Happy are the Harassed, Part 2
Matthew 5:10-12
When we started studying the Beatitudes months and months ago, we learned that the word 'blessed' really is 'happy,' and the first thing Jesus ever said was that He wanted people to be happy. He didn't come into the world to make people miserable; He came to make them happy. That's why His first utterance ever recorded for us, the first sermon He ever gave, in the book of Matthew, the beginning of the New Testament, the first gospel begins with the word 'happy.'
In February 1978, Cosmopolitan Magazine presented a test to determine how happy people really are. They surveyed all kinds of people, they asked all kinds of questions (I'll not take the time to go through all the questions), and as a result of the testing, they drew a profile of the truly happy person. These are some of the principles they came up with from their survey.
Really happy people enjoy other people but are not self-sacrificing; happy people they refuse to participate in negative feelings or emotions; happy people have a sense of accomplishment based on their own self-sufficiency.
How fascinating! The world says, "The really happy person is: self-sufficient, positive about himself, confident in his ability, not self-sacrificing in regard to anyone else." That sounds exactly like the definition of a Pharisee to me.
It is certainly the opposite of Jesus' definition of a happy person.
Jesus said, "A really happy person is not self-sufficient but cowering like a beggar, realizing he has no resources in himself. He is meek rather than proud. A really happy person is not at all positive about himself, but he mourns over his sinfulness and his isolation from a holy God. A really happy person is not confident in his own ability but very aware of his own inability, and in meekness, reaches out. He's merciful, a peacemaker, and will be merciful and peacemaking if it costs him persecution for the sake of that for which he makes peace and gives mercy." You see, the world's definition of happiness is not God's definition.
Nothing could give a clearer picture of the difference between the world's philosophy and divine truth than comparing a test on happiness in our day with God's standards revealed by the Lord Jesus Christ in the Beatitudes. The world is pursuing happiness on its own terms. You see in the mad rush of happiness on the world's terms, when it runs into Christianity, there will inevitably be a conflict. There will inevitably be conviction, guilt, resentment, which results in persecution.
Our text for tonight is Matthew 5:10-12. What our Lord Jesus is saying is this: "I'll give you a gilt-edge guarantee that if you live according to the first seven Beatitudes, you'll get the eighth one automatically. If you function according to those first seven principles, inevitably, you will be persecuted for righteousness' sake." You will inevitably be persecuted for His name's sake. It's inevitable! In the first part of our study, we began to look at verses 10-12. Let's look at them again.
Matthew 5:10-12
Listen, if you want to be truly happy, you have to be happy Jesus' way. If you seek to be happy on His terms, if you seek to live according to His principles, if you seek to enter His Kingdom in His way, if you're going to go through the narrow gate onto the narrow way, if you're going to build your house on the Rock, if you're going to wind up in the Judgment and hear Him say, "I do know you," not, "I don't know you," then you're going to find that the result of that kind of lifestyle, confronting a hostile, godless world, is inevitably to be a negative reaction. It's always been that way.
In Italy, in the 15th century, a man named Savonarola came on the scene. He was one of the greatest reformers and preachers the world has ever known. His denunciation of the sins of the people and the corruption of the Roman Catholic Church of this time literally prepared the way for the Reformation.
One biographer says his preaching, "Was a voice of thunder, and his denunciation of sin was so terrible that the people who listened to him went about the streets half-dazed, bewildered, and speechless. His congregations were so often in tears that the whole building resounded with their sobs and their weeping." Obviously, the people couldn't handle that kind of preaching, so do you know what happened? They burned him at the stake, not because of heresy but because of truth.
Now my personal conviction is that if Christians today were more confrontational about what we believe to be true, and if we really lived the fullness of the Beatitudes in our lives, we would find there would be hostility in the world toward us.
It happens everywhere and at all times.
I mentioned the other night a book called Peace Child written by Don Richardson who wrote of his missionary work in Papua, New Guinea.
He has another book called The Lords of the Earth. It is not a story of his mission work, as Peace Child was, but the story of a friend of his by the name of Stan Dale.
Stan Dale worked with the Yali tribe in Irian Jaya, a province of New Guinea whereas Don was down in the lowlands working with the Sawi. Stan was way up in what are called the Snow Mountains working with the Yali. The Snow Mountains are very high and very precarious, and the villages are on the side of the slopes. In that area is the Heluk River, which crashes down through the mountains; a thunderous, rapid river. The constant rains keep it moving at that pace all the time.
The Yali were steeped in an incredible kind of religion and had all kinds of pieces of sacred ground. As an illustration, if a little child happened to crawl onto one of those sacred pieces of ground, they felt that the little child was desecrated and cursed, and would curse the whole village. So they would go to a cliff and throw the baby into the rapids, and it would drown, and its body would be washed into the lowlands. If anyone ever said a word against the religious system, the religion dictated that they be slaughtered on the spot. So there could be no rebellion, there could be no change, there could be no possible way of altering anything.
He tells in the book of one tribesman who decided he wanted to change things. He tried to point out some of the things that seemed so foolish to him, and they shot him so full of arrows that he looked like a reed swamp. It was hopeless.
Hopeless, that is, until a little bandy-legged Australian missionary named Stan Dale, about 5'7", undaunted, tramped into the Yali villages. In an incredible way, this amazing little man opened up his heart, the heart of his wife, and the hearts of his five children to these savage people who were not only headhunters, but also cannibals. He came to save them from the impenetrable darkness and death of the terrible beliefs and practices that they had in their culture. Do you want to know what happened to him? I'll read it to you.
"The native, holding his breath, eased his arrow over the rock and aimed at Stan's side. For a moment, firelight gleamed on his shiny bamboo blade, especially chosen for killing. Then he drew his bow to full strength, as other warriors behind him waited their turn. As if to oblige the warrior, Stan moved across the doorway for something in his pack. In the next instant, he recoiled, grasping and pulling the five-foot arrow out of his right side. Chortling over his success, the first warrior leaped from behind the rock blind and promptly shot another arrow into Stan's right thigh. 'We're in a death trap,' Stan gasped, 'They can shoot at us from every direction. The fire, I've got to put it out.'
Stan lunged at the fire, trying to scatter its burning brands, and as he did so, another arrow struck his left thigh, burying itself deeply into his muscle.
He flung himself to the far side of the hut, seeking shelter, but there was none. Two more arrows struck him; one pierced through his right forearm and another penetrated his diaphragm and his intestines. Stan yanked each arrow out in turn, and then cried back at his tormentors in Yali, 'Run away home, all of you, you've done enough.' Pain from his five wounds stabbed through him; the floor of the yagwa was now crisscrossed with many arrows, five of them reddened with blood. Stan pressed against the wall of the yagwa waiting for the next arrow; he saw it coming."
Amazingly, he lived. They took him out and he was spared. He was given surgery and turned right around and went back, right back into the same village, back into the same area. He literally gave years of his life, and then this story.
"Beyond Yendoal the river grew shallow, flowing over a wide, stony bed. They waded through it for 300 yards and reached a gravel beach. Beyond the beach, the trail left the river and climbed directly upward to the pass. Just another 2,000 feet of climbing and they would be over and on their way down to safety. But the war cry resounded again, much closer now. Suddenly, they came floundering through the river, bows held high. Others, streaming down through the forest, their floppy rattan coils rattling. Stan and Yemu stood at the lower end of the gravel beach, facing them. Phil [Masters] was alone at the other end, 50 yards away.
"The three donis waded another 30 yards beyond Phil. As they all looked back in horror, they saw Stan raise his staff, grimly facing the wickbooned hoard. 'Yemu, leave me,' he shouted over his shoulder. He kept his staff raised, not to strike, but to form a barrier against the advancing tide of warriors. 'All of you, turn around and go home,' he commanded.
A priest of Kimbu named Barroway slipped around behind Stan and, at point-blank range, shot an arrow in under his upraised right arm. Another priest, Bunu, shot a bamboo shaft into his back, just below his right shoulder. Yemu was crying now, and shouting at them to stop.
"As the arrows entered his flesh, Stan pulled them out one by one, broke them, and threw them away. Dozens of them were coming at him from all directions. He kept pulling them out, breaking them, and dropping them at his feet until he couldn't keep ahead of them. Naleemo reached the scene.
"After some 30 arrows had found their mark in Stan's body, 'How can he stand there so long?' Naleemo gasped, 'Why doesn't he fall? Any one of us would have fallen long ago.' A different kind of shaft pierced Naleemo's flesh - fear. 'Perhaps he is immortal.' Naleemo's normally impassive face melted with sudden emotion. Because of that emotion, Naleemo said later [by the way, Naleemo was baptized later as a believer in Christ] that because of his fear, he didn't shoot an arrow into Stan's body, though all of his people did. Stan faced his enemies, steady and unwavering, except for the jolt of each new arrow.
"Yemu ran to where Phil stood alone. Together they watched in anguish at Stan's agony. As some 50 or more warriors detached from the main force and came toward them, Phil pushed Yemu behind him and gestured speechlessly, 'Run.' Phil seemed hardly to notice the warriors encircling him; his eyes were fixed on Stan. 50 arrows, 60 arrows. Red ribbons of blood trailed from the many wounds, but still Stan stood his ground.
Naleemo saw that he was not alone in his fear. The attack had begun with hilarity, but now the warriors shot their arrows with desperation bordering on panic, because Stan refused to fall. Perhaps Kusaho was right; perhaps they were committing a monstrous crime against the supernatural world instead of defending it as they intended.
"'Fall,' they screamed at Stan. 'Die!' It was a plea; 'please die!' Yemu did not hear Phil say anything to the warriors as they aimed their arrows at him. Phil made no attempt to flee or struggle. He had faced danger many times, but never certain death. But Stan had shown him how to face it. If he needed an example, it was there. The example could hardly have been followed with greater courage. Once again, it was Barroway who shot the first arrow, and it took almost as many arrows to down Phil as it had Stan. Yemu and the three donis waited until they knew Phil was too badly wounded to survive.
"At the sight of the killings, after both missionaries had fallen on the stony beach, the Yali dragged their battered bodies away from the stones and placed them in separate forest alcoves overhung with bows.
Although the Yali were not headhunters, Bunu, moved by fear, beheaded both Stan and Phil. Still not satisfied, the killers stripped both bodies naked, systematically cut them to pieces, and scattered bits of bone into the forest to make resurrection more difficult.
"From the beginning, Naleemo and his friend planned a cannibalistic feast after they killed Phil and Stan."
There is a price to pay, isn't there? The wonderful end of the story is that the Yali village and that whole territory has now come to Jesus Christ and they don't gather around to eat missionaries; they gather around the Lord's Table. But the price was very high.
One of the most wonderful things that I know about in regard to this story is that Stan's fifth child, who was a baby when he died, was saved reading this book about his father. That's the price. If you're going to confront the world, there is a price to pay. That's the way it has always been.
It was with Savonarola. It was with Stan Dale in the late 1960's when this happened; it will be in the future because we look ahead in Revelation and what do we find in chapter 9? A group of people under the altar crying out, people who were slain, martyred for the cause of Christ. It will always be this way.
Let's look again at Matthew 5:10-12 and see the three points we introduced in our last study: the persecution, the promise, and the posture.
The persecution
But I see in this text that persecution is followed by
Promise.
Aren't you glad for that? What is the promise?
"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 so forth. Blessed, blessed, blessed, because theirs is the Kingdom.
Whatever we forfeit in this world for righteousness' sake will be compensated for many times over in God's kingdom. Whatever physical thing we lose, that eternal reward will infinitely compensate.
The Apostle Paul could have, with his mind and his capability, made it big in this world. Instead, he had absolutely nothing and one day put his head on a block so that an axe could sever his head from his body. What did he say? "I count that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared to the glory which shall be revealed in us." Right? Whatever loss here could never be compared with what gain we'll receive in God's Kingdom.
Blessed is repeated, emphatically repeated, "Blessed, and blessed again," because those who willingly stand up for Jesus Christ now will know the bliss of obedience and the blessedness of being a part of God's eternal kingdom.
Joseph found this to be true. He was persecuted by his brothers for righteousness' sake. He was hated and imprisoned in a dry well in the desert.
Some: Joseph was just arrogant and got his come-uppance. I don’t believe that. He was too blessed of God to be arrogant.
His persecution was an Old Testament illustration of what we are studying here in the Beatitudes. He was persecuted for righteousness sake.
God picked him up and made him the prime minister of Egypt. All it took was a little patience.
Jeremiah was thrown into a slimy dungeon because of his righteous life and quicksand was all around, engulfing him. But God lifted him up and made his name as honorable as any man who ever lived as a prophet of God.
Daniel was thrown in the lion’s den, and walked with the others through the fiery furnace because they honored God. But they came out.
If you are willing to pay the price now, God says the glory which shall be revealed is incomparable. Those who are persecuted are doubly blessed, for theirs is the kingdom and all that it can possibly contain.
You ask, "What Kingdom is He talking about?" I think He's talking about all the concepts involved in the Kingdom, here and now.
The living King dwelling within us reveals and gives to us the fullness of Kingdom life spiritually. I think He's talking about a millennial element; there is coming a time when the physical fulfillment of Kingdom life will belong to us in that wonderful, renewed earth.
I think He is talking about the eternal Kingdom, when we will be face-to-face with the Son of God in glory forever. I think it's all here. I think He is saying that all the Kingdom can possibly convey, all that there could possibly be of God's great and glorious gift ton compensate for our struggles, will be ours.
In Mark 10, Peter said, "We have left all and followed You. We've done it, Lord. We've stripped ourselves naked, we've come after You and are like beggars in the world."
Jesus answered and said, "No man has left a house, or brothers, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or land for my sake and the Gospel's but he shall received a hundred-fold, now in this time."
Do you see the present fulfillment? "And houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and land, with persecutions," footnote, "And, in the age to come, eternal life." Do you see? Here and now, then and there. It's all ours; what a fulfillment!
We are so shortsighted! We want to protect the moment, instead of giving the moment to God and secure forever the eternal weight of glory. The Kingdom is the gift of the Beatitudes.
Did you notice that the first Beatitude began with the promise that, "Theirs is the kingdom of heaven," and the last Beatitude ends with the promise, "Theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven?"
What it's really saying to us is that the major promise of the Beatitudes is that Christians are Kingdom citizens now and forever, and the ones in between are just elements of kingdom life. No matter what the world does, my friends, it can never affect the possession of Christ's kingdom; that is ours, now and forever.
So the persecution is going to be there. When it's endured willingly, the promise is ours. We are a part of the Kingdom and all that the Kingdom could possibly give will be ours.
You know something, I don't have a great big mansion here and now, but I will someday, in the Father's house. I don't have houses, and lands, and everything it talks about, here and now. But there is a sense in which I do, because some of you are my brothers and sisters in Christ, and some of you are my mothers and fathers in Christ, and some of you have nicer houses than I've got, and I get to go over and enjoy all that.
You see, that's what it means in the here and now - we all share. You may give up your family to come to Christ, they may isolate you. But look around; here is your family. You may have no place to stay because you've been thrown out of your home; look around, here we are. We've got homes, and they are yours too. We don't own anything; we just manage it for God, and it belongs to all of us.
So the persecution bears with it a promise, and that means there ought to be a
Posture we take in persecution.
This is the final point. What should be our posture in persecution? If this is true, what should be our posture?
Verse 12. "Rejoice." You say, "Rejoice?" Rejoice while they're shooting the arrows into you. Rejoice while your friends are screaming venomously at you; rejoice while they whisper behind your back. Rejoice while they undermine you. He says, "Rejoice!
It means 'be glad, really glad.' And if that isn't enough, He adds, "Be exceedingly glad," which means 'jump, skip, and shout for joy.' We are to be happy when faced with persecution. You say, "You must be kidding! Jump, skip, and shout for joy? I'm being persecuted!" You should be happy about that. Why?
There are two reasons you should be happy about that.
Reason number one, verse 12, "Great is your reward in heaven."
Listen, Heaven will last how long? Forever. How long will we be here? Life is, "Even a vapor that appears for a little time, and then vanishes away," says James 4:14.
How long is Heaven? Forever! How long is here? Not very long, and getting shorter all the time! What are you investing in? No wonder Jesus said, "Lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal." Don't lay it up here; this is here and now and gone, but Heaven is forever. "Great is your reward in heaven."
I love the word 'great' because the word really means what it says, like a lot of those words in the Bible. When God says 'great,' He means, 'great!' Polus, abundant; it is used in Ephesians 2:4 to talk about abundance. It's the fullness of reward.
Some people think it's crass to look forward to future rewards. They say we're to serve the Lord out of love, not for rewards. I didn't make up the system! If we serve God out of love and He chooses to reward us, that's His wonderful pleasure, and I'm not going to argue about it!
By the time we get to Heaven, we won't be proud anyway, so we'll take it all and give it right back in humility. There won't be any proud people in Heaven; we'll all be perfect then, so we can handle rewards. The Lord doesn't give us our rewards now because we would mess them up something awful! If the Lord chooses to do that, it's His own choice and it's a wonderful motive.
Paul said, "I've been doing what I've been doing all my life, serving the Lord." With that in mind, at the end of II Timothy, when he gives a kind of swan song, he says, "There is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at that day; and not to me only, but unto all them also that love his appearing".
He said, "There is nothing wrong with me longing to see that day and that crown, if that's the Lord's gift of love to me. I took the gift of salvation, I'll take that one too."
I just have to give you this second thought; it's absolutely fabulous. The second reason you ought to be glad is because they persecuted the prophets who were before you. You say, "So what? How does that relate? You mean I'm supposed to be happy because they had the same problems that I have? Misery loves company? I'm glad I'm not the only one who had this, I'm glad the rest of you had it too." Is that the idea? No.
The ideas is this: you are in pretty classy company! Get it? They persecuted the prophets of God. This, to me, is the climax of the Beatitudes. Jesus is saying, "If you have any doubts about your salvation, if you have any questions about whether you're in the Kingdom. If there is persecution in your life from unbelievers, you will know beyond a shadow of a doubt that you belong to God, because they'll be doing to you exactly what they did to God's called prophets." It's a fantastic truth.
I'm telling you, when persecution comes to me, I can just say, "Lord, I know I'm Your child and I know I stand in the ranks of the prophets." The world doesn't persecute people who aren't the prophets of God, who don't speak the message of God.
Later on in Matthew 21:33-39, we find a great text. It's a parable about a landowner who planted a vineyard, put a hedge around it, dug a wine press, built a tower, leased everything to tenant farmers, and went into a far country. This, of course, is God.
When it was time for him obtain fruit from his vineyard, he sent his servants (the prophets) to the tenant farmers (Israel). The farmers beat one servant, killed one, and stoned another.
So he sent other servants, but they did the same to them. So here they are, persecuting and killing the prophets. This is what they did. But they were, every one, the messenger of God.
In Hebrews 11:32-40, it is a catalogue of people who suffered all kinds of things, "Of whom the world was not worthy."
Then Jesus, wonder of wonders, says to the crowd that day, and to us down through history, "If you follow Me and preach My truth and live My truth and the world persecutes you, rejoice! You can be confident that you belong to the righteous line that is descended to you from the prophets themselves."
Persecution, then, is a verification that you belong to a righteous line. Here is the believer's security, here is the climax of the Beatitudes - He offers them salvation and then tells them how they can know when they have it.
Your security in Christ doesn't come from some theological prescription. Your security doesn't come from knowing you made a decision way back when; it comes from knowing you are living a confrontive life in the midst of an ungodly world. When you are persecuted for righteousness' sake, you know not only that you will be rewarded in Heaven, but you stand in the line of the prophets of God who, throughout history, have received the same reaction.
Let me close with these thoughts. A great tribute was once paid to John Knox, the great Scottish preacher. This is what he said of Knox: "He feared God so much that he never dared to fear any man."
Chrysostom, a great Christian of ancient times, summoned before the Roman Emperor Arcadius and threatened with banishment if he didn't cease to proclaim Jesus is said to have replied, "Sire, you cannot banish me, for the world is My Father's house."
"Then I will slay you!" exclaimed the angered emperor.
"Nay, but you cannot, for my life is hid with Christ in God."
"Your treasures will be confiscated!" came the fiery retort.
"Sire, that cannot be; my treasures are in Heaven, where none can break through and steal."
"But I will drive you from men and you will have no friends left."
"That you cannot do either, for I have a Friend in Heaven who has said, 'I will never leave you or forsake you.'"
Ultimately, he was banished to the edge of Armenia, but he so continued to influence his friends by letters that his enemies determined to banish him further away, and he died on the journey.
What about you? What are your priorities? Listen to you; what do you say to yourself? What rings true about you in your mind and heart? Do you understand what the Beatitudes are saying? It isn't the rich, the proud, the frivolous, the fierce, the full, the cunning, the warlike, the favorites of the earthly kings that enter the Kingdom. It is the poor, the meek, the sorrowing, the hungry, the sin-seared, the peacemaking, the persecuted.
They enter and the proof of their citizenship is that they are hated by the world. Do you belong? Let's pray.
