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No Martyrs After Probation Closes, September 26
He shall call upon me, and I will answer him: I will be with him in
trouble; I will deliver him, and honour him.
Psalm 91:15
.
The people of God will not be free from suffering; but while persecuted
and distressed, while they endure privation and suffer for want of food they
will not be left to perish....
Yet to human sight it will appear that the people of God must soon
seal their testimony with their blood as did the martyrs before them. They
themselves begin to fear that the Lord has left them to fall by the hand of
their enemies. It is a time of fearful agony. Day and night they cry unto
God for deliverance....
The eye of God, looking down the ages, was fixed upon the crisis which
His people are to meet, when earthly powers shall be arrayed against them.
Like the captive exile, they will be in fear of death by starvation or by
violence. But the Holy One who divided the Red Sea before Israel, will
manifest His mighty power and turn their captivity. “They shall be mine,
saith the Lord of hosts, in that day when I make up my jewels; and I will
spare them, as a man spareth his own son that serveth him.”
Malachi 3:17
.
If the blood of Christ’s faithful witnesses were shed at this time, it would
not, like the blood of the martyrs, be as seed sown to yield a harvest for God.
Their fidelity would not be a testimony to convince others of the truth; for
the obdurate heart has beaten back the waves of mercy until they return no
more. If the righteous were now left to fall a prey to their enemies, it would
be a triumph for the prince of darkness. Says the psalmist: “In the time
of trouble he shall hide me in his pavilion: in the secret of his tabernacle
shall he hide me.”
Psalm 27:5
. Christ has spoken: “Come, my people, enter
thou into thy chambers, and shut thy doors about thee: hide thyself as it
were for a little moment, until the indignation be overpast. For, behold, the
Lord cometh out of his place to punish the inhabitants of the earth for their
iniquity.”
Isaiah 26:20, 21
. Glorious will be the deliverance of those who
have patiently waited for His coming and whose names are written in the
book of life.
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