More Than Conquerors
A sermon
(No. 751)
Delivered on Lord's-day Morning, MAY 19, 1867, by
C.H.SPURGEON,
At the Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington
"No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him that
loved us."- Romans 8:37.
THE distinguishing mark of a Christian is his confidence in the love of
Christ and the yielding of his affections to Christ in return. First,
faith sets her seal upon the man by enabling the soul to say with the
Apostle, "Christ loved me and gave Himself for me." Then love gives the
countersign and stamps upon the heart gratitude and love to Jesus in
return. "We love Him because He first loved us." "God is love," and the
children of God are ruled in their inmost powers by love–the love of
Christ constrains them. They believe in Jesus' love and then they
reflect it. They rejoice that Divine love is set upon them. They feel
it shed abroad in their hearts by the Holy Spirit, which is given to
them, and then by force of gratitude they love fervently the Savior
with a pure heart.
In those grand old ages, which are the heroic period of the Christian
religion, this double mark was very clearly to be seen in all believers
in Jesus. They were men who knew the love of Christ and rested upon it
as a man leans upon a staff whose trustiness he has tried. They did not
speak of Christ's love as though it were a myth to be respected, a
tradition to be reverenced–they viewed it as a blessed reality and
they cast their whole confidence upon it, being persuaded that it would
bear them up as upon eagles' wings, and carry them all their days. They
were assured that it would be to them a foundation of rock against
which the waves might beat, and the winds blow, but their soul's
habitation would stand securely if founded upon it.
The love which they felt towards the Lord Jesus was not a quiet emotion
which they hid within themselves in the secret chamber of their souls,
and which they only spoke of in their private assemblies when they met
on the first day of the week and sung hymns in honor of Christ Jesus
the Crucified. It was a passion with them of such a vehement and
all-consuming energy that it permeated all their lives, became visible
in all their actions, spoke in their common talk, and looked out of
their eyes–even in their most common glances. Love to Jesus was a
flame which fed upon the very marrow of their bones, the core and heart
of their being, and, therefore, from its own force burned its way into
the outer man and shone there.
Zeal for the glory of King Jesus was the seal and mark of all genuine
Christians. Because of their dependence upon Christ's love they dared
much! And because of their love to Christ they did much. Because of
their reliance upon the love of Jesus they were not afraid of their
enemies! And because of their love to Jesus they scorned to shun the
foe even when he appeared in the most dreadful forms. The Christians of
the early ages sacrificed themselves continually upon the altar of
Christ with joy and willingness. Wherever they were they bore testimony
against the evil customs which surrounded them.
They counted it foul scorn for a Christian to be as others were–they
would not conform themselves to the world– they could not, for they
were transformed by the renewing of their minds! Their love to Christ
compelled them to bear their witness against everything which
dishonored Christ by being contrary to truth, and righteousness, and
love. They were innovators, reformers, image-breakers everywhere! They
could not be quiet and let others do as they pleased while they
followed out their own views. And their protest was continual,
incessant, annoying to the foe, but acceptable to
God.
In every place the Christian was a speckled bird, because love to Jesus
would not allow him to disguise his convictions. He was everywhere a
stranger and an alien because the very language of his everyday life
differed from that of his neighbors. Where others blasphemed, he
adored. Where others used oaths habitually, his "yes" was yes, and his
"no," no. Where others girt on the sword, he resisted not evil. Where
others were, each man, seeking his own and not his
brother's welfare, the Christian was known as being one whose treasure
was in Heaven, and who had set his affections upon things above.
This love to Jesus made the Christian a perpetual protestor against
evil for the sake of Jesus. It led him yet further– he became a
constant witness to the Truth of God which he had found so precious in
his own soul. Christian men were like Naphtali, of whom it was said:
"Naphtali is a hind let loose he gives goodly words." Tongue-tied
Christians, silent witnesses, were scarcely known in Apostolic days.
The matron talked of Christ to her servants. The child, having learned
of Jesus, spoke of Him in the schools.
The Christian workman at the shop testified, and the Christian minister
(and these were many in those days, for all men ministered according to
their ability) stood in the corners of the streets, or met in their own
hired houses with tens or twenties, as the case might be. They were
always declaring the doctrine of the Incarnation of Christ, and of His
death and Resurrection and of the cleansing power of His blood. The
love of Jesus, I have said at the commencement, was a real passion with
those men and their confidence in Jesus was real and practical. And
therefore their testimony for Jesus was bold, clear, and decided.
There was a trumpet ring in ancient Christian testimony which startled
the old world which was lying in a deep sleep, dreaming filthy dreams.
That world loved not to be so aroused, and turning over in its sleep,
muttered curses deep and many and vowed revenge against the disturber
who dared break its horrible repose. Meanwhile believers in Jesus, men
not satisfied with witnessing by their lives and testifying by their
tongues in the places where their lot was cast, were continually
commissioning fresh bands of missionaries to carry the Word into other
districts.
It was not enough for Paul to preach the Gospel at Jerusalem or
Damascus, he must journey into Pisidia and Pam-phylia. He must journey
to the utmost verge of Asia Minor, and then, so full of Christ is he
that he dreams of eternal life, and when he falls asleep, he sees in a
vision a man of Macedonia across the blue Aegean, entreating him, "Come
over and help us." And with the morning light Paul rises, fully
resolved to take ship and preach the Gospel among the Gentiles.
Having preached Christ throughout all Greece, he passed over to Italy,
and though chained, he entered as God's ambassador within the walls of
the imperial city of Rome! And it is believed that after that, his
sacredly restless spirit was not satisfied with preaching throughout
Italy, but he must cross into Spain, and it is said even into Britain
itself. The ambition of the Christian for Christ was boundless! Beyond
pillars of Hercules, to the utmost islands of the sea, believers in
Jesus carried the news of a Savior born for the sons ofmen!
Those were days of ardor. I fear these are days of lukewarmness. Those
were times when the flame was like coals of juniper which have a most
vehement heat, and neither shipwreck, nor peril by robbers, nor peril
by rivers, nor peril by false brethren, nor the sword itself, could
stay the enthusiasm of the saints, for they believed, and therefore
spoke! They loved, and therefore served–even to the death.
Thus I introduce to you our text. Behold the men and their conflict for
Christ! It was natural, it was inevitable that they should provoke
enmity. You and I do not love Christ much, nor believe much in His
love–I mean the most of us. We are a sickly, unworthy, degenerate
generation. We let the world alone. The world lets us alone. We conform
a great deal to worldly customs and the world is not annoyed by us. We
do not dog the world's heels, perpetually declaring the Truth of God as
we ought to do, and therefore the world is not impatient with us–it
thinks us a very good sort of people, a little whimsy, crazed about the
head perhaps, but still very bearable and well-behaved–and so we do
not meet with half the enemies which they did of old because we are not
half such true Christians, no, not one-tenth such saints as they!
But if we were more holy, in proportion as we were so we should meet
with the same battle, though it may be in another shape. Though I spoke
thus censoriously of all, there are some few here, I trust, who have
been enabled by Divine Grace to know the power of the love of Jesus and
who are living under its influences, and contending for the sovereignty
of the thorn-crowned King! These are they who will endure the same
fight in other forms as the conflict of Apostolic days, and these are
they who may use, without falsehood, the language of my text: "In all
these things we are more than conquerors through Him that loved us."
I will ask you, this morning, as we are assisted by the Holy Spirit,
first, to consider the victories already won. Secondly, the laurels of
the fight. Thirdly, the men who won them, and fourthly, the power by
which the conquest was achieved.
I. First, this morning, we shall view THE VICTORIES ALREADY WON by
those who have been possessed by the love of Jesus. Look attentively at
the champion. It needs no stretch of the imagination to conceive this
place to be a Roman amphitheatre. There in the midst of the arena
stands the hero. The great doors of the lion's dens are lifted up by
machinery, and as soon as the lairs are open, rushing forth with fury
come bears and lions, and wild beasts of all kinds, that have been
starved into ferocity, with which the champion is to contend.
Such was the Christian in Paul's day, such is he now. The world is the
theater of conflict–angels and devils look on. A great cloud of
witnesses view the fight–and monsters are let loose against him, with
whom he must contend triumphantly. The Apostle gives us a little
summary of the evils with which we must fight, and he places first,
"tribulation." The word "tribulation," in the Latin, signifies
threshing, and God's people are often cast upon the threshing floor to
be beaten with the heavy flail of trouble. But they are more than
conquerors since they lose nothing but their straw and chaff, and the
pure wheat is thus separated from that which was of no benefit to it.
The original Greek word, however, suggests pressure from without. It is
used in the case of persons who are bearing heavy burdens, and are
heavily pressed upon. Now, Believers have had to contend with outward
circumstances more or less in all ages. At the present day there are
very few who do not at some time or other in their lives meet with
outward pressure–either from sickness or from loss of goods, or from
bereavements–or from some other of the thousand and one causes from
which affliction springs. The Christian has not a smooth pathway. "In
the world you shall have tribulation," is a sure promise which never
fails of fulfillment.
But under all burdens true Believers have been sustained. No
afflictions have ever been able to destroy their confidence in God. It
is said of the palm tree that the more weights they hang upon it the
more straight and the more lofty does it tower towards Heaven. And it
is so with the Christian. Like Job, he is never so glorious as when he
has passed through the loss of all things–and at last rises from his
dunghill more mighty than a king! Brethren, you must expect to meet
with this adversary so long as you are here, and if you now suffer the
pressure of affliction, remember you must overcome it and not yield to
it. Cry unto the Strong for strength–that your tribulation may work
out for you patience, and patience experience–and experience hope that
makes not ashamed.
The next in the list is "distress." I find that the Greek word rather
refers to mental grief than to anything external. The Christian suffers
from external circumstances, but this is probably a less affliction
than internal woe. "Straitness of place" is something like the Greek
word. We sometimes get into a position in which we feel as if we could
not move, and are not able to turn to the right hand or to the left.
The way is shut up. We see no deliverance and our own consciousness of
feebleness and perplexity is unbearably terrible.
Do you ever get into this state in which your mind is distracted and
you know not what to do? You cannot calm and steady yourself. You
would, if you could, consider calmly the conflict and then enter into
it like a man with all his wits about him. But the devil and the
world–outward trial and inward despondency combined–toss you to and
fro like the waves of the sea, till you are, to use John Bunyan's Saxon
expression, "much tumbled up and down in your mind." Well, now, if you
are a genuine Christian you will come out of this all right enough. You
will be more than a conqueror over mental distress.
You will take this burden, as well as every other, to your Lord, and
cast it upon Him. And the Holy Spirit, whose office it is to be the
Comforter, will say to the troubled waves of your heart, "Be still."
Jesus shall say, as He walks the tempest of your soul, "It is I, be not
afraid." And though the outward tribulation and the inward distress
meet together like two contending seas, they shall both be calmed by
the power of the Lord Jesus.
The third evil the Apostle mentions is "persecution," which has always
fallen upon the genuine lovers of Christ. Their good name has been
slandered. I should blush to repeat the villainies which have been
uttered against the saints of the olden times. Suffice it to say there
is no crime in the category of vice which has not been falsely laid to
the door of the followers of the pure and holy Jesus. Yet slander did
not crush the Church! The fair name of Christianity outlived the
reputation of the men who had the effrontery to accuse her.
Imprisonment followed slander, but in prisons God's saints have sung
like birds in cages–better than when they were in the fields of open
liberty!
Prisons have glowed into palaces, and been sanctified into the dwelling
places of God Himself–more sacred by far than all the consecrated
domes of gorgeous architecture! Persecution has sometimes taken to
banishing the saints–but in their banishment they have been at
home–and when scattered far and wide they have gone everywhere
preaching the
Word and their scattering has been the gathering together of others of
the elect. When persecution has even resorted to the most cruel
torments, God has had many a sweet song from the rack. The joyful notes
of holy Lawrence, broiling upon the gridiron, must have been more sweet
to God than the songs of cherubim and seraphim–for he loved God more
than the brightest of them–and he proved it in his bitterest anguish!
And holy Mr. Hawkes, when his lower extremities were burnt and they
expected to see him fall over the chain into the fire, lifted his
flaming hands, each finger spurting fire, and clapped them three times,
with the shout of, "None but Christ, none but Christ!" God was honored
more by that burning man than even by the ten thousand times ten
thousand who ceaselessly hymn His praises in Glory. Persecution, in all
its forms, has fallen upon the Christian Church, and up to this moment
it has never achieved a triumph, but rather it has been an essential
benefit to the Church, for it cleared her of hypocrisy. When cast into
the fire the pure gold lost nothing but its dross and tin which it
might well be glad to lose.
Then the Apostle adds "famine." We are not exposed to this evil so much
nowadays, but in Paul's time those who were banished were frequently
carried to places where they could not exercise their handicraft to
earn their bread. They were taken away from their situations, from
their friends, from their acquaintances. They suffered the loss of all
their goods and consequently they did not know where to find even the
necessary sustenance for their bodies. And no doubt there are some now
who are great losers by their conscientious convictions–who are called
to suffer, in a measure, even famine itself. Then the devil whispers,
"You ought to look after your house and children. You must not follow
your religion so as to lose your bread." Ah, my Friend, we shall then
see whether you have the faith that can conquer famine! A faith that
can look gaunt hunger in the face–look through the ribs of the
skeleton, and yet say, "Ah, famine itself I will bear sooner than sell
my conscience, and stain my love to Christ."
Then comes nakedness, another terrible form of poverty. The Christian
banished from house to house and prevented from working at his trade,
was not able to procure necessary funds and therefore his garments
gradually fell to rags, and the rags, one by one, disappeared. At other
times the persecutors stripped men and women naked to make them yield
to shame. But nakedness, even in the case of the most tender and
sensitive spirits, though such were exposed to this evil in the olden
days, was unable to daunt the unconquerable spirit of the saints! There
are stories in the old martyrologies of men and women who have had to
suffer this indignity, and it is reported by those who looked on that
they never seemed to be so gloriously arrayed! For when they were stood
naked before the whole bestial throng, that they might gaze upon them
with their cruel eyes, their very bodies seemed to glow with glory, as
with calm countenance they surveyed their enemies, and gave themselves
up to die.
The Apostle mentions next to nakedness, peril–that is, constant
exposure to sudden death. This was the life of the early Christian. "We
die daily," said the Apostle. They were never sure of a moment's mercy
for a new edict might come forth from the Roman emperor to sweep the
Christians away. They went literally with their lives in their hands
wherever they went. Some of their perils were voluntarily encountered
for the spread of the Gospel–perils by rivers and by robbers were the
lot of the Christian missionary going through inhospitable climes to
declare the Gospel. Other perils were the result of persecution, but we
are told here that Believers in Jesus so steadily reposed upon Christ's
love that they did not feel peril to be peril–and the love of Christ
so lifted them up above the ordinary thoughts of flesh and blood, that
even when perils became perils, indeed, they entered upon them with
joy, out of love to their Lord and Master.
And to close the list, as if there were a sort of perfection in these
evils, the seventh thing is the sword, that is to say, the Apostle Paul
singles out one cruel form of death as a picture of the whole. You
know, and I need not tell you, how the noble army of my Master's
martyrs have given their necks to the sword as cheerfully as the bride
upon the marriage day gives her hand to the bridegroom. You know how
they have gone to the stake and kissed the firewood. How they have sung
on the way to death, though death was attended with the most cruel
torments. And you know how they rejoiced with exceedingly great joy,
even to leaping and dancing at the thought of being counted worthy to
suffer for Christ's sake.
The Apostle tells us that the saints have suffered all these things put
together. He does not say in some of these things we are conquerors,
but in all! Many Believers literally passed through outward need,
inward trial, persecution, need of bread, lack of raiment, the constant
hazard of life, and at last laid down life itself–and yet in every
case through the whole list of these gloomy fights–Believers were more
than conquerors. Beloved, this day you are not, the most of you, called
to peril, or nakedness, or sword. If you were, my Lord would give you
Grace to bear the test! But I think the trou-
bles of a Christian man at the present moment, though not outwardly so
terrible, are yet more hard to bear than even those of the fiery age!
We have to bear the sneer of the world–that is little–its
blandishments, its soft words, its oily speeches, its fawning, its
hypocrisy are far worse! O Sirs, your danger is lest you grow rich and
become proud! Lest you give yourselves up to the fashions of this
present evil world and lose your faith! If you cannot be torn in pieces
by the roaring lion, you may be hugged to death by the bear! And the
devil cares little which it is so long as he gets your love to Christ
out of you, and destroys your confidence in Him. I fear that the
Christian Church is far more likely to lose her integrity in these soft
and silken days than she was in those rough times! Are there not many
professing Christians whose methods of trade are just as vicious as the
methods of trade of the most shifty and tricky of the unconverted?
Have we not some professed Christians who are worldly altogether? Whose
non-attendance at our meetings for prayer, whose want of liberality to
Christ's cause, whose entire conduct, indeed, proves that if there is
any grace in them at all, it is not the Grace which conquers the world,
but the pretended grace which lets the world put its foot upon its
neck? We must be awake now, for we traverse the enchanted ground, and
are more likely to be ruined than ever, unless our faith in Jesus is a
reality, and our love to Jesus a vehement flame.
We are likely to become bastards and not sons, tares and not wheat,
hypocrites with fair vineyards, but not the true living children of the
living God! Christians, do not think that these are times in which you
can dispense with watchfulness or with holy ardor? You need these
things more now than ever, and may God the eternal Spirit display His
Omnipotence in you, that you may be able to say, in all these softer
things as well as in the rougher, "We are more than conquerors through
Him that loved us."
II. I shall with great brevity turn to the second head of the
discourse. Let us inspect THE LAURELS OF THE FIGHT. Up to now Believers
have been conquerors, but the text says they have, been "more than
conquerors." How is that? The word in the original is one of the
Apostle Paul's strong expressions. It might be rendered, "more
exceedingly conquerors." The Vulgate, I think, has a word in it which
means, "over over-comers," over and above conquering. For a Christian
to be a conqueror is a great thing–how can he be more than a
conqueror?
I think in many respects, first, a Christian is better than some
conquerors because the power by which he overcomes is far nobler. Here
is a champion just come from the Greek games. He has well-near killed
his adversary in a severe boxing match, and he comes in to receive the
crown. Step up to him, look at that arm, and observe the muscles and
sinews. Why, the man's muscles are like steel, and you say to him, "I
do not wonder that you beat and bruised your foe. If I had set up a
machine made of steel that worked by a little watery vapor, it could
have done the same, though nothing but mere matter would have been at
work.
"You are a stronger man and more vigorous in constitution than your
foe–that is clear–but where is the particular glory about that? One
machine is stronger than another. No doubt credit is to be given to you
for your endurance, after a sort, but you are just one big brute
beating another big brute. Dogs, and bulls, and gamecocks, and all
kinds of animals would have endured as much, and perhaps more." Now,
see the Christian champion coming from the fight, having won the
victory! Look at him! He has overcome human wisdom–but when I look at
him, I perceive no learning nor cunning. He is a simple, unlettered
person who knows that Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners.
Yet he has won the victory over profound philosophers–then he is more
than a conqueror!
He has been tempted and tried in all sorts of ways, and he was not at
all a crafty person. He was very weak, yet somehow he has conquered.
Now this is being more than a conqueror–when weakness overcomes
strength–when brute force is baffled by gentleness and love! This is
victory, indeed, when the little things overcome the great things! When
the base things of this world overthrow the mighty, and the things that
are not bring to nothing the things that are! Yet this is just the
triumph of Divine Grace. The Christian is, viewed according to the eye
of sense, weak as water. Yet faith knows him to be irresistible.
According to the eye of sense he is a thing to be trampled upon, for he
will not resist. And yet, in the sight of God he becomes in this very
way, by his gentleness and patience, more than a conqueror!
The Christian is more than a conqueror, again, because the conqueror
fights for victory–fights with some selfish motive. Even if the motive
is patriotism–although from another point of view, patriotism is one
of the highest of worldly virtues–yet it is only a magnificent
selfishness by which one contends for one's own country instead of
being subject to the far more generous cosmopolitan thought of caring
for all men. But the Christian fights neither for any set
of men nor for himself–in contending for the Truth of God he contends
for all men, but especially for God! And in suffering for the right he
suffers with no prospect of earthly gain.
He becomes more than a conqueror both by the strength with which he
fights and the motives by which he is sus-tained–which are better than
the motives and the strength which sustain other conquerors. He is more
than a conqueror because he loses nothing even by the fight itself.
When a battle is won, at any rate the winning side loses something. In
most wars the gain seldom makes any recompense for the effusion of
blood. But the Christian's faith, when tried, grows stronger! His
patience, when tempted, becomes more patient! His graces are like the
fabled Anteus, who, when thrown to the ground, sprang up stronger than
before by touching his mother, Earth.
The Christian, by touching his God and falling down in helplessness
into the arms of the Most High grows stronger by all that he is made to
suffer. He is more than a conqueror because he loses nothing even by
the fight, and gains won-drously by the victory. He is more than a
conqueror over persecution because most conquerors have to struggle and
agonize to win the conquest. But, my Brothers and Sisters, many
Christians, yes, and all Christians–when their faith in Christ is
strong and their love to Christ is fervent–have found it even easy to
overcome suffering for the Lord. Look at Blandina, enveloped in a net,
tossed upon the horns of bulls, and then made to sit in a red hot iron
chair to die, and yet unconquered to the end!
What did the tormentors say to the emperor–"Oh, Emperor," said the
tormentors, "We are ashamed, for these Christians mock us while they
suffer your cruelties." Indeed, the tormentors often seemed to be
themselves tormented– they were worried to think they could not
conquer timid women and children. They devoured their own hearts with
rage! Like the viper which gnaws at the file, they broke their teeth
against the iron strength of Christian faith! They could not endure it
because these people suffered without repining, endured without
retracting, and glorified Christ in the fires without complaining!
I love to think of Christ's army of martyrs! Yes, and of all His Church
marching over the battlefield, singing as they fight–never ceasing the
song, never suffering a note to fall–and at the same time advancing
from victory to victory chanting the sacred hallelujah while they tramp
over their foes. I saw one day upon the lake of Orta, in northern
Italy, on some holy-day of the church of Rome, a number of boats coming
from all quarters of the lake towards the church upon the central islet
of the lake. It was singularly beautiful to hear the splash of the oars
and the sound of song as the boats came up in long processions, with
all the villagers in them, bearing their banners to the appointed place
of meeting. As the oars splashed they kept time to the rowers, and the
rowers never missed a stroke because they sang–neither was the song
marred because of the splash of the oars–but on they came, singing and
rowing!
And so has it been with the Church of God. That oar of obedience, and
that other oar of suffering–the Church has learned to ply both of
these, and to sing as she rows: "Thanks be unto God, who always makes
us to triumph in every place!" Though we are made to suffer, and are
made to fight, yet we are more than conquerors, because we are
conquerors even while fighting! We sing even in the heat of the battle,
waving high the banner and dividing the spoil even in the center of the
fray. When the fight is hottest we are then the most happy! And when
the strife is most stern, then most blessed! And when the battle grows
most arduous, then, "calm mid the bewildering cry, confident of
victory." Thus the saints have been in those respects more than
conquerors.
More than conquerors I hope, this day, because they have conquered
their enemies by doing them good, converting their persecutors by their
patience. To use the old Protestant motto, the Church has been the
anvil, and the world has been the hammer–and though the anvil has done
nothing but bear the stroke, she has broken all the hammers as she will
do to the world's end! All true Believers who really trust in Jesus'
love, and are really fired with it, will be far more glorious than the
Roman conqueror when he drove his milk-white steeds through the
imperial city's streets. Then the young men and maidens, matrons and
old men gathered to the windows and chimney tops and scattered flowers
upon the conquering legions as they came along.
But what is this compared with the triumph which is going on even now
as the great host of God's elect come streaming through the streets of
the New Jerusalem? What flowers are they which angels strew in the path
of the blessed! What songs are those which rise from yonder halls of
Zion, jubilant with song as the saints pass along to their everlasting
habitations!
III. The time has almost failed me, and therefore, in the third place,
but two or three words. Who are THE PERSONS THAT HAVE CONQUERED?
Attentively regard these few words which I utter. The men who conquered
in the fight up till now have been known only by this–the two things I
mentioned at the first–men who believed in Christ's love to them, and
who were possessed with love to Christ! There has been no other
distinction than this. They have been rich–Caesar's household yielded
martyrs. They have been poor–the inscriptions on the tombs of the
catacombs are few of them spelt correctly–they must have been very
poor and illiterate persons who constituted the majority of the first
Christian Churches, yet all classes have conquered.
At the stake bishops have burned and princes have died. But more
numerous, still, have been the weavers and the tailors, and the
seamstresses. The poorest of the poor have been as brave as the
wealthy! The learned have died gloriously, but the unlearned have
almost stolen the palm. Little children have suffered for Christ. Their
little souls, washed in the blood of Jesus, have also been encrimsoned
with their own! Meanwhile, the aged have not been behind. It must have
been a sad but glorious sight to see old Latimer, when past seventy,
putting off all his garments but his shirt, and then standing up and
saying, as he turned round to Mr. Ridley, "Courage, Brother! We shall
this day light such a candle in England as, by the Grace of God, shall
never be put out."
Oh, if you wish to serve my Master, old men, you have not passed the
prime of your days for that! Young men, if you would be heroes, now is
the opportunity! You who are poor, you may glow with as great a glory
as the rich! And you who have substance may count it your joy if you
are called in the high places of the field to do battle for your Lord!
There is room for all who love the Lord in this fight, and there are
crowns for each. O that God would only give us the spirit and the
strength to enlist in His army and to fight till we win the crown! I
leave that point, beloved Friends, hoping that you will enlarge upon it
in your thoughts.
' IV. And now to close. The Apostle distinctly tells us, THE POWER,
MYSTERIOUS AND IRRESISTIBLE,
WHICH SUSTAINED THESE MORE THAN CONQUERORS, was, "through Him that
loved us." They conquered
through Christ's being their Captain. Much depends upon the leader.
Christ showed them how to conquer by personally enduring suffering and
conquering as their Example. They triumphed through Christ as their
Teacher, for His doctrines strengthened their minds, made them strong,
made them angelic, made them Divine–for He made them partakers of the
Divine Nature.
But, above all, they conquered because Christ was actually with them!
His body was in Heaven, for He has risen, but His Spirit was with them.
We learn from all the history of the saints that Christ has a way of
infusing supernatural strength into the weakest of the weak. The Holy
Spirit, when He comes into contact with our poor, wavering, feeble
spirits, girds us up to something which is absolutely impossible to man
alone. You look at man as he is, and what can he do? Brethren, he can
do nothing! "Without Me, you can do nothing." But look at man with God
in him and I will reverse the question–What can he not do?
I do not see a man burning in yonder fires, I see Christ suffering in
that man! I do not see a martyr in prison so much as the Divine power
laughing at the thought of imprisonment and scorning iron bands. I do
not so much see a simple-minded virgin, uneducated, contending with
sophists and cavilers as I see the Spirit of the living God speaking
through her simple tongue–teaching her in the same hour what she shall
speak–and proving the Truth of God that the foolishness of God is
greater than the wisdom of man, and the feebleness of God is stronger
than the power of man!
Oh, it is glorious to think that God should thus take the meanest,
poorest, most feeble things and should put Himself into them, and then
say, "Come on, all you that are wise and great, and I will baffle you
through those that are foolish and feeble! Now, come, you devils of
Hell! Come, you men of earth who breathe out threats, and foam with
cruelty! Come all of you, and this poor defenseless one shall laugh you
all to scorn, and triumph even to the last!"
It is the power of Christ! And did you notice the name by which the
Apostle called our Lord in the text? It is so significant that I think
it is the key to the text, "Through Him that loved us." Yes, love
yielded them victory! They knew He loved them, had loved them, always
would love them! They knew that if they suffered for His sake it was
His love which let them suffer for their ultimate gain, and for His
permanent honor. They felt that He loved them. They could not doubt it!
They never mistrusted that fact and this it was that made them so
strong.
O Beloved, are you weak today? Go to Him that loved you! Does your love
grow cold today? Do not go to Moses to get it improved. Do not search
your own heart with a view of finding anything good there, but go at
once to Him that
loved you! Think, this morning, of our Lord's leaving Heaven and of His
Incarnation upon earth. Think especially of the bloody sweat of
Gethsemane, the wounds of Calvary, the dying thirst, the, "My God! My
God! Why have You forsaken Me?" Think of all that! Get Christ's love to
you burnt into your inmost consciousness, and in the strength of this
fear no difficulties, dread no tribulations, but march to your
life-battle as the heroes of old went to theirs–and you shall return
with your crowns of victory as they returned with theirs!
And you shall find that verse which we just now sang to be most
divinely true–
"And they who, with their Leader, have conquered in the fight, Forever
and forever, are clad in robes of white."
__________________________________________________________________
The King In His Beauty
A sermon