We turn in our Bibles to 1 Corinthians
chapter 4, 1 Corinthians chapter 4, beginning with
verse 8.
Our subject this morning is discipleship and warfare.
1 Corinthians chapter 4, beginning with verse 8.
Now ye are full, now ye are rich,
ye have reigned as kings without us.
And I would to God ye did reign,
that we also might reign with you.
For I think that God hath set forth
us the apostles, last of all, as it
were appointed to death.
For we are made a spectacle unto the
world, and to angels, and to men.
We are fools for Christ's sake, but ye
are wise in Christ.
We are weak, but ye are strong.
Ye are honorable, but we are despised.
Even unto this present hour we both hunger,
and thirst, and are naked, and are buffeted,
and have no certain dwelling place.
Labor, working with our own hands, being reviled,
we bless.
Being persecuted, we suffer it.
Being defamed, we entreat.
We are made of the filth of the
world, and are the offscouring of all things
unto this day.
I write not these things to shame you,
but as my beloved sons I warn you.
For though ye have ten thousand instructors in
Christ, yet have ye not many fathers.
For in Christ Jesus I have begotten you
through the gospel.
Wherefore I beseech you, be ye followers of
me.
I think that even a casual reading of
the New Testament will tell us that Christianity
is not a pleasant pastime, but it's a
passionate quest.
It's not a matter of hurdy-gurdy entertainment.
It's a matter of warfare.
As you study the lives of the disciples,
the lives of the apostles, as they went
forth in the name of the Lord Jesus,
you know that they went forth as soldiers.
They didn't go forth wearing crowns.
They went forth bearing reproach.
And I really think, if we're going to
be honest with ourselves, that we'll have to
agree that much of what we see in
Christendom about us today, and which poses as
Christianity, is very far removed from the Christianity
that you find within the pages of the
New Testament.
I think Dr. Tozer has brought that very
forcibly to our attention in the following paragraph.
He says, Christ calls men to carry a
cross.
We call them to have fun in his
name.
He calls them to forsake the world.
We assure them that if they but accept
Christ, the world is their oyster.
He calls them to suffer.
We call them to enjoy all the bourgeois
comforts modern civilization affords.
He calls them to self-abnegation and death.
We call them to spread themselves like a
green bay tree, or perchance even to become
stars in a pitiful fifth-rate religious zodiac.
He calls them to holiness.
We call them to a cheap and pawdry
happiness that would have been rejected with scorn
by the least of the Stoic philosophers.
And once again, I think that if we
are to admit the truth, we'll have to
admit that this is a picture.
We'll have to admit that Christianity as it's
found in the New Testament is a struggle
to the death in which there is no
turning back.
That the Christianity of the Bible is a
Christianity in which we're engaged in a death
struggle against principalities and powers in heavenly places.
It's a war, and war is serious business.
And I think we just should spend some
time this morning thinking about this and reminding
ourselves of several points in connection with true
warfare, points that should carry over to our
Christian life.
And I would suggest, first of all, that
in war there must be unity.
There must be unity, and in Christian discipleship
there must be unity.
There's no time for bickering.
There's no time for petty jealousy.
There's no time for arguing over non-essentials
or for divided loyalties.
In the Christian faith, we must stand united
with one another.
You know, it's interesting to me that in
the Bible, the way to unity is through
humility.
In the church at Philippi, two of the
sisters weren't getting along too well, and the
apostle Paul dealt with the subject in chapter
two.
He heard that there were divisions and disputes
among them, and he holds up to them
the example of the Lord Jesus in his
humiliation.
It is coming and humbling himself as a
man here on earth.
And perhaps there are some here today who
are going through this sort of problem in
your local assembly or your local church.
Well, the secret is easy.
According to the word of God, if you
want to have a united church, you have
a group of Christians who are humble.
Humble Christians don't fight with one another.
Just as an illustration of that, I'm reminded
of Dr. Ironside.
Sometimes he would get up and preach, and
some of the people would get furious.
Maybe some man would tackle him at the
end of the meeting and start to argue,
at least try to promote an argument.
Dr. Ironside would say this.
He would say, My dear brother, when we
get to heaven, one of us is going
to be wrong, and perhaps it'll be me.
There was no fight.
You can't fight with a man like that,
can you?
It completely takes the wind out of your
sail.
The way to unity in the things of
God is through humility.
The scripture says, Only by pride cometh contention.
You show me contention in a local assembly
over matters that are not fundamental, and I'll
show you at least two people who are
proud.
At least two, because it takes two to
make a fight.
And if we really had a consciousness of
the death struggle in which we are engaged,
some of the present things that cause such
distress would be cast aside as nonessential.
Secondly, in warfare, there must be austerity and
sacrificial living.
Those of us who remember the Second World
War remember the system of rationing that went
on.
In any war of any consequence, this takes
place.
And in the Christian war, it should take
place too.
There should be austerity and sacrificial living.
On Wednesday night, I told you a young
man who was president of the freshman class
at a large Christian college, and who resigned
as president of the freshman class rather than
spend class funds for things which did not
result in the eternal blessing of souls.
And this morning, I'd like to read to
you the letter which he wrote and which
was distributed to all the members of the
freshman class the day his resignation was announced.
This is the letter.
It says, Dear Freshman, For the past two
weeks, the freshman class cabinet has been discussing
the thoughts which are presented in the letter
below.
After a time of much prayer and deliberation,
this letter was submitted to the student council
executive committee, which moved that the cabinet of
the class of 63 have the authority to
vote on its acceptance.
The student council also made the ruling that
since our freshman constitution is not specific on
the issue of office vacancy, that the vice
president of the class should take over the
duties of president due to the limited time
left in the unexpired freshman term.
With sincere regret, on Monday, March 7, the
cabinet unanimously voted to accept Roger's resignation.
This is his letter.
Dear Classmates, Since the matter of class parties,
jackets, and the class gift have been brought
before the cabinet, I, as the president of
the class, have been considering the Christian attitude
toward these areas.
I think we would find the greatest joy
for our own selves in giving ourselves, our
time, and our money entirely to Christ and
for others, thus finding the reality of his
words, He who loses his life for my
sake will find it.
For Christians to spend their money and time
on things that do not result in a
definite witness to the unbeliever, or for the
building up of his children in him, would
seem to be inconsistent with the fact that
7,000 people die daily from starvation, and
over half the world has never heard of
man's only hope.
How much more glory we could give to
God by helping to spread the gospel to
the other 60% of the world who've
never heard of Jesus Christ, or even in
many neighboring homes, instead of coming together in
a little clique by ourselves, limiting our social
well-roundedness to those of like mind and
wasting money and time for our own pleasure.
Since I am aware of specific needs and
opportunities where finances can be used to such
great advantage to the glory of Jesus Christ,
and for helping my neighbor here and abroad,
it's impossible for me to allow class funds
to be spent unnecessarily on ourselves.
If I were one of those who are
in so great a need, as I know
of so many to be, I would want
those who have the ability to do all
that they could to supply me with the
gospel and with my material need.
And as ye wish that men would do
to you, do so to them.
But if anyone has this world's goods and
sees his brother in need, yet closes his
heart against him, how does God's love abide
in him?
Therefore it is with love and prayer that
you might see the Lord Jesus giving his
all, that I hereby submit to you my
resignation as president of the class of sixty
-three.
In hymn with you, Roger Malster.
Did you know that verse, that letter I've
just read to you has really had a
profound effect in the hearts and lives of
young people throughout the midwestern area of the
United States.
We think that in order to keep young
people today in the Christian fold, that we
have to provide them with entertainment and a
lot of things like that.
But I want to tell you this, that
thinking young people go to the word of
God and they read what it says, and
they know what it means, and they can
detect sham when they see it too.
And here's an illustration of that.
A young fellow who's willing to realize that
this is war in which we're engaged, a
war for Christ, and he feels that there
should be sacrificial living in order that men
might not perish for want of the gospel.
Then thirdly, I would suggest this morning that
war demands suffering.
War demands suffering.
We have young people today that think nothing
at all of going into the armed forces,
of taking the training there, crawling under barbed
wire entanglements while a machine gun sprays bullets
overhead, doing all of this for Uncle Sam.
And yet when it comes to doing this
for our blessed Lord Jesus Christ, when it
comes to sacrifice for Him, it's a different
story.
You know, to me it's a crying shame
that there are young people today who would
do for a dollar bill what they wouldn't
do for Christ.
It's a crying shame to me to think
that there are men and women today who
would cross the ocean for standard oil, but
they wouldn't do it for the Savior.
Something wrong, isn't there?
I'm afraid there's something wrong.
A faith that costs nothing is worth exactly
that.
No considerations of personal safety or immunity from
suffering should stop us in our service for
the Lord.
I'd like you to turn to 2 Corinthians
chapter 11 in this connection, to me one
of the most superb passages in all the
writings of the Apostle Paul.
His apostleship had been called into question.
They said he wasn't a true apostle, he
was just a fraud, he was just an
imposter.
How does he defend himself against the charge?
2 Corinthians chapter 11, verse 23, he points
to his sufferings.
The other night I read a letter from
a young communist telling why he couldn't go
on with his engagement to his girl.
But here's a letter that's something greater than
that.
The letter of the great Apostle Paul, he
says in 2 Corinthians 11, verse 23, are
they ministers of Christ?
I speak as a fool, I'm more.
In labors more abundant, in stripes above measure,
in prisons more frequent, in deaths oft.
Of the Jews five times received I forty
stripes save one.
Thrice was I beaten with rods, once was
I stoned, thrice I suffered shipwreck, a night
and a day have I been in the
deep, in journeyings often, in perils of waters,
in perils of robbers, in perils by mine
own countrymen, in perils by the heathen, in
perils in the city, in perils of the
wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils
among false brethren, in weariness and painfulness, in
watchings often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings
often, in cold and nakedness, besides those things
which are about that which cometh upon me
daily, the care of all the churches.
I tell you when you read something like
that, there's reality there, isn't there?
But I think we all know deep in
our heart of hearts that this is true
Christianity.
I love to read in Paul's letter to
the Philippians where he writes to them and
he says, Yea, and if I be offered
upon the service and sacrifice of your faith,
I joy and rejoice with you all.
The thought of that passage is that Paul
was willing to be poured out in martyrdom
as a drink offering upon the service and
sacrifice of the Philippians' faith, and if that
happened to him, he would die exactly the
way he wanted to die.
He says that in the third chapter of
Philippians 2, that I may know him, the
power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of
his sufferings, being made conformable unto his death,
if by any means I might attain unto
the resurrection of the dead.
Paul had the martyr spirit.
I believe that passage of Scripture tells us
that Paul's attitude was this.
Did Jesus suffer?
Yes.
Well, then I don't want anything less in
life.
Did Jesus die, his body go into the
grave?
Yes.
Did he rise from among the dead?
Yes.
Well, I want to go home to heaven
the way he went home to heaven.
Darby suggests that Paul would have been embarrassed
to go to heaven and meet Stephen there,
whom he had helped to dispatch, if he
had gone home himself in any more comfortable
way.
So when you envision, stand by the executioner's
block in Rome and see Paul's head lopped
off and rolling on the ground, you can
say he died the way he wanted to
die.
This is the spirit that animated Jim Elliott
while he was still a young man at
Wheaton College.
He wrote in his diary, I am ready
to die for the Elkers.
I hadn't even heard of the Elkers at
that time.
So war demands suffering.
And war not only demands suffering, but it
demands implicit obedience.
Obedience.
We sometimes chuckle over the fact that young
fellows going to the army are told to
dig a hole and then they're told to
fill it up.
Terrible waste of time and of talent, isn't
it?
Not exactly.
The older you get, the more you think,
well, maybe that wasn't so unwise.
Because the army wants men who will obey
implicitly without asking questions.
And if they can train men to do
that in digging holes and filling it up,
perhaps they'll have men who in the crisis
of battle will advance when the call is
given.
And I don't know if you've ever thought
of it this way, but there are a
lot of things in the word of God
that are little tests of our obedience.
There are a lot of things, for instance,
in the writings of the apostle Paul.
And really, it's too bad the way some
people speak about them.
They say, oh, well, that was just a
part of the culture of the day in
which Paul lived, and that doesn't apply to
us today.
Just a little test of obedience, you know,
and we just wave it aside.
Or we say, oh, well, Paul wrote that.
Paul was a bachelor, you know, and Paul
was a woman-hater anyway, and if he
weren't, he never would have put that in.
They say, well, what's the matter with it
anyway?
Yeah, well, it says that there in the
scripture, but what's wrong with that?
And God, I think, has seen fit to
put little things in the word of God.
We might think of them as little things.
Instructions, commandments in the word of God, and
maybe when you sit down and think about
it, what's the matter with it?
Dear friends, I'd like to ask you something.
What was the matter with the fruit in
the Garden of Eden?
Why was it wrong for Adam and Eve
to eat the fruit?
Was the fruit poisonous, do you think?
I don't think so.
Nothing in the record to indicate the fruit
was poisonous.
Why was it wrong for Adam and Eve
to eat the fruit?
There's only one reason it was wrong, because
God said so.
And God tested obedience on that basis, and
he's doing it today.
Watch out when you go to the word
of God and start dealing lightly with it,
and start saying, well, that was just a
part of the culture of Paul's day, and
that doesn't apply to us today at all.
And Paul was this, and Paul was that.
Paul says, if any man among you think
of himself to be spiritual, let him acknowledge
that the things that I write unto you
are the what?
Anybody?
Commandments of the Lord.
Exactly right.
But in this war, God wants men and
women who will be obedient to him, and
not ask questions.
Could Christ be satisfied with anything less than
absolute obedience?
The idea is monstrous.
I was thrilled to read in Elizabeth Elliott's
latest book, the savage Mike Kinsman.
The foreword of the book was written by
an unsaved man named Cornel Capa, the photographer
who took such tremendous pictures down there in
Ecuador.
And in this foreword, he tells of how
one day he had a conversation with Betty
Elliott.
He said to her, how can you go
in among those wretched, savage, Alka Indians with
your little daughter, and expose yourself and your
daughter to danger and death?
And she said, the Lord will save us
from that.
And he said to her, why didn't the
Lord save your husband?
And she answered him, the Lord saved my
husband from being disobedient.
If he hadn't gone, he would have been
disobedient to the Lord.
And I'll never forget in the record how,
when those fellows were standing around the organ
that morning, they were singing, we rest in
thee our shield and our defender.
And the clock was ticking by the moment.
And the deadline was drawing near.
And one of them says, look, if we
don't move now, we're being disobedient.
They went forth to the cure our speech
and to their death.
That's what God wants in all of our
lives.
And then I would suggest to you next
that war demands skill in the use of
weapons.
We've already spoken of the weapon of prayer.
And war demands skill in the use of
the other weapon, and that is the word
of God.
The word of God.
You know, I noticed in the Sunday School
Times, of which Mr. Stacy Woods is now
president, that there was a quotation recently, where
a reporter asked Billy Graham, if he had
the last ten years to live over, how
would he do things differently?
He says, this is my plan for the
next decade.
I particularly plan to concentrate on the Scriptures.
I want to be saturated in the Scriptures
when the end of my life comes.
I like that.
I want to be saturated in the Scriptures
when the end of my life comes.
You know, a lot of us have that
intention.
And then the things of life crowd in,
and our little life slips by.
We go out into eternity, and we haven't
done what we know is of utmost importance.
We haven't really saturated ourselves in the Holy
Scriptures.
Mr. Robert Little, known to some of you,
was up in Evanston not long ago, speaking
in the assembly.
And at the end of his message, a
man came to him and said, Brother Little,
did I hear you get up and I
hear you expound the word of God?
He said, my, how I wish I had
that knowledge of the word of God.
He said, tell me.
He said, what can I do to get
the knowledge of the word of God that
you have?
You know what Mr. Little said to him?
He said, it's too late.
It was.
That's true of some here at the meeting
this morning.
Too late.
It isn't true of some of you young
people, perhaps.
But it is true of some of the
others.
A wise soldier will get to know his
weapons and know how to use them.
The wise soldier doesn't go around defending his
weapons either.
He goes around using them.
You know, in colleges and universities and schools
today, all kinds of doubts are being cast
upon the word of God.
The inspiration of the Scriptures, all kinds of
arguments are being brought against the Bible.
Dear friends, I don't spend my life going
around defending the Bible.
I'd rather use it.
Now, I know there is a place for
the defense of the Scriptures.
I know there is a place for apologetics.
But my advice to young people today is
get to know the word of God and
use it.
If I were in a sword duel and
a man said to me, I don't believe
that sword's real steel.
What would I do?
Give him a philosophical argument as to the
metallic content of the sword.
I should say not.
I'd give him a good jab with it.
Let him know.
I'd let him know it was real steel.
That's what I like to do with the
Scriptures too.
I like to use the Scriptures and see
them.
Get into the man and see him wince
under the power of God's precious weapon.
Well then, warfare demands that we know the
enemy and his strategy.
You might just turn quickly to Ephesians chapter
6 and verse 12.
We really don't have time to go into
this in detail.
Ephesians chapter 6 and verse 12.
For we wrestle not against flesh and blood,
but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers
of the darkness of this world, against the
spiritual wickedness in high places.
And one of the things that the young
Christian soldier has to realize is this.
That most of his opposition in the Christian
warfare will come from the religious world.
Satan, the dupes of Satan, pose as ministers
of righteousness.
And if you study the history of the
Christian warfare, you'll find that most of the
antagonism and most of the enmity has come
from men who pose as ministers of religion.
From those who wear the clerical garb, from
those who profess to be servants of Christ
and are actually his enemies, whose God is
their belly.
And then war demands undistractedness.
No man that warreth and tangleth himself with
the affairs of this world.
A true disciple of the Lord Jesus Christ
is ruthless.
He's intolerant against anything that comes between the
soul and Jesus Christ and faithful, loyal service
to him.
Then finally, war demands courage.
There's no room for retreat.
We're more than conquerors through him that loved
us.
Why should we turn back if that's the
case?
In the portion of scripture I read at
the beginning of our little talk, the Apostle
Paul draws a very apt picture.
He's speaking to the Corinthians.
He pictures them as it were in the
amphitheater.
And they're sitting in the box seats and
they have crowns upon their heads.
The Apostle Paul and the other apostles are
down in the arena with wild beasts, whether
men or whether animals.
They're suffering.
They're being torn.
They're being taken apart, as it were, and
the Corinthians are sitting with the crowns upon
their heads.
And Paul says, I would to God that
you did have crowns.
I wish that the crowning time had come,
but it hasn't.
You know, there is a day when Christians
are going to have crowns, but that day
hasn't come yet.
When the Lord Jesus comes back to reign,
those of us who belong to him will
reign with him.
But it isn't time to put the crown
on our heads yet.
They tell me that when a king or
a queen is crowned in England, that all
the other members of royalty and the peers
and the lords are around there, and they
all have their little crowns too, you know.
But nobody would ever think of putting his
crown on until the sovereign had been crowned.
And the Lord Jesus is now the rejected
Lord Jesus Christ.
But he's going to come back one day
in power and great glory, and then will
be the time for us to put our
crowns upon our heads, and not until then.
Paul says, I would that you were, that
you did reign, that we also might reign
with you.
But that isn't the case.
You're up in the box seats, and we're
down in the arena, suffering for the namesake
of the Lord Jesus Christ.
And I fear that that's pretty much what
it is in Christendom today.
The Christians are swimming on in full celestial
state, while in many parts of the world,
faithful servants of Christ are suffering in the
great battle of the ages.
May the Lord impress upon our hearts that
we are at war, and the war is
real, and it's a war to the death.
And this war demands certain things of us,
that they're given in the word of God.
Let us be faithful to him in this
day of his rejection, and wait till we
see him crowned, and then let us put
our crowns upon our heads at that time.