WIN! WIN!! by Emma H. Adams

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Jan 23, 1896

WIN! WIN!!

By Emma H. Adams

BY EMMA H. ADAMS.

Every close student of Paul's epistles must have noticed the apostle's anxiety lest those who had received the Gospel by him, and had honestly entered the race for immortality, should fail of success. The intensity of his feeling on the subject suggests both the blessedness of victory and the sad consequences of failure. “Win at all hazards,” is the meaning of the many inspiring charges he sent out from his prison in Rome to the believers in Greece and Asia Minor.

He was concerned far less for Paul in chains, for “Paul the aged,” than for his sons and daughters in the Gospel, around whom Satan forged ceaselessly fetters of strong temptation. He seems to have known just how each little community was situated, and at what point it was weakest, and to have despatched to each the advice, the admonition, the portion of truth most needful to them in their danger. There are individual churches and individual Christians in just such need to-day, for the alert enemy discovers a vulnerable point now not less quickly than then.

Hear the faithful apostle, as he calls to mind the imperiled brethren at Colosse, for whom he had “great conflict” (fear, concern) “lest any man should beguile them with enticing words,” and also for them at Laodicea, who were “neither hot nor cold,” but were in danger of forgetting that they were running. To them all he cried: “Beware lest any man spoil [rob] you through philosophy and vain deceit.” “Let no man beguile you of your reward.”

And what was their reward? Paul styles them “the elect of God, holy and beloved,” tells them that they have put off the old man (old nature), and have put on the new man, renewed after the image of their Creator. Then, if overcomers, if runners to the end, their reward would be the exalted privilege of being made partakers of the divine nature, being made like their Redeemer—with possibility of death banished forever—to whom the heroic prisoner points them with words of triumph: “Ye are complete in him.” “Set your affections on things above, and not on things on the earth.”

From the imperial city, during his first incarceration, the thoughts of the ambassador for Christ sped often to Philippi, whither once an urgent prayer for help from a man of Macedonia had called him. He recalls, indeed, that in this same city “many stripes were laid upon” him and his fellow missionary, Silas, and they were cast into prison. Paul must have felt keenly the severity of that unmerited punishment, yet these memories did not quench his desire that the Philippian brethren—to whom it was given to suffer for Christ’s sake, yet in whose ranks there must have existed tokens of division—should be “without offense till the day of Christ.” Listen to his ringing message to

them, as appropriate to-day as when Paul penned its sentences:— “Stand fast in one spirit, with one mind, striving together for the faith of the Gospel.” “Beware of dogs [men rabid against the truth, against the religion of Christ, men who bark and snarl—with voice and pen—against his followers], beware of evil workers.” “Stand fast in the Lord, my dearly beloved.” So standing, what would be the result?—The peace of God which passeth understanding would keep their hearts and minds, through Christ, and God would supply all their need, in accordance with his riches in glory.

There were other flocks also over which the vigilant under shepherd kept watch. On the eastern shore of the Ægean Sea stood Ephesus, chief seaport of Lesser Asia, and once Paul’s abiding place for over three years. During this time “all they which dwelt in Asia heard the word of the Lord Jesus.” Ephesus was the center of the demoralizing worship of the “great goddess Diana,” and the theater of a luxurious and wicked life. But in the midst of it, to the glory of his grace, God had quickened a company of men and women once dead in trespasses and sins, making them members of his kingly household.

There must have been something in the character of these Ephesian Christians peculiarly pleasing, not only to Paul, in bonds, but also to the glorified Master who had called him to suffering. They must have been neither inattentive nor superficial students of the word of God during the apostle’s ministry among them. This is evident from the profound themes discussed in his epistle to them. It is filled with the “strong meat” of the truth, meat which, “by reason of use,” their minds had been “exercised to discern.” Yet to them Paul wrote: “I therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you that ye walk worthy of the vocation [high calling] wherewith ye are called.” They had been called to things too high for the heart of man to conceive fully—to membership in the true church, which is Christ’s body, to membership in the “little flock,” which the Spirit and the word are now taking out from among the gentiles, to membership in the order of kings and priests unto God during the ages to come. All this was, and, indeed, now is, high calling. In order that they might attain it, Paul urges: “Put off . . . the old man, which is corrupt. . . . Put on the new man [new mind, new purpose], which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness.” “Have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness.” “Put on the whole armor of God.”

All this potent advice shows how great is the danger of failure. Paul said to the Corinthians, skilled in the Isthmian games: “Know ye not that they which run in a race run all, but one receiveth the prize? So run, that ye may” win.