More Than Conquerors (Part 6)

  The following is from A. B. Simpson's book A Larger Christian Life:

"'More than conquerors' means not only to win your battle and save your territory, but to do honor to your Captain and your God, to be a credit to your cause and so to acquit yourself in the campaign that God shall be glorified. Many of our battles are fought in view of heaven alone. That is a strange picture that the apostle gives of his trials, 'We are made a gazing-stock to angels and principalities.'

"Have you not felt, beloved, in some quiet hour, in the secret of your closet, that you were going through a decisive battle which no mortal saw. Within the silent walls of your chamber an issue was being decided which would affect all eternity. The question was, should you be true to God, should you trust Him, should you obey God, or should you compromise? It was a great thing for you that you gained the victory, but it was a greater thing for your Lord.

"Oh, how intently He watches these spectacles! How the ranks of hell and heaven look on as some David and Goliath fight alone amidst the gaze of other worlds! How your Saviour's brow flushes with shame if you betray Him, or even shrink! How the ranks of hell shout with satisfaction when you betray the slightest weakness! And how your Master smiles with glad approval and sees of the travail of His soul with satisfaction, as like some ancient hero you dare to answer, 'Our God is able to deliver us, but if not we will not bow down to the graven image which thou hast set up.'

"Do you know, beloved, that Christ's greatest victories were alone with God and the devil? No human eye saw that victory in the wilderness, but God saw it and was glorified. Shall we stand for Him, and so stand that He can count us, as He did His ancient prophet, His very towers and fortresses behind which He can intrench Himself and His cause, and say to us, 'I have made thee this day a defenced city and an iron pillar and brazen walls against the whole land. They shall fight against thee, but they shall not prevail against thee. I have made thy face strong against their faces and thy forehead against their foreheads. As an adamant, harder than flint have I made thy forehead; fear them not, neither be dismayed at their looks though they be a rebellious house.'

"God wants men and women today, on whom He can depend, to stand as bulwarks and battlements against the shocks of hell's artillery. Men and women of whom he can say, 'upon this rock have I built my church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.' Shall we, beloved, be not only conquerors, but trusted soldiers whom God can use as His battle-axes and His weapons of war, as His mighty iron-clads, to carry the battle to the very ships of the enemy, not fearing their hardest blows, and hurling against them the thunder-bolts of His victorious power?"