should bring themselves back with this question, What does this concern the Lord Jesus? What
tendency has it to bring us to him, and to keep us walking in him? The apostle preached not himself,
but Christ, and he was not ashamed of the gospel of Christ. Though Paul was placed in a very
narrow opportunity for being useful, he was not disturbed in it. Though it was not a wide door that
was opened to him, yet no man was suffered to shut it; and to many it was an effectual door, so
that there were saints even in Nero's household, Php 4:22. We learn also from Php 1:13, how God
overruled Paul's imprisonment for the furtherance of the gospel. And not the residents at Rome
only, but all the church of Christ, to the present day, and in the most remote corner of the globe,
have abundant reason to bless God, that during the most mature period of his Christian life and
experience, he was detained a prisoner. It was from his prison, probably chained hand to hand to
the soldier who kept him, that the apostle wrote the epistles to the Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians,
and Hebrews; epistles showing, perhaps more than any others, the Christian love with which his
heart overflowed, and the Christian experience with which his soul was filled. The believer of the
present time may have less of triumph, and less of heavenly joy, than the apostle, but every follower
of the same Saviour, is equally sure of safety and peace at the last. Let us seek to live more and
more in the love of the Saviour; to labour to glorify Him by every action of our lives; and we shall
assuredly, by his strength, be among the number of those who now overcome our enemies; and by
his free grace and mercy, be hereafter among the blessed company who shall sit with Him upon
his throne, even as He also has overcome, and is sitting on his Father's throne, at God's right hand
for evermore.
jeff_l
(Jeff_L)
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