We Ought to Be Glad for Persecution

We’ve read the entire chapter together, a chapter that tells us that some of the difficulties which the Apostle Paul endured as he sought to be faithful to his God. And the Bible tells us that all that will live godly in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution. The Apostle Paul suffered persecution and our flesh does not desire persecution, but it is something which the Bible teaches us is very important. If the Bible teaches us that all that will live godly in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution, then we shouldn’t be surprised if we suffer some persecution and we really ought to be glad for it because of what the Bible teaches us about it. And the Apostle Paul is a wonderful example of how God’s children ought to respond to persecution.

Now Paul had done nothing wrong. He had been directly commissioned by Jesus himself to spread the Gospel, and Paul sought to do that. He had himself been a Pharisee. He had had a high rank in the Jewish religion, but he gave all of that up that he might be able to be a servant of the Lord Jesus Christ. And at the time of his conversion, God revealed to another believer that he would reveal to Paul what great things he must suffer for his Name’s sake. And persecution, the flesh does not like, and suffering the flesh does not like. Yet the Bible instructs us that all of life as believers, is a life of conflict and struggle of the flesh against the Spirit and the Spirit against the flesh. And the one side that wins that battle makes all the difference in the world. It makes the difference in the eternal destiny of our soul.

And so we should take good courage from the experiences of the Apostle Paul even as in his case, since his time had not yet come, God did not permit him to be delivered to his accusers, to those who wanted to kill him.
--Sermon Excerpt: Bro. W.D.