Mistreated for My Sake

All right, I kind of wrestled with some things to preach on.

I've been asked to preach on the harvest in an upcoming conference this coming weekend, and I said, what's everybody else preaching on?

He said, the harvest. I said, okay, we're all preaching on harvest, so I need to come up with something real obscure that nobody else is going to preach on.

So I had a thought in my mind that I would preach on the dangers of the harvest, and I told

Quatro, I said, he's like, what are you going to preach on? I said, I'm going to preach on the dangers of the harvest. He said, okay, that'd be great.

And the more I thought about that, I'm like, that's dumb. You're just trying to be different to be different. Don't do that.

That'd be stupid. And so we were texting back and forth, and I said, you know,

I'm going to come down there and preach on the need for churches with just one pastor. We need to bust up these elder boards and have more good churches and less plurality of elders all in one location.

I want to spread good preachers across Arkansas, not get them to huddle up. And I had about eight or ten verses that went right through my mind, and I said, no, the pulpit's not a place to fix problems or spark debates or even settle them.

So I said, you know what I've learned? People need to hear the Bible preached. And I've been in the

First Baptist Church of Roland, Oklahoma. I've been going through the Beatitudes, and this morning we finished them.

Week before last, I preached in Waycross, Georgia, a revival meeting from Sunday to Wednesday.

And I, in the revival meeting, preached on five of the Beatitudes. And man, we had a great meeting.

People got right with the Lord. Old friends that had problems between them put them aside.

Children got together. The youth group got together and asked each other to forgive each other for the way they've been acting.

I said, man, wouldn't it be great if that happened? And I thought, well, hey, just go down there and preach a

Beatitude. So I came down here, and I said, hey, I'm going to preach on the Beatitudes. And Quattro goes, that's what

I've been doing on Sunday night. And I was like, well, that's what I'm going to do tonight too because I've made my mind up.

I wouldn't say the Lord told me to do this, but through providence and hillbilly logic,

I have arrived in Matthew 5, verses 11 and 12. And I'm going to preach on what

I call the last Beatitude. And I've titled my message, Mistreated for My Sake.

Mistreated for My Sake. Now, some people say there's eight Beatitudes. I say there's nine.

Some people say ten, eleven, and twelve are all one Beatitude. And you're probably right, and I'm just dumb.

But in my simple mind, I break it out this way. In verse 10, it says you're persecuted for righteousness.

In verse 11, you're persecuted for Christ's sake. Righteousness is my life.

Christ's sake is his life. So I've made the division here. Quattro hadn't covered verse 10.

He'll have to put it all back together for you the right way next Sunday. And so we'll just let him do that.

Let's read these two verses, 11 and 12. And I want to share with you some thoughts about Mistreated for My Sake.

Blessed are ye when men shall revile you and persecute you and say all manner of evil against you falsely for my sake.

Rejoice, be exceedingly glad, for great is your reward in heaven, for so persecuted they the prophets which were before you.

This beatitude is strikingly different from the previous beatitudes in that it is based upon not our actions, not our attributes, not our traits, not things that are true of us, but it's actually based on things that are true of Christ.

Now, here's what makes this different. In every beatitude, I've used the same outline. Every sermon had the same outline.

It's a distinctive of Christianity. Being poor in spirit should be true of every Christian.

It's an ongoing thing. It's the duty of Christians. Blessed are they that mourn. It doesn't mean we mourn for sin one time.

No more mourning. We're now happy and gleeful. No, I'm in a battle with sin all the time. I'm constantly mourning.

Hungering and thirsting for righteousness is an ongoing thing. I didn't read the Bible through and go,

Boy, I finished that book. I wonder what else they got. Oh, a book of Mormon. Here's something we can read. No, I read it through and I read it again and I read it again and I read it again and what

I discovered is it's a living book. It never dies. It's always good. And I want more of it. It's ongoing.

So it's a distinctive of Christianity. It's a duty of Christians. And then it's a delight to the converts.

You see, think about it this way. Being a peacemaker is not something that we begrudgingly do.

It's something that we enjoy doing. It's something that we long for. And with each delight for the converts, it's got a blessing now and an ongoing blessing later.

But we don't say blessed. We say blessed. And there's a difference here in the meaning of this word.

If you're blessed, that's a one -time thing. Two years ago, the Lord blessed me with a buck about 300 yards behind my house that scored 182 inches.

That's a monster. That was like one of the biggest deer killed in Arkansas that year.

Okay? That was one blessing. That's past tense. I was blessed by that. Blessed is an ongoing state of blessing.

Here's the difference. It would be like killing a 180 -incher every year. They'd say, boy, that Harold, something's wrong with him.

He must be poaching. He's killing a monster every year. He wins the big buck contest every year.

That's blessed. That's ongoing. In Georgia, I told you I preach these.

I was struggling with how to relate to the people in Georgia the difference between blessed and blessed.

And I said, your Georgia Bulldogs have won the college football world championship two times in a row.

And they were like, amen. I mean, you can get amens in Georgia if you talk about the Bulldogs, right? And I said, but blessed would be beating

Alabama every year from now on. And they were all like cheering and happy and clapping and everything.

Come to find out, the pastor's from Alabama. And he was over there like roll tide, you know. And everybody was like,

I like blessed better than blessed because blessed is a one and done. Blessed is a state of being blessed.

Here, our Lord says you are blessed. Well, I'm not going to use this three -point outline that I've been using because this is not an attribute of the

Christian life. This is an accusation based on Christ. This may or may not be true of you.

This is not a mandate. You don't have to be mistreated for Christ's sake because you're a Christian. This is false charges leveled against you because you belong to Jesus Christ.

But it carries the same blessing. An ongoing, both now and forever, state of blessing.

Number one, let's talk about the persecution of Christians. Look with me at the first part of verse 11.

Blessed are ye when men shall revile you and persecute you and say all manner of evil against you.

This form of persecution is primarily verbal. We're talking about being insulted.

We're talking about people telling lies about you, charging you with wrongdoing.

This could be physical violence, but most likely, judging by the words

Christ is using here, He's carrying the idea of people slandering your name, running you down, accrediting things to you that are not true.

This verbal assault is very painful. I would submit to you verbal assault at times can be as painful as physical assault.

There have been people that have said things to me that I'd rather them hit me in the nose than hear what they said about me.

You remember as a child sticks and stones may break my bones, but words from you can never hurt me.

I was crying to the teacher as a little kid and she told me that little rhyme and said, you go tell them that.

And I went over there and I said, sticks and stones may break my bones, but words from you can never hurt me.

And they just kept making fun of me. And I was like, this doesn't work. The spell doesn't work. It does hurt.

Sticks and stones hurt, but so do words. Words hurt. Lies from a friend hurt.

Slander from people you love hurts. People that you've served with in the church, turning on you, speaking all manner of evil against you, falsely for Christ's sake hurts.

It hurts. Just because I said this is primarily verbal, don't say,

I can handle that. Say what you want. No, you just haven't heard it from the right person yet.

You hear it from your wife. You hear it from your son, your daughter, your husband. You hear things you never thought would come out of their mouth.

It hurts. Especially if it's coming out falsely and simply because you're a child of God.

That's slander. And slander hurts. So we see the persecution of Christians.

Number two, the preposterous claim. Why would they say all this bad stuff about you,

Harold? It's not true. That's the problem.

Look at our text again. When they shall revile you and persecute you and say all manner of evil against you, falsely.

That's the key. Falsely. It's a preposterous claim. It's not true.

It's unbelievable. Now listen, if they say this about you and it's true, shame on you.

You deserve worse than that. If they called you a liar and you're a liar, shame on you.

You're a liar. If he said ugly things about you, you shouldn't have said that. The righteousness here is a requirement in order for you to receive the blessing.

Listen, he didn't say blessed are you if people tell the truth about you. No, if you're a jerk and they call you a jerk, you got what you deserved.

If you're a crook and they called you out on it, good for them, bad for you. But this here is for people who are righteous.

This is for people who have not sinned. This is people being lied about who haven't lied.

This is people being talked about, reviled, insulted, who are kind and nice and sweet.

This applies to the righteous. Let me tell you who this would apply to. This would apply to those who are poor in spirit.

This would apply to those who mourn. This would apply to those who are meek. This would apply to those who hunger and thirst after righteousness.

This would apply to the merciful. This would apply to the pure in heart. This would apply to the peacemaker.

Let me assure you of something. If those things apply to you and you're truly all of those things because Christ dwells in you and people go around slandering your name, then you are the one in this verse that is blessed.

You're that person. You're the blessed one because you're serving the Lord Jesus Christ.

You're not perfect. Yeah, you do have problems. What they said is probably not half as bad as what you think in your own mind.

I've always said if people knew what went through my mind, I'd be hanging from the tree in the courthouse square. When people call me names,

I say, time out, I'm worse than that. You're not insulting me. But friend, hear me out.

If those first eight verses aren't applying to you, they're probably telling the truth.

You probably are a dirty, rotten scoundrel. But I've said all along, those things are distinctive of Christianity.

You can't be a Christian and not have these to be true of you to some degree. And if you're serving the

Lord Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit's dwelling in you. Jesus Christ died on the cross for you.

You are the purchased possession of God by the shed blood of Jesus Christ. You are not your own.

You were bought with a price and you belong to God. And I'm going to tell you something, our God ain't raising a pack of brats.

He's raising godly children who do what He says, who respond to Him in love.

Why? Because He disciplines us. He matures us. We don't instantly grow up and become intelligent, fire -breathing, water -walking

Christians that go around declaring the glory of God. No. We possess this in an earthen vessel.

Flawed by sin and the world's taunts. But, if those things are true of us, and people are going around leveling charges of all sorts against us, insulting us, mocking us, then listen, you are in a state of blessing.

You're in a state of blessing. Brother, that just don't make sense. Just wait. I'm talking about normal Christianity.

We live in a day when normal Christianity is seen as radical Christianity. What I'm describing are

Christians. What we see in churches today look nothing like this. I'm talking about people that mourn over their sin.

I'm talking about people that read their Bible outside of when they're called on in Sunday school. Hey man,

I'm not some kind of Jesus freak. I'm not a fanatic. I'm not either. I'm the purchased possession of God.

And when He came and dwelt in me through the power of the Holy Spirit, He gave me an appetite for these things.

I'm not who I used to be. I'm a new creature in Christ Jesus. And this is what that new creature looks like according to Scripture.

You know what we do in western Arkansas. I don't know what you do down here in central Arkansas. In western Arkansas, if you agree, give me one of these.

If you don't agree, you can give me one of these. If you agree with me, I'll preach faster.

If you fall asleep, I'll preach louder. If you look at me confused, I'll back up two verses and we'll do it all over again.

I'll let you decide where we go from here. You want me to go on?

Just waiting in here, getting the secret signs. It's a preposterous claim to insult and slander

Christians who are the only people on the planet indwelt by a holy God who are called and living according to a standard that is far above and beyond what this world has.

And for you to level charges of falsehood against them is absolutely preposterous.

Point number three, and I've got five if you're counting. Point number three. It's pointed at Christ.

Falsely for Christ's sake. For my sake. Mistreated for my sake is the title of my message.

Not my Harold Smith's sake, but Christ said for my sake. For Christ's sake.

You see, it's for Christ's sake that these bad things have been said about you.

It's really not about you. I mean, preachers, we try to get this across so much, don't we?

It's not about you. It's about Christ. Don't we tell people that all the time? Who cares that we don't have lemon for your tea at the church potluck?

It's not about you. It's Christ. I'm sorry that we didn't pick your color for the new carpet, but you were outvoted 99 to 3.

It's not about you. It's about Christ. What about when people are persecuting us for Christ's sake?

Is it not also true? It's not about you. It's about Christ. In this instance, it is so.

You say, well, Brother Harold, why in the world are they mistreating us for Christ's sake? I'll give you the atheist motto.

You know what the atheist motto is? The atheists have a motto. They don't write it down.

It's not like their official creed, but it's pretty commonly seen. There is no God, and I hate

Him. That's their motto. There is no God, and I hate Him. Now, listen.

There is no leprechauns, but why aren't they boycotting Lucky Charms? Now, I said this this morning in church and got me in trouble.

I said, there is no tooth fairy. And a little kid popped up and said, Mom, what's he talking about?

She had a couple of loose teeth, and she had that money already spent, I think. So before I jumped into Santa Claus, I called a time out in the sermon.

And I said, no, I mean, Dad was like, you're saving me money. Just keep preaching, you know.

But my point is, they're not mad at fairies. They're not mad at gnomes.

They're not mad at Bigfoot. Why? Those don't exist. People don't get mad at things that don't exist.

The reason the atheist is mad at God is because they know He exists.

The reason atheists don't like you and your religion is because they know your religion is real.

Why aren't the atheists up here putting the Amish out of business? Why aren't they laboring on the

Amish? Because the Amish aren't threatening to them. The Amish are stored away, keeping their own business.

The Christian is in the world, but not of the world. And they hate that. They hate that with a purple passion.

I'm here to tell you, this is pointed at Christ, and they hate Him. Their only problem is, they can't touch

Him. Mankind has been trying to lay hands on God since day one.

When Christ came to the earth, Herod tried to kill Him. Didn't he?

Where is this newborn king of Israel? I would like to go worship Him. Well, that was a bold -faced lie.

Go kill everybody under two in Bethlehem. Doesn't sound like worship to me.

Christ climbed a cliff.

God blinds their eyes. Christ walks through the midst of them. They don't lay a hand on Him. Later, Jesus is preaching.

They took up stones and said, we're going to kill this fellow. Took up stones to kill him. Why didn't they kill him, preacher?

They couldn't. Jesus Christ Himself said, you could do nothing except it be given you of God.

You see what I'm trying to tell you? Mankind would love to lay hands on God. But God is

God. And Christ is God. And Christ in the garden said, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me.

Nevertheless, thy will be done. Jesus Christ knew that sinful men were going to lay hold on Him and bind

Him and spit on Him and beat Him and pull His beard out and mock

Him and put a crown of thorns on His head and nail Him to a wooden plank and execute

Him naked in the sight of all public. And I'm here to tell you, if at one point in time

Jesus said, I'm through, I'm coming down, He could have. He was that powerful. He has the capability of saying, get your hands off me.

They even mocked Him and said, hey, if you be God, call down angels. Call out to Elijah.

They wanted Him to say, hey, if you're really Him, come down. He said, no, I'm going to endure what the Father has put out for me to do and I'm going to do something that you can't do.

Three days later, I'm coming up out of the ground. Death won't hold me.

I'm enduring the cross for the sake of my people whom I'm purchasing here by my death.

God only allowed mankind to lay hands on God so that mankind could find forgiveness for his rebellion against that.

They can't lay hands on God. Well, man, if you can't get a hold of God, who's the next best thing?

Get a hold of His people. I send you out as sheep among wolves.

I wouldn't send my kids out like that. There's wolves all around the house. Here, kids, go out and feed the chickens.

No, stay in the house, kids. There's wolves out here. But our God sends us out. Why? This earth is not the end of our life.

This earth is the beginning of our eternal life. Death is but an entryway into glory.

They can't get God so they grab hold of you. Now, listen. If they hate

Christ and you're Christ -like, well, wouldn't it seem natural for them to grab hold of you?

I think about Revelation 12 where the woman is travailing in pain to give birth to a man -child.

Then Satan's ready, that dragon. He's waiting to get a hold of that man -child coming out of the woman.

And the man -child goes to heaven. So he pursues after the woman.

God protects her, so he goes after her descendants, her children. Who's that?

That's those that believe on the man -child that came out of Israel. It's the war of the world.

I don't know what your eschatology view is, but that fits them all. We're hated because of Christ.

They can't get a hold of Him. They get a hold of us. They slander us. They mock us. They say all sorts of evil about your church, about your people, about your message.

They say all sorts of bad things about your motivation and why you're doing what you're doing. It's not because you're doing it wrong.

It's because you're doing it right. Point number four, the promise of compensation.

Now, I don't think anybody would classify me as a health and wealth prosperity preacher.

But I do like the prospect of getting paid for my labors, don't you? I do like the prospect of being compensated for what

I've gone through. Mankind by nature likes the prospect of compensation. Drive through any major city, look at the billboards, and personal injury lawyers are on every other one.

Get compensated for what happened to you. Quit suing somebody for an accident.

Or crying out loud, we're merciful. We show mercy to those that can't get out of their problem.

But God says, now wait a minute, you're being mistreated here because of who

Christ is. And listen, you're going to be properly compensated. What's that compensation look like, preacher?

Right here, verse 12. Rejoice, be exceedingly glad, for great is your reward in heaven.

Well, my stars. I thought we all went to some kind of communist heaven where everybody had the same mansion and everything looked just exactly alike.

We all had wings set on the same cloud and had halos. Quit looking at day spring cards and go read your

Bible. Every man's work will be tried by fire. We've got six sets of building materials.

Wood, hay and stubble. Gold, silver, precious stones. Those are going to be ran through the fire.

You're going to get rewarded on what comes out the other side. I don't know how well you're acquainted with burning brush, but wood, hay and stubble all burn.

Gold, silver and precious stones do not. When my wife and I were dating, I thought it would be funny

I bought her a ring for Christmas. I was going to go to her house at Christmas after we opened gifts at my parents' house and give her this ring

I'd bought for her. I thought it would be funny to wrap it up in a bunch of Christmas trash. So I wrapped it all up in just like a big old wad of trash.

My dad had the habit of opening up the fireplace and burning all the wrapping paper and cleaning the suet out.

I came in and I looked for my ball of trash and I said, where in the world is this? Well if it was trash,

I threw it in the fireplace. I said, oh you didn't. I look over there, it's like when the three Hebrew children went in, that's where it's at right there.

I was like, what? So I'm in there reeking around, I'm in there with a fire poker, Christmas morning. Well lucky for me,

I had wrapped the inner part of the ring in saran wrap. I don't know if something was wrapped in saran wrap.

So I found this bubbling ball of melted saran wrap, I raked that out, I'm running in there to the sink,

I got a ring! You know what, I pulled all the plastic and all the ashes off that thing and that ring and the jewels in it were all still intact and my wife still wears it.

I'm trying to tell you something here tonight. When you get to heaven, you're going to be rewarded or not rewarded.

You're going to enter heaven by faith. But that's going to be evidenced by repentance and you're going to show the world through baptism.

And then you're going to live a Christian life. But how you live that Christian life is going to determine what you receive when you get there.

Jesus said, if they're lying about you for my sake, rejoice. That means be cheerful.

Christian, even if you've not been persecuted for Christ's sake, would you at least act like you're a

Christian and smile a little bit? Sometimes I preach in places and it looks like they've been eating green persimmons and sipping pickle juice before I walked in the door.

Some of you need to eat a green persimmon. I can tell. I'll take the first bite to watch you take yours. Some people walk around like their puppy died every day.

If we're children of God, we should rejoice. Well, Brother Harold, you're talking about people being lied about, slandered, ridiculed, insulted.

And you say going to be happy? Yes, be happy, be cheerful. This is a command, not a recommendation.

Then he says, be exceedingly glad. If you look that up in the Greek, and I'm no

Greek scholar, I barely speak the English language. But I got a book and I opened it up and I said, what does this mean?

To be exceedingly glad. It says to be happy with jumping. You ever leap for joy?

We don't say I'm going to leap for joy. It's something that just happens. Anybody like to watch the fights?

Anybody UFC fans? Don't raise your hand. Let me do it. I'm a UFC fan. I like to watch cage fighting.

I don't want to see people fighting in the parking lot. I'll break that up. But if two guys are going to get paid, I'll tune in and watch it.

Before cage fighting, I watched boxing. In a pinch, I watched wrestling. But I like the real stuff.

If you know anything about boxing, back in the 80s and the 90s, well, probably more like the 90s and early 2000s, every fat guy's favorite boxer was a fellow named

Butterbean. He was a bald -headed guy, weighed about 350 pounds. He only fought like four rounds because that's all a fat guy can fight.

It's about four rounds. No fat guys fight in 12, 15 rounds. Butterbean weighed like 350 pounds.

He would box anybody. I watched a boxing match this morning because I got my sermon done early.

I'm like, hey, I got my notes done. And as I was shutting everything down on my computer, on YouTube, the recommended popped up big screen.

Butterbean fights Peter McNeely. I was like, Peter McNeely fought Mike Tyson.

I mean, Mike Tyson knocked him out. But I'm like, now this is a legitimate heavyweight boxer.

Peter McNeely's a boxer. Butterbean's just like a brawler. Butterbean beat the snot out of him in the first round.

I mean, he was landing bomb after bomb after bomb. Peter McNeely don't get knocked out.

He just gets knocked silly. So he's just standing there getting hit from all directions. And Butterbean actually looked like a boxer, just teeing off on him.

And the ref jumped in with like one second left in the first round and stopped it and saved Peter McNeely's life.

And Butterbean jumped up in the air. A 350 -pound man jumped in the air.

And I mean, I don't mean like a couple inches. I mean, he probably could have dunked a basketball. I said, what's that big man doing jumping?

And I thought, he's just running. Nobody's saying, hey, Butterbean, jump. No, it's natural.

It's natural. He's so excited. See, this was early in his career. And he finally had a win over somebody that wasn't just a brawler.

And he finally was like, I proved my point. I told you I could fight with a regular boxer. And he was jumping around the ring.

He was being exceedingly glad in the king's English. When you are being treated this way, you should come home the same way.

What in the world happened to you? Did you get money out of the mailbox? Why are you this way?

I was lied about. They called me all sorts of names. And not because I deserved it, but for Christ's sake.

You say, brother, that's absolutely crazy. Why and how would anybody do that?

If somebody's lying about you for Christ's sake, it's proof that you're doing it right.

Don't you want to know you're doing it right? Preachers spend a lot of time reading books about how to do it right.

This is how you order a church. This is how you order this. This is how you craft a sermon. And we're comparing, this guy said this way, this guy said this way.

What if God said you're doing it right? What would you do? Well, I don't know,

God. We'll have to consult with Dr. So -and -so and see what he said in his book. No, if God said you're doing it right, you say, thank you.

Thank you. I'm so glad. I'm doing it right. You'd just about jump.

Now, I've already painted a picture of a fat man jumping in a ring, and I'm not going to jump in the pulpit. But you know what I'm talking about.

You'd be excited. You'd jump up in the air. You'd say, yes, yes, yes, I'm doing it right.

Well, you say, brother Harold, why is that compensation? You have been serving

God to the level that the world and the devil have taken notice of it.

Your enemies have taken notice of what's happening in your world. And they said, we've got to stop this.

We've got to put an end to this mess. This is going to get out of hand. If this thing gets traction, if people start believing the message he's preaching, if people start living the life she's living, people start acting like they do down at that church, we've got to spread some gossip about them.

This tactic works. Your network news media has been doing it for years.

They've had the market cornered on news for a long time. You come home from work. You turn on the 6 o 'clock news.

They tell you what to be mad about. And if somebody else gives you an alternative to that news source, oh, they need to be censored and silenced and put out.

They want to be the one that shares their view. They want to paint it their way. The world wants you to act their way.

The world wants you to look their way. The world tells you how to dress. The world tells you what to be mad about.

The world tells you what's acceptable. When you get your own book and start looking at it through a different lens, they say, hey, hey, hey, come back over here.

And when you won't, they start saying, watch out now. They're reading that other book. They're not getting their news from us.

They're not following along with the program. They're not wearing their clothes like us.

Their kids aren't going where our kids are going. The reward is this.

You're not earning heaven for being treated this way. You're earning rewards in heaven for being treated this way.

Heaven is by faith. Rewards are by trial.

God has seen fit to allow you to endure the suffering and shame of His Son.

Not all of His children can handle that. I've really been mistreated at times in my ministry.

I'm telling you what, if I wasn't a Christian, I'd be bitter about it and I'd quit. Baptists, not all of them are nice people to pastor.

Baptist churches, not all of them are places you want to go and live your life. It's just that way.

Early on in my ministry, if I'd experienced some of those things early on, I probably would have said, honey, we're not doing this.

I'm going to go get my Frito truck route back and start making good money again. Start living life the way I want to.

Go back to working 50 hours a week instead of this mess. But over time,

I began to grow and trust the Lord. These things in these verses 3 through 10 started becoming true.

I developed a deeper relationship with the Lord. I learned more about me. I learned more about Him. As I went through life walking on this journey,

God saw fit at times to let people slander my name for no good reason. And I said, oh

God, why are they doing this? I've loved these people. I've given my life for these people.

I've babysat their children and changed their diapers for them. And look at how they treat me.

Rejoice. Be exceedingly glad. For great is your reward in heaven.

I told preachers about the experiences I've had and they said, hey look, you go to churches now, you can't be friends with the people.

You've got to stay pulled back. You and your wife are this little entity over here. You can have friends, but you can't have close friends.

You start loving people, you'll start getting your heart broke. Jesus said, son, this is how you do it.

This is how you know you're on the right track. When you're doing it my way and you're loving your neighbor as yourself and you're putting the

Lord Jesus Christ first and you're preaching my word and you're giving your life to my church.

When they hate you, when the world around you hates you, you're doing it right. You're on the right track.

This is the way. I said, brother, hell, they don't teach that in seminary. I didn't go to seminary.

I didn't learn any better. This is all I got. This is the way.

Great is your reward. The Lord has saw fit to see me go through some bad stuff. How does that help you now?

Well, it gives me confidence now. It gives me confidence now.

Now I know. Because what I'm seeing happen in my life is what I've seen happen on the pages of Scripture.

And I'm doing it right. They're not saying stuff about me that's true. They're saying stuff about me that's not true.

And the reason they're saying it is because I preach Christ. Now, if they're saying it because I preach

Christ, if they're saying it because this is what the Bible says, then I'm on the right track. Confidence.

An eternal reward. Great is your reward now. No, you'll get that in the

Joel Osteen book. You won't get that in your Bible. Great is your reward then. Then.

This is your opportunity to say amen. I'm going to go ahead and prime the pump and get you ready. I have five points to my message.

You ready? Point number five. Boy, this is pathetic.

Pentecostals would be swinging off their rafters at point number five. But Baptists are... Well, amen.

We've talked about the persecution of Christians, the preposterous claim. It's pointed at Christ.

The promise of compensation. I'm about to run out of text. The prophet's conditions.

Look at the last phrase there in verse 12. For so persecuted they the prophets which were before you.

If you're being slandered and insulted because of Christ.

Not because you're a jerk. Not because you're picking fights. Not because you're trying to win some theological debate.

Not because you're trying to win brownie points with some religious group. If you're being slandered because you love

Jesus Christ and His bride, the church. Well, let me tell you something. You're in a long line of godly men.

A long line. I'll go back and pick two

Old Testament prophets just because it's easy. And I'll pick in my mind the two biggest. Elijah and Elisha.

I've spent a good portion of my ministry preaching through 1 and 2 Kings. Dealing with the lives of these two prophets who were in secession.

Elijah in 1 Kings chapter 18 was called by Ahab. He said, "'Art thou he that troubleth

Israel?' Let's pause for just a moment and see who's talking to who here.

Ahab was married to that woman Jezebel." Any of you girls named

Jezebel? A lot of moms was like, no way, we're not naming our kid

Jezebel. Well, I wonder why Jezebel fell out of favor. Oh, Jezebel was the wicked queen, wasn't she?

She was wicked. And she was married to who? Ahab. And Ahab was a wicked king.

And Ahab, under Jezebel's direction, had Naboth killed so that Ahab could have his vineyard.

These were wicked people. Now, who's Elijah? Elijah is the prophet of God.

And God said, "'Go tell Ahab it will not neither rain nor dew for three and a half years except at My word.'"

And Elijah went and told him that and he went to the Brook Jebesh. You remember this? "'And the ravens will feed you there.'"

And so every day these ravens... Now, just in my mind, the ravens are flying in to the kitchen of Ahab and grabbing the dinner rolls and the

T -bone steaks. Well, I can't say any catfish or nothing like that. But all the kosher clean foods out of Ahab's kitchen and taking them out to the

Brook Jebesh. Well, what happens? The brook dries up and the ravens quit showing up. And God says, "'Go to Zarephath.

I've commanded someone to feed you there.'" So he goes to Zarephath. He walks in to town.

There's an old lady out there, a widow woman with a little child. She's gathering sticks. He says, "'Ma 'am, what you doing?'

She says, "'I'm gathering two sticks because I got just enough bread for two pancakes. I'm going to go in and make a pancake for me and a pancake for my boy and we're going to eat that and then starve to death.'"

He says, "'I tell you what. Cook me one first and then you cook yours after mine and we'll eat dinner together.'"

So this crazy lady off a total stranger that walks up in the front starts cooking this crazy man a pancake first and then her and her boy eat one.

And the Bible says the meal didn't waste not. It didn't go away. The oil never ran out.

They were living on their last pancake for the remainder of this drought. And then

Ahab gets Obadiah and splits him up and says, "'We've got to find Elijah, public enemy number one of Israel, and hang him.

He's the problem.'" Well, here comes Elijah walking down the road. And Ahab, wicked

Ahab, rides up and says, "'It's your fault. You're the one that's causing the trouble in Israel.'"

It wasn't Elijah's fault. It was wicked Ahab's fault. Who is it that's trying to put the shoe on the other foot?

It's the wicked trying to blame the Christian, the believer, God's man. That's what he did in the

Old Testament to the prophets. Well, what happened? Elijah said, "'Yeah, yeah, yeah. We'll take care of that in a minute,

Ahab. Gather up all your prophets and meet me on top of Mount Carmel and we'll have a praying contest to see who reaches

God.'" His fire came down from heaven. The fire of the Lord came down from heaven, consumed his sacrifice.

Israel rose up and slew 400 prophets of Baal and 400 prophets of the grove.

And Elijah looked over at Ahab and said, "'You better get home. That chariot's going to get stuck in the mud.'" And he began to pray, and it rained.

Elijah was not the problem in Israel. Elijah was the solution. If you are being slandered for Christ's sake, you are not the problem.

You're part of the solution. You're the only one there that knows God that can talk to Him.

It's the prayers of a righteous man that availeth much. The Lord don't hear the prayers of the wicked. His heart's attentive.

His ear's attentive to the righteous. Look at his predecessor, Elisha. Elisha's holed up in the capital of Samaria.

Jehoram, none other than Ahab's son, is sitting on the throne. And they're surrounded by Benedab.

Host of the Syrians. And they've been starving for so long that an ox head is selling for a couple thousand dollars.

I mean, no, a donkey's head. Ox would be clean. A donkey, an unclean... Who wants to pay a couple thousand dollars for donkey head soup tonight?

Sounds bad, doesn't it? A quarter of a cup of dove dung was selling for 50 shekels.

A scoop of dove poop. Sweep that off your rail. Stir that in your...

Well, you don't have oatmeal. Stir that in some water and eat that for breakfast. And pay a couple weeks' wages just for that.

It was so bad that two women made a pact. We'll cook your son today and eat him.

And we'll cook my son tomorrow and eat him tomorrow. And that lady was crying out to the king saying, We ate my son and she's hiding hers.

Jehoram said, This is Elisha's fault. He said, The Lord do so and more to me if by this time tomorrow

Elisha's head is still on top of his shoulders. You see, it wasn't

Elisha's fault. Elisha was a man of God. He was sitting meeting with the elders praying to God to relieve the siege of the city.

And he said, Brothers, there's coming a man here that's going to try to seek my life. And it's not going to happen.

The door was knocked at the door and the guy said, I'm here on behalf of the king. I'm going to take you back and arrest you. We're going to cut your head off tomorrow.

He said, You're not arresting me. He said, Tomorrow a measure of wheat will be sold for a shekel.

Two measures of barley will be sold for a shekel. He said, I don't believe that. He said, This ain't ending anytime soon.

We're starving to death. He said, You'll see it, but you'll not taste it. That night the

Lord struck terror in the heart of those Syrians. And they were scared to death thinking that Israel had somehow gotten money out and hired an outside army.

And the Syrians fled, every man for his life. And they left everything there, tents and all. Three old lepers sitting outside the gate withering away.

And they said, You know what? Let's just go to the Syrians. Maybe we'll get lucky and they'll kill us quick.

We don't want to sit here and starve to death. We can't go inside, we're lepers. Maybe they'll say we're lepers and feel sorry for us and throw us a biscuit.

Let's go see what happens. It's better than sitting here withering away. The three lepers walk out to the Syrian camp and it's a ghost town.

And they start eating biscuits and gravy and all sorts of Syrian food they never had. They had probably sausage and shrimp and catfish and all kinds of good stuff.

And they said, You know, fellas, it's not right that we're out here gorging ourselves on royal dainties when the people in the city are still starving.

And they went back and they said, The Syrians are gone! They've left overnight all their stuff's out there.

And the people broke the gate down to get that food because they were starving. And they ran over a man in the way.

You know who it was? It was the servant of Jehoram. He heard that there was flour.

He heard there was barley. He saw the people eating it. He never took a bite of it.

You see, Elisha was not the problem. He was the solution. He knew

God. He had been in prayer to God. He was doing what Christians should do. He was doing what a believer in God should do.

But the world hates Elisha because Elisha knows

God. In the New Testament, I'll save you the time.

In Acts 5, verses 40 and 42, I was going to read it, but we'll suffice it with this.

The apostles had been arrested and thrown in jail for preaching. An angel came by night and opened up the gates and said,

Go preach again. So they went back to the temple preaching. The Sanhedrin met and they were going to make a decision what to do with these men who knew

Jesus Christ. And they called the jailer and said, Go get them. The jailer came back and said,

They're not there. About that time, another fellow ran in and he said, They're not there because they're in the temple preaching again.

How in the world did they get there? Well, the temple and everything was shut up, but they weren't there. The jail was shut up, but they weren't there.

So they went and asked them to come in front of them. They said, Don't you ever preach in Jesus' name again.

And they beat them. And they said, Don't you ever preach in His name again. Peter famously said,

We ought to obey God rather than men. They turned them loose. They said it two times,

Don't preach in His name. The persecution these men were suffering was for Christ's sake.

It says in verse 41, And they left there rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer the shame and reproach of Jesus Christ.

Their joy, their pleasure was doing Christ's work and receiving

Christ's punishment. I want to tell you something. Great is their reward in heaven.

I've read the end of the book. They've got stones named after them. They've got walls named after them.

They're part of it because of what they suffered. Not for their own sake. Not because they were jerks.

Not because they were hard -hearted. Not because it was all false. It was because of Christ.

These were godly men, humble men, meek men. They believed in Christ. And the world hated them.

Christ loved them. When they get to heaven, they receive their reward. The real question that I'll ask you as I close.

Would anybody accuse you of being Christ -like? This only happens to people that are

Christ -like. This is not mandatory of all Christians. Not everybody's going to be beat up and persecuted and slandered this way.

Only those that are Christ -like. Now, yeah, Christians are

Christ -like. And you're going to go to heaven because you believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you've repented of your sins.

But this blessed beatitude right here is for those who have been mistreated for Christ's sake.

Would anybody accuse you of being Christ -like? Would anybody lie about you and ridicule you and insult you for no other reason than you believe on the

Lord Jesus Christ? That's the question that needs to be answered. I don't know if I'll ever receive this kind of persecution again.

I've had some of it. I don't know if I'll get it again. But I know this. I want to be so Christ -like and so kind and so loving and so gentle and yet so desired to be like Christ that if they do pick somebody out, they'll say,

Yeah, it was Harold Smith. He's the guy. Sorry, low down. That's the guy. So as far as it lies in me,

I want to be Christ -like. If God sees fit to allow me to endure this, fine. Because every reward we receive in heaven, we can't go around heaven going,

Hey, look what I got. You only get this if you do what I did. No, everything we get in heaven, we go,

Here, thank you. It's because of you I was able to endure this.

All to Jesus. That's who we give it to. Let me pray and I'll hand the service over to Quatro.

Father, I pray that you would take the message I've delivered tonight and have it received in the manner in which

I've meant it. I don't want to paint myself as the example of this because I'm not.

Christ is. The prophets before us are. I just want to encourage the people to be like you.

And Lord, if you choose to allow us to suffer this way, that's your prerogative. Just help us to live like Christ so that he receives all honor and glory.