ACCOUNT WITH PERSECUTION - Oswald Chambers
If a disciple is going to follow Jesus, he must lay his account not only with purity and with practice, but also with persecution. The picture Our Lord gives is not familiar to us. In the East a slap on the cheek is the greatest form of insult, its equivalent with us would be spitting in the face. Epictetus, a Roman slave, said that a slave would rather be thrashed to death than nicked on the cheek. Jesus says If any man smites you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. The Sermon on the Mount indicates that when we are on Jesus Christ s errands, there is no time to be taken in standing up for ourselves. Personal insult will be the occasion in the saint of revealing the incredible sweetness of the Lord Jesus.
The Sermon on the Mount hits where it is meant to hit, and it hits every time. Jesus says Whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, as My representative, pay no attention, i.e., show a disposition equivalent to turning the other cheek also. Either Jesus Christ was mad to say such things, or He was the Son of God. Naturally, if a man does not hit back, it is because he is a coward; super- naturally, it is the manifestation of the Son of God in him, both have the same appearance outwardly. The hypo crite and the saint are the same in the public eye, the saint exhibits a meekness which is contemptible in the eye of the world, that is the immense humiliation of being a Christian. My strength has to be the strength of the Son of God, and He was ” crucified through weakness/ Do the impossible, and immediately you do, you know that God alone has made it possible.
These things apply to a disciple of Jesus and to no one else. The only way to interpret the words of God is to let the Holy Spirit interpret them for you. Jesus said that the Holy Spirit would bring back to our remembrance what He has said, and His counsel is When you come across personal insult, not only don t resent it, but make it the occasion of exhibiting the Son of God.
The secret of a disciple is personal devotion to a personal Lord, and a man is open to the same charge as Jesus was, viz., that of inconsistency, but Jesus was never incon sistent to God. There is more than one consistency. There is the consistency of a little child, a child is never the same, always changing and developing, a consistent child; and there is the consistency of a brick wall, a petrified consistency. A Christian is to be consistent only to the life of the Son of God in him, not consistent to hard and fast creeds. Men pour themselves into creeds, and God Almighty has to blast them out of their prejudices before they become devoted to Jesus. The expulsive power of a new affection ” that is what Christianity supplies. The reality of the life of the Son of God in you must show itself in the appearance of your life.
The miracle of regeneration is necessary before we can live the Sermon on the Mount. The Son of God alone can live it, and if God can form in me the life of the Son of God, as He introduced Him into human history, then I can see how it can be done, and that is Jesus Christ s message Marvel not that I say unto you, Ye must be born again,
Another unfamiliar picture to us, but it had a tremendous meaning in Our Lord s day. If a man s cloak and coat were taken from him as the result of a lawsuit, he could get back the loan of the coat to sleep in at night. Jesus uses the illustration to point out what we are going to meet with as His disciples. If they extort from you anything while you are on My service, let them have it, but go on with your work. If you are My disciple, says Jesus, you have no time to stand up for yourself. Never insist on your rights. The Sermon on the Mount is not Do your duty but Do what is not your duty. It is never your duty not to resist evil, that is only possible to the son of God in you.
Under the Roman dominance, the soldiers could compel anyone to be a baggage carrier for a mile. Simon the Cyrenian is a case in point, the Roman soldiers compelled him to be baggage carrier for Jesus. Jesus says if you are My disciple, you will always go the second mile, you will always do more than your duty, there will none of this spirit Oh well, I can’t do any more, they have always misunderstood and misrepresented me, but you will go the second mile, not for their sake but for Jesus Christ’s sake. It would have been a sorry look-out for us if God had not gone the second mile with us. The first thing God requires of a man is to get born from above, then when he goes the second mile for men it is the Son of God in him Who does it. The only right of a Christian is the right not to insist on his rights. Every time I insist on my rights, I hurt the Son of God. I can prevent the Son of God being hurt if I take the blow myself, but if I refuse to take it, it goes back on Him.
v. 42 is an arena for theological acrobats, ” Give to him that asketh thee, and from him that would borrow of thee turn not thou away.” That is the statement either of a madman or of God Incarnate. We always say we do not know what Jesus means when we know perfectly well He means something which is a blunt impossibility unless He can re-make us and make it possible. Jesus brings us with terrific force straight up against the impossible thing, and until we get to the place of despair, we will never receive from Him the grace that enables us to do the impossible thing and manifest His Spirit.
These statements of Jesus revolutionize all our conceptions about charity. Much of our modern philanthropy is based on the motive of giving to the poor man because he deserves it, or because we are distressed at seeing him poor. Jesus never taught charity from those motives, He says ” Give to him that saketh thee,” not because he deserves it, but because I tell you to. The great motive in all giving is Jesus Christ s command. We can always find a hundred and one reasons why we should not obey Our Lord s commands because we will trust our reasoning rather than His reason, and our reason does not take God into calculation. How does civilization argue? Does this man deserve what I am giving him? Immediately you talk like that, the Spirit of God says Who are you? Do you deserve more than other men the blessings you have got?
Give to him that asketh thee.” Why do we always make it mean money? Jesus makes no mention of money. The blood of most of us seems to run in gold. The reason we make it mean money is that that is where our heart is. Peter said ” Silver and gold have I none; but such as I have, give I thee.” God grant we may understand that the spring of giving is not impulse nor inclination, but the in spiration of the Holy Spirit I give because Jesus tells me to.
The way Christians wriggle and twist and compromise over this verse springs from infidelity in the ruling providence of our Heavenly Father. We enthrone common sense as God and say It is absurd, if I give to everyone that asks, every beggar in the place will be at my door. Try it. I have yet to find the man who obeyed Jesus Christ s command and did not realize that God restrained those who beg. If you try to apply these principles of Jesus literally without the indwelling Spirit, there will be no proof that God is with you, but once get rightly related to God and let the Holy Spirit apply the words to your circumstances, and you will find the restraining hand of God, for if ever God s ruling is seen, it is seen when once a disciple obeys what Jesus commands.