Paul Appeals to Caesar
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the experience of Paul. Among the professed followers of Christ, there
is the same pride, formalism, vainglory, selfishness, and oppression,
that existed in the Jewish nation. Before the warfare shall be ended
and the victory won, we as a people are to experience trials similar
to those of Paul. We shall encounter the same hardness of heart, the
same cruel determination, the same unyielding hatred.
Men professing to be representatives of Christ will take a course
similar to that taken by priests and rulers in their treatment of Paul.
All who would fearlessly serve God according to the dictates of their
own conscience, will need moral courage, firmness, and a knowledge
of God and his word, to stand in that evil day. Persecution will again
be kindled against those who are true to God; their motives will be
impugned, their best efforts misinterpreted, their names cast out as evil.
Then will it come to pass, as foretold by Christ, that whoever shall
seek to destroy the faithful, will think that he is doing God service.
Then Satan will work with all his fascinating power, to influence the
heart and becloud the understanding, to make evil appear good, and
good evil. Then it is that he is through his agents to “show great signs
and wonders, insomuch that, if it were possible, they shall deceive the
very elect.”
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God would have his people prepared for the soon-coming crisis.
Prepared or unprepared, we must all meet it. Only those whose charac-
ters are thoroughly disciplined to meet the divine standard will be able
to stand firm in that testing time. But when enemies shall be on every
side, watching them for evil, the God of Heaven will be watching his
precious jewels for good. When secular rulers unite with the ministers
of religion to come between God and our conscience, then those who
cherish the fear of God will be revealed. When the darkness is deepest,
then the light of a noble, Godlike character will shine the brightest.
When every other trust fails, then it will be seen who have an abiding
trust in God.
The stronger and purer the faith of God’s people, and the firmer
their determination to obey him, the more will Satan stir up the rage
of those who claim to be righteous, while they trample upon the law
of God. In that coming emergency, rulers and magistrates will not
interpose in behalf of God’s people. There will be a corrupt harmony
with all who have not been obedient to the law of God. In that day, all
time-servers, all who have not the genuine work of grace in the heart,