Frontier Fighting

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Dec 13, 1910

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 37, No. 49.

Frontier Fighting

WITH most temptations, to get to close quarters is to seek disaster. A temptation is dangerous in direct ratio to its nearness to us. And there are many temptations that we do not need to let get near to us; we can see them coming, and can have them disposed of at a safe long range.

Bishop Oldham, of India and the Philippines, has given to young Christians the wise counsel, "Fight temptation on the frontier." It is when a temptation gets well within our heart, and is argued with or struggled with there, in our life citadel, that it has a terrible advantage.

There are outposts of our life—in our mind, and sight, and feelings—who usually recognize the approach of a temptation, and whose duty it is to notify instantly the forces at our disposal for the fighting and defeating of the temptation before it comes any closer. That is frontier fighting.

The only way this can really be done is to turn it over to Jesus Christ. When the message is flashed to us that the enemy is coming, when any temptation shows itself on the far horizon of our life, let us instantly cry, "Lord Jesus, defeat it for me, now, before it gets any closer." And He will. He loves to do this for us. We can move on, day by day, in habitual victory over besetting sins, when we let Christ rout them in this way on the frontier of our lives. It is so much easier than desperate struggling, and so much safer.—Sunday School Times.