Now, when He was nailed to the cross, it was the ultimate act of persecution, or suffering, FOR the RIGHT CAUSE. And I believe this takes us right to what He meant when He said that WE have a cross, and WE must bear that cross. He is telling those disciples to whom He spoke on that occasion and to those modern-day disciples that, “There will come times when your faith will be tried. There will come times when you will be put to the test. The pressure will mount for you to compromise, to quit following ME, to do the wrong thing. But unless you bear your cross in those circumstances, you can’t be My disciple.”

You might do well, sometime, to study your New Testament and just mark every passage in it that has to do with “suffering for righteousness sake,” with “persecution.” I think you’d be surprised at how often the subject occurs. The last of the beatitudes has to do with this very subject. “Blessed are they that are persecuted for righteousness’ sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven,” Matthew 5:10. And have you observed, as you’ve studied your Bible, that this is the ONLY beatitude upon which the Lord gives further information and commentary?

In the two adjoining verses [verses 11 and 12], He does so. He says, “Blessed are THEY,” first of all, “who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake”; and then He turns to those in His immediate company and says, “Blessed are YE when (men) shall reproach you, and persecute you, and say all manner of evil against you falsely, FOR MY SAKE.” Now there’s the KEY right there. It’s not just any and all persecution. It’s persecution for the SAKE of our Master! It’s persecution we endure to be true to HIM. And so, He says, “Blessed are YE when YE are reproached—men shall reproach YOU and persecute YOU falsely for MY sake. REJOICE,” He says, “and be exceedingly glad…” and here’s the hard part: “Rejoice and be exceedingly glad: for great is your reward in heaven: for SO persecuted they the prophets that were before you.” Well, I think the Lord is discussing this cross that He’s saying we must all bear.

Persecution takes different forms in different times and in different places. There was very, very rugged physical persecution of those who belonged to God in the 1^st Century. We know the case of Paul and all that he suffered for the sake of Christ, and, of course, the Lord before him. James was put to the sword, Acts, chapter 12. Stephen was stoned to death, Acts, chapter 7. On and on the stories go. The prophets of old were persecuted, as we mentioned in a passage from Jesus this morning, Matthew, chapter 23 and verse 37. The Lord said of Jerusalem that they “killeth the prophets, and stoneth them that are sent unto her.” Why, that’s history in a nutshell of how Israel reacted to the prophets God sent to them, trying to call them back from their apostasy! And so, in their rejection of the Message, they “shot the messengers.”

The Lord is saying, “It doesn’t matter what the world tries to do to you. You be faithful to ME.” Well, just how far is that to go? Does that mean, if I write a letter to the editor against the abomination of homosexuality and someone drives by and throws a fire bomb through my house and burns it down—am I supposed to go that FAR, Lord? Well, does that mean, if on the job my supervisor demands moral compromises of me if I want to keep my job—I have to give up my job? Do I have to go that FAR, Lord? Does that mean, if I’m a student and the pressure is great upon me to smoke pot or take some other kind of drugs or get involved in other things that the Lord does not allow us to be involved in, and I can’t be in that crowd anymore—I have to give up my friends? What does it MEAN? It means ALL of those things, and any other thing you can mention that the world will try to deliver to those who love the Lord.

I am not a prophet, but I do think that, if one looks around him a little bit and sees much of what’s been going on the last few years, the great turn against principles of righteousness and Truth and honor, morality, integrity—things that are part of the very bedrock and the fabric of the Gospel of Christ—that unless there is something to change the direction that our nation is going, particularly in its judicial system at the Federal level, some who are now living may suffer physical persecution one of these days, in our own nation, for being faithful to Christ.

There are a few outbreaks of it every once in a while already. I’m not trying to alarm anybody or scare anybody, but I do think that what I’ve just said is realistic. We may as well be thinking in these terms and be knowledgeable of the fact that we may have to face such challenge as that may bring.

When the Lord wrote His letters to the seven churches of Asia, He addressed one of them to a church—Revelation 2:10—in which He said, “Be thou faithful unto death, and I’ll give thee the crown of life.” Now, that passage is frequently quoted by preachers at funerals of elderly persons who have fought the good fight and died faithful. But that’s to rip that passage out of context. Now, the Bible teaches that we ought to live out all of our lives faithful to the very end, and I want to praise those who’ve so done, but this passage is not where that comes from in the Bible. This passage is talking about persecution. If you’ll read the adjoining statements in that context, you’ll see that the Lord says that “the devil is about to cast some of you into prison, that ye may be tried…. But you be faithful unto death. You’d DIE rather than renounce Me.” That’s what He’s saying. “Don’t just go to prison, but you DIE rather than quit following Me, and I’ll give you the crown of life.”

When we think of the things that men have suffered, the prices men have paid for the sake of God’s Truth, both in Old Testament and New Testament times, and we look at the world in which we live and how easy we’ve had it, we can scarcely imagine what some of them went through and the prices that they paid.