Text: “When the wicked, even mine enemies and my foes, came
upon me to eat up my flesh, they stumbled and fell.”
Psalm 27:2.
Good morning, Christian surrounded by foes! What
is it that makes your enemies, the enemies of your very soul, besiege you with
their unholy trials and testing? What it is about YOU that sets you apart
from many other ‘Christian’ professors, and sets you up for the negative
attention of the enemies of King Jesus? Why do such anti-Christian forces
line up continually to try to bring you down from your Holy walk with the
Living Lord God? These are questions true Christians are asking ourselves
more and more as the times become more and more like in ‘…the days of Noah…’
Christian reader, IF you are
not experiencing this increase in anti-Christian testing, please go immediately
into your room alone and ask the Lord, ‘Why not?’
“Examine yourselves, whether ye be in the faith; prove
your own selves. Know ye not your own selves, how that Jesus Christ is in
you, except ye be reprobates? (rejected of God) But I trust that ye shall
know that we are not reprobates?…for we can do nothing against the Truth, but
for the Truth.” (2 Corinthians 13:5-8)
It is my view from personal experience, that much
ungodly opposition comes to those of us, in Christ, who are bold and forthright
in our proclamation of Gospel truth. The ungodly oppositions come against
us even more when we dare to preach and to teach sound Scriptural doctrine, and
systematic theology from God’s revealed Word alone!
Spiritual ’pygmies’, those who are constantly ’playing
church’ while living ’under Satan’s radar’ experience nothing of the fierce
oppositions to which I refer. Not doing Satan’s kingdom any real damage,
Satan leaves them alone to ’play church’, to go through the motions of small
’c’ Christianity. While many others seem to be ’good-living for a
living’; making the ’church-group’ into a BUSINESS for financial gain!
Wake up and take heed,
professing Christian! Being ’luke-warm’ just will not do! Awake,
and Christ shall give thee light! NOW!
“I have no notion of a timid, disingenuous profession
of Christ. Such preachers and professors are like a rat playing at
hide-and-seek behind a wainscot, who puts his head through a hole to see if the
coast is clear and ventures out if nobody is in the way, but slinks back again
if danger appears. We cannot be honest to Christ except we are bold for
Him. He is either worth ALL we can lose for Him or He is worth
nothing.” (H.G. Salter 1840)
Verse 2. “When the
wicked. It is a hopeful sign for us when the wicked
hate us; if our foes were godly men it would be a sore sorrow, but as for the
wicked, their hatred is better than their love.” (C.H. Spurgeon, Treasury
of David, page 135)
“Vultures have an antipathy against sweet smells; so
in the wicked there is an antipathy against the people of God; they hate the
sweet perfume of their graces.” (Thomas Watson 1690?)
Did you ever have serious enemies surround you with
the clear intention of killing you because they detested your very presence
among them? I have, and I have the scars to prove it. “From
henceforth let no man trouble me; for I bear in my body the marks of the Lord
Jesus.” (Galatians 6:17) (See ‘About Kenny’ on my website)
In a workshop in the infamous Maze Prison in Northern
Ireland, UK, I was callously sent to work, one Protestant, a young Christian of
four years standing, in a workshop with 40 Irish Republican terrorists.
On the 23rd of March 1983, I entered the Tea-Hut of the compound for
a tea-break, and noticed eighteen inches of steam on the ceiling of the Tea-hut
- the electric water-boiler had been boiled as hard as these I.R.A. inmates
could boil it. As I sat down with a mug of tea, a bucket of this boiling
hot water was poured over my back from behind. Nine tenths of the full
depth of my skin was immediately seared from my flesh, as these brave inmates
proceeded to try to beat me to death with hammers and lengths of planed
redwood. (Matthew 10:16-18)
I lifted one of my assailants up over my back and ran
at the crowd who were blocking the exit door to the Tea-hut; knocked them down,
and dived out, down the three steps, to what I thought was freedom.
However, my foot got trapped in the door of the Tea-hut, and was held by my
would-be murderers until another plastic bucket of boiling water could be
fetched. They opened the door and poured this second bucket of boiling
water over me, but let go my foot and, by God’s grace alone, I escaped with my
life.
While in the Tea-hut, trying to fight off these
terrorists, I noticed a young skinny terrorist who was trying to get his arms
wrapped around my legs, to trip me up, pull me to the floor of the Tea-hut,
where his I.R.A. terrorist comrades could finish me off with the hammers,
etc. However, as this skinny guy came to wrap himself around my legs, ‘…he
stumbled and fell…’; slipped in the water that they had poured over my
back; and could not get to his feet again. It was as if an invisible hand
had been placed upon his head, holding him pinned to the floor, unable to rise
and grab my legs.
Five minutes later, the Lord gave me power to pray for
my would-be murderers, for He is my light and my Salvation, so, whom should I
fear? Praise His Holy Name!
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