Thursday, October 16, 2014

Signs of the Times (22)


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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