Part 49 HOLINESS, the Only Way to Happiness
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Part 50 HOLINESS, the Only Way to Happiness
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[1.] By the prayers and indictments that the saints have offered against them in the highest court of justice, I mean in the parliament of heaven: "Lift up your spear and javelin and block the way of my enemies. Let me hear you say, "I am your salvation!" Humiliate and disgrace those trying to kill me; turn them back in confusion. Blow them away like chaff in the wind—a wind sent by the angel of the Lord. Make their path dark and slippery, with the angel of the Lord pursuing them. Although I did them no wrong, they laid a trap for me. Although I did them no wrong, they dug a pit for me. So let sudden ruin overtake them! Let them be caught in the snare they set for me! Let them fall to destruction in the pit they dug for me. Then I will rejoice in the Lord. I will be glad because he rescues me." Psalm 35:3-9
Lamentations 3:61-65, "Lord, you have heard the vile names they call me. You know all about the plans they have made—the plots my enemies whisper and mutter against me all day long. Look at them! In all their activities, they constantly mock me with their songs. Pay them back, Lord, for all the evil they have done. Give them hard and stubborn hearts, and then let your curse fall upon them!" 2 Timothy 4:14, "Alexander the metalworker did me a great deal of harm. The Lord will repay him for what he has done." Thus you see how the hearts of the saints have been drawn out against their persecutors. Prayers are the arms that in times of persecution the saints have still had recourse to. But,
[2.] Persecutions do but raise, whet, and stir up a more earnest and vehement spirit of prayer among the persecuted saints: Revelation 6:9, 10, "When he opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain because of the word of God and the testimony they had maintained. They called out in a loud voice—How long, Sovereign Lord, holy and true, until you judge the inhabitants of the earth and avenge our blood?" The blood of the persecuted cries aloud for vengeance upon the persecutors.
There is no blood which cries so loud, and which makes so great a noise in heaven, as the blood of the martyrs, as the blood of butchered persecuted saints. Persecutors, like these Roman emperors, in all ages have causelessly and cruelly destroyed the people of God; they delight in the blood of saints, they love to wallow in the blood of saints, they take pleasure in glutting themselves with the blood of saints, they make no conscience of watering the earth, nor of coloring the sea, nor of quenching the flames with the blood of the saints, yes, if it were possible, they would willingly swim to heaven through their hearts' blood, whom Christ has purchased with his own most precious blood.
Persecution puts an edge, yes, a sharp edge, upon the prayers of the saints: Acts 12:5, "So Peter was kept in prison, but the church was earnestly praying to God for him." The Greek word signifies earnest and stretched-out prayer. When Peter was in prison, sleeping between two soldiers, and bound with two chains, and the keepers standing before the prison door, oh, how earnest! Oh, how instant! Oh, how fervent! Oh, how vehement! Oh, how constant were the saints in their prayers for his deliverance! Oh, their hearts, their souls, their spirits were in their prayers! Oh, their prayers were no cold prayers, no formal prayers, no lukewarm prayers, no dull or drowsy prayers—but their prayers were full of life, and full of warmth, and full of heat. They knew Herod's bloody intention to destroy this holy apostle by his imprisoning of him, and by the chains that were put on him, and by the strong guards that were set upon him, and by his bathing of his sword in the innocent blood of James, that his hand might be the more apt and ready for further acts of murder and cruelty; and oh, how did the consideration of these things whet and provoke their spirits to prayer! Oh, now they will take no denial, now they will give God no rest—until he has overturned the tyrant's counsel and designs, and sent his angel to open the prison doors, and to knock off Peter's chains, and to deliver him from the wrath and fury of Herod; and their prayers were successful, as is evident in the 12th verse, "When this had dawned on him, he went to the house of Mary the mother of John, also called Mark, where many people had gathered and were praying," or rather, as the original has it, "where many thronged together to pray." The violence and rage of their persecutors did so raise, whet, and encourage them to prayer, that they throng together, they crowded together to pray, yes, when others were a-sleeping they were a-praying, and their prayers were no sleepy prayers, they were no lazy dronish prayers, nor they were no book-prayers—but they were powerful and prevalent prayers; for as so many Jacobs, or as so many princes, they prevailed with God. They prayed and wept, and wept and prayed; they called and cried, and cried and called; they begged and bounced, and they bounced and begged; and they never left knocking at heaven's gates until Peter's chains were knocked off, and Peter given into their arms, yes, their bosoms, as an answer of prayer. Oh the power and force of joint prayer, when Christians do not only beseech God—but besiege him, and beset him too, and when they will not let him go until he has blessed them, and answered their prayers and the desires of their souls!
I have read that Mary Queen of Scots was accustomed to say that she was more afraid of Mr. Knox's prayers, and the prayers of those Christians that walked with him, than she was of a fierce army of ten thousand men. But,
[3.] Thirdly, It will appear that the condition of persecutors is the most sad and deplorable condition of all conditions under heaven, if you will but seriously consider and lay to heart the sore judgments which are threatened, and that have been executed upon them: Deuteronomy 30:7, "And the Lord your God will put all these curses upon your enemies, and on those who hate you, who persecuted you;" Nehemiah 9:9-11, "You saw the sufferings and sorrows of our ancestors in Egypt, and you heard their cries from beside the Red Sea. You displayed miraculous signs and wonders against Pharaoh, his servants, and all his people, for you knew how arrogantly the Egyptians were treating them. You have a glorious reputation that has never been forgotten. You divided the sea for your people so they could walk through on dry land! And then you hurled their enemies into the depths of the sea. They sank like stones beneath the mighty waters!"
Pharaoh and his princes and people were very great oppressors and persecutors of God's Israel, and therefore God visited them with ten dreadful plagues, one after another; but when, after all these plagues, God saw that their enmity against his people was as great, or rather greater than ever, and that they were still set upon persecuting of his people, then God takes up Pharaoh and his mighty host, and throws them as a stone into the mighty waters! (Exo 15:10).
God whets before he strikes, he bends his bow before he shoots, he prepares instruments of death before he brings men down to the grave, his hand takes hold on judgment before his judgments take hold of men; but if all these warnings will not serve their turns, God will overturn them with a witness. "He ordains his arrows against the persecutors," or as the Hebrew has it, "against the hot burning persecutors." God has his hot burning arrows for hot burning persecutors. Let persecutors be ever so hot against the saints—God will be as hot against them; and let them be ever so much inflamed against the people of God—God will be as much inflamed against them.
When malicious and mischievous persecutors have done all they can to vex and fret, to daunt and affright, to dismay and discourage the people of God, then God will terrify the most terrible among them, and "they shall not prevail nor prosper, yes, they shall stumble and fall, they shall be ashamed and confounded." When the time is expired that God has pre-fixed for his people's sufferings, then God will retaliate upon their persecutors. Then those who plundered his people shall be plundered; and those who dealt harshly and treacherously with them, shall be dealt harshly and treacherously with. 2 Thessalonians 1:6, "Seeing it is a righteous thing with God to recompense tribulation to those who trouble you." It is but justice that God should trouble those who are the troublers of his people.
And God has even in this life been a swift witness against the persecutors of his people. Cain was a persecutor, and his brother's blood pursued him to hell. Pharaoh was a great oppressor and persecutor of his people, and God followed him with plague upon plague, and judgment upon judgment, until he had overthrown him in the Red Sea. Saul was a persecutor, and falls by his own sword. Haman was a great persecutor of the saints, and he was feasted with the king one day, and made a feast for crows the next! Pashur was a great persecutor, he smote the prophet Jeremiah, and put him in the stocks, and God threatened to make him a terror to himself and to all his friends, Jeremiah 20:1-3. Zedekiah was a persecutor, he smote the prophet Micaiah on the cheek for dealing plainly and faithfully with the kings, and in the day of trouble and distress he goes from chamber to chamber to hide himself (1Ki 22). Jezebel was a great persecutor, she slew the prophets of God, and she was thrown out of a window, and eaten up by dogs, (1Ki 18:4-13; 2Ki 9:30). Herodthe Great, who caused the babes of Bethlehem to be slain, hoping thereby to destroy Christ, shortly after was plagued by God with an incurable disease, having a slow and relentless fever continually tormenting his inward parts; he had a vehement and greedy desire to eat, and yet nothing would satisfy him; his inward parts rotted, his breath was havy and stinking, some of his members rotted, and in all his members he had so violent a cramp, that nature was not able to bear it; and so growing mad with pain, he died miserably. But,
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