‘I try to find common ground with everyone.’

(1 Co 9:22) To the weak I became weak, that I might win the weak. I have become all things to all people, that by all means I might save some. ESV

     For any relationship to work, we must accept each other’s differences. Within our family we must respect each other’s unique perspectives. We don’t need to agree on every issue, but we must always honour where the other person is coming from. Paul did that: ‘I try to find common ground with everyone.’ Some of us who claim to follow Christ have a hard time with views and values that differ from our own. We think ‘compromise’ is a dirty word. Some of us have turned from the most immoral lives to faith in Christ, yet after our conversion we won’t associate with anyone who doesn’t agree with us and adopt our newfound values. Sometimes our families fall apart because we try to force our opinions on the people we love, and set boundaries to keep nonconformists out. What a terrible misuse of Christianity! Jesus didn’t condemn the people who crucified Him; He prayed, ‘Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do’ (Luke 23:34 NKJV). He didn’t view them as morally bad, but spiritually blind. He told His disciples, ‘No one can come to Me unless the Father…draws him’ (John 6:44 NKJV). It’s your job to love people, and it’s God’s job to change them! So, stop trying to do what only God can do! If you invest patiently in your relationships, respect other people’s perspectives, and sow good seed, you’ll reap a pleasant harvest in the long term. Your love, not the force of your argument, can give hope to the most severely damaged among us that there’s healing for the broken places of the human soul.

Jer 46-47
Titus 3

UCB The Word For Today

     On October 25, 1887, President Grover Cleveland issued a Proclamation of a National Day of Thanksgiving and Prayer: “The goodness and the mercy of God, which have followed the American people during all the days of the past year, claim their grateful recognition…. I, Grover Cleveland, President of the United States, do hereby designate… a day of thanksgiving and prayer, to be observed by all the people of the land…. Let all secular work and employment be suspended, and let our people assemble in… worship and with prayer and songs of praise give thanks to our Heavenly Father for all that He has done.”

II.     Does God not will the existence of things for us to resist, to grapple with? Do we ourselves not appoint problems and make difficulties for those we teach, for the very purpose of their overcoming them? We set questions to children of which we know the answer quite well. The real answer to our will and purpose is not the solution but the grappling, the wrestling. And we may properly give a reward not for the correct answer, but for the hard and honest effort. That work is the prayer; and it has its reward apart from the solution.

     That is a principle of education with us. So it may be with God. But I mean a good deal more by this than what is called the reflex action of prayer. It that were all it would introduce an unreality into prayer. We should be praying for exercise, not for action. It would be prayer with a theological form, which yet expects no more than a psychological effect. It would be a prayer which is not sure that God is really more interested in us than we are in Him. But I mean that God’s education has a lower stage for us and a higher. He has a lower will and a higher, a prior and a posterior. And the purpose of the lower will is that it be resisted and struggled through to the higher. By God’s will (let us say) you are born in a home where your father’s earnings are a few shillings a week, like many an English labourer. Is it God’s will that you acquiesce in that and never strive out of it? It is God’s will that you are there. Is it God’s will that you should not resist being there? Nay, it may be His will that you should wisely resist it, and surmount His lower, His initial, will, which is there for the purpose. That is to say, it is His will that you resist, antagonize, His will. And so it is with the state of childhood altogether.

     Again: Is disease God’s will? We all believe it often is—even if man is to blame for it. It may be, by God’s will, the penalty on human ignorance, negligence, or sin. But let us suppose there were only a few cases where disease is God’s will. It was so in the lower creatures, before man lived, blundered, or sinned. Take only one such case. Is it God’s will that we should lie down and let the disease have its way? Why, a whole profession exists to say no. Medicine exists as an antagonism to disease, even when you can say that disease is God’s will and His punishment of sin. A doctor will tell you that resignation is one of his foes. He begins to grow hopeless if the patient is so resigned from the outset as to make no effort, if there be no will to live. Resistance to this ordinance of God’s is the doctor’s business and the doctor’s ally. And why? Because God ordained disease for the purpose of being resisted; He ordained the resistance, that from the conflict man might come out the stronger, and more full of resource and dominion over nature.

     Again, take death. It is God’s will. It is in the very structure of man, in the divine economy. It is not the result of sin; it was there before sin. Is it to be accepted without demur? Are doctors impious who resist it? Are we sinning when we shrink from it? Does not the life of most people consist in the effort to escape it, in the struggle for a living? So also when we pray and wrestle for another’s life, for our dear one’s life. “Sir, come down ere my child die.” The man was impatient. How familiar we are with his kind! “Do, please, leave your religious talk, which I don’t understand; get doing something; cure my child.” But was that an impious prayer? It was ignorant, practical, British, but not quite faithless. And it was answered, as many a similar prayer has been. But, then, if death be God’s will, to resist it is to resist God’s will. Well, it is His will that we should. Christ, who always did God’s will, resisted His own death, slipped away from it often, till the hour came; and even then He prayed with all his might against it when it seemed inevitable. “If it be possible, release Me.” He was ready to accept it, but only in the last resort, only if there was no other way, only after every other means had been exhausted. To the end He cherished the fading hope that there might be some other way. He went to death voluntarily, freely, but—shall we say reluctantly?—resisting the most blessed act of God’s will that ever was performed in heaven or on earth; resisting, yet sure to acquiesce when that was God’s clear will.

--- Forsyth, P. T. (1848-1921).

When all is said and done,
the life of faith is nothing
if not an unending struggle of the spirit
with every available weapon against the flesh.
--- Dietrich Bonhoeffer
The Cost of Discipleship

You and I, each and every one of us without exception, can be defined as an aching need for the infinite. Some people realize this; some do not. But even the latter illustrate this inner ache when, not having God deeply, they incessantly spill themselves out into excitements and experiences, licit or illicit. They are trying to fill their inner emptiness, but they never succeed, which is why the search is incessant. Though worldly pleasure seeking never fulfills and satisfies in a continuing way, it may tend momentarily to distract and to dull the profound pain of the inner void. If these people allow themselves a moment of reflective silence (which they seldom do), they notice a still, small voice whispering, ‘Is this all there is?’ They begin to sense a thirst to love with abandon, without limit, without end, without lingering aftertastes of bitterness. In other words, their inner spirit is clamoring, even if confusedly, for unending beauty. How they and we respond to this inner outreach rooted in our deep spiritual soul is the most basic set of decisions we can make: they have eternal consequences.
--- Thomas Dubay

After brokenness, our lives can be more fruitful, more purposeful, and more joyful. A genuine blessing can come in the wake of being broken.
--- Charles Stanley

If you look at the world, you’ll be distressed. If you look within, you’ll be depressed. But if you look at Christ, you’ll be at rest.
--- Corrie Ten Boom

     CHAPTER 10.

     That Whereas The City Of Jerusalem Had Been Five Times Taken Formerly, This Was The Second Time Of Its Desolation. A Brief Account Of Its History.

     1. And thus was Jerusalem taken, in the second year of the reign of Vespasian, on the eighth day of the month Gorpeius [Elul]. It had been taken five 34 times before, though this was the second time of its desolation; for Shishak, the king of Egypt, and after him Antiochus, and after him Pompey, and after them Sosius and Herod, took the city, but still preserved it; but before all these, the king of Babylon conquered it, and made it desolate, one thousand four hundred and sixty-eight years and six months after it was built. But he who first built it was a potent man among the Canaanites, and is in our own tongue called [Melchisedek], the Righteous King, for such he really was; on which account he was [there] the first priest of God, and first built a temple [there], 35 and called the city Jerusalem, which was formerly called Salem. However, David, the king of the Jews, ejected the Canaanites, and settled his own people therein. It was demolished entirely by the Babylonians, four hundred and seventy-seven years and six months after him. And from king David, who was the first of the Jews who reigned therein, to this destruction under Titus, were one thousand one hundred and seventy-nine years; but from its first building, till this last destruction, were two thousand one hundred and seventy-seven years; yet hath not its great antiquity, nor its vast riches, nor the diffusion of its nation over all the habitable earth, nor the greatness of the veneration paid to it on a religious account, been sufficient to preserve it from being destroyed. And thus ended the siege of Jerusalem.

     The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Wars of the Jews or History of the Destruction of Jerusalem, by Flavius Josephus Translator: William Whiston

                The external crush of things

     I am made all things to all men, that I might by all means save some. --- 1 Cor. 9:22.

     A Christian worker has to learn how to be God’s noble man or woman amid a crowd of ignoble things. Never make this plea—‘If only I were somewhere else!’ All God’s men are ordinary men made extraordinary by the matter He has given them. Unless we have the right matter in our minds intellectually and in our hearts affectionately, we will be hustled out of usefulness to God. We are not workers for God by choice. Many people deliberately choose to be workers, but they have no matter in them of God’s almighty grace, no matter of His mighty word. Paul’s whole heart and mind and soul were taken up with the great matter of what Jesus Christ came to do, he never lost sight of that one thing. We have to face ourselves with the one central fact—Jesus Christ, and Him crucified.

     “I have chosen you.” Keep that note of greatness in your creed. It is not that you have got God, but that He has got you. Here, in this College, God is at work, bending, breaking, moulding, doing just as He chooses. Why He is doing it, we do not know; He is doing it for one purpose only—that He may be able to say, ‘This is My man, My woman.’ We have to be in God’s hand so that He can plant men on the Rock as He has planted us.

     Never choose to be a worker, but when God has put His call on you, woe be to you if you turn to the right hand or to the left. He will do with you what He never did with you before the call came; He will do with you what He is not doing with other people. Let Him have His way.

                Travels

I travelled, learned new ways
  to deceive, smiling not
  frowning; kept my lips supple
  with lies; learned to digest
  malice, knowing it tribute
  to my success. Is the world
  large? Are there areas uncharted
  by the imagination? Never betray
  your knowledge of them. Came here,
  followed the river upward
  to its beginning in the Welsh
  moorland, prepared to analyse
  its contents; stared at the smooth pupil
  of water that stared at me
  back as absent-mindedly as a god
  in contemplation of his own
  navel; felt the coldness
  of unplumbed depths I should have
  stayed here to fathom; watched the running
  away of the resources
  of water to form those far
  seas that men must endeavour
  to navigate on their voyage home.

     The previous chapters attempt to show, in opposition to Husik’s approach, how Maimonides exposed the reader of his legal works to philosophy. He is not articulating a tradition which has no use for philosophy, but instead is portraying a halakhic way to God which must be united with philosophy.

     There is yet another aspect of his works which supports this idea. A proper understanding of Maimonides’ attitude toward authority is crucial for substantiating this orientation to his philosophy. A religious tradition which insists on uncritical subservience to its norms of behavior and beliefs tends to generate a specific human type which, in many ways, is incompatible with an intellectual love of God. Obedience to authority is not the basis for love—especially the love awakened by the perfection of the Beloved.

     The individual guided by reason would find himself isolated within the community which demanded an uncritical acceptance of its beliefs. If such a person is to remain rooted in the community, it is crucial that the communal forms of spirituality, i.e., Halakhah, do not exclusively stress an obedience-orientation running counter to the independent spirit cultivated by reason. Political considerations may keep such an individual within the framework of community. Yet if the claim is made that such an individual can remain within his community for reasons which are essentially related to his personal spiritual outlook, we must show how the way of reason can flourish within halakhic Judaism. The individual within Halakhah must have room to cultivate his independent reason; he cannot be asked to submit uncritically to the claims of authority.

     To fulfill a norm or to assent to a statement solely on the basis of authority is to cultivate a relationship nurtured by obedience. Imperatives can obligate an individual either on the basis of their content or on the authority of their author. Similarly, an individual can assent to statements of belief either because the statements appeal to rational criteria or because the individual possesses an unconditional regard for the authority-figure. In the latter case, one need not examine the content of belief before assenting. All that is necessary is to establish that the statement emanates from an accepted authority; the examination of what is said, for the most part, is irrelevant. Critical reasoning and evaluation, in fact, are dangerous and undesirable; they may introduce doubt and wavering when what is sought is unconditional compliance with authority.

     We realize that this either/or dichotomy tends to oversimplify a problem that is more subtle than it is clear-cut. Authority can take place within a context of shared values. It is these common values which both confer legitimacy on the person claiming authority and limit the scope of what he can do or say. As Peter Winch points out, the Pope, although often seen as an absolute authority—infallible in his decisions—could hardly maintain the allegiance of his church were he to claim that God does not exist or that cohabitation outside of marriage is a divine command.

     Despite this fact (which should caution one from emphasizing exclusively the notion of uncritical obedience in relationships based upon authority), one can still distinguish between the type of person developed by authoritarian systems and the type developed by systems whose appeal is to reason. The former system is most compatible with the obedient personality, whereas the latter encourages the development of an independent person whose commitment is nurtured primarily by his own understanding. A relationship which allows for rational examination encourages an individual to appreciate the wisdom of the author of the norms and beliefs. When God’s activities and dictates can be independently evaluated so that His wisdom becomes manifest to man, the groundwork is set for a relationship which is not based exclusively on obedience.

     The Halakhah is a system of norms tracing its ultimate authoritative appeal to God; the revelation at Sinai is the ground of the normative structure of halakhic legislation. Specific laws dictate the behavior of Jews in virtually all aspects of their lives. It is reasonable to expect, that since Halakhah is based on unconditional acceptance of divine authority, it would develop the obedient personality whose primary concern is to fulfill the laws of his tradition. Yet, according to Maimonides, the telos of Halakhah is to create ideal conditions for the realization of intellectual love of God. Maimonides must therefore develop an approach to halakhic authority which will make it compatible with a spiritual life dedicated to philosophic knowledge of God. He must show that obedience to authority is not the sole virtue of Halakhah. If Halakhah encourages the development of a critical mind capable of independent reflection and evaluation, it cannot be exclusively characterized by appeals to authority which demand unconditional obedience.

     Our analysis of the Maimonidean theory of halakhic authority will focus on how he restricted the use of appeals to authority within the Halakhah, and revealed instead areas of halakhic law which were independent of those appeals. Further analysis of Maimonides’ epistemology in the Guide will also reveal that he sought to teach his reader to differentiate between norms and beliefs which must be accepted on the basis of the authority of tradition and those which appeal to reasoning, whether through demonstrative inference or through legal argumentation. In doing so he showed that there are common principles operating within Halakhah and Aggadah which determine the legitimate scope of authority. His understanding of the relationship between authority and reason provides a frame within which the halakhic Jew can legitimately engage in those philosophic disciplines which nurture love for God.

     Maimonides’ treatment of authority, in his introduction to The Commentary to the Mishnah, begins with a discussion of the scope of prophetic authority. The prophet characteristically calls upon the authority of God to justify his claims. The limits of prophetic authority established within Judaism must be clarified if reason is to possess any legitimacy within the religious life of the tradition.

     Maimonides states that the prophet has full authority to decide political questions involving war and peace, economic policy and, if he deems it necessary, to temporarily suspend the laws of the Torah. However, no prophet can suspend—even temporarily—the prohibitions against idolatry. Regarding a “prophet” commanding participation in idolatrous worship, Maimonides writes:

     … for the testimony of reason which denies his prophecy is stronger than the testimony of the eye which sees his miracles, for it has already been made clear to men of reason that it is not proper to honor nor to worship other than the One who caused all beings to exist and is unique in [His] ultimate perfection.

     Prophetic authority cannot demand obedience to that which is contrary to the testimony of reason. Such demands would immediately prove the prophet to be false, regardless of miracles which might confirm his authority. Miracles do not convince rational men of the validity of such claims.

     To Maimonides, such miracles are tests God sets before men. The tests may well be whether authority can be revered without such reverence leading to unconditional and indiscriminate submission, i.e., whether the Jew will abandon the testimony of reason when confronted with the claims of miracle workers. True loyalty to God is manifest by one who trusts his reason and refuses to follow authority indiscriminately.

     A second limitation on prophetic authority prevents the prophet from permanently abrogating any part of Mosaic law. Maimonides appeals to the authority of Moses and Torah to explain the limitations set on the prophet’s right to abrogate matters of Halakhah. He does not use the phrase “the testimony of reason” here as he does with regard to idolatry. Rather he appeals to the testimony of the community of Israel who participated with Moses in the theophany at Sinai. This event implanted a permanent conviction by which the community could withstand the seductions of miracle-working prophets who claim to supersede and negate the law of Sinai. In the Guide Maimonides speaks of this conviction as the “certainty of sight.” The entire community “saw” God addressing Moses. Their participation in this revelation led them to accept Mosaic legislative authority, not on the basis of miracles, but on the firmer basis of their direct participation in God’s revelation to Moses. The commitment to the Torah of Moses, which resulted from the “certainty of sight,” imposes limits upon the authoritative pronouncements of post-Mosaic prophets.

     In the Mishneh Torah Maimonides supports this limitation on prophetic authority by an analysis of the legal status of the prophet. He bases his position on the fact that miracles are not conclusive evidence of one’s being a prophet:

     Hence one may conclude with regard to every Prophet after Moses, that we do not believe in such a Prophet because of the signs he shows, as much as to say that only if he shows a sign, we shall pay heed to him in all that he says, but we believe in him because of the charge laid down by Moses in the Torah that if the Prophet gives a sign “you shall listen to him”; just as the Lawgiver directed that a cause is to be decided on the evidence of two witnesses even if we have no certainty as to whether they are testifying to the truth or to a falsehood. Similarly, it is our duty to listen to the Prophet though we do not know if the sign he shows is genuine or has been performed with the aid of sorcery and by secret arts.

     None of the rulers of this age understood it, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. --- 1 Corinthians 2:8

     Who brought this infamy about?  The Galilean Accent - Being Some Studies in the Christian Life  To begin with, there were the Pharisees. They disliked Christ, and they said so. They resented the intrusion of this layperson—and an ill-educated man at that—into their domain. His teaching, or much of it, seemed to them sheer blasphemy. His habits they thought disgusting. You can always tell people by the company they keep, they sneered, and glanced scornfully at the rabble with whom Christ was not ashamed to mingle. Yet they were zealously religious people, keen churchgoing folk, as we would say, more keen and zealous by far than we are. They prayed, they fasted, they disciplined themselves along lines that might well make us much ashamed. They were good people in their way, devout and desperately in earnest, so far as they saw.

     But they made two mistakes. They were apt, as Jesus told them bluntly, to keep their lives and their religion in separate compartments. To pray and fast and keep their multitudinous rules was hard but, after all, a good deal easier than to be kind and unselfish when that clashed with their desires. They hoped and felt that it might do instead. They prayed long and ardently, but it had small effect on their characters. Their temper remained uncurbed, their animosities hardly checked, nor did that seem to vex them or to make them feel that something was wrong somewhere. That that was the goal of religion had not struck them. And so, while praying and thronging to the temple day by day, they planned Calvary and worked it out into a fact of history.

     This is a warning for us all. For Jesus tells us that his experience has taught him this—people can be eagerly, even fussily religious, and yet nothing may come of it in their characters. He pursues us in this matter with blunt, pertinacious questions, difficult to face. These prayers of yours, he asks, what are they doing in you? Do they end with themselves? Are they really making you more like God, or do you run them up as a cheap substitute for worthy living? [Regarding] your knowledge of the Father and of the human community—is the [former] forcing you to live your life in God’s way? Is the [latter] making your conscience more acute to things about you, so that you can’t pass by, now, on the other side, happy in your own comforts, until these wrongs are righted?
--- Arthur John Gossip

     Orthodox Christianity teaches that Jesus Christ is one person, having both a human and a divine nature. Nestorius, powerful fifth-century preacher, disagreed. Two separate persons indwelled the incarnate Christ, he taught, one divine and the other human. “I separate the natures, but I unite the worship. Consider what this must mean,” he said. “He who was formed in the womb of Mary was not himself God, but God assumed him.”

     A violent controversy ensued. Nestorius, a popular orator, had been named patriarch of Constantinople by Emperor Theodosius II. Preachers, monks, and bishops exploded in their pulpits against him. The pope condemned him in a set of 12 anathemas (the word anathema means “cursed”) and demanded he recant within 12 days.

     Emperor Theodosius, stunned by the theological war fragmenting his empire, called a general church council in Ephesus in 431. From the beginning it proved to be animated and stomach-wrenching. Nestorius arrived with 16 bishops, an armed escort, and the backing of the emperor. But he was badly outnumbered, and the verdict went against him: “Whosoever does not anathematize Nestorius, let him be anathema; the true faith anathematizes him; the holy council anathematizes him. Whoever holds fellowship with Nestorius, let him be anathema. We all anathematize the letter and doctrines of Nestorius. We all anathematize Nestorius and his followers and his ungodly doctrine.”

     But Emperor Theodosius declared the decree invalid because not all the bishops had yet arrived in Ephesus. More politics, intrigue, and anxiety followed; but in the end the result was the same. Nestorius was deposed as patriarch of Constantinople, and on October 25, 431 his successor was nominated. Nestorius was banished to Egypt where he died after writing his autobiography and titling it Tragedy.

     The Council of Ephesus was one of the bitterest councils in church history, but it preserved the orthodox doctrine of Christ. A small group of eastern bishops, however, refusing to accept its decisions, constituted themselves into a separate church, centered in Persia. Remnants of the Nestorian Church survive to this day in western and central Asia.

     This good news is about his Son, our Lord Jesus Christ! As a human, he was from the family of David. But the Holy Spirit proved that Jesus is the powerful Son of God, because he was raised from death.
--- Romans 1:3-4.

          Morning - October 25

     “For the truth’s sake, which dwelleth in us, and shall be with us for ever.” --- 2 John 2.

     Once let the truth of God obtain an entrance into the human heart and subdue the whole man unto itself, no power human or infernal can dislodge it. We entertain it not as a guest but as the master of the house—this is a Christian necessity, he is no Christian who doth not thus believe. Those who feel the vital power of the Gospel, and know the might of the Holy Ghost as he opens, applies, and seals the Lord’s Word, would sooner be torn to pieces than be rent away from the Gospel of their salvation. What a thousand mercies are wrapped up in the assurance that the truth will be with us for ever; will be our living support, our dying comfort, our rising song, our eternal glory; this is Christian privilege, without it our faith were little worth. Some truths we outgrow and leave behind, for they are but rudiments and lessons for beginners, but we cannot thus deal with Divine truth, for though it is sweet food for babes, it is in the highest sense strong meat for men. The truth that we are sinners is painfully with us to humble and make us watchful; the more blessed truth that whosoever believeth on the Lord Jesus shall be saved, abides with us as our hope and joy. Experience, so far from loosening our hold of the doctrines of grace, has knit us to them more and more firmly; our grounds and motives for believing are now more strong, more numerous than ever, and we have reason to expect that it will be so till in death we clasp the Saviour in our arms.

     Wherever this abiding love of truth can be discovered, we are bound to exercise our love. No narrow circle can contain our gracious sympathies, wide as the election of grace must be our communion of heart. Much of error may be mingled with truth received, let us war with the error but still love the brother for the measure of truth which we see in him; above all let us love and spread the truth ourselves.


          Evening - October 25

     “She gleaned in the field after the reapers: and her hap was to light on a part of the field belonging unto Boaz, who was of the kindred of Elimelech.” --- Ruth 2:3.

     Her hap was. Yes, it seemed nothing but an accident, but how divinely was it overruled! Ruth had gone forth with her mother’s blessing, under the care of her mother’s God, to humble but honourable toil, and the providence of God was guiding her every step. Little did she know that amid the sheaves she would find a husband, that he should make her the joint owner of all those broad acres, and that she a poor foreigner should become one of the progenitors of the great Messiah. God is very good to those who trust in him, and often surprises them with unlooked for blessings. Little do we know what may happen to us to-morrow, but this sweet fact may cheer us, that no good thing shall be withheld. Chance is banished from the faith of Christians, for they see the hand of God in everything. The trivial events of to-day or to-morrow may involve consequences of the highest importance. O Lord, deal as graciously with thy servants as thou didst with Ruth.

     How blessed would it be, if, in wandering in the field of meditation to-night, our hap should be to light upon the place where our next Kinsman will reveal himself to us! O Spirit of God, guide us to him. We would sooner glean in his field than bear away the whole harvest from any other. O for the footsteps of his flock, which may conduct us to the green pastures where he dwells! This is a weary world when Jesus is away—we could better do without sun and moon than without him—but how divinely fair all things become in the glory of his presence! Our souls know the virtue which dwells in Jesus, and can never be content without him. We will wait in prayer this night until our hap shall be to light on a part of the field belonging to Jesus wherein he will manifest himself to us.

          FAITH IS THE VICTORY

     John H. Yates, 1837–1900

     … this is the victory that has overcome the world, even our faith. (1 John 5:4)

     Saving faith must always be reflected in a working faith. Our response of faith to the redemptive work of Christ transforms us; but then we need a daily motivating faith if we want to live overcoming lives. To live by faith is to believe with conviction that God’s purposes for us will ultimately prevail. In fact, prevailing faith anticipates victory and celebrates in advance. For example, read the Old Testament account of how singers preceded the warriors into battle and the defeat of the enemy was accomplished (2 Chronicles 20:20–22).

     Our faith does not develop merely through intellectual assent to biblical dogma or through wishful thinking. Rather, it is a lifetime commitment to the person of Christ with a response of obedience to His Word (Romans 10:17).

     This hymn of faith and victory was first published in 1891 in the Christian Endeavor Hymnal. The author, John Henry Yates, was a licensed Methodist preacher who was later ordained by the Baptists. Ira Sankey, the composer, is often called the “father of the Gospel song.”

     Encamped along the hills of light, ye Christian soldiers rise, and press the battle ere the night shall veil the glowing skies. Against the foe in vales below let all our strength be hurled; faith is the victory, we know, that overcomes the world.
     His banner over us is love, our sword the Word of God; we tread the road the saints above with shouts of triumph trod. By faith they like a whirl-wind’s breath swept on o’er ev’ry field; the faith by which they conquered death is still our shining shield.
     On ev’ry hand the foe we find drawn up in dread array; let tents of ease be left behind, and onward to the fray! Salvation’s helmet on each head, with truth all girt about: The earth shall tremble ’neath our tread and echo with our shout.
     To him that overcomes the foe white raiment shall be giv’n; before the angels he shall know his name confessed in heav’n. Then onward from the hills of light, our hearts with love aflame; we’ll vanquish all the hosts of night in Jesus’ conq’ring name.
     Chorus: Faith is the victory! Faith is the victory! O glorious victory that overcomes the world.

     For Today: Galatians 2:20; James 2:18; 1 John 5:1–12; Jude 3

     Ask God to make you a vivid demonstration to your associates and friends of a triumphant faith in Christ—an exclamation of faith, not a question mark. Sing this musical truth as you go ---

     (2.) An incentive to obedience.

     [l.] The commands of the gospel require the obedience of the creature. There is not one precept in the gospel which interferes with any rule in the law, but strengthens it, and represents it in its true exactness: the heat to scorch us is allayed, but the light to direct us is not extinguished. Not the least allowance to any sin is granted; not the least affection to any sin is indulged. The law is tempered by the gospel, but not nulled and cast out of doors by it: it enacts that none but those that are sanctified, shall be glorified; that there must be grace here, if we expect glory hereafter; that we must not presume to expect an admittance to the vision of God’s face unless our souls be clothed with a robe of holiness (Heb. 12:14). It requires an obedience to the whole law in our intention and purpose, and an endeavor to observe it in our actions; it promotes the honor of God, and ordains a universal charity among men; it reveals the whole counsel of God, and furnisheth men with the holiest laws.

     [2.] It presents to us the exactest pattern for our obedience. The redeeming person is not only a propitiation for the sin, but a pattern to the sinner (1 Pet. 2:21). The conscience of man, after the fall of Adam, approved of the reason of the law, but by the corruption of nature man had no strength to perform the law. The possibility of keeping the law, by human nature, is evidenced by the appearance and life of the Redeemer, and an assurance given that it shall be advanced to such a state as to be able to observe it: we aspire to it in this life, and have hopes to attain it in a future; and, while we are here, the actor of our redemption is the copy for our imitation. The pattern to imitate is greater than the law to be ruled by.

     What a lustre did his virtues cast about the world! How attractive are his graces! With what high examples for all duties has he furnished us out of the copy of his life!

     [3.] It presents us with the strongest motives to obedience (Tit. 2:11, 12): “The grace of God teaches us to deny ungodlinsss.” What chains bind us faster and closer than love? Here is love to our nature in his incarnation; love to us, though enemies, in his death and passion; encouragements to obedience by the proffers of pardon for former rebellions. By the disobedience of man, God introduceth his redeeming grace, and engageth his creature to more ingenuous and excellent returns than his innocent state could oblige him to. In his created state he had goodness to move him, he hath the same goodness now to oblige him as a creature, and a greater love and mercy to oblige him as a repaired creature; and the terror of justice is taken off, which might envenom his heart as a criminal. In his revolted state he had misery to discourage him; in his redeemed state he hath love to attract him. Without such a way, black despair had seized upon the creature exposed to a remediless misery, and God would have had no returns of love from the best of his earthly works; but if any sparks of ingenuity be left, they will be excited by the efficacy of this argument. The willingness of God to receive returning sinners, is manifested in the highest degree; and the willingness of a sinner to return to him in duty hath the strongest engagements. He hath done as much to encourage our obedience, as to illustrate his glory. We cannot conceive what could be done greater for the salvation of our souls, and consequently what could have been done, more to enforce our observance. We have a Redeemer, as man, to copy it to us, and as God, to perfect us in it. It would make the heart of any to tremble to wound him that hath provided such a salve for our sores, and to make grace a warrant for rebellion—motives capable to form rocks into a flexibleness. Thus is the wisdom of God seen in giving us a ground to the surest confidence, and furnishing us with incentives to the greatest obedience, by the horrors of wrath, death and sufferings of our Saviour.

     8. The wisdom of God is apparent in the condition he hath settled for the enjoying the fruits of redemption: and this is faith, a wise and reasonable condition and the concomitants of it—

     (1.) In that it is suited to man’s lapsed state and God’s glory. Innocence is not required here; that had been a condition impossible in its own nature after the fall. The rejecting of mercy is now only condemning, where mercy is proposed. Had the condition of perfection in works been required, it had rather been a condemnation than redemption. Works are not demanded, whereby the creature might ascribe anything to himself, but a condition, which continues in man a sense of his apostasy, abates all aspiring pride, and makes the reward of grace, not of debt; a condition, whereby mercy is owned, and the creature emptied; flesh silenced in the dust, and God set upon his throne of grace and authority; the creature brought to the lowest debasement, and Divine glory raised to the highest pitch. the creature is brought to acknowledge mercy, and seal to justice; to own the holiness of God, in the hatred of sin; the justice of God, in the punishment of sin; and the mercy of God, in the pardoning of sin: a condition that despoils nature of all its pretended excellency; beats down the glory of man at the foot of God (1 Cor. 1:29, 31). It subjects the reason and will of man to the wisdom and authority of God; it brings the creature to an unreserved submission and entire resignation. God is made the sovereign cause of all; the creature continued in his emptiness, and reduced to a greater dependence upon God than by a creation; depending upon him for a constant influx, for an entire happiness: a condition that renders God glorious in the creature, and the fallen creature happy in God; God glorious in his condescension to man, and man happy in his emptiness before God. Faith is made the condition of man’s recovery, that “the lofty looks of man might be humbled, and the haughtiness of man be pulled down” (Isa. 2:11); that every towering imagination might be levelled (2 Cor. 10:5). Man must have all from without doors; he must not live upon himself, but upon another’s allowance. He must stand to the provision of God, and be a perpetual suitor at his gates.

     (2.) A condition opposite to that which was the cause of the fall. We fell from God by an unbelief of the threatening; he recovers us by a belief of the promise; by unbelief we laid the foundation of God’s dishonor; by faith, therefore, God exalts the glory of his free grace. We lost ourselves by a desire of self- dependence, and our return is ordered by way of self-emptiness. It is reasonable we should be restored in a way contrary to that whereby we fell; we sinned by a refusal of cleaving to God; it is a part of divine wisdom to restore us in a denial of our own righteousness and strength. Man having sinned by pride, the wisdom of God humbles him (saith one) at the very root of the tree of knowledge, and makes him deny his own understanding, and submit to faith, or else, forever to lose his desired felicity.

     (3.) It is a condition suited to the common sentiment and custom of the world. There is more of belief than reason in the world. All instructors and masters in sciences and arts, require, first a belief in their disciples, and a resignation of their understandings and wills to them. And it is the wisdom of God to require that of man, which his own reason makes him submit to another which is his fellowcreature. He, therefore, that quarrels with the condition of faith, must quarrel with all the world, since belief is the beginning of all knowledge; yea, and most of the knowledge in the world, may rather come under the title of belief, than of knowledge; for what we think we know this day, we may find from others such arguments as may stagger our knowledge, and make us doubt of that we thought ourselves certain of before: nay, sometimes we change our opinions ourselves without any instructor, and see a reason to entertain an opinion quite contrary to what we had before. And if we found a general judgment of others to vote against what we think we know, it would make us give the less credit to ourselves and our own sentiments. All knowledge in the world is only a belief, depending upon the testimony or arguings of others; for, indeed, it may be said of all men, as in Job (8:9), “We are but of yesterday, and know nothing.” Since, therefore, belief is so universal a thing in the world, the wisdom of God requires that of us which every man must count reasonable, or render himself utterly ignorant of anything. It is a condition that is common to all religions. All religions are founded upon a belief: unless men did believe future things, they would not hope nor fear. A belief and resignation was required in all the idolatries in the world; so that God requires nothing but what a universal custom of the world gives its suffrage to the reasonableness of: indeed, justifying faith is not suited to the sentiments of men; but that faith which must precede justifying, a belief of the doctrine, though not comprehended by reason, is common to the custom of the world. It is no less madness not to submit our reason to faith, than not to regulate our fancies by reason.

     (4.) This condition of faith and repentance is suited to the conscience of men. The law of nature teaches us, that we are bound to believe every revelation from God, when it is made known to us and not only to assent to it as true, but embrace it as good. This nature dictates, that we are as much obliged to believe God, because of his truth, as to love him, because of his goodness. Every man’s reason tells him, he cannot obey a precept, nor depend upon a promise, unless he believes both the one and the other. No man’s conscience but will inform him, upon hearing the revelation of God concerning his excellent contrivance of redemption, and the way to enjoy it, that it is very reasonable he should strip off all affections to sin, lie down in sorrow, and bewail what he hath done amiss against so tender a God. Can you expect that any man that promises you a great honor or a rich donative, should demand less of you than to trust his word, bear an affection to him, and return him kindness? Can any less be expected by a prince than obedience from a pardoned subject, and a redeemed captive? If you have injured any man in his body, estate, reputation, would you not count it a reasonable condition for the partaking of his clemency and forgiveness, to express a hearty sorrow for it, and a resolution not to fall into the like crime again? Such are the conditions of the gospel, suited to the consciences of men.

     (5.) The wisdom of God appears, in that this condition was only likelv to attain the end. There are but two common heads appointed by God,—Adam and Christ: by one we are made a living soul, by the other a quickening spirit: by the one we are made sinners, by the other we are made righteous. Adam fell as a head, and all his members, his whole issue and posterity, fell with him, because they proceeded from him by natural generation. But since the second Adam cannot be our head by natural generation, there must be some other way of engrafting us in him, and uniting us to him as our Head, which must be moral and spiritual; this cannot rationally be conceived to be by any other way than what is suitable to a reasonable creature, and, therefore, must be by an act of the will, consent and acceptance, and owning the terms settled for an admission to that union. And this is that we properly call faith, and, therefore, called a receiving of him (John 1:12).

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