I.
MY Dear Friend, What a change you must have experienced when you left civil life to join the army. So many influences of a gracious nature have been left behind and having no expectation of making up this great loss you must be miserable indeed at times. In this I feel great sympathy for you. On the other hand I rejoice in the fact that you are a saved man, for as such you have all the blessings of the saved and none of the evils of the unsaved. If you will look for a moment at some of these blessings you will soon see that they far outweigh all the trials awaiting you.
What a tremendous advantage you have over many of your fellow-soldiers. I mean of those among them who are unconverted. Come what may, life or death, war or peace; nothing within the wide compass of your lot can cancel the obligations undertaken by your Redeemer on your behalf. War can, and will, find weaknesses in many things, but it cannot so much as test your security as a saved man. “Israel shall be saved in the Lord with an everlasting salvation.” Your salvation is in the Lord, or otherwise you have none at all. Being in the Lord it persists through all changing circumstances; either it is everlasting or it lasts not for a moment. Your salvation in the Lord admits of no degrees in its security. In the Lord it is final—absolute. Whatever changes your new life may bring, and I know that they will be very great, yet nothing can arise to question the permanency of your justification. That belongs to the past things which God has done. He did it in a moment, and, in His love and faithfulness, it was done forever. Another blessing which you enjoy is the assurance that the Lord is to go with you. Often, in the past you may have thought with pleasure on the words: “I will never leave thee nor forsake thee,” but what depths of meaning these words are to yield to you now. Do you ever think that it was worth while being in places of stress and danger just for the sake of getting His presence? It was after the War that a fellow-soldier put this question to me. A strange question it seems to you now, but you are on the way to a surprising solution of it. “Certainly I will be with thee.” He never intended that you should go through this alone; His purpose to be present with you and His purpose to set these trials before you are wrapped up in one loving intention. You cannot have peculiar troubles without His peculiar presence. Whether in the crowded billet or in midst of the numerous and pressing distractions of the battle-field you may fully expect to get great, clear, and frequent visitations from Jesus. Even when you have to divide your interest and attention between many things and persons, your soul will find periods of great aloneness when you will lift up your eyes and “see none safe Jesus only.”
I am not writing mystically. I write of sober fact and experience. A Person who is able to overcome every physical hinderance, and who desires to approach your soul directly and intimately has said: “Certainly I will be with thee.” Count on your meeting with Him in unlikely places. Credit Him with the most literal fulfilment of His Word. While you strap on your accoutrements, sling your rifle over your shoulder and step out “not knowing whether you go,” swing out with confidence.
His Word is passed; His mind is made up. In strange ways and unexpected places He will make good His promise to you. Another assurance you will find in Romans, chapter 8, verse 28, where we are given to know that “all things work together for good to them that love God.” Many of the “all things” spoken of in this verse appear to be quite contrary to our well-being. But among the different agencies at work in organising a war we must not lose sight of the fact that the special line set out for each of God’s people by the human agent is directed, after all, by the Lord Himself and I feel sure that He has something to teach you in the army; something which you could not learn at a prayer-meeting or in the warm circle of your own family.
Lessons taught on the battle-field are perhaps higher than any taught elsewhere. When I look at some of the things taught to us in the last war, I have no doubt but that all things were working together for the good of us who believed. I know that you pray for a blessing upon all that God sends into your lot, but do not be content to regard this blessing as some hazy, nebulous and elusive thing. He has definite things; things of outstanding importance for your spiritual welfare to teach you. Otherwise your loving Lord would not have set these hardships in your way Heavenwards. For instance, in the last war, he taught us to feel a great love and pity for our fellow-sinners. We hardly knew what they were like before, as most of our friends were of God’s people. As we understood their religious background, or perhaps lack of such, we became much less censorious and much more tender. Sin was still the awful thing that it will always be, but more than ever, we were given to look on the sinner through the tears shed over Jerusalem. Our need of Christian fellowship taught us another good lesson. We came to value grace wherever it was to be found irrespective of denomination. Our views of the Church of Christ drew nearer to our creed. The Church became really Catholic (in the true sense) to us and we became less parochial in our outlook.
And how many of us who were timid and ready before to shirk responsibility, grew up under army conditions to be manly and independent. We found our feet; many of us for the first time in our lives. Responsibility became a joy to us.—A Seaforth.
(To be continued.)