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Heb 11:35b-38 – (By faith), others were tortured, not accepting their release, in order that they might obtain a better resurrection; and others experienced mockings and scourgings, yes, also chains and imprisonment. They were stoned, they were sawn in two, they were tempted, they were put to death with the sword; they went about in sheep-skins, in goatskins, being destitute, afflicted, ill treated (men of whom the world was not worthy), wandering in deserts and mountains and caves and holes in the ground.
We read of all these people who by faith, went through all these things. The question we need to ask ourselves is this: Do we, as christians, identity at all with these people?
Many of us would say that these things can’t happen to us as we live in the 21st century, in a safe land. We should thank God because he has provided for us and that he has kept us safe and sound. This horrendous acts on christians are history, they won’t happen to us. Yes, indeed, we must thank God for his providence.
But Jesus had said in John 15:18-20a - 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…
Reading this words of Jesus and matching them with Hebrews 11:35b-38, these things that these people went through are simply fulfilment of what Jesus had said. They were persecuted, they were mocked, they were put to death. Why? Because, they were followers of Christ. The World HATED them.
We should then check ourselves this: Are we not persecuted because God is keeping us or are we not persecuted because we are not hated by the world? If it is the former, thanks be to God, but if it is the latter, we better worry.
Do we not realise that we ought to be hated by the world because the world hated Jesus too? Do we not realise that a slave is not greater than his master; and if we truly are disciples of Christ, we would be hated by this world?
One reason why we are hated by this world is because the world love us. John 15:18a – ‘If you were of the world, the world would love its own.’ The world loves us, because we belong to the world still.
This is scary because there are no two ways about it. It is upsetting that today, many areas are greyed. They are greyed by men who wants to create a Christianity of their own, which is not accordance to the one of the bible. They will say: God will protect, God will keep you from harm because he loves you and you are his child.
But we don’t realise that precisely because we are his child and that God loves us, we WILL be hated and persecuted by the world just as the world has hated Jesus, persecuted and killed.
This is the Christianity of the bible!
Do we believe this? Or have we created our own form of Christianity to suit US?
For those who are persecuted and suffering in any form, take heart because of Hebrews 11:38, for you one of the ‘men of whom the world was not worthy’. Previously, I have always misread this portion to take it as, men of whom are not worthy in the world, meaning those of whom the world do not consider worthy are persecuted. But no, the bible doesn’t say that.
It says: men of whom the world was not worthy. It does not mean that the world does not consider us worthy, but conversely, the world is not worthy for us. What a big claim this is! The entire world is not worthy for sufferers for Christ Jesus. This is definitely something we can take heart it! Look at how much we are valued by God, that even the world is not worthy of us.
1 Peter begins with Peter addressing those who reside as aliens or strangers of this world (verse 1). Who is he addressing, but us, christians.
We are strangers of this world. This world is not our home. It hates us. It wants to persecute us. It cannot live at peace with us. Because it hates our Father who is in heaven.
Very often as a student, it is extremely easy to live in a world of our own, going to school day after day, caring only about schoolwork and perhaps a little leisure time after school. Indeed a life of a student is a privileged life, free from much worries and cares, except for exams and assignments which we as students are most burdened about.
Recently, I have been rather busy with my schoolwork. with all my assignment deadlines approaching. I was feeling quite stressed up trying to put in a lot of effort into writing my essays in order to get good grades. On a side note, I realised that, to students, including me, grades have become the most important thing in our education. We often forget to participate in the process of learning, which is much more important than the grade itself.
As a student, I often planned what the future would be like. Thoughts would encircle my mind about how my life would be like when I graduated from university and so on. These thoughts, often based on personal desire and inclination, would then govern the subjects I take or my area of study. For example, It was as if I was absolutely certain that if I would to study medicine or law and I would become a doctor or lawyer and my future would be safe and secured.
I realised that there is this constant dread about the life at present hour and a hope that a better future is ahead. When I am studying, I would dread the very moment of hardship in studying and thought that everything would turn out better in the future. It was the same when I was in the army. Day by day, I dreaded those days of hardship and thought that when I go to university, things will be much better. But now, here I am in the same old situation of dreading today and hoping for a better tomorrow.
What I fail to realise is this: I am in absolute no position to determine my future. If I had, I would be living in my own dream world. It always seems as if a better future is ahead after all the present hardships and we work towards that future. The sad fact is: there is no better future in this world. No matter how hard we seek this better future on this earth, we will fail.
Looking at the situation around the world today; the milk sandal, the economic crisis, all the riots, bombings and natural disasters, one would be blind not to see that this world is a hopeless, fallen world and that we are hopeless, fallen men living in it.
We fallable humans have tried to savage situations, to maintain unity and to create a better tomorrow in this world. But how many times do we see the deja vu of past mistakes? This corrupted world from the history we learnt has never been truly peaceful for once. Instead, we learn of countless horrors from World War Two, natural disasters that take lives, nation going against nation, people against people. These are not just things that happen in movies. They are absolute real. In no way is history useful unless we see the sad reality that this world is corrupted.
The call of a christian is very much like the call of Abraham.
God called Abraham out of the Ur of the Chaldeans into a land of promise. It reads in Hebrews 11:8 that ‘By faith Abraham, when he was called, obeyed by going out to a place which he was to receive for an inheritance and he went out, not knowing where he was going.’
To many, it seems like foolishness for someone to depart from his place of security to somewhere that he wasn’t even sure of. Similarly, God called us, christians, out from this world in which we are comfortable in to a better one in heaven, somewhere which we do not see.
Just as God has promised Abraham that he going out to a place which he was to receive for an inheritance, God has promised us in John 14:2 that ‘in My Father’s house are many dwelling places; if it were not so, I would have told you; for I go to prepare a place for you.’ He has promised us a place in his kingdom in heaven. He has promised that ‘He shall wipe away every tear from our eyes and there shall no longer be any death; there shall no longer be any mourning, or crying or pain’ (Revelations 21:4)
Do we believe him? Are we willing to depart from this fallen world of pain, mourning and death to claim this inheritance that God has promised us?
Hebrews 11:16 – But as it is, they desire a better country, that is a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their Godl for He has prepared a city for them.
Abraham desired a better world. Looking at the world situation today, do we acknowledge that this world is not our home and we desire too a better world, though now not seen physically by our eyes?
I am reminded of a song I used to sing at Youth fellowship:
This world is not my home I’m just passing through
my treasures are laid up somewhere beyond the blue
the angels beckon me from Heaven’s open door
and I can’t feel at home in this world anymore
O Lord you know I have no friend like you
if Heaven’s not my home then Lord what will I do?
the angels beckon me from Heaven’s open door
and I can’t feel at home in this world anymore
They’re all expecting me and that’s one thing I know
my savior pardoned me and now I onward go
I know He’ll take me through though I am weak and poor
and I can’t feel at home in this world anymore
O Lord you know I have no friend like you
if Heaven’s not my home then Lord what will I do?
the angels beckon me from Heaven’s open door
and I can’t feel at home in this world anymore
Just up in Glory Land we’ll live eternally
the Saints on every hand are shouting victory
their song of sweetest praise drifts back from Heaven’s shore
and I can’t feel at home in this world anymore
O Lord you know I have no friend like you
if Heaven’s not my home then Lord what will I do?
the angels beckon me from Heaven’s open door
and I can’t feel at home in this world anymore
Yesterday, I received a sms on my handphone saying:
‘Urgent. Please pray for the churches in India. Buddhist extremists burnt 20 churches yesterday night and are planning to destroy 200 churches in Orissa and kill 200 pastors in 24 hours. Christians are hiding in bushes. Please pray and forward to all you know so we can cry to God on their behalf. Pastor Steve, Dubai.’
This message and the world events around me truly opened my eyes to the grim reality of the happenings going around in the world.
Here were all these christians being persecuted and I am living in my own comfort zone, complaining about how stressful my studies are and how I’m not able to relax recently. Day by day, I live my life as a student, going to school almost daily and on weekends, I’ll go to church on Sunday and perhaps take some time off on Saturday. I have been in this mindless routine without realising how I was actually living my life.
I realised that all these while, I have been living in my own little confined space and being satisfied that way. To my horror, I realised that I was living in my own world – A ‘Dream World’ or what Pastor John Piper calls it: ‘Disneyland’.
This is the Dream World: Studies or our work is the main thing in our lives. Occasionally, we take some time off for legitimate leisure or relaxation. We may spend time with God daily and yes, we are satisfied. The cycle continues on week after week, months after months, years after years, and we think that there’s all that is, in this little world in which we live in. The worst thing is, we think that that’s all for a life of a christian.
In my world, the world I see, touch, feel and taste, the world seems good, able to sustain me and is reasonably nice to live in. But the world in reality isn’t what I think it is. It is messed up, corrupted and rotten. Even as christians, we chase after the things in this world, and we don’t often realise it. They may be small things like security or a simple carefree life that we seek to have or keep. Of course, we know that we should forsake all these things and follow the Lord, but how many of us truly have put it into practice? How many of us are willing to sacrifice even these things like a normal life, a secured life for God’s sake?
Many of us prefer to live in our own ‘Dream World’ instead of facing the grim reality of this world: this cruel, hopeless world that we live in. We prefer to cast all these questions aside and brainwash ourselves to worry about our schoolwork, our company’s problems or our family issues. We try to focus on these things that revolve around us, to participate in the pleasant things around us and we think that that is all to life. We choose to believe that this world is beautiful and pleasant. We choose to believe that there is a hope for humanity, failing to realise that the hope doesn’t exist at all.
Humanity is rotten. It is a joke to even think that we can rely on these fallible men, whom we call leaders, to lead us to a better tomorrow. Just look at all the wars in the world from time past. Look at the industrial revolution. What did it cause us? Wars, shortages, environmental damages. Look at all our developments, all the tall skyscrapers in which we glory, all the sophistication of technology we have. All it takes is an earthquake or something to bring them all down to nothing. Yet, we choose to deceive ourselves that humans can have control of this world. Where is the better tomorrow in which we are chasing, collectively as humans and individually, on our own? There is no better tomorrow in this hopeless world. This world is doomed to failure.
This is what we need to realise today, right now, at this very moment: This world is hopeless and we ourselves are hopeless. We want to live happily ever after, we want to live the dream lives that we envision, we want to be secured, we want all to be nice and well. We are dreaming. We are chasing after the wind.
All these things are happening because we humans think that we are the centre of this world. Everything we do revolves around ourselves. When each try to live his own dreams or his own will, there will be conflicts inevitably. The world needs a centre. Only when there is a centre, there is unity. It is only when we live for this centre, there is meaning and purpose to live for. If we are going to live for ourselves, as though the world revolves around us, we are chasing after the wind, because the world doesn’t revolve around us.
This centre is Christ.
Colossians 1:16 – ‘For by Him all things were created, both in the heavens and on the earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities – all things have been created by Him and for Him.’
All things in this world is created by Christ and for Christ. Who then is the centre of this world? Who then should all things revolve around? Us? No. Christ, the one who will claim this world back for Himself.
Hebrews 1:2b – (Christ) ‘whom He appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the world.’
If we all could realise this and we live for Christ whom the world revolves around, all things can be brought back into unity. This is what we should seek. Not wealth, not peace, not security, not anything else that puts us in the centre of the world, but Christ, and Christ alone.
When things around us in the world happen that doesn’t affect us, we would just say “Thank You, God, that I’m not affected. Thank you for blessing me!” Those brothers and sisters in Christ out there are suffering, suffering, suffering and we are just merely thanking God for blessing us. That is the ‘I in the centre’ attitude. Shall we allow the rightful one to take the centre place once again? Shall we not just simply thank God because he has blessed us? If we do see that Christ is the centre of all things, can we see that our lives are not much more worthy than theirs that God should bless us more? Shall we, as one, feel the anguish of the holy spirit, the hardships and pain that these brethren go through? Shall we unite in Christ by praying and becoming sharers of hardship with these brethren? (Hebrews 10:33)
When we as Christians unite with Christ in the centre as the unifier, we fulfil our purpose for living in this world, for there is a better tomorrow when Christ shall come and claim what is his.
