Consenting.
A RESPECTABLE young man is standing on the outskirts of a well-known city, greatly interested in a riotous scene before him.
He is not only respectable, but well born and well educated, having been a student under one of the leading men of his time. He is religious, too, a member of the strictest sect of the day.
Just now he has evidently been at the council hall among a crowded audience gathered around a man whom some of their number have caught and brought there under many false accusations.
There he has heard a very able discourse, a brief and concise history of his own nation from the accused man, who was permitted to speak in his own defense; and strange it may seem, but as those in the council looked steadfastly at the prisoner, they saw his face as it had been the face of an angel.
During his discourse the speaker did not spare his hearers, but boldly showed them where their much favored nation had failed. He brought home to their remembrance and to their consciences how over and over again, they had refused those whom God had sent to them, and resisted His Holy Spirit. At the last he bursts out in righteous and holy indignation, accusing his audience of being the betrayers and murderers of the Just One.
These words, being true, cut his listeners to the heart, so that they gnashed on him with their teeth. Running on him they dragged him out of the hall, and thrusting him out of the city, they took up stones to throw at him.
This is what the respectable young man is watching. He does not appear to be actually joining in the outrage, but he is consenting to it, for the false witnesses come and lay down their clothes at his feet.
“BLESSED are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake. Rejoice, and be exceeding glad: for great is your reward in heaven.”
“But let none of you suffer as an... evildoer.”
“THERE, in His book, I bear
More than a conqueror's name,
Of soldier, son, and fellow-heir,
Through Him who overcame.”
“Against the Pricks”
THE tumult is wild; the mob rushes out of the city with loud cries and shouts, while stones are being hurled from many hands; and all this fury is directed against the man who has had courage to speak the truth, and who now appeals to the One for whose sake he is suffering. He says, "Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.”
It is a sight the respectable young man will never forget. As he looks, he sees the poor battered form kneel, he hears another loud voice, not one of mockery or anger this time, but of forgiveness. It beseeches, "Lord, lay not this sin to their charge," and then there is silence. That voice is never heard more on this earth.
And what about the well-educated, religious young man who was consenting to his death? That last scene, those last words, evidently goaded him on to a worse fury. He "made havoc of the church," those who were of the same persuasion as that bold and meek follower of the "Just One." He entered into houses, and haling men and women committed them to prison, and all the time he thought he was doing God service! He tells afterward that he did it with a good conscience. But were there no qualms, no misgivings, no pricks as to whether this was after all a right course to take? And the more he tried to stamp out that name, the name of Jesus, the more the perfume of it spread through the land! The more he tried to destroy the followers of that name which is above every name, the more they were scattered abroad, going everywhere, even to lands and countries beyond the seas, preaching that name, and attracting others to worship and adore the One to whom that name belongs.
And so, "breathing out threatenings and slaughter," we see him next traveling to a distant and important city, carrying with him letters from the chief of his sect, granting him authority to search out any "of this way.”
“SURELY the wrath of man shall praise thee: the remainder of wrath shalt thou restrain.”
Blind!
HE is nearly at his journey's end. The city he is bound for is within easy reach, when suddenly at midday there shines round about him a light which is above the brightness of the sun. He cannot go a step further, he cannot even stand upright, but falls to the ground with that light round him. And then clearly and distinctly he hears his name being called, with the question, "Why persecutest thou me?" He asks, Who art thou, Lord? “The gracious and compassionate reply comes, I am Jesus whom thou persecutest: it is hard for thee to kick against the pricks.”
Jesus! Jesus! That is the very name he is trying to stamp out; the very Person whose beloved followers he is exerting himself to get rid of, and now in the brightness of that light, at the sound of that voice, he is prostrate, and calls Him "Lord.”
Trembling and astonished he asks, “Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?" Wondrous change! A young man in his zeal, full of hatred and bitterness, with murderous intent, going his own way, determined to carry out his own will at all costs, now with subdued spirit, being led by the hand. Into the city which he had meant to ransack for any who might be found calling on that name, he is slowly and carefully led, for he is blind.
And blind he remains for three days, eating nothing; and then someone comes, a very one of those whom he would have haled from his home and sent to prison, comes and stands beside him, and calls him "Brother"!
“THIS is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners; of whom I am chief.”
Ready for Reward
BROTHERS, bound in a kinship that lasts on even after death, because linked together in the One who bears that precious "Name." Yes, those two are beloved brothers in Christ Jesus, and when the scales have fallen from his eyes, the young man rises and is baptized. He goes under the water, which typifies death, the end of the natural man, the end of the old nature. Nothing can patch up, or repair, or beautify that in God's sight, so it must go. He accepts death for himself, and he can say henceforth, "To me to live is Christ.'" The life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me." And then he goes forth a witness before all men for his Lord.
He speaks in public as boldly as did the one whose voice was silenced. He is not ashamed to labor, working with his hands to supply his daily necessities.
Willingly, aye joyfully, he accepts stripes above measure. He is in prison frequently, in deaths oft. Five times he receives forty stripes save one from his own countrymen; three times he is beaten with rods, once stoned; three times he suffers shipwreck, a night and a day he is in the deep.
He is in journeyings often, in perils of waters, of robbers, by his own countrymen, and by the heathen. In weariness and painfulness, in watching often, in hunger and thirst, in fasting often, in cold and nakedness; and much more he lives through by the power, and for the love of that great Name.
And when the time of his departure is at hand, and he can speak of himself as "the aged"; as he looks forward, expecting death through martyrdom, he can say assuredly, "I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith: henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at that day: and not to me only, but unto all them also that love his appearing.”
HAVE you experienced such a change, lads? From taunting or making fun of—perhaps quietly annoying by petty persecutions, one who is "of this way" —have you yet turned round, not to liking him, but to loving him, because he can now call you "Brother”?