THERE are two important reasons why the Church of God should contend earnestly for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints.
First.—The glory of God, in time, is so intimately connected with the revelation of His mind and name in the word of truth that the one is lost sight of as the other is ignored.
(1) In the work of creation, as the Bible records it, the glory of the infinite wisdom, power and Godhead of the Trinity was made manifest. This is a mirror in which the psalmist saw much of His glory, when he exclaimed in an ecstasy of admiration, “When I consider thy heavens the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars which thou hast ordained; what is man that thou art mindful of him? and the son of man that thou visitest him?” (2) Immediately upon the entrance of sin, the inexorable glory of His justice, holiness, and truth blazed with such effulgence from His throne throughout the whole rational creation, thoroughly convincing the angelic hosts, “that God hath no pleasure in wickedness; neither shall evil dwell with him. The foolish shall not stand in his sight; he hates all workers of iniquity.” They saw all this in “that God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down to hell, and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved unto judgment.” The glory of His power and wisdom in creation, and of His justice, holiness, and truthfulness were all displayed anterior to the fall of Adam, and of his posterity in him. Adam yielded to the temptations of Satan, broke the covenant of his God, and thereby, the whole human race immediately fell under the same sentence of condemnation with the angels that sinned. Satan may have thought that he had succeeded in ruining the whole human race, and in despoiling God of His glory in connection with the creation of man, and in destroying the image of God and His likeness in which man was created. The wisdom, power, justice, holiness, and truth of God would have remained impregnable forts defending His glory eternally; but Satan and man had obliterated, through sin, the obedience, reverence, and love due to God from His rational creatures of mankind. The victory seemed to be on the side of Satan. The whole human race were, willingly, his lawful captives, and were already on the way to hell. Who could deliver them? God’s justice demanded their eternal punishment in that everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels. “Then thou spakest in vision to thy Holy One, and saidst, I have laid help upon One that is mighty.” “For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that he might destroy the works of the devil.” (3) Therefore a revelation of the free, sovereign love, purposes, mercy and grace of God was made to man, and therein the glory of the grace of God, in connection with the purpose of election, redemption, justification, sanctification, and glorification of sinners by the Mediator, or the seed of the woman held forth. The covenant of redemption or grace was brought to light whereby God should be glorified on earth, the works of the evil one destroyed, and the election of grace saved by Jesus Christ. Thus a glory accrues to God from the work of redemption, and restoration of guilty sinners that exceeds the glory of His justice in their condemnation. Against this glory of the grace of the Most High the adversary and his children have been contending since it has been revealed in this world. All the above facts are set forth in the Word of God, or “the faith which was once delivered unto the saints.”
Second.—The eternal salvation of perishing and guilty sinners depends upon “this faith which was once delivered unto the saints.”
The Scriptures principally teach what man is to believe concerning God, and what duty God requires of man. “Without faith it is impossible to please God.” Again, “Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God.” Therefore salvation is so absolutely connected with the Word of God that none of our lost race, capable of making use of it, can be saved without it. Infatuated he must be who endeavours its destruction, for “where there is no vision, the people perish.” Let us now in humble dependence upon the Spirit of truth, consider the words of the text.
I.—The cause of contention.
II.—The two contending parties.
III.—The method prescribed for the saints in their contending for the faith.
Jude, as a faithful servant of Jesus Christ, seeing the faith attacked, warned the saints of the imminent danger to which they were exposed. He reminded them that they had had warnings in the inspired writings of Christ’s apostles concerning this danger, and that they had much need of holding fast the form of sound words in faith and love which is in Christ Jesus. This was a duty which they owed to Christ’s cause, to some who were led astray by the craftiness of the enemies of the faith, and to mankind down to the end of time.
I.—The cause of contention is “the faith which was once delivered unto the saints.”
(1) This embraces the whole Word of God. “The Word of God, which is contained in the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments, is the only rule to direct us how we may glorify and enjoy him.” “God, who at sundry times, and in divers manners, spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds.” Again, “All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness; that the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works.” This word God continued to commit to His own Church from the first promise in the garden of Eden till the record was solemnly closed by the book of Revelation. No book or portion of this heavenly record had to be delivered twice. The saints of the Most High kept this precious deposit most carefully in every generation. Thus was the word of reconciliation committed to and kept by the Church till it has come to our hands, and will be kept by Christ’s seed until He shall appear the second time sitting upon the great white throne. The Church is the pillar and ground of truth, and while she keeps lies without her ground, and the truth in its entirety emblazoned on her standards, she is terrible as an army with banners. The Church of Christ, taking her stand upon the rock of truth, overcomes by faith all her enemies. “My Spirit that is upon thee, and my words which I have put in thy mouth shall not depart out of thy mouth, nor out of the mouth of thy seed, nor out of the mouth of thy seed’s seed, saith the Lord, from henceforth and for ever.” Nothing will overcome the devil, the world, and the flesh, but implicit faith in the Word of God. Who are the true Church? And how can they be distinguished? We answer briefly, “Where two or three are met together in my name.” The saints having His Word as a lamp to their feet and a light to their path listened to the voice of God in that word, and refused to be led away by the delusions of Satan. The Bible contained their whole faith regarding spiritual and eternal realities and the purposes of God towards a guilty and perishing world. The word that proceeded from His mouth was of more value to them than thousands of gold and silver.
(2) It is of the utmost importance that the word of the truth of the gospel should be so firmly held by the Church that none could be acknowledged as a member who should doubt any part of it; but it is in the heart that the Lord is delighted with the truth. The faith was once delivered to the saints personally and subjectively. The true nature of saving faith which justifies before God must be held. An error here is certain ruin. “Without faith it is impossible to please God.” Faith without charity or love is nothing. All sinners are by nature dead in trespasses and in sins. The dead can never awaken themselves. When the Lord asked Ezekiel the question, “Can these bones live?” the prophet replied, “O Lord God, thou knowest.” The Holy Spirit, through the reading but especially the preaching of the Word, awakens the dead faculties of the guilty sinner to realise the wrath and curse of God’s law and justice, under which he lies. This is fully demonstrated by the Word of God. The three thousand on the day of Pentecost, and the Philippian jailor are indubitable proofs. Then the sinner begins in agony to ask the question, “What must I do to be saved?” He has got no knowledge of saving faith, however elaborate his knowledge of the letter of the Word of God may have been. The Holy Spirit through the Word quickens the dead soul, regenerating it by the Word, and works faith in the soul, and enables it to embrace Jesus Christ freely offered in the Gospel. Christ by His Spirit comes into the heart, and dwells there, and the believer by faith enters into Christ—lives and walks in Him. This faith is described in Scripture as “the gift of God,” as “a most holy faith,” and as “a precious faith.” There is more in it than a mere assent to the historical facts and truthfulness of God’s Word, for many can lay claim to that rational faith who are never saved. “The devils believe and tremble.” Saving faith looks unto Christ in His humiliation, obedience, sufferings, and death, and lays hold, by the power of the Holy Ghost, upon Christ in all He did, and in all He now does before the throne of God, as the great High Priest, pleading the merit of His own death and shedding of blood upon Calvary’s cross. The sinner takes Christ as his own. The love of God is shed abroad in his heart by the Holy Ghost, and he is made exceeding glad in the reconciled countenance of God the Father in Christ. He calls upon the heavens, seas, earth, and all that they contain to help him to sing of the mercy of God for ever. As he feels himself now taken out of the fearful pit and miry clay, and his feet set upon the rock, he can take a view of the prospect set before his eye in the Word of God. God shines into his heart, giving the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ Jesus. Looking backwards, he sees the fountain from which all the grace and mercy flow which are revealed in this world, the electing love of God—Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. The covenant of grace is unfolded to his mind, as it stands between the Father and the Son; the heart-melting love of Christ revealed in the pity and compassion of his humiliation, sufferings, and death, for sinners and for himself personally causes him to cry, “Who loved me, and gave himself for me;” the love of the Spirit by which He came to his guilty soul, awakened, quickened, and enlightened him in the knowledge of the fearful disease of sin, and of Jesus Christ, the great Physician; the pardon of sins which God, the Father, the Judge bestowed upon him, justifying him freely by imputing the righteousness of Christ to him, and bestowing faith upon him to receive Christ; the peace with God which flowed into his guilty soul in that moment in which the Spirit purged his guilty conscience from sin, and how this made all things new to him; the proof he had of this, in that the Spirit by the promise of the Word spoke it to his heart in some such words as these—“I, even I, am he that blotteth out thy transgressions for mine own sake, and will not remember thy sins.” He is now amazed why other sinners are not seeing the beauty and the glory in Christ that fills his own soul with such delightful admiration. He cannot pass his fellow-sinners on the public road without urging them to believe in Christ and be saved. This is only a new-born babe. “As new-born babes desire the sincere milk of the word, that ye may grow thereby; if so be ye have tasted that the Lord is gracious.” The Holy Spirit keeps the Word almost without ceasing in the mouth of faith, and the soul drinks in and is “satisfied with the breasts of her consolations; that ye may milk out, and be delighted with the abundance of her glory.” Children are not fit for wars and contentions. They must be weaned and made to eat strong food, like men, before they are sent a warfare. “Whom shall he teach knowledge, and whom shall he make to understand doctrine? them that are weaned from the milk and drawn from the breasts.” The psalmist knew these things when he said—“Surely I have behaved and quieted myself, as a child that is weaned of my mother: my soul is even as a weaned child.” The weaned child by-and-bye must be sent to school to learn. Into what school must he go? Christ says, “Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” The Apostle Paul describes what he learned in this school. “I have learned, in whatever state I am, therewith to be content. I know how to be abased, and I know how to abound: everywhere, and in all things, I am instructed both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need. I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me.” The prophet Isaiah learned a difficult lesson before he became a soldier for Christ. “Then said I, Woe is me! for I am undone; because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips: for mine eyes have seen the king, the Lord of hosts. Then flew one of the seraphim unto me, having a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with the tongs from off the altar: and he laid it upon my mouth, and said, Lo, this hath touched thy lips: and thine iniquity is taken away, and thy sin purged. Also I heard the voice of the Lord saying, Whom shall I send, and who will go for us? Then said I, Here am I: send me. And he said, Go.” Though a man had all the learning this world can furnish, and all the faiths imaginable, if he should be ignorant of the learning which can be found only at the feet of Christ, and of the faith which is above the power of man but which is the gift of God, he cannot “earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints.” The weakest saint, who has got Christ dwelling in his heart by faith, will overcome all his enemies, and will come to the joys of eternal glory.
But, as every inch of that way to Zion must be contended for by the sword of the Spirit, the believer need not expect rest by the way.
II.—Let us therefore review the contending parties.
1. The party against whom the contention must be sustained.
Satan has kept up a continual warfare with the seed of the woman since God revealed His purpose of mercy contained in the first promise, “I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.” As the servant of the Lord must not contend without the direct command of the Captain of the Lord’s hosts, he must carefully read his orders. Were he to take as his enemies such as might be called bigots, narrow-minded, and infatuated men, he might be, all the while, slaying his best friends. Therefore the enemies are brought into the field in their true colours. “By their fruits ye shall know them.” They are such as have crept into the church unawares, and were not detected until they began to air their thievish propensities. They vowed to assert, maintain, and defend her doctrines and principles, and to follow no divisive courses contrary to these, but their entire destruction was their intention. This is what we understand by their having “crept in unawares.” Are there not many who make this their boast, that though they bound themselves by the most solemn vows, both to the Most High and to their fellow-sinners, to contend for the faith, they had in their hearts a secret purpose to destroy the whole work of Reformation in Scotland? “The Confession of Faith,” which, by the “Questions and Formula,” they have avowed to be based upon the infallible Word of God, and to be the confession of their faith, they scout as a thing which none ought to hold or believe. Is it against the Confession alone they contend? No, for all their complaints are clearly against the Word of God, but they endeavour to screen their impiety from the eyes of the people. Some have been so bold as to have distinctly stated that the most of the works of both the Old and New Testaments are writings of doubtful human authorship. This is perjury of the deepest dye, and will not escape its due punishment from the Judge of all. The Spirit distinctly states in the words before us, in the context, that “they were before of old ordained to this condemnation.” “Woe unto the world because of offences! for it must needs be that offences come; but woe to that man by whom the offence cometh!” They are further characterised as “ungodly men, turning the grace of God into lasciviousness.” What are the most of the office-bearers of the churches in this land doing but this? Churches are almost converted into theatres. Concerts, soirees, vain songs, and dancing are carried on under the guise of religion. Instrumental music, secular hymns, and lectures upon profane subjects on the Sabbath day, and in the place where they pretend to worship God, have driven the Word of God out of both pulpit and pew. The poor, deluded people are lulled asleep with false prophesying. They are taught that man is not the lost, dead, guilty, and wretched sinner the Word of God declares him to be; that God is nothing but love and mercy; and therefore that they have nothing to fear. These spiritual thieves still go further, “they deny the only Lord God and our Lord Jesus Christ.” Many hold the doctrine of the Socinians—”That Jesus Christ is only a creature, and therefore is not God.” Did not some affirm that one might be a good Christian, and not believe in the divinity of Christ? Is that the doctrine of the Church of Scotland or of the Word of God on the most essential tenet of our faith? The Word of God reveals the great mystery of the incarnation, “God was manifest in the flesh, justified in the spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up into glory.” In our context Jude says of them, “But these speak evil of those things which they know not: but what they know naturally, as brute beasts, in those things they corrupt themselves.” How different their views of the person of Christ are from those held by the apostles! Let us turn to the Epistle to the Hebrews, and look at the first chapter, and listen to the voice of God’s Spirit as to who Christ is: “Who being the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high.” Again, “Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee.” And again, “I will be to him a Father, and he shall be to me a Son. But unto the Son he saith, Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever; a sceptre of righteousness is the sceptre of thy kingdom. Thou hast loved righteousness, and hated iniquity; therefore God, even thy God, hath anointed thee with the oil of gladness above thy fellows. And, Thou, Lord, in the beginning hast laid the foundations of the earth; and the heavens are the works of thy hands; they shall perish, but thou remainest; and they all shall wax old as doth a garment; and as a vesture thou shalt fold them up, and they shall be changed; but thou art the same, and thy years shall not fail.” This is the Christ that was born in Bethlehem of Judah, and laid in a manger there. From the stable of Bethlehem to Calvary’s Cross the Son of God, in human nature, was under the law, its curse, and the penalty due to the sins of the elect. The obedience and sufferings were not that of a creature, but that of the Second Person of the Godhead. There never was such a sight as God vailed in flesh to obey His own law, and to make it honourable; and to atone for the guilt of sinners who had rebelled against Him, ruined themselves, and could never have saved themselves. His sacrifice is all-sufficient to satisfy divine justice, and to cleanse the sinner from the guilt and corruption of sin. This is the Christ held forth by our godly fathers in this land. This is the Christ of the Confession of Faith, because He is the Christ of the Word of God. If any other Christ be preached or declared in the confessions of men and churches he is only an idol of their own making. One thing is clear, that when men change their God they must of necessity change their creed to suit their new god. But as the Holy Ghost gives us three examples taken from the Old Testament Scriptures, we shall briefly consider them in their order.
(1) “Woe unto them! for they have gone the way of Cain.”
What way did Cain go in worshipping God? “Cain brought of the fruit of the ground an offering unto the Lord. And Abel, he also brought of the firstlings of his flock, and of the fat thereof. And the Lord had respect unto Abel, and to his offering; but unto Cain, and to his offering, he had no respect. And Cain was very wroth and his countenance fell.” Abel worshipped God by offering a sacrifice and shedding of blood. This mode of worship was instituted by God in the garden of Eden, before he drove our sinful parents out. Therefore Abel worshipped in accordance with “the faith which was once delivered unto the saints.” “Cain brought of the fruit of the ground an offering unto the Lord.” He did not worship God in accordance with the revelation He had given as to the worship He would accept, and therefore the Lord had no respect unto the inventions of Cain’s wisdom. He came to God, not looking by faith unto the one sacrifice and shedding of the blood of the Son of God on Calvary’s Cross, as godly Abel did. “By faith Abel offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain, by which he obtained witness that he was righteous, God testifying of his gifts; and by it he, being dead, yet speaketh.” Cain thought he had a right to bring innovations into the worship of God. As God had respect unto Abel, and unto his offering, but had no respect unto him, nor unto his offering, he immediately began to premeditate murder. He found fault with Abel for worshipping differently from him, and as Abel earnestly contended for the faith, he rose up and slew him. Many worship nowadays after Cain’s fashion. They worship God by hymns of human composition and human authorship, instead of the inspired psalms of David. They may be coming with the best of the fruit of the earth (in their hymns), but they are only the fruit of that which is earthly. Let them consider Cain. “Is any merry? let him sing psalms.” They worship with organs, instead of “By him (Christ), therefore let us offer the sacrifice of praise to God continually, that is, the fruit of our lips, giving thanks to his name.” They deny man’s total depravity, and, therefore, have no need of the atonement made upon the cross. Cain-like those, who will not submit to their unscriptural mode of worship, and declarations of faith, are made the objects of their hatred and envy. Were the law of the land favourable to their projects, the blood of their brother would have fouled their hands before this time. “For this is the message that ye have heard from the beginning, that we should love one another. Not as Cain, who was of that wicked one, and slew his brother. And wherefore slew he him? Because his own works were evil, and his brother’s righteous. Marvel not, my brethren, if the world hate you.” No works are more wicked, in the sight of God, than those which lead immortal souls away from worshipping God, as He has appointed in His own Word. Satan’s aims are to get this nation to disbelieve the truth of God, to pull down that which our godly fathers built upon Christ, the rock, and to set up idolatrous worship, and he finds too many Cains willing to assist him.
(2) The next class composing the enemies’ forces are described—”Woe unto them! for they ran greedily after the error of Balaam for reward.”
The error of Balaam is recorded in the Word of God. Balak, king of Moab, sent elders to Balaam to come to curse Israel, so that he might destroy them. “And God said to Balaam, Thou shalt not go with them: thou shalt not curse the people; for they are blessed. And Balaam rose up in the morning, and said unto the princes of Balak, Get you into your land; for the Lord refuseth to give me leave to go with you.” Balaam refused to go with idolaters to curse the people of God, but hints that had God allowed him he should go. It does not appear that he abhorred the very idea of complying with Balak’s request. So Balak sent him princes more honourable than the first, saying—”Let nothing hinder thee from coming unto me; for I will promote thee unto very great honour. . . . And Balaam answered, and said unto the servants of Balak, If Balak should give me his house full of silver and gold, I cannot go beyond the word of the Lord my God, to do less or more.” How many are there in Scotland who said the same words? When the Moabites of this land desired to unite with a body who hold doctrines and principles antagonistic to the crown rights of the King of kings and Lord of lords, and to the teaching of the Bible and the Confession of Faith about the atonement, many said—”My congregation and others will not allow me to go with you.” Others said—”We cannot commit so terrible a crime against God, His Word and people, and our own consciences, as to go with you.” The latter stood boldly till death removed them one by one. The Moabites came back again with a Declaratory Act to sweep away, by one stroke, all the blessings of the true Israel of God. At first, men declared that this Act meant “Bible or no Bible, atonement or no atonement,” and that nothing could ever prevail upon them to go with these men in their accursed work of destruction. When the time came to act, they—like Balaam—went with the Moabites to take part in their idolatrous worship, and to curse Israel. Who could believe a few years ago that the men who lectured to the people, in towns and country throughout Scotland, against such sacrilege, should be now fighting against the Word of God, the subordinate standards of the Church, their own statements in the past, and the few who could not follow them in their traitorous conduct? Wherein lay the secret of all this? The words of our text are very explicit on this point, “ran greedily after the error of Balaam for reward.” We have no doubt but promotion and the desire for being popular weighed much with some, but the love for reward was at the very root, and caused their contending for the faith to wither and die. The Apostle Peter, in warning the true Church against such men and their pretensions, points at this same thing. “Which have forsaken the right way, and are gone astray, following the way of Balaam the son of Bosor, who loved the wages of unrighteousness.” Let men say what they choose to the contrary, but the greed for reward, or the love of the wages of unrighteousness, and of a great place among men, were at the root of all the disgraceful compliance and most sinful compact formed between prophets and Moabites in Scotland. When men trample upon the conscience of the godly, break their vows to God and men, and are teaching Israel’s enemies to lay stumbling blocks before the people, their case is very desperate. Had Israel kept aloof from the Moabites, Balaam’s snares could not hurt them; but, going after strange flesh, twenty-three thousand of them fell of the plague. Let us therefore take the warning—”For whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning; that we, through patience and comfort of the scriptures, might have hope.” “Wherefore, let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall.”
(3) The third company appear with Core as their leader. “Woe unto them! for they perished in the gainsayings of Core.”
In the 16th chapter of Numbers the conspiracy of Core, &c., is recorded. Korah, Dathan, and Abiram, with two hundred and fifty of the renowned princes of the congregation “gathered themselves together against Moses and against Aaron, and said unto them, Ye take too much upon you, seeing all the congregation are holy, everyone of them, and the Lord is among them: Wherefore then lift ye up yourselves above the congregation of the Lord? And when Moses heard it he fell upon his face.” Notice the creed of these men. Moses spake much by the Word of God about the exceeding sinfulness of the congregation; but these men declare, “the congregation are holy, everyone of them.” There are many Korahs who hold this creed in our day. Moses and Aaron were set apart by God to lead the people—the one their lawgiver, the other their high priest. The Church of Christ must not lose a pin of either law or gospel. These two men took no undue honour to themselves; for the truth distinctly states that both were called of God. Why did these men raise such a cry against them? Probably they thought that they were abler leaders themselves. At any rate their creed was too narrow for them. They endeavoured before the whole congregation to ruin the influence of God’s servants. Had they attained their wish Moses and Aaron would not have had a single follower. The Lord can make of the lump of sinful clay one vessel to honour and another to dishonour. “He raiseth up the poor out of the dust, and lifteth the needy out of the dunghill; that he may set him with princes, even with the princes of his people.” Again, “He poureth contempt upon princes, and causeth them to wander in the wilderness where there is no way.” When He takes the worm Jacob by the hand, mountains are threshed like chaff before him, and carried away with the wind. Men say, “Do you take upon yourself to say that such an one is not more godly than any of you?” That sounds like the gainsayings of Core. Does that man of yours contend earnestly for the faith? Is he appearing against the enemies of the faith? or is he helping them, and causing them to succeed in leading the people astray better than they could otherwise do? Does he continue to warn the people against the destroyers of the faith now, as he did in the past? “To the law and to the testimony; if they speak not according to this Word, it is because there is no light in them.” Allow the truth of God to be doubted and carved by ungodly men at their pleasure, and you cannot be guiltless in church fellowship with such. The master mariner in mid-ocean who should throw his chart and compass overboard in a storm when neither sun, moon, nor stars could be seen, would not be so infatuated as the most of the so-called divines of Scotland to-day. The truth declares the need of “holding faith and a good conscience; which some having put away concerning faith have made a shipwreck.” This is metaphorical language, but very suggestive. A shipwreck is a most dangerous thing, as the apostle could certify by experience. Now, when some make shipwreck of the faith, and do all in their power to keep immortal souls in the wreck to ruin themselves and their posterity, who could find fault with the man that would “command the people that they which could swim should cast themselves first into the sea and get to land. And the rest, some on boards, and some on broken pieces of the ship.”
2. The defending party.
As I have taken up so much space already these can only be mentioned by quoting a text or two of the Word of God. “These shall make war with the Lamb, and the Lamb will overcome them: for he is Lord of lords and King of kings; and they that are with him are called, and chosen, and faithful.” That is the Captain of the Lord’s hosts, with a part of His followers, and who can doubt the issue of the fight? The Lamb alone shall overcome them. Christ alone is more than a match for all His enemies. His soldiers overcame also as we are told, “And they overcame by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony; and they loved not their lives unto death.”
III.—The method prescribed for the saints in the contending. “That ye should earnestly contend.”
1. The soldier must obey the orders of his captain.
“Thou therefore endure hardness as a good soldier of Jesus Christ. No one that warreth entangleth himself with the affairs of this life, that he may please him who hath chosen him to be a soldier.” This soldier must disentangle himself from earthly things, and set his face against wind and rain to make sure of fighting to the last. Demas stood many a battle, but the love of the world conquered him at last. Phygellus and Hermogenes turned away from “holding fast the form of sound words, and all they which are in Asia” followed them. Therefore Timothy must contend the more earnestly. Like Gideon’s army, the Lord’s orders are, “Whosoever is fearful and afraid let him depart early from Mount Gilead. And there returned of the people twenty and two thousand. . . . And the Lord said unto Gideon, By these three hundred men that lapped will I save you, and deliver the Midianites into thine hand.” The man who has got one eye towards the world, and the other towards the cause of Christ is in great danger. He may be compared to one holding a rope in each hand. While the tension is easy he can hold the two equally well, but let the tension become strong, and he must immediately let one of them go. He will act according to the value he sees in them respectively. If the Word of God be more precious to him than gold or silver, he will let the world go, and cling to the cause of Christ; on the other hand, if the world be greater and more precious in his estimation than the cause of Christ, he will let it go, and stick to the world.
2. The good soldier of Jesus Christ should do all in his power to get rid of the strength of the flesh with its weapons of warfare.
Like David when “Saul armed him with his armour, and he put a helmet of brass upon his head; also he armed him with his coat of mail. And David girded his sword upon his armour, and assayed to go; for he had not proved it. And David said unto Saul, I cannot go with these; for I have not proved them. And David put them off him.” David slew a lion and a bear in the strength of the God of Israel, and he would now do in His name what Saul, with his armour, and the whole army failed to do; he would slay Goliath, and pull down the insulting pride of the Philistines. “This charge I commit unto thee, son Timothy, according to the prophecies which went before on thee, that thou by them mightest war a good warfare; holding faith, and a good conscience.” The righteous is bold as a lion. He sees the power of carnal weapons extremely weak whether they be for or against him. The strongholds, which he has to attack both outwardly and inwardly, are impregnable without the perfect strength of Christ. “For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war after the flesh; (For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds;) casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ.” In order to accomplish his arduous task, this soldier must make up his mind to overcome all his spiritual and carnal enemies, or rest assured that he shall be overcome by them. There are no quarters in this fight. “Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord, and in the power of his might. Put on the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places. Wherefore take unto you the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand. Stand, therefore, having your loins girt about with truth, and having on the breastplate of righteousness; and your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace; above all, taking the shield of faith, wherewith ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked. And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God; praying always with all prayer and supplication in the spirit, and watching thereunto with all perseverance and supplication for all saints.”
3. Christ’s promise is, “I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world.”
“What shall we then say to these things? If God be for us, who can be against us?” Sin causes many bitter tears, hard words and thoughts, and much strife even among the true followers of Christ. Therefore, “Who is a wise man and endued with knowledge among you, let him show out of a good conversation his works with meekness and wisdom. But if ye have bitter envying and strife in your hearts, glory not, and lie not against the truth. This wisdom descendeth not from above, but is earthly, sensual, devilish. For where envy and strife is there is confusion and every evil work.” The Apostle Paul found Christ as good as His promise, and so will we if we hold fast the confidence of our hope, steadfast unto the end. He had to say, “At my first answer no man stood with me, but all men forsook me; I pray God that it may not be laid to their charge. Notwithstanding, the Lord stood with me, and strengthened me.” “I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith.” May the Lord grant us grace to contend earnestly for the faith, so that, when the hour of our departure comes, we may have a conscience clear from the blood of all men, and that it can be said of us, “All these died in the faith.” To God be all the praise for ever and ever. Amen.