And then, if I might venture to dwell for a moment or two further upon
this class of consideration, I would say, Do not let us make too much
of the enemy. There is no need why we should take them at their own
appraisement. Men are always tempted to think that no generation ever
had such a fight as their own generation. They have said that ever
since there was a Christian Church. But the true, healthy way of
looking at the adversary--and by that I mean all the various forms of
difficulty which beset us in our evangelistic work, difficulties in the
mission-field, difficulties in the state of things here round us--the
true, healthy way of looking at them all, is to look at them as the
brave Apostle Paul did, when he said, 'I am going to stop at Ephesus
till Pentecost, for there is a great and effectual door opened to me.'
And how did he know that? He tells us in the next clause, 'There are
many adversaries.' Where there are many adversaries, there is an
effectual door, if you and I are bold and big enough to go in and
occupy.
And then I would venture to say, still further, let us remember the
victories of the past. Let us make personal experience of the
overcoming powers that are stored and hidden in Christ's Gospel. And,
above all, let us remember who fights with us. Jesus Christ and one man
are always the majority. There is an old story, which you may remember,
about the Conqueror of Rome, who dashed his sword into the scales when
the ransom was being weighed; and Christ flings His sharp sword with
the two edges into the scales when we are weighing resources, and the
other kicks the beam. There are enemies, plenty of them, all round
about. Yes, and the spreading forth of their wings fills the breadth of
the land. Be it so. But notwithstanding the irruption of the barbarous
and cruel hosts, it is 'Thy land, O Emanuel!' And in His time He will
sweep them before His presence, as the north wind drives the locusts
into the hindermost sea. I do not know if any of you remember an
ancient Christian legend, and I do not know whether it is a legend or a
truth--it does not matter, it will serve for our purpose all the same
either way--how when the Emperor Julian, surnamed the Apostate, once
taunted a humble Christian man with the question, 'What is the
carpenter's son doing now?' and the answer was, 'Hewing wood for the
emperor's funeral pile,' and not very long after there came the fatal
field on which, according to ancient tradition, he died with the words
on his lips, 'Thou hast conquered, Galilean. As in Carlyle's grand
translation of Luther's Hymn of the Reformation--
'Of our own strength we nothing can,
Full soon were we downridden;
But for us fights the proper Man,
Whom God Himself hath bidden.
Ask ye, who is the same?
Christ Jesus is His name,
The Lord Sabaoth's Son.
He and none other one
Shall conquer in this battle.'
'Lift up thy voice with strength; lift it up, be not afraid.'
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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