| The Joy of Service |
Chapter 13 |
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Just before his martyrdom, St. Paul wrote from his prison these words of sublime confidence, “The Lord will deliver me from every evil work, and will save me unto His heavenly kingdom.” He did not mean that the Lord would deliver him from the cruelty of Nero, from the horrors of prison life, from the suffering, from a violent death; but that in whatever he might have to endure no actual harm could come to him. The Lord would bring him through all his experience, with life unhurt, to the heavenly gates.
There is a wonderful verse in the little Epistle of Jude which reads, “Unto Him that is able to guard you from stumbling, and to set you before the presence of His glory without blemish in exceeding joy… be glory.” No matter how full of danger the world may be, how on every hand sin may work, how wicked men and evil spirits may seek our destruction, yet there is a power which can keep us through all these perils without a trace of hurt, guarding us ever from stumbling, preserving us from all tarnishing of the soul, and presenting us at last without blemish before God.
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