Luke 6:22-23 Blessed are you, when men shall hate you, and when they shall separate you from their company, and shall reproach you… 1. Wherefore the first principle to enable Christians to suffer for righteousness is, that we should look on ourselves as sent into the world for this end, especially to bear witness to the truth. 2. The second suffering principle is this — It is better to lose for God than to enjoy for ourselves. 3. Whosoever suffers anything for God, in the midst of all their sufferings they are in a better case than their persecutors. 4. That it is a great deal better to suffer for Christ than to suffer for sin. 5. That God may make me suffer in spite of my heart. If I find a reluctancy in me to come off to suffer for Christ, I may be forced in spite of my heart to do it; and what comfort shall I then have in it? How much better is it to suffer freely and willingly for Jesus Christ than to be forced to suffer? and then there will be no exercise of grace in it, but I shall be merely passive. Christ can lay afflictions upon you, and diseases upon you. 6. No creature hath any good in it any farther than it is enjoyed in God, and improved for God. 7. The seventh suffering principle is this: There are no sufferings of any of the saints that they are called unto at any time, but they are ordered by God, for the time of the suffering, for the kind of the suffering, the continuance of the suffering, the instruments of the suffering. 8. That whenever we suffer for Christ, Christ suffers with us; we are partakers of His sufferings, and He is partaker of our sufferings (Isaiah 63:9). 9. There is more evil in sufferings before they come, in imagination, than when they are come. 10. That there is more evil in the least sin than in the greatest afflictions. It is an ill choice to choose the least sin rather than the greatest affliction.Now for the blessedness that there is in suffering, many things might be said, but I shall but present before you some short view of what blessedness there is in suffering persecution. 1. If God gives thee a heart to suffer for Him, thou hast in this a full evidence of the truth of thy graces, yea, and of the strength and the eminency of thy graces. 2. There is a great deal of honour in suffering. It is a speech of Ignatius, "I had rather be a martyr than a monarch"; and so you know Moses chose "rather to suffer with the people of God, than to enjoy all the pleasures and riches of Egypt." 3. It is a blessed thing to suffer for righteousness' sake, for it is the highest and greatest improvement of men's abilities, graces, comforts, whatsoever they enjoy. It is the highest improvement that can be for them to suffer. Never are men's graces so improved as in times of suffering. As the spices have a more fragrant smell when they are beaten to powder that when they are whole; and so the saints' graces are more fragrant in the nostrils of God, and do grow up more in the time of suffering than ever. 4. It is blessed, for those that suffer are under many blessed promises. Why, "If you suffer with Him, you shall be glorified with Him." Read 2 Timothy 2:12, and in Romans 8., there you have divers excellent expressions wherein there are most excellent promises to such as suffer in the cause of Christ (Matthew 19:29). (J. Burroughs.) Parallel Verses KJV: Blessed are ye, when men shall hate you, and when they shall separate you from their company, and shall reproach you, and cast out your name as evil, for the Son of man's sake. |
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