Philippians 1:28

In nothing terrified by your adversaries

Courage

I. The need Of it.

II. The proofs of it.

III. The advantage of it; it is a sign of perdition to your foes--of salvation to you. (J. Lyth, D. D.)

I. Your adversaries are numerous, mighty, terrible, yet they will certainly perish.

II. Your salvation is near, sure, glorious, and that of God. (J. Lyth, D. D.)

An evident token of perdition.

Tokens of perdition

Perdition means hopeless ruin. A token is a premonition. The natural world is full of warnings. A change in the atmosphere or in the order of things, a coming disaster or great event, is heralded by certain phenomena, which long experience and observation know how to interpret. So also in the political, social, moral, and religious spheres. So evident are these tokens to the discerning that it is not difficult to forecast the future. On this principle Paul interprets the conduct of adversaries. And every preacher of the gospel is warranted in accepting certain traits of character and developments of depravity as “evident tokens of perdition” in those in whom they are found, and hold them forth as warnings, “beacon lights” in the world. Let me specify a few such tokens, not from the infidel, or openly immoral classes, but from the respectable and Church-going class of sinners.

I. A state of habitual moral insensibility on the momentous and infinitely interesting matter of salvation.

II. A quiet, sleeping conscience, under the sunlight of the Bible, and the faithful and searching appeals of God’s ambassadors.

III. Convictions of sin lost, and relapse into greater carelessness and insensibility than ever before, after a period of religious interest.

IV. Passed by and left undisturbed in their sins--left, it may be, to scoff and oppose--when God’s Holy Spirit has been sent down in mighty power to awaken and convert souls and gather in the harvest.

V. Where providential chastisements fail of their end, and, instead of humble, penitent submission and tearful recognition of God’s hand in them, there is a proud, unyielding spirit of bitterness. Now where such things appear, “perdition” is nigh; the final wrath is imminent; the last sands of hope are falling; the knell of despair is ready to sound! (Homiletic Monthly.)

Tokens of perdition

I. A false hope of piety. There are many who deceive themselves with a spurious religion, and while they have a name to live, are dead.

II. Premature depravity. Though the principle of sin is inherent in every human bosom, it attains a more early and rank luxuriance in some cases than in others.

III. Inveteracy in transgression. The almost invincible force of habit is a subject of universal remark.

IV. Confirmed belief of destructive error. The confidence which the votaries of error repose in its delusions is widely different in different persons. With some it is little more than a cherished wish that their system were true.

V. Unsanctified worldly prosperity.

VI. Apathy of mind under divine chastisement.

VII. Return to insensibility after serious impressions.

VIII. An impenitent old age. (Christian Age.)

Men not terrified

John Noyes, kissing the stake, said, “Blessed be the time that ever I was born for this day.” To his fellow martyrs he said, “We shall not lose our lives in this fire, but change them for a better, and for coals have pearls.” Hugh Laverocke, comforting John-a-Price, his fellow martyr, said unto him, “Be of good comfort, my brother, for my Lord of London is our good physician. He will cure thee of all thy blindness, and me of my lameness this day.” Joyce Lewis--“When I behold the uglisome face of death, I am afraid; but when I consider Christ’s amiable countenance, I take heart again.” John Huss said to a countryman who threw a faggot at his head, “Oh, holy simplicity, God send thee better light! You roast the goose now, but a swan shall come after me, and he shall escape your fire.” Huss, a goose in the Bohemian language; and Luther, a swan. Castilia Rupea--“Though you throw my body down off this steep hill, yet will my soul mount upwards again. Your blasphemies more offend my mind than your torments do my body.” Doctor Taylor, as he was going to martyrdom: “I shall this day deceive the worms in Hadley churchyard,” and fetching a leap or two when he came within two miles of Hadley, “Now,” saith he, “lack I but two stiles, and I am even at my Father’s house.”

In nothing affrighted

The rendering of the Revised Version is very happily chosen. The word is used of horses shying in view of any unusual or unexpected object. Believers are apt to be so scared; but then it is implied in the word used that a sudden fright or panic may after all arise from trifling cause. It is that which need not disturb. Whatever it is that causes the alarm it is seen to be powerless, even to vanish whenever it is boldly approached. All such trials to God’s people are like the lions in the narrow path leading to the Palace Beautiful of Bunyan’s allegory. They were chained as the Pilgrim espied them, but he knew it not. They have therefore only to be courageously approached, and then the voice of Watchful is heard, “Fear not the lions, for they are chained, and are placed there for trial of faith where it is, and for discovery of those that have none. Keep in the midst of the path, and no hurt shall come unto thee.” (J. Hutchison, D. D.)