"Persecution Arrives" Matthew 10:16-23 Sunday Morning Worship Service

According to Open Doors International, every day, on average, 13 Christians worldwide are killed because of their faith.

Every day, 12 church buildings are destroyed, and every day 12 Christians are unjustly arrested or imprisoned.

Another five are abducted.

The difference being, you know, abducted would be a non-government entity doing it.

The other 12 would be a government entity doing the arresting.

Open doors is probably the best source of these kind of statistics because they have a very biblical worldview.

They're discerning, they understand the difference between a Christian being arrested for not paying taxes and a Christian being arrested for being a Christian in a place like Iraq where they are taxed for being a Christian and are unable to pay it because Christians aren't allowed to find work in some of those communities.

So they understand the difference there.

A Christian who, you know, no shows a court date for speed ticket and gets arrested does not count in their statistics.

I'm sorry, Americans.

When you think about those numbers, you can extrapolate them out.

13 Christians worldwide killed because their faith on average a day.

That's about 5,000 a year.

About 5,000 church buildings are destroyed every year.

And about 5,000 Christians are arrested because their faith every year.

North Korea is probably the most serious location for this in the world.

Even five years ago or so, there was some sense of Christianity in the country.

And when Christians were being persecuted, they would flee off into China across the river there and uh and escape.

There were enough Christian spies in the government to let Christians know if the government was aware of their Christianity to give them a chance to get out.

That has changed since COVID.

That river border has been basically sealed off.

And you know it's got to be bad in North Korea if Christians being persecuted there flee to China, which is another one of the worst countries in the world for persecution.

So certainly North Korea remains the most intensely persecuted location for Christians.

Another nation where persecution has risen dramatically in the last three or four years is Algeria.

Before COVID, there were probably 50 evangelical churches in Algeria.

And what I mean by that, they don't have the government in Algeria doesn't make a church register, but their churches, you know, have crosses on them or signs on them, or they're online or whatever, and people know there are churches.

There's probably 50 of them in 2020.

Now Open Doors says there's three.

They've been mostly eliminated, unable to open since COVID.

The three that are there are undergoing severe government persecution and threats to have their property seized.

Christian persecution is rising all over Sub-Saharan Africa, uh, mostly in areas that aren't controlled by governments.

Uh, non-government agencies and entities, uh, tribes, warlords, indigenous people groups are very violent towards Christians and try to reject the gospel.

As you see this in Sudan, uh, you see this even in Chad, the part of Chad that is not really under government authority.

You see this in Niger, you see this in Nigeria.

Nigeria is a country where the government ostensibly controls the whole country.

This is where many, many Christians are kidnapped by terrorist groups, and many churches are burned.

In India, this is a nation where church buildings are frequently burned and destroyed.

India is a nation that ostensibly has religious freedom.

There's no laws banning Christianity.

It's not the government that's burning churches, it's of course mobs, Hindu mobs that are regularly burning them to the ground.

I'm sure you remember IBC has planted a couple churches in that region of India, mostly in the northern India.

Uh one of the churches we planted many years ago, five years ago, so now we planted across the street from a police station, which was a shrewd move because it exists still to this day.

China this year passed a law saying that the registered churches, remember, China has a dis uh difference between underground churches and their uh licensed churches, their licensed churches are required to have a sign up on the doors this year, prominently displayed, that says, love the communist party, love the country, love religion.

Uh the order of those is significant.

That puts Christians in an awkward situation.

Uh would your church have that sign on its wall in order to uh be able to meet legally love the communist party, love the country, love religion.

What would an American version of that sign say?

Something the government wants you to attest to.

Uh love the country, love religion.

Thirdly, the country actively, China actively uses facial recognition software to identify churches and then to close them.

They're able to track people as they're moving through the country.

We have, our own churches had missionaries that have been caught in that way and have told us that their churches have been busted open in that way.

They can reverse engineer it.

You know, all this data is stored, so once they catch a church on one day, they can reverse engineer that and go back however many Sundays they want to go back and see who is attending there and track them back to their houses and identify them.

In Iraq, churches there have uh been mostly eradicated in the last 10 years or so, but in the last two years, specifically since uh 2022 or so, they've stopped displaying crosses.

The few churches that remain in northern Iraq have taken down crosses or other outward-identifying marks.

Uh the pastors there say their churches are being bombed normally by the Turkish Air Force or by Turkish drones.

Those drones are out fighting uh terrorist groups that are running through northern Iraq, but when they see buildings with crosses on them, the pastors there say they're often targeted.

Libya used to be a place where Christians from neighboring nations would flee.

Algeria, we already talked about that, Sudan, Tunisia, strongly persecutes Christians there.

It's the governments in Algeria, Tunisia, and Sudan that persecute Christians.

Christians used to be able to flee to Libya.

And when I say persecute Christians, what I mean by that, in all of those countries, it's illegal to convert from Islam to Christianity.

So if you're an indigenous, what they mark as an indigenous Christian, if you're born into a Christian ethnicity or whatever, it's fine.

But if you are born Muslim, it's illegal to be proselytized.

You can't share the gospel with the Muslim.

And if a Muslim converts, the crime is on him.

And so it used to be for probably 20 years that those kind of converts would flee to Libya.

And this there was a thriving population of churches in Libya of refugees from Algeria and Sudan and Tunisia.

But since the collapse of Libya a few years ago, that the government doesn't control much of Libya.

And the warlords that do actively persecute those Christians with a religious fanaticism.

They view themselves as enforcing Islamic law.

Bhutan is a nation that I've uh preached in before.

Bhutan is a nation that's officially Buddhist.

Bhutan means kingdom of Buddha.

There's a lot of Indian refugees in Bhutan, like Indians that have uh fled to Bhutan.

Bhutanese people despise the Indians.

There's a lot of uh Christians in Bhutan that are Indian by ethnicity.

They fled into Bhutan to escape persecution for their Christianity in India.

And the Bhutanese hate those people, not because they hate Christians, but because they hate Indians.

But they also hate Christians.

So Bhutanese Christians are severely persecuted as well.

They have a difficult time getting jobs.

They can't take mortgages, their home loans, their property is often confiscated when they die.

They're unable to pass it down to their families.

Bhutan is a very micromanage-y kind of government.

You get a license by the government for the kind of job you can have, and Christians are often not allowed any job below menial work that is there.

It's a very, very difficult nation to be a believer.

As I go through that list, I just want you to know a few things.

So, firstly, IBC does have missionaries in a lot of those nations.

Not all of them, but in a lot of them.

And we don't often talk about them or advertise them because as we've learned, those governments have software.

It's not like the governments are watching the IBC live stream to look for missionary references, but they have software that combs the speech of all kinds of churches and pull it, catch missionary names and websites and pull them out.

And so we're pretty discreet when we talk about that kind of thing here.

So that's the one thing I want you to know as you're giving to Emmanuel Bible Church.

Your money is going to support missions work in a lot of these countries.

Really faithful men and women that are serving the Lord there as best as they're able.

Second thing you should know: the Lord knew all of this would happen.

The Lord planned this.

He decreed it, even in the passage we just read this morning.

The Lord knew his church was going to face persecution, and in fact sent it into the world for the purpose of persecution, knowing that the Lord would be magnified through it.

And you see that even hinted at, uh, well, not hinted at, said directly in verse 18, as you're being persecuted, you're bearing witness before the Gentiles.

The nations will see the persecution and it will magnify the glory of God.

And you think, how does that work?

Well, if you're on trial for Christianity and you can renounce your faith and have your freedom and a better job, and you refuse to, that's a powerful testimony to the people that are observing.

And the church history is filled with those kind of stories, filled with it, where it's it's a it's a witness to them.

That it's not the judges that get converted, but the people in the pews, so to speak.

It's the jury that gets converted after the martyrdom of the saint.

And then the third thing I would just say about the kind of stats and lists I read off persecution in the United States has also been on the rise.

And it does not look like it looks in other countries.

Churches aren't here being firebombed.

I've often pointed out here the police at Emmanuel Bible Church help us get in and out of the parking lot.

You know, they facilitate our worship.

If you're crazy enough to do a left turn on back lick, there's a police officer there to help you.

I mean, that's very different than in most other countries where you would hide from them.

You know, they're they're they're really there to be, and they're nice guys.

I I even catch them sometimes in the hallway listening to the sermons between, you know, with between waves in the parking lot.

Um so the U.S.

persecution is different.

It doesn't look like that.

And the U.S.

persecution has been on the rise, though, in in other areas.

Uh I've been keeping tracks of the case of the Calvary Chapel in Santa Clara, California, Northern California, San Jose basically.

And I used to work in Calvary.

I have a lot of friends that are there.

This is a church that's been fined millions of dollars uh for meeting during COVID.

And California fined all kinds of churches for meeting during COVID, and the Supreme Court tossed them out, the state Supreme Court tossed them out.

A lot of courts overruled them, and you know, in fact, it even worked for the many churches' benefits.

There's an attorney at Emmanuel Bible Church who represented one of those churches in California and just won a ridiculous settlement from the state.

They bought a new law office right next to the Supreme Court, it overlooks the Supreme Court.

They call it their Newsom office, named after the one who paid for it.

It's a certain ironic twist for sure.

But the church in California, Santa Clara, uh Kelly Calvert Chapel there, um, they were fined after all of those rulings.

So the government fined them after those rulings, so it it wasn't reversed by the rulings, and they're then unable to get a court to take up their case, and so they're just stuck with it.

You think of uh so many other examples in the United States of it just being almost impossible now at a public university for a Christian liberal arts professor to climb the to climb the ranks or to get tenure, very, very difficult.

You think of all the Christian organizations that are kicked off of secular campuses.

Um and this isn't even this is the last 10, 15 years.

When I was in California doing college ministry, the school that I was at was successfully able to kick off every Christian group from campus except ours because of our connection to the church.

Uh Intervarsi got kicked off, Fellowship of Christian Athletes got kicked off, campus crusade got kicked off.

Uh they've made everybody sign these non non-discrimination clauses.

Our church group was able to stay because you know, we we said you had to be a member of our church in order to be uh part of um our campus organization.

And that was a narrow enough guide that kept everything else out.

You know, we wouldn't discriminate against any member of our church, uh, so to speak.

So we we figured out the church membership was the way to navigate that kind of situation.

But it that's prevalent all over the country still, where Christian groups um are constantly being kicked off of campus.

You see it today a lot in the employment uh with government workers and different government agencies in the military, where you reach a certain level in your job and you're told you have to attend six civic events a month.

You have to represent the government or your government agency at a civic event, six of them a month, and in the month of June they all have to be LGBTQ events.

You know, that's a very common restriction that people are operating under now.

I know many of you operate under that kind of restriction.

And you think, well, how do I navigate that?

I'll talk more about that later this morning.

How do I navigate that?

Uh I mean that's that is persecution.

Now I grant, very quickly, I grant that is not in the same category of having a Turkish drone bomb the six-story cross on the top of the building.

Like I get they're not in the same category of having your church burned down by a Muslim mob.

They're not in the same category.

I understand that.

There is a spectrum of persecution in the world, though.

It's always been that way in the world.

It's always been there.

And when you are the one who's told you're not going to be able to be promoted if you don't go to LGBTQ events this month, it's not very comforting to you for me to come put my arm around you and go, brother, at least you don't live in Chad.

You know, it is a trial for you where you're trying to navigate.

How do you navigate your relationship?

You know, where you have, you know, people in your family that invite you to their transgender wedding and say, you know, we don't you don't love me if you don't go to my wedding to support me.

How do you navigate that?

Is that in the same category as Bhutan telling you you can't own a home if you're a Christian?

No, it's not in the same category.

But nevertheless, it's a difficult situation to navigate.

The longest section in the scripture that teaches you how to navigate this is this morning, the passage that we just read.

And so as I go through this morning, I happen to be pastoring a church in the United States, so I happen to be talking to people, most of whom we I know many of you have served in the mission field or are actively pursuing the mission field in areas that you will face persecution in.

But I know for most of you, the kind of persecution you're gonna face is not the mob storming the building, but the kind of navigating gay marriages and LGBTQ ceremonies.

And, you know, what made Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego's thing of persecution was not the punishment at the end of it, but the prerequisite that you bow before the statue at the beginning of it.

It would have been persecution even if they were just hit with a fine or told you can no longer work in the government.

So you just have to understand there is nuance and differences in this, uh, and yet the Lord prepares you for all of it.

The reality in the passage I just read to you is that Jesus does send his church out to be persecuted.

And he sends them out to be persecuted like animals in the arena.

This is not a subtle passage here.

He's sending you out like sheep among wolves, and sheep get eaten, and wolves do the eating, and then the long passage goes on to talk about how you will be delivered over to death, he says.

You will be put to death.

Now I titled this sermon, Persecution Arrives, because you can see this building through Matthew 10.

Matthew 10 starts, well, Matthew 9 ends with Jesus saying, I'm going to send laborers or workers out to the harvest.

Harvest is an idiom for judgment.

He's going to send workers out to prepare the field for judgment, which is one of rescuing, rescuing people from judgment through the gospel.

Matthew 10 begins with the 12 apostles.

They are going to be the agents of that deliverance, and then it implies to those who are after them.

And it starts out with such good news.

The kingdom of God is in your midst, the dead will be raised, the blind will see, lepers will be healed.

Amen.

Praise Jesus.

Let's go.

Oh, also you'll be like sheep among wolves.

Also, you're gonna die.

You're like, whoa, what happened to raise the dead?

Is that still in force?

Because if we're gonna die, but my friend can raise me, send him out two by two, problem solved.

No, and that's what makes this passage so difficult, is that the truth of this is telescoping out.

Some of it applies only to the 12, some of it applies to the 70, some of it applies to the church in the book of Acts, and some of it applies all the way to us.

And you have to navigate what is what.

You know that it is a telescoping passage because some of the things that are said in here don't even apply to the 12.

On this first journey, they weren't persecuted by the Jews.

Remember, they come back rejoicing and celebrating.

On the second journey, they ran into opposition.

And then the book of Acts comes and they're put to death.

And you know it's going to go all the way to include us if you look down at verse 23.

Jesus says, this stuff is not going to come to fruition until the Son of Man comes.

You know, so you can, James Boyce, the famous commentator, says that that verse, Matthew 10, 23, is the hardest New Testament verse to interpret, he says.

Because you can't you can't locate this.

Like, what's it talking about?

Does the gospel go through Israel yet?

I mean, you can just deduce a couple truths about this passage.

It's about global evangelism, specifically in Israel here, and secondly, Jesus hasn't come back yet.

He hasn't returned yet.

And so we're we're in this world right here, where Jesus' words compel you to go into the mission field, compel you to be Christians and evangelize your neighbors in the context of persecution, knowing that persecution will be different from society to society.

Granting all that.

So, first of all, let's look at this a little bit more closely.

He sends us out like animals.

The first animal he sends you out like is a sheep.

He says, I'm sending you out as sheep in the midst of wolves.

When he says he's sending you out like a sheep, that's not meant to be flattering.

You know, he doesn't say I'm sending you out like a pit bull.

I'm sending you out like a ram.

Those are nice animals, the majestic horns and all that.

No, he's sending you out like a sheep.

Sheep have almost no natural qualities that are good in any way, shape, or form at all.

Uh except to be fleeced and eaten.

Like that's about what they got going for them.

They're good for sacrifices, they're good to make clothes out of, and they're good for food.

They are not majestic creatures as they, you know, roam the Palestinian hillside.

You know, they are defenseless.

Their teeth don't work to bite, their noses don't even allow them to defend themselves.

Like, if you've been bit by a sheep, you can kind of shake it off.

Uh uh they don't have claws where they're gonna kick you with their hooves.

Their legs are like these tiny little things, they can't reach you.

You know, I've held a sheep by its head before when it's throwing like a big temper tantrum and its feet are just like looking like cartoon style running in a circle and it's just like grunting and staring at you.

You can almost palm it like a basketball.

Sheep are worthless creatures.

Uh and they can't defend themselves, as I mentioned.

What's their defense mechanism to run?

They run as fast as their little legs will carry them, which is not very fast.

That's why they're so good in a petting zoo, because you know, they're they have they're they have enough sense to be scared of a six-year-old, because they're scared of everybody.

So they run from the six-year-olds, but the six-year-olds just walk to catch up to them.

You know, so imagine a wolf in the wild after a sheep.

The sheep's gonna run, of course.

Not very well.

Not very well.

They're just a big ball of cotton with toothpicks for legs, and it's it's over for them.

They're also easily, easily scared.

They're frightened by everything because they can be eaten by anything.

They run all the time.

The shepherds talk about sheep running themselves.

In New Zealand, it's very common for sheep to run themselves to death.

Literally.

They get scared by something and they run to death.

The most common thing that they run from is flies, by the way.

They run by flies.

Because the flies lay eggs in their ears or eggs in their eyes, and they can go blind and they can grow deaf, and so they freak out and they run away from flies.

And so it's so important for the shepherd to calm the sheep with the shepherd's voice.

I mean, this is something that's oh, the Jews know all this.

They wouldn't, Jesus doesn't have to explain this to them.

The shepherd has to calm the sheep with his voice that keeps the sheep there.

If a sheep runs away, it's not hard for the shepherd to catch him, but he has to leave the rest of the flock to go get the one.

And if two run away and they run away in opposite directions, it's like herding kittens out there.

The whole thing is a mess.

Sheep run all the time.

And this is what Jesus says Christians are going to be like.

He's sending you into the world like sheep.

And people will often say, Christians exaggerate persecution.

You know, Americans are always saying, uh, ten years ago, you were like, if gay marriage passes, all the churches will be closed down in five minutes, and look, here we are.

You guys are such persecution hypochondriacs.

Like, yes, we are.

We're sheep.

We we are overreacting.

We do run away from things that aren't really that much of a threat.

But listen, wolves do eat sheep.

It is true, they are afraid of everything, but it would be ridiculous to say to a sheep, you shouldn't be afraid of that wolf over there, because what is the wolf can only eat one of you?

Like, oh, thanks, mom.

Yeah, the wolf can only eat one of us.

Oh, sheep are so overreacting because uh you know, wolves hardly ever actually catch all of them.

I mean, come on.

Yes, we overreact, but yes, wolves are still a threat.

They are both true statements.

That's the nature of being a sheep, okay?

Now, there's so many other implications of being a sheep.

Shepherds, God calls pastors shepherds, which again is not meant to flatter the pastor, like, oh, I have an important job because I'm a shepherd.

No, nobody aspired to being a shepherd, okay?

No.

It's meant to humble everybody.

The sheep shepherd analogy.

Now, all of that isn't mentioned, uh, isn't meant with every use of the word sheep in the New Testament.

With this use of the word sheep, what stands out is that sheep cannot protect themselves.

The only source of protection is sheep.

Has is the shepherd.

And that is true for us as well.

God designed sheep to teach us this basic lesson.

He gave bulls and rams horns to defend themselves.

He gave horses strength to gallop away.

Even cats have claws, you know, and dogs can bark.

Birds, they can fly away.

Some birds have talons, but sheep only have the shepherd.

That's their only defense, and that's why we are sheep.

We are powerless in our own strength.

And Jesus calls you a sheep and then says, man up, or sheep up, whatever the expression would be.

I'm sending you into wolves.

What?

I mean, that's pretty that's an audacious plan.

You know, that's a bold plan if you can pull it off.

Here, all I have is an army of sheep.

There's the wolves.

Go for it.

You know, but that's what Jesus says.

There's a certain audacity to it.

But that's the plan.

We are to go out into the midst of wolves, knowing that we will be attacked.

The second animal we're compared to is a snake.

Yikes.

I was just getting over the sheep one.

So be wise as serpents.

Snakes are associated with wisdom.

There's positive and negative connotations, of course.

Positive connotations.

Snakes know how to stay out of trouble.

They know how to hide.

The snakes know people don't like them, and so they don't advertise themselves.

And they're so good at that, aren't they?

You know, I can't even tell you how many times I've been walking with a group of friends or even my family.

And you know, it will be spread out, and like five of us will pass a snake, and like a one person in the rear will be like, hey, there's a snake you guys just all stepped over.

I mean, how it's a black snake in Virginia, it stands, doesn't even match the, but they can texture themselves and move in such a way that you don't see them.

They're crafty little fellows, aren't they?

They know how to stay out of trouble.

They're wise in that regard.

No, there's negative connotations as well.

They can be deceptive.

Oh, and they bite, and their movements don't make any sense in the whole world.

And God designed humans to be afraid of snakes and snakes to produce fear in humans.

And had Adam and Eve learned that lesson, we would all not be afraid of snakes.

But they didn't learn the lesson, and so here we are.

So there's negative connotations in that they bite and that they are deceptive.

But the positive connotation here is we are supposed to be cunning, wise, with the ability to navigate ourselves in and out of trouble without suffering harm.

That's the main idea is sanctified shrewdness.

William Hendrickson has written probably the most famous commentary on Matthew's Gospel.

He writes, quote, The keenness recommended involves insight into the nature of one's own surroundings, circumspection, and what Hendrickson calls sanctified common sense, wisdom to do the right thing at the right time and the right place in the right manner, and a serious attempt to always discover the best means to achieve the highest goal.

I love that phrase, sanctified common sense.

Snakes know how to stay out of trouble, they know how to just avoid the problems.

My favorite snake story in Virginia: I have a shed in my backyard that uh the snakes use my shed like you use a refrigerator.

When you want a snack, you go to my shed.

And so they will slither under the shed and get the mice, they will slither up into the rafters of the shed and get the mice, and I don't even need mice traps because I have snakes.

And we have we have an understanding.

I don't bother them and they don't bother me and all as well.

And I don't need to lock my shed either.

It works out great.

And one day I'm looking in my shed, and the snakes will often curl up in the rafters of my my shed.

And one day, these wasps had built a nest in the shed.

I look up there, and there is a snake wrapped around the pole right next to the wasp nest, and the wasps are walking all over the snake that's coiled up along a two by four.

The wasps are just walking over it.

And I'm watching this mesmerized, I've never seen anything like this.

I'm watching it, and I'm like, how is the snake not getting stung?

Like a lot.

And he's not.

The wasps are just checking him out, and he's just able to be.

I didn't stay longer than 30 seconds.

I don't know how the story ultimately ended.

I'm like, okay.

Now you know I don't need to lock my shed.

How does the snake avoid getting stung?

It just knows what to do.

You know, you've seen the black snakes in Virginia, even when you corner them, sometimes they'll rattle their tail in leaves, pretending they're a rattlesnake, and you're like, I'm not, you're not fooled by this.

You're six feet long and black.

Come on.

They know how to get themselves out of trouble.

And that's what Jesus commends to Christians.

You have to be able to navigate the situation that you're in in a way that gets you out of trouble.

You cannot turn every, you know, workplace LGBTQ Pride Day into a showdown, you know, in the book of Acts.

You have to figure out how to navigate your way out of conflict in a wise and shrewd way.

I had one guy tell me that his government agency requires him, after first service, he told me his agency requires him to attend six uh civic engagements, they're called, in June, and well, every month, but it's specifically in June, they have to all be LGBTQ things.

So he's like, I just take my vacation time in the first half of June and send my deputy in the second half of June, and nobody's the wiser.

He's like, My deputy's not a Christian, he doesn't care, and I'm on vacation and all is well.

And some of you might roll your eyes at that and go, oh, that's weak sauce compromiser.

And I would say that's not weak sauce compromiser, that's being a little bit shrewd and figuring out how to navigate a government workplace without making everything a First Amendment showdown.

Be a little bit wise.

Snakes know how to get themselves out of trouble.

And so Jesus says, I'm sending you it like a sheep into wolves.

So act a little bit like a snake in figuring out how to navigate the situation.

This is Christians going to close countries as English teachers or as baristas.

You know, these countries will give work permits to Americans to go make coffee, they'll give work permits to Americans to go teach English.

You're not lying to do that.

Like, oh, I'll go as an English teacher.

Sure they'll accept you.

That's being a little bit shrewd.

Why are you here?

I'm here to teach you.

You have to actually teach English, you know.

You have to actually make coffee, which is the negative of that approach.

You have to actually follow through because you're not a liar, but you're figuring out the right way to navigate situations.

You know how to get yourself out of trouble.

The third animal you're compared to is a dove.

A dove.

You're innocent, it says, I'm sending you as a serpent, but innocent as a dove.

Doves are the most harmless of all the birds, right?

A dove doesn't harm anybody in any way.

You walk outside and you see a bunch of ravens or a bunch of vultures, you might go a different direction.

You know, you see a couple hawks on your car, you're like, I'll take the other car.

But if you see a bunch of doves in your grass, you're like, oh, I'm safe.

Yeah, if there's a bunch of doves there, I know there's no hawks there, right?

I mean, hawks eat doves like popcorn.

They're the easiest birds for those things to catch.

Hawks don't hawks, I mean, doves don't harm anybody in any way.

So you're supposed to be innocent like a dove.

What does that mean?

It means that you you don't lie.

You're not deceptive, you're not harming anybody.

You know, I think it's paired with the snake here, because the idea is that you're supposed to be wise but not deceptive.

You're supposed to be shrewd but straightforward.

You're supposed to be able to navigate difficulty, but with a winsome approach.

You know, you're supposed to be able to speak the truth clearly and directly.

One commentator says the dove here represents kind, clear, and direct speech.

It's the opposite of the snake.

The snake uh does not represent kindness, the snake does not represent clarity, and it does not represent direct speech in any way.

But the dove is the opposite of all those things.

So, how do you do both?

You recognize 90% of the time you can navigate yourself out of conflict.

And the other 10% of the time, you just speak clearly, kindly, and directly.

Innocently.

So you can never be accused of lying.

You can never be accused of deception.

The worst thing you can be accused of is wisdom.

But you have the innocence of a dove.

That's together.

That's your animal package right there.

Are you gonna win?

Probably not.

Like that skill set, if you're building your hero in the video game, this this skill set is not the winning skill set right here.

The outcome of the sheep with the the likableness of a of a serpent and the ferocity of a pigeon.

It's over for you.

Well, that's how Jesus sends you out into the world.

Well, what arena does he send you into?

Well, the first arena he sends you into is that of religion.

Beware of men, Jesus says.

This is all the arenas.

People will persecute you.

The devil is persecuting you through people.

First, they're gonna deliver you over to courts and flog you in their synagogues.

That word courts, it's a religious term in Israel.

So this is a Jewish setting here.

They're gonna deliver you to their synagogues, and they're gonna persecute you.

You'll be flogged there.

The Jews said you couldn't, you know, Torah says you can't whip a punishment that's over 40 lashes, they would whip people 39 times.

This was a common punishment that Christians endured.

Paul endured this.

It's recorded in the book of Acts for you.

It's the way they were persecuted by the Jews.

Israel uh and Jews aren't persecuting Christians actively today.

I mean, they make it very difficult for Christians to immigrate uh to Israel in some regards, but they're not actively persecuting them.

And so some of this, you know, is just through the disciples' life, and some of it's telescoping to the tribulation, where the witnesses you know in Revelation 11 will be put to death in Jerusalem, and there will be persecution.

Remember, the first half of the tribulation is not good guys against bad guys, it's Israel and the Antichrist and the nations, and everybody's on the bad side there, and Christians are persecuted even by the Jews then.

And so that's I think what's in view here that you'll be persecuted by religious leaders.

Now, today that expands beyond just Israel.

And in many of those countries, it is the religious leaders that are doing the persecution.

In some places, it's of course the government, but in places like India or Libya, it's not the government that's persecuting Christians, it's religious leaders.

And they're the hardest ones to navigate.

No amount of wisdom serpent speech is going to get you out of a religious persecution.

Religious people who persecute you are persecuting you with a fanaticism.

And John, uh, Jesus says in John 16, verse 2, that when religious leaders persecute you, they they think they're serving God when doing it.

John 16:2

Like you can't get out of that kind of situation.

If somebody thinks they're serving God by harming you, you're going to lose.

And that's why it's the most sheep-like of these categories.

Like you're most like a sheep fed to wolves when you're facing persecution from religious leaders.

Now, that, of course, is not a thing in the United States, really, that I know of, and one of you might tell me an example after the service, but I can't really think of examples in the U.S.

where you're facing that kind of religious persecution, but it is commonplace in much of the rest of the world.

The second arena that you're persecuted in is that of government.

In verse 18, you'll be dragged before governors and kings for my sake.

Now Jesus says, you're going to do that to bear witness before them and to the Gentiles.

The government, you know, in English we have the saying, don't steal.

The government hates competition.

You've heard that, I'm sure.

The same thing is true with authority.

Why does government persecute Christians?

Well, it's just a foundational fact that the government doesn't like the competition of allegiance.

This is true in all various kinds of government.

All various kinds of government have that same hostility.

This goes back to the Christian worldview.

In the Christian worldview, the origin of people is from God, not government.

People are made in the image of God.

God dispenses our inherent rights, dignity, honor, and all of that through us being in the image of God.

And those things transcend nations.

You understand that governments don't give you rights.

Governments take away your rights.

They're very good at that.

Governments, and I'm not just talking about any kind of government, all governments are good at taking away rights.

Much of what government does is depriving people of what should be theirs by being in the image of God.

When government functions well, it checks evil and promotes good and protects your food and protects your family and your freedom to worship and all that.

That's when government functions properly, and that's you know, maybe 5% of what government seems to do, the rest of it seems to be taking rights away from people, and that's the way that it has always been.

I'm not talking about American history, I'm talking about every country's history.

Generally functions like that.

You recognize as a Christian that your rights and your human dignity come because you are in the image of God.

When I say rights, I'm talking about the rights I just rattled off earlier, the rights to be able to cultivate food from Genesis chapter 8 and 9, the right to be able to religion uh to worship God, to have a family, to have that kind of volitional capacity that God gave people.

Genesis 8 · chapter mention

As our own declaration says, we hold these truths to be self-evident that all people are created.

Now I want you to think through that for one second.

All people are created equal.

What does that presuppose?

A creator.

You can't say all people are created equal unless you have the concept of a creator.

And so for any government that comes along and says, no, the government is a source of rights.

The government chooses who can have life and who can have speech and who can have access to food or whatnot.

Do you see how it's a competition to the rights that come from God?

And so governments have always persecuted believers in some sense, to varying degrees.

Remember, this is all on a spectrum.

It's all on a spectrum, but to varying degrees.

You have to believe in those moments that God is giving you the convictions to stand for who he is.

I mean, this is what he means in verse 19.

When they deliver you over, do not be anxious about how you're to speak or what you're to say.

For what you say will be given to you in that hour.

You know, Jesus, this is one of those things that's way easier said than done, right?

Jesus says, if you're in jail and you're gonna be forced to testify about your Christianity or you're put on trial, Jesus says, go to sleep at night.

Don't worry about what you're gonna say tomorrow.

And you're like, in the book of Acts, martyrdom could happen the next day.

You remember one of the things that's so surprised the jailers is that they were sleeping and that they were singing.

It's like none of that makes sense.

I tell my kids all the time, you should go to bed.

They're like, oh, we're getting ready for school tomorrow.

You'll do better on your speech at speech and debate or whatever tomorrow if you go to sleep now and do it rested than if you stay up two more hours cramming.

I think that's true.

They remind me of that on Saturday nights, though.

They're like, Dad.

Mind your own business.

When you get called into court, don't worry about the charges.

God designed the trial to put the gospel on the witness stand.

And you can't prepare your answer because you've already prepared your testimony.

When Jesus says here, don't worry about what you're gonna say because it'll be given to you, he's not talking about dramatic inspiration.

He's talking about the convictions that put you into that moment you can draw from to open your mouth when you're on the stand.

You don't need to study for this.

Whatever convictions led you to the moment where you're being persecuted, draw on those convictions to give a defense for your faith.

You've prepared your testimony through years of obedience.

It's bad when lawyers lead the witness, but it's good when the shepherd does.

And that's what it says in verse 20.

It's the spirit of your father speaking through you.

The third arena of persecution is that of family.

That of family.

Brother will deliver brother to death.

You think, ah, religious leaders are persecuting me, the government is persecuting me, at least the home will be a respite.

No.

Brother will deliver brother to death, father will deliver his own child.

Children will rise against parents and have them put to death.

The families will be divided.

That's the reality that Jesus will bring family division.

Now, this is less true of those raised in the church, obviously, although there's certain exceptions, but this is more of a reality for families that have had conversions.

Families cut ties.

And they're the hardest part because family is the place where you look for loyalty and love.

You know, you're passing on your legacy.

Even in a Christian family, you're raising your kids to believe what you teach them and to see them rebel and walk away, but you've put so much hope and love and compassion to them to see them go a different way.

It wrecks you and it breaks your heart.

And so you want to maintain those relationships by any means possible because you've been praying for them and seeking after them and trying to encourage them to trust the Lord and they're not having it.

And that's just that's a that's a terror in the family that I don't pretend to be able to talk wisely or from personal experience about.

I have I haven't experienced that kind of terror.

But I do know the kind of uh conflict that comes from families when somebody gets converted and the rest of the family is not saved.

And there's all kinds of obstacles and hindrances in there, and in our own country, it's not turning people over to death, like it is in some countries.

In some countries, it's a very real threat that a family member turns you over for having converted to Christianity and you are persecuted or even killed.

It's a very real threat in much of the world.

In our world, it's not like that, really, in our country.

It's not death.

In our country, this takes more the shape of, will you go to the transgender wedding?

You know, if you loved me, you would go to the wedding and you would support me in my lifestyle choice kind of line.

And what do you do when you're put in that situation?

You think, I have to do anything possible to maintain this relationship.

That's what people think.

And in the background, you have Jesus saying, brother will rise up against brother.

You think if I don't go, I'll be sacrificing this relationship.

But here's the deal, you might be right, if you don't go, you might be sacrificing the relationship, of course.

But which relationship are you willing to sacrifice?

We make such an idol, I think, out of the family in the Christian culture.

I know it's you know the closest love that we have, but you understand kind of Christianity 101 is that you have to love the Lord more than you love any other human being.

When I do a Christian wedding, I say that.

I say, what makes this wedding so fun and unique is that these two people who are standing here both confess they love somebody more than each other.

And for the non-Christians that are in the in the congregation, I'll often hear they're like, oh, is this a movie?

Is a guy gonna bust through the door?

It's like, no, they love the Lord more than each other.

Of course.

Of course.

You know, so to borrow an old expression, do you go to the transgender wedding?

You can say, no, the the man on the middle cross told me I couldn't come.

I love the Lord.

I mean, the most loving thing you can do to someone is to tell them you love the Lord more than them.

My parents know this.

I tell my kids this all the time.

I tell my kids I love you more than anyone in the world, but I love the Lord more than you.

You just have to know that.

And I hope my kids love me more than anyone else in the world, but I hope they love Jesus more than me.

That's a strong Christian relationship right there.

That same dynamic is true with unsaved people as well.

You can love your unsaved kids, you can love your unsaved spouse.

I hope you do.

Your spouse isn't a Christian, you love them, serve them as best as you can, knowing that you love the Lord more than them.

And and you just you have to be wise.

You don't need to make every situation a here I can stand, here I stand, I can do no other kind of situation.

I'm compelled by scripture or a conscience, I will not bear wear the lapel pin.

Not every situation has to go down to that.

You can have wisdom to navigate out of many of them, but sometimes, especially with family, push comes to shove, and you have to make clear where your loyalties are.

And Jesus says, you're going to be hated, verse 22, by everybody for my name's sake, by all for my name's sake.

All does not mean every human individual in the world.

Stop it, people.

I've heard people say that all means every individual everywhere.

No, it does not.

Here it means every category of person.

You're gonna be hated by those in the government, you're gonna be hated by false religious leaders, you're gonna be hated by people in your family.

You're gonna lose.

You'll be delivered over to death.

You're not gonna be able to navigate this your whole life well.

You won't.

You can extend the time, you can extend the game, but eventually you'll have to make a stand.

And Jesus says, even when you have to make a stand, you don't need to give up and lose hope.

Verse 23.

When they persecute you in one town, flee to the next.

For truly I say to you, you won't have gone through all the towns of Israel before the Son of Man comes.

Jesus says, it's okay to run away from persecution.

If you're in an area here and you're gonna be persecuted, Jesus says, go to the other area.

You see a fork in the road, persecution is going on the left, turn right then, okay?

It's fine.

Don't run away because you're a coward, but run away because you're wise.

And every situation is different, right?

Athanasius, when soldiers stormed his church and started slicing up people at communion, he ran away and hid with the monks for a while.

He wasn't being a coward.

He was being a steward of the opportunity God gave him for escape.

Augustine, meanwhile, says, let the Visigoths come, I'm gonna die right here in my pulpit.

That's not being a fool either.

Every situation is different, and the Lord lets some people run and he makes some people stand.

It isn't cowardice to wisely choose a battlefield, but it is cowardice to abandon your king because you don't have convictions.

And different people will make different decisions, some foolish and some wise, and you have to give grace for people to make different decisions than you will.

The bottom line, Jesus says, persecution is going to come, and if you can get away from it, run away from it.

But if you need to take a stand and be handed over by your brother, take a stand and be handed over by your brother.

So stand for Christ no matter what.

Listen, you're put to death, notice what he says in verse 22.

The one who endures to the end will be saved.

There are worse things than losing a family relationship.

There are worse things than losing your job.

There are worse things than being hauled into some Libyan jail for your faith.

There are absolutely worse things than that.

Lord will return and give you the best reward imaginable.

Lord, we're grateful for your word.

It gives us courage to stand for you in a world that doesn't.

Our culture is like shifting sands, and we don't.

We're sheep, Lord.

We know we're prone to exaggerate.

We know we're prone to stampede at the most random fly.

We get that, Lord.

Um, but we also know that there are very real wolves, very real compromises that lurk, and our allegiance is put to the test always.

We can't choose what country we're in, but we can choose how we stand for you in that country.

So, Lord, we pray for wisdom, we pray for grace, pray for compassion on those even sitting around us this morning that may have made different decisions than we would.

We pray that our hearts would be bound together by a common love for Christ and common courage of a conviction we have the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

It's in his name we pray.

Amen.

And now, for a parting word for Pastor Jesse Johnson.

Thanks for joining us.

If you're in the Washington, D.C.

area, I would love to see you at Emmanuel Bible Church.

For more information on our church or our current service times, go to IBC.church.

For more information about the Master Seminary and their Washington, D.C.

location, go to TMS.edu.

I hope this resource has been a blessing to you and it helps you seek the Lord daily, serve others around you, and share the gospel with boldness.