Yea, for thy sake are we killed all the day long; we are counted as sheep for the slaughter.
For His sake His people are killed continually and counted as sheep headed to slaughter, meaning they are exposed to suffering and even death for their faith through tribulation, distress, persecution, famine, nakedness, peril, sword, trial, rebuffs and opposition, even when surroundings are unpleasant and discouraging. To be killed all the day long means to suffer and be strong, to submit and thus to conquer, to live even while being killed, and to bear the cross and thus to win the crown of glory, so believers suffer yet remain spiritually alive and ultimately gain the crown. The verse calls God's people to patiently suffer persecution even to death rather than defend the faith or avenge themselves by force, leaving punishment to God's wrath, trusting Christ to rescue them and bring the plans of ungodly rulers to nothing, prevailing by prayer rather than by armed alliance or resistance to tribunals, each one believing at his own risk and peril and refusing to stain his hands with the blood of brethren or make the gospel a cause of bloodshed.
In the end time the verse describes God's people standing approved by God and trusting in Him while enraged unbelievers take measures against them, darkness thickens around them, and the heathen round about appoint them to death. In that perplexity they cry to God earnestly day and night with a deep sense of unworthiness and entire submission to His will, every one pleading and wrestling for a way of escape and salvation that will glorify His name, yet deliverance is withheld for a time because God's will is not yet fulfilled, for they must first drink of the cup and be baptized with the baptism. Christian character is developed in this lot of trial rather than in freedom from trial, for endured by God's grace this experience leads to greater watchfulness and more earnest prayer to the mighty Helper and develops patience, vigilance, fortitude and a deep and abiding trust in God without abandoning trust.
None of these sufferings can separate them from the love of Christ, and in all these things they are more than conquerors through Him that loved them, able to stand in God because God is for them. He freely gives them all things with His Son, justifying them so none can lay charge or condemn, with Christ who died and rose again at the right hand of God interceding for them, so that neither death nor life nor angels nor principalities nor powers nor things present nor things to come nor height nor depth nor any other creature can separate them from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
For His sake His people are killed continually and counted as sheep headed to slaughter, meaning they are exposed to suffering and even death for their faith through tribulation, distress, persecution, famine, nakedness, peril, sword, trial, rebuffs and opposition, even when surroundings are unpleasant and discouraging.
To be killed all the day long means to suffer and be strong, to submit and thus to conquer, to live even while being killed, and to bear the cross and thus to win the crown of glory, so believers suffer yet remain spiritually alive and ultimately gain the crown.
The verse calls God's people to patiently suffer persecution even to death rather than defend the faith or avenge themselves by force, leaving punishment to God's wrath, trusting Christ to rescue them and bring the plans of ungodly rulers to nothing, prevailing by prayer rather than by armed alliance or resistance to tribunals, each one believing at his own risk and peril and refusing to stain his hands with the blood of brethren or make the gospel a cause of bloodshed.
In the end time the verse describes God's people standing approved by God and trusting in Him while enraged unbelievers take measures against them, darkness thickens around them, and the heathen round about appoint them to death.
In that perplexity they cry to God earnestly day and night with a deep sense of unworthiness and entire submission to His will, every one pleading and wrestling for a way of escape and salvation that will glorify His name, yet deliverance is withheld for a time because God's will is not yet fulfilled, for they must first drink of the cup and be baptized with the baptism.
Christian character is developed in this lot of trial rather than in freedom from trial, for endured by God's grace this experience leads to greater watchfulness and more earnest prayer to the mighty Helper and develops patience, vigilance, fortitude and a deep and abiding trust in God without abandoning trust.
None of these sufferings can separate them from the love of Christ, and in all these things they are more than conquerors through Him that loved them, able to stand in God because God is for them.
He freely gives them all things with His Son, justifying them so none can lay charge or condemn, with Christ who died and rose again at the right hand of God interceding for them, so that neither death nor life nor angels nor principalities nor powers nor things present nor things to come nor height nor depth nor any other creature can separate them from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.