Daily Reading for Thursday, December 12, 2024
Scripture: 2 Timothy 4:17
"The Lord stood with me, and strengthened me; that by me the preaching might be fully known, and that all the Gentiles might hear: and I was delivered out of the mouth of the lion."
Meditation:
Reference(s):
1 Sketches From the Life of Paul, pp. 312, 315.
"Paul and Nero face to face!--the youthful monarch bearing upon his sin-stamped countenance the shameful record of the passions that reigned within; the aged prisoner's calm and benignant face telling of a heart at peace with God and man. The results of opposite systems of training and education stood that day contrasted--the life of unbounded self-indulgence and the life of utter self-sacrifice. Here were the representatives of two religions--Christianity and paganism; the representatives of two theories of life--the simplicity of self-denying endurance, ready to give up life itself, if need be, for the good of others, and the luxury of all-absorbing selfishness, that counts nothing too valuable to sacrifice for a momentary gratification; the representatives of two spiritual powers,--the ambassador of Christ and the slave of Satan. . . .
"[Nero] quaked with terror at the thought of a tribunal before which he, the ruler of the world, should be arraigned, and where his deeds should meet a just reward. He was afraid of the apostle's God, and he dared not pass sentence upon Paul, against whom no accusation had been sustained. A sense of awe for a time restrained his bloodthirsty spirit."1