The Preparation and the Conflict
By R.
NOW and again we hear some one lamenting over the failure morally of a young man or a young woman. "I wish they might have been under better influence. Had they been, they might have continued true." The influences of life are important; but it was God's plan that our youth should be so fully equipped morally when they leave home for the activities of life, that external influences would not swerve them from the right. It is true that the issue of every moral battle is a question of the relative strength of the external evil influence as compared with the internal steadfastness of a holy purpose. But even so, it is God's intention not to remove the external influence, but to outweigh and more than outweigh it with the strength of holy resolution. Men and women are not to evade the conflict by being reared in a sort of moral hothouse, where none but favorable influences prevail. The battles must come, the storms will drive; but they result in the fiber of soul that is like to that of the strong, unyielding oak. Not that we are to seek evil influences. Not that we are to walk boldly into temptation. Moral purpose, steadfast resolution for the right, is of itself an antagonism against sin that drives one by pure choice, by sheer abhorrence of evil, as far as can be from all that is unholy and impure. But for all of this, "It is impossible but that offenses will come." They are inevitable. These occasions of stumbling are the accompaniments of a wicked world. "But wo unto him, through whom they come." So long as sin is sin, and results in degradation, ruin, and death, he shall be held accountable who ventures to increase its volume in this already too wicked world. But God will not keep His own from that measure of temptation and evil influence that is necessary for them to bear as they hold their place in an evil world. God did not keep Daniel from all the unmeasured, uncounted seductions and blandishments of an idolatrous court in the days of Babylon. Daniel must live daily in the atmosphere of error and folly. But while God did not take him from the world, He kept him, gloriously kept him, from the awful evils of the world. Daniel grew to be a pillar of truth and righteousness. The strength of his life has gone out to nerve countless thousands to do valiant battle against the wiles of the world, the flesh, and the devil. God associated His chosen people with the Egyptian nation when it was at the very pinnacle of its glory, when it was mightiest for opulence, for conquest, and for idolatry. But in even that seductive age, we see a Moses calmly turning away from it all, and counting the reproaches of Christ greater riches than the treasures of Egypt. God's people were associated with the Assyrian nation when under its mightiest monarch it threatened the chosen of God with swift retribution and destruction. But in that hour of contest, we see the noble king Hezekiah opening the taunting letter of the idolatrous conqueror toward heaven, and leaving the unseen issue with God. And tho
"The Assyrian came down like the wolf on the fold,
And his cohorts were gleaming in purple and gold,"
Yet
"The might of the Gentile, unsmote by the sword,
Hath melted like snow in the glance of the Lord." And so in the days of Babylon, of Persia, of Rome, and of Greece, God matched His spiritual heroes against the martial heroes of the mighty nations, tho these nations stood at the time in the wealth of unparalleled worldly greatness. The steadfast loyalty of these noble citizens of the commonwealth of heaven rent in sunder the armored might of worldly kings, and shook to the earth the very pillars of their existence. And thus in the closing scenes of time in this mightiest of the dramas of all the ages, God will measure the might of his loyal ones against the might, the arrogance, the cruelty, the oppression of all the nations of all the world, as they concentrate against them not merely the power of one realm, but the power of every king and potentate and ruler whatsoever beneath the canopy of these earthly skies. In a little way from this the beast and the dragon and the false prophet shall muster all the armies of the world to the last great contest. He that dares to disobey, receives the sentence of death. But even so the loved ones of God come off victorious over the beast and his image, and by faith we behold them standing upon the crystal sea before the throne of God. They sing the song of Moses and the Lamb. The might of truth and righteousness9has prevailed above the might of error and sin. The kingdom of God, without the stress of arms or the shout of captains, has conquered. The kingdoms of this world have become the kingdoms of our Lord and of His Christ. And those who are training as candidates for that blest estate, must pass through trial and shame and mockery and seeming death. The temptations will be numerous enough, the way dark and tortuous. The seductions of the evil one will be specious and malign. We can not escape the battle. Endurance gives victory. Endurance produces the spiritual perfection. The ways of affliction are but the roads that lead to heaven. The trials are God's workmen, that fashion us over for the kingdom eternal. We can not escape trial. The greatest struggle of the ages is impending. But through Christ we already have the victory.