And they shall abide, for now He shall be great to the ends of the earth… – Micah 5:4

Observe, dear friends, that in the use of the term “abide,” we have not only existence, and continued existence, but the idea of quiet, calm, uninjured duration. It does not say she lingers, hunted, tempted, worried, but she abides. Oh! the calmness of the Church of God under the attacks of her most malicious foes. Thou cruel adversary, the virgin daughter of Zion hath shaken her head at thee and laughed thee to scorn! She abides in peace when the world rages against her. It is most noteworthy how, in most instances, the Church of God still keeps her foothold where she has been most savagely persecuted. In modern times we find in Madagascar, after years of exterminating persecution, the Church of God rises from her ashes, like the phoenix from the flames. The chief wonder is that she abides perfect. Not one of God’s elect has gone back; not one of the blood-bought has denied the faith. Not one single soul which ever was effectually called could be made to deny Christ, even though his flesh should be pulled from his bones by hot pincers, or his tormented body flung to the jaws of wild beasts. All that the enemy has done has been of no avail against the Church. The old rock has been washed, and washed, and washed again by stormy waves, and submerged a thousand times in the floods of tempest, but even her angles and corners abide unaltered and unalterable. We may say of the Lord’s tabernacle, not one of the stakes thereof has been removed, nor one of her cords been broken. The house of the Lord from foundation to pinnacle is perfect still: “The rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house and it fell not;” nay, nor a single stone of it “for it was founded upon a rock.” ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0560.cfm