someone on a stained-glass window, or at a plaster saint, or something carved out of wood or stone. Certainly there is no one who lives this way in the reality of day-to-day life, no one who could fulfill all of these incredible characteristics!
However, God doesn't deal with stained-glass window saints and plaster facsimiles. I believe that what Jesus presents here, in this tremendous introduction to the Sermon on the Mount, is no less than the portrait of the believer, no less than the picture of the genuine Christian. Of course it's ideal, because God never lowers His standards because man is sinful. God simply gives that individual Christ so that Christ can work through that individual the meeting of God's standard.
As we've seen, this is the person who is truly happy; this is the person who is really blessed, who is really in a state of well-being. This person knows bliss, the person who lives these principles. Every one of us who is genuinely Christ's, and every one of us who is genuinely born again, every one of us who really is a Kingdom son must have come to Jesus Christ with these attitudes, or we never came at all. We must have seen something of these attitudes manifest in our lives, and we should certainly see a progress and growth to see more of them every day we live, until finally, we pass into the fullness and the richness of Kingdom character.
Tonight we are going to look at the last one. If you are one who fulfills all of the elements of the Beatitudes, then on those conditions, you enter His Kingdom. Maybe you only fulfill them in a very minimal way, but you had to come with a broken spirit, mourning over sin, humble before a holy God, hungering and thirsting for righteousness, as one seeking mercy and ready to give it, as one seeking to be purified in your heart, as one who desired to make peace with God. If all of these things were there, however minimally they were there, if they were there in reality, then you entered His Kingdom. Then, God is saying that they should bloom within His Kingdom, and you should progress and grow until they become more than minimal, but rather, they become characteristics that are dominant in your life.
Where this happens, you will find that the eighth Beatitude will always happen. Verse 10 says, "Blessed are they who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven." When you pass into the richness and the fullness of Kingdom character, and when you begin to live the way God wants you to live, when you begin to fulfill the principles that God has ordained, you're going to find there will be a process of pain and suffering involved. You will be a peacemaker, yes, but you will be a troublemaker too.
I'll show you some Scripture to set your thinking in the context of the whole New Testament. James 1:2-4 says, "My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials, knowing this, that the testing of your faith works patience. But let patience have her perfect work, that you may be perfect and entire, lacking nothing." What he's saying there is, "There is going to be some suffering. There are going to be trials, testing, hardships." I Peter 5:10 says, "The God of all grace, who has called us unto his eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after you have suffered awhile, make you perfect, establish, strengthen, and settle you."
Invariably, in the life of the believer who lives out the Beatitude character, there is going to be a reaction in the world. All of the virtues that we have seen in this context, all of them summed up are intolerable to an evil world. The world can't really handle someone who is poor in spirit because the world lives in a state of pride and self-promotion and ego-substantiation. The world can't tolerate someone who is mourning over sinfulness; the world wants to bypass sin altogether and continue to convince itself that it's alright. The world can't tolerate meekness; it honors pride. The world can't tolerate someone who knows he is nothing and seeks something that can only be given as a gift. The world says that we have the right to everything because we have earned it. The world knows little about mercy, nothing about purity, and has never learned how to make the peace. All of these characteristics, when they exist in the believer, as they progressively bloom in his or her life, counter the system flagrantly. That's the way it is going to be if you live out the Beatitudes.
Let's look at three distinct features of this last Beatitude, three things that stand out in verses 10-12. First of all, persecution; secondly, promise; thirdly, posture. I'll explain these as we go.
First of all, persecution is obvious in verses 10-11. "Blessed are they who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." Verse 11 simply personalizes verse 10. Verse 10 says, "Blessed are they," verse 11 says, "Blessed are you," and personalizes it. "When men shall revile you, persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely for my sake."
I really believe that this is one Beatitude. The reason I believe it is the same one is because the term 'persecute' is used in verse 10, and the term 'persecute' is used again in verse 11. It's really the same thing, it's just expanded in verse 11. Another reason I believe it's only one Beatitude is because there is only one result given. The only result of verses 10 and 11 is at the end of verse 10, "For theirs is the kingdom of heaven." All of the Beatitudes have a promise with the character, and there is only one promise in verses 10-11, and it's at the end of verse 10.
You say, "If it's only one promise, why does it have two 'blesseds'?" I believe that God double-blesses those who suffer; I believe God double-blesses those who are persecuted. It's almost as if we need it in this particular case. Double-blessed are those who are persecuted.
Let's look and see who is involved first of all. Who is it that is persecuted? It doesn't really say. It just says, in verse 10, "Blessed are they who are persecuted for righteousness' sake." In verse 11, "Blessed are you when men shall revile and persecute you." It's pretty simple to know who they are. The blessed ones in verse 10-11 are the same blessed ones in verses 3-9. There is no change in character. It is the people who have lived out the Beatitudes, the Kingdom people, and the more you live the Beatitudes, the more likely it is that there will be a reaction in the world. The more you live for Christ, the more likely you are to create a response in the world. So it is those who fulfill the first seven Beatitudes, and to the degree that they fulfill it, who will experience this, the eighth.
I can show you that in another text, II Timothy 3:11. Here we have a picture of the future, yet it is certainly pertinent to us. It says in verse 11 that, "Persecutions and afflictions came unto me in Antioch, Iconium, and Lystra. I endured persecutions, but out of them all the Lord delivered me." Paul says, "I was persecuted as one who lived a Kingdom life; as one who manifested Jesus Christ, I was persecuted. In verse 12, he says, "Yes, and all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution." In other words, this is a gilt-edged guarantee that anyone who lives out the Christlike character will suffer.
By the way, the Beatitudes are best manifested in the character of Jesus Christ Himself. Even He bore sin for us. As we live out the characteristics of the Beatitudes, we are going to find that we cross grain the society in which we live. The greater the manifestation of this kind of character, the more inevitable will be the consequences.
Galatians 4:29 says simply, "As then," no different than in our day, "He that was born after the flesh persecuted him that was born after the Spirit, even so it is now." Nothing has changed. He that is born of the flesh will always persecute him that is born of the Spirit.
I think of the man who took a new job working among a group of profligate and evil men and was very fearful of what they might do to him because he was a Christian. They were rather vile, obstreperous, evil men. After his first day at work, he came home and his wife asked him, "How did you get along?" He said, "I got along terrifically with them. They never even found out I was a Christian."
You will get along well terrifically if people don't know you are a Christian. But as you begin to live the Christ-life, and as you begin to manifest the Beatitudes, as you share the reproach of Christ and participate in the fellowship of His sufferings, as you live righteously in the world, you will find that sons of the flesh will always persecute those born of the Spirit. Living in direct opposition to Satan in his world and in his system will inevitably bring antagonism and persecution from people who don't respond to your message.
I've said it before and I'll say it again, if you aren't experiencing persecution it's probably because people aren't too sure you are a Christian or you say you're a Christian, but it doesn't seem to make much difference. You aren't living a confrontive, Christlike life. Because Christlikeness produces the same reaction it did when Christ was producing it on earth.
There was never anyone more loving than Jesus Christ. There was never a greater peacemaker than Jesus Christ. Some people responded to His love and entered into that peace. But even though Jesus was the most loving, gracious, kind, and peaceful person who ever lived, everywhere He went, He created antagonism because He confronted the issues. It is so with all the righteous; if you chart the course of the righteous throughout history, they have always suffered for their godliness. It began in the book of Genesis, when a godly, righteous man named Abel was murdered by an ungodly, unrighteous brother who simply could not tolerate his righteousness. It has been so ever since. Moses had to choose to suffer affliction with the people of God rather than compromise himself in the pleasures of Egyptian society, Hebrews 11 tells us. There was always a price to pay.
Thomas Watson, the Puritan writer, said, "Though they be ever so meek, merciful, pure in heart, their piety will never shield them from suffering. They must hang their harp on the willows and take up the cross. The way to Heaven is by way of thorns and blood. Set it down as a maxim: if you will follow Christ, you must see the swords and staves. Put the cross in your creed." In fact, if you want to know the truth of it, one of the most wonderful guarantees that your salvation is real is to be persecuted. If you don't see persecution in your life, you have reason to question.
In Philippians 1:29, it says, "For unto you it is given in the behalf of Christ, not only to believe on him, but also to suffer for his sake." That's just part of it. Back up to verse 28; this is wonderful. He says, "In nothing be terrified by your adversaries, which is to them an evident token of perdition." In other words, when your adversaries come against you, and they hate the Gospel, and they hate the Christ in you, and they resent the character of Kingdom living, when they do that, it is a token of their destiny and perdition. That is a proof that they're going to Hell. But to you it is an evident token of salvation (verse 28). Isn't that interesting? Whereas the persecution proves that they are going to perdition, the persecution proves that you are redeemed. It is living the redeemed life and seeing the antagonism of a godless world that is evidence that your salvation is genuine.
In I Thessalonians 3:3, the Apostle Paul says that, "No man should be moved by these afflictions." You shouldn't be worried if you're persecuted; you shouldn't be fearful if you have to endure a little bit. Why? "For you yourselves know that we are appointed to these things." In other words, this is the design of God! We are to be like Christ, set for the rising and the falling of many. We are to be loved and hated. We are to be honored and cursed. He says in verse 4, "For verily, when we were with you, we told you before that we should suffer tribulation, even as it came to pass, and you know."
What he's saying is that it's part of being a Christian; it was ordained that way. You knew it was to come to pass; it was given to you to suffer in the behalf of Christ. When they persecute you, it is an evident token of their perdition. It is also an evident token of the genuineness of your salvation, so I would back up and say that if you don't have any persecution in your life, you had better examine whether you're a Christian. If you're not cause for flak in the world, if you're not making waves, if you're not generating some kind of a conflict, then maybe something is seriously wrong. I don't care where you live.
I'm sure all of the Bible writers, inspired by the Holy Spirit, were well aware that we would live in a rather tolerant time, a rather tolerant country, at least in terms of national or governmental persecution. But whether you're living in the most tolerant country, in the most tolerant time in history, the Cross will never cease to be a reality. Where you live a redeemed life to its hilt, where you live out the principles of the Kingdom life, there is going to be a reaction. Always, those who are the obedient sons of the Kingdom, those who live the righteousness of Christ in this world are going to be obnoxious to Satan. Always they are!
Just because we live in a so-called Christian country, just because we think the attitude of the world has changed, that's the Devil's lie. That is his lie! Christians now sort of pride themselves on the fact that they are popular. You can be a Christian now and be in show business. You can be a Christian and be in anything. We say, "The world has changed; Christians are now popular and famous and accepted and paraded along, made a part of our society without any hassles at all." The issue is not that the world has changed, beloved, it is that we have lowered the standard of righteousness. We have people claiming to be Christians who don't live enough of a righteous life to give an honest definition of Christianity, or the systems they are engulfed in would spit them right out. That's the issue.
God's standards haven't changed, but ours have. We think the world is more tolerant but the fact is, we just don't live that kind of life anymore. We want to be popular, famous, and acceptable. But if you live the righteous life that God wants you to live, and if you live as a true Christian, the world can only resent you and hate you.
I'm not saying that every Christian will be burned at the stake, and I'm not saying that persecution is going to go on all the time. But it says in verse 10, "Blessed are they who are persecuted." It doesn't mean that every single one of us is going to know constant persecution all our lives to an intense degree, he is simply saying that the world will pick some of us out. I believe that all of us who live righteously in the world, at some time or another, are going to know the rebuke of the Cross.
You say, "Well, it's not like in the days when Christians were burned at the stake." I've often thought to myself, "Which is worse?" To be burnt at the stake or to live your whole life in a business organization where you can never get the promotion you deserve because you know they resent your Christianity? Or where you're always ostracized by people around you, your community, because you live for Jesus Christ? Or where the people in your neighborhood don't talk to you anymore because when you talk to them, you don't pander their evil, you confront them with it? There are lots of ways that the believer endures the reaction of the world. I'm not saying that every believer is always persecuted all the time to a great, intense degree. But the world is set against the things of God, and as you live them out, you will experience something of the reproach of Christ, some more than others.
Now if you want, you can escape. You can go through your whole life and never get persecuted. It's very simple, really. I'll tell you how to do it. First of all, approve all of the world's standards, morals, and ethics. Just join in; live like the world lives and don't tell people they are sinners, don't tell them they are lost without Jesus Christ. Don't tell people that they are doomed to death, and for goodness' sake, don't talk about Hell! Don't preach and teach that Christ is the only way and that every other religious system is a lie. Don't separate yourself from the world and all of its activities and all of its enterprises. Go along with the world - laugh at its jokes, enjoy its entertainment, smile when it mocks God, and let people take the Lord's name in vain. Just be ashamed to take a stand for Christ, and I promise that you will never be persecuted. Then, when you're all done doing that, examine yourself to see whether you're in the faith or not, because there might be good question as to whether you really are. You may be a Christian living in disobedience.
May I add this? If you decide to live this way, remember Luke 9:26, where Jesus said this: "Whosoever shall be ashamed of me and of my words, of him shall the Son of man be ashamed." Jesus said, "If you're ashamed of me, I'll be ashamed of you." The last thing I want, and I think the last thing any of us wants, is for Christ to be ashamed of us. But it can happen. In Luke 6:26, Jesus said, "Woe unto you, when all men shall speak well of you!" Don't ever forget that. When you are popular with everybody, then they don't know the truth about you; you have either masked your Christianity or are not a Christian at all.
So here we are, people. If we're going to live out the Beatitude life, we've got to get ready for a reaction; that's the way it's going to be. That's the way it has always been, that's how it will continue to be. There is no way to escape that. You can't live a righteous life in the face of an unrighteous society and ever, ever get by without reaction.
Do you know something? When our Lord gave these Beatitudes early in His ministry, they already hated Him. Right around this time that He even gave the Beatitudes, it says in Mark 3:6 that, "The Pharisees went forth and straightway took counsel with the Herodians against him, how they might destroy him." They were already thinking of destroying Jesus Christ before He ever really got very far into His ministry.
It has always been interesting to me that in Luke 6:20, we have the Beatitudes. But in Luke 6:7, in verses before, "The scribes and Pharisees watched him, whether he would heal on the Sabbath day, that they might find an accusation against him." In verse 11, it says the scribes and Pharisees, "Were filled with fury, and discussed with one another what they might do to Jesus." It didn't take very long. He had hardly articulated the principles of His kingdom before hatred began to rise.
Jesus' message to the Pharisees, the disciples, and the others in the crowd around Him, right at the very beginning was, "There is a price to pay for living in My Kingdom. It isn't going to be all thrones, crowns, fame, glory, prestige, acceptance, or exaltation. If you're coming into My Kingdom, you will suffer. Let it be known to you." It's that kind of honesty that separates the wheat from the chaff right at the very start. No one comes in with any illusions.
Beloved, we need more preaching like this; we need to say to people more often, "If you're going to become a Christian, then God is calling you to live a life contrary to the system of the world. There will be a price to pay."
For those people who heard Him that day on the shore of Galilee, following Him could affect their work, first of all. Think of how it would be to be a stonemason. If you were a stonemason in those days, maybe you had a contract to build some sort of pagan temple. As the later Gentile Christians were studying the things that Jesus had said, they would say to themselves, "I'm a stonemason and I'm working on building a pagan temple. What am I going to do now? How am I going to get out of this? I'll lose my job if I stop building the temple and start living out these principles. I won't have any way of making a living."
What if you were a tailor employed to make robes for the priests of false gods, and all of a sudden, you became a believer and wanted to live out the Kingdom principles. You might say, "If I'm going to live the way God wants me to live, then I can't be a tailor anymore." It might affect you in your work.
What if you worked for someone who was ungodly, dishonest, ruthless, and vile, but you became a Christian and had a new principle for living? You wouldn't be able to work for that person anymore, and you would have to step out of the only trade and the only job you knew. Do you get the point? That's true even today.
There are people today whose jobs will be affected if they decide to live like kingdom citizens. It might affect what they do, how they make their money and get their living. They will have to trust God to supply their needs if they turn their back on what they have known in the past. It could have affected secular jobs then, and it still can today.
More than a 100 years after this, a man came to the church father Tertullian with his business difficulties and said, "I've come to Christ, but I don't know what to do about my job. I don't think my job is right, but I don't know what to do about it." Then he said, "What can I do? I must live!" To which Tertullian replied, "Must you?" The only choice is loyalty to Jesus Christ, even if that means you die. Loyalty to Christ is the only choice.
Loyalty to Christ would not only disrupt their work life, but you can imagine what loyalty to Christ would do to their social lives. You know what it does to your social life. You're going along, doing what all your friends do, living the way all your friends live, being entertained the way all your friends are being entertained, doing stuff like everyone else. Then you come to Jesus Christ and all of a sudden, you have a decision to make: do you still go out with the boys and do what you did? Do you still go out and take the trips and do the things and engage in the activities? What do you do? Your whole social life is disrupted.
In the ancient world, most feasts were held in the temples of different gods. These were the great social events. That's where the music, dancing, and entertainment was. Sacrifices would be made to various gods and very often, the people would eat what was left over. In fact, it got so ridiculous that people who would bring sacrifices to the gods didn't want to waste any meat, so they waved the sacrifice over the fire and singed the hair on the outer part of it. Then they would whack off some for the priests, keep the rest, and hold a wild party for their friends.
When they became Christians, they wondered, "What do I do with my friends? Do I go and eat the meat offered to the idols? Do I go to the pagan temple for the entertainment? This could affect my whole social life!" A Jew who became a Christian risked being thrown out of the synagogue, being disowned by his family, and losing everything he knew.
Let me tell you something: if you are going to live a kingdom life, you need to be prepared to be lonely in some crowds, very lonely. That's why we need each other so much. Christianity can disrupt your home life. When one member of a family received Jesus Christ, it was chaos in the home. There were all kinds of problems. Often they had to choose between Jesus Christ and someone they loved very dearly. In those days, too, Christians had to pay a penalty. There were some Christians who were flung to the lions. Others were burned at the stake.
In fact, Nero used to light his garden parties with flaming Christians. He would cover them with pitch and light them. He used to sew Christians into the skins of wild animals and then set his hunting dogs to tear them to pieces. They were tortured on the rack, they were scraped, molten lead was poured hissing on them, red-hot brass plates were affixed to the tenderest parts of their bodies, eyes were torn out, parts of their bodies were cut off and roasted before their eyes, their hands and feet were burned while cold water was poured over them to prolong the agony, and so forth.
The Romans trumped up all kinds of charges against Christians. They said Christians were cannibals because Jesus said, "My flesh is food and my blood is drink." They were accused of eating each other. Christians were accused of immorality; it was said that their love feasts were orgies of lust. They even accused them of the kiss of peace being some illicit thing. They were slandered for setting fires; Nero blamed Christians for the burning of Rome. They were branded as revolutionaries because Christians taught that God was going to destroy the earth with fire, repeating the message of Peter. So when the fire started, it was easy to blame the Christians. They were accused of breaking up families and being political rebels.
The Roman Empire was vast. After the time of Christ, it stretched from the British Isles in the west to the Euphrates River in the east, and from the north tip of Germany to the coast of North Africa in the south. It was a massive empire, the whole known world. The Romans were tremendously concerned with maintaining the unity of the empire. They realized that one man personified the empire, and that was the emperor Caesar. So they realized Caesar was the cohesive element, and declared him a god.
They decided that if they could get everyone to worship Caesar, and ascribe to him divine honor, and build temples all over the empire to his divinity, then there would be a cohesive unit. It started very slowly, but after a few years, there had developed a real emperor-worshiping cult. It became the unifying factor of the Roman Empire. In fact, it was compulsory that once a year, every person in the Roman Empire had to burn a pinch of incense to Caesar and say, "Caesar is lord."
Now the Christians had trouble with that because they would only say that Jesus was Lord. The Christians refused to do it. When a man burned his incense, he was given a certificate called a libellus. Once he had the certificate, then he could worship any god he wanted to worship. They just wanted everyone to plug in, at some point, to Caesar. The Christians wouldn't do it; they never got their libellus, therefore they were constantly worshiping illegally. They chose Christ, they refused to compromise, they became dissidents, rebels, pockets of disloyalty, threats to the Empire's solidarity. One poet spoke of them as 'the panting, huddling flock whose only crime was Christ.' So they faced torture for their stand. They faced alienation for their stand.
You know something? I think that maybe the reason our Christianity is so tolerable in our society today is because our standard is so low. So Jesus adds to the list of Beatitudes the inevitability of persecution. Who? Anyone who lives out the Beatitudes. How? How are we to be persecuted? Look at verse 11. "Blessed are you, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake." There you have the three ways: persecuted, reviled, and all manner of evil said against you falsely.
First of all, He says you will be persecuted. In the Greek, it comes from dioko, which means 'to pursue' or 'to drive' or 'to chase away.' It's the idea of running after. It is to persecute, or to harass, or to treat evilly . He's simply saying, "Blessed are the harassed; happy are the harassed. Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake."
I want to show you something fascinating here. All of the Beatitudes previous to this one are inner attitudes, inside attitudes. The Jews had an external reli