The Perpetual Triumphs

II. The Perpetual Triumphs of the Church of Jesus Christ. The church began with feeble numbers, with small wealth, and with comparatively little talent; but she was clothed with the Holy Spirit, and was therefore mighty. Let us just look at the history of the church a minute or two, so that our souls may be comforted with the prospect of like victories in days to come. Beloved, when the church was first in the world like a new-born man-child, the Dragon vomited forth torrents with the hope of drowning it. Rev 12.15. You know the rough weapons with which the world assailed the church at first. The sword was used, prisons were put into requisition, the rack, unutterable torments, shame, reproach, all the infernal arts of persecution were employed to put down if possible, the cause and kingdom of Christ in the world.

Now only think for a minute what became of the continued attempts, the cruel attempts of the world against the church; for the result conspicuously shows how the right hand of the Lord was exalted. The more they persecuted Israel in Egypt — the more they multiplied, and it was the same with the church of God. Those that were persecuted went everywhere preaching the word. If they had been allowed some quiet, they might have tarried at home, and perhaps been like grain in the granary. But persecution broke down the door, and they were thrown like handfuls of wheat broadcast over the nations, and everywhere, the precious seed sprang up. It was of no avail to kill Christians — it was like a battle with a hydra, in which cutting off one head makes a hundred fresh ones to spring up. Young men went to see the martyrdoms of the saints, and as they saw their holy patience, they came to be believers themselves, until martyred Christians became the most powerful preachers of the gospel; and even the saints that believed, were comforted by the sight of their deaths. Young converts stood around the stakes of Smithfield to learn the way to give themselves up for Christ.

The anvil never strikes the hammers in return — and yet it breaks many hammers. Here is the perseverance of the saints. God being in his church, she has borne year after year, and God has forborne to avenge her — and yet she has triumphed. Her feeble maidens and her illiterate men, her gentle sons and tender daughters who did not lift a hand in self-defense — have vanquished those that were armed to the teeth, and had the power of Imperial Rome or other mighty empires at their back. The right hand of the Lord, amidst the host of martyrs who wear the ruby crown in Heaven today, is exalted, for "The right hand of the Lord does valiantly!"

Then at the same time the church was sent into the world to combat with the superstitions which existed in that age; and brethren, the superstitions of ancient Rome were very attractive, and very venerable. They had existed through long ages; they were interwoven with the daily life of the people; they were endowed with wealth and established by authority. Poetry, art, philosophy — all had lent their power to maintain the old heathenism with which the Christian church came into contact. I have no doubt whatever, that the Pontifex Maximus of that day, if he had been told that he saw a rival in Paul, teaching a religion which would break down all the altars and the temples of Rome, he would have ridiculed the statement. And yet it was so, for where are the gods of old Rome today? Who bows before Saturn, "father of the gods?" Who pays reverence to Juno or Diana? These have gone — and what has struck them, and broken them in pieces? The stone cut out of the mountain without hands, has dashed them all in pieces, and broken their power like a potter's vessel, so that none shall set up these false gods again.

Nor was it so in Rome alone. In all countries, the church of God has achieved a complete triumph. Strange superstitions, magical pretensions, mysterious incantations — these have fled like the birds of night before the rising sun. No form of superstition which the enemy has been able to devise, has been able to retain its hold where the gospel has been fully preached. Superstition has seemed to stand like the eternal hills — but faith has said "Who are you, great mountain? Before Zerubbabel you shall become a plain!" Zechariah 4.7, and the mountain of superstition has melted away. "The right hand of the Lord is exalted; the right hand of the Lord does valiantly!"

But, my brethren, the Church has been assailed by heresies within herself; and if anything might have destroyed her, surely it would have been these. I will single out but one: it was the Arian heresy. You that are well versed in Church history will know how very potent at one time the Arian heresy was in the ancient Church. The divinity of our Lord became almost universally denied, he was said to be a mere man — a good man, or perhaps the best of men — but nothing more. It was a grand day when Athanasius declared that Christ was very God of very God, and finding himself alone, still said "I, Athanasius against the world." It seemed an unequal combat, for there were monarchs on the side of the Arius, and all their force was wielded against the truth. But Arianism — where is it now? The pure faith of God has flung it off like drops of rain from a shield of burnished steel. Arians may exist — but they slink into the dens and corners of the earth to hide their ignoble heads; the heresy is dead for any power that it has in the Christian Church, and so shall every heresy die as the eternal God lives.

Nothing is immortal but the truth, nothing is eternal but the gospel. The right hand of the Lord does not fight for a lie — but his arm is made bare for the truth of His Son Jesus Christ. All through the pages of Christian history this is true — that "the right hand of the Lord is exalted and does valiantly" in overthrowing error.

But the church had to suffer from something that exceeds any common heresy, because it is the aggregation of heresy, superstition, and apostasy; I mean the spread of Popery. In the middle ages the night was sevenfold. There was scarcely light enough for the anxious seeker to see his Lord; and men's souls were crushed by the Inquisition, by the practice of priestly confession, by the domination of priests and bishops and popes. If any man had then bewailed the absence of the light, as some did, and an angel had said to him "Courage, my son, the day shall come in which this entire system shall lose its power, and the old gospel shall come back," I can imagine I hear the weeper say, "If the Lord were to make windows in Heaven, would such a thing be?"

But such a thing was. God found the man and gave him a heart of iron, a brow of brass, and a tongue of thunder, and Marlin Luther's voice was heard ringing across these waters and saying, "A man is justified by faith, and not by the works of the law!" And other voices took up that strain, until in the regions where that truth was utterly unknown before, it became familiar to the peasant at the ploughtail; and humble men and women repeated to each other that gladsome sound, "The Lord gave the word; great was the company of those who published it." Psalm 68.11. You know, beloved, how God struck down the church of Rome in those days, and as you read the story of the Reformation, you can say, "The right hand of the Lord is exalted!"

But I will not detain you with ancient histories. I will bring you to this day, for the truth of the olden time is fulfilled in your ears again this day. Wherever the gospel is preached, the right hand of the Lord is exalted. We have seen it, and therefore we speak what we know; if the gospel of Jesus is faithfully preached, no matter by whom — if it is the whole gospel passionately declared, prayed over, and believingly delivered — it will always glorify God's name. I want you to notice in what respect the Lord's arm is exalted in our time.

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