…when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?
Luke 18:8b
To Think Of Safety
These have come so that your faith – of greater worth than gold,
which perishes even though refined by fire – may be proved genuine
and may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.
1 Peter 1:7
“You ask me what I shall do if I am called by the emperor. I will
go even if I am too sick to stand on my feet. If Caesar calls me,
God calls me. If violence is used, as well it may be, I commend my
cause to God. He lives and reigns who saved the three youths from
the fiery furnace of the king of Babylon, and if He will not save me,
my head is worth nothing compared with Christ.
This is no time to think of safety.
I must take care that the gospel is not brought into contempt
by our fear to confess and seal our teaching with our blood.”
(Source: Roland H. Bainton, Here I Stand: A Life of Martin Luther (1950)(Hendrickson, p. 167).