The Anvil of God’s Word

Last eve I passed beside a blacksmith’s door and heard the anvil ring the vesper chime. When looking in, I saw upon the floor, old hammers worn with beating years of time. “How many anvils have you had,” said I, “To wear and batter these hammers so?” “Just one,” said he; then with a twinkling eye, “The anvil wears the hammers out, you know.” And so, I thought, the Anvil of God’s Word, for ages, skeptics blows have beat upon. Yet, though the noise of falling blows was heard, the anvil is unharmed - the hammers gone.

-John Clifford

Herod Antipas was a consistent enemy of God and his people. He beheaded John the Baptist, killed the apostle James with the sword, and imprisoned Peter with the same intention. To these sins he added blasphemy.

History?
Is a story of ____________ and ____________.

Why didn’t God kill Herod before he killed John, or James? Why did Peter have to endure chains, and flee the city?

“Insist—and so we should—that people do what they want to do, that they have their shrewd schemes, flex their muscles, control the armies and hand out orders. Say all these things because they're true; but say this also, that in and through all that, God gets his way and as surely as Jesus was born in Bethlehem, God is the Lord of history.... And if we are to find peace at all (and some of us don't, all our lives through) it will not come in our being able to figure out how this brutal fact or series of facts or this brutal life can be smoothed into a sweet story. If we're to find peace at all it will only come because we have come to believe there really is someone ‘in charge’ and he has made a commitment to the human family—us included.” -J. McGuiggan

“Over against all human interference, infidelity, unbelief, and opposition, there is opposed this divine ‘BUT.’ ‘But the word of God grew and multiplied.’ The success of God's plans is never in question. All that God intended shall surely come to pass.” -R.B. Sweet

Global Mission:
Hindered By:
____________
Ideological ____________
____________
____________ Weaknesses
____________

Win with him!