My desire that each one of us will realize that persecution is real. Remember, the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ said this, in this world ye shall have tribulation. What is that tribulation? Persecution. It's what we're going to go through. But also the Lord said that he was going to be with us. He said He'd be with us every step of the way. He doesn't leave us. He will never leave us nor forsake us. We can stand strong in the midst of persecution, no matter how bad the persecution may seem on earth. Realize this truth as believers tonight. No matter how bad your persecution is, no matter what you're going through, if you've trusted Christ as your personal Savior, no matter how long that lasts on this earth, persecution is temporary. It's temporary. because you won't have to deal with it in eternity. It's just temporary. There will be no persecution in heaven. Praise the Lord for that. But I want us, first of all, to notice tonight the reason for persecution. Here in verse 22, he says, remove from me reproach and contempt. Notice, for I have kept thy There are many who are dealing with things today. Maybe even some in this room. Only you know what you're dealing with. But you're dealing with things today that may be direct results of a decision that you made earlier in life. Whatever sin you may have taken part of. And what you're dealing with today, whether it's in the mind or whether it's in the body, whatever it may be, you can relate that back to a certain decision. If a person smokes for 30 years, understand this, it is not persecution when the doctor says you have lung cancer. That's not persecution. That is a consequence for sinful action. It's a consequence of a bad choice. If someone is an alcoholic and they get cirrhosis of the liver, that's not persecution. That is a result of a sinful decision. I'm not talking about internal problems tonight as it deals with persecution. We're dealing with what comes Remember when David was going through his life, of course you can follow his life. It's a very detailed report, if you will, as you go through the Bible. And what you find is that David, no, he was not a perfect man, but he was a man after God's own heart. But there were people that wanted to kill him. Saul wanted to kill him as he was just a boy. He was just playing his harp. He was doing exactly what Saul wanted him to do. And Saul was throwing javelins at him. All he was doing is what he was told. Of course, all throughout his life, there were different ones tried to kill him. At one point, his own son rose up against him and had people behind him and David had to flee his kingdom and all sorts of things going on during that time. But what you find is this, there is going to be persecution from without. If someone is evil, When they are finally put in their place, we rejoice about that. And we'll say things like this, well, that's what they deserve. But it hits us differently when the situation is like what we're reading tonight. The psalmist was not in this problem, was not in the midst of this persecution because of wrongdoing. Notice verse 22, remove from me reproach and contempt. Notice, for I have kept by testimony. What was the reason for the persecution? Because he was living for God. Because he was keeping God's testimonies. As I mentioned, a perfect man? Absolutely not. But he was keeping the testimonies of God. He was doing what he could to serve God. The psalmist was not in this problem because of wrongdoing. He was in this problem because of right doing. He's asking the Lord to remove something, reproach and contempt. Why? Because the psalmist said, I have kept thy testimonies. This world that we live in, it absolutely hates the word of God. It doesn't like it. They try to remove it from everything. And there are some people that if you try to quote a Bible verse, boy, they get all bent out of shape about that. And they say, I don't want to hear about that. You're carrying a Bible. And they may say, don't come at me with that thing. Don't come over here trying to Bible thump me. People hate the Bible. A lifetime ago, they took the Bibles out of schools. Why? Because they hate the Word of God. It had nothing to do with anything else they try to blame it on. They wanted God removed from their system. They hate it. And because of their hatred towards the Word of God, understand this, if you and I love the Word of God like we should, we'll have hatred toward us as well. Simply because we hold to this book. Persecution in our lives is not because of wrongdoing, but because of right doing. There will be some who do not want to be around you if you live for the Lord. If you live the way you're supposed to live, there'll be some who despise you. Why? Because the word of God is in you and flowing out of you. If a smoker, or a drunk, or someone who's got curse words flying out of their mouth, or a drug addict, an adulterer, or a fornicator, if they always enjoy being around you, something's wrong. Why? Because they should feel conviction because of the word of God that's pouring out of our life. Of course we are too. live the way that we should, and if we do that conviction will be there, we should be witnessing, but they're going to feel conviction because the Holy Spirit is there. Why are there so many believers today who are intermingled with the world? It's because they're doing the exact same thing the world is doing. They may have a Bible preached to them on Sunday, but they're not allowing anything to flow through their life throughout the week. not allowing anything to change them. They're cursing right along with the world. They sit on the pew on Sunday, but they're on the barstool on Friday night. Church, understand, we are called by God to come out from among them and be a separate people. Most of you, if not all of you, you've been here long enough, hopefully, to know my heart, and my heart is that we are to love people. We're to love our community, and that includes loving them where they are, but it does not mean we are to partake in the sin that they're partaking in. We are to be different. And sometimes saying, I don't do that, is enough to get them questioning something. No, I'm not going to partake in that. No, I'm not going to listen to that. No, I'm not going to go there. If we stand for what is right, understand persecution will come. Not because of wrongdoing. If we do wrong we should be judged because of that. But persecution will come because of doing right. Well I don't know if that's true preacher. Well look at Proverbs chapter 29 if you will. Let's see what the Bible says about it. Amen. We like to have things go the right way. Well in Proverbs chapter 29 in verse 27 Notice the Bible says this in Proverbs 29, 27, an unjust man is an abomination to the just, and he that is upright in the way. So if we're living for the Lord, if we're doing what we can to serve the Lord, this is what the Bible says we are, an abomination to the wicked. You know when a person gets saved, oftentimes, and it's a shame on us who have been saved for a long time that many times new believers have more of a burden for the people around them than seasoned believers do, but many times someone will trust Christ as their Savior and they'll go to their friends and they'll go to the ones that they had been involved with before and boy they're excited about being saved and they say everybody needs to hear this and many times what they find is when they go up to this person that they were doing these ungodly things with they go up there, hey I went to church on Sunday and I was able to trust Christ as my personal Savior and this is what he did and boy he cleansed me from the inside out and I feel so much better and then they realize the other person's looking at them like they have three heads. And all of a sudden, that person stops calling them. All of a sudden, that person stops inviting them places. All of a sudden, they stop being invited to parties and all those types of things. Why? Because he that is upright in the way is an abomination to the wicked. Before long, no matter how popular that person was in that group before, before too long, he's the one they're talking about. Oh, did you hear about so-and-so? Yeah, well, we'll see how long that lasts. Well, so-and-so, he thinks he's better than us now, and all kinds of lies go out and all of that, but the reason for persecution, understand, for the psalmist here, it says, for I have kept thy testimonies. He's living for the Lord. Boy, people don't like it. I want us to notice, secondly, this evening, the reaction of the persecutors. Verse 22, it says this, remove from me these two words, reproach and contempt. As we look at this verse and as we compare scriptures throughout the Word of God, we find that whenever persecution comes to the people of God for doing right, it included these two things, reproach and contempt. These two words are often the hardest ones to bear, and here's why, because in this world that we live in, especially in the United States of America with the legal system that we have today, if someone hurts us physically speaking, there are legal ramifications that will happen, and there's laws against hurting somebody physically and all of that. There's things that can be done. There's legal solutions to those type of threats, but the reproach and the contempt that we're talking about tonight These are not bodily harm. The reason they are hard to deal with and many times the hardest to deal with is because they are verbal and emotional harm. Why is that tough? Because many times it's from the ones who were closest to us before. I don't care how strong someone thinks they are or how much they say. Well, I don't care what people say. You care. You do. Oftentimes, I'll say things to my wife. If something's said about me or whatever, I'll say something like this. Well, I don't care what they say. What I mean by that is this. I'm not changing from doing right just because somebody says something. But as a human being, I care. As a human being, just like you, I want to be liked by people. unwilling to change from right to wrong, to be liked by people. But we all want to be accepted. We want to be liked by people. But the reality is this. There are going to be things that happen in our life. There's going to be things that change us from the inside out as we yield to the word of God. And because of that, there's going to be people that want nothing to do with you. And the ones that used to praise you before are going to be the ones who are chastising you. They will be. Each one of us, though, we are here to serve the Lord. I'm here to serve the Lord. I'm here to lead my family. I'm here to pastor this church as I follow the Lord and understand accusations will come. Lies will be spread about each and every one of us. They come in all of our lives. Reproach is speaking of the shame that the evil tongue will bring upon you. That's what that word reproach is speaking of here. They're going to try to bring a reproach upon you, the evil tongues will, simply because you're trying to obey the Word of God. The issue is that we oftentimes rely on our own strength rather than the strength of God to help us through those things and we wonder why we're so downhearted and why we're just emotionally beat up and down all the time. You know, we've got some in our church who have trusted Christ as their Savior within the last several weeks. Something that I know, as excited as I am about their salvation, something that I know is this, persecution is coming. We should be praying for these new believers. We should be praying for one another as well. We should be praying for these new believers. Why? Because Satan knows that there is nothing more powerful than a new believer who's on fire for God. I'll tell you, they will attack the gates of hell with a water pistol. They'll just go. They're excited about it. And Satan knows that. And there's going to be times at which the ones that they thought were close to them, boy, persecution is going to come. But as they yield to the Lord and as they allow their family to serve the Lord, reproach is going to come. People will say things, friends that you had before, they're going to disassociate with you because there's something different about that person. But what's true for the new believers is still true for the rest of us as well. And that's this. We need the strength of God. We need a strength. I can't go through life without God's strength. And you can't either. So we see this reproach there in that verse that is the the the evil tongue that's going to come against you. But we also see another word there. We see the word contempt. And this is not just the words that one may say about us, but this goes even further. You know, there are people. who are going to say things about other people, and sometimes it's as if they say something about you, and then the next time you see them, they act as though they never had that conversation, that they never said those things about you. I don't understand that mindset and all there, but either way, this contempt that we're talking about, so we have the reproach, but also the contempt, this contempt is more than what they're going to say. This has to do with rejection of someone. Not just saying things about you, but completely disassociating and wanting nothing to do with you. You know, sometimes that's family members. Sometimes it's ones in your own home. this contempt that we're talking about here, this personal rejection. Understand, if you have lived for God, you will be excluded from certain groups at school. There will be certain groups of people in the workplace that will want nothing to do with you after you've trusted Christ as your Savior. Certain friendships, and maybe even lifelong friendships, will end if you love the Lord and you live for Him. Those things have happened before, and they will happen in our lives as well if we're going to live for the Lord. But we have to make the decision that, okay, I know persecution is going to come. I know it's not going to feel good. I know there's going to be a reproach. People are going to say things about me. People are going to try to do things to me. I know that there's going to be rejection. I know those things are coming, but I also know that God is with me. And we need to make the decision that, OK, I know those things are coming. I'm going to live for God no matter what comes, because if we don't make that decision today from the youngest to the oldest in this room, when that time comes, we'll turn our back on God. And here's why. Because if we're not living in the power of God today when things are going well, we're not going to live in the power of God when things are not going so well tomorrow. We must be settled and grounded. These people understand they're going to come. If a political figurehead in our world shows a preference for God's Word, oftentimes they're ostracized, are they not? Reproach. Contempt. I want you to notice verse 23. It says, princes also did sit and speak against me. You know, it says that they sat and spoke against him. The reality is this, there's many times where a believer is going to speak against you as well. There's going to be times where it may even be someone that you say, wow, they were someone that were, they were a great help to me in growing in the faith, or wow, they've been faithful to church for this long. I don't know why the reproach or the contempt is coming from them. Something that I found to be true is this, and I believe many in here have found this, and if you haven't found it out, you will, and that is this. The ones in the church that are going to sit around and talk about other people, in a way of not, how can we encourage them to do this, but rather, can you believe what they're doing? What I found is the ones that sit around and do those types of things, they have time to sit around because they're not doing anything else for God. So if someone is trying to pull you into that, understand it's easy to get pulled into contempt and reproach when someone else is already involved in it. And if someone is trying to pull you into that, hit the brakes. I don't want to be a part of that. Remember I was talking earlier about the unsaved crowd and when you trust Christ and all of a sudden you're with this crowd again and you're trying to tell them about God and they want nothing to do with it and often times they're not going to bring things to you anymore. If there's a gossip who comes to you whether they're saved or unsaved and you know they're a gossip and they start gossiping about someone and you say this, you know what, I don't know all the details. All I know is that I can pray for them and I don't want to listen to that. You know what's going to happen? again, I can guarantee it. Why? Because we're not listening to it. But many times we get pulled into these things, and before we know it, not only are we the ones with the reproach and the contempt against us, but we're the ones bringing reproach and contempt against other people. There are many churches today that because of what somebody's life is like, they put out the message that they're not welcome here. I don't care who walks through these doors and what they've been a part of, we're going to preach the gospel to them and we're going to love them. Understand, we're going to stand for right. But when they come into this place, if they get the eyes, kind of like, what are you doing here? They're not going to feel loved. They're not going to feel like this is where they can get the answers that they need. And the same persecution that we would complain about, that same pain that we would complain about, and I don't like feeling that way. I don't like when people speak against me. I don't like when I'm being rejected by men. Understand, if we're not loving people out there and in here the way that Christ loved them, that's the way we're causing them to feel. It's gotta be deeper. than just in this place. It's got to be who we are. Why do people treat others that way? Why does this world try to persecute believers because they are of the world? They're blinded. They may not be bad people, but they are lost and they need to be saved. God forbid that us as believers would treat each other the way that the world treats people. It shouldn't be that way. The worst thing we can do as believers is to cave to the persecution and refuse to take a stand. Well, it's just too hard. Many times we complain about the pain and all that we're in, but we don't allow it to draw us closer to God. We complain about the problems that we're going through rather than saying, Lord, I know you're trying to teach me something. rather than being like Job when he said, though he slay me, yet will I trust him. You know, if we cave to the pressures of persecution, if we refuse to take a stand simply because of what someone may say, that would bring a reproach to the name of Christ. The one who died on the cross of Calvary for you and me, if we're unwilling to stand in the midst of persecution, how does that make him feel? and it would ruin our testimonies to the persecutors. There are so many testimonies. I've got some going through my mind right now, and I'm sure you can think of some as well, of someone who trusted Christ, and they were trying to witness to someone, and forever it seemed like that persecution just kept going and going and going, but they did their best to follow the Lord. They did their best to stay faithful, and eventually the one who was persecuting them ended up trusting Christ as their Savior, and that person will say something like this. It's because they never changed. What would be said of us? Because many times when persecution comes, somebody says something about the message that we're preaching. Somebody gets upset because we're telling them about how to be saved. Many times we do this, and zip it closed. Well, obviously they don't want to hear it, so I'm never telling them about that again. The Bible says the word of the Lord came unto Jonah, the son of Amittai, the second time. Very few people get saved the very first time they hear the gospel. I don't know what the statistics are, but it's very few. What I know is this, that God is faithful to us. And God will put people in our path to tell about the gospel of Jesus Christ. And the first time we tell them, they may be upset about it. The second time we tell them, they may be upset about it. The 10th, the 20th, the 30th time we tell them about the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they may be upset about it, but we should never stop telling them. If we allow persecution to stop us, understand we're dimming our light for Christ. That's what we're doing. We have the word of God. We have the hope that that this world needs. Let's not allow our testimony to be ruined simply because of the persecutors. Church, let's stand for right. So first of all, we see the reason for the reproach. Then we see the the reaction of the persecutors. And boy, that was a not a good reaction. Amen. Notice lastly here the plea. of the persecuted, the plea. Look at verse 22, "...remove from me reproach and contempt, for I have kept thy testimonies. Princes also did sit and speak against me, but thy servant did meditate in thy statutes. Thy testimonies also are my delight and my We get a glimpse into the heart of the psalmist here as you read this passage. You see the plea for the persecution. I think the Apostle Paul, he had this same type of plea when he was asking the Lord. He said he asked the Lord three times for him to remove that thorn in the flesh. The Apostle Paul didn't know why he was going through that. And there's different things that people believe that thorn in the flesh may have been. But either way, it was something that he was going through that he asked the Lord over and over again that he would remove. But understand this, something we must remember is persecution hurts. It hurts. If it doesn't hurt, it's not persecution. Name me one time in the Bible where someone was persecuted and they didn't have any sort of pain whatsoever. Families forsaking them. People stoning them. People saying all sorts of things about them. Boy, there was hurt. As the psalmist is pleading for this persecution to be removed, understand, he says here that he has meditated in the statutes. That's the Word of God. And he says day and night, we can learn a couple things from that statement. First is this, even in the midst of pain, because he's going through a trial here. How do you know that? Because he's asking the Lord to remove the reproach and the contempt. He's going through these things, but he says this, Thy testimonies also are my delight. He said, But thy servant did meditate in thy statutes. There in verse 20, My soul breaketh for the longing that it hath unto thy judgment at all over and over he's saying, Lord, I'm trying to stay faithful to you. I'm trying to stay in your word. I'm trying to do what's right. Even in the midst of turmoil and persecution that was bad enough that he's asking the Lord to remove that. Even in those times, he stayed in the word of God. Even in those times. In the midst of pain, he stayed in the word of God, but also even if we are living for God, Persecution will still come. No matter how flawlessly we try to live, persecution will come. And though it's impossible to live in sinless perfection on earth, understand this, if we could live in sinless perfection, persecution would still come. We know that because it came to the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Persecution does not come because of who we are. Persecution comes because of who we're following. That's why it comes. The Lord and Savior Jesus Christ said He had to do the will of the one who sent Him. Why was He being persecuted? Because He was following His Father. Why will we be persecuted? Because we're following our Father. See, persecution will come, but when it comes, what we must do is what we see in verse 24. We must delight in the Word of God. We must. We cannot convince ourselves that we can get through it on our own. No, in the midst of affliction, the psalmist here, his comfort was found in the Word of God. And the psalmist also says that the Word of God was his counselor. You know what doesn't say anything about Google? It doesn't say anything about Siri. It doesn't say anything about Snapchat or Facebook or Instagram or anything like that. It doesn't talk about the friends that we have on this earth. It doesn't talk about different religions and what they have to say about my problems and all of that. No, it says there in verse 24, thy testimonies, thy word is what he's talking about, are my delight and my counselors. When I need to know where to go, I go to the word of God. When I need to know what to do, He says, I go to the Word of God. When I have persecution, when I have shame, when I have reproach, when the proud are coming against me, when I have contempt, when I have all of these things, it doesn't do me any good to run to the men of this world. Thy Word is my counselor. We must be in the book. Church, we will be persecuted if we're living for God. Many will say, well, we don't suffer persecution because we have freedom of religion in America. And I'm so thankful for our freedom of religion. You know the main reason why believers don't see the persecution that I believe we should be seeing right now? Because many believers are not living the way they should be living right now. Because if someone stands up for right, they're persecuted. In the last four years, How many people were thrown into prison for standing outside of an abortion clinic and praying? Well, I didn't feel religious persecution. Did you stand outside of an abortion clinic and pray? Think about it. And I don't know what religion and what all these people claim. I'm not saying that, well, they're independent fundamental Baptists, and that's why they're being persecuted. No, what I'm saying is this. When you stand for rights, someone will hate you. and they will do all they can not to only mock you, but to make an example of you when you stand for right. I truthfully believe that we as believers, as the day draws nearer that our Lord and Savior is coming back, if we're living the way that we should, there's going to be some persecution. There was a news article from overseas that made a statement for about a day and a half about believers being beheaded in the Congo. Made news for about a day and a half. Why? Well, it's just those radical Christians. Well, they should have known better than to do that over there. Missionary gets killed. I had a missionary, a man that I knew, Brother Stephen, man, his last name is escaping me now. What is it? Yes, yes, Terrell. He was serving the Lord over in the Middle East, standing for right, doing things that other people said you're crazy for. He got gunned down in his own car with his wife sitting in the passenger seat. It made news for a little bit, primarily made news in the religious circles and still things going out today about that and praying for his wife and his kids and all those types of things. But there's not a large outcry in this world when something like that happens. When you start defunding some of these whacked out things in our government, and there's some outcry. You see, persecution comes when you stand for right. When's the last time you stood for God when it was hard? I'm not talking about when you're in the midst of believers and you talked about what the Word of God says. I'm talking about when you know there's probably people who are going to disagree with you. And I'm not talking about saying things to get into an argument. There's so much of that going on, it drives me crazy. I don't have time to argue on Facebook. I'm talking about when you're standing in front of people, whether it's friends or family or co-workers, whatever it may be, when's the last time you tried to give the gospel out, knowing somebody probably won't like this? For many of us, we can't remember the last time we did. which is why we don't know that persecution is happening today. Persecution comes when you stand for right. Yes, we should stand for right when we're in these four walls. But by their fruits, they'll know you. That's out there. Persecution will come. What must we do? We must stay in the book. Thy testimonies also are my delight and my counselors. When the persecution comes, we realize those things are real. People have been burned at the stake for that. We heard about that on Sunday. People have been killed in the streets for the Bible and standing for that. Reproach and contempt are real, but praise the Lord, our God is real. And He'll help us. Let's stay faithful. Amen? Let's pray.