Victory assured.
In viewing our human life, we are tempted into one or other of two extremes. To the worldly and the careless, especially when young and prosperous, life seems easy. They are conscious of no temptation, for they yield at once to each congenial suggestion. They are ignorant of struggles, for to them life has never shaped itself as a moral warfare. But there are those who are ever oppressed by a constant sense of the solemnity of life. To such the conflict is a daily and inevitable fact. They cannot drift adown the current; yet, strike out as bravely as they will, they feel as though they made no headway against the waters, as though they could never reach the shore. Struggle they must, they do; yet with many failures and with faint hope of final success. Now, Christianity rebukes the first of these classes for frivolity, the second for faithlessness. The Scriptures ever represent our life as a spiritual conflict; yet they ever summon us to fight the good fight of faith with hopeful hearts; the battle is fierce, but to the brave the victory is sure.
I. THE CONFLICT AND THE FOE. There is a power of evil, a personal and mighty power. Satan seeks to carry captive human souls; and in the effort employs every resource—the fiercest assaults, and the most unscrupulous, insidious wiles. In this Satan deals with men according to their circumstances, their character, their temperament. Over multitudes he triumphs openly. Yet there are those who resist him, who regard him as their deadly foe. Well is it for you if you are aware of your position, your danger, the attempts of the adversary, and your own weakness and insufficiency for a struggle so unequal. Faithful, consistent, experienced Christian! you have not yet finished the campaign; you are not yet beyond the reach of the fiery darts. Young and ardent Christian! dare not to indulge in boasting or to serf-satisfaction. Just where and when you least expect it, then and there the attack may be made. "Resist the devil;" "Watch and pray, lest ye enter into temptation;" "Take to you the whole armour of God."
II. THE HELPER AND DELIVERER. In a conflict such as human life, how can we be blind to our own helplessness and need? Whither shall the assaulted and imperilled turn? Upon whom shall they call? The Christian cannot answer these questions amiss; for he has already sought and experienced the saving strength of God's right hand. Yet he may well need to be reminded of his only hope and refuge. Let us lift up our eyes unto the hills, whence cometh our help. The God of peace is, in the text, set before us as our Saviour. Does it strike you as strange that the Most High should be so described in such a connection? Do you ask—Why is the God of peace invoked, to oppose and to vanquish the foe of souls? The answer is plain. God's nature is peace; his aim is peace; his rule is peace. But his is not the peace of compromise with sin His is the peace which comes with righteousness and with the reign of holy law. Such peace presupposes conflict. War with evil, until evil is vanquished, dethroned, and silent; and then peace, and only then;—such is the principle of the gospel, such is the purpose of God, such is the law of the Christian's life. Divine peace is pure and sincere and lasting. Remember that word of our Lord Jesus, "I am not come to send peace, but a sword."
III. THE RESISTANCE AND THE VICTORY. Here we are, as Christians, members of the Church militant. But Christ is the Captain of our salvation; and the language of the apostle implies that, through the might and grace of our Leader, we shall conquer in the holy war. Christ is the Victor, who has conquered for us. The history of our Saviour's earthly career is a history of conflict. The ministry of the Redeemer was a struggle with the prince of darkness. Witness his temptation, in which he encountered the foe in various guises, and ever vanquished his adversary and ours by the "sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God." Witness the crisis of his humiliation and suffering: "This is your hour, and the power of darkness." Yet in that crisis the Lord Jesus beheld Satan as lightning cast from heaven, and he spoiled principalities and powers, making a show of them openly. Then was fulfilled the promise, "The seed of the woman shall bruise the serpent's head." Christ is the Victor, who conquers in us. For it is in our own hearts that the real conflict is waged, that the true victory must be won. By the cross of Christ, through the presence and strengthening of the Spirit of Christ, the soldier who follows his Captain must come to share the Captain's triumph. He himself has promised that it shall be so. In his humiliation he encouraged his disciples, saying, "Be of good cheer; I have overcome the world." From his glory he cheers them on, saying, "He that overcometh shall sit down with me in my throne." The individual Christian shall, by Divine grace, be victorious over the tempter who is the foe of his soul. He shall not yield to the blandishments or fall before the onsets of Satan; he shall learn submission to God's will without murmuring; he shall serve without fainting; he shall rebuke without harshness; he shall trust without doubting. The world shall have less hold upon his affections, and heaven shall have more power to attract and charm. "We are more than conquerors through him that loved us." The Church, too, shall go, with the Lord himself, from conquest to conquest. It shall shake off dependence upon earthly and carnal weapons; it shall learn the hard lesson of charity; its pity shall be practical, and its purity shall be glorious; and it shall realize the picture painted by the glowing imagination of the inspired artist.
IV. THE CHARACTER AND THE TYPE OF TRIUMPH. On these points the text is especially explicit. God shall "bruise Satan under your feet." From this it appears that the victory shall be complete. Human wisdom is prone to pronounce this impossible, and represents the moral conflict as one most uncertain in its issues, in which the advantage seems now to be with this party, and anon with that. And so far as this life is concerned, we have no reason to believe that we shall reach a position from which we look down and back upon the battle-field, as those superior to Satan's assaults, delivered altogether from danger and from fear. Yet here we have an assurance of complete and lasting victory. If Satan is to be bruised beneath our feet, that implies that he shall be crushed. The figurative language depicts a conqueror, with his foe at his mercy, possessing no further power for resistance and mischief. "Is it possible," you ask, who have wrestled long and hard with the foe of souls—"is it possible that, over such an adversary, so feeble a soldier of righteousness as I shall ever triumph?" Here is the answer: "They overcame the accuser of the brethren by the blood of the Lamb." Nor have you long to wait; for this shall happen "shortly." The strife is fierce, but it shall not be protracted. When your fidelity is tried and proved, the power of the enemy shall be crippled, and he himself shall be thrust down, and you shall have the crown of life.
"'Tis but a little while,
And he shall come again,
Who died that we might live, who lives
That we with him may reign!"