Chapter 21 - The Hallmarks of Discipleship—part 2 (10:32-42)

21 The Hallmarks of Discipleship—part 2 (10:32-42)

Everyone therefore who shall confess Me before men, I will also confess him before My Father who is in heaven. But whoever shall deny Me before men, I will also deny him before My Father who is in heaven.

Do not think that I came to bring peace on the earth; I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I came to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-inlaw; and a man’s enemies will be the members of his household. He who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me; and he who loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me. And he who does not take his cross and follow after Me is not worthy of Me. He who has found his life shall lose it, and he who has lost his life for My sake shall find it.

He who receives you receives Me, and he who receives Me receives Him who sent Me. He who receives a prophet in the name of a prophet shall receive a prophet’s reward; and he who receives a righteous man in the name of a righteous man shall receive a righteous man’s reward. And whoever in the name of a disciple gives to one of these little ones even a cup of cold water to drink, truly I say to you he shall not lose his reward. (10:32-42)

After Henry Martyn spent virtually a lifetime of ministry in India, he announced that God had laid a burden on his heart to go to Persia (modern Iran) and translate the New Testament and Psalms into the Persian language. Doctors had already told him that he would die because of the heat if he stayed in India. He went to Persia, studied the language, and eventually finished the translation work in 1812. He then learned, however, that he could not print and distribute the Scriptures without the shah’s permission. He traveled 600 miles to Teheran but was denied permission to see the shah. He took another 400-mile trip to visit the British ambassador, who gave him proper papers of introduction. Riding a mule at night and resting during the heat of the day, he came back to Teheran and managed to obtain the needed permission. Ten days later he died. Shortly before his death he had written in his diary, “I sat and thought with sweet comfort and peace of my God. In solitude my Companion, my Friend, and Comforter.”

Bound up in the spirit of Henry Martyn was the key to genuine discipleship: being so utterly consumed with the cause of Christ that you take no thought for your own life or welfare.

A DISCIPLE CONFESSES THE LORD

In addition to emulating his Lord and not fearing the world (see chap. 20, on Matt. 10:24-31), a true disciple openly confesses Christ before the world.

In his book I Love Idi Amin ([Westwood, N.J.: Revell, 1977], p. 112) Festo Kivengere, a leading evangelical minister in Uganda, tells the history of persecution and martyrdom of Christians in that country. In 1885 three Christian boys, ranging in age from eleven to fifteen, were forced to give their lives for Christ because they would not renounce their faith in Him. The king was adamantly opposed to Christianity and ordered the boys’ execution if they did not recant. At the place of execution the boys asked that the following message be given to the king: “Tell his majesty that he has put our bodies in the fire but we won’t be long in the fire. Soon we will be with Jesus, which is much better. But ask him to repent and change his mind or he will land in a place of eternal fire.” As they stood bound and awaiting death they sang a song that soon became greatly loved by Christians in that country as “The Martyrs’ Song.” One verse testifies,

O that I had wings like the angels,

I would fly away and be with Jesus.

The youngest of the boys, named Yusufu, said, “Please don’t cut off my arms. I will not struggle in the fire that takes me to Jesus.” Because of the boys’ testimony that day, forty adults trusted in Jesus Christ for salvation, and indirectly countless more converts were won to the Lord over a period of many years. By 1887 a large number of other Christians were martyred, many of them inspired by the fearless, loving testimony of those three boys. None of those martyrs knew much theology or much about the Bible, because most of them were illiterate and all of them were relatively new believers. But they had a deep love for Jesus that they refused to hide, no matter what the cost. As is nearly always the case, those who died were replaced severalfold by new converts who came to Christ because of their testimony.

Everyone is an inclusive term that gives a sober warning to all would-be and all professing believers for careful self-examination. A person’s willingness to confess Christ before men determines Christ’s willingness to claim that person before His Father. Paul eagerly confessed, “For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes” (Rom. 1:16). He was not ashamed to acknowledge the person and work of Christ because His is the only message that offers salvation and hope to a corrupt and dying world.

Throughout the history of the church, believers who have been unashamed to confess Jesus before men are those the Lord uses to bring others to Himself. Whether it is through preaching, teaching, personal witnessing, or the courage of martyrdom, those who confess Him boldly and unapologetically before the world not only are the Lord’s most faithful disciples but also His most effective disciple makers.

Confess means to affirm and agree with. It is not simply to recognize a truth but to identify with it. Even the demons, for example, recognize that God is one (James 2:19), but they by no means confess God, because they are His implacable enemies. We do not confess Christ simply by acknowledging that He is Lord and Savior but by acknowledging and receiving Him as our Lord and Savior. “If you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord,” Paul says, “and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you shall be saved; for with the heart man believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation” (Rom. 10:9-10). Outward confession with the mouth is a reflection of genuine belief in the heart.

Men, like everyone, is universal. A true disciple is willing to openly identify with Christ wherever he is, whether before a fellowship of other believers, a group of serious inquirers, or a hostile crowd of unbelievers. “Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God” (1 John 4:15). To the faithful church at Pergamum, the Lord said, “I know where you dwell, where Satan’s throne is; and you hold fast My name, and did not deny My faith, even in the days of Antipas, My witness, My faithful one, who was killed among you, where Satan dwells” (Rev. 2:13).

Near the end of his life Paul wrote to his beloved Timothy, “For I am already being poured out as a drink offering, and the time of my departure has come. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the course, I have kept the faith” (2 Tim. 4:6-7). But a few verses later he spoke of Demas, who “loved this present world, [and] has deserted me and gone to Thessalonica” (v. 10). Demas had been a faithful helper of Paul’s, but when persecution became severe, he held the things of the world too dear to give them up (cf. Matt. 13:22). Hard times are the test of faith. The church does not lack for supporters when it is popular and respected; but when the world turns against it, its fair-weather friends are not to be found.

Believers can be silenced by much less than persecution. Simple embarrassment or friendly ridicule has closed many Christian mouths. It is sometimes easier to stand up to vicious physical injury by a hostile government than to stand up to unbelieving family and friends who would never do us physical harm.

Every believer has lapses of faithfulness, which is why the Lord’s promise of 1 John 1:9 is so dear: “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” Peter denied the Lord, but he could not live with his denial and he went out and wept bitterly. His heart was broken because he had so terribly failed and grieved His Lord. Timothy was Paul’s most promising protege, yet years after he had himself become a leader in the church, Timothy apparently had become reticent about openly proclaiming the gospel. Paul therefore admonished him, “Do not be ashamed of the testimony of our Lord” (2 Tim. 1:8).

Peter and Timothy had lapses of faithfulness, but feeling shame of the gospel and of the Lord was not their normal attitude. Those whose lives are characterized by confessing Christ, in name and in obedience, are those whom Jesus will also confess . . . before [His] Father who is in heaven. What an incredibly wonderful thought, to know that all Christians will stand before the Father . . . in heaven and hear Jesus tell Him that they are His, that He claims them because they have claimed Him!

When Pliny was governor of the province of Bithynia, in northern Asia Minor, he wrote a letter to the emperor Trajan trying to explain why he had been unsuccessful in stamping out the sect called Christians. He had tried arrest, fines, imprisonment, beatings, torture, and various forms of execution in order to get them to renounce Christ and to burn incense to Caesar as an act of worship, but to no avail. In trying to excuse himself before the emperor, he said, “None of these acts, those who are really Christians can be compelled to do.” Even a pagan ruler knew that a person with such unflinching conviction must be a true believer.

The negative side of Jesus’ warning is sobering: But whoever shall deny Me before men, I will also deny him before My Father who is in heaven. This warning applies to a person who makes an outward profession of Christianity but turns away when hard testing comes.

It is possible to deny Christ before men by silence, by failing to witness for Him and trying to be an unnoticed Christian—whose friends and neighbors, and perhaps even family, would never suspect of being a believer. It is also possible to deny Christ by actions, living like the rest of the world lives, with no higher standards or values. It is possible to deny Christ by words, using the world’s profanity, vulgarity, and blasphemy. It is possible to deny Christ in many ways that are short of verbally and publicly renouncing Him.

The future tenses in verses 32-33 tell us that Jesus is speaking of future judgment. In that day, those who confess Him, He will also confess, and those who deny Him, He will also deny.

The difference between true and false discipleship is a much-repeated theme in Matthew. Near the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount Jesus said, “Unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you shall not enter the kingdom of heaven” (5:20). Later during the sermon He distinguished between false disciples, who go in the wide gate and travel the broad way, and true disciples, who enter by the narrow gate and walk in the narrow way (7:13-14).

He spoke of those who bear good fruit and those who bear bad fruit (7:16-20) and then said, “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven; but he who does the will of My Father who is in heaven. Many will say to Me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles?’ And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness’” (vv. 21-23). Immediately after that He distinguished between the person who builds his religious house on the sand of man’s wisdom and is destroyed and the person who builds on the rock of His Word and is saved (vv. 24-27).

In chapter 13 Jesus gives the parables of the sower, of the wheat and tares, and of the dragnet (vv. 1-30, 47-50), all three of which illustrate distinctions between true and false faith. He pictured the judgment of the nations at the end of the Tribulation as the separation of believing sheep to His right and unbelieving goats to His left. “Then the King will say to those on His right, ‘Come, you who are blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world’” (Matt. 25:34).

The sheep are those who not only identify themselves with Him but who, by their public confession of Him and their daily obedience to His will, reflect His own love and compassion by serving others in His name (vv. 35-36, 40). They confess Christ by their words and their actions, by loving as He loved, reaching out as He reached out, caring as He cared. The all-essential hallmark of being a true disciple of Christ—and therefore of truly confessing Christ—is to be like Christ, our Teacher and Master (10:25).

In the story of the sheep and goats Jesus went on to say, “Then He [the King] will also say to those on His left, ‘Depart from Me, accursed ones, into the eternal fire which has been prepared for the devil and his angels’” (Matt. 25:41). Although pagans, agnostics, atheists, and every other kind of unbeliever will face the same eternal fire, Jesus was not talking about such people in this illustration. He was speaking of those who claimed to be His followers and who will say to Him on the day of judgment, “Lord, when did we see You hungry, or thirsty, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not take care of You?” (v. 44). Like Judas, they professed Him but they did not genuinely confess Him. They claimed Him as Lord but they never belonged to Him; they had not trusted in Him or obeyed Him.

I believe that Jesus was continually concerned about Judas, whom He knew did not believe and whom He therefore could not confess before the Father. Judas is the classic example of a professor who is not a confessor.

Every conscientious pastor at times becomes anxious that some people in his congregation may not truly know the Lord and will wake up in eternal damnation, although they may be active in church activities and live moral and seemingly selfless lives.

A DISCIPLE FORSAKES HIS FAMILY

Do not think that I came to bring peace on the earth; I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I came to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; and a man’s enemies will be the members of his household. He who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me; and he who loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me. (10:34-37)

A fourth hallmark of discipleship is willingness to forsake everything, including one’s own family if necessary, for Christ’s sake. Jesus introduces this point by using the figure of war and peace. As far as many human relationships are concerned, He did not come to bring peace on the earth, . . . but a sword.

The Jews of Jesus’ day for the most part expected the Messiah to bring political deliverance for Israel and to usher in an eternal kingdom of righteousness and peace. The Old Testament spoke of the Messiah’s peace-making. Isaiah called Him the Prince of Peace (Isa. 9:6) and spoke of His reign of perfect justice and peace (2:4). Solomon wrote of the Messiah’s worldwide rule of peace and abundance (Ps. 72).

Jesus’ disciples had already experienced inner peace and bliss that they had never known before, and they no doubt expected that experience to grow in intensity and extent the longer they were with Jesus. They may have expected the world to fall at their feet as they preached the good news of the kingdom and offered lost mankind the way of salvation and happiness.

Therefore, lest they misunderstand the true nature of His first coming and of their own ministry, Jesus began early to prepare them for His own rejection and suffering and also theirs. The gospel is indeed a gospel of peace, because it offers the way to bring peace between a holy God and sinful man, and it shows the only way for having truly peaceful relationships between men and other men. But because the world system is evil and man’s fallen nature is sinful, God’s offer of peace continues to be rejected and to be offensive to most of the world’s people. This brings conflict into the most intimate of human relations, so that a man’s enemies will be the members of his household.

Using another figure of destruction, Jesus said, “I have come to cast fire upon the earth; and how I wish it were already kindled! … Do you suppose that I came to grant peace on earth? I tell you, no, but rather division; for from now on five members in one household will be divided, three against two, and two against three” (Luke 12:49, 51-52; cf. v. 53).

The Old Testament also spoke of that aspect of the Messiah’s coming. Micah predicted a time when “son treats father contemptuously, daughter rises up against her mother, daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; [and] a man’s enemies are the men of his own household” (Mic. 7:6)—the passage Jesus here quotes. In the ancient rabbinical writings we find a paraphrase of that passage, which indicates clearly that they recognized the messianic age would involve conflict even within the family: “In the period when the Son of David shall come, daughter will rise up against her mother, a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. The son despises his father, the daughter rebels against the mother, the daughter-in-law against the mother-in-law, and a man’s enemies are they of his own household.”

Against is from dixaz, which means to cut in two, to rend asunder, and is used only here in the New Testament. It denoted complete and often permanent separation. Sometimes the rift between believers and unbelieving relatives is lifelong and irreconcilable. Yet a true disciple must be willing to pay that price. The gospels report at least two would-be disciples who did not accept Jesus’ call to follow Him because they were unwilling to sacrifice their family ties. One wanted to wait for his inheritance before following the Lord, and the other wanted to delay obedience until he had settled everything with his family. Of such half-hearted, divided commitment Jesus said, “No one, after putting his hand to the plow and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God” (Luke 9:57-62).

Husbands or wives will sometimes not come to Christ because of fear of separation from their spouses. Children will sometimes not come because of possibly offending their parents, and vice versa. Such fears are often ungrounded, because one member of a family coming to Christ sometimes leads to the whole family being converted. But the conversion of one member often leads instead to bitterness and permanent disruption of family relationships. No one can be sure in advance what other people’s reactions to his conversion will be, not even the reactions of his own family. Jesus’ point is that the concern for saving one’s own soul and yielding to Christ’s absolute lordship must be paramount, whatever the cost in relationships may be. The phrase is not worthy of Me identifies the person who will not come to Christ because of other intimate and meaningful relationships that might be affected.

I once talked to a young girl at a Christian conference who told me she had been raised in a pagan family and that since her conversion her father had refused to speak to her. She said, “I can understand why he objects to my decision, because he knows nothing of the gospel and believes all religion is superstition. But you would think he would at least be happy that I am not an alcoholic, drug addict, prostitute, criminal, or a cripple. I have never had such joy in my life, and I have never loved my father so much; yet he has cut me out of his life.” Like many others, she had experienced the sword and fire the gospel sometimes brings.

In marriages where one partner is a believer and the other is not, Paul says that “the unbelieving husband is sanctified through his wife, and the unbelieving wife is sanctified through her believing husband.… Yet if the unbelieving one leaves, let him leave; the brother or the sister is not under bondage in such cases, but God has called us to peace” (1 Cor. 7:14-15). If the sword of division causes an unbeliever to sever a marriage, the separation is to be accepted for the sake of the believer’s peace.

Through Zacharias the Holy Spirit proclaimed John the Baptist as the forerunner of “the Sunrise from on high,” who would “guide our feet into the way of peace” (Luke 1:78-79). At Jesus’ birth the angels sang, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among men with whom He is pleased” (2:14). Shortly before His crucifixion Jesus assured the twelve, “Peace I leave with you; My peace I give to you; … Let not your heart be troubled, nor let it be fearful” (John 14:27); and again, “These things I have spoken to you, that in Me you may have peace” (16:33). But He qualified both of those promises, explaining in the first instance, “not as the world gives, do I give [peace] to you” (14:27b), and in the second, “In the world you have tribulation, but take courage; I have overcome the world” (16:33b).

At the second coming of Christ a perfect kingdom of peace on earth will be established, ushered in and sovereignly sustained by the Prince of Peace. But for now, during the interval between His two comings, the gospel that brings inner peace to those who believe will also be the cause of their being misunderstood, maligned, and mistreated by those who do not believe—including those nearest and dearest to them. The most heart-rending divisions are always among those who are closest to us. Nowhere can feelings be hurt more deeply than in the home.

Because the intervention in history by the Son of God was going to split and fracture human relationships, Jesus determined that His disciples be prepared for that experience. Martin Luther said, “If our gospel were received in peace, it would not be the true gospel.” Luther’s preaching and teaching produced the greatest rift in the history of religion, challenging the unbiblical teachings and practices of the Catholic Church and shattering its millennium of complacency and political power.

Becoming a Christian requires affirming the lordship of Christ to the point where you are willing to forsake everything else. It is not simply raising a hand, signing a card, or walking down an aisle and declaring love for Jesus. Salvation is by faith alone, apart from any works at all; but faith that is genuine will be manifested in a commitment that cannot be swayed by any influence. The Christian is to love his family with self-sacrificing love. Christian husbands and wives are to love each other and their children with unreserved devotion. Christian children are to love, respect, and care for their parents as unto the Lord. But a believer’s commitment to Christ is so profound and far-reaching that any relationship that endangers that relationship must be sacrificed if necessary.

John Bunyan was told to quit preaching or be thrown in prison. He knew that if he went to prison his wife and children would be left destitute. They had little enough to eat and wear when he was free; but if he were imprisoned they would be totally impoverished. Yet he knew he must preach the gospel God had called him to preach. Because he refused to stop preaching, he was imprisoned; and from his cell he wrote,

The parting with my wife and poor children hath often been to me in this place as the pulling of the flesh from my bones; and that not only because I am somewhat too fond of these great mercies, but also because I would have often brought to my mind the many hardships, miseries, and wants that my poor family was like to meet with, should I be taken from them, especially my poor blind child, who lay nearer my heart than all I have besides. Oh, the thought of the hardship I thought my blind one might go under would break my heart to pieces.… But yet, recalling myself, thought I, I must venture all with God, though it goeth to the quick to leave you. Oh, I saw in this condition, I was a man who was pulling down his house upon the head of his wife and children; yet thought I, I must do it. I must do it.

A DISCIPLE OFFERS HIS OWN LIFE

And he who does not take his cross and follow after Me is not worthy of Me. He who has found his life shall lose it, and he who has lost his life for My sake shall find it. (10:38-39)

Love of one’s own life is often the greatest hindrance to full commitment to Christ. Yet Jesus calls His disciples to total self-denial, including, if necessary, sacrifice to the point of death.

No one in the Roman Empire in New Testament times, and certainly no one in Palestine, could have missed Jesus’ point when He said, He who does not take his cross and follow Me is not worthy of Me. The cross symbolized the extremes of both excruciating pain and heartless cruelty; but above all it symbolized death. Only a few years before Jesus spoke those words, a zealot named Judas had gathered together a band of rebels to fight the Roman occupation forces. The insurrection was easily quelled, and in order to teach the Jews a lesson, the Roman general Varus ordered the crucifixion of over 2,000 Jews. Their crosses lined the roads of Galilee from one end to the other.

The twelve knew immediately that to take their cross and follow after Me meant to abandon themselves without reservation to Jesus’ lordship, with no consideration of cost—even of life itself.

No matter how terrible they may be, the hardships and tragedies of human living that often befall Christians are not the crosses of which Jesus speaks. Such things as a cruel spouse, a rebellious child, a debilitating or terminal illness, the loss of a job, or destruction of a house by a tornado or flood, may strongly test a believer’s faith; but those are not crosses.

The cross of a believer is not a mystical or spiritual identification with the cross of Christ or some “crucified life” idea. Such concepts are foreign to the context, and the cross of Christ was yet future when Jesus spoke here. The disciples would hear cross and think only of physical death.

A cross is the willing sacrifice of everything one has, including life, for the sake of Christ. It is something that, like the Lord Himself, a believer must take on himself when it is thrust upon him by the unbelieving world because of his relationship to God.

But as the Lord goes on to explain, no sacrifice for Him compares with what is received from Christ. The person who thinks he has found his life in the things of the world shall lose it. Earthly life is temporary, and the person who holds on to it above all else holds on to something that he cannot possibly keep—and in the process he forfeits the eternal life that he cannot lose.

On the other hand, the person who has lost his life for My sake, Jesus says, shall find it. The Lord is not isolating martyrdom, because no human sacrifice can merit salvation. But the willingness to forsake everything, including physical life if necessary, for the sake of Christ indicates the spirit of true discipleship, and therefore the spirit of a person who is destined for heaven and eternal life in God’s presence.

When John Bunyan was brought before the magistrate to be sentenced to prison, he said, “Sir, the law of Christ hath provided two ways of obeying: the one to do that which I in my conscience do believe I am bound to do actively; and where I cannot obey it actively, there I am willing to lie down and suffer what they shall do unto me.”

A DISCIPLE RECEIVES HIS REWARD

The sixth hallmark of a true disciple is not what he does or is but what he receives. This mark is the most positive one but is also the most invisible. It is not experienced fully—sometimes very little—in this life, but is primarily reserved for heaven and is enjoyed now by faith and hope.

Although many people reject the gospel, many also believe. Those who accept the gospel will accept the one who brings them the gospel. The true disciple and minister of Jesus Christ is an agent of God. Not even the apostles had within themselves the power to forgive sin or reconcile men to God. But every Christian whose witness brings another person to Christ is God’s instrument of salvation. In that sense, Jesus said, He who receives you receives Me. A person who receives us and our testimony also receives Christ, because we are His ambassadors.

The person who receives the Son also receives the Father: and he who receives Me receives Him who sent Me. There is no such thing as believing in God the Father without believing in God the Son. Jesus told the unbelieving Jews in Jerusalem, “You know neither Me, nor My Father; if you knew Me, you would know My Father also.” A short while later he said to the same group, “If God were your Father, you would love Me; for I proceeded forth and have come from God, for I have not even come on My own initiative, but He sent Me” (John 8:19, 42).

In His limitless grace God not only rewards a prophet for his faithfulness but also rewards anyone else who receives a prophet in the name of a prophet, even giving them a prophet’s reward. The same principle, in fact, applies to every believer who is accepted for Christ’s sake. He who receives a righteous man shall receive a righteous man’s reward. In an incomprehensible sharing of blessing, God showers His rewards on every person who receives His people because they are His people.

Extending the promise of God’s grace still further, Jesus said, And whoever in the name of a disciple gives to one of these little ones even a cup of cold water to drink, truly I say to you he shall not lose his reward.

Little ones are believers who seem insignificant and unimportant (cf. Matt. 18:3-1; 25:31-46). They might be new believers who are untaught and are stumbling in their new life; or they might be lifelong believers whose devoted years of service have attracted little attention. Jesus’ point is that any service done to any of His people in His name amounts to service to Him and will be rewarded. The simplest help given to the simplest disciple will not go unnoticed or unrewarded by God.

While a young boy in a country village in England struggled hard to study for the ministry, an old cobbler helped him in whatever ways he could. The godly man encouraged the boy spiritually and helped support him with what little money he could spare. When the young man was finally licensed to preach, the cobbler said to him, “I always had in my heart the desire to be a minister of the gospel; but circumstances never made it possible. You are doing what was always my dream but never a reality. I want you to let me make your shoes for nothing, and I want you to wear them in the pulpit when you preach. In that way I will feel you are preaching the gospel I always wanted to preach, standing in my shoes.”

Whenever we become the source of blessing for others, we are blessed; and whenever other believers become a source of blessing to us, they are blessed. In God’s magnificent economy of grace, the least believer can share the blessings of the greatest, and no one’s good work will go unrewarded.

John Calvin was banished from Geneva by ungrateful citizens who resented his giving them the full truth of God’s Word. In response to the disappointing news he said, “Most assuredly, if I had merely served man, this would have been a poor recompense. But it is my happiness that I have served Him who never fails to reward His servants to the full extent of His promise.”