We read in Acts 21:14, “And when he would not be persuaded, we ceased, saying, The will of the Lord be done.” Our sufferings are ordered and disposed of by God, so that when you come into trouble for His name, you might not stagger, nor be at a loss, but be stayed, composed, and settled in your minds, and say, The will of the Lord be done.
Three things the people of God should learn from this:
1. Learn to pity and bewail the condition of the enemy. I know you cannot alter the counsel of God. Appointed they are, established they are for their work, and do it they must and shall. But yet it becomes you to pray for them. For who knows whether it is determined that they should remain implacable to the end, as Herod? Or whether they may through grace obtain repentance for their doings, as Saul?
2. Never grudge then their present advantages. Wish them no ill with what they get of yours. It is their wages for their work, and it will appear to them before long, that they have earned it dearly.
3. Bless God that your lot fell on the other side: namely, to be one that should know the truth, profess it, suffer for it, and have grace to bear up under it, to God’s glory, and your eternal comfort.
Do this, I say, though they get all, and leave you nothing but the shirt on your back, the skin on your bones, or a hole in the ground to be put in.
Hebrews 11:23-26 remind us, “by faith Moses, when he was born, was hid three months of his parents, because they saw he was a proper child; and they were not afraid of the king’s commandment. by faith Moses, when he was come to years, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter; Choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God, than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season; Esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures in Egypt: for he had respect unto the recompence of the reward.”
