Standing

 

Clifton Inman

Before one can stand successfully in battle, he must know what he is standing against. The world has suffered untold heartaches because men have failed to recognize the true enemy.

The soldier who fought Hitler because he conscripted women and took the lives of the innocent and then went out to exploit women for pleasure and to drive an automobile while drunken did not recognize the enemy.

The professor who condemns atheistic communism and apologizes for atheism at home, teaches the theory of organic evolution, or ridicules the faith of the Christian, does not know what the battle is all about.

The young preacher who through cowardice is afraid to be called a coward and enlists in a physical struggle and leaves the spiritual and moral struggle does not know against what he needs to fight. He is like the football player who in a stupor grabs the ball and runs it back across his own goal line.

The Christian is enlisted in a battle against sin: sin in his own life, sin in high places. He is called upon to battle for virtue, justice, uprightness, mercy, and immortality.

The Christian soldier must be equipped. To go into battle unequipped is not courage. It is stupidity. David may not be able to wear Saul's armor, but the man who rejects God's armor for his own improvision is foolhardy. "So use every piece of God's armor to resist the enemy whenever he attacks, and when it is all over, you will still be standing up." (Eph. 6:13, Living Letters)

Truth is needed to gird the loins and give stamina to the whole being. The philosopher says that all truth is relative. And all truth is relative when compared to the truth of God's word. God's truth is absolute. Seek the truth upon all subjects, but seek primarily the truth of God by which to judge all other truth.

Faith is a shield which will guard you against all else. But faith is only as valuable as the trustworthiness of that in which we have faith. Don't place your faith in vain philosophies, fleeting theories of science, sociology or psychology. Place your faith in God. Don't bother to try to harmonize the word of God with the theories which are popular today. Some other theory will replace them tomorrow.

Salvation, your own knowledge of personal forgiveness and approval from God, will guard your head from going astray and keep you out of the heady atmosphere of egotism. If you have not sought God's salvation and found it, do so now.

When you have been saved, be found busy speeding the good tidings on to others, using the gospel shoes. No battle can be won by negatives. Take the offensive from Satan and march forth to battle in the name of the only king worthy of our trust, King Emmanuel.

It was with the faith that a school where students could study the Bible daily and be more fully equipped with the armor of God that many have worked to bring Ohio Valley College into being. We hope that there will ever be maintained an administration, a faculty, a staff, a student body and an alumni that will hold up the banner of Jehovah. Bible Herald, Vol. XIII, No. 22, November 15, 1965.

 

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