Text: “And others had trial of cruel mockings and
scourgings, yea, moreover of bonds and imprisonment: they were stoned, they
were sawn asunder, were tempted, were slain with the sword: they wandered about
in sheepskins and goatskins; being destitute, afflicted, tormented; (of whom
the world was not worthy) they wandered in deserts, and in mountains, and in
dens and caves of the earth.”
Hebrews 11:36-38.
Good morning, marginalized
Christian! Standing up forthrightly and
contending for ‘…the faith once delivered unto the saints…’ - you and I have
been subtly, and not so subtly, hindered, then slandered in order to justify
the hindering; and eventually marginalized, often by others professing to be
fellow-believers in the Lord Jesus Christ and His Kingdom. Pathetically tragic, but true. We must never underestimate the power of the
old nature of fallen mankind. Professing
believers, please take note!
“The heart is deceitful above
all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?” (Jeremiah 17:9)
Only the Lord God Himself can
actually and thoroughly KNOW the state of fallen mankind’s hearts. For fallen mankind’s hearts are so deceitful
that we are able to utterly deceive our own selves! Self-deception is of all things, therefore,
the most self-blinding. The Sword of the
Spirit, the inspired Word of the Lord God, is the only thing that can discern
the true Spiritual bent of our most human and utterly fallible hearts (the
essence of our being, not the great blood pump in our breasts.). God’s Word is truth!
“Sanctify them through Thy
truth, Thy Word is truth.” (John 17:17)
“For the Word of God is quick
(alive) and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to
the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a
discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. Neither is there any creature that is not
manifest in His sight; but all things are naked and opened unto the eyes of Him
with whom we have to do.” (Hebrews
4:12-13)
The Lord God knows everything
about us, and about the way we have been treated by others: rest in Him and in
His manner of working all these things out for our good.
“And we know that all things
work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called
according to His purpose.” (Romans 8:28)
Are you one of ‘…the called
according to (God’s) purpose…’? Then,
ALL THINGS, even the slander and marginalization we suffer, will eventually
work together for our good. We have the
Lord God’s own Word on this matter, and this should always cause us to receive
fresh hope and encouragement in our Christian faith. Praise God it is so!
Verse 12. “I am forgotten as a dead man is out of
mind. A man had better be dead than
be smothered in slander. Of the dead we
say nothing but good, but in the Psalmist’s case they said nothing but evil.
“I am like a broken vessel. Let us see herein the portrait of the King of
kings in His humiliation, when He made Himself of no reputation and took upon
Him the form of a servant.” (C.H.
Spurgeon, Treasury of David page 151.)
Verse 13. “For I have heard the slander of many. One slanderous viper is death
to all comfort - what must be the venom of the whole brood? (C.H. Spurgeon 1834-1892)
Richard Baxter (1615-1691),
speaking of outwardly religious slanderers, said: “If religion be bad, and our
faith be not true, why do these men profess it?
If it be true and good, why do they hate and revile them that would live
in the serious practice of it, if they will not practice it themselves? But we must not expect reason when sin and
sensuality have made men unreasonable.”
It seems that this 21st
Century is not the only period in our history that the ’religious’ have seen
fit to slander, revile and marginalize those sincerely practicing
Bible-believing faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.
There is no slander more deceitful.
Baxter continues: “But I must
profess that since I observed the course of the world, and the concord of the
Word and Providence of God, I took it for a notable proof of man’s fall, and of
the truth of the Scripture, and of the Supernatural original of true
sanctification, to find such a universal enmity between the Holy and the serpentine
seed, and to find Cain and Abel’s case so ordinarily exemplified, and he that
is born after the flesh persecuting him that is born after the Spirit. And methinks to this day it is a great and
visible help for the confirmation of our Christian faith.”
“While they took counsel
together against me, they devised to take away my life. Better to fall into the power
of a lion than under the will of malicious persecutors for the beast may spare
its prey if it be fed to the full, but malice is unrelenting and cruel as a
wolf. Of all fiends, the most cruel is
envy.” (C.H. Spurgeon, Treasury of
David, page 151)
Verse 14. “I said Thou art my
God. The Psalmist felt forgotten,
and deeply fearful, but remained at all times most faithful to his Lord
God. His forthright declaration of faith
in the face of fierce adversity declared the Calvary Victory to the glory of
Christ.
Thought: In the beginning,
God; at all times, opposed yet faithful; in the end, Victorious for
Christ. This is the pattern of life for
every true Bible-believing Christian.
Onward and upward, Christian soldier!
Victory is ours in Christ!
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