March 7
"Counted To Be Slaughtered"
“Yet for your sake we are killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered”
Psalm 44: 22.
The enemies of God and his truth . . . [are] never want [or lack of] will and malice to oppose the Word of God. They are also always in readiness to murder and slaughter the saints as the prophet cries to Jerusalem did; “Behold the princes of Israel, everyone was in thee to their power to shed blood” (Ezekiel 22: 6). That is, they had [the] will and malice always at hand to oppose the upright in heart. Our Lord Jesus also said, “they are they that kill the body.” For though it is a truth that God’s hand is always safe upon the hilt of their sword. Yet by them we are killed all day long and accounted as sheep for the slaughter (Psalm 44: 22; Romans 8: 36). That is; in their desires always as well as by their deeds when they are . . . [set free] . . ..
Paul’s kinsman said to the captain: “There lie in wait for him of them more than forty men, which have bound themselves with a curse, that they will neither eat nor drink till they have killed him and now are they ready” (Acts 23: 12, 13, 21). And consequently it is by the Word they are called dragons, lions, bears, wolves, leopards, dogs, and the like. All which are beasts of prey, and delight to live by the death of others. Paul, therefore, seeing and knowing that this readiness was in his enemies to pour out his bowels [entrails] to the earth he cried out to Timothy, saying; “make thou full proof of thy ministry, for I am now ready to be slain; I am now ready to be offered” (2 Timothy 4: 5-6). These words thus understood may be useful in many ways.
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