Church Sustained by God – Charles Spurgeon

THE church of God is God’s battle-axe and weapons of war in fighting his battles for truth and righteousness; and, up until now, history shows that none have been able to stand against God in the midst of his people. It is the fact, that along the whole line of spiritual battle the victory has been to God’s people. At first the enemy attacked the church with persecution. Those rough and barbarous weapons of war were used which were to be found in the Colosseum, with its wild beasts and cruel men, or in the axe, the stake, and the rack. Men have grown somewhat wiser now, but in those days, men and devils sought to destroy the testimony of our God by the destruction of the saints; and what was the result? O persecution, where are your trophies? The virgin daughter of Zion has shaken her head at you, and laughed you to scorn. The church, like a good ship beaten by the waves, has cut through every billow, and has been hastened on her way by the storm. Washed and cleansed and purged by opposition, the more the church has been opposed the more brightly glorious has she shone forth. God was in the midst of her and helped her; he helped her, and that right early. Our pulse beats fast, and our blood grows hot when we read of the persecutions of old pagan Rome. And when we turn to the story of the Reformation, and see the hunted ones among the Alps, the Huguenots driven out of France, our own Lollards, and the Covenanters of Scotland, we feel proud to belong to such a race of men, we glory in their lineage, and are amazed that the policy of persecution should so long have been continued by shrewd, sharp-witted men, when it ought to have been clear to them that in every case in which they persecuted the church, it multiplied the more exceedingly. God has indeed broken “the arrows of the bow, the shield, and the sword, and the battle,” by sustaining his people in times of persecution.