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The Acts of the Apostles
Jesus does not present to His followers the hope of attaining earthly
glory and riches, of living a life free from trial. Instead He calls upon
them to follow Him in the path of self-denial and reproach. He who
came to redeem the world was opposed by the united forces of evil. In
an unpitying confederacy, evil men and evil angels arrayed themselves
against the Prince of Peace. His every word and act revealed divine
compassion, and His unlikeness to the world provoked the bitterest
hostility.
So it will be with all who will live godly in Christ Jesus. Per-
secution and reproach await all who are imbued with the Spirit of
Christ. The character of the persecution changes with the times, but
the principle—the spirit that underlies it—is the same that has slain
the chosen of the Lord ever since the days of Abel.
In all ages Satan has persecuted the people of God. He has tortured
them and put them to death, but in dying they became conquerors.
They bore witness to the power of One mightier than Satan. Wicked
men may torture and kill the body, but they cannot touch the life that
is hid with Christ in God. They can incarcerate men and women in
prison walls, but they cannot bind the spirit.
Through trial and persecution the glory—the character—of God
is revealed in His chosen ones. The believers in Christ, hated and
persecuted by the world, are educated and disciplined in the school of
Christ. On earth they walk in narrow paths; they are purified in the
furnace of affliction. They follow Christ through sore conflicts; they
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endure self-denial and experience bitter disappointments; but thus they
learn the guilt and woe of sin, and they look upon it with abhorrence.
Being partakers of Christ’s sufferings, they can look beyond the gloom
to the glory, saying, “I reckon that the sufferings of this present time
are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed
in us.”
Romans 8:18
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