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LOST BATTLES

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Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jan 21, 1902

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 79, No. 3.

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LOST BATTLES.

By The Vanguard

The Vanguard.
WHEN Xerxes with his army of two million five hundred thousand fighting men marched down upon ancient Greece, did those brave Spartans with their fellow countrymen who rose to meet them, know how much depended upon their battles lost or gained? Did they realize that “the preservation of Grecian independence meant the preservation of the civilization of Europe?” We, perhaps, do not readily realize what the civilized nations of to-day owe to the valiant efforts of those people to prevent their rising country from coming under the sway of Eastern monarchy. So, how few comprehend the vast concerns that are pending in these individual life-battles of ours.
Perhaps it is only a small test that comes to you; some little matter in daily home life. But by it you become sorely tested and pressed. The Spirit draws you to prayer, but you wait, or let something hinder altogether. Your strength begins to grow small, and you do not triumph. This is a beginning—faith is weakened. Perhaps your children are unsaved, or are exposed to countless pitfalls and to fiery temptations. How they need your most ardent prayers and the shelter of strong, unyielding arms of faith and love! But yours have been crippled. You may see and feel the need, but find yourself measurably paralyzed, and unable to meet it. For lack of this help that they require of you, and that God demands at your hands in their behalf, they fall an easy prey to the enemy and destroyer of their souls and bodies. Other battles come, and additional defeats add to your loss. Time rolls on, and you mourn the sight of your loved ones who are carried by the current to swell the number of wrecks that strew the shores of time and eternity.
The effects of these defeats do not stop within the limits of the home circle. Reaching forth, they extend to the utmost limits of your influence among neighbors and friends, and embrace every judgment-bound soul with whom you come in contact. This influence is most surely sowing, though perhaps imperceptibly to you, the seeds for eternal harvest.