The time has come
to continue our discussion of the signs of Christ’s coming, as our Lord
describes them in Matthew 24. The sign we are now going to discuss is
the most difficult sign for us to accept, for it is the sign of
persecution. The text reads: “For then shall be great tribulation such
as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever
shall be. And except those days shall be shortened, there shall no flesh
be saved; but for the elect’s sake those days shall be shortened”
(Matt. 24:21-22).
Before
I begin a discussion of the sign itself, I want to mention one truth
that needs to be emphasized and that gives us a great deal of comfort in
our dread of the coming of this sign. That truth is the great truth of
the sovereignty of our God, a truth which is our comfort in all of life,
and especially in its sorrows and afflictions. If God is sovereign, and
He is, then God wants His people to go through such a time of
suffering. God rules over the wicked too, you know; nothing happens
without His will. If God wills that persecution is a necessary part of
our salvation, we cannot be saved unless we are persecuted.
The
Scriptures give us several reasons why persecution is important and
necessary for our salvation. I want to mention one or two. For one
thing, we are very carnal and worldly-minded even though we are God’s
people. Persecution tears us away from our attraction to the things of
this world and fixes our thoughts and desires on Christ, for persecution
makes us choose Christ rather than the things of this world. During
times of persecution we can’t have both: we can’t have one foot in the
world and one foot in the church. We can’t confess Christ’s name and
enjoy the pleasures of the world. God purifies us by means of
persecution.
But
even more importantly, persecution makes us one with Christ. This is a
profound truth. Jesus warns His disciples that the world hated Him and
they will hate His disciples as well. There is a passage in Colossians 1
that teaches this profound truth, but in an unexpected way. The passage
reads: “Who now rejoice in my sufferings for you, and fill up that
which is behind of the sufferings of Christ in my flesh for his body’s
sake, which is the church” (Col. 1:24).
The
main teachings of this verse are these. Christ also suffered at the
hands of wicked men. Of course, He suffered the wrath of God for our
sins as well; but this aspect of the sufferings of Christ is not the
apostle Paul’s concern here. He is talking about Christ’s sufferings at
the hands of the wicked. Think of how He was a perfect and sinless man
in the company of sinners whose wicked minds and hearts He knew and who
hated Him for His holiness. How would you like to live with a sinless
person who could read every thought and desire of your mind?
Think
of how His own brothers did not believe in Him until after the
resurrection. Think of how His own disciples never understood Him until
the Spirit Was poured out on Pentecost. Think of how the wicked Jews and
leaders of the church (the Session of the church in that day) dogged
His footsteps looking for something He did or said that in their minds
could serve as a ground for His condemnation; and how they used lawyers
to try to trick Him into saying things contrary to the Scriptures.
And,
worst of all, when they had Him helpless in their hands, in the
Sanhedrin, they mocked Him, spit in His face, socked Him with their
fists and pushed Him back and forth between them. Pilate gave Him over
to the soldiers who pushed thorns woven into a wreath into His head
until the blood streamed from His scalp and forehead. If that were not
enough, they opened the skin on His back to the bone with whips with
many leather thongs, on the end of which were tied bits of bone or iron
to make the blows hurt the worse.
And
then He had to carry His own cross to Golgotha where the cross was laid
on the ground, Jesus himself laid on it, and rusty nails were driven
into His hands and feet. When this was done the soldiers lifted the
cross up and dropped it into a hole dug in the earth with all the weight
of his body hanging on the nails. There He hung; our Lord; the Son of
God; the sinless one; our Savior. And there the soldiers played gambling
games to divide His clothes. And there the whole crowd mocked Him,
shouted curses at Him, and laughed in His face at His agony.
All these sufferings are in addition to the suffering of the wrath of God, which our Savior bore to take away our sins.
Now
the text in Colossians says that our Lord left some of His afflictions
behind. That means that God in His counsel has determined the precise
amount of sufferings that Christ had to endure. But Christ and His
church together are one body. And so the exact amount of suffering
necessary to save the church is determined precisely by God. But Christ
did not endure all the suffering. He left some for His church to suffer
so that Christ and His church together might fill the cup of suffering
that God had determined as necessary for the salvation of the church.
The persecution of the church is the suffering that is left of the
sufferings of Christ.
But
that has all sorts of practical implications. When we suffer, we are
suffering with Christ. Actually Christ is suffering in us and with us.
We are suffering together. So it is with a body. If one part of our body
suffers, the whole body is affected and cannot function properly; the
whole body suffers. But if Christ suffers in us when we are persecuted,
Christ is also our strength and help. Christ conquered all the suffering
that He endured, and Christ will conquer the suffering that we suffer
for His sake.
There
is more benefit. When suffering persecution we are driven by the force
of persecution to cling more and more to Christ to Whom we are connected
by faith. Faith is the living bond that unites us to Christ and makes
us one body with Him. When our faith is tried by persecution, our faith
is strengthened. We are like a scrubby pine tree high up the mountains
above the timber line. I have often seen them myself. Climbing the
mountain one reaches an altitude where there are no more trees, and is
called the timber line. Vegetation grows here, but it is only the most
hardy and it is very fragile. Among the vegetation are a few scrubby
pine trees that are more like shrubs than trees. The altitude is high,
the oxygen is sparse, the winters are long and it can snow any month of
the year; the winds are fierce and strong and the storms violent. But
these scrubby pine shrubs are not killed; they endure. In fact when the
storms rage and the winds blow and howl with snow and ice, these shrubs
are not blown away, but are forced to sink their roots more deeply into
the soil to survive. The fierce winds and violent storms of persecution
assail the Christian. But they do nothing else but cause the Christian
to sink the roots of his faith more deeply into Christ. He clings to
Christ more strongly and hides in Christ who is his protector. And so
God uses persecution for our salvation.
If you read the record of the martyrs, such as Fox’s Book of Martyrs,
which every Christian should read at some time in his life, you will
read of unbelievable courage in the face of terrible persecution. These
stories, true in their telling, put steel in our spines and strengthen
our resolve to be faithful. Christ has won the victory and has gone to
glory on the path of suffering. He has won the battle for us. Joined to
him by faith, we are sure to be victorious ourselves. The martyrs sang
Psalms when lions were chewing on their legs. They prayed when hot fires
were cooking their feet. They praised God when their bodies were being
pulled apart on the racks. They witnessed to their tormentors when they
were being led to the gallows. Persecution need not frighten us, for we
suffer with Christ.
With warm regards,
Prof. Hanko
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