Jesus also, that he might sanctify the people with his own blood, suffered outside the gate. Therefore, let us go forth to him outside the camp, bearing his reproach. For we have no continuing city here, but we seek one to come.
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For the saints, the world's approval is an indication of apostasy. True holiness has never been popular with the world, and it never will be. Pentecostal sects have grown in stature among men in recent decades only as they have left off the power and truth of God from their assemblies. The deader they become, the more acceptable to this world they are. May God help us! There is a prophecy of Jesus in Psalms that says, "Then I restored that which I had not taken away." This is what God's people need. We need Jesus to restore to us what he never wanted us to be without: his power and light. He didn't take it away from his people; they traded it away for friendship with the world.
Genuine holiness is in the holy Spirit, and nothing that is of this world is of that good Spirit. The world is "of the flesh", and the flesh wars implacably against the Spirit of God, and God's Spirit wars inexorably against the flesh, "and these two are contrary the one to the other" (Gal. 5:17). There will never be peace between the sweet Spirit of Christ and the spirit of this world. It is a fight to the death, and Jesus cannot die.
Paul told Timothy that every person on this earth who lives a righteous life will suffer persecution (2Tim. 3:12). This is always true because, at any given time in history, there are many more sinners living on earth than saints. Don't give in to the flesh to try to get around this. If you are not being persecuted in some way, then you are not living a righteous life. Jesus certainly was persecuted, and he told us, "The servant is not greater than his lord. If they have persecuted me, they will persecute you. If they have kept my saying, they will keep yours also" (Jn. 15:20).
Of course, "The sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared to the glory" that will be given to us if we are faithful to Jesus (Rom. 8:17); in the meantime, however, those sufferings must be endured because only if we suffer with him will we reign with him (2Tim. 2:12).
There is no room in the hearts of carnal men for the Lord of righteousness. Jesus was refused a room in the inns of Bethlehem. He was born in a stable and spent his first nights in a feeding trough. This is not the kind of king that men expected or wanted, and man will never submit to and worship an impoverished, suffering Savior. The nature of man demands that men make something else out of Jesus in order to bring itself to bow before him. But when that happens, it is a false Jesus who is being worshiped. This is the reason there are so many gospels proclaimed in the name of Jesus. The real, living Jesus just does not fulfill something in the hearts of Christian teachers that they feel they must have in order to submit to him.
The servants of Jesus who were faithful to him suffered as he did. When the saints at Corinth began to attain to some earthly status and prestige, Paul felt that he ought to remind them of his condition (1Cor. 4:10-14, 16):
"We
are fools for Christ's sake, but ye are wise in Christ. We are
weak, but ye are strong. Ye are honorable, but we are despised. Even to this present
hour we both hunger and thirst, and are naked, and are beaten, and have no
certain dwelling place. And we labor, working with our own hands.
"Being
reviled, we bless; being persecuted, we suffer it; being defamed, we entreat.
We are made as the offscouring of all things unto this day. I write not these things
to shame you, but as my beloved sons, I warn you . . . Wherefore, I beseech
you, be ye followers of me."
Paul did not desire to be beaten, scorned , imprisoned, or stoned. He did not seek to be persecuted; he sought to do the will of God. And he learned by his own experience that there is no way that the saints can do righteousness in this wicked world of darkness without suffering the indignation of the world into whose life we have "intruded" with the light of God. "Wherefore gird up the loins of your mind," wrote Peter, "be sober, and hope to the end for the grace [salvation] that is to be brought unto you at the revelation [second coming] of Jesus Christ, as obedient children, not fashioning yourselves according to your former lusts in your ignorance. But as he who has called you is holy, so be ye holy in all manner of conduct, because it is written, 'Be ye holy, for I am holy'" (2Pet. 1:13-15).
Throughout
the New testament, the apostles were exhorting the saints to endure persecutions.
Why were those holy men constantly saying such things to God's people? The
obvious answer is that it is because they were being persecuted. They were not
being persecuted because they had invented strange doctrines and ceremonies but
because of the holiness of God that shined through them, and the world will, always
try to put out the light when it shines. There is a very old hymn that says,
Another verse adds that "If you're polished with His power, you will shine." This old hymn was proclaiming an unalterable truth; to wit, with God's power, the holy Ghost makes us shine in this world when we walk in the Spirit. The concomitant truth, equally unalterable, is that if we dare to shine, we will be hated as was our master, Jesus, the Lord of light and life.