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The True Victory

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Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Apr 16, 1872

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 39, No. 18.

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The True Victory.

Victory over self is victory over the world. It is not the outward enemy, but the traitor within, that storms or undermines the citadel of spiritual life. Alas, that the gates are so often unbarred for the hosts of evil to enter! Alas, that the soul should so easily surrender, and suffer itself to be laid waste!
As in the conflicts of nations, the conquering army re-enforces its own strength by the munitions of war taken from the vanquished foe, so does the victorious soul gather new force from every temptation.
Yet the victory is gained—not by self-confidence and spiritual pride, but by humility and self-abnegation. The humble soul alone is truly strong, and safe from fall.
What outward power can abuse him who, while he reverences the nature God has given him, still is lowly in his own eyes, “esteeming others better than himself?” What circumstances or condition of life can be adverse to him whose will is merged in the will of God? Oh! the strength that grows from self-denunciation! Oh! the peace that flows in upon the will subdued, when the man, though “lord of himself,” through entire mastery over his affections and passions, feels that all his “strength is in God,” and in the might of Him who overcame the world! To him the tide of life flows “like a broad river’s peaceful might,” through sunshine and through storm, bearing steadily on its appointed course. His abundant peace is not stoicism. Like that of his divine Master, his heart is the home of all sweet affections. He is still a being of smiles and tears—tenderly alive to the joys of human sympathy, both in giving and receiving the blessed charities of life. At leisure from internal strife, he has a word of courage for the tempted, comfort for the sorrowing, reproof for the hardened sinner, hope for the penitent.
Such lives are led by God’s best children here below. Lord, evermore grant us the peace that springs from victory over selfish aims, and the absorption of our wills into thine.—Sel.