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Contending for Christ

Selected Scriptures
2007.01.17
one28 Wednesday worship

We live in a day when fighting is improper and ill-advised. Going to battle is never right and no war is ever justified.

The problem is, we are already at war whether we acknowledge it or not. It is not a war between nations or against terrorists or even against flesh and blood, but it is a real fight nonetheless. We have a real enemy who constantly targets us for attack. The casualties of this conflict face tangible and eternal consequences.

The truth is that we are at war against the spiritual forces of evil. Our adversary is the devil himself who prowls around like a roaring lion seeking someone to devour. The battle of arguments and lofty opinions against the knowledge of God wages around us. And too many Christians are unwilling to stay the course.

As followers of Christ we rightly rehearse “turn the other cheek” and “love your enemies” when it comes to criticism and attacks on us personally. But when the assault is made against our Lord we must be trained to “contend earnestly for the faith” and “fight the good fight.” There is a time for peace, but there is also a time to fight.

It is easier to let things slide. It is easier to be quiet. It is easier to avoid the difficult conversations. It is easier to give in or give up instead of pushing back or speaking up. Perhaps we don’t value anything enough to fight for it. Maybe we don’t love Christ or His truth enough to contend for Him. But a truth not worth defending very soon becomes a truth not worth professing. And if we are unwilling to stand for truth and stand up for Christ we will lose the hope of His gospel.

Therefore we must look only to Christ against error and half-truth. We must Contend for Christ!

To help us learn how to contend well for Christ at the 07SR we turn to one of God’s faithful soldiers of the past: Charles Haddon Spurgeon. Spurgeon was a man deeply-in love with Christ:

I feel that if I could live a thousand lives, I would like to live them all for Christ, and I should even then feel that they were all too little a return for His great love to me.

We love our brethren for Jesus’ sake, but He is the chief among ten thousand, and the altogether lovely. We could not live without Him. Oh, for the power to live, to die, to labor, to suffer as unto Him, and unto Him alone!

And because of His great love for Christ he was intensely loyal to Christ. He was afraid that the gospel would be lost if men did not contend for Christ and truth:

When we cease, each of us, to maintain our own views of truth, and to maintain those views firmly and strenuously, then truth shall fly out of the land, and error alone shall reign.

The house is being robbed, its very walls are being digged down, but the good people who are in bed are too fond of the warmth, and too much afraid of getting broken heads, to go downstairs and meet the burglars….Compromise there can be none.

Yet, surely, there must be some who will fling aside the dastard love of peace, and speak out for our Lord, and for His truth. A craven spirit is upon many, and their tongues are paralyzed. Oh, for an outburst of true faith and holy zeal!

The clarity of the gospel deserves our fight. The eternal joy of sinners depends on it. The honor of our Lord demands it.

So Spurgeon rouses us to battle:

Everybody admires Luther! Yes, yes; but you do not want anyone else to do the same today. When you go to the…gardens you all admire the bear; but how would you like a bear at home, or a bear wandering about loose in the street? You tell me that would be unbearable, and no doubt you are right.

So, we admire a man who was firm in the faith, say four hundred years ago; the past ages are sort of a bear-pit or iron cage for him, but such a man today is a nuisance, and must be put down. Call him a narrow-minded bigot, or give him a worse name if can think of one. Yet imagine that in those ages past, Luther, Zwingli, Calvin and their (friends) had said, “The world is out of order; but if we try to set it right we shall only make a great (racket), and get ourselves in disgrace. Let us go to our chambers, put on our night caps, and sleep over the bad times, and perhaps when we wake things will have grown better.”

Such conduct on their part would have entailed upon us a heritage of error. Age after age would have gone down into the infernal deeps, and the pestiferous bogs of error would have swallowed all. These men loved the faith and the name of Jesus too well to see them trampled on. Note what we owe them, and let us pay to our sons the debt we owe our fathers.

It is today as it was in the Reformer’s days. Decision is needed. Here is the day for the man, where is the man for the day? We who have had the gospel passed to us by martyr hands dare not trifle with it, nor sit by and hear it denied by traitors, who pretend to love it, but inwardly abhor every line of it.

Look you sirs, there are ages yet to come. If the Lord does not speedily appear, there will come another generation, and another, and all these generations will be tainted and injured if we are not faithful to God and to His truth today.

Stand fast, my beloved, in the name of God! I, your brother in Christ, entreat you to abide in the truth. Quit yourselves like men, be strong. The Lord sustain you for Jesus’ sake. Amen.

May we learn to love men for Christ’s sake with big hearts like Spurgeon. May we be loyal to our Lord and willing to engage in battle for Him like Spurgeon. May we be bold truth-tellers and gospel-proclaimers regardless of the cost like Spurgeon. May we learn with Spurgeon at the 07SR to contend for Christ.