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Affliction Spreads Knowledge of God, December 18
Take ... the prophets, who have spoken in the name of the Lord, for an
example of suffering affliction, and of patience.
James 5:10
.
There was never one who walked among men more cruelly slandered than the
Son of man. He was derided and mocked because of His unswerving obedience to
the principles of God’s holy law. They hated Him without a cause. Yet He stood
calmly before His enemies, declaring that reproach is a part of the Christian’s
legacy, counseling His followers how to meet the arrows of malice, bidding them
not to faint under persecution.
While slander may blacken the reputation, it cannot stain the character. That
is in God’s keeping. So long as we do not consent to sin, there is no power,
whether human or satanic, that can bring a stain upon the soul. A man whose
heart is stayed upon God is just the same in the hour of his most afflicting trials
and most discouraging surroundings as when he was in prosperity, when the light
and favor of God seemed to be upon him. His words, his motives, his actions,
may be misrepresented and falsified, but he does not mind it, because he has
greater interests at stake. Like Moses, he endures as “seeing him who is invisible”
(
Hebrews 11:27
)....
In every age God’s chosen messengers have been reviled and persecuted, yet
through their affliction the knowledge of God has been spread abroad. Every
disciple of Christ is to step into the ranks and carry forward the same work,
knowing that its foes can do nothing against the truth, but for the truth. God means
that truth shall be brought to the front and become the subject of examination and
discussion, even through the contempt placed upon it. The minds of the people
must be agitated; every controversy, every reproach, every effort to restrict liberty
of conscience, is God’s means of awakening minds that otherwise might slumber.
How often this result has been seen in the history of God’s messengers! When
the noble and eloquent Stephen was stoned to death at the instigation of the
Sanhedrin council, there was no loss to the cause of the gospel. The light of
heaven that glorified his face, the divine compassion breathed in his dying prayer,
were as a sharp arrow of conviction to the bigoted Sanhedrist who stood by, and
Saul, the persecuting Pharisee, became a chosen vessel to bear the name of Christ
before Gentiles and kings and the children of Israel.—
Thoughts from the Mount
of Blessing, 32-34
.
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