Victory! # 4

Victory! # 4

I am fully aware that, at first sight, the things I have just said may appear hard sayings. The standard of true Christianity which I have just raised may seem extravagant, and extreme, and unattainable in this life, I grant most freely that to "overcome" in the fashion I have described is naturally unpleasant to flesh and blood. It is disagreeable to find ourselves standing alone - and running counter to the opinions of all around us. We do not like to appear narrow-minded, and exdclusive, and uncharitable, and uncongenial, and ill-natured, and out of harmony with our fellows. We naturally love ease and popularity, and hate collisions in religion, and if we hear we cannot be true Christians without all this fighting and warring, we are tempted to say to ourselves, "I will give it up in despair." I speak from bitter experience. I have known and felt all this myself.

To all who are tempted in this way - and none, I believe, are so much tempted as the young - to all who are disposed to shrink back from any effort to overcome the world, as a thing impossible - to all such I offer a few words of friendly exhortation. Before you turn you back on the enemy, and openly confess that he is too strong for you - before you bow down to the strong man, and let him place his foot on your neck, let me put you in remembrance of some things which, perhaps, you are forgetting.

Is it not true that myriads of men and women, no stronger than yourself, have fought this battle with the world, and won it? Think of the mighty armies of Christian soldiers who have walked in the narrow way in the last eighteen centuries, and proved more than conquerors. The same Divine Captain, the same armor, the same helps and aids by which they overcame, are ready for you. Surely if they got the victory, you may hope to do the same.

Again, is it not true that this fight with the world is a thing of absolute necessity? Does not our Master say, "Whoever does not bear his cross, and come after Me, cannot be My disciple?" (Luke 14:27). "I came not to send peace on earth, but a sword" (Matt. 10:34). Here, at any rate, we cannot remain neutral, and sit still. Such a line of conduct may be possible in the strife of nations, but it is utterly impossible in that conflict which concerns the soul. The boasted policy of non-interference, the masterly inactivity which pleases so many statesmen, the plan of keeping quiet and letting things alone - all this will never do in the Christian warfare.

To be at peace with the world, the flesh, and the devil, is to be at enmity with God, and in the broad way that leads to destruction. We have no choice or option. The promises to the Seven Churches in Revelation are only "to him that overcomes." We must fight or be lost. We must conquer or die eternally. We must put on the whole armor of God. "He who has no sword, let him sell his garment and buy one" (Eph. 6:11; Luke 22:36).

Surely, in the face of such considerations as these, I may well charge and entreat all who are inclined to make peace with the world, and not resist it, to awake to a sense of their danger. Awake and cast aside the chains which indolence or love of popularity are gradually weaving round you. Awake before it is too late - before repeated worldly acts have formed habits, and habits have crystallized into character, and you have become a helpless slave.

But who ever fought God's battle manfully against the world and failed to find a rich reward? No doubt the experience of Christian pilgrims is very various, Not all have "an abundant entrance" into the kingdom and some are "saved so as by fire" (2 Peter 1:11; 1 Co. 3:15). But none, I am persuaded, have such light hearts, as those who come out boldly, and overcome the love and fear of the world. Such men the King of kings delights to honor while they live; and when they die, their testimony is that of old Bunyan's hero, Valiant - "I am going to my Father's house; and though with great difficulty I have got here, yet now I do not repent me of all the troubles I have been at to arrive where I am."

~J. C. Ryle~

(continued with # 5)