Important Instructions From Jesus Our King (Part 2) Series

Important Instructions from Jesus Our King (Part 2)

The Gospel of Matthew

Matthew 10:17-23

Sermon by Rick Crandall

(Prepared February 6, 2022)

MESSAGE:

*In Matthew 10, Jesus was about to send His Apostles out to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. The Lord commanded them to preach that the kingdom of Heaven was at hand. And to confirm this vital message, Jesus gave the Apostles the power to perform mighty miracles in His name.

*The Lord also filled this chapter with important instructions that still apply to His followers today.

1. FIRST IN TODAY'S SCRIPTURE, THE LORD WANTS US TO BE AWARE OF OUR ADVERSARIES.

*Jesus warned us about 3 groups of people who tend to persecute believers: Christ-rejecting religious leaders, ungodly people in government, and hard-hearted relatives.

*In vs. 17-18 Jesus said:

17. "But beware of men, for they will deliver you up to councils and scourge you in their synagogues.

18. And you will be brought before governors and kings for My sake, as a testimony to them and to the Gentiles."

*Then down in vs. 21-22, Jesus said:

21. "Now brother will deliver up brother to death, and a father his child; and children will rise up against parents and cause them to be put to death.

22. And you will be hated by all for My name's sake. But he who endures to the end will be saved."

*Jesus never sugar-coated the hate-filled opposition His followers would have in this world. Church tradition tells us how the Apostles were persecuted for Christ, but the Bible goes into detail about the Apostle Paul. Ironically, we first see Paul as a persecutor before we see him persecuted by others.

*Before Paul got saved, Acts 9:1-2 calls him Saul and says:

1. Then Saul, still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord, went to the high priest

2. and asked letters from him to the synagogues of Damascus, so that if he found any who were of the Way, whether men or women, he might bring them bound to Jerusalem.

*Then in Acts 22:4-5, Paul gave this testimony about how he tormented Christians:

4. "I persecuted this Way to the death, binding and delivering into prisons both men and women,

5. as also the high priest bears me witness, and all the council of the elders, from whom I also received letters to the brethren, and went to Damascus to bring in chains even those who were there to Jerusalem to be punished."

*Paul also gave testimonies about how he had suffered for Jesus. For example, in 2 Corinthians 11:23-27 Paul told how he had been:

23. . . in labors more abundant, in stripes above measure, in prisons more frequently, in deaths often.

24. From the Jews five times I received forty stripes minus one.

25. Three times I was beaten with rods; once I was stoned; three times I was shipwrecked; a night and a day I have been in the deep;

26. in journeys often, in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils of my own countrymen, in perils of the Gentiles, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils among false brethren;

27. in weariness and toil, in sleeplessness often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness

*You see, Christians have always had fierce enemies, and we always will until the final victory over evil. So, Christ's warning about persecution here in Matthew 10 is also for us today. In vs. 17, Jesus specifically warned the Apostles about the councils and synagogues led by unbelieving Jews. But persecution of Christians can come from any Christ-rejecting religion.

*Next, in vs. 18, Jesus talked about persecution from ungodly governors and kings. In the whole history of the world, the vast majority of people have lived under the boot of the worst kind of rulers. In 2020, Forbes reported that 260 million Christians live in the top 50 countries where believers face dangerous levels of persecution. I'm talking about places like North Korea, Somalia, Libya, and Pakistan.

*"Open Doors" reported that the number of Christians killed in 2020 went up 60% over the year before. They also reported that anti-Christian governments around the world have used COVID-19 restrictions to persecute God's Church. That's no surprise because we have also seen it here in the United States. (1)

*By God's grace, Christians in America have mostly been spared from persecution by ungodly political leaders. That's because our forefathers were mostly God-fearing Christians, and they exalted God in our founding documents. Listen to these words from our Declaration of Independence:

"IN CONGRESS, July 4, 1776.

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen United States of America,

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.