Matthew 5:1-12 Now when he saw the crowds, he went up on a mountainside and sat down. His disciples came to him, 2 and he began to teach them, saying: 3 "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. 4 Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted. 5 Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth. 6 Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled. 7 Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy. 8 Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God. 9 Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called sons of God. 10 Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. 11 "Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. 12 Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you
Introduction: Let’s Get Ready to Suffer
Imagine tomorrow evening you are sitting in your living room reading a book, and suddenly there is a knock at the door. You open it up and there stands the Lord Jesus Christ. And you fall at His feet in worship, and you invite Him in, and you start to think of a whole bunch of questions you want to ask Him, but before you can ask the first one you notice a very concerned – almost distressed look on His face. And it scares you. You ask Him “What’s wrong?” And Jesus looks straight into your eyes and grabs you by both shoulders and says, “I’ve got to warn you! You are in grave danger – it’s a matter of eternal life and death, and I’ve come here to warn you. Listen carefully…” Do you think you would take that seriously? During Jesus’ ministry on earth He did give us some very strong and urgent warnings – especially about persecution. And I wonder sometimes how seriously the Church takes those warnings.
When they asked Jesus about the end times the first words out of His mouth were, “Watch out!”
Matthew 24:3 "Tell us … what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?" 4 Jesus answered: "Watch out…”
- and goes on to warn them about being deceived. And then He says this:
9 you will be handed over to be persecuted and put to death, and you will be hated by all nations because of me. 10 At that time many will turn away from the faith ... 12 … the love of most will grow cold, 13 but he who stands firm to the end will be saved.
Does that sound to you like something Jesus is serious about? Jesus was very concerned about what was going to happen to us when the big persecution comes.
Luke 18:8 when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?
John 15:20 If they persecuted me, they will persecute you also … 16:1 All this I have told you so that you will not go astray. 2 They will put you out of the synagogue; in fact, a time is coming when anyone who kills you will think he is offering a service to God.
Jesus was concerned to warn us about persecution – especially the increased persecution at the end. Isn’t that what the Book of Revelation is all about? At the beginning He addresses all the various churches, and to each one he gives the promise of heaven only to those who overcome. “To those who overcome … to those who overcome … to those who overcome… - to the overcomers alone I will give the rewards of heaven.” Overcome what? Well, the rest of the book describes God’s wrath on unbelievers, and persecution for believers. And then at the end of the book He describes God’s final victory and the glories of heaven and then says:
Revelation 21:7 He who overcomes will inherit all this
So it starts by saying, “You need to overcome” – then warns about extreme persecution – then at the end the overcomers inherit everything. A whole book warning us about being overcomers in the coming persecution.
And it gets worse as we get closer to the end. That is why the ministry of the Church becomes more and more important the closer we get to the Second Coming.
Hebrews 10:25 Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another--and all the more as you see the Day approaching.
As we approach closer and closer to the Second Coming persecution will increase, the pressure will increase, those with shallow soil will give up and die out, the love of most will grow cold, and more and more will turn away from the faith, and mutual encouragement in the Church will become more and more critical because only the overcomers – only those who stand firm to the end will be saved.
But if the roots in your heart do not go deep enough, you won’t make it.
Matthew 13:20 The one who received the seed that fell on rocky places is the man who hears the word and at once receives it with joy. 21 But since he has no root, he lasts only a short time. When trouble or persecution comes because of the word, he quickly falls away.
Jesus gave us warnings like that for a reason. He wants us to prepare ourselves for persecution.
And you get the distinct impression from reading the urgency of His warnings that those who are not prepared ahead of time will not make it. They won’t be among those who stand firm to the end. If you wait until the real suffering comes it will be too late to start preparing and you will not have what it takes to persevere.
So how do you prepare? What can you do now that will make it so you will be able to endure the persecutions and sufferings that are coming? Jesus gave us great insight into that in the final beatitude.
Matthew 5:11 "Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. 12 Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.
Review
Persecution is when someone intentionally mistreats you or has some kind of animosity or malice toward you because of your righteousness. It does not matter if it comes from outside the Church or inside the Church (in fact most persecution comes from people who consider themselves Christians). And last week we talked about some of the blessedness of persecution in this life. There are priceless benefits that you enjoy immediately when you are persecuted. For example, the honor of bringing special glory to Christ or the honor of participation in His redemptive work. Or the special fellowship with Christ which is so wonderful it is worth any amount of suffering.
Those are the immediate rewards that are implied by the comparison with the prophets – and affirmed throughout the New Testament. But Jesus’ explicit focus here is not so much on the immediate blessedness here and now in this life, but rather on the blessedness in heaven. The benefits here and now make any amount of suffering more than worth it, but those benefits are nothing compared to the heavenly reward. And by paying careful attention to Jesus’ promise of heavenly reward we can prepare ourselves for persecution, so we will be able to stand firm all the way to the end.
The Command: Rejoice
There are three parts to verse 12. It begins with a command: Rejoice and be glad. If we want to be among those who persevere all the way to the end and not among those who fall away when persecution comes, we need to obey that command whenever we suffer for Christ.
Rejoice over small persecutions
And what I have realized these past couple weeks is that if we are waiting until the really severe persecution hits to start doing that, we are missing the point. I was convicted this week at how little I have been motivated by this promise. I somehow passed it off to just refer to the most extreme forms of persecution, and so I didn’t apply the principle to my little, tiny sufferings. I had a little opportunity to experience some persecution this week, and when I thought about Jesus’ words here it just blew me away. What happened to me was not any big deal. Someone did something to me that was especially painful, and I responded with sinful anger. I did not say anything to the person, but inside my heart I was furious. And I realized that was sinful, and so I confessed it to God right away and repented. And I wanted to turn the other cheek rather than retaliate, so instead of giving the person a piece of my mind, I gave a soft, gentle response and sent the person a gift. I wanted to show love to this person for the sake of Christ, and so I sent the gift. And he responded with a vicious response, accusing me of giving the gift for bad motives and then unleashing a long list of other false accusations. And again, that made me angry, and when I finished reading the email I had to stop and confess my sin and ask God’s forgiveness and repent.
Then I went back to my study of the beatitude, and was just stunned to read these words:
Matthew 5:11-12 Blessed are you when people insult you and persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil about you because of me. Rejoice and be glad for great is your reward in heaven for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.
The reason I was so stunned is because at that moment it hit me how unworthy I was for any special reward. The persecution I was receiving was so small, and so surrounded by my own sin. It started because of my sin, and then right after confessing and repenting of that sin I fell right back into the exact same sin again. And the whole thing revealed such a sinful heart, and such a lack of love, and so much pride and selfishness. And yet right in the middle of all that was this little, tiny instance of persecution, where I suffered slander and hostility because of something I did for the purpose of honoring Christ. And because of that I get this special reward? Because of that I am in a category with the prophets?? That just seems crazy! When all that happened this week the only thing I felt like I deserved was punishment. And yet if I believe these things I was preparing to preach, then I have to say that I should rejoice and be glad because great is my reward in heaven and I am in the category with the prophets in some way? That just blew me away.
Grace, not merit (rewarded even though you are sinful)
Even when half our suffering is because of our own sin, if the other half is genuine persecution, we receive great reward. The writer of Psalm. 69 was persecuted, and his words are especially famous because they are applied to Jesus in Romans 15:3.
Psalm 69:9 The insults of those who insult you fall on me
That is persecution. And yet in that same psalm he speaks of his own sin.
5 You know my folly, O God; my guilt is not hidden from you.
You see, it is not a system of merit. We don’t get the reward because we deserve it. God offers us the reward as an incentive and a blessing, not as a wage that we deserve. It is grace upon grace that God looks through the forest of my sin and finds one little clearing of righteousness and rewards me for it.
Mostly from inside the Church
So it does not matter if the suffering is small or great – or – if it comes from outside the church or inside the church. Most persecution comes from inside the Church. When I get hate mail, or people working hard against this ministry, it is not from atheists. It is from people who regard themselves as committed Christians. That does not change this beatitude. The blessing still applies no matter where the persecution is coming from. The secular people didn’t bother Jesus all that much – it was the religious leaders who persecuted Him mostly. And His most frequent conflict was not even with the religious liberals (Sadducees), it was with the Pharisees – the religious conservatives. The ones who held Scripture in high honor – they are the most violent in their persecution because they really care about spiritual things. So don’t think persecution only counts as persecution if it comes from the world. Most of it comes from Christians. And honestly if I had not been studying this passage it probably would not even have occurred to me to think of that as persecution. But if I fail to recognize it as persecution I will fail to obey the command to rejoice and be glad over it. And if I do not learn how to rejoice and be glad over small persecution how will I ever learn to rejoice over big persecution?
Some of you have lost a job – or gone for a time without work because of your commitment to Christ. Some of you have lost your spouse or your children or your parents because of Christ. All of us who are Christians have been insulted or excluded or ignored or mistreated in some way because of righteousness. And Jesus could not be more clear: Rejoice and be glad when that happens.
So step one in preparing yourself for what is coming is to train your heart to rejoice at absolutely any and every instance of persecution. No matter how big or small it is, develop a reflex, every time you receive any kind of mistreatment because of righteousness, of rejoicing and celebrating. As I have been doing that these past couple weeks I have noticed a profound impact on my heart. It has drawn me nearer to Christ, and has increased my love for Him in wonderful ways. Celebrating a special reward because of suffering for Him is something that just has a way of awakening the heart to a special closeness to Him that is different from other kinds of fellowship. And if you experience that special closeness hundreds of times between now and when the big persecution hits, surely that will go a long way in preparing you to be able to stand firm. Weeks and months and years of rejoicing in persecution so that the hope of this promise becomes so much a part of our soul that it brings us hope and joy almost as an automatic reflex whenever we suffer. That is one way we prepare.
Expect Suffering (Count the Cost)
And another benefit of doing that will be it will give us the right perspective about suffering. One of the reasons why some people cannot handle suffering is because it comes as a surprise to them. They have this attitude that everything is supposed to turn out the way they planned. And so when it doesn’t, they are not prepared. They recoil at every setback and trial and struggle and hardship, as if something strange were happening to them. And when the hardship is over they think, “Oh, now things are back to normal.” Those people will never have good success handling suffering because they are not ready for it.
Jesus wanted people to know that following Him would mean suffering, and He wanted them to think that through beforehand. Too many people decide to become Christians without counting the cost. A minute ago I mentioned the parable of the soils. In that parable the people who fall away because of persecution fall away because of their lack of roots. And that seems to be related to the quickness with which they accepted the gospel.
Matthew 13:20 The one who received the seed that fell on rocky places is the man who hears the word and at once receives it with joy. 21 But since he has no root, he lasts only a short time. When trouble or persecution comes because of the word, he quickly falls away.
The words at once and quickly are the same Greek word. When trouble comes they collapse like a house of cards because of how quickly they accepted Christianity in the first place. They did not think it through. These are the people who go to a concert and are moved by the music and they come forward in the invitation because they are so worked up emotionally, but they have not thought through the implications about the suffering it might involve. Or they hear an evangelist or pastor talk about how Jesus will solve all your problems, and so they profess Christ as their Savior almost on a whim. That is not to say you cannot hear the gospel and accept it the same day you hear it, or that there has to be some specific time delay. It just means people need to think through the cost.
That is why we are not doing anyone any favors when we try to soften the message and hide the hard parts from people so they will accept Christ. Jesus did just the opposite. He went out of His way to tell people the hard parts.
Luke 14:26-33 If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters--yes, even his own life--he cannot be my disciple. 27 And anyone who does not carry his cross and follow me cannot be my disciple. 28 "Suppose one of you wants to build a tower. Will he not first sit down and estimate the cost to see if he has enough money to complete it? … 33 In the same way, any of you who does not give up everything he has cannot be my disciple.
People who become Christians on a whim have shallow roots that will not withstand trouble. They just kind of drift into Christianity and they can easily drift right back out when the winds change.
We will never be ready for persecution if we don’t expect it. And this is especially important for teenagers by the way. In our culture I think the place where Christians tend to be most persecuted is in universities. There is always some anti-Christian professor who delights in bullying Christian students. And standing up to him will be hard, because he has control of the venue, and he can make you look dumb. And holding to the truth can cost you your grade. And very often those guys have developed such a persuasive approach – they have been doing this for twenty years and they are a lot older and they have their notes in front of them and have prepared; and they pick on some first-year college student straight out of high school who is having to give a defense off the top of his head without any preparation – and in some cases they are so forceful that Christian students will end up doubting the gospel. And if they don’t, they are made to look like morons in front of everyone. So teenagers really need this, but really all of us need it because everyone who desires to live godly in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution.
So how do you prepare for persecution? Expect persecution, think long and hard about the implications of what it means to follow Christ, and when it happens – big or little – rejoice and be glad.
The Promise: Great Reward
That is the first part of the verse – Rejoice and be glad – that is the Command. Then the middle part of the verse – for great is your reward in heaven – that is the Promise. If we want to prepare for persecution we need to consider the promise of great reward.
Is seeking reward good or bad?
Some people teach that we should not seek reward from God. They say that is crass and selfish, and that we should do what is right for right’s sake – not because we get something out of it. That is a worldly attitude that comes from the philosophy of Kant, not from the Bible. In fact it is the opposite of what the Bible says.
Jesus would not offer reward as a motivation if that were not a good motivation for us to have. And Jesus offers reward constantly. If you highlight the word “reward” every time it appears in the Sermon on the Mount you will have some colorful pages in your Bible. The word appears seven times just in the first half of chapter 6. And in 6:20 Jesus just comes right out and commands us: store up for yourselves treasures in heaven
What do you consider reward?
Now, there is a kind of seeking after reward that really is bad – for example if I did not care about souls or about the kingdom of God and I only preached for money. You see, the issue is not whether you are seeking reward; the issue is what rewards are you seeking? Which rewards are enough to motivate you? The answer to that question reveals what you really love and what you really regard as a treasure, which is why it glorifies God so much when we are motivated by His rewards.
If God offers a reward and that has no effect on my heart it means I don’t love God and I don’t trust God. It is a grave sin to be indifferent to God’s rewards. In fact, it is impossible to please God at all unless you think of Him as a Rewarder.
Hebrews 11:6 And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that … he rewards those who earnestly seek him.
How to become motivated by this reward
So let’s take a careful look at exactly what Jesus said in this beatitude so our hearts can become motivated by reward as they should.
“Great” (worth any suffering)
First, it is great reward - so great that we are to rejoice and be glad whenever we are persecuted. Think about that. The fact that Jesus can give this as a blanket statement, and that there are no caveats about it only applying in the case of small suffering means that no matter how severe the persecution – still the reward makes it more than worth it – that means no matter how severe the suffering the reward is more than worth it. What kind of reward could be so delightful that any amount of suffering is more than worth it to get it? If you are tortured every day for fifty years until you finally go insane – that is easily worth it to get this reward.
“in heaven”
Secondly, notice where this reward is: Rejoice and be glad because great is your reward in heaven. That phrase in heaven describes the presence of God. Great is your reward in God’s presence. The desirability of the reward is connected to the presence of the Rewarder. How excited you get over this promise of reward is directly dependent upon how much you love and trust God. As we have said many times, God has not given us any photographs or brochures or videos of what our reward in heaven is going to be like, so the only way to ever get to the point where the promise of reward moves your heart is to have such confidence in the power and goodness of the Rewarder, that you know for sure the reward will be fantastic. Like the amazing uncle I talked about last week. He gives such great gifts that you are excited and happy just to see him showing up at your house carrying a gift with your name on it. You do not have to see inside the box to get excited, because you trust in his ability to give good gifts. Our goal is to get to the point where we think of God that way. We can’t imagine what the reward in heaven is going to be like, but we have such a clear understanding of the goodness of God and His ability to come up with things that really thrill the soul that any time we see a promise of reward from Him it stirs the heart to real joy and hope.
And there are a couple ways to do that. One is through knowledge. Study Scripture. From now until the day you die, make every effort to increase your understanding of what Scripture teaches about the goodness of God. That part is crucial. Without knowledge we will be deceived and led astray. We will think the goodness of God means He will always do this or never do that and we will import all kinds of human ideas until God ends up being a lot like us. And that will really kill our hope. So knowledge is critical.
However, it is not all there is to it. It is possible to know so much about what Scripture teaches about the goodness of God that you could easily ace a theology quiz on the subject, but still be completely unmoved by the promises of reward. It won’t be enough to just have the cognitive side; we also need the experiential side. We have to have actual experiences of God’s goodness that train the soul to trust in His goodness – like all the Christmases past when that uncle came through with terrific gifts.
Someone once said, “Memory supplies the colors with which hope paints her most wonderful pictures.” For hope to paint a beautiful picture of the future it has to draw from memories of good things. You cannot get very excited in hope about something you have no prior experience of. If you tell your child, “We’re going to Disneyland” that won’t have any effect on his heart at all if he has no idea what Disneyland is. But if you can compare it to something he has experienced – like, “Disneyland is like the park down the street – but way better – if he loves the park then he will be able to get excited about this unseen place that is actually better than park. And that will really get him excited if the park is the funnest place he has ever been. The pleasures of this life are not meant to be enjoyed for their own sake. They are all miniature samples of the goodness of God. Any pleasure that does not get catalogued in your heart under that category is a wasted pleasure. All the pleasures of this life are like that park down the street. And the only reason the Lord put that park down the street is so when we are told, “It’s like that park down the street only far better” that means something to us. Our reward in heaven is like the greatest pleasures in this life only better.
We look to the Lord whenever we suffer pain. A crisis comes and we immediately turn our attention to God. And that is great, but we need to be just as diligent at letting pleasure turn our attention to God. Every time something makes you happy, every time the Lord enables you to enjoy something, every instance of pleasure or beauty or goodness that your soul delights in; you say, “Are you taking notes, soul? Are you getting this? Are you paying attention? This is a sample of what the goodness of God is like. It is a foretaste of reward in heaven. This is the sort of thing He comes up with when He wants to delight a human soul.” I believe that if we develop a reflex of doing that whenever we enjoy any good thing, after hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of experiences of pleasure that we attribute to the goodness of God, those experiences will supply the other half of what we need to hope in the promises.
The first half is knowledge of God’s goodness from Scripture. The second half is experiences of God’s goodness from life’s joys. And both are necessary. Without the knowledge you will misinterpret the experiences. And without the experiences the knowledge won’t touch your affections. But when you have both, the memories of past joys will paint beautiful pictures of future promises that will fill the soul with real hope.
Prophets’ Reward
So what do we know about this reward that should make us want it? It is great – so great that it is worth any amount of suffering. Secondly it is in heaven – which points us to the Rewarder and His goodness. And third…
Matthew 5:12 Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.
The implication is that our reward will be like the prophets’ reward.
There is a special reward in heaven for prophets.
Matthew 10:41 Anyone who receives a prophet because he is a prophet will receive a prophet's reward
Not everyone in the kingdom is the same. Some are especially great and some are not so great. And it is a good thing to aspire to be among the elite in the kingdom. There are degrees of reward in heaven, and way up near the top is the prophet’s reward.
The day when they made it illegal to pray to the God of Israel Daniel opened his window, knelt down toward the Temple in Jerusalem, and committed the capital crime of praying to Yahweh – in full view of everyone, knowing full well he would be thrown to the lions. And at that moment there was a massive reward set aside in heaven for Daniel to enjoy throughout eternity.
God called the prophet Zechariah to proclaim His Word to the people, and he did so, and for his trouble the people stoned him to death right there in the Temple courtyard. It is bad enough to be preaching and have the people ignore you or heckle you, but imagine preaching out of a passion to save these people and they turn on you, and the guards in the Temple court don’t do anything to help, and you look toward the exits and they are all blocked, and you move back toward the altar and the holy place, and the next thing you know they are all around you, shouting, screaming, punching, kicking, now you are down on the ground – fists and feet smashing into your side and your head and face, and then all of a sudden there is an impact of something a lot harder than a fist. Someone lifted a big, basketball-sized rock over his head and threw it down on you, and you could feel your ribs snap. Then another, your ankle is broken, then two more. Then one hits your head, and another. You can’t even see through the blood, you start to become delirious form the pain. And finally one of the blows snuffs out your life. At that moment, through His tears, God went into Genesis 1 mode and said, “Let there be…” but then instead of creating a universe He created some mind-blowing reward for this great prophet who just died to proclaim His Word to His people.
The prophet Isaiah served the people faithfully all his life. He penned some of the most precious words in all of Scripture, and he told the people about the Messiah and called them to return to God and promised restoration. But he also indicted the people for their sin and warned them of judgment so they killed him with a death so gruesome it sounds like something right out of a horror movie. Tradition says they tied him down, brought out a saw, and sawed him in half. And as he felt the teeth of that saw tearing at his flesh in those agonizing final moments, Almighty God put together a reward for him in heaven so marvelous that for all eternity Isaiah will be praising God for allowing him to suffer that way.
I don’t know what a prophet’s reward is but I can tell you I wouldn’t mind having one. And if you are wondering exactly what that reward is going to be like, you will know soon enough, because if you are a Christian who has suffered persecution for righteousness, you will get that reward on Judgment Day. Why? Why is He going to give us a prophet’s reward? We aren’t prophets, so why would we get that reward? Think about why the prophets get a special reward. The prophets suffered because they were identified with God, and when the people rejected God they showed it by mistreating the prophets. And when we are persecuted for Christ we are in the exact same category. We aren’t prophets, but we do represent the Lord Jesus Christ to the degree that if someone rejects Him, and we are faithful, they will reject us.
And God will make that worth our while. Imagine if you worked for a very wealthy employer who always went overboard on his generosity. If you incurred a $5 expense on the job he would reimburse you with $5000. And one day he asked you to do something that will involve a pretty significant hardship, and you mention it to him and he just chuckles and says, “Oh, don’t worry – I will make it worth your while.” And you know him well enough that you are almost wishing something bad will happen to you. No human employer could really follow through on that in every circumstance no matter how rich he is, because some losses cannot be repaid with money. But God assures us He will make it worth our while, and He is in a position to follow through no matter what the loss. And it is when we suffer persecution that He really makes a point of saying that. In fact, He doesn’t just say, “Don’t worry I’ll make it worth your while” – He says, “Rejoice and be glad because of how much I will make it worth your while. Oh how this should motivate us.
It seems so far-fetched to include our names among people like Moses or Daniel or Paul. But if we suffer persecution for Christ our names are there. What an amazing thing it is to wear the uniform – to stand alongside the prophets of old who received the very blows meant for God Himself!
The Inspiration: The Martyrs
So the first part of the verse is the command: Rejoice and be glad. The middle part of the verse is the Promise: for great is your reward in heaven. And finally the end of the verse: for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you. That statement implies we will receive a prophets’ reward, but it also has another function. It calls our attention to the prophets’ example. A third way to prepare for persecution is to be inspired by the example of others who have gone before us.
The Maccabees
Starting in verse 33 the writer tells us about all the glorious victories godly people in the past received through faith. It is enough to make the health/wealth prosperity preachers proud – deliverance and gain and strength and victory and healing and being raised from the dead. But then half way through verse 35 the writer goes off in a totally different direction that should make the prosperity preachers choke.
Hebrews 11:35-38… Others were tortured and refused to be released, so that they might gain a better resurrection. 36 Some faced jeers and flogging, while still others were chained and put in prison. 37 They were stoned; they were sawed in two; they were put to death by the sword. They went about in sheepskins and goatskins, destitute, persecuted and mistreated-- 38 the world was not worthy of them. They wandered in deserts and mountains, and in caves and holes in the ground.
Sometimes faith brings wonderful victory; sometimes faith brings jeers and floggings and torture and death. And when that happens, how do you handle it? How do you manage to hang in there and stand firm all the way to death? Notice verse 35.
35… Others were tortured and refused to be released, so that they might gain a better resurrection.
Better than what? I assume better than the kind of resurrection in the first half of the verse.
Hebrews 11:35 Women received back their dead, raised to life again.
In 1 Kings 17 the widow of Zarephath and in 2 Kings 8 the Shunammite woman – both had a child raised from the dead. But in all those cases those people lived for a time and then died again.
That is not the kind of resurrection these people were willing to suffer for. They were looking to a better resurrection – a resurrection in which they would be given eternal reward in the presence of God. And looking forward to that is what gave them the ability to endure suffering.
The language of this section is taken from the historical records of the persecution under Antiochus. In between the end of the Old Testament and the beginning of the New Testament, about 150 years before Jesus was born, a maniac who called himself Antiochus Ephiphanes ruled Israel with an iron fist.
He persecuted any Jew who would not renounce Judaism. Once he discovered two Jewish women who circumcised their babies, so he hung their babies around their necks, paraded them around in humiliation, and then threw them over the wall to their death. The reference in Hebrews to being tortured and refusing to be released – that is probably a reference to a priest from that time named Eleazar. Eleazar was ninety years old when they tried to make him repudiate his faith. They forced him to eat pork – stuffed it into his mouth against his will. Eleazar spit it out, and then just started walking out to the wheel. The wheel was a big, round torture device that they would strap the person to, stretching him out spread eagle, and then beat him with rods like a drum until he gave in – or died from internal injuries. At that point some of the guards came to him and tried to save him. They had known him a long time and respected him, and didn’t want to torture him. And so they said, “We’ll give you some meat that isn’t really pork, but we’ll say it is. That way you can save your life without having to actually break your God’s law.” His answer was, “Send me to the grave.” He didn’t want the charade because he was afraid some other Jews would see that and lose courage. And so they stretched him out and beat him to death. “Just before he died under the blows, he gave a sigh and said, 'The Lord whose knowledge is holy sees clearly that, though I might have escaped death, from awe of him I gladly endure these agonies of body under the lash, and that in my soul I am glad to suffer’.” That account comes from 2 Maccabees 6. Then in the next chapter we read the description of the suffering of seven brothers and their mother who were arrested for being loyal to God. “The king tried to force them to taste some pork … by torturing them with whips and scourges. One of them, acting as spokesman for the others, said, '…We are prepared to die rather than break the laws of our ancestors.' The king, in a fury, ordered pans and cauldrons to be heated over a fire. As soon as these were red-hot, he commanded that their spokesman should have his tongue cut out, his head scalped and his extremities cut off, while the other brothers and his mother looked on.” So while he was still alive they cut out his tongue, cut off his scalp, and cut off his hands and feet.
“When he had been rendered completely helpless, the king gave orders for him to be brought, still breathing, to the fire and fried alive in a pan. As the smoke from the pan drifted about, his mother and the rest encouraged one another to die nobly… When the first had left the world in this way, they brought the second forward to be tortured. After stripping the skin from his head, hair and all, they asked him, 'Will you eat some pork, before your body is tortured limb by limb?' … he said, 'No!' So he too was put to the torture in his turn. With his last breath he exclaimed, 'Cruel brute, you may discharge us from this present life, but the King of the world will raise us up, since we die for his laws, to live again for ever'.”
That is the key. It was their hope in the resurrection. It goes on to describe the torture and death of the third brother, then the fourth. And when the fourth brother was about to die his last words were: “Ours is the better choice, to meet death at men's hands, yet relying on God's promise that we shall be raised up by him; whereas for you there can be no resurrection to new life.” And it went on like that until there was just one son left – the youngest. And Antiochus told the mother – “Reason with him. Try to get him to save his life.” And she said, “OK,” and started talking to her son in Hebrew, so Antiochus couldn’t understand.
“My son, have pity on me; I carried you nine months in my womb and suckled you three years, fed you and reared you to the age you are now, and provided for you. I implore you, my child, look at the earth and sky and everything in them, and consider how God made them out of what did not exist, and that human beings come into being in the same way. Do not fear this executioner, but prove yourself worthy of your brothers and accept death, so that I may receive you back with them in the day of mercy.”
In other words, “I carried you and gave birth to you and took care of you all your life, so give me a break. Stay strong, persevere, and die for your faith so I will see you again on Resurrection Day.” (Not exactly the kind of persuasion the king was shooting for.) After that the seventh son said, “What are you waiting for – let’s get on with it!”
“The king fell into a rage and treated this one more cruelly than the others, for he was himself smarting from the young man's scorn. And so the last brother met his end undefiled and with perfect trust in the Lord. The mother was the last to die, after her sons.”
Prepare for persecution by following in the footsteps of the examples of faith who have gone before us.
Increase Your Faith (comes through hearing)
And that is really the heart of the issue, isn’t it? It is all a matter of faith. After describing all that torture and persecution in Hebrews 11 he concludes by saying:
Hebrews 11:39 These were all commended for their faith
You can tell yourself about Resurrection Day and eternal reward until you are blue in the face, but if it is all a big fairy tale in your heart, it is not going to have any effect on your level of courage. We have to increase our faith. And that is done through the Word of God.
Romans 10:17 faith comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the word of Christ.
Listen to the Word. Listen to the Word preached, listen to it read, read it yourself, study it, meditate on it, memorize it, and don’t allow any resistance to it flare up in your heart. Accept it and receive it and welcome it, and it will build and strengthen your faith. Consider the nature of the reward and the Rewarder, and rejoice and be glad every time you suffer persecution, and when the big test comes, you will be ready.
So, what is going to happen to us when persecution comes? Are we going to be like Demas, who abandoned Paul because he loved this world? Or like Jim Elliot, who loved the next world and said, “He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose,” and then proceeded to lay down his life so the Auca Indians could hear the gospel.
Benediction: Hebrews 10:32a, 35-39 Remember those earlier days after you had received the light when you stood your ground in a great contest in the face of suffering…35 do not throw away your confidence; it will be richly rewarded. 36 You need to persevere so that when you have done the will of God, you will receive what he has promised.
Summary: Jesus gave urgent warnings about the coming persecution, which will increase as we approach the end. If we don’t prepare ourselves we won’t stand firm. Prepare yourself by rejoicing over every little persecution, to train your heart (and to develop an expectation of persecution); secondly focus on the greatness of the reward (worth any suffering, based on the goodness of the Rewarder – use earthly pleasures to learn that by experience, and think about the fact that it’s the Prophets’ reward; and third be inspired by the Prophets (and other martyrs). It’s a matter of faith.
