God’s strong and outstretched arm wonderfully delivered the believers in Geneva, but it was all too easy to begin to trust in “man’s arm” or in man’s power to deliver. The city of Berne was eager to see the gospel preached and many cities had been forced to agree, but there was a danger in beginning to rely on Berne instead of God.
You have not forgotten Claudine, the grand lady who sold her jewels after she was saved. Her husband, Aime, had been one of the men anxious to defend the freedoms of Geneva without too much desire to actually spread God’s Word. In his desire to gain freedom from the harsh rulers and the priests, he also had gone to Berne for help. The news of his departure reached the priests and he was captured and put in prison. God did not allow this in vain, for it was in the prison that light from God’s Word shone more brightly upon his soul, and he decided that if the Lord brought him out of prison, he would tell others of the true freedom in Christ. Two months later some Bernese men appeared at the door and demanded his release. Aime was sent home.
The first thing he did when he arrived was to write to Anthony Froment and ask him to return to Geneva. Aime and Claudine waited anxiously for the answer to their letter, for they knew that asking Anthony to come again would be to risk his life.
The answer to their letter arrived in the form of Anthony himself! He brought with him a preacher from Paris named Alexander. At once they began preaching in private homes. But the priests had someone else preaching in the great churches at the same time. This man’s name was Furbity, and he spoke, not from God’s Word, but from his own ideas about the gospel preachers, or “chimney-preachers,” as he called them.
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One day, when Furbity paused for a moment in this preaching, our little friend Anthony stood up to read from the New Testament, like David standing before the giant Goliath. He read passage after passage and some of the Huguenots called out, “This is the truth!”
“Drown him!” called out others. Brave Baudichon stepped forward to rescue Anthony and took him away to his home and hid him in the hay loft. Soldiers, sent by the rulers of the city, searched for Anthony and pierced their spears into the hay, but God’s hand protected him and not a spear touched him. The city council issued an order to banish Anthony and Alexander from Geneva and they were led to the city gates, followed by a large crowd. Even so the Word of God was not silenced, for Alexander turned and preached to the crowd that followed for about two hours.
Baudichon went with them as they left and followed the road that had now become familiar, the road to Berne. But the believers in Geneva were going to learn that when God does a work, He does it so that He alone has the glory. “According as it is written, He that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord” (1 Corinthians 1:3131That, according as it is written, He that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord. (1 Corinthians 1:31)).