Those Who Are Persecuted for Righteousness’ Sake
1Seeing the multitudes, he went up onto the mountain. When he had sat down, his disciples came to him. 2He opened his mouth and taught them, saying, 3“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven. 4Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. 5Blessed are the gentle, for they shall inherit the earth. 6Blessed are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled. 7Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy. 8Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. 9Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called children of God. 10Blessed are those who have been persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven. 11“Blessed are you when people reproach you, persecute you, and say all kinds of evil against you falsely, for my sake. 12Rejoice, and be exceedingly glad, for great is your reward in heaven. For that is how they persecuted the prophets who were before you.
Charles Spurgeon said that if we work for Christ we may lose a great deal, but a person of faith will never lose anything by Christ. And whoever loses time for Christ gains eternity by Christ. That would mean that Jesus keeps to the very end those who serve him with thankful hearts. It is never easy for us to serve as salt and as a lamp and go on living by faith without wavering. In a world that honors the rich in spirit, to live as the poor in spirit is hard unless we die on the cross with Jesus Christ. When God comforts those who mourn, it is the people who spend themselves for unsaved souls who receive his comfort. The gentle inherit the earth: this is the reward of those who believe that an eternal world exists, lay down their own righteousness, stubbornness, and pride, and obey God. We who believe in the eternal Kingdom of God must proclaim the truth for the saving of souls, even if we are persecuted for it. Those who hunger and thirst after righteousness will do what pleases God, paying no attention to hard circumstances or to the people who stand in the way of their service. These are people who have truly met God, and they are humble and filled with the Holy Spirit.
Galatians 5:22-23
22But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faith, 23gentleness, and self-control. Against such things there is no law.
The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faith, gentleness, and self-control. These nine fruits of the Spirit are God’s gifts, by which he grows a person into a whole and mature saint. When the faithful are filled with the fruit of the Spirit in this way, evil spirits cannot stop their good works or cause them to stumble. Jesus said that the merciful will obtain mercy from God, and no grace is as secure as being shown mercy by God. Even in a dark world where no one can tell from which side the world and Satan will attack, those who have received God’s mercy are safe. The reason is that God’s grace rests on them, and he makes every situation as plain to them as if they were living in broad daylight.
Jesus Christ, who gave himself as an atoning sacrifice to save the souls that Satan’s temptation had brought to death, made certain that the souls of those who confess their faith could not be shut up in darkness. Now we who have received that love must look on souls with mercy and share the gospel with mourning and gentle hearts. If we serve in love, God will establish us by his power so that we never become Satan’s instruments. The conclusion of the Sermon on the Mount that Jesus preached is this: if we give up human righteousness, greed, and lust and live for God’s righteousness, his Kingdom, and his glory, we can live under God’s absolute protection. So wonderful is our salvation in Christ that we can gain great peace from God day after day. The peace God gives is the blessing that comes from being with him, beyond the reach of circumstances. If you keep training yourselves to lay down human righteousness, you can receive the Kingdom of Heaven in full and live in the peace God gives. Then you will inherit the earth and, spiritually, in Christ, enjoy God’s favor and generosity.
Matthew 5:11-12
11“Blessed are you when people reproach you, persecute you, and say all kinds of evil against you falsely, for my sake. 12Rejoice, and be exceedingly glad, for great is your reward in heaven. For that is how they persecuted the prophets who were before you.
Jesus pronounced a blessing on those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, and said that the Kingdom of Heaven belongs to the saints who have lived for the truth. The light of the Spirit that shines from people of faith is a light the world hates. That light exposes the filthy, ugly sins people wanted to hide, so the world will try to put it out, and those who carry it will be persecuted. But even under persecution, the reward awaiting them in heaven is great, which is why Jesus said they may rejoice and be glad in that great hope. The prophets who lived out a life of faith sacrificed themselves and suffered persecution. Because the world and human nature reject as a matter of course the truth that Jesus, the prophets, and the saints proclaim, people do not want to hear the word. This promise, that those persecuted for righteousness will possess the Kingdom of Heaven, tells us that the life of faith is never easy. Living by the truth is hard, because few people delight in the truth, and few give thanks when they hear rebuke and correction. Yet those whom God approved became prophets and saints because they sacrificed themselves in his service, though they were persecuted and mocked.
2 Timothy 3:11-12
11persecutions, and sufferings: those things that happened to me at Antioch, Iconium, and Lystra. I endured those persecutions. The Lord delivered me out of them all. 12Yes, and all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution.
The history of Israel is a path of love that God laid out in advance, climbing toward its summit at the cross Jesus carried. Paul suffered severe persecution as he preached to the Jews the gospel revealed in the love of the cross, a love beyond our reason that forgave every sin. Those who rejected the gospel persecuted him, yet at the same time a remarkable miracle took place: Gentiles who heard the gospel confessed their faith and received the Lord. The apostle Paul met Jesus Christ face to face on the road to Damascus, and as he preached the gospel in great grace he also worked miracles, healing the sick. When the crowds saw this, they called Barnabas Zeus and Paul Hermes, the god of speech, and set about offering sacrifices to them. But Barnabas and Paul, who had truly met Jesus Christ, firmly stopped these people from doing anything so foolish. Wherever the word of God is proclaimed, miracles do happen. Yet we must not forget that alongside the miracles comes persecution from those who reject the gospel. Jews who had followed Paul as far as Iconium to obstruct the gospel stoned him without mercy. Thinking he was dead, they dragged him out of the city. Unconscious, hovering between life and death, Paul had the remarkable experience of his spirit being caught up to heaven, where he saw the throne. Even in such agony he never once regretted believing in Christ. He only grieved over the souls who had not yet received the Lord, and pitied them. Seeing Paul’s faithfulness, God brought into his life countless fellow workers who would labor beside him for the rest of his days.
Peter told us not to be astonished at the fiery trial that comes to test us, as though something strange were happening, but rather to rejoice that we share in the sufferings of Christ. He said this because this earth is under Satan’s rule: wherever we are and whatever we do, the spiritual war brings suffering we cannot escape. A fiery trial carries the sense of smelting, by which pure metal is drawn out. We can think of this world itself, then, as a furnace for turning us into pure gold; we are being refined so that we can stand before God. If God’s people hate to suffer and struggle not to be melted in the furnace, God has no choice but to turn up the heat to obtain pure gold.
The trials that come to you must be overcome by faith. If you run from a trial to escape it, God will have no choice but to intensify your training, if only to save those he has chosen. He intensifies that training by working through your children, your finances, and the world around you. I hope, then, that you will not choose of your own accord to shrink from the place of service, because, if you are needed, he is able to do anything at all. Is it easy for a fleck of gold mixed with rock and soil to become useful pure gold? Job’s anguish, so great that he begged to die, shows that to be remade as pure gold we must endure to the very end. Peter said that even though the persecution is a shock severe enough to paralyze a person, we should not think the ordeal strange. Why? Because the ordeal was allowed by God from the beginning, and so the Holy Spirit will help us overcome it. Christians who endure by faith the great ordeal of the furnace are born anew as holy children of God, like pure gold. Because heaven is a place of such goodness and beauty that no single word can define it, no one has ever been able to describe it in the language of this earth.
Jesus, who was persecuted and bore suffering to fulfill his calling, did not remain dead on the cross forever. The glory and victory he received after the resurrection were so great that Christians may rightly cherish expectation and hope. It may be hard to grasp by common sense, but those who are persecuted in the name of Christ are blessed. The world persecutes those who proclaim the truth, so if you are being persecuted as you share the gospel, it shows that you are going rightly along the way of Christ. The Spirit of glory, the Spirit of God, the Holy Spirit, is with you. Persecution and suffering are not borne by God’s people alone; the Spirit of God shares in them and bears them with us, and that is what makes the blessing greater than words can tell. Satan puts God’s people through fiery trials and tempts them to sin as Adam did, but when the last day comes, that fire will instead engulf the world. Just as the martyred prophets and disciples entered heaven and enjoy its rest, those who lived for their faith will live on this earth as people who possess the Kingdom of Heaven and then enter eternal rest.
Revelation 18:9-10
9The kings of the earth, who committed sexual immorality and lived wantonly with her, will weep and wail over her, when they look at the smoke of her burning, 10standing far away for the fear of her torment, saying, ‘Woe, woe, the great city, Babylon, the strong city! For your judgment has come in one hour.’
People imagine that the world is a strong city that will never fall. But people are growing more wicked and holding life ever more cheaply, and the world is hurtling toward its end; these are signs that the last day is drawing near. Fearlessly, they count even the souls God loves among their merchandise in the pursuit of profit, and for this the world will face the wrath of God on the last day. As the world sank into such corruption, false prophets began boldly preaching a false gospel, and the day when the abomination stands in the holy place has drawn near; Babylon, therefore, will fall. All who are of one mind with the world in this way have taken part in Babylon’s sins. If you live for yourself, you will push God off his throne and, like Solomon, commit the sin of taking all of God’s glory for yourself. We must live humbly so that we never fall into such a sin.
Isaiah 6:6-7
6Then one of the seraphim flew to me, having a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with the tongs from off the altar. 7He touched my mouth with it, and said, “Behold, this has touched your lips; and your iniquity is taken away, and your sin forgiven.”
Called as a prophet, Isaiah had lived convinced that he had served with devotion and spent his life for the salvation of the people. Yet he had only to see himself standing before the glory of God, with the seraphim singing praise, to realize that his lips were unclean. The moment he met the flawless and holy God, Isaiah knew that he was a sinner beyond forgiveness. No one had taught him this, but at the sight of the God of glory he crumbled and confessed that he was a man of unclean lips. Measuring his own faith against the seraphim, who praised God with their whole hearts, he repented of how hollow the faith he had shown God had been. He came to see that everything he thought he had done so diligently had been nothing but complaint and unclean words. Though we live in this world, we must live honestly and in holy fear, as though, like Isaiah, we were hearing at this very moment the praise that comes from the mouths of the seraphim. That is why our lips must be clean. When we proclaim the truth, the words from our mouths must be honest, and a life that God uses as his instrument must give no ground for rebuke. However diligently we think we have done God’s work, when we stand before him it will be laid bare whether it was honest sacrifice or service for our own sake; so we must examine ourselves at every moment. Are you laboring with a sincere heart for the work of God? Isaiah saw his own ugliness before Yahweh. It dawned on him that the sacrifices he thought he was offering God were mere form, and that his service too had been given only as a formality, just enough to avoid any loss. When he thought of himself and of the people, he sank into deep despair. Knowing the hollow faith of people who crave God’s grace rather than make any sacrifice of their own, Isaiah would have found it hard even to stand in God’s presence. Even so, because his sin had to be forgiven, Isaiah repented on the spot, and God forgave him. If we too were to stand before God, we would see how wrong our faith is now. Right now we cannot see it, and we hear no voice of rebuke, so none of this feels real. But the day we stand before God there will be no chance even to repent. So we must recognize now how unworthy we are, and offer ourselves to him.
Jesus and Adam were both tempted by Satan. Satan always tempts with the world: Jesus drove him back boldly with the word, but Adam could not let go of his greed and fell. Here lies the very difference between God and humanity. Knowing that the world is not eternal, Jesus refused to compromise with people and chose to be persecuted; but human beings, though they knew grace, could not overcome greed and lust, and they abandoned their faith. God took Isaiah up into heaven to show him that, even though he spoke God’s word on God’s behalf, he too needed God’s forgiveness and mercy. If until now you have spoken unclean words that God does not want, or have not lived honestly, I hope you will repent and turn back from the road you were on. If only you truly repent, God will forgive every sin. After he saw the throne, Isaiah repented sincerely, strove to be born anew as an honest and faithful man of God, and gave his whole life to God. Those whom God has forgiven will live in this same freedom from sin, and they will become people of great capacity, ready to receive God’s inheritance. You who have been forgiven through the sacrifice of Jesus, are you ready to serve God? Since God is watching closely to see how genuine your faith is, may you offer yourselves to him at every opportunity. We must always seek out God’s work and do it, and only by being faithful beyond our strength can we be rewarded by God.
I have now spoken to you about the Beatitudes of the Sermon on the Mount. Being salt and light in a dark world is not easy, but as you go on obeying, you will find, almost without noticing, that even things you never prayed for are being answered, and that you are living in peace. This is because God does not take our service for nothing; in proportion to what we give, he always pours out peace and rest beyond measure. Perhaps our service is really for our own sake. Friends, as I bring the Sermon on the Mount to a close, what I would ask of you is that, if you know Jesus Christ, you be faithful beyond your strength. If you are not as faithful as your knowledge of the word, God will have that much less reward to give you. Parents who love their children must store up grace by serving; and if you want peace for your home, your church, and your nation, you must fulfill your calling in proportion to the grace you have received. Then he will give the earth as an inheritance to the gentle, and if you lay down your own righteousness for God’s righteousness, he will give you the Kingdom of Heaven. If you practice God’s mercy, he will give you greater mercy, and if you strive to live honestly and purely as Jesus did, he will grant you the blessing of seeing God face to face. When you labor to make God’s righteousness known, as Jesus did in sacrificing himself, then one day, looking back on your life, you will realize that you have received the highest blessing a child of God can enjoy.
Friends, without doing God’s work there is no way to lay down our own righteousness, nor any chance of receiving a reward. The prophets who lived by faith were persecuted, but God saw their devotion and protected them before all else. The Kingdom of Heaven God has prepared cannot be compared with the peace the world gives, and the suffering of the present cannot be compared with the reward God gives. If we love God, the church, and our children, let us live for righteousness. When the Pharisees tried to silence the praise, Jesus said that if these were silent, the stones would cry out; in the same way, it is only right that the Lord’s people should praise him and devote themselves to him. If we do not exalt him, praise him, and serve him, who will? Through the Sermon on the Mount you will have come to understand the heart of Jesus fully. Because of that, I pray that by faith you will never leave your place in God’s righteousness. May you carry out to the end the calling given to you in this world, and then enjoy peace and rest in the Kingdom of God as well.