A sermon preached at Covenant Presbyterian Church of Fort Smith, Arkansas on November 1, 2026.
Then he said to them, “Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be great earthquakes, and in various places famines and pestilences. And there will be terrors and great signs from heaven. But before all this they will lay their hands on you and persecute you, delivering you up to the synagogues and prisons, and you will be brought before kings and governors for my name’s sake. This will be your opportunity to bear witness. Settle it therefore in your minds not to meditate beforehand how to answer, for I will give you a mouth and wisdom, which none of your adversaries will be able to withstand or contradict. You will be delivered up even by parents and brothers and relatives and friends, and some of you they will put to death. You will be hated by all for my name’s sake. But not a hair of your head will perish. By your endurance you will gain your lives” (Luke 21:10–19).[1]
Our passage today begins with “Then,” a connecting word that tells us this is, in part, a continuation of the preceding passage, in which Jesus revealed this startling prophecy regarding Jerusalem’s temple: “the days will come when there will not be left here one stone upon another that will not be thrown down” (21:6). We know that this prophecy was fulfilled in A.D. 70 by the Roman general Titus in his siege and destruction of Jerusalem, including the temple. But those who first heard this prophecy didn’t know the future and so asked, “Teacher, when will these things be, and what will be the sign when these things are about to take place?” (21:7). It was a question not of why but when, a question that Jesus did not answer, at least not fully, reminding us that the secret things belong to the LORD our God” (Deut. 29:29). What Jesus didn’t keep secret, however, was all of the things to come that would lead someone to think it was not just the end of the temple and its worship but the end of the world. From phony Christs to wars and uprisings, there were things coming that could make even the stalwart lose heart. So, Jesus encouraged his disciples, saying, “do not be terrified, for these things must first take place, but the end will not be at once” (21:9).
Based on historical accounts, such as the writings of Jewish historian Josephus, when Jerusalem was attacked in April of A.D. 70 and destroyed over a lingering four months, it must have felt like the end of the world to its Jewish inhabitants and surrounding neighbors. But it wasn’t. And this is a helpful reminder in our own day. Every generation seems to think that theirs is the last, a fixation that is folly at its finest.
But this does not mean we shouldn’t prepare for hard times. Just as there was tribulation before the temple’s destruction, so there will be before our Lord’s return. But we do not prepare like the world, led by fear of what could come. Rather, we prepare by advancing the gospel, to our neighbors and the nations, with hope, joy, and love. While everyone else may wonder what in the world is going on, we have peace, remembering our Lord said, “In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world” (John 16:33). Let us take heart, then, resting in Christ’s sovereign reign, yet knowing that opposition is part of following Christ.
Opposition Is Part of Following Christ (10-12)
Our passage begins with Jesus prophesying international unrest: “Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom” (21:10). We may think of the Jewish uprising against the Roman government in A.D. 66 and the subsequent retaliation of Jerusalem’s destruction two years later. But we may also think of every generation since. It seems as if every day we hear of a nation or kingdom in conflict with another, including our own. Jesus says, there’ll be days like this.
He also says there will be worldwide natural disasters, such as earthquakes, famines, pestilences, and even astronomical events. Records indicate such events leading up to the temple’s destruction, and we know of them in our own day too. Jesus says, there’ll be days like this.
We may also hear prognostications based on these events, but what Jesus gives is not a tool for forecasting but a description of remarkable consistency. All of these things happened leading up to the temple’s destruction, and all these things have happened since. So, Jesus does not give us a template for prediction, but he does give a promise of persecution: “But before all this they will lay their hands on you and persecute you, delivering you up to the synagogues and prisons, and you will be brought before kings and governors for my name’s sake” (21:12). This was surely not welcome news to those who first heard it, nor do we want to hear it today. And yet, as Jesus says it here, we read of its beginning in the book of Acts.
In fact, we barely get into Acts before the apostles Peter and John are arrested and brought before the Jewish council, the Sanhedrin. Shortly after this, all of the apostles are arrested and put in prison. Shortly after this, one of the first deacons, Stephen, is stoned to death. And, according to historical accounts, within a relatively short amount of time most of the apostles were martyred (To the best of our knowledge, the only apostle to die of natural causes was John).
We might think then that the early Christians were terrified due to the onslaught of persecution, from Jew and Gentile alike. Surely, they were hunkering down in hidden bunkers, eating MREs, and stockpiling ammunition . . . But they weren’t. What were they doing? They were praying for boldness to proclaim the gospel! Listen to this prayer of the early Christians: “Lord, look upon [the] threats [of those who persecute us] and grant to your servants to continue to speak your word with all boldness” (Acts 4:29). And God answered their prayer, filling them with his Spirit to continue “to speak the word of God with boldness” (Acts 4:31).
Now, let me ask you: If you were faced with first-century persecution today, what would you pray for? This should be a point of self-examination. Christians, let us too pray for boldness to share and carry the gospel. Christ did not redeem us to be fearmongers and protectionists. Christ does not indwell us that we might hide our faith or cower in the face of opposition. While the fearful would have us consider persecution a punishment in Christ, the apostles saw it differently. When they were beaten and charged not to share the gospel of Christ by the Sanhedrin, they left “rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer dishonor for the name [of Jesus]” (Acts 5:41). Let this truth shift our paradigm from victimized fear to hopeful opportunity because persecution can actually become an opportunity for witness.
Persecution Becomes an Opportunity for Witness (13-15)
Jesus puts it this way: “This will be your opportunity to bear witness” (21:13). When the world is at war, this will be your opportunity to bear witness. When the natural world seems cataclysmic, this will be your opportunity to bear witness. When it seems as if the sky is falling and all hope is lost, this will be your opportunity to bear witness. And when you are persecuted for Christ’s sake, this will be your opportunity to bear witness.
The word “witness” has fallen on hard times, likely due to the modern manipulative methods of evangelism, its tips and techniques. This is unfortunate, because to bear witness is simply to tell others what Christ has done. No need to tell your story; in fact, it’s best for you to get out of the way. Because the gospel is the good news of what Christ has done, not you.
Furthermore, there is no need to stress about it, because Jesus promises to give us precisely what we need when we need it, saying, “I will give you a mouth and wisdom, which none of your adversaries will be able to withstand or contradict” (21:15). Settle it in your mind; Christ will provide! Of course, this doesn’t mean that he provides in lieu of knowing the Scriptures, and the gospel specifically. We should be, as the apostle Peter puts it, “prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you” (1 Pet. 3:15). The prerequisite is, of course, that unbelievers witness an inexplicable hope in us, but we need not fixate on our skills of persuasion, or lack thereof, for the Holy Spirit does his work not through our strength but his supernatural power.
I am reminded of when the apostles Peter and John were questioned by the Sanhedrin, and Peter proclaimed Christ crucified and resurrected, concluding, “there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12). Luke then adds, “Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were uneducated, common men, they were astonished. And they recognized that they had been with Jesus” (Acts 4:13). Peter spoke not with the eloquence of a Sadducee nor with the education of a Pharisee; he was a fisherman, but he spoke the truth with “boldness” because he “had been with Jesus.”
While we must not go looking for persecution, nor call the consequences of our own stupidity persecution, if and when it truly comes, we should see it as an opportunity to bear witness to Christ. Perhaps you will be mocked as narrow-minded, but indeed “the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few” (Matt. 7:13-14). Perhaps the few will find it through you. Or perhaps you will be ridiculed for claiming the exclusivity of the Christian faith, but Jesus claimed it too, saying, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6). Perhaps someone will find the way, hear the truth, and trust in the life through you. Or, perhaps you will be ostracized for not living like the world, but you know “all that is in the world—the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride of life—is not from the Father but is from the world” (1 John 2:15-16). Perhaps through you someone may believe and truly become a child of God. Or perhaps you will die in a jungle carrying the gospel to an unreached people group, like Jim Elliot, whose mantra was, “He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.” Whatever the case, we need not worry, because he who calls and enables us to bear witness, is the One who preserves us through every trial.
Christ Preserves His People through Every Trial (16-19)
Perhaps you have been forsaken by your family for your faith in Christ. Perhaps your once-upon-a-time friends now have nothing to do with you because of Christ. Or, perhaps, as many of the early Christians experienced, you will be delivered over by those you love to be put to death, for nothing more than trusting in Christ and him crucified. This, of course, sounds extreme in our context, but we must never lose sight of the fact that our relationship with Christ is greater than anything else, our family, our friends, even life itself. But more certain than martyrdom is being hated for Christ’s sake. “Do not be surprised . . . that the world hates you” (1 John 3:13), the apostle John warns us. Just as Cain hated Abel for nothing more than Abel’s righteousness, so the world will hate us for nothing more than living righteously for Christ. And this can become discouraging if we seek the applause of this world rather than heaven. I think J.C. Ryle gives good caution when he writes, “universal popularity is not a thing that Christians should covet, nor yet value much if it should fall to their lot.”[2] Worldly popularity is not our aspiration; living for Christ is.
But come what may, we may trust that nothing happens apart from God’s providence, and we encounter nothing that exceeds his provision. Employing an idiom metaphorically, Jesus says, “not a hair of your head will perish” (21:18), a certain promise of God’s provision not for every literal follicle in this life but eternal life (and hair!). That which will not perish is that which will live forever, “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16). Such is the promise of eternal life not by rote profession but true possession of faith. And such possession is not sustained by the fickle feelings of our flesh but by the sovereign grace of God.
Jesus said, “All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out. For I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will but the will of him who sent me. And this is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up on the last day” (John 6:37-39). Not one in Christ will ever be lost, because God the Father “chose us in [Christ] before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will” (Eph. 1:4-5). We do not then earn our salvation nor merit eternal life, and even the faith we possess is a gift from God (Eph. 2:8-9). But when Jesus says, “By your endurance [or “perseverance”] you will gain your lives” (21:19), he is reminding us that we play an active role in our preservation through his means of grace.
Consider, for example, the ordinary means of God’s Word, the sacraments, and prayer. We are preserved to the end by God’s grace, and he uses the reading, the studying, the hearing of the preached Word of God to sustain us. It is to our peril that we neglect it. Likewise, we are nourished and strengthened through Christ’s spiritual presence in the Lord’s Supper. It is not merely a memorial that may be missed but an essential means of our preservation by God’s grace. Likewise, baptism, such as when we witness not only the outward sign and seal of the covenant of grace, but we also look back to our own baptism and the inward reality of the cleansing, marking, and possessing of God’s covenant promises. And also, prayer, the “offering up of our desires unto God, for things agreeable to his will, in the name of Christ, with confession of our sins, and thankful acknowledgment of his mercies.”[3] It is in and through these ordinary means of grace that we preserve, because it is the Author of grace who has given us these means and who preserves us.
We are then preserved to the end, despite the cataclysmic events of this world. We are preserved to the end, despite persecution. We are preserved to the end, though friends and family forsake us, and though the world hates us. We are preserved to the end, because “he who began a good work in [us] will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ” (Phil. 1:6). “Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways! . . . For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen” (Rom. 11:33, 36).
[1] Unless referenced otherwise, all Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version
(Wheaton: Crossway Bibles, 2001).
[2] J.C. Ryle, Expository Thoughts on Luke, Vol. 2 (Edinburgh: The Banner of Truth Trust, 2012), 273.
[3] The Westminster Shorter Catechism Q. 98, https://opc.org/sc.html.
