Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 1263
“Cast not away, therefore, your confidence, which has great recompense of reward.” Hebrews 10:35.
THE early Christians had to suffer for their faith. They were exposed to great ridicule and enmity. They were, indeed, the byword, the laughingstock and the derision of all mankind. There are still to be seen in Rome, in the praetorian guardroom, caricatures of Christians and of their Lord. I dare not mention what they are, but they are so insulting to everything which we hold dear, that they remain as lasting evidence that Christians were counted as the offscouring of all things for the sake of Jesus, their crucified Savior. Nor did it end in ridicule. They were deprived of their goods. Ruinous fines were exacted from them. They were driven from city to city and not thought worthy to dwell among the sons of men.
They were made a spectacle to all men, both in their lives and deaths. Very frequently they were not put to death as other condemned persons were, but their execution was attended with circumstances of cruelty and scorn which made it still harder to bear. They were daubed with pitch and set up in the gardens of Nero to be burned alive to light that tyrant’s debaucheries, or taken to the amphitheater, there to fight with beasts and to be torn in pieces. Everything that could be invented that was at once degrading and cruel, their persecutors devised for them. Malice exhausted its ingenuity upon believers in Christ. Yet there was never a braver race of men.
“Men,” did I say? Why, the women were as brave as their brothers! The name of such women as Blandina will remain in everlasting recollection. Set in a hot iron chair, tormented with whips, or tossed upon the horns of bulls, such heroines showed no cowardice. The tenderness of their sex only increased the glory of the courage with which they adhered to their Master under unutterable torments. The despised sect wearied out a long succession of Roman emperors. Those despots passed edict upon edict, each one more ferocious than its predecessor, in order to exterminate the followers of the Nazarene!
But the more they persecuted them the more they multiplied. And instead of hiding themselves, they came boldly to the courts of the magistrates, confessing Christ and defying death. Never was the victory of patience more complete than in the early Church. The anvil broke the hammer by bearing all the blows that the hammer could place upon it. The patience of the saints was stronger than the cruelty of tyrants. Christ, then, the immortal Christ, was stronger than all the pangs of death and they triumphed though they were slain! Truly did the Apostle say, “In all these things we are more than conquerors through Him that loved us.”
The secret reason for the triumph of Christians in those circumstances was their confidence in Christ. Brothers and Sisters, we are not subjected to the same persecution and it will not do for us to wrap ourselves about with the garments of our ancestors and say that Christians are this and that, as though we were to be honored without enduring trial. Yet, remember, there are still conflicts for you. If you are real Christians, you will have to endure the trial of cruel mockeries. In some cases family ties are the source of far greater sorrow than comfort. Truly is it written, “A man’s foes shall be they of his own household.”
The coming of the Gospel into a man’s heart has often rendered him the object of hatred to those who loved him before. In his own house and in society abroad, the Christian working man has, at this day, to run the gauntlet much more severely than some suppose. And in almost every sphere of life the genuine Christian meets with the “cold shoulder” and the sneer—and sometimes with cruel misrepresentation and slander, for, until the hearts of men are changed, persecution in some form or other will continue. Those that are born after the flesh will always persecute those that are born after the Spirit.
For us, then, our only defense is holy confidence—the confidence which sustained the martyrs—and to us Paul speaks as well as unto them. “Cast not away, therefore, your confidence, which has great recompense of reward.” Let us notice, first, the elements of this confidence of which the Apostle speaks. And then we shall speak upon how it may be cast away. God grant we may never attempt to do so! Thirdly, let us consider why it should be held fast—because it “has great recompense of reward.”
I. First, then, WHAT ARE THE ELEMENTS OF THIS CONFIDENCE of which the Apostle speaks? Those who are acquainted with the original will know that it is not very easy to explain this word in one English word. The nearest approach to it would be boldness—“Cast not away your boldness.” It is frequently translated by that word. In Acts, where we read, “When they saw the boldness of Peter and John,” it is the same word in the Greek as that which is here translated, “confidence.” But it means something rather different from boldness, because we read of Christ, in the Gospel by Mark, that He spoke openly—and there the word is precisely that which is here used and translated—“confidence.”