February 24, 2025 • 26 mins
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Speaker 1 (00:05):
Are there people in your life who mock or malign
you because of your faith? Sadly that kind of oppression
is common for believers, but don't be discouraged. Today. On
turning point, doctor David Jeremiah shares a special blessing for
Christians who endure persecution, a blessing given by Jesus in
(00:25):
his best known sermon from his series on the Beatitudes.
Here's David to introduce, happy are the harassed?
Speaker 2 (00:33):
Is it possible to find happiness and joy when people
are ripping you apart, coming after you with every mean
word they can find? You say, Well, that doesn't happen,
does it? Oh? Yes, it does. Today more than ever before.
In my seventy years of being a Christian, I notice
(00:55):
that Christians are under persecution, not just to inform where
it's overt, but here in this country, where little by
little the opposition to our faith in Jesus Christ puts
us in a position of jeopardy. But the Bible says,
when you are persecuted, you are blessed. Jesus wants us
(01:19):
to know that when we suffer for his sake, he
brings honor and glory to his own name, and peace
and joy and happiness to us. We'll get to that
in just a moment, but first, don't forget there's a
study guide for this series. It's been recently updated. It's
called how to Be Happy according to Jesus, this study
of the Beatitudes. The study guide is a wonderful tool
(01:43):
for those of you who have small groups because you
can get a study guide for everyone in your group.
It's about one hundred and forty pages in length. And
then every week you know what you're going to talk about.
There are questions for you to answer, some words for
you to read. You can get the audio package if
you're the facilitator, and you can listen ahead to the
teaching on that series. On that particular day, you'll be
(02:06):
ready to host your own Bible study. And we know
that when you build your Bible studies around the Word
of God, they always succeed. Find out more about this
by going to David Jeremiah dot org. That's our website.
There you will find resources not only for this series,
but information about all of the opportunities you have to
study the Word of God with us throughout the days ahead.
(02:30):
Why not host a Bible study on how to be
Happy according to Jesus, and let's find out today how
that works when we're under fire, when we're under persecution,
happy when we're harassed. Here on turning point. Jenny Adams,
the missionary in Peru for thirty four years, ministered faithfully
(02:59):
as a teacher the mission's Bible school in Trolleux and
in remote villages. She drove her own van, one of
the few vehicles in the community, and often picked up
passengers who needed rides into town or back to their
homes in the villages. Her willingness to give a young
(03:19):
woman a ride one day was routine. The young woman
had previously attended a mission school and her father was
a village pastor, and she frequently asked for rides. Little
did Jenny Adams know that the young woman's brother was
a cocaine processor and used his sister to transport the drug.
Peruvian law views a person as guilty until they're proven innocent.
(03:44):
In Jenny's case, the newspapers were quick to exploit the
story of an obvious attempt to discredit foreign missionary endeavors.
A North American Protestant woman pastor has discovered without any doubt.
One reported that there is not a better or more
rapid way to get to heaven than with cocaine, a
drug which is able to trigger a divine high that
(04:05):
was in the Peruvian paper. Jenny Adams was captured by
the National Guard. The young lady had left three kilos
and nine hundred grams of cocaine in her van. The
reporter went on to say that no one suspected what
her true activities were as a drug trafficker, and that
the pastor of Souls could not give any coherent explanation.
(04:27):
She was gleefully dubbed the cocaine missionary, and authorities arrested
her with no consideration of her long years of ministry
and service in Peru. She was imprisoned for twenty days.
Miss Adams was released, but not until after she and
the work of her mission were totally discredited and she
(04:48):
was vilified in all of the public newspapers in her community.
What happened to her has happened to many just on
the mission field, which may be the front line of
our advancing of the Gospel, but it happens every day
in the workplace. Happens often in the schools, on our
(05:11):
college campuses, in our high schools, and strangely enough, I
have been learning it even happens in some churches where
people are persecuted for their faith. I don't know about you,
but I can't imagine anything that would make you believe
in the human realm that persecution is something that is
(05:32):
blessed or is the cause of happiness in one's life.
And yet Jesus said, blessed are they who are persecuted.
Our natural sense of values doesn't see any happiness in persecution.
No one that I know enjoys being maligned. Almost everybody
I know wants to have people say good things about
(05:53):
them and feel like they're accepted in their neighborhood or
at their school or in the workplace. It would seem,
on one hand that just being a Christian, and especially
if you live a decent life, an upstanding good life,
that if people didn't agree with the way you live,
they would at least see that the standard of your
life is maybe a little bit better than most, and
(06:13):
they would look at you and say, I don't necessarily
buy into what this guy believes, but I do respect
his life, and they would show you respect. But that's
not the way it is, is it. There is something
about a Christian who's living for God, not a holy Joe,
not somebody who wears his sanctification on his sleeve, but
somebody who just lives the normal, natural Christian life within
(06:35):
the marketplace. That brings a sense of condemnation into the
environment and causes anger in the hearts of those who watch.
And their response is, I don't like the way he is.
He's different than I am. I am not happy with
his presence here. It makes me feel guilty when he's around.
And so they vilify the Christians. They persecute them. No doubt,
(07:00):
you've asked yourself many times, if you've experienced that, how
can I ever find blessing in this? Well? The Bible
says that those who experience what I have just described
have an opportunity for a kind of joy and blessing.
In fact, if you will look down, there are two
phrases that Jesus uses. He says, you're not only blessed,
(07:23):
but you're supposed to rejoice and what's the next phrase,
and be exceeding glad. You're supposed to take great joy
and gladness in the persecution that comes because you're a Christian.
You say, well, I haven't felt that. Well, let me
remind you that Paul wrote to Timothy in Second Timothy,
chapter three and verse twelve that all that live godly
(07:45):
in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution. Now, I'm not going
to make any comment about whether you have persecution or not,
but you examine your own life in light of that verse.
It says, all those who live godly in Christ Jesus
will there's not any doubt it, there's no option here,
will suffer persecution in some way. I remember reading in
(08:06):
the New Testament about how when the Disciples were sharing
the Gospel and beginning to teach, one of their adversaries said,
these men have turned the world upside down. And I
thought to myself, that's exactly the problem. The world is
upside down, but the upside down world thinks the Christians
upside down, and so they look at us and we're
out of context, and we don't fit. And people don't
(08:28):
like you when you're different. That's at the basis of racism.
That's at the basis of all of the divisions we
have in society, the difference of people. So I want
to talk with you for a few moments about these
words from Jesus they fascinate me. First of all, I
think it's important that we look at the reason for persecution.
(08:50):
Matthew five says that this persecution is for a particular reason.
It says, blessed are they who are persecuted for righteousness,
and later on in the next part of this context,
it says, persecuted for my sake. You know, there are
a lot of Christian people who think they're being persecuted
(09:10):
when they're just getting what they deserve. You know, they're
being bad. If you're bad and you get in trouble
for it, that's not persecution. I remember hearing about a
guy who went to see a psychologist because he had
a inferiority complex. Everybody told him he had an inferiority complex,
and the psychologist examined him and came back and he said, son,
(09:30):
I don't know how to tell you this. He said,
you don't have a complex, your inferior You know, sometimes
we need to just be honest. If we're in trouble
because we've been doing bad, then we've got no reason
to get on this kick about how spiritual we are
because we're being persecuted. Jesus is not talking here about
getting in trouble for the things you do that you
(09:50):
shouldn't do. In fact, in one Peter four fifteen, Peter said,
let none of you suffer as an evil doer, as
a thief, as a busybody, and other people matters. Don't
get in trouble for doing stuff you shouldn't do and
then fall back on being persecuted as a Christian. A
lot of times the people that I hear talking about
persecution are not talking about what Jesus is talking about.
(10:12):
They've just gotten on the wrong track, done the wrong thing,
and they're paying the dividends that come to them for it.
The words persecuted for righteousness sake and for my sake
caution us to make sure that we are opposed and
hated solely because we are followers of the Lord, and
not on account of our own misconduct. The Christians in Jesus'
(10:34):
day were persecuted because of the difference in their lives.
It was a constant rebuke to the Pagans, even more
so than today. Peter says that the Heathens spoke evil
of the Christians for no other reason than that Christians
did not run with them to the same excess of
riot they were different. So the reason for persecution, and
(10:55):
if you're going to get in on the blessing here,
you've got to make sure you get in on the
reason the persecution must be. It's for righteousness sake, and
it's because of your identification with Jesus Christ, no other reason.
All right, that's the reason. Notice that Jesus says the
realities of persecution are threefold. There are three words that
he uses to describe what happens to you when you
(11:18):
live for Christ and you begin to get flack for it,
you begin to take heat because of your position. First
of all, he says, they will revile you. Now that's
not a common word that we use today, but the
word revile is a Greek word which means to cast
in one's teeth. It is used in the crucifixion of
(11:38):
Christ in Matthew twenty seven, when they mocked him and
made fun of him, and reviled him and scorned him.
It's to throw something into one's face. It's to abuse
one with vile, vicious, mocking words, to revile somebody. How
many have ever been reviled? Don't raise your hand. That's
an awful experience, isn't it to be? In a situation
(11:58):
where you've done nothing wrong, You've just tried to please
God and live your life the way you should live it,
and all of a Suddody gets in your face and
just rips you to shreds. The young lady came to
me and she told me the story. She said she
started in a realty business, and she went to the
particular realty firm because somebody told her there were a
bunch of Christians there, and she was just a new Christian.
She came to Christ through Shadow Mountain Church. So she
(12:20):
went to this realty place and she went in and
met the boss, and she told the boss that God
had sent her there. Well, he was supposedly a Christian,
but he was a little nervous about God sending somebody
to work for him. So she got into the business
and she got started, and one day she just made
an off end comment about something about God, and he
called her into his office and got right in her
(12:42):
face and just reviled her. He cast her faith back
in her teeth and said to her, you take your
Jesus Christ and your God, and you get out of
here in the power of Jesus. She said, God told
me to come here and I'm not leaving until God
(13:02):
tells me to leave. And he just looked at her
and he said, well, then get out of here and
go do what you gotta do. She told me that
later that man came around and now has some interest
in the things of God. You know, you're going to
get reviled if you live for God in the marketplace,
(13:23):
when you serve the Lord. The second word is the
word persecution. You're not only going to be reviled, but
Jesus says you'll be persecuted. The word persecute is from
the same root word as the word pursue, and it's
the idea of what happened when Paul, before he became Paul,
was pursuing the Christians. He was persecuting them, but remember
he was chasing them down, he was finding out where
(13:44):
they were, and he was going to go get them
and putting them in jail and persecuting them for their faith.
How many of you have ever felt like somebody's pursuing you,
persecuting you. You know, it's been with us since the
beginning of time. Persecution has been a part of everyone
who's ever walked with God. From day one. Cain slew able,
(14:04):
and wherefore did he slay him? Because his own works
were evil and his brothers were righteous. Joseph was a
good and godly young man thrown into a pit by
his brothers because they were jealous over his standing with
his father. All throughout history, go through the list of
people who made an impact in history, and you'll find it.
(14:26):
All of them, somewhere along the way, paid a price
for their godliness and righteousness and for their living for
god persecution. Not only will you be reviled and persecuted,
but the Scripture says, and this one we understand, don't
we they will say all manner of evil things against
you falsely. Notice how Jesus put that, who say all
(14:48):
kinds of evil against you falsely? For my sake. This
is a very interesting expression that talks about the creativity
that people use in criticized and vilifying and reviling you.
It says they don't just say the things that would
be normal to say, they say all manner of things.
(15:10):
They actually spend time creating new ways. They spend their
creative juices trying to figure out a way to put
you down. Have you ever sinsed that? But you know
what if you've been on the other side of it,
you know that's what they do when people get off
and revile and persecute and say all manner of evil
things against you. Now, having said all that, that's the
(15:33):
bad news that's going to happen. And let me remind
you again what the Bible says. If you live godly
in Christ Jesus, you're going to get some flack. You're
going to suffer persecution, You're going to have people not
always thinking you are the citizen of the year. And
I want to stop for a moment before I go
on to tell you the good news and let you
know that my heart is really identified with the young
(15:54):
people in our church who face that every single day
on the secular campuses. We got a lot of our
kids who want to live for Christ in the secular campus.
We got a lot of college students who are on
the secular campus trying to live for Christ. And if
you're not like everybody else, you're not always going to
be the most popular person on campus. And they may
not always want to elect you to office, or they
(16:14):
may not invite you to the important things that happen.
But I want you to know if you stand for
Jesus Christ, and you live godly and you're not trying
to be obnoxious about your faith, but you're just being
who you are in Christ. What I'm going to say
right now is especially for you. God will honor that,
and he will bless you for it. In fact, Jesus said,
blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness sake and
(16:36):
for my sake. Make sure now it's for the right reasons.
But listen, here are the things that happen blessing. Number one,
Persecution is a compliment. Do you know that it really is?
Persecution is a compliment. Persecution shows that we take somebody
(16:56):
so seriously that we consider the fact that he must
be eliminated. No one ever persecutes a person who is
futile and ineffective and indecisive. Persecution only comes to the
man whose life is so positive and so real and
so effective that he is regarded by those who see
him as some sort of a danger or a threat
(17:18):
or a sense of condemnation. George Bernard Shaw said that
the most wonderful compliment the world can ever pay to
an author is to burn his books. Persecution is always
a proof of the utter genuiness and sincerity of the
faith of the man who is persecuted. Let me just
say something to your friend. Somebody who's just out there
(17:39):
serving his time, somebody who's out there compromising, somebody who's
out there facing both ways, two faced and hypocritical and uncommitted,
will never be persecuted. But if you're getting some heat
on the campus at your college, or if they're on
your case at the school where you attend, or if
they're bad mouthing you in the office where you work,
(18:00):
I got to tell you something that's one of the
greatest compliments, because you must be doing something right. You
must be living godly in Christ Jesus. I remember watching
a movie some years ago about a football player who
was sitting down at the end of the bench and
he wasn't very good, at least when he came up
for the team, and the coach started to get on
his case, just get on him every day when he
(18:23):
came to practice. He was always in trouble. One day
he complained about it, and the coach said something to
him like this, He said, son, you got nothing to
complain about. The guy who should be complaining is the
guy that I'm never talking to because I talk to you,
and I'm on you because I want you to be better.
It's a compliment that I spend so much time trying
(18:44):
to encourage you to get better. It's the guys who
are sitting over there that I never talked to. Those
are the guys who are in real trouble. And some
of you are Christians. I'm talking to foreign language to
you today. You've never had anybody say a bad word
about you. You just sort of fit right in. That's
not a compliment. I'm not telling you should go out
and try to be as obnoxious as you can, and
I know a lot of Christians that think that's the
(19:05):
way to do it, but that's not it. I'm talking
about just being who you are in Jesus Christ, living
your life every day to the honor and glory of
Jesus Christ. If you do that, somebody's going to show
up and not be happy about your presence. I just
want you to know it's a compliment. Secondly, not only
is it a compliment, it's a credential.
Speaker 1 (19:26):
It really is.
Speaker 2 (19:27):
Did you hear what Jesus said. He said, if you
do this and you get this kind of treatment, just
remember the prophets got it before you came along, and
I got it after they did. And everybody whoever lives
for Christ is going to be like this. It is
like wearing your badge. It identifies you with those who
are righteous. Matthew ten twenty two says, you shall be
(19:50):
hated of all men for my name's sake. Christ, in
a sense, you see, is a king who is in exile,
and if we are his followers, we are often looked
upon with derision because we are identified with him. But
Paul said, I reckon that the sufferings of this age
are not worthy to be compared with the glory that
(20:11):
shall be revealed in us. Jesus in John chapter fifteen,
reminds us that if we're going to be identified with him,
we're going to get the same treatment he got in
some way. If they hated me, he said, and you
identify with me, they're going to hate you. And you
know what, at the end of his life, Paul prayed
(20:32):
that he might be consumed by the fellowship of sufferings
in Christ. He wanted to be identified. It's not only
a compliment, it's a credential. And thirdly, not only a
compliment and a credential is a catalyst. Do you know
what the Bible says about suffering and about persecution? It
(20:54):
is the only way you can get some qualities in
your life, some things you cannot develop as a believer
apart from stress and difficulty and persecution. There's a time
warn story about this fellow who went to his pastor
and wanted his pastor to pray with him because he
didn't have any patience. And he said, Pastor, I'm just
(21:16):
the most impatient thing around the house and around would
you pray with me about patience. About two weeks later
he came back and he said, good night, man. He said,
what did you pray? He said, My life's coming unglued.
He said, well, I just went to the Word of
God for the formula. It says tribulation works patience. So
I prayed for tribulation. God must be answering my prayer.
You know, that's kind of a silly little thing, but
(21:36):
it's true, isn't it? The most important lessons I've ever
learned in my life. I've learned under the pressure of difficulty,
in the midst of suffering and pressure and tribulation and
things that I never would have ordered if I had
gotten the menu in front of me, those important lessons,
I would never have learned. The best lessons in life
I've learned in the most difficult situations. And God says
(21:59):
in his Word that tribulation does work patients, and patience hope,
and hope makes us not ashamed. So when you're under persecution,
one of the reasons you should rejoice is God's up
to something in your life. He's doing a work, He's
processing you for heaven, He's getting you grown up. It's
the same kind of situation as pain is to a
(22:20):
child when he's first starting to grow. There isn't any
gain without the pain. There isn't any growth without the stress.
The common modern interpretation of the Christian faith men and
women is so benign as to make me sick. You
listen to it on the radio, you hear it on television.
The Christian life is one grand sailing on into the
(22:43):
harbor of heaven with no ill wins. But that's not
what the Bible says. The Bible doesn't talk about us
having it easy all the way to heaven. The Bible
calls us soldiers. We're in a fight. We're wrestling against
the enemy. And preachers and teachers and would be saviors
who stand up in front of us and try to
(23:04):
give us the idea that the Christian life is all
peaches and cream. Are not doing us any favors because
that's not the way it is. Can I get a witness?
You know that, don't you? You know that the life
that God has called us to live is not always easy.
But here's the good news. When you're under pressure, He's
up to something. Don't ask him why, ask him what?
(23:27):
What do you want me to learn under this situation?
So you're getting beat up at work, it's not fun,
and I know that it's not something you come home
and want to talk about, even to your wife. Ask
yourself this question, What is God up to in my life?
What am I supposed to learn out of this? It's
a catalyst. Well that's some good counsel and we'll have
(23:48):
some more discussion about that tomorrow here on turning point.
As we continue our discussion of happy are the Harassed
and Thursday and Friday of this week, we're going to
can include this series with a summary lesson called how
to Really Be Happy? And I hope you'll join us
for the rest of this series as we close it out.
(24:10):
Following that, on Monday, we're going to begin the series
Captured by Grace, which is one of my favorite series,
and we'll tell you more about it as we get
closer to it. If you haven't already ordered your copy
of Twelve Habits of Truly Happy Christians, that's our resource
for the month of February, and you're running out of time.
(24:32):
We can only make this available to you for these
next two or three days as we finish out the month,
but we'd love for you to have this. We think
it will be of value to you and help you
in your walk with the Lord. Ask for it when
you send your gift today to Turning Point.
Speaker 1 (24:56):
For more information on doctor Jeremiah series How to Be
Happy according to Jesus, please visit our website, where we
also offer two freeways to help you stay connected, our
monthly magazine Turning Points, and our daily email devotional Sign
up today at Davidjeremiah dot org, slash radio. That's Davidjeremiah
dot org, slash Radio, or call us at eight hundred
(25:18):
ninety four seven nineteen ninety three ask for your copy
of David's valuable book, Twelve Habits of truly happy Christians
with Jesus Prescription for Happiness. It's yours for a gift
of any amount. You can also purchase the Jeremiah Study
Bible in the English Standard, New International, and New King
James versions, complete with notes and articles from doctor Jeremiah's
(25:39):
decades of study. Get all the details when you visit
our website. David Jeremiah dot org. Slash Radio. This is
David Michael Jeremiah. Join us tomorrow as we continue how
to be Happy according to Jesus. On Turning Point with
doctor David Jeremiah
Are there people in your life who mock or malign
you because of your faith? Sadly that kind of oppression
is common for believers, but don't be discouraged. Today. On
turning point, doctor David Jeremiah shares a special blessing for
Christians who endure persecution, a blessing given by Jesus in
(00:25):
his best known sermon from his series on the Beatitudes.
Here's David to introduce, happy are the harassed?
Speaker 2 (00:33):
Is it possible to find happiness and joy when people
are ripping you apart, coming after you with every mean
word they can find? You say, Well, that doesn't happen,
does it? Oh? Yes, it does. Today more than ever before.
In my seventy years of being a Christian, I notice
(00:55):
that Christians are under persecution, not just to inform where
it's overt, but here in this country, where little by
little the opposition to our faith in Jesus Christ puts
us in a position of jeopardy. But the Bible says,
when you are persecuted, you are blessed. Jesus wants us
(01:19):
to know that when we suffer for his sake, he
brings honor and glory to his own name, and peace
and joy and happiness to us. We'll get to that
in just a moment, but first, don't forget there's a
study guide for this series. It's been recently updated. It's
called how to Be Happy according to Jesus, this study
of the Beatitudes. The study guide is a wonderful tool
(01:43):
for those of you who have small groups because you
can get a study guide for everyone in your group.
It's about one hundred and forty pages in length. And
then every week you know what you're going to talk about.
There are questions for you to answer, some words for
you to read. You can get the audio package if
you're the facilitator, and you can listen ahead to the
teaching on that series. On that particular day, you'll be
(02:06):
ready to host your own Bible study. And we know
that when you build your Bible studies around the Word
of God, they always succeed. Find out more about this
by going to David Jeremiah dot org. That's our website.
There you will find resources not only for this series,
but information about all of the opportunities you have to
study the Word of God with us throughout the days ahead.
(02:30):
Why not host a Bible study on how to be
Happy according to Jesus, and let's find out today how
that works when we're under fire, when we're under persecution,
happy when we're harassed. Here on turning point. Jenny Adams,
the missionary in Peru for thirty four years, ministered faithfully
(02:59):
as a teacher the mission's Bible school in Trolleux and
in remote villages. She drove her own van, one of
the few vehicles in the community, and often picked up
passengers who needed rides into town or back to their
homes in the villages. Her willingness to give a young
(03:19):
woman a ride one day was routine. The young woman
had previously attended a mission school and her father was
a village pastor, and she frequently asked for rides. Little
did Jenny Adams know that the young woman's brother was
a cocaine processor and used his sister to transport the drug.
Peruvian law views a person as guilty until they're proven innocent.
(03:44):
In Jenny's case, the newspapers were quick to exploit the
story of an obvious attempt to discredit foreign missionary endeavors.
A North American Protestant woman pastor has discovered without any doubt.
One reported that there is not a better or more
rapid way to get to heaven than with cocaine, a
drug which is able to trigger a divine high that
(04:05):
was in the Peruvian paper. Jenny Adams was captured by
the National Guard. The young lady had left three kilos
and nine hundred grams of cocaine in her van. The
reporter went on to say that no one suspected what
her true activities were as a drug trafficker, and that
the pastor of Souls could not give any coherent explanation.
(04:27):
She was gleefully dubbed the cocaine missionary, and authorities arrested
her with no consideration of her long years of ministry
and service in Peru. She was imprisoned for twenty days.
Miss Adams was released, but not until after she and
the work of her mission were totally discredited and she
(04:48):
was vilified in all of the public newspapers in her community.
What happened to her has happened to many just on
the mission field, which may be the front line of
our advancing of the Gospel, but it happens every day
in the workplace. Happens often in the schools, on our
(05:11):
college campuses, in our high schools, and strangely enough, I
have been learning it even happens in some churches where
people are persecuted for their faith. I don't know about you,
but I can't imagine anything that would make you believe
in the human realm that persecution is something that is
(05:32):
blessed or is the cause of happiness in one's life.
And yet Jesus said, blessed are they who are persecuted.
Our natural sense of values doesn't see any happiness in persecution.
No one that I know enjoys being maligned. Almost everybody
I know wants to have people say good things about
(05:53):
them and feel like they're accepted in their neighborhood or
at their school or in the workplace. It would seem,
on one hand that just being a Christian, and especially
if you live a decent life, an upstanding good life,
that if people didn't agree with the way you live,
they would at least see that the standard of your
life is maybe a little bit better than most, and
(06:13):
they would look at you and say, I don't necessarily
buy into what this guy believes, but I do respect
his life, and they would show you respect. But that's
not the way it is, is it. There is something
about a Christian who's living for God, not a holy Joe,
not somebody who wears his sanctification on his sleeve, but
somebody who just lives the normal, natural Christian life within
(06:35):
the marketplace. That brings a sense of condemnation into the
environment and causes anger in the hearts of those who watch.
And their response is, I don't like the way he is.
He's different than I am. I am not happy with
his presence here. It makes me feel guilty when he's around.
And so they vilify the Christians. They persecute them. No doubt,
(07:00):
you've asked yourself many times, if you've experienced that, how
can I ever find blessing in this? Well? The Bible
says that those who experience what I have just described
have an opportunity for a kind of joy and blessing.
In fact, if you will look down, there are two
phrases that Jesus uses. He says, you're not only blessed,
(07:23):
but you're supposed to rejoice and what's the next phrase,
and be exceeding glad. You're supposed to take great joy
and gladness in the persecution that comes because you're a Christian.
You say, well, I haven't felt that. Well, let me
remind you that Paul wrote to Timothy in Second Timothy,
chapter three and verse twelve that all that live godly
(07:45):
in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution. Now, I'm not going
to make any comment about whether you have persecution or not,
but you examine your own life in light of that verse.
It says, all those who live godly in Christ Jesus
will there's not any doubt it, there's no option here,
will suffer persecution in some way. I remember reading in
(08:06):
the New Testament about how when the Disciples were sharing
the Gospel and beginning to teach, one of their adversaries said,
these men have turned the world upside down. And I
thought to myself, that's exactly the problem. The world is
upside down, but the upside down world thinks the Christians
upside down, and so they look at us and we're
out of context, and we don't fit. And people don't
(08:28):
like you when you're different. That's at the basis of racism.
That's at the basis of all of the divisions we
have in society, the difference of people. So I want
to talk with you for a few moments about these
words from Jesus they fascinate me. First of all, I
think it's important that we look at the reason for persecution.
(08:50):
Matthew five says that this persecution is for a particular reason.
It says, blessed are they who are persecuted for righteousness,
and later on in the next part of this context,
it says, persecuted for my sake. You know, there are
a lot of Christian people who think they're being persecuted
(09:10):
when they're just getting what they deserve. You know, they're
being bad. If you're bad and you get in trouble
for it, that's not persecution. I remember hearing about a
guy who went to see a psychologist because he had
a inferiority complex. Everybody told him he had an inferiority complex,
and the psychologist examined him and came back and he said, son,
(09:30):
I don't know how to tell you this. He said,
you don't have a complex, your inferior You know, sometimes
we need to just be honest. If we're in trouble
because we've been doing bad, then we've got no reason
to get on this kick about how spiritual we are
because we're being persecuted. Jesus is not talking here about
getting in trouble for the things you do that you
(09:50):
shouldn't do. In fact, in one Peter four fifteen, Peter said,
let none of you suffer as an evil doer, as
a thief, as a busybody, and other people matters. Don't
get in trouble for doing stuff you shouldn't do and
then fall back on being persecuted as a Christian. A
lot of times the people that I hear talking about
persecution are not talking about what Jesus is talking about.
(10:12):
They've just gotten on the wrong track, done the wrong thing,
and they're paying the dividends that come to them for it.
The words persecuted for righteousness sake and for my sake
caution us to make sure that we are opposed and
hated solely because we are followers of the Lord, and
not on account of our own misconduct. The Christians in Jesus'
(10:34):
day were persecuted because of the difference in their lives.
It was a constant rebuke to the Pagans, even more
so than today. Peter says that the Heathens spoke evil
of the Christians for no other reason than that Christians
did not run with them to the same excess of
riot they were different. So the reason for persecution, and
(10:55):
if you're going to get in on the blessing here,
you've got to make sure you get in on the
reason the persecution must be. It's for righteousness sake, and
it's because of your identification with Jesus Christ, no other reason.
All right, that's the reason. Notice that Jesus says the
realities of persecution are threefold. There are three words that
he uses to describe what happens to you when you
(11:18):
live for Christ and you begin to get flack for it,
you begin to take heat because of your position. First
of all, he says, they will revile you. Now that's
not a common word that we use today, but the
word revile is a Greek word which means to cast
in one's teeth. It is used in the crucifixion of
(11:38):
Christ in Matthew twenty seven, when they mocked him and
made fun of him, and reviled him and scorned him.
It's to throw something into one's face. It's to abuse
one with vile, vicious, mocking words, to revile somebody. How
many have ever been reviled? Don't raise your hand. That's
an awful experience, isn't it to be? In a situation
(11:58):
where you've done nothing wrong, You've just tried to please
God and live your life the way you should live it,
and all of a Suddody gets in your face and
just rips you to shreds. The young lady came to
me and she told me the story. She said she
started in a realty business, and she went to the
particular realty firm because somebody told her there were a
bunch of Christians there, and she was just a new Christian.
She came to Christ through Shadow Mountain Church. So she
(12:20):
went to this realty place and she went in and
met the boss, and she told the boss that God
had sent her there. Well, he was supposedly a Christian,
but he was a little nervous about God sending somebody
to work for him. So she got into the business
and she got started, and one day she just made
an off end comment about something about God, and he
called her into his office and got right in her
(12:42):
face and just reviled her. He cast her faith back
in her teeth and said to her, you take your
Jesus Christ and your God, and you get out of
here in the power of Jesus. She said, God told
me to come here and I'm not leaving until God
(13:02):
tells me to leave. And he just looked at her
and he said, well, then get out of here and
go do what you gotta do. She told me that
later that man came around and now has some interest
in the things of God. You know, you're going to
get reviled if you live for God in the marketplace,
(13:23):
when you serve the Lord. The second word is the
word persecution. You're not only going to be reviled, but
Jesus says you'll be persecuted. The word persecute is from
the same root word as the word pursue, and it's
the idea of what happened when Paul, before he became Paul,
was pursuing the Christians. He was persecuting them, but remember
he was chasing them down, he was finding out where
(13:44):
they were, and he was going to go get them
and putting them in jail and persecuting them for their faith.
How many of you have ever felt like somebody's pursuing you,
persecuting you. You know, it's been with us since the
beginning of time. Persecution has been a part of everyone
who's ever walked with God. From day one. Cain slew able,
(14:04):
and wherefore did he slay him? Because his own works
were evil and his brothers were righteous. Joseph was a
good and godly young man thrown into a pit by
his brothers because they were jealous over his standing with
his father. All throughout history, go through the list of
people who made an impact in history, and you'll find it.
(14:26):
All of them, somewhere along the way, paid a price
for their godliness and righteousness and for their living for
god persecution. Not only will you be reviled and persecuted,
but the Scripture says, and this one we understand, don't
we they will say all manner of evil things against
you falsely. Notice how Jesus put that, who say all
(14:48):
kinds of evil against you falsely? For my sake. This
is a very interesting expression that talks about the creativity
that people use in criticized and vilifying and reviling you.
It says they don't just say the things that would
be normal to say, they say all manner of things.
(15:10):
They actually spend time creating new ways. They spend their
creative juices trying to figure out a way to put
you down. Have you ever sinsed that? But you know
what if you've been on the other side of it,
you know that's what they do when people get off
and revile and persecute and say all manner of evil
things against you. Now, having said all that, that's the
(15:33):
bad news that's going to happen. And let me remind
you again what the Bible says. If you live godly
in Christ Jesus, you're going to get some flack. You're
going to suffer persecution, You're going to have people not
always thinking you are the citizen of the year. And
I want to stop for a moment before I go
on to tell you the good news and let you
know that my heart is really identified with the young
(15:54):
people in our church who face that every single day
on the secular campuses. We got a lot of our
kids who want to live for Christ in the secular campus.
We got a lot of college students who are on
the secular campus trying to live for Christ. And if
you're not like everybody else, you're not always going to
be the most popular person on campus. And they may
not always want to elect you to office, or they
(16:14):
may not invite you to the important things that happen.
But I want you to know if you stand for
Jesus Christ, and you live godly and you're not trying
to be obnoxious about your faith, but you're just being
who you are in Christ. What I'm going to say
right now is especially for you. God will honor that,
and he will bless you for it. In fact, Jesus said,
blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness sake and
(16:36):
for my sake. Make sure now it's for the right reasons.
But listen, here are the things that happen blessing. Number one,
Persecution is a compliment. Do you know that it really is?
Persecution is a compliment. Persecution shows that we take somebody
(16:56):
so seriously that we consider the fact that he must
be eliminated. No one ever persecutes a person who is
futile and ineffective and indecisive. Persecution only comes to the
man whose life is so positive and so real and
so effective that he is regarded by those who see
him as some sort of a danger or a threat
(17:18):
or a sense of condemnation. George Bernard Shaw said that
the most wonderful compliment the world can ever pay to
an author is to burn his books. Persecution is always
a proof of the utter genuiness and sincerity of the
faith of the man who is persecuted. Let me just
say something to your friend. Somebody who's just out there
(17:39):
serving his time, somebody who's out there compromising, somebody who's
out there facing both ways, two faced and hypocritical and uncommitted,
will never be persecuted. But if you're getting some heat
on the campus at your college, or if they're on
your case at the school where you attend, or if
they're bad mouthing you in the office where you work,
(18:00):
I got to tell you something that's one of the
greatest compliments, because you must be doing something right. You
must be living godly in Christ Jesus. I remember watching
a movie some years ago about a football player who
was sitting down at the end of the bench and
he wasn't very good, at least when he came up
for the team, and the coach started to get on
his case, just get on him every day when he
(18:23):
came to practice. He was always in trouble. One day
he complained about it, and the coach said something to
him like this, He said, son, you got nothing to
complain about. The guy who should be complaining is the
guy that I'm never talking to because I talk to you,
and I'm on you because I want you to be better.
It's a compliment that I spend so much time trying
(18:44):
to encourage you to get better. It's the guys who
are sitting over there that I never talked to. Those
are the guys who are in real trouble. And some
of you are Christians. I'm talking to foreign language to
you today. You've never had anybody say a bad word
about you. You just sort of fit right in. That's
not a compliment. I'm not telling you should go out
and try to be as obnoxious as you can, and
I know a lot of Christians that think that's the
(19:05):
way to do it, but that's not it. I'm talking
about just being who you are in Jesus Christ, living
your life every day to the honor and glory of
Jesus Christ. If you do that, somebody's going to show
up and not be happy about your presence. I just
want you to know it's a compliment. Secondly, not only
is it a compliment, it's a credential.
Speaker 1 (19:26):
It really is.
Speaker 2 (19:27):
Did you hear what Jesus said. He said, if you
do this and you get this kind of treatment, just
remember the prophets got it before you came along, and
I got it after they did. And everybody whoever lives
for Christ is going to be like this. It is
like wearing your badge. It identifies you with those who
are righteous. Matthew ten twenty two says, you shall be
(19:50):
hated of all men for my name's sake. Christ, in
a sense, you see, is a king who is in exile,
and if we are his followers, we are often looked
upon with derision because we are identified with him. But
Paul said, I reckon that the sufferings of this age
are not worthy to be compared with the glory that
(20:11):
shall be revealed in us. Jesus in John chapter fifteen,
reminds us that if we're going to be identified with him,
we're going to get the same treatment he got in
some way. If they hated me, he said, and you
identify with me, they're going to hate you. And you
know what, at the end of his life, Paul prayed
(20:32):
that he might be consumed by the fellowship of sufferings
in Christ. He wanted to be identified. It's not only
a compliment, it's a credential. And thirdly, not only a
compliment and a credential is a catalyst. Do you know
what the Bible says about suffering and about persecution? It
(20:54):
is the only way you can get some qualities in
your life, some things you cannot develop as a believer
apart from stress and difficulty and persecution. There's a time
warn story about this fellow who went to his pastor
and wanted his pastor to pray with him because he
didn't have any patience. And he said, Pastor, I'm just
(21:16):
the most impatient thing around the house and around would
you pray with me about patience. About two weeks later
he came back and he said, good night, man. He said,
what did you pray? He said, My life's coming unglued.
He said, well, I just went to the Word of
God for the formula. It says tribulation works patience. So
I prayed for tribulation. God must be answering my prayer.
You know, that's kind of a silly little thing, but
(21:36):
it's true, isn't it? The most important lessons I've ever
learned in my life. I've learned under the pressure of difficulty,
in the midst of suffering and pressure and tribulation and
things that I never would have ordered if I had
gotten the menu in front of me, those important lessons,
I would never have learned. The best lessons in life
I've learned in the most difficult situations. And God says
(21:59):
in his Word that tribulation does work patients, and patience hope,
and hope makes us not ashamed. So when you're under persecution,
one of the reasons you should rejoice is God's up
to something in your life. He's doing a work, He's
processing you for heaven, He's getting you grown up. It's
the same kind of situation as pain is to a
(22:20):
child when he's first starting to grow. There isn't any
gain without the pain. There isn't any growth without the stress.
The common modern interpretation of the Christian faith men and
women is so benign as to make me sick. You
listen to it on the radio, you hear it on television.
The Christian life is one grand sailing on into the
(22:43):
harbor of heaven with no ill wins. But that's not
what the Bible says. The Bible doesn't talk about us
having it easy all the way to heaven. The Bible
calls us soldiers. We're in a fight. We're wrestling against
the enemy. And preachers and teachers and would be saviors
who stand up in front of us and try to
(23:04):
give us the idea that the Christian life is all
peaches and cream. Are not doing us any favors because
that's not the way it is. Can I get a witness?
You know that, don't you? You know that the life
that God has called us to live is not always easy.
But here's the good news. When you're under pressure, He's
up to something. Don't ask him why, ask him what?
(23:27):
What do you want me to learn under this situation?
So you're getting beat up at work, it's not fun,
and I know that it's not something you come home
and want to talk about, even to your wife. Ask
yourself this question, What is God up to in my life?
What am I supposed to learn out of this? It's
a catalyst. Well that's some good counsel and we'll have
(23:48):
some more discussion about that tomorrow here on turning point.
As we continue our discussion of happy are the Harassed
and Thursday and Friday of this week, we're going to
can include this series with a summary lesson called how
to Really Be Happy? And I hope you'll join us
for the rest of this series as we close it out.
(24:10):
Following that, on Monday, we're going to begin the series
Captured by Grace, which is one of my favorite series,
and we'll tell you more about it as we get
closer to it. If you haven't already ordered your copy
of Twelve Habits of Truly Happy Christians, that's our resource
for the month of February, and you're running out of time.
(24:32):
We can only make this available to you for these
next two or three days as we finish out the month,
but we'd love for you to have this. We think
it will be of value to you and help you
in your walk with the Lord. Ask for it when
you send your gift today to Turning Point.
Speaker 1 (24:56):
For more information on doctor Jeremiah series How to Be
Happy according to Jesus, please visit our website, where we
also offer two freeways to help you stay connected, our
monthly magazine Turning Points, and our daily email devotional Sign
up today at Davidjeremiah dot org, slash radio. That's Davidjeremiah
dot org, slash Radio, or call us at eight hundred
(25:18):
ninety four seven nineteen ninety three ask for your copy
of David's valuable book, Twelve Habits of truly happy Christians
with Jesus Prescription for Happiness. It's yours for a gift
of any amount. You can also purchase the Jeremiah Study
Bible in the English Standard, New International, and New King
James versions, complete with notes and articles from doctor Jeremiah's
(25:39):
decades of study. Get all the details when you visit
our website. David Jeremiah dot org. Slash Radio. This is
David Michael Jeremiah. Join us tomorrow as we continue how
to be Happy according to Jesus. On Turning Point with
doctor David Jeremiah
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