“Fight the Lord’s battles.”
17. Here I would observe, that there are some people who are very fond of looking on, and not fighting. Perhaps five out of every six of our church do little except look on. You go to see them, and you say, “Well, what is your church doing?” “Well, we bless God, we are doing a great deal; we have a Sunday School, with so many children; our minister preaches so many times, and so many members have been added to the churches. The sick are visited; the poor are relieved.” And you stop them, and say, “Well, friend, I am glad to hear that you are doing so much; but what work do you do? Do you teach in the Sunday School?” “No.” “Do you preach in the street?” “No.” “Do you visit the sick?” “No.” “Do you assist in the discipline of the church?” “No.” “Do you contribute to the poor?” “No.” Yet I thought you said you were doing so much. Stand out, sir, if you please, you are doing nothing at all. Be ashamed! Your master does not say, “Look on at the Lord’s battles”; but “Fight” them. “Ah,” one says, “but then, you know, I contribute towards the support of the minister; he has to do that.” Oh! I see, you have made a mistake; you thought that you belonged to the English government, and not to Christ’s government. You have been paying for a substitute, have you? You are not going to fight in person; you are paying to keep a substitute to fight for you. Ah, you have made a great mistake here. Christ will have all his soldiers fight. Why, I am not kept to do the fighting for you: I will endeavour to encourage you, and nerve you to the battle; but as to doing your duty, no, I thank you. The Romanist may believe that his priest does the work for him; I do not believe any such thing in my case, nor in the case of your ministers. Christ did not serve you by proxy, and you cannot serve him by proxy. No, “he himself bore our sins in his own body,” and you must work for Christ in your own body, your own self, with your own heart and with your own hands. I do hate that religion which another man can do for you. Depend upon it, it is good for nothing. True religion is a personal thing. Oh soldiers of the heavenly King, do not leave your lieutenants and your officers to fight alone. Come on with us; we wave our swords in front. Come comrades, on! we are ready to mount the wall, or lead the forlorn hope. Will you desert us? Come up the ladder with us. Let us show the enemy what Christian blood can do, and at the sword’s point let us drive our foes before us. If you leave us to do all, it will all be undone; we want everyone to do something, everyone to be labouring for Christ. Here, then, is the exhortation to each individual Christian — “Fight the Lord’s battles.”
18. And now, I will read you the martial code — the rules which Christ, the Captain, would have you obey in fighting his battles.
19. Regulation I. — NO COMMUNICATION NOR UNION WITH THE ENEMY!
20. “You are not of the world.” No truce, no league, no treaty, are you to make with the enemies of Christ. “Come out from among them, and be separate, and do not touch the unclean thing.”
21. Regulation II. — NO QUARTER TO BE GIVEN OR TAKEN!
22. You are not to say to the world, “There! believe me to be better than I am” — and do not ever believe the world to be better than it is? Do not ask it to excuse you; do not excuse it. No parley with it whatever. If it praises you, do not care for its praise; if it scorns, you laugh in its face. Have nothing to do with its pretended friendship. Ask nothing from its hands; let it be crucified to you, and you to it.
23. Regulation III. — NO WEAPONS OR AMMUNITION TAKEN FROM THE ENEMY ARE TO BE USED BY EMMANUEL’S SOLDIERS, BUT ARE TO BE UTTERLY BURNED WITH FIRE!
24. If you beat them, and you find their guns lying on the ground, spike them and melt them; never fire them off: — that is to say, never fight Christ’s battles with the devil’s weapons. If your enemy gets angry do not get angry with him; if he slanders you, do not slander him. One of the devil’s long guns is slander: spike it and melt it; do not attempt to use it against the enemy. All kinds of bitterness — these are firebrands of death which Satan hurls against us: never hurl them back at him. Remember your Master. “When he was reviled he did not revile again.” Never meddle with the enemy’s weapons, even if you can. If you think you can crush him by his own mode of warfare, do not do it. It was all very well for David to cut off Goliath’s head with his own sword; but it would not have done for him to try that, until he had first of all split his head open with a stone. Try to get a stone out of the brook of truth, and throw it with the sling of faith, but have nothing to do with Goliath’s sword; you will cut your fingers with it, and get no honour.
25. Regulation IV. — NO FEAR, TREMBLING, OR COWARDICE!
26. “The children of Ephraim, being armed, turned their backs in the day of battle”; but Christ wants no cowards. Do not fear. Remember, if any man is ashamed of Christ in this generation, Christ will be ashamed of him in the day when he comes in the glory of his Father and all his holy angels. “I say to you, do not fear him who can kill the body, but after that has no more that he can do; but fear him who is able to cast both body and soul into hell; I say to you, fear him.”
27. Regulation V. — NO SLUMBERING, REST, EASE, OR SURRENDER!
28. Be always at it, all at it, constantly at it, with all your might be at it. No rest. Your resting time is to come, in the grave. Be always fighting the enemy. Ask every day for grace to win a victory, and each night do not sleep unless you can feel that you have done something in the cause of Christ — have helped to carry the standard a little further into the midst of the enemy’s ranks. Oh! if we only attended to these regulations how much might be done! But because we forget them, the cause of Christ is retarded and the victory is slow.
29. And now, before I send you away, I would call out Christ’s soldiers, and drill them for a minute or two. I see sometimes the captains marching their soldiers to and fro, and you may laugh and say they are doing nothing; but note, all that manoeuvring, that forming into squares, and so forth, has its practical effect when they come into the field of battle. Allow me, then, to put the Christian through his exercises.
30. The first posture the Christian ought to take, and in which he ought to be very well practised, is this. DOWN UPON BOTH KNEES, HANDS UP, AND EYES UP TO HEAVEN! There is no posture like that. It is called the posture of prayer. When Christ’s church has been beaten every other way, it has at last taken to its knees, and then the whole army of the enemy has fled before us, for on its knees Christ’s church is more than conqueror. The praying legion is a legion of heroes. He who understands this posture has learned the first part of the heavenly drill.
31. The next posture is: FEET FAST, HANDS STILL, AND EYES UP! A hard posture that, though it looks very easy. “Stand still and see the salvation of God.” I have known many men who could practise the first position who could not practise the second. Perhaps that was the hardest thing that the children of Israel ever did. When they had the sea before them and Pharaoh behind them, they were commanded to stand still. But if you must learn to stand still when you are provoked, to be silent when you are mocked, to wait under adverse providences, and still believe that in the darkest hour the sun is not dead, but will shine again. May we all learn to wait patiently for Christ’s coming.
32. Another posture is this: QUICK MARCH, CONTINUALLY GOING ONWARD! Ah! there are some Christians who are constantly sleeping on their guns; but they do not understand the posture of going onward. Quick march! Many Christians seem to be better skilled in the goose step of lifting up one foot after another and putting them down in the same place, rather than going onwards. Oh! I wish we all knew how to progress — to “grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.” Never think you are doing anything unless you are going forward — have more
