When Enemies Surround, God Sustains

Psalm 18:18 declares, "They prevented me in the day of my calamity: but the Lord was my stay." When King Henry VIII launched bitter attacks against Martin Luther through word and writing, Luther responded with unshakeable conviction: "Tell the Henries, the bishops, the Turks, and the devil himself—do what they can, we are the children of the kingdom, worshipping the true God, whom they and such as they spit upon and crucified." This was not bravado but the steady confidence of a man whose foundation was immovable. The same spirit animated the primitive martyrs. Basil observed that these saints possessed such extraordinary courage and confidence amid their sufferings that watching heathens witnessed their heroic zeal and constancy—and turned to Christ themselves. Their enemies rushed against them like a flood, yet the Lord became their stay (support, their unmovable rock). Not one of them perished without their God. The world's opposition could not shake what Heaven upheld. When calamity strikes and adversaries multiply, remember: the Lord does not merely sympathize from a distance. He becomes your very pillar in the moment of trial, your unshakeable support when all earthly help fails.