COMMENTS
Opposition is to be expected, and will, doubtless, continue until we finish our course in death. To submit patiently to this opposition is to sacrifice our own natural preferences for the friendship and the pleasures of the present life, and to endure hardness as good soldiers for the Truth's sake, in whatever shape that hardness may come, in our effort to do the Lord's will and work of advancing the interests of His Kingdom. To be really in the Lord's service involves, first, the careful and continual study of God's Plan; second, the imbibing of its spirit; leading, thirdly, to an enthusiastic zeal for its accomplishment, and to activity to the extent of ability in its service, at whatever cost or sacrifice it may require.
Those in Christ Jesus are the consecrated. Their consecration makes them sacrificers for righteousness amid a world wherein the advantages are on the side of unrighteousness, and the disadvantages are placed on the side of righteousness. Their course cannot be otherwise than one of persecution from those whose selfishness seems antagonized by the course of the consecrated. Thus all the faithful will be persecuted.
Gen. 49:23; Job 12:4, 5; Psa. 11:2; 37:32; 38:20; 44:15-18, 22; Prov. 29:10, 27; Isa. 29:20, 21; 51:12, 13; 59:15; Jer. 20:8; Matt. 5:10-12, 44; 10:16-18, 21-23, 28; 24:8-10; Luke 6:22, 23; John 15:18, 19; 16:1, 2; Acts 28:22; Rom. 8:17, 35-37; 1 Cor. 4:9-13.
