Honored In Heaven, But Not On Earth

“This wisdom have I seen also under the sun, and it seemed great unto me: There was a little city, and few men within it; and there came a great king against it, and besieged it, and built great bulwarks against it: Now there was found in it a poor wise man, and he by his wisdom delivered the city; yet no man remembered that same poor man. Then said I, Wisdom is better than strength: nevertheless the poor man’s wisdom is despised, and his words are not heard. The words of wise men are heard in quiet more than the cry of him that ruleth among fools. Wisdom is better than weapons of war: but one sinner destroyeth much good” (Eccl. 9:13-18). Would you like to be someone who is known and honored in heaven? Then you will have to be willing, and very comfortable in fact, with the idea of being forgotten, unappreciated, and misunderstood among men. The wise man in the parable we just read was forgotten and despised, meaning that he was lightly esteemed. Yet he was the only one who could deliver the city, and his wisdom that he had from God proved greater than weapons of war. My friend, that is the way it has ALWAYS been. The prophets prophesied and suffered alone, Jesus was a man “despised and rejected of men,” and the apostle Paul was next to all alone at the end of his life; having been forsaken of many that he had established in Christ (Jer. 15:17; Lam. 3:27-30; Isa. 53:3; II Tim. 1:15; II Tim. 4:10,11).

Oh, it’s true that all of these great men of faith were KNOWN by their peers, but they were NOT popular. They were thought to be radical and way out there by those of their generation (Jer. 38:4; Am. 7:10,11). It’s easy to see this in hindsight, but the truth is that all of those who despised these holy men of God honored those that were like them of former generations (Jn. 9:29). And why did they do this? Simply because those of former generations were not there for them to persecute, so they persecuted those like them who WERE there. So then what is the ‘moral’ of the story? Suppose we let Jesus answer that for us: “And ye shall be hated of all men for my name’s sake: but he that endureth to the end shall be saved… The disciple is not above his master, nor the servant above his lord. It is enough for the disciple that he be as his master, and the servant as his lord. If they have called the master of the house Beelzebub, how much more shall they call them of his household?” (Mat. 10:22,24,25). As I said in my last post here, we should remember with godly fear that it was God’s people, not the unconverted 'world,’ that hated and betrayed those who have truly identified with God. So in the end, those who are held in high esteem in heaven are going to be held in very low esteem here, and that by many of their own brethren in Christ. Or as Paul said, “Yea, and all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution” (II Tim. 3:12). Doesn’t sound much like the cheery, feel good “gospel” that is so POPULAR today, does it? Amen.