Part 7

Then I thought of the little church in which they found their fellowship. It was besieged by continual assaults of their Jewish foes. It was torn with internal divisions. It was honeycombed by deadly heresies. It was defiled by sensuality. Nearly all the members of the church were of obscure origin and standing. Many of them were slaves. It was in these conditions of fierce and growing difficulties that these disciples had to be good soldiers of Jesus Christ. And it is to this little company of Christian recruits that the apostle sends this challenging letter in which is found the rousing bugle-peal of my text. "Watch ye, stand fast in the faith, quit you like men, be strong."

Now I will confess to you that times and again during the last few months this trumpet-blast has sounded in my ears, as though it were a clarion-call to the Christians of to-day. For we too have our warfare upon a most exacting field. We have fallen upon gravely troubled times. We are witnessing a resurgence of devilry that is perfectly appalling. The baser passions have become frightfully aggressive, and a crude animalism is at large like a surging, boiling sea which has burst its dykes. Some of us had begun to dream that the sweet angel of peace was almost at our gates, and that nothing could happen to drive her away; and now, when we look out of the gate, it is no fair angel-messenger which we see, but the red fury of unprecedented strife and slaughter. And amid all this we have to live the Christian life.

But it is not only the "fightings without" which trouble us. There are also "the fears within." Many of our venerable assumptions are lying in ruin. Our spiritual world has suffered an upheaval as though with the convulsion of an earthquake, and many of us are trembling and confused. What then shall we do in this terrible hour? What path shall we take? Can we settle our goings upon any promising road of purpose and endeavour? Along what lines shall we pull ourselves together? And in answer to all these questions I bring you this well-tried counsel of the great Christian apostle, this bugle-peal from the first century, and I ask you to let it be to you as the inspired word of the living God. "Watch ye, stand fast in the faith, quit you like men, be strong." Let us examine the counsel in order that we may buckle it on to our souls.

Here then is the first note of this soldierly blast. "Watch ye!" The phrase literally means "keep awake!" You perhaps think there is no need of that counsel to-day. You probably think that in times like these our difficulty is not to keep awake but to go to sleep. I am not so sure about that. If we have loved ones at the war there will not be the remotest peril of our going to sleep. Every post that comes to our door will startle us like the crack of doom. Every headline in the daily press will tighten our nerves in sleepless attention. But when we have no flesh and blood at the front, when many miles roll between us and the fields of war, when we are only spectators, a certain drowsiness is not so far away as we may suppose. When we only read about things, things become familiar, and the familiar is apt to lose its terror. Custom is a dull narcotic, and frequent repetition dims our apprehension. When the Titanic went down the whole city spoke in whispers, such a dread was resting over our souls. But now a dreadnought goes down, or a half dozen cruisers, and we scarcely catch our breath at the news. The cushion of familiarity is thickening between us and realities, and awful facts do not hit us on the raw. The awful becomes less awful by repetition, and we grow less sensitive as the tragedies increase. The newspaper statistics cease to be significant, and the descriptive adjectives become the tamest blanks. And therefore there is need for the apostle's trumpet blast to sound in our ears. "Keep awake!" Do not let familiarity become an opiate, so putting the senses to sleep that the direst woes become a painless commonplace. "Keep awake!" Make it a matter of will. Bring the stream of vital thought to bear upon the field. Exercise the imagination. Nourish the sympathies. We must keep awake, for our primary hope of emancipation in this dark hour is to remain sensitive, to be capable of being shocked and wounded with the appalling blows of every succeeding day.

But it is not only wakefulness, but also watchfulness which the apostle enjoins in the counsel of our text. The soldier of Jesus is to be awake and watchful with all the keen quest of a sentinel peering about him night and day. But our watchfulness must be intelligent and disciplined, and we must carefully survey the entire field. We must keep awake, and we must diligently watch for all enemies of the sanctified brotherhood of the race, as a sentry would watch every suspicious movement in the night. What are the real enemies behind all the appalling desolation and sorrow of our time? Is it militarism? Then "Watch ye!" Is it something deeper than militarism? Is it racial animosity and jealousy and prejudice? Then "Watch ye!" Is it something even deeper than racial antipathy? Is it a profound and deadly materialism in all the nations--a materialism which has been tricked out in the ribbons of culture, and disguised in the glamour of progress? Then "Keep awake, Watch ye!" Or is it a faithless church, muttering many shibboleths, but confessing no vital faith; a church which has been too much a pretense, offering no strong moral and spiritual preservatives, and supplying no saving salt to social fellowships, and, therefore, not exercising any restraint upon moral degeneracy and corruption? "Keep awake, and Watch ye!" And amid all the horrors and agonies of our day fasten your eyes upon the real enemy of the Lord Jesus, the outstanding antagonist of His kingdom of righteousness and truth.

But there is a further word to say about our vigilance. We must keep awake and watchful, not only to detect the busy lurking, ambushed foes, but also to see all the bright and wonderful things of the hour, all the splendid happenings which are favourable to the holy will and Kingdom of our Lord. What should we think of a sentinel who could not distinguish between enemy and friend? And what shall we say of a soldier-sentinel of Christ who has no eye for the great and friendly happenings on the field? Watch ye, and behold the growing seriousness of the world; frivolity has almost begun to apologize for itself, and tinselled gaiety is ill at ease. Watch ye, and behold the unsealing of multitudinous springs of human sympathy, and the flowing of holy currents from the ends of the earth. Watch ye, and behold the magnificent courage which in every land of strife is purging families from the dross of indolence and indifference, and educing the gold of chivalry and sacrifice. Watch ye, and behold the marvellous re-equipment of Christian motive--thousands upon thousands of Christian disciples realizing as they have never done before that the world needs the vital redeeming grace of the Lord Jesus, and that without Him human brotherhood will remain a phantom and a dream. A real wakeful watchman will see these things. He will not only record the things of the night and the nightmares, but he will be as "they who watch for the morning." The Moslem priest appears on the tower of his mosque half an hour after sunset to call the people to prayer, but he also appears on the tower half an hour before sunrise, when the grey gleams of morning are faintly falling upon the night. And we too, watchmen of Jesus, must watch for the sunrise as well as for the sunsets, and we too must tell what fair jewels of hope we see shining on the dark robe of the night. Brethren, the Lord Jesus Christ is abroad! "Watch ye, for at such an hour as ye think not, the Son of Man will come."

Now let us consider the second note of the counsel which is given by this warrior, Paul. "Stand fast in the faith." Just try to realize that bracing counsel coming to these young recruits in the city of Corinth. Let me try to paraphrase it as I think it would be interpreted to them. "When the soft, enervating air of Corinth's luxuriousness steals over you like the mild air of Lotus-Land, 'Stand fast in the faith'! When the cold wind of persecution assails you like an icy blast from the north, 'Stand fast in the faith'! If some supercilious philosopher comes along and breathes cynically upon your new-found piety and devotion, 'Stand fast in the faith'! Stand fast in your faith and meet all your antagonisms there."

And has that counsel no pertinency for the Christian believers of our own time? There are some among us who are ready, because of the unspeakable horrors through which we are passing, to throw their faith away like obsolete arms and armour. Now men who can drop their faith in the day of real emergency have never been really held by it. That is surely true; men who can drop their faith like a handkerchief have never known their faith as a strong and vital defence. And yet that is what you sometimes find them doing in modern novels. They just drop their faith as they would drop a pair of gloves. Robert Elsmere, in Mrs. Humphry Ward's story of twenty years ago, dropped his faith in about ten days. If my memory serves me truly, George Eliot dropped her faith in about the same length of time. If our faith has ever meant anything vital, it will be as difficult to drop it as to drop our skin. But it is the inexperienced who are in peril. It is the young recruit who is dangerously convulsed by the upheavals of our day, and it is to him I bring the nerving counsel of the Lord: "Stand fast in the faith!"

"Stand fast in the faith!" What faith? "The faith once for all delivered to the saints." Stand fast in the faith of the atoning Saviour as the secret of the reconciliation of mankind. Stand fast in the faith of the risen Lord as the secret and promise of racial union and brotherhood. Stand fast in the faith of the Holy Spirit as the source of all the light and cheer which illumines the race. Stand fast in your own personal faith in the exalted Lord. Don't doubt Him! Don't suspect Him! Don't desert Him! Above all, don't sell Him! In this hour of darkness, when devilry seems to be pulling down the very pillars of the temple, stand fast in the faith, and let this be your strong but humble cry:

"Although the fig-tree shall not blossom, Neither shall fruit be in the vines; The labour of the olive shall fail, And the fields shall yield no meat; The flock shall be cut off from the fold, And there shall be no herd in the stalls: Yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will joy in the God of my salvation."

And the third note in the great apostle's counsel in this: "Quit you like men." Our translators have taken four words to express a single word in the original letter. We have no one English word which can carry the splendid load of meaning. It really means--play the man! It really means--no funk! All the school children will know the value of that word. It is a good strong vital English word, and I am sure it expresses the spirit of the apostle's counsel to these young recruits. Lowell uses it in the Bigelow Papers: "To funk right out o' p'litical strife ain't thought to be the thing." No funk, soldiers of Christ! I have sometimes heard men talk of late as though the Lord were dead, and the game is up, and the Kingdom is in ruins. "Play the man!" The European soldiers of every nation are showing the world in their own sphere what it means to play the man. Some of us are becoming almost afraid to call ourselves soldiers of Jesus when we see what a true soldier really is. Think of it! Think of his readiness for the front! Think of his laughter in sacrifice! Think of his song in the midst of danger and pain! Think of his endurance even unto death! And then, think how we stand up and sing "Onward, Christian soldiers, marching as to war"! And shall we funk in the day of darkness and disaster, and after months of appalling bloodshed and woe shall we talk as if the campaign of righteousness were ended, and the Kingdom of Jesus is overturned? Let us stop this kind of talk. Let us silence this sort of fear. Let us crush this type of disloyalty. It is an insult to our flag; it is a dishonour to our Lord.

"Quit you like men, be strong!" Put strength into everything, and do everything strongly. Do not let us speak or serve in a faint, lax, irresolute, anaemic, dying sort of way. "Be strong!" Be strong in your prayers. Be strong in your moral and spiritual ambitions. Be strong in your visions and hopes. Be strong in your beneficence; strengthen it to the vigour of sacrifice. And if there be a devil, as more than ever I believe there is, let the Church surprise him by her strength. Let her turn the day of calamity into the day of opportunity. Let her transfigure the hour of disaster into the hour of deeper consecration. Let us make new vows. Let us enter into new devotion. Let us exercise ourselves in new chivalry. Let us go out in new ways of sacrifice. My brethren, God is not dead! "Watch ye, stand fast in the faith, quit you like men, be strong!"

"Stand up, stand up for Jesus! The trumpet call obey; Forth to the mighty conflict In this His glorious day. Ye that are men now serve Him Against unnumbered foes, Let courage rise with danger And strength to strength oppose.

"Stand up, stand up for Jesus! Ye soldiers of the Cross. Lift high His royal banner, It must not suffer loss. From victory unto victory His army shall He lead, Till every foe is vanquished, And Christ is Lord indeed!"

X

ENDURING HARDNESS

_Heavenly Father, may all our hearts be filled with Thy praise. May the spirit of Thanksgiving fill all our days, and deliver us from the mood of murmuring and complaint. Graciously remove the scales from our eyes, so that we may look upon our life with eyes anointed with the eye-salve of grace. Help us to discern Thy footprints in the ordinary road. Grant that we may now review our yesterdays and see the providences which have crowded our paths. Help us to see Thy name on blessings that we never recognized, so that we may now be praiseful where we have been indifferent. Redeem us from our spiritual sloth. Awake us out of our perilous sleep. May our consciences goad us when we are in peril. May the good desires within us be so strengthened as to destroy every desire that is vain. Sow in our hearts the word of Thy truth. Guard the seed with the vigilance of Thy blessed Spirit, and let it appear in our life as a fragrant and bountiful harvest. Graciously watch us and defend us and make us mighty in consecration, and may we place our all upon the altar. Amen._

X

ENDURING HARDNESS

"Thou therefore endure hardness as a good soldier of Jesus Christ." 2 Timothy 2:3.

Any military metaphor which is used to-day will surely have a very arresting significance. Many of our hymns are crowded with military terminology. In the Wesleyan Methodist Hymn-Book there is a whole section entitled "For Believers Fighting." We are all familiar with these martial hymns: "Onward, Christian Soldiers", "The Son of God goes forth to war", "Soldiers of Christ arise", "Stand up, stand up, for Jesus, ye soldiers of the cross", "Oft in danger, oft in woe, onward Christians, onward go." But too often the soldier-like hymn is only a bit of martial poetry which pleases the emotions but does not stir the will. We like the swing of the theme. It brings a sort of exhilaration into our moods, just as lively dance music awakes a nimble restlessness in our feet. Too often it is the song of the parade ground, and it is not broken with the awful thundering of the guns in actual war. But just now when we hear the phrase, "Endure hardness as a good soldier," our thoughts are carried away to the battlefields of Europe. We recall those roads like deeply ploughed fields! Those fields scooped by the shells into graves in which you can bury a score of men! Those trenches filling with the rain or snows, the hiding place of disease, and assailed continually with the most frightful engines of destruction! Pestilence on the prowl! Frost stiffening the limbs into benumbment! Death always possible before the next breath! These military metaphors in our hymns get some red blood into them when we use them against backgrounds and scenes like these. "Endure hardness as a good soldier."

Now the apostle calls for this soldierly spirit in Thessalonica. He is writing to young recruits in the army of the Lord. They are having their first baptism of fire. Their enemies are strong, subtle, ubiquitous. To be a Christian in Thessalonica was to face the fierce onslaught of overwhelming odds. But indeed in those early days, Christian believers, wherever they lived, had to be heroic in the defence of their faith and obedience. Everywhere circumstances were hostile. Nothing was won without sacrifice. Nothing was held without blood. To be a witness was to be a martyr. If a believer would be faithful to his Lord he must "fight the good fight of faith"; if he would extend the frontiers of the Kingdom of Heaven he must endure hardness as a good soldier of Jesus Christ.

What are the circumstances amid which the modern Church is placed? The Christian believer in our day is confronted with stupendous difficulties. Look at the present field on which our Christian warfare is to be waged. When the European war broke out I was staying at a quiet seaside village, from which I could see the soft green beauty of the mountains which encircle the English lakes. On the morning that war was proclaimed I felt as though some venerable and majestic temple had suddenly crumbled into dust. One of my most intimate friends, a noble German, was staying in my home, and we both felt as though some devil of mischief and disaster had toppled human affairs into confusion. The quiet sequence of human progress seemed to have been smashed at a stroke. The nations drew apart, and gulfs of isolation yawned between them, and down the gulfs there swept the cruel shrieking blasts of racial hatred and antipathy. Holy ministries which had been leagued in sacred fellowship were wrenched asunder. Spiritual communions which had been sweet and welcome curdled in the biting blast of resentment. The work of the Kingdom of our Lord was smitten as by an enemy; ploughshares were beaten into swords; pruning-hooks were transformed into spears; and instead of the fir and the myrtle-tree there sprang up the thorns and the briars. And then, to crown our difficulties, the red fury of war leaped into countries where our missionaries are proclaiming the gospel of peace, and the passion of battle began to burn where they are telling the story of the passion of Calvary, that holy passion of sacrifice which brought to the whole world redemption from sin, and reconciliation with God, and the promise of the life that now is, and of that which is to come.

Our immediate circumstances do not offer the soldiers of Jesus an easy parade ground where we can just loll and sing our lilting songs; they rather offer us a fearfully rugged and broken field which demands as heroic and chivalrous virtues as ever clothed a child of God. What shall we do? Is it the hour for craven fear or for a noble courage? What shall we do on our mission fields? Shall we cry "forward," or shall we sound the depressing and despairing note of retreat? Shall we throw up the sponge, or shall we, in the spirit of unprecedented sacrifice, march forward in our campaign, and endure hardness as good soldiers of Jesus Christ?

First of all, we must keep our eyes steadily fixed upon the object for which Christ died, that solemn and holy end for which He created and appointed His own Church. And what is that object? It is to let "all men know that all men move under a canopy of love" as broad as the blue sky above. It is to break down all middle walls of partition, and to merge the sundered peoples in the quickening communion of His grace. It is to unite all the kingdoms of the world in the one and radiant Kingdom of His love. That is the aim and purpose of our blessed Lord, and in all the shock and convulsions of to-day we must keep that object steadfastly in sight. It was said of Napoleon that "he never for a moment lost sight of his way onward in the dazzle and uproar of present circumstances." That is to say, Napoleon was never blinded by the glare of victory or by the lowering cloud of defeat. "He saw only the object." Quietness did not throw its perilous spell about him. Calamity did not turn his eyes from the forward way. He saw only the object, and the glory of the goal sent streams of energy into his will and into his feet at every step of the changing road.

Now our temptation is to permit events to determine our sight. There is the shimmer of gold on the right hand, and we turn to covet. There is the gleam of the sword on the left hand, and we turn in fear. We allow circumstances to govern our aims. Our eyes are deflected from their object by the dazzle or the uproar around us. And here is the peril of it all. When we lose the object of our warfare we begin to lose the campaign. And, therefore, one of the first necessities of the Christian Church in the present hour is to have our Lord's own purpose steadily in view, to keep her eyes glued upon that supreme end, and to allow nothing to turn her aside. "Let thine eyes look right on;" "Thy kingdom come;" "The kingdoms of this world shall become the Kingdom of our God;" "He must reign until He hath put all enemies under His feet." This, I say, is the pressing and immediate need of the good soldier of Christ Jesus, to refuse to have his single aim complicated by the entanglement of passing circumstances, and to constantly "apprehend that for which we also were apprehended by Christ Jesus our Lord."

What else shall we do in this hour of upheaval and disaster? The Church must eclipse the exploits of carnal warfare by the more glorious warfare of the spirit. Just recall the heroisms which are happening every day in Europe, and on which the eyes of the world are riveted with an almost mesmerized wonder! Think of the magnificent sacrifices! Think of the splendid courage! Think of the exquisite chivalry! Think of the incredible powers of endurance! And then, further, think that the Church of Christ is called upon to outshine these glories with demonstrations more glorious still.

This was surely one of the outstanding distinctions of apostolic life. Whenever hostilities confronted the early Church, whenever the first disciples were opposed by the gathered forces of the world, wherever the sword was bared and active, wherever tyranny exulted in sheer brutality, these early disciples unveiled a more splendid strength, and threw the carnal power into the shade. They faced their difficulties with such force and splendour of character that their very antagonisms became only the dark background on which the glory of the Lord was more manifestly revealed. Their courage rose with danger and eclipsed it!

Let me open one or two windows in the apostolic record which give us glimpses of this conquering life. Here, then, is a glimpse of the hostilities: "Let us straightly threaten them that they speak henceforth to no man in this name." There you have the naked tyranny of carnal power, and there you have the threat that burns through carnal speech. And now, over against that power put the action of the Church: "And they spake the word of God with boldness!" They were good soldiers of Jesus Christ, and by that boldness the tyranny and threat of carnal power were completely eclipsed.