As With Roses

AS WITH ROSES!

2 Tim 3:12

12 Yea, and all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution.

2 Cor 11:32-33

32 In Damascus the governor under Aretas the king kept the city of the Damascenes with a garrison, desirous to apprehend me:

33 And through a window in a basket was I let down by the wall, and escaped his hands.

           Only by two circumstances do believers ever escape persecution. The first is when the ruling community has been evangelized and agrees with the truth, and the second is when the evangelists compromise the truth and their convictions in order to escape maltreatment. The first is rare and the second is all too common.

           Godly people suffer push-back from those who prefer to live their lives in impurity. When the resistance to truth and right becomes too painful, the believer must decide whether he will continue on his righteous path or retreat in the face of persecution to a more comfortable level. Both choices have consequences.

           Obadiah Holmes was the second pastor of the Baptist Church in Newport. He and his wife, Catherine Hyde, were blessed with ten children. Their posterity includes Abraham Lincoln. On September 5, 1651, Holmes was led to the post and given thirty lashes with a three-corded whip. When finished, Holmes uttered: “Ye have beaten me as with roses.”

Dear Lord, help your choicest servants to bear bravely the persecution that comes from following you closely. Strengthen those who waver and deliver those who suffer. AMEN