Acts 18:10

IT is clear from this, dear Friends, that even he who was not a whit behind the chief of the Apostles sometimes needed special comfort. It is possible that even the bravest of the brave may be afraid. Sinking of heart assailed even Samson while as yet the thousand slain lay in heaps around him. Moses was cast down in the desert and David on the throne. Even iron will melt, much more a heart of flesh. Remember the faintness of Elijah when he said, "Let me die, I am no better than my fathers," and recollect that this was a lion-like man, one of those ministers of God who are as a flame of fire! The second Elijah, he who rebuked Herod to his face, was sadly staggered while he lay in prison. John the Baptist sent to Jesus to inquire, "Are you He that should come?" No doubt those heroes who have fought the battle of the Truth of God and have driven back its adversaries have been men of like passions with us and some of them of more than ordinary sensitiveness of feeling. Luther said, "Because I seem to be always strong and merry, men think that I walk on a bed of roses, but God knows how it is with me." Perhaps no man ever experienced such mighty joys and such tremendous despairs as did that mighty man who shook the papacy to its foundation! Even Paul was not without his tendency to fear. He writes in one of his Epistles: "When we were come into Macedonia, our flesh had no rest, but we were troubled on every side; without were fightings, within were fears." Do not think, therefore, my dear Brother or Sister, if, in working for Christ, you get thoroughly cast down and sick of yourself, that you are undergoing an experience unknown to the sons of God. It is by no means so. Trembling takes hold on all in turns. Faintness is common enough on all hands.

THE Apostle Paul was about to be placed in imminent peril. He was to be brought before the Roman governor, Gal-lio. The Jews, rank and rabble, were hopeful that they would get him condemned to death. In this threatening crisis the Lord Jesus would give him a word of comfort to strengthen him, that his courage might not fail. The best, the most assuring word that the Savior could speak to His servant was this, "I am with you." Nothing in Heaven or earth could be more fitted to cheer his tried spirit! To know that Jesus was with him, approving, supporting, defending him, was a safeguard against fear. Years afterwards, when Paul had to stand before the Roman emperor whose will was absolute, whose fiat could have put him to instant death, he had no man who dared stand by him. A poor despised servant of a despised Master, he was not, then, cast down or disheartened, for he said, "Nevertheless, the Lord stood by me." Under the worst circumstances, true Christians find the richest comfort if they do but know that Jesus is with them! When our Lord went away to Heaven and left His disciples on earth, they were like a flock of sheep surrounded with wolves. Just then He would surely give them, as a parting word, the most tender and the most encouraging sentence that could fall from His lips.

For I am with thee - I will attend, bless, and protect you. See the notes on Mat 28:20. No man shall set on thee - No one who shall rise up against thee will be able to hurt thee. His life was in God’s hands, and he would preserve him in order that his people might be collected into the church. For I have - Greek: there is to me; that is, I possess, or there belongs to me. Much people - Many who should be regarded as his true friends, and who should be saved. In this city - In that very city that was so voluptuous, so rich, so effeminate, and where there had been already so decided opposition shown to the gospel. This passage evidently means that God had a design or purpose to save many of that people, for it was given to Paul as an encouragement to him to labor there, evidently meaning that God would grant him success in his work. It cannot mean that the Lord meant to say that the great mass of the people, or that the moral and virtuous part, if there were any such, was then regarded as his people; but that he intended to convert many of those guilty and profligate Corinthians to himself, and to gather a people for his own service there. We may learn from this: (1) That God has a purpose in regard to the salvation of sinners. (2) That that purpose is so fixed in the mind of God that he can say that those in relation to whom it is formed are his. (3) This is the ground of encouragement to the ministers of the gospel. Had God no purpose to save sinners, they could have no hope in their work. (4) This plan may have reference to the most frivolous, the most guilty, and the most abandoned, and ministers should not be deterred by the amount or the degree of wickedness from attempting to save them. (5) There may be more hope of success among a dissolute and profligate population, than among proud, cold, and skeptical philosophers. […]