Have No Fear Of Persecution!

Matthew 10:5a, 21-33 In a jail in Sudan that was designed for 100 inmates but now holds 1200, a woman named Mariam is imprisoned.  She is chained to a dirt floor.  Imprisoned with her is her 20 month old son and a newborn baby girl she recently delivered without aid while remaining in chains.  Sometime in the next several weeks she will be given one hundred lashes and then when the baby is weaned (at about age two) Mariam will hanged by the neck until dead. 

What was her crime?  She is a Christian.  She was raised by an Ethiopian Orthodox Christian mother and she married an American Christian man.  She can make this all go away by simply renouncing her faith-- which she has refused to do. 

How did she come to this place of persecution and torment?  Her brother turned her in to the Muslim Sharia courts which sentenced her to be whipped and then put to death.  Jesus said:

Brother will deliver brother over to death, and the father his child, and children will rise against parents and have them put to death, and you will be hated by all for my name’s sake. But the one who endures to the end will be saved. 

            We tend to forget it—but for most of the last two thousand years, to be a Christian meant being subject to persecution, oppression, and even martyrdom.

Stephen and James were killed by Jewish authorities.  Peter and Paul and countless others were killed by the Romans.  Dietrich Bonhoeffer and St. Maximilian Kolbe and the family of Corrie ten Boom and thousands of others were killed by the Nazis and millions of Ukrainian Christians were starved to death by the communists.  And who knows how many Christians are being killed at this moment in the Muslim world. 

Millions of Christian martyrs over the last two thousand years killed by their own countrymen, betrayed by their own neighbors, handed over by their own kinsmen.  Every one of them believed that it is only the one who endures to the end who will be saved.  Every one of them proved with their lives that it is possible to endure to the end—it is possible to remain steadfast in persecution—it is possible to count our life with God more precious than our own life here on earth.  The Bible says: 

Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you. 

What is strange—at least from the perspective of most of the Christians who have ever lived—is how little persecution we Christians here in the United States have had to face.  And yet even that is changing. 

Right now in our country, Christian business owners will have to decide if they will provide services to events they find morally objectionable to keep their businesses.  Right now in our country, Christian organizations that feed and heal and educate our fellow citizens will have to decide if they will provide the means to kill unborn children and remain open- or if they will remain faithful to God’s Word on the sanctity of human life and lose their ministries.  Right now in our country, families and friendships are stretched to the breaking point as Christians try to love their friends and family members and co-workers without approving their sinful choices. 

The powers that be in government, industry, education, and media are all allied together and aligned against anyone like us who holds to the faith and morals of the Christian faith once delivered to the saints.  This is our time to be tested by fire.  Jesus promised that this is the way it would be for Christians until the day of his return.  He said:

When they persecute you in one town, flee to the next, for truly, I say to you, you will not have gone through all the towns of Israel before the Son of Man comes. 

            Oppression, persecution, and mistreatment at the hands of those who do not share our faith in Jesus (or our commitment to his word) is the normal state of affairs for his church.  It should not surprise us-- but neither should we let it overwhelm us.  Jesus has promised that the very gates of hell will not prevail against his people the church.  Jesus has promised that he will not let us be tested beyond what we can bear.  And so as King of the world and King of the church he sets a limit on what the church can bear so that we are not overcome and fall away.

But why must there be persecution and oppression and hardship for us at all?  Why should the unbelieving world hate Christians in the first place?  Why will there be an unbroken band of martyrs until the Lord’s return?  What is the source of the world’s hatred?  Jesus says:

“A disciple is not above his teacher, nor a servant above his master. It is enough for the disciple to be like his teacher, and the servant like his master. If they have called the master of the house Beelzebul, how much more will they malign those of his household. 

            The world hates and persecutes and oppresses and kills Christians because the world hated and persecuted and oppressed and killed Jesus.  It’s just that simple.  When Christians live like Jesus—adopting his thinking and his ways and his life—we can expect for ourselves what he received—the hatred of the world.

But why is this?  Wasn’t Jesus kind and good?  Didn’t he help people?  Didn’t he forgive and love even his enemies?  He did.  But there was more. 

Jesus also completely overturned the thinking of the world.  He said that it is better to be last than first.  That it is better to serve than be served.  That it is blessedness to be treated poorly for doing good.  And not only did he overturn the thinking of the world—he insisted that his way--is the only way--to live and to think and to have a life with God.

He did not offer his life and his thinking as one way among many—he said that it was the only way—that he himself is the way and the truth and the life and that life with God is found only in him.

We Christians believe that.  And even though we do his deeds: feeding the hungry and clothing the naked and healing the sick and caring for the poor and weak (deeds which the world is glad enough to receive!)—when the same Christians insist that Jesus and his ways and thinking are the only way to live and think—we are hated by the world just like he was. 

It cannot help but be true that the disciples is not above the master and if they world once called Jesus the devil—they will regard his people in the same way.

When we Christians insist (as Jesus did) that he is God—when we maintain that his words about marriage and money and forgiveness must be followed—when we proclaim that he is the only way to God—we will be called every terrible name in the book, our motives will be questioned and condemned—and we will be counted people of hate rather than love.  But we must not be afraid of the hatred and persecution and oppression of the world.  Jesus says:

Have no fear of them, for nothing is covered that will not be revealed, or hidden that will not be known. What I tell you in the dark, say in the light, and what you hear whispered, proclaim on the housetops. And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell.

            When we face persecution and oppression and hatred from the world, we have two choices:  we can fearfully remain silent or we can courageously bear witness to the truth.  What we cannot do is serve two masters:  the world and Jesus.  And yet there are many folks sitting in pews this morning who try to have it both ways. 

There are entire church bodies which have gone along with the thinking of the world on the great moral issues of the day.  There are Christians who cannot bear to lose a friendship or family member so they never speak up about what they believe.  There are believers who shrink back in fear when called upon to make some small sacrifice for their faith.

But if it is fear of others that makes us silent—if it is fear of embarrassment that makes us go along with the world—if it is fear of some loss that makes us willing to compromise the truth of God’s Word, Jesus says that there is something that we ought to fear more:  not those who can harm and hurt us for a time—but the One who can punish us eternally in the fires of hell and that is God.

Being called names and having our motives impugned is painful.  Losing our business or profession is frightening.  An embittered relationship is heartbreaking.  But no hardship of them—not even losing our lives—is more fearful than being punished forever in the fires of hell for abandoning our faith in Jesus Christ and turning our back on his Word. 

We may see some compromise with the truth as a small thing—we may wonder what the big deal is when it comes to trying to get along by going along in this world--but Jesus tells us that the stakes are eternal-- which is why it is such Good News that our heavenly Father is watching out for us as we live our lives here on earth.  Jesus says:

Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? And not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father. But even the hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not, therefore; you are of more value than many sparrows.

            For every Mariam that the world knows about- there are tens of thousands of Christians who are laying in some dark prison cell, being raped by some Muslim barbarian, enslaved in some concentration camp.  They count for nothing be the measure of the world. 

But no matter how alone they are—no matter how insignificant in the world’s eyes—no matter how anonymous in the annals of history—they have a Father in heaven who knows every hair on their head, who hears every cry of pain, who sees every indignity that is done to them.  Jesus said that:  nothing is covered that will not be revealed, or hidden that will not be known.

We have a heavenly Father who loves us and values us so much that he has sent his own Son to die for us on the cross.  That is the value that God places on his people and there is a day of reckoning when every evil thing done to his people—every evil thing said about his servants—every drop of blood shed by his witnesses will be accounted for.  Jesus said that:    

Everyone who acknowledges me before men, I also will acknowledge before my Father who is in heaven, but whoever denies me before men, I also will deny before my Father who is in heaven.

            At the beginning of the sermon I mentioned that Mariam was betrayed to the Sharia courts in Sudan by her brother.  When he was interviewed by the press he was quoted as saying that if she will only renounce her faith in Christ she will be released and pardoned and his family will gladly take her back. 

Can you imagine the temptation?  She is a wife and mother.  She has a toddler and a newborn.  What will happen to them if she dies?  Will they be raised by Muslims and lose their faith?  You can imagine how the devil must be doing all within his power to get her to deny Jesus.  But she hasn’t and she won’t.  Why?

            Because she is a Christian who believes the words of her Master:  that those who deny Jesus before men, he will deny before his Father—but that those who acknowledge him before men, those who confess their faith and hold fast to him—Jesus will acknowledge them before his Father in heaven.

Why won’t Mariam simply give in?  Because she has a heavenly Father who cares for her even in prison.  Because she knows that only if she endures to the end can she be saved.  Because she is looking forward to the day when she stands in God’s presence and Jesus acknowledges her as his own.  May God grant that we know and believe the same so that we have no fear when we face persecution.  Amen.