Be Ready To Be Reviled

Robert Hawker The Poor Man’s Evening Portion, 1855 on Acts 4:31 “And when they had prayed, the place in which they were gathered together was shaken.”

Blessed for you, that the enemies of God, and of his Christ, threaten you; blessed to be opposed, that you may not rest on your arms, or, like stagnant waters, become foul from sitting still. The hatred of the foes of Jesus affords occasion yet more for Jesus to manifest his love.

C.H. Spurgeon  The Treasury of David on Psalm 35 "Plead my cause,  O God, with them that strive with me."

Go on, good Christian, in the practice of piety, discourage not thyself in thy laudable endeavors, but recount with comfort that the Lord is thy Judge (1 Corinthians 4:4)

J.C. Ryle Practical Religion, Chapter 17, “Our Home”

http://articles.ochristian.com/article2314.shtml

Whatever others around you think, don’t you ever be ashamed of being a Christian. (Mark 8:38) Let them laugh, mock, jest, and scoff, if they will. They will not scoff in the hour of death and in the day of judgment. Hoist your flag; show your colors; nail them to the mast.
You may certainly be ashamed of drinking, gambling, lying, swearing, idleness, pride, and failing to go to church on the Lord’s Day. But of reading the Bible, praying, and belonging to Christ, you have no cause to be ashamed at all. Let those laugh that will. A good soldier is never ashamed of the colors of his nation’s flag, and his uniform. Be careful that you are never ashamed of your Master.

F.B. Meyer  Our Daily Walk 

        On Nehemiah 2:19-20, 4:6

When Sanballat . . . and Tobiah . . . and Geshem . . . heard it, they laughed us to scorn and despised us, and said "what is this thing that ye do?" Then answered I them, “The God of Heaven, He will prosper us; therefore we His servants will arise and build. So built we the wall; for the people had a mind to work.”

If you are endeavouring to do God's work in the world, to clear away the rubbish of sin, to rebuild the walls that are broken down, and to seek the welfare of God's people, do not be surprised if your steps are beset with scorn and ridicule, by the secret or open malice of Sanballat and Tobiah.

For some it is easier to face bitter opposition than to bear mockery and ridicule. If only these scornful and carping tongues were silenced, we could make more headway, but such persecution drives us back on God, makes Him a living fact in life, and opens the door to the manifestation of the saving health of His right hand (Nehemiah 4:4, 4:9, 4:20).

How good it is, at such times, to cease from man, and to remember the Lord who is the great and terrible One (Nehemiah 1:5; Isaiah 51:12-13).

        On Matthew 10:38

It must be understood that the confession to which Christ summons us does not consist in a single utterance of the lips; it is the constant acknowledgment of Him by voice and life, maintained to the end, and the context makes it clear that this will have to be maintained in the face of opposition, and that often in its bitterest form--the opposition of the home. Many of us would find it easier to face outward persecution and the tyrant's frown, than to stand against the light banter, the sneers and suspicions, the cruel words of those who live within the home. In every age there have been those who have had to stand absolutely alone for Christ, not hating their dear ones, but being hated by them because of their allegiance to Christ, and destined to find the most dutiful love and care repaid by stony indifference or active persecution. Nothing is harder to bear, and there is no other course for us but to silence the enemy and the avenger by patient continuance in well-doing, always believing that God is faithful, and that He will not allow us to be tempted above that we are able to bear. 

D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones  Studies in The Book of Acts:Victorious Christianity

Chapter 12 “The Nature of Unbelief” Acts 5:33-42 

Men and women fight against the Gospel and pretend the reasons are intellectual. But the real reasons are in the realm of the conscience. We attempt to cover up our misdeeds. There is something in us that tells us that this message is absolutely right, but we do not want to listen to it. We prefer the darkness (John 3:19). The difficulty about the Gospel is that is inculcates a life of obedience to God’s laws, and by nature men and women do not like those laws.

The Gospel humbles us. It always tells us the truth about ourselves. The Gospel is a message that tells us that we are all sinners and that our brains and knowledge make not the slightest difference. It tells us, “All have sinned, and come short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). Everyone is blind and “dead in trespasses and sins” (Ephesians 2:1).

The Gospel tells us that it is impossible for us to deliver ourselves out of this condition. And this is a terrible insult to self-confident, modern men and women. The Gospel tells us that we are all lost and helpless and hopeless, quite unable to save ourselves. The world is so rotten that God had to send His only Son out of heaven in order to save us. The world hated Him, as He said it would. “If the world hate you, ye know that it hated me before it hate you” (John 15:18). Why was He hated? It was because the very presence of the Son of God in this world is a condemnation of the world. It is a proclamation that men and women cannot save themselves.

And then when the Gospel goes on to tell us that Christ even had to die before we could be saved and delivered, it becomes still more objectionable. The offense of the cross “unto the Jews a stumblingblock, and unto the Greeks foolishness” (1 Corinthians 1:23). Christ crucified – this is the cause of the hatred.

It is insulting to be told that you are caught so helplessly in the grip of sin and evil that it takes the Son of God to come from heaven and to die on the cross and rise again in order to deliver you? Is that not it? The Gospel touches man’s pride.

The most appalling and terrible aspect of unbelief is that it is based upon a hatred of God. “The (natural) mind is enmity against God…" (Romans 8:7). Humanity is in a state of rebellion against God. The world rejected the Son of God because it hates God who sent His Son into the world.

In rejecting the Gospel, man is fighting against the God who conquered death and the grave; the almighty “power of God for salvation of everyone who believes” (Romans 1:16).

A sermon at Westminster Chapel on Romans 12:16 October 21, 1966

I must not be concerned about my own reputation; but I must be very concerned about the reputation of the Christian Faith, the Christian gospel, and of the family of heaven to which by the grace of God I now belong.

A.W. Tozer 

        The Next Chapter Before The Last

We may all expect to be stung by our many fellow humans who appear to have dedicated themselves to the task of causing minor heartaches wherever they can as long as they can to as many people as possible. These misguided people cannot be escaped, they can only be endured. One thing is certain, a Christian's standing before God does not depend upon his standing before men. A high reputation does not make a man dearer to God, nor does the tongue of the slanderer influence God's attitude toward His people in any way. He knows us each one, and we stand or fall in the light of His perfect knowledge. Let us be sure that we are right with God and with men; after that there is nothing we can do except to "both hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the Lord." (Lamentations 3:26) And by the indwelling power of the Holy Spirit, we may do our hoping and waiting in such a way that our enemies will be forced to admit that we have been with Jesus and learned of Him.

        We Travel An Appointed Way

Wherever and whenever truth gets itself incarnated in a man, that man is sure to become the target for every kind of opposition from the casual barbed insult of a professed friend to the carefully prepared campaign of the avowed enemy. The spirit of this world is opposed to the Spirit of God; he that is born after the flesh will persecute him that is born of the Spirit. 

        Man - The Dwelling Place of God, “The Once-born and the Twice-born”

What we need is an honest recognition that two human races occupy the earth simultaneously: a fallen race that sprang from the loins of Adam and a regenerate race that is born of the Spirit through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus.

That hostility exists between the once-born and the twice-born is known to every student of the Bible; the reason for it was stated by Christ when He said, "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 the world hateth you." (John 15:19) The rule was laid down by the apostle Paul when he wrote, "But as then he that was born after the flesh persecuted him that was born after the Spirit, even so it is now." (Galatians 4:29)

Difference of moral standards between the once-born and the twice-born, and their opposite ways of life, may be contributing causes of this hostility; but the real cause lies deeper. There are two spirits abroad in the earth: the spirit that works in the children of disobedience and the Spirit of God. These two can never be reconciled in time or in eternity. The spirit that dwells in the once-born is forever opposed to the Spirit that inhabits the heart of the twice-born.

The modern effort to bring peace between these two spirits is not only futile but contrary to the moral laws of the universe.

To teach that the spirit of the once-born is at enmity with the Spirit of the twice-born is to bring down upon one's head every kind of violent abuse. No language is too bitter to hurl against the conceited bigot who would dare to draw such a line of distinction between men. Such malignant ideas are at odds with the brotherhood of man, says the once-born, and are held only by the apostles of disunity and hate. This mighty rage against the twice-born only serves to confirm the truth they teach.

        The Warfare of the Spirit