Mid-20th century London preacher Martyn-Lloyd Jones....in a recent sermon that I was listening to....took pains to point out that from the Acts Of The Apostles....chapter 14....after Peter and John had been seriously warned not to preach the name of Jesus....that they returned to all the disciples....reported to them what had happened....and then all stood up and began their prayer...."Lord, thou art God, which hast made heaven and earth, and the sea, and all that is in them. Who by the mouth of thy servant David hast said, Why did the heathen rage, and the people imagine vain things? The kings of the earth stood up, and the rulers were gathered together against the Lord, and against his Christ...."
The point that Lloyd-Jones was making was that all the authority of the ruling Jews were against them....along with all the authority of Rome on the other side....that there were only this little group....how bleak it must have looked had not they known where the true power came from. It must have been a similar situation with the pilgrims in this picture as they were leaving the authorities on one side that would tell them how to worship God....but threatened with the mortal challenges of a new world on the other,
And folks.....to a much lesser degree at the present time.....that is where we are today....as we have this secular world pushing at us....giving us only so much room without pushback....and the church on the other side telling us that we must fall in line with it to oppose the secular opposition....to follow this worldly prince in spite of his self-adulation....and promises of peace and security and prosperity that is diametrically opposed to what God's Word tells us....but we have that beginning of prayer to fall back on....."Lord, thou art God, which hast made the heaven, and earth, and the sea, and all that is in them...."
