Text: “I will say unto God my Rock, Why hast Thou forgotten me? Why go I mourning because of the oppression of the enemy? As with a sword in my bones, mine enemies reproach me; while they say daily unto me, Where is thy God?”
Psalm 42:9-10.
Good morning, cruelly persecuted
Christian! In this 21st
Century day of increased apostasy and an ever more blatant and undisguised public practice of
anti-Christianity – all who would forthrightly serve King Jesus Christ,
especially in public witness and testimony to His Gospel of saving grace, are
coming under the vilest of widespread persecution. Fact!
Praise God! What a privilege to be chosen for such
persecution and slander from the Devil’s children worldwide! Because, to be thus persecuted by
anti-Christian foes, is to prove for all to see that you and I are indeed ‘set
apart’ by God as ‘His people’, and chosen in the furnace of such afflictions. The persecution of us by Christ’s enemies,
only proves to us - once and for all time - that we are indeed, the true Church
of the Lord Jesus Christ. We are the SAVED!
Hallelujah! We have life Eternal
in the risen Christ Jesus! Glory to His
Name!
“Behold (look, and more fully understand!),
I have refined thee, but not with silver; I have chosen thee in the furnace of
affliction. For Mine own sake, even for
Mine own sake, will I do it: for how should My Name be polluted? And I will not give My glory unto
another. Hearken unto Me, O Jacob (the
elect remnant Jews) and Israel (true Spiritual Israel, born again Christians),
My called; I am He; I am the first, I also am the last.” (Isaiah 48:10-12)
Affliction in this life serves many Divine
purposes; and many of us would not begin to learn the vital Spiritual lessons
the Lord is seeking to teach us, were the tuition not accompanied by often
seemingly harsh daily afflictions. Afflictions focus our minds on the Lord!
Chastening
for Sin: The Scriptures teach us clearly that
Spiritually regenerate children of God, ‘born again’ in Christ Jesus; through
the Spiritual regeneration of God the Holy Ghost – are chastened by God when we
fall into, or in too frequent cases, RUN headlong into sin! Sin is the leprosy that is within the veins
of all humankind – the consequence of Adam/Eve’s fall from grace in Eden’s
Garden. We are all natural born sinners,
and sin we shall, daily. This
self-honesty is a God-given revelation, and without knowing that we are indeed
continually blighted by, and prone to commit, sin – we can never seek to be
delivered and saved from it! Fact! (2 Corinthians 13:5)
It is God, the Holy Spirit’s first
ministry to our souls when He convicts/convinces us of our inherent and
committed sin:
“And when He (the Comforter, God the Holy
Spirit) is come, He will reprove the world (the unsaved sinner) of sin, and of
righteousness, and of judgement: of sin because they believe not on Me (the
Lord Jesus Christ); of righteousness, because I go to My Father, and ye see Me
no more; of judgement, because this prince of this world (Satan) is
judged.” (John 16:8-10)
Our
Holy Lord God detests all sin – and must punish all sin – that is why ‘His
people’ are chastened when we are disobedient to Him and commit sin against His
Commandments. God’s Holy Spirit will not
live easily in a heart committing sin!
However, being chastised by God the Father
for our sin, when looked at from a positive position, goes to prove to us that
we are indeed true Spiritual children of our Holy and Heavenly Father! A father only chastises his own genuine sons
and daughters!
“For whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth,
and scourgeth every son/daughter whom He receiveth. If ye endure chastening, God dealeth with you
as with sons/daughters; for what son/daughter is he/she whom the father
chasteneth not? But if ye be without
chastisement, whereof all are partakers, then are ye bastards, and not sons/daughters.” (Hebrews 12:6-8)
Persecution
from the World: If a man/woman is
professing to be a genuine, Spiritually regenerate, Bible-believing Christian,
they will be ‘hated’ by those that are not ‘born again’ into the Family of
God. Fact! We have God’s own Word on this important
matter:
“If the world hate you, ye know that it
hated Me (the Lord Jesus Christ) before it hated you. If ye were of the world, the world would love
his own: BUT because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the
world, therefore (a conclusion) the world hateth you.” (John 15:18-19)
If, as true Christians, we are playing the
coward in the presence of the unsaved world, then we can seek to hide our
Christian witness in the presence of the unsaved – but think not that we can go
without God’s chastening as a consequence!
God detests Spiritual cowards!
Silence
is not always golden – sometimes it is just plain YELLOW! Speak up for Christ! Christ is speaking up continually at God’s
throne for you and me!
“Ye are the salt of the earth (Spiritual
Christians); but if the salt have lost his/her savour, wherewith shall it be
salted? It is thenceforth good for
nothing, but to be cast out, and to be trodden under foot of men. Ye are the light of the world. A city that is set on an hill cannot be hid. Neither do men light a candle, and put it
under a bushel, but on a candlestick: and it giveth light unto all that are in
the house. Let your light so shine
before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is
in Heaven.” (Matthew 5:13-16)
Wait long enough, and the unsaved world
will seek to hinder and persecute the genuine Christian witness. Light will not mix with darkness. Oil and water will not successfully bond
together. ‘Come out from among them and
be ye separate, saith the Lord!’
Verse 9. “Why go I mourning because of the
oppression of the enemy? It
is a pitiable thing for any man/woman to have a limb amputated, but when we
know that the operation was needful to save life, we are glad to hear that it
has been successfully performed; even thus as trial unfolds, the design of the
Lord in sending it becomes far more easy to bear. (C.H. Spurgeon, The Treasury of David, page
206)
Opposition
and persecutions from the unsaved prove to us that we are God-redeemed!
Verse 10. “While they say daily unto me,
Where is thy God? Such was the
malice of David’s foes, that having thought of the cruel question, they said
it, said it daily, repeated it to him, and that for a length of time; surely
the continual yapping of these curs at his heel was enough to madden him, and
perhaps would have done so had he not resorted to prayer and made the
persecutions of his enemies a plea with his Lord.” (C.H. Spurgeon)
Thought: David’s God was right there in his
heart. The world just couldn’t see Him!
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