•February, 1944
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Sa ints in
Unlikely
By C O L F. J . MILES London,- England
"All the saints salute you, chiefly they that are of Caesar's household" (Phil.4:22).
the arena to be torn to pieces by wild beasts. One night this unmitigated scound rel would give a garden party. Dur ing the day he had a thousand poles erected in the imperial gardens, a thousand Christians stripped, tarred, and tied to the poles, and at night they were set fire to, to illuminate an Emperor’s garden party. Those who have read works like “Darkness and Dawn” by Dean Farrar or “Quo Vadis” by Henry Sienkiewicz w ill know that I am not giving reih to my imagination when I affirm that Nero’s court was the veriest cesspool of iniquity and sink of vice in the whole world’s history. Slaves Who Were Saints There, in the most unlikely place in all history, were Christians who were sufficiently saved from self to consider others, to send their Christian salutations to the Church of Jesus Christ at. Philippi, and their greetings are ringing down.the corridors of time to you: “A ll the saints salute you, chiefly they that are of Caesar’s household.” Well, who Were they? They were slaves, bond slaves with fewer rights and privileges than our domestic ani mals enjoy today. When Paul walked the streets of-the imperial city, three men out of every five he met were slaves, so much the property of their
C TT T.HO WAS Caesar? •He was .1 / 1 / ; none other than Nero, the T f most infamous scoundrel and scandalous despot that ever ..disgraced the imperial purple;, a m an ,who as sassinated his own mother, divorced his first wife, and kicked to death his second;. a man who surrounded himself with, courtiers whose vices were so heinous as to put to shame the men of their own day and gen eration, whose own sins were so awful that they cannot, be described in plain prose in the opening o f. the Epistle to the Romans. It was these courtiers who at the instance of the Emperor set fire to the imperial city, and tradi tion affirms that “Nero fiddled while Rome was burning.” Then, when the populace ròse in their wrath and demanded the pun ishment of those responsible for. set ting aflame their beloved city, to shield his myrmidons, Nero accused the Christians. They were tiéd in sacks and thrown into the Tiber to drown. They were hanged, drawn, quartered, and crucified. They were thrown into j- AThis message, with three, others, is printed in a booklet, “A Cluster of Campfire” ob tainable at twenty-five cents each through the Russian Missionary Society, 18U West Monroe St., Chicago 12, III . Colonel Miles is the International Secretary of this mission, u)ith headquarters in London and Chicago, and is an author, lecturer, Bible teacher . and conference speaker .—EDITORJ
owners that if one of these owners, in a fit of pique, slew a dozen or a score of his slaves, few men would care, and no man would dare to in terfere. Here was the most unlikely material for the making of saints! Yet in the court of Nero, the great antagonist of Christ and persecutor of His church, there Were slaves who were saints, with “ a heart at leisure from itself, to soothe and sympathize,” so that they could send their saintly saluta tion to their fellow Christians In Philippi. The application is obvious. The God who could create and control, make and maintain Christians out of slave material in Nero’s court, can make and maintain Christians anywhere. Conquerors of Circumstances Modern leaders have stressed the power of environment and affirmed that a man must be made or marred by his circumstances. Our text teaches the contrary. The world and the Word alike teach that by the grace of God inan may be the conqueror and not the mere creature of his circumstances. We can illustrate this from nature. Oh the mullock heaps on the surface of our coal mines, white flowers of pristine beauty and fragrance flour ish, while on the somber slopes and [Continued on Page 77]
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