Persecutions

The gospel is not gospel to people today because they're not looking for good news.

They're looking for good advice. But if God is holy, and He is, and if God has wrath, and He does, and if God is concerned about righteousness and justice, and He is, then we need the cross. Why isn't the church in the West as persecuted as the church is in other parts of the world? Is it the favor of God, or has our message, our preaching, changed from that of the early church?

That's a question R.C. Sproul ponders today on this Sunday edition of Renewing Your Mind. Hi, I'm Nathan W. Bingham, and we're currently in a short series from Matthew's Gospel, sermons preached by Dr. Sproul at St. Andrew's Chapel in Sanford, Florida. If you'd like Dr. Sproul to guide you through all of Matthew, you can request his hardcover commentary when you give a donation of any amount at renewingyourmind.org before midnight tonight. Well, here's Dr. Sproul on the persecution that Jesus promised the apostles would follow their faithful preaching ministry.

Well, we're going to continue to study now the Gospel of Matthew, and we're in chapter 10, and this morning I will be reading verses 16 through 23. Behold, I send you out as sheep in the midst of wolves. Therefore, be wise as serpents and harmless as doves. But beware of men, for they will deliver you up to councils and scourge you in their synagogues. You will be brought before governors and kings for My sake as a testimony to them and to the Gentiles. But when they deliver you up, do not worry about how or what you should speak, for it will be given to you in that hour what you should speak. For it is not you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father who speaks in you. A 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. And you will be hated by all for My name's sake, but he who endures to the end will be saved.

When they persecute you in this city, when they persecute you in this city, flee to another. For assuredly I say to you, you will not have gone through the cities of Israel before the Son of Man comes." Last week we looked at Jesus commissioning those whom He had chosen from His band of disciples to be His apostles, to go and speak with nothing less than the delegated authority of Jesus Himself. And in this morning's record we will hear more of the mission and the circumstances in which this mission took place as we look at Matthew chapter 10 beginning at verse 16. It begins with these words, "'Behold, I send you out as sheep in the midst of wolves.

Therefore be wise as serpents and harmless as doves, but beware of men.'" The first thing I want us to notice about this text is that Jesus emphasizes who it is who initiates this missionary enterprise. It was not the apostles' idea to go into all of the villages and cities of Israel, and nor was it their message that they were sent to proclaim. Rather, Jesus is the one who sends them.

And the emphatic use of the personal pronoun is used here in the text when Jesus said, I am the one who is sending you. And He tells us to whom He is sending these people, "'Behold, I send you as sheep in the midst of wolves.'" Without getting into the technicalia about it, Jesus is not saying, I'm sending you into a group of wolves, but basically He's acknowledging that they're already surrounded by wolves.

They're already in the wolf's lair as it were. And He uses two metaphors drawn here from the animal kingdom. The first is that of sheep, and the second is that of wolves. He's saying about His apostles, you're like sheep, not in the sense that you're stupid or that you're brainless or that you're led by any whim of somebody else's imagination, but rather the point of the metaphor as I'm sending you as those who are defenseless into an environment that is altogether hostile.

It's like I'm sending you as sheep into a band of wolves, ravenous wolves, wolves who are predators, wolves who can't wait to get their claws on you and their teeth around your neck that they may feast at your expense. Now let me just stop there for a second and say, you know, one of the tasks that we have in preaching is to try to apply the text of Scripture to where we are today and today and to our own lives. But how in the world does this apply to where we are? Oh, the culture is at least indifferent to Christianity, and there are pockets of hostility in our country against Christianity, and there's a growing disenchantment among public officials towards any influence of the Christian faith in the public square. But for the most part, we're at least tolerated in the community, and we don't feel like we're little lambs about to be devoured by these fierce wolves that surround us. We may be annoyed from time to time, and we may be mocked a little bit, but no one's threatening to send us to the Colosseum to fight with the gladiators there, or be food for the lions, or to be adorning the gardens of Nero as flaming human torches, or being entertainment in the Circus Maximus. That's not where we are.

And sometimes I ask myself, why isn't it? Why is this preaching of the gospel in our day in America not nearly as threatening as it was to these apostles in their initial apostolic mission? You see, the gospel is not gospel to people today because they're not looking for good news. They're looking for good advice.

We're looking for how to have peace with our children, how to get along in our marriages, and how to be successful in our business relationships. We can get that advice from our barber or from our hairstylist without ever reading a page of the New Testament. But if God is holy, and He is, and if God has wrath, and He does, and if God is concerned about righteousness and justice, and He is, then we need the cross. And the best news we can ever hear is that Christ has come to satisfy the demands of the righteousness and justice of God, that Christ has taken in Himself the fullness of the wrath of God directed against our sin. And that He has clothed me with His own righteousness, which alone will meet the demands of a holy God. If God is holy, dear ones, and I'm not, and there's really no if to that equation is there. I'm not holy, and as long as God is holy and God expresses wrath against unholiness and against sin, then I need a Savior.

I need the cross. But that message is absolutely repugnant to wolves because the sinner doesn't want to hear about his sin. He doesn't want to hear about a holy God. But Jesus said, that's the message I'm giving you, and that's where you're going. You're going to people who don't want to hear this message, who will despise this message, and who will despise you because of this message. Therefore, He said, since you're like sheep among wolves, let me give you some advice. If you're going to be involved in this missionary endeavor, you need to be as wise as serpents and as harmless as doves.

How many times have you heard that? The Christians are supposed to be as wise as serpents and harmless as doves. We've been half of that very successfully. We've been quite harmless to the world in which we live.

That's why we enjoy the peace and security that we do. That's why people aren't like the big bad wolf on their way on their way to grandmother's house to look for Little Red Riding Hood. What does He mean, be wise as serpents? You remember how Genesis 3 begins after the story of creation?

You have that ominous foreboding that begins in chapter 3 of Genesis. It says, now the serpent is more crafty than all of the beasts of the field. Now the serpent was subtle, shrewd, cunning, laying his snares in his traps to seduce the people of God. And so the serpent becomes a metaphor for cunning shrewdness.

Jesus said, I'm sending you out of sheep. You need to be smart. And I want you to be stupid like sheep. I want you to be sensible.

I want you to be alert to what's going on around you. I want you to be as sharp as serpents. Now it doesn't say I want you to be as poisonous as serpents. I don't want you to be as vituperative as serpents. I don't want you to be as venomous as snakes. No, as sharp as serpents, but at the same time as harmless as doves.

There can't be any poison under your tongue. There can't be any destructive hatred in your heart when I send you to these people. And even though I'm sending you into the midst of wolves as lambs, I want you to be as gentle, as kind, and as harmless as these little birds who are symbols of peace. What a striking contrast, sharp as a snake, gentle as a dove. And so we've seen four members of the animal kingdom mentioned already, sheep, wolves, serpents, and doves.

Well, what's the fifth one? What comes next? But beware of men. It's not the wolves you have to worry about.

It's not the snakes you have to worry about. It's men that are going to eat you alive out there. It's men who will be hostile to the message I'm giving you to proclaim. And here's what they'll do. They'll deliver you up to councils. They will scourge you in their synagogues.

Now wait a minute. Everything that Jesus says will happen to the apostles happened to Him. He was delivered up to the Jewish councils, to the Sanhedrin.

He was the one who was scourged. And He said, that's what's going to happen to you if you are faithful to My mission. You are faithful to My mission. And not only that, you'll be brought before governors and kings for My sake. Now notice that He's sending these people, as we looked at last week, initially to Israel, to the Jew first, and then later to the Gentiles. And so He says, initially, as you fulfill this enterprise that I'm setting before you, they're going to send you to the councils and to be scourged here in Israel. But beyond that, you're going to go before governors, you mean like Pontius Pilate, and before kings. In my family ruin home, I have a painting of the Apostle Paul before Herod Agrippa. And you know the story that at the end of his life, the Apostle was brought in chains to a hearing before King Agrippa and before his right-hand man Festus, and he was guaranteed the right to speak freely and defend himself.

But as he began to unfold his story of how he had papers authorized from the Sanhedrin to continue his persecution in Syria, that he was on the Damascus road when suddenly at the noon day Christ appeared to him and transformed his life in that very instant and changed him from a persecutor of Christians to the chief apostle to the Gentiles. And as he tells this story before the King Festus interrupts him and says, Paul, most learning does make you mad. You're educated beyond your intelligence, Paul.

You're out of your mind. But Paul was gentle as a dove. And he believed that he had no written transcript that he had in his hip pocket. He didn't have a speech written out prepared. But remember what Jesus said here. He said, when they deliver you up, don't worry about what you should speak. It will be given to you in that hour what you should say, for it is not you who speak, but the Spirit of the Father who speaks in you.

So Paul didn't have a prepared speech. But he looks at the king, and he said, King Agrippa, you know the Scriptures. You know the prophets. If you pay attention to the Word of God, you can't miss the truth of what I'm proclaiming to you this day. And Paul could see that Agrippa was troubled. His heart was being pierced by the words that the apostle was saying. And Agrippa said, wait, wait, wait, wait, Paul, Paul, man, you're getting to me.

I'm almost there. Almost thou has persuaded me to be a Christian. And it's that gesture with Paul standing before the king, his hands, his wrists shackled, and Paul's reaching out to King Agrippa, and he said, oh, King Agrippa, I would that thou wert not almost but altogether such as I am except for these chains. You see, the book of Acts is filled with stories like that. It's filled with the accounts of the apostles being dragged before the authorities, being beaten with rods, being stoned and imprisoned, and being bowled where the Spirit anoints them and gives them the words to say in the midst of persecution. Now we don't have the supervision of the Holy Ghost to be agents of revelation like the apostles did, but I guarantee you that there are times when we are faced with crises for the sake of the gospel that God helps us to say what we need to say in those circumstances. Brother will deliver up brother to death, and a father is child, and children will rise against parents and cause them to be put to death, and you will be hated by all for My name's sake. But he who endures to the end will be saved.

What? I thought that all we had to do is believe in Christ, and at the moment we believed in Christ, we'd be justified, and God would preserve us to the end, and that we have the assurance of our salvation the moment we really believe. That's true, but are you familiar with the lapsy controversy in the early church? You know, we hear the wonderful stories of the testimony of the early church, and we have the maxim that the blood of the martyrs was the seed of the church, that Christianity grew in the midst of persecution when the Roman Empire tried to eradicate it by sending people to the Colosseum and to the Circus Maximus, that the Christians went to their deaths singing hymns and praises to Christ, but not everybody. There were those and those times that one push came to shove, and when they were told, do you believe in Christ?

Deny Him or you will die. They denied Him, just like Peter denied him, just like Peter denied him the night of his trial. And so then when the persecution ended, these people who had lapsed, who had denied Christ, many of them tried to come back to the church. And the people who were there to welcome them were people whose parents had been eaten by the lions or whose brothers and sisters had been killed by gladiators or whose children became human torches in the Garden of Nero.

How can we take you back? And by the grace of God, many of them brought them back. But Jesus says, it's not who professes Me at first, but who endures to the end.

So much of the literature of the New Testament is our words of encouragement and challenge and admonition to persevere in the midst of persecution. In his last letter, the Apostle Paul, while he's awaiting his own execution in Rome, writes to Timothy and says that he's been basically left alone. He gets a little bit of time from Luke and some others, but he talks about all of those who have distanced themselves from him, and particularly Demas. Demas had been a compatriot of Paul's on the apostolic missionary journeys, but now Demas abandons him. And Paul says, he left me because he loved this world. And now he's known forever as the man who abandoned the Apostle Paul for the love of this world. I hope that's not my legacy. I hope that's not your legacy.

I hope that we will be numbered among those people who will endure to the end. Finally, the Christianity that we have here, the message that Jesus is giving is the message of the gospel that includes a cross. And if you want to take away the cross from Christianity, you've taken Christianity itself away. Hear the warning of Jesus to his disciples. If you want to take away the cross from Christianity, you've taken Christianity itself away.

That was R.C. Sproul on this Sunday edition of Renewing Your Mind. Each Lord's Day, we feature the preaching ministry of Dr. Sproul, and we're currently hearing a small collection of sermons from his series in Matthew's Gospel. But you can walk through the entirety of the gospel, from the coming of Christ to the giving of the Great Commission, when you request R.C. Sproul's hardcover expositional commentary with your donation of any amount at renewingyourmind.org. You heard the warning today to not compromise or water down the message.

And in all of Ligonier's teaching outreach, we seek to be clear and faithful. And that's the outreach that you enable when you give. To thank you for your generosity, we'll send you a copy of Dr. Sproul's commentary to help you dig deeper into God's Word.

Visit renewingyourmind.org or use the link in the podcast show notes before midnight tonight. Thank you. Whom shall we fear, God or man? Jesus addressed this in very pointed terms. Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather, fear Him who can destroy both soul and body in hell. That will be R.C. Sproul's text next Sunday here on Renewing Your Mind.