19  Sheep Among  Wolves (10:16-23)

Behold, I send you out as sheep in the midst of wolves; therefore be shrewd as serpents, and innocent as doves. But beware of men; for they will deliver you up to the courts, and scourge you in their synagogues; and you shall even 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 become anxious about how or what you will speak; for it shall be given you in that hour what you are to speak. For it is not you who speak, but it is the Spirit of your Father who speaks in you. And 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 on account of My name, but it is the one who has endured to the end who will be saved. But whenever they persecute you in this city, flee to the next; for truly I say to you, you shall not finish going through the cities of Israel, until the Son of Man comes. (10:16-23)

As part of their training toward finally being sent on their own after Jesus’ resurrection and ascension, the twelve needed to have an idea of the obstacles they would face. As noted in the previous chapter, some of the specifics Jesus taught in Matthew 10:5-42 applied only to the apostles; yet in principle they apply to His witnesses in every generation. In a similar way, some of the instruction applied only to the brief mission on which Jesus now sent the twelve out two by two (Mark 6:7), although the underlying ministry precepts applied to their work even after the Lord Jesus had ascended to heaven and will continue to apply to all His faithful servants throughout the church age and even into the Great Tribulation (Matt. 24:21). Ministry built on divine precepts will not end “until the Son of Man comes” (10:23), the eschatological term Matthew uses to represent the return of Christ to establish His millennial kingdom.

There is a telescoping significance in the passage. Beginning with the limited, dispensational preaching of the kingdom to “the lost sheep of the house of Israel” (vv. 6-7) during this particular mission and until Pentecost, there is a sweep through the entire future of Christ’s church—from His first coming to His second. With His omniscient prophetic eye, Jesus pictures the twelve in their full mission, and then He pictures all those who would continue to represent Him throughout redemptive history, including those who will suffer for His sake during the holocaust in the Great Tribulation.

That sort of telescopic prophecy is seen in numerous Old Testament passages, in which a prediction had both immediate and future significance and fulfillment. For example, within three verses, Micah spoke of Jesus’ birth in Bethlehem at His first coming and of His ruling Israel and the entire earth at His second coming (Mic. 5:2-4). Yet in that passage the two comings seem to be blended into one.

Apart from understanding Jesus’ use of this telescopic method, Matthew 10:5-42 cannot be sensibly interpreted. The apostles did not raise the dead (see v. 8) during this brief mission in Galilee nor at any other time during Jesus’ own earthly ministry. Nor did they themselves experience direct persecution or suffering (see vv. 16-23) until after Pentecost.

In Matthew 10:16-23 Jesus first gives an analogy of believers and their opponents (v. 16a) and dual figures illustrating the attitudes they should have as they face those opponents (16b). He then mentions the two primary areas from which direct attack from persecutors will come (vv. 17-18) and promises God’s equally direct provision for it (vv. 19-20). Finally, He mentions the two primary areas of indirect attack (vv. 21-22a) and tells His followers how to respond when persecution comes (v. 23).

THE ANALOGY

Behold, I send you out as sheep in the midst of wolves; (10:16a)

In saying, Behold, Jesus indicated His desire for the twelve to pay special attention to what He was about to say. He had spoken of the unbelieving multitudes as being like “sheep without a shepherd” (9:36), and He had delegated miraculous powers to the twelve (10:8). Based on such input it could have seemed to the apostles that they were destined to be powerful wolves who would go out with invincibility to conquer the defenseless, unbelieving sheep of the world. But the Lord here made it clear that the world’s “sheep” are not really defenseless and that the apostles’ powers—divinely endowed and marvelous as they were—would not prevent them from suffering from the hands of men. They, and the rest of His followers until He returns again, would be the real sheep. In that paradoxical truth Jesus graphically pointed up the tensions between our vulnerability and our invincibility—between our weakness in ourselves and our strength in Him, between the power of hateful persecution and the power of loving submission, and between the worldly power of the flesh and the supernatural power of the Spirit.

Sheep are perhaps the most dependent, helpless, and stupid of all domesticated animals. They are as often panicked by harmless things as by those that are dangerous. And when real danger does come, they have no natural defense except running, and they are not very good at that.

In A Shepherd Looks at the Twenty-third Psalm, Philip Keller gives many insights from his long experience as a shepherd in Canada. He points out that because sheep are so indiscriminate in their choice of vegetation to eat, it is necessary to carefully protect them from eating poisonous weeds. Because they are highly vulnerable to weather extremes and to infections and disease, they must be regularly and individually checked for dangerous symptoms, for cuts and abrasions, and for insects and parasites that can harm them. Flies buzzing around their eyes and ears have been known to so irritate and frighten sheep that they beat their heads against trees or rocks until they are dead. Sometimes flies will lay eggs in a sheep’s eyes and ultimately cause blindness. In trying to escape real or imagined danger, sheep will sometimes panic into a blind stampede, and pregnant ewes will lose their lambs from the running and sometimes even their own lives from utter exhaustion.

But the sheep’s greatest enemy is predators, the worst of which in Palestine and in many other parts of the world has always been wolves. People in Palestine understood the nature of sheep and the danger of wolves. They knew how difficult the task of the shepherd was simply to keep his sheep alive, much less healthy and contented.

Most shepherds did not themselves own the flocks but tended them on behalf of the owners. When a sheep was killed, the shepherd was required to bring back a piece of its torn flesh or some other part of its body to prove it had indeed been killed by a wild animal rather than stolen by a thief or perhaps sold by a dishonest shepherd.

Jesus clearly identifies the sheep as you, that is, His disciples—the twelve and, by extension, all of His disciples yet to come.

The normal danger for sheep is that wolves come in among them. But here Jesus told the twelve, I send you out as sheep in the midst of wolves. He called them to go into the wolves’ own territory, to walk into the very maw of their enemies. Jesus is the perfect Good Shepherd, who loves His sheep with a divine love, who intimately knows them and is known by them, and who lays down His life for them (John 10:11-15). But in the figure of the sheep and wolves, Jesus gave a graphic illustration of the rejection and persecution by a God-hating world they would face because of Him. So before the twelve went out into their first brief and relatively undemanding service for the Lord, He set before them the cost of discipleship. Just as He did not escape opposition and persecution, neither would they (cf. John 15:18-27; 16:33).

The world will continue to make raids on the church just as wolves make raids on flocks of sheep. “I know that after my departure,” Paul said, “savage wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock” (Acts 20:29). In his Romans letter he spoke of believers being looked on by the world as “sheep to be slaughtered” (8:36). Jesus had already warned His followers of “the false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly are ravenous wolves” (Matt. 7:15).

It is consistent with their predatory nature for wolves to come into a flock in the field and even into the sheepfold to attack, mutilate, and devour the sheep. But it is not natural or consistent with their nature for sheep to voluntarily walk into the wolves’ own den. And it is unnatural for a shepherd to send his sheep into such certain peril. Yet that is where Jesus, the Good Shepherd, sends His disciples—into the hostile world of ungodly souls, because that is where they can serve Him best and be most effective in winning others to Him. The apostles, and to various extents every believer after them, would be sent out defenseless in themselves among evil, rapacious, vicious, God-hating mankind.

We do not hear much preaching today of sinners needing to count the cost of salvation and repenting of sin in confessing the lordship of Christ, or of coming to Him humbly, devoid of pride and self-trust, hungering and thirsting for righteousness, and entering the narrow gate and walking the narrow road of righteousness. Rarely are Christians called to take up their crosses and follow Christ in moving out into the world as sheep led to slaughter. The popular appeal is to ease, comfort, riches, advancement, and ambition—and the church often uses that kind of enticement to motivate unbelievers to trust in Christ and to motivate believers to follow Him. But Jesus makes no such offer. To the disciple He promises hardship, suffering, and death.

To present the gospel dishonestly and misleadingly is to be unfaithful to the Lord and to those to whom we present it. Because of false promises, many unredeemed people remain on the broad road that leads to destruction while being under the delusion they are on the road to life. Many believers are confirmed in spiritual mediocrity and unfruitfulness, thinking their health, wealth, and material success is the certain mark of divine approval. Still other believers are disillusioned and embittered because their lives of obedience, faithfulness, and sacrifice for Christ have not been materially rewarded.

After the siege of Rome in 1849, Garibaldi said to his soldiers, “Men, all our efforts against superior forces have been unavailing. I have nothing to offer you but hunger and thirst, hardship and death. But I call on all who love their country to join with me.” After the Allies were forced to evacuate Dunkirk in 1940, Churchill said to his fellow Englishmen, “All I can offer you is blood, sweat, and tears.”

If those human leaders refused to send out their fellow countrymen to war under false pretenses, how much less would the divine Son of God! Jesus does not send out His followers without warning about the demands and dangers of discipleship. Nor did His apostles mislead the early church about what belonging to Christ would cost. As he wrote to encourage and strengthen Timothy, his son in the faith, Paul also assured him that “all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will be persecuted” (2 Tim. 3:12). Godly lives are not marked by continual suffering and hardship inflicted on them by the unbelieving world. Neither the life of Jesus nor the lives of the apostles were characterized by uninterrupted hardship and persecution. But faithfulness to God guarantees that at some times and to some degree Satan and his world system will exact a price for it.

THE ATTITUDE

therefore be shrewd as serpents, and innocent as doves. (10:16b)

In Egyptian hieroglyphics, as well as in much ancient lore, serpents symbolize wisdom. They were considered to be shrewd, smart, cunning, cautious. In that characteristic, at least, Christians are to emulate serpents.

Paul advises believers, “Conduct yourselves with wisdom toward outsiders, making the most of the opportunity” (Col. 4:5). Servants of the Lord are to be shrewd and cunning in dealing with the unbelieving world around them.

The basic idea is that of saying the right thing at the right time and place, of having a sense of propriety and appropriateness, and of trying to discover the best means to achieve the highest goal. It is neither wise nor loving to be needlessly accusatory or inflammatory. When the Pharisees attempted to trap Jesus into either defending or condemning the Roman government by asking Him about paying taxes to Caesar, He did not take the occasion to vilify Caesar or the Roman government—vile, debauched, unjust, and ungodly as they were. Nor did He condone their wickedness. He replied simply, “Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s; and to God the things that are God’s” (Matt. 22:21). It is neither brave nor wise, and neither spiritual nor loving, to needlessly incite anger or court trouble.

As the most harmless and gentle of birds, doves represent being pure, or innocent, another characteristic of the faithful disciple of Christ. Being true to God’s Word and uncompromising in proclaiming the gospel does not require, and should never include, being abrasive, course, inconsiderate, belligerent, blatant, or blunt.

Wisdom and innocence, cunning and gentleness, are handmaids of discretion. No apostle was more uncompromising of the gospel than Paul; yet he declared,

I have made myself a slave to all, that I might win the more. And to the Jews I became as a Jew, that I might win Jews; to those who are under the Law, as under the Law, though not being myself under the Law, that I might win those who are under the Law; to those who are without law, as without law, though not being without the law of God but under the law of Christ, that I might win those who are without law. To the weak I became weak, that I might win the weak; I have become all things to all men, that I may by all means save some. (1 Cor. 9:19-22)

Innocence involves more than simply avoiding negative attitudes and approaches. It also involves the positive attribute of purity. Godly wisdom has no part in anything that is impure, deceitful, or defiling. It is always the ally of truth and righteousness. Nothing untruthful or unethical can enhance the gospel or make its witness more effective. Paul assured the Thessalonian believers that his preaching and teaching of the gospel did “not come from error or impurity or by way of deceit” (1 Thess. 2:3). Integrity and honesty are practical manifestations of truthfulness, without which an otherwise orthodox presentation of the gospel is distorted and weakened.

We are to be like our Lord Himself, our great “high priest, holy, innocent, undefiled” (Heb. 7:26). We are to love our enemies and do good to those who hate us (Luke 6:27). Jesus is again our model, because He “committed no sin, nor was any deceit found in His mouth; and while being reviled, He did not revile in return; while suffering, He uttered no threats, but kept entrusting Himself to Him who judges righteously” (1 Pet. 2:23). In following our Lord’s example, “when we are reviled, we bless; when we are persecuted, we endure; when we are slandered, we try to conciliate” (1 Cor. 4:12-13).

When Paul was brought before the Sanhedrin in Jerusalem, the high priest Ananias ordered him to be struck in the mouth. In a moment of unguarded anger the apostle replied, “God is going to strike you, you whitewashed wall! And do you sit to try me according to the Law, and in violation of the Law order me to be struck?” (Acts 23:3). When he was rebuked by some bystanders for reviling the high priest, Paul immediately apologized, saying, “I was not aware, brethren, that he was high priest; for it is written, ‘You shall not speak evil of a ruler of your people’” (v. 5). What Paul had said to the high priest was perfectly true, and certainly understandable from a human point of view. But it was not appropriate, not only because it was said to the high priest but because it was said in self-defensive anger. It was not the wise and righteous thing to say.

THE PERSECUTION

But beware of men; for they will deliver you up to the courts, and scourge you in their synagogues; and you shall even be brought before governors and kings for My sake, as a testimony to them and to the Gentiles. (10:17-18)

Jesus proceeds to identify the “wolves” and then gives warnings about four areas in which they persecute believers—in religion, government, family, and society in general. Interspersed within the warnings are further instructions about the attitudes His disciples should have and the provision their heavenly Father supplies.

The wolves of whom believers are to beware are men. The ultimate enemies against whom we struggle are Satan and his demonic hosts, the non flesh-and-blood “rulers, . . . powers, . . . world forces of this darkness, [and] spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places” (Eph. 6:12). But the agents of those supernatural enemies are human beings. It is through men that Satan opposes and persecutes the church of Jesus Christ. Men are the wolves who malign, oppress, imprison, torture, and kill God’s people.

Beware of these opponents, Jesus says—be on guard, be watchful, be perceptive. To be innocent is not to be naive. When well-meaning believers insist on putting the best face on every evil, they are not demonstrating love but foolishness and self-deception. Not to beat an unbeliever over the head with the vileness of his sin is one thing; to minimize his sin and his lostness apart from Christ is quite another. To love our enemies and not return evil for evil is one thing; to deny they are enemies is quite another.

Jesus had already promised blessing for those who are “persecuted for the sake of righteousness” and who have insults and “all kinds of evil” spoken against them falsely for His sake (Matt. 5:10-11). Here He promises the persecution that ultimately brings the blessing.

The disciples themselves had not yet experienced persecution or even opposition. Resistance to Jesus was not yet strong. Some of the scribes had criticized Him for claiming to forgive sins (9:2-3), and some of the Pharisees complained to His disciples that their Teacher ate “with the tax-gatherers and sinners” (v. 11) and later accused Him of casting “out the demons by the ruler of the demons” (v. 34). But these criticisms did not hinder the ministry or pose any danger at that time.

Jesus’ purpose in warning about persecution was not to frighten the apostles and make them suspicious of every human being who was not a believer. Their very mission was to convert the unsaved and win them to Christ’s kingdom. But they needed to be warned not to expect the world to receive the gospel and its messengers with open arms. Satan’s world system, of whom every unbeliever is a part, is diametrically opposed to Christ, His people, and His kingdom. Satan will enlist the support of every unbeliever possible in his fight against God. Jesus’ purpose in this text was to caution the apostles, and all of His people, not to be surprised when they are criticized, ostracized, and even imprisoned and put to death for His sake.

PERSECUTION BY RELIGION

for they will deliver you up to the courts, and scourge you in their synagogues; (10:17b)

The first source of persecution is religion, to which both courts and synagogues refer. Even under pagan rulers, the Jews were often allowed to settle most disputes among themselves, including many civil issues. For this purpose they had developed a detailed system of courts in which various cases were adjudicated. Every Jewish village and town, as well as every Jewish settlement of any size in Gentile countries, had a synagogue, which simply means a gathering place or a congregation.

Jews would try, convict, and punish (scourge) fellow Jews in their own religious courts, which were a part of their synagogues. A Jew accused of breaking the Mosaic law or a rabbinic tradition would be brought before a tribunal of judges, who decided the verdict, determined the sentence, and meted out punishment, which was often by scourging.

In New Testament times the scourge usually consisted of thirty-nine lashes with a whip, one less than the maximum of forty stripes allowed by Mosaic law (Deut. 25:3). One judge would call out the sentence, one would announce the punishment, one or more would do the scourging, and others of them would count the lashes. The Jewish writer Maimonides reported that appropriate Scripture passages were read and sometimes psalms were sung while punishment was being administered.

As the apostles preached and ministered in Christ’s name, they could be sure of being brought before and punished by such Jewish courts. Before his conversion, Saul of Tarsus was engaged in just such persecution. Many years later, as an apostle and a persecuted believer himself, he recounted his confession before God that “in one synagogue after another I used to imprison and beat those who believed in Thee” (Acts 22:19). By the time Paul wrote 2 Corinthians he had been scourged by the Jews on five different occasions (2 Cor. 11:24), probably each time in a synagogue.

William Barclay comments that “the man with a message from God has to undergo the hatred and enmity of a fossilized orthodoxy.” Jesus Himself was accused, tried, and convicted by religionists. Until the destruction of Jerusalem in A.D. 70—and with it the destruction of the Temple, the priesthood, and the sacrifices—virtually all persecution of Christians was by Jews. Though there remains personal hostility among Jews, after that time Jewish persecution of Christians virtually ceased, and it has never recurred to any significant degree since then.

From Revelation 11, however, we learn that the residual hostility against Christ will cause such persecution to resume during the last days. In the first half of the Tribulation, the beast from the abyss will be aligned with Israel; and in Jerusalem, “where their Lord was crucified,” he will kill the two witnesses God sends to preach on earth for twelve hundred and sixty days (vv. 3-8). It is likely that many unbelieving Jews will be party to the martyrdom of those two men and to the worldwide rejoicing over their deaths (v. 10).

In the meanwhile, many other religious groups, some even bearing the name of Christ, will have oppressed, imprisoned, tortured, exiled, and killed countless millions of true believers. During the lifetime of many of the apostles, other religion-related persecution had already begun. Paul was bitterly opposed in Ephesus because the spread of the gospel there had severely cut into the sale of pagan idols, which were the major source of income for the local silversmiths (see Acts 19:24-29). A letter written by Pliny, a first-century Roman governor of Bithynia, indicates he took severe steps to check the rapid growth of Christianity because it threatened the commercial interests of selling idols and sacrificial animals from which pagan temples derived most of their income.

The intimidation, vandalizing, and murder of modern missionaries in primitive societies has, almost without exception, been carried out or instigated by witch doctors, shamans, or other such religious leaders. And the greatest restrictions on Christian ministry and worship outside the atheistic communist world is in Muslim countries.

Religious persecution of believers has frequently been from within Christendom itself. Paul warned the Ephesian elders that “after my departure savage wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock; and from among your own selves men will arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away the disciples after them” (Acts 20:29).

The final great persecution of God’s people will be by the worldwide religious system called “Babylon the great, the mother of harlots and of the abominations of the earth,” who will become “drunk with the blood of the saints, and with the blood of the witnesses of Jesus” (Rev. 17:5-6). All false religious systems had their beginnings at Babel, when rebellious mankind determined to storm heaven and establish its own Satan-inspired substitute for the way of God. Man’s religions have always opposed and sought to destroy God’s truth; and one day they will culminate in an incredibly powerful ecumenical world religion that will relentlessly and mercilessly oppose the gospel of Christ and persecute His people.

PERSECUTION BY GOVERNMENT

and you shall even be brought before governors and kings for My sake, as a testimony to them and to the Gentiles. (10:18)

Persecution will also come from government. Governors were Roman procurators, such as were Pilate, Felix, and Festus, but they represent any governmental office or body below the national level. Kings (such as the two Agrippas, Herod Antipas, and other monarchs mentioned in the New Testament) represent heads of state.

Here Jesus explains why the wolves are so vicious with the Lord’s sheep. It is not because of the sheep themselves but because of their Shepherd. It is for My sake, Jesus said, that His disciples would suffer abuse and persecution. The world hates Christians because the world hates Christ. Every person who identifies himself with Christ through salvation becomes a potential target of Satan and his evil forces, including evil men. That it is Christ and not Christians themselves that the world opposes is seen in the fact the more Christ is manifest in us, the more we will be attacked. Conversely, when we do not manifest Christ, we do not incite the world’s wrath. The Christian who mimics the world, or simply keeps his faith to himself, is in little danger from the world, because he manifests little of His Lord’s nature. The world attacks us only when it sees Christ in us.

Jesus affirmed such reality when He said,

If the world hates you, you know that it has hated Me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. Remember the word that I said to you, “A slave is not greater than his master.” If they persecuted Me, they will also persecute you; if they kept My word, they will keep yours also. But all these things they will do to you for My name’s sake, because they do not know the One who sent Me. (John 15:18-21)

The stripes, lacerations, bruises, and scars on Paul’s body were the “brand-marks of Jesus” (Gal. 6:17). They were made on his body, but they were intended for his Lord. Paul’s persecutors did not despise him because of who he was but because Christ worked so powerfully through him. When they eventually took his life, it was because his life was Christ’s life. Because the church is Christ’s Body, it is faithful believers in the church who, like Paul, fill up “Christ’s afflictions” (Col. 1:24). It is for that reason that Paul longed for the privilege of sharing in “the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death” (Phil. 3:10). “If you are reviled for the name of Christ, you are blessed,” Peter says, “because the Spirit of glory and of God rests upon you” (1 Pet. 4:14). It is the “Spirit of glory and of God” in the believer’s life that the world hates and seeks to destroy.

When God’s kingdom is thriving, Satan causes his people to react against it in proportion to its success. Paul himself had been used of Satan to persecute the church. Under his former name of Saul, he was “breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord.” He even asked for letters from the high priest “to the synagogues at Damascus, so that if he found any belonging to the Way, both men and women, he might bring them bound to Jerusalem” (Acts 9:1-2). When the Lord intercepted Saul on his way to Damascus to carry out his wicked plan, His first words to him were, “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting Me?” and when Saul asked who was speaking to him, the Lord replied, “I am Jesus whom you are persecuting” (vv. 4-5).

Saul had not seen Jesus during His earthly ministry, and Jesus was now in heaven; yet Saul was persecuting Jesus. Although the physical objects of the persecution were Christians (those “belonging to the Way”), the spiritual object was Christ Himself. Jesus’ accusation made a deep impression on Paul, and when he testified before the mob in Jerusalem who demanded his arrest and eventually his execution, he quoted the words spoken to him by the Lord on the Damascus road (Acts 22:7). He quoted the same words when he testified before King Agrippa, declaring that he had not been simply a persecutor of Christians but a persecutor of Christ (26:14).

Every antagonistic and injurious unbeliever, no matter how unconsciously, persecutes Christ through His people. Jesus declared unequivocally that “he who is not with Me is against Me; and he who does not gather with Me scatters” (Matt. 12:30).

The phrase as a testimony to them and to the Gentiles is not easy to interpret. It could mean that persecuted believers are a living rebuke against their persecutors, a testimony against them and all the unbelieving Gentiles (pagans). Others take it to mean a testimony to Christ that persecuted believers make as His witnesses. The two interpretations are not incompatible, and both seem to be legitimate.

In either case, governments at various levels and to various degrees have been involved in persecution of believers throughout the history of the church. Only a few years after Pentecost, Herod Agrippa I “laid hands on some who belonged to the church, in order to mistreat them. And he had James the brother of John put to death with a sword. And when he saw that it pleased the Jews, he proceeded to arrest Peter also” (Acts 12:1-3). Herod’s motivation, even in pleasing the Jews, was not religious but political and personal.

As Christianity began to spread throughout the empire, Rome became especially fearful of its slaves. Because of their great numbers (perhaps as many as 60 million) slaves had long posed the threat of rebellion. They were not permitted to marry free citizens, even free men in the lowest level of society, because slaves were considered less than persons. But when slaves and free Romans alike became Christians, they discovered there was no longer any barrier between them, that they were equal in Christ. Christianity therefore came to be looked on as a threat to the entire Roman social system and economy, and consequently false charges were repeatedly made against Christians. They were accused of cannibalism because they claimed to eat Christ’s body and drink His blood during the Lord’s Supper. They were accused of immorality in their love feasts and of promoting revolution by preaching about Christ’s return to establish His earthly kingdom. Many were martyred.

Throughout church history, various governments have been involved in persecuting the church, sometimes for purely political reasons and sometimes as an enforcer of state-recognized religion. During modern times, communist governments alone have slaughtered millions of Christians and persecuted and imprisoned countless millions more. Because atheism is a central tenet of Communism, it has always sought to suppress and eliminate religion, especially Christianity.

In the end times persecution of the saints will reach its climax, both by religion and by government, and will apparently be wielded as one great powerful arm of the antichrist. The beast that will come “up out of the sea” will shout “blasphemies against God” and will “make war with the saints and to overcome them; and authority over every tribe and people and tongue and nation was given to him” (Rev. 13:1, 6-7).

Although government is established by God to preserve social order, it has also become an instrument of Satan to promote his own work and to oppose the Lord’s. Government is ordained by God but manipulated by Satan; and Daniel, Isaiah, and Ezekiel all report demonic forces behind governments that were especially wicked. When its citizens turn away from the Lord and His standards, even the freest and most democratic of governments, including that of our own United States, will eventually inhibit the free expression and practice of the Christian faith in hostility to Christ and His Word.

THE PROVISION

But when they deliver you up, do not become anxious about how or what you will speak; for it shall be given you in that hour what you are to speak. For it is not you who speak, but it is the Spirit of your Father who speaks in you. (10:19-20)

To be maligned, persecuted, arrested, and beaten is traumatic, and while that is being experienced it is extremely difficult not to become anxious. When we are charged with a wrongdoing, the natural reaction is to speak out in our own defense, to convince our accusers of our innocence.

Paul admonishes us to be at all times “anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let [our] requests be made known to God” (Phil. 4:6). But in the special circumstance of being brought before a religious or civil court we have the additional promise that it shall be given [us] in that hour what [we] are to speak. Those who suffer for Christ will be defended by Christ.

Many of the most memorable and powerful testimonies of the great martyrs were uttered just before they were put to death. God gave them a special presence of mind and clarity of thought to present a testimony more powerful than they would otherwise have been able to give.

For the apostles, that promise included the added provision of divine inspiration. When Paul, for example, gave testimony while he was on trial, he spoke the Word of God. For it is not you who speak, Jesus assured the apostles, but it is the Spirit of your Father who speaks in you.

The well-known commentator R. C. H. Lenski writes,

Without previous thinking, planning, imagining, at the time of their trials in court, the Apostles will receive directly from God just what to utter. It will come into their minds just as it is needed, and thus they will utter it aloud.… The apostles, indeed, make utterance, and yet they do not, for their act is due to the Holy Spirit, so that most properly he is the one who does his uttering. Everything that is mechanical, magical, unpsychological is shut out. . . . The apostles will not be like the demoniacs, their organs of speech and their very wills being violated by a demon. Absolutely the contrary: mind, heart, will operate freely, consciously, in joyful, trustful dependence on the Spirit’s giving, who enables them to find just what to say and how to say it down to the last word, with no mistake or even a wrong word due to faulty memory or disturbed emotions occurring. This, of course, is Inspiration, Verbal Inspiration. (The Interpretation of St. Matthew’s Gospel [Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1964], p. 402)

THE HATRED

Persecution of believers is also expressed through the hatred of families who betray their own members and through the hatred of society in general.

BY FAMILY

And 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. (10:21)

Believers are promised that they may even be persecuted by their own families. During this same time of instruction, Jesus said, “For I came to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law” Then, quoting Micah 7:6, He warned that “a man’s enemies will be the members of his household” (Matt. 10:35-36). A year or so later, as He taught about the Tribulation, Jesus repeated the same warning (Mark 13:12).

During Roman persecutions of the second and third centuries an untold number of Christians were betrayed to civil authorities by a brother or father or child. That tragic practice has been repeated many times, and it is not unknown even in our own day.

In certain religious cultures a funeral service is held for a family member who becomes a Christian, because in the eyes of his relatives he is no longer alive. In some instances the converted member has been poisoned to death. Someone has observed that only two things are stronger than natural love; one is born of hell and one is born of heaven. Stronger than natural love are the love that is of God and the hatred that is of Satan.

Speaking of the end times, perhaps the kingdom age, Zechariah prophesied: “And it will come about that if anyone still prophesies, then his father and mother who gave birth to him will say to him, ‘You shall not live, for you have spoken falsely in the name of the Lord,’ and his father and mother who gave birth to him will pierce him through when he prophesies” (Zech. 13:3). It may be that one day believing parents will kill their children who are false prophets.

BY SOCIETY

And you will be hated by all on account of My name, but it is the one who has endured to the end who will be saved. (10:22)

All is obviously not an absolute term in this context. Believers will not be hated by every single unbeliever on earth. The idea is that of all people in general, society as a whole. As verified by the last two thousand years, believers find they are hated by all classes, races, and nationalities of mankind.

Some believers live lives of almost constant conflict with the world, while others seem to escape it entirely. Some Christians are not persecuted simply because their testimony is so weak it goes unnoticed by the world. When biblical doctrine and standards are compromised to accommodate fallen human nature, society has little argument with that kind of Christianity and will give little opposition to Christians.

But to confront the world as Paul did with the declaration that “the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness” (Rom. 1:18) is to guarantee society’s wrath against the gospel and those who preach it.

Because they were so uncompromising in proclaiming the gospel, Paul declared himself and his fellow apostles to be “men condemned to death; because we have become a spectacle to the world, both to angels and to men. We are fools for Christ’s sake,… weak,… without honor,… both hungry and thirsty, and are poorly clothed, and are roughly treated, and are homeless” (1 Cor. 4:9-11).

When a Roman general won a great victory, he would parade his captives through the streets in a grand triumphal procession, purposely making a spectacle of his conquered foes, especially of the military officers and the rulers. That is the sort of spectacle the ancient world figuratively made of the apostles.

In summary, false religion reacts against believers because it is generated by Satan. Government reacts against believers because it is under the control of the prince of the power of the air, the ruler of this world. Ungodly families and society react against believers because they cannot tolerate righteous people in their midst.

Endurance of persecution is the hallmark of genuine salvation: It is the one who has endured to the end who will be saved. Endurance does not produce or protect salvation, which is totally the work of God’s grace. But endurance is evidence of salvation, proof that a person is truly redeemed and a child of God. God gives eternal life “to those who by perseverance in doing good seek for glory and honor and immortality,” Paul says (Rom. 2:7). The writer of Hebrews expresses the same truth in these words: “For we have become partakers of Christ, if we hold fast the beginning of our assurance firm until the end” (3:14). We do not earn our salvation by endurance, but prove it. Continuance is a verification of being a real Christian. Theologians call this the perseverance of the saints. The following Scriptures also emphasize perseverance: Matthew 24:13; John 8:31; 1 Corinthians 15:1-2; Colossians 1:21-23; Hebrews 2:1-3; 4:14; 6:11-12; 10:39; 12:14; 2 Peter 1:10.

Persecution quickly burns away chaff in the church. Those who have made only a superficial profession of Christ have no new nature to motivate them to suffer for Christ and no divine power to enable them to endure it if they wanted to. Nothing is more spiritually purifying and strengthening than persecution (cf. James 1:12).

It is because God’s Word assures us that absolutely nothing can separate us from Christ that we can count on such unshakable endurance. “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?” Paul asks rhetorically. “Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?” He then answers his own question. “But in all these things we overwhelmingly conquer through Him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Rom. 8:35, 37-39).

THE RESPONSE

But whenever they persecute you in this city, flee to the next; for truly I say to you, you shall not finish going through the cities of Israel, until the Son of Man comes. (10:23)

Persecution is never to be sought or endured for its own sake; nor should we intentionally bring it on ourselves, supposedly for Christ’s sake. We have no right to provoke animosity or ridicule. And Christ here urges escaping persecution when doing so is expedient and possible. We are not obligated to stay in a place of opposition and danger until we are killed, or even imprisoned. Whenever they persecute you in this city, Jesus says, flee to the next.

That is the pattern Paul followed throughout his ministry (see Acts 12-14,17). When persecution became so severe in one place that he could no longer minister effectively, he left and went to another. He was not afraid of persecution, and many times he was severely beaten before he left a city. At least once he was stoned and left for dead. But he did not try to test the limits of the opposition. He endured whatever ridicule, reviling, beatings, and imprisonment were necessary while he ministered. But he left a place when his effectiveness there ceased.

That is the pattern that every faithful minister and missionary is to follow until the Son of Man comes. Even during the Great Tribulation, Christ’s faithful 144,000 Jewish people will preach all over the world and keep moving from place to place as they are persecuted and afflicted.

Despite their many misunderstandings, shortcomings, failures, and boastings, the disciples knew that Jesus was their only resource, that without Him they could do nothing (John 15:5). They hung close to Him and huddled around Him whenever there were problems or difficulties. He continually turned nature into one grand parable of God’s sovereignty, power, and love. Every field, mountain, tree, flower, animal, leaf, and threshing floor became a picture of spiritual truth. He not only taught them, but He cared for them, loved them, and provided for them. When they finally realized He was actually going to leave them, they panicked.

The Lord would indeed send the twelve out among wolves into dangers they could never have imagined while they were with Him. But just as He promised to send them out among wolves, He also promised to send His own Spirit to indwell, empower, and encourage them. If the world persecuted the Master, it would certainly persecute His servants (John 15:20), and a time would soon come when those who killed His followers would actually think they were “offering service to God” (16:2). It was therefore both advantageous and necessary that Jesus go away, in order that the Holy Spirit, the divine Helper and Comforter, could come to them (v. 7). “These things I have spoken to you,” Jesus told them, “that in Me you may have peace. In the world you have tribulation, but take courage; I have overcome the world” (v. 33).