Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven.
Matthew 5:11-12, NIV
Recommended Reading: Matthew 24:1-12
Paul Schneider wouldn’t stop preaching. Hitler took it personally and sent him to Buchenwald concentration camp where on three occasions he was whipped with 25 lashes. When asked what he would do if released, Schneider said he would go on preaching. For that he was suspended by his wrists for hours, feet off the floor. He kept preaching the cross, and he died in Buchenwald at age 41.1
That was decades ago, yet persecution against Christians is greater now than ever. In His sermon on the Last Days, Jesus warned: “Then they will deliver you up to tribulation and kill you, and you will be hated by all nations for My name’s sake” (Matthew 24:9).
Even if we aren’t tortured, we’ll find ourselves hated by the world. Jesus told us to expect that. So if someone dislikes you for your faith and biblical worldview, rejoice!
Do not deceive yourselves, you cannot participate in Jesus’ glory and victory unless you, for His sake, take up the holy cross and go with Him along the path of suffering and death.
Paul Schneider
- Don Stephens, War and Grace (Evangelical Press, 2014), chapter 2.
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