Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord, and in the power of His might.
Why strength is needed
There is good reason for our being so often advised in the Scriptures to “be strong.” Christian character has two sides. We cease to do evil. We also learn to do well. But doing well is impossible if we are not strong. The forces of evil are many and mighty. Life is short. The love of ease is deep rooted. Unless we are strong we effect nothing. Our lives shall be mere bundles of resolves never effected, collections of impotent wishes that never come to anything. (Dr. John Hall.)
Moral strength
It often requires a braver man to say “No,” than to take the Cashmere Gate at Delhi. Perfect courage consists in doing without a witness all that we could do if the whole world were looking on. A poor mill girl in the north of England had been led by her clergyman’s teaching to become a regular communicant, and because of this she had to bear every kind of persecution, chiefly from members of her own family. They not only tried every kind of insult to vex her, but even blasphemed the Blessed Sacrament itself. At last the poor girl went to her clergyman, saying, “What shall I do? I cannot bear it much longer.” And he reminded her of her Saviour’s sorrow, and how that when he was reviled “He opened not His mouth.” At last, one day, this true heroine of humble life fell down dead from heart disease, and when they removed her dress, they found a piece of paper stitched inside it, on which were these words--“He opened not His mouth.” She had won her victory, and now she rests “where the wicked cease from troubling and the weary are at rest.” Anyone can resent an injury, it takes a brave man to bear it patiently. (H. J. Wilmot-Baxton, M. A.)
The apostle’s humility
“Brother” is a word of equality; in calling them “brethren,” he makes himself equal unto them, though he himself were one of the principal members of Christ’s body, one of the eyes thereof, a minister of the Word, an extraordinary minister, an apostle, a spiritual father of many souls, a planter of many famous Churches, yea, the planter of this Church at Ephesus; and though many of them to whom he wrote were poor, mean men, handicraftsmen, such as laboured with their hands for their living; and many also servants, and bondmen; yet without exception of any, he terms and counts them all his brethren, and so makes himself equal to them of the lower sort. Behold his humility. For if to affect titles of superiority, as Rabbi, Doctor, Father, be a note of arrogancy (as it is, and therefore Christ in that respect taxed the Scribes and Pharisees), then to take and give titles of humility is a note of humility. The like notes of humility may be oft noted both in other Epistles of this apostle, and in the Epistles of other apostles, yea, and in all the prophets also. Well they knew that, notwithstanding there were divers officers, places, and outward degrees, among Christians; yet they all had one Father, and were fellow members of one and the same Body, and in regard of their spiritual estate all one in Christ Jesus. (William Gouge.)
Of Christian courage end resolution, wherefore necessary, and how obtained
The Christian, of all men, needs courage and resolution. Indeed, there is nothing he doth as Christian, nor can do, but is an act of valour. A cowardly spirit is beneath the lowest duty of a Christian (Jos_1:7), “Be thou strong and very courageous, that thou mayest”--what? stand in battle against those warlike nations? No, but “that thou mayest observe to do according to all the law, which Moses My servant commanded thee.” It requires more prowess and greatness of spirit to obey God faithfully, than to command an army of men; to be a Christian, than to be a captain. What seems less than for a Christian to pray? yet this cannot be performed aright without a princely spirit; as Jacob is said to behave himself like a prince, when he did but pray; for which he came out of the field God’s banneret. Indeed if you call that prayer which a carnal person performs, nothing more poor and dastard-like. Such a one is as great a stranger to this enterprize, as the cowardly soldier is to the exploits of a valiant chieftain. The Christian in prayer comes up close to God, with a humble boldness of faith, and takes hold of Him, wrestles with Him; yea, will not let Him go without a blessing, and all this in the face of his own sins, and Divine justice, which let fly upon him from the fiery mouth of the law; while the other’s boldness in prayer is but the child, either of ignorance in his mind, or hardness in his heart; whereby not feeling his sins, and not knowing his danger, he rushes upon duty with a blind confidence, which soon fails when conscience awakes, and gives him the alarm that his sins are upon him, as the Philistines on Samson: alas! then in a fright the poor-spirited wretch throws down his weapon, flies the presence of God with guilty Adam, and dares not look Him in the face. Indeed, there is no duty in a Christian’s whole course of walking with God, or acting for God, but is lined with many difficulties, which shoot like enemies through the hedges at the Christian, whilst he is marching towards heaven: so that he is put to dispute every inch of ground as he goes. They are only a few noble-spirited souls, who dare take heaven by force, that are fit for this calling. For the further proof of this point, see some few pieces of service that every Christian engageth in.
1. The Christian is to proclaim and prosecute an irreconcilable war against his bosom sins; those sins which have lain nearest his heart must now be trampled under his feet.
2. The Christian is to walk singularly, not after the world’s guise (Rom_12:2).
3. The Christian must keep on his way to heaven in the midst of all the scandals that are cast upon the ways of God, by the apostasy and foul falls of false professors.
4. The Christian must trust in a withdrawing God (Isa_50:10). This requires a holy boldness of faith.
5. The believer is to persevere in his Christian course to the end of his life; his work and his life must go off the stage together. This adds weight to every other difficulty of the Christian’s calling. We have known many who have gone into the field, and liked the work of a soldier for a battle or two, but soon have had enough, and come running home again; but few can bear it as a constant trade. Many are soon engaged in holy duties, easily persuaded to take up a profession of religion, and as easily persuaded to lay it down; like the new moon, which shines a little in the first part of the night, but is down before half the night be gone; lightsome professors in their youth, whose old age is wrapt up in thick darkness of sin and wickedness. O this persevering is a hard word! this taking up of the cross daily, this praying always, this watching night and day, and never laying aside our clothes and armour; I mean indulging ourselves to remit and unbend in our holy waiting on God, and walking with God; this sends many sorrowful away from Christ; yet this is the saint’s duty to make religion his everyday work, without any vacation from one end of the year to the other. These few instances are enough to show what need the Christian hath of resolution.
The application follows.
1. This gives us then a reason why there are so many professors and so few Christians indeed; so many go into the field against Satan, and so few come out conquerors; because all have a desire to be happy, but few have courage and resolution to grapple with the difficulties that meet them in their way to happiness.
2. Let us, then, exhort you Christians to labour for this holy resolution and prowess, which is so needful for your Christian profession, that without it you cannot be what you profess. The fearful are in the forlorn of those that march for hell (Rev_21:1-27). The violent and valiant are they which take heaven by force; cowards never won heaven. Say not, thou hast royal blood running in thy veins, and art begotten of God, except thou canst prove thy pedigree by this heroic spirit, to dare to be holy in spite of men and devils. The eagle tries her young ones by the sun; Christ tries His children by their courage, that dare look on the face of death and danger for His sake (Mar_8:34-35). Now, Christian, if thou meanest thus courageously to bear up against all opposition, in thy march to heaven as thou shouldst do well to raise thy spirit with such generous and soul-ennobling thoughts, so in an especial manner look thy principles be well fitted, or else thy heart will be unstable; and an unstable heart is weak as water, it cannot excel in courage.
Two things are required to fix our principles.
1. An established judgment in the truth of God. He that knows not well what or whom he fights for, may soon be persuaded to change his side, or at least stand neuter. Such may be found that go for professors, that can hardly give an account what they hope for, or whom they hope in; yet Christians they must be thought, though they run before they know their errand; or if they have some principles they go upon, they are so unsettled that every wind blows them down, like loose tiles from the housetop. Blind zeal is soon put to a shameful retreat, while holy resolution, built on fast principles, lifts up its head like a rock in the midst of the waves. “Those that know their God shall be strong and do exploits” (Dan_11:32).
2. A sincere aim at the right end in our profession. Let a man be never so knowing in the things of Christ, if his aim be not right in his profession, that man’s principles will hang very loose; he will not venture much, or far for Christ, no more, no further than he can save his own stake. A hypocrite may show some metal at hand, some courage for a moment in conquering some difficulties, but he will show himself a jade at length. He that hath a false end in his profession, will soon come to an end of his profession, when he is pinched on that toe where his corn is; I mean, called to deny that his naughty heart aimed at all this while; now his heart fails him, he can go no further. O take heed of this wistful eye to our profit, pleasure, honour, or anything beneath Christ and heaven; for they will take away your heart, as the prophet saith of wine and women; that is, our love; and if our love be taken away, there will be nothing left for Christ. (W. Gurnall, M. A.)
Strength in the Lord
The meaning of the text is--Be strong as those may be who are bound to God in Christ.
1. Our enlistment. We have been taken into Christ’s army, to fight under His banner. Not solitary knight errants; but an embattled host set in array under the banner of a Captain. This prevents our thinking too much of ourselves. The more we forget ourselves the better. The soldier in an army does not fight for himself. He fights as one of many, for a common cause. He is willing to die, for his part--to have his place filled up, and be forgotten, provided the victory be won by his commander. This is what touches us all in a soldier’s life; and it touches us first because it is an image of the true Divine law for each. To lose one’s self in the cause, and to be zealous, enduring, brave, in the service of the King and the Realm, is as much the glory of a soldier of Jesus Christ, as of the professional soldier.
2. This feeling, of the community of our service, may be strengthened much by thinking of our common enemies. There are wickedness and darkness in the world, spiritual in their nature, and to be fought against as spiritual foes. Victory is to be won over evil; over ignorance and stupidity; over malignant errors and false opinions; over vice and misery. These are the devil’s servants, ever active and encroaching, whom we are commissioned to repel. Our fighting against these enemies must be done in common. The evils are social, or rather anti-social. Every man is hindered or helped by all his neighbours. We cannot, if we would, fight alone. No man liveth or dieth to himself. We know not whom we may help by a truth, or whom we may hinder by a lie. Let us remember that our own enemies are our brother’s enemies, and that his enemies are ours, and that all victories over evil are a common gain. (J. Ll. Davies, M. A.)
Strong Christians
A weak and cowardly soldier is a pitiful object, but a weak-kneed, cowardly Christian is still more so. I do not mean that we must be noisy and violent, and quarrelsome in our religion. None of these things are a proof of strength. A giant of power is ever the gentlest, having the hand of steel in the glove of silk. So the stronger a Christian is the more humbly he bears himself. A writer of the day says very truly, “If the world wants iron dukes, and iron men, God wants iron saints.”
I. Be strong in faith. Be quite sure that you do believe; be quite clear what you believe, and then show your faith strongly. Oar faith is not built on sand, but on a rook. It is not founded on such words as--perhaps, I suppose, I hope. No, the Creed of the Church says, “I believe.” Be ready to give a reason for the faith that is in you.
II. Be strong in your language. When Lord Nelson was going into his last battle, they wished him to cover, or lay aside, the glittering orders of victory which adorned his breast. But the hero refused, and perhaps his refusal cost him his life. Well, let us never hide the marks of our profession as Christian soldiers; even if we have to suffer, let men know that we bear about in our bodies the marks of the Lord Jesus.
III. Be strong in self-sacrifice for Jesus. We must not forget our cross. Let me tell you the stories of two simple servant maids who, under very different circumstances, gave up their life for the life of little children. The scene of the first story was in America, nearly five and twenty years ago; that of the second story was in London, quite recently. A young English girl had taken service in a family going to America, and her special duty was the charge of the three motherless children of her widowed master. One cold day in December they all embarked in a great Mississippi steamboat bound for the far Northwest. Day after day they steamed through the swollen river, where pieces of ice were already showing, past dark and gloomy shores, lined with lonely forest. One night, near the end of their voyage, the girl had seen her charges, two girls and a boy, safely asleep, and now, when all the other passengers had retired, she was reading in the saloon. Suddenly the silence was broken by a terrible cry, which told the frightened passengers that the steamboat was on fire. The captain instantly ran the vessel for the shore, and ordered the people to escape as best they could, without waiting to dress. The faithful servant had called her master, and then carried the children from their beds to the crowded deck. Quickly the blazing vessel touched the muddy bank, and the father placed the shivering children and the servant on one of the huge branches which overhung the river. A few other passengers, fifteen in all, reached other branches, the rest went down with the burning steamer. But what hope could there be for the children, just snatched from their warm beds, and now exposed unclad to the bitter December night? Their father had no clothing to cover them, and, as he spoke of another steamer which would pass by in the morning, he had little hope of his children holding out. Then the servant maid declared that if possible she would keep the little ones alive. Clinging in the darkness to the icy branches, she stripped off her own clothing, all but the thin garment next her body, and wrapped up the shivering children. Thus they passed the long, dark hours of that terrible night. I know not what prayers were spoken, but I know that Jesus, who suffered cold and hunger for our sakes, made that servant girl strong to sacrifice herself. During the night one of the children died, but in the morning, when the first light came, the little girls were still alive. Then, when her work was done, the freezing limbs of the brave girl relaxed their hold, a deadly sleep fell on her, and she dropped silently into the rushing river below. Presently a steamer came in sight, and the two children for whom she had died were safe. Only quite lately there was a great fire in London. In the burning house were a husband and wife, their children, and a servant maid. The parents perished in the flames, but the servant appeared to the sight of the crowd below, framed, as it were, in fire, at a blazing window. Loudly shouted the excited crowd, bidding the girl to save herself. But she was thinking of others. Throwing a bed from the window, she signalled to those below to stretch it out. Then, darting into the burning room, she brought one of the children of her employers, and dropped it safely on to the bed. Fiercer grew the flames, but again this humble heroine faced the fire, and saved the other children. Then the spectators, loudly cheering, begged her to save herself. But her strength was exhausted, she faltered in her jump, and was so injured that death soon came to her. My brothers, no one will raise a grand monument to Emma Willoughby, and Alice Ayres, who passed, the one through water, the other through fire, for Christ’s dear sake. But surely in God’s great Home of many mansions their names are written in letters of gold.
IV. Be strong in fighting the battle. You know that life is a great battlefield. Put on, then, the whole armour of God. Stand, as Christ’s soldiers, side by side, shoulder to shoulder, with your faces to the foe. When Napoleon retreated from Moscow, and the main body had passed by, the mounted Cossacks hovered around the stragglers, who, overcome by cold and fatigue, could only force their way slowly through the snow. Many a weary Frenchman thus fell beneath the Cossack lances. Presently a band of these fierce horsemen saw a dark object on the snowy plain, and dashed towards it. They were face to face with a small body of French who had formed into a square to resist them, their bayonets at the charge. The Cossacks rode round and round, seeking for a weak place for attack, and finding none. At length they charged the square, and found it formed of frozen corpses. The Frenchmen had died whilst waiting for the foe. Brothers, may death find us fighting the good fight. “Be strong in the Lord.” (H. J. Wilmot-Buxton, M. A.)
Christian strength
Christianstrength is a subject which needs emphasizing. Christians have not always been strong. The mediaeval saints, with their fastings and scourgings, their pale faces and emaciated forms, in spite of much that was beautiful in their lives, were not strong. It was a false conception of the Christian life which drove them to the fancied safety of the cloister, while the voice of the great Captain was calling His soldiers, then as now, to fight the eternal battle against sin and selfishness in the glare of day and amid the temptations of the world. And in our own day how many religious biographies are but a tedious record of lives that were in no sense strong. It is scarcely surprising that the average young man’s opinion of the religious life should be that it is not a very attractive thing; at any rate, as wanting in broad, strong, cheerful humanity. And yet strength and common sense--sturdy strength and masculine common sense--have always been the characteristics of true Christianity. They are the characteristics of Christ Himself. How strong and fearless the spirit with which He went ever to the heart and core of religion! Woe unto you, ye formalists! Or look again at the life of the great apostle. Was not His religion strong and masculine, healthy and practical. Study the way in which He dealt with the vexed questions of His time, such as slavery, or mixed marriage, or meats offered to idols, or circumcision, or the larger question of the relation of Jew to Gentile; and you will find He never fails to divide the kernel from the husk, the essential from the accidental, the eternal from the temporal. You will find that freedom, and love of truth, and a great-hearted catholic sympathy from the very fibre and tissue of his teaching. And so it should be now. So it is now, with all true saints of God. Human nature is not a poor thing, but a grand thing-grand in its origin, for in His own image God created us: grand in its achievements, for men have lived and are living heroic lives by the power of Christ; grand in its destiny, for we shall one day be like Christ and see Him as He is. (W. M. Furneaux, M. A.)
Strong in prayer
“Be strong in the Lord” means Be strong in prayer: and never was the warning more needful than in our day. We live in an age of steam and electricity, of activity and bustle, of jostle and close contact: an age which is nothing if it is not practical: an age which scarcely disguises its contempt for a life of contemplation. We are all tempted to fancy that the hours which we give to prayer and meditation are wasted hours: we are all the more tempted to think so, because on every side of us are earnest men, working zealously in the cause of humanity, who do not even pretend to be in any sense men of prayer. And yet it is my profound conviction that every life, however faithfully it be spent in the services of others, falls immeasurably below what it might be, if it is not inspired by prayer. I stood a few weeks ago before the grandest creation of human art, the San Sisto Madonna of Raphael. On an easel at my side was a finished copy. It was the work of a good artist. Every line of feature, every fold of drapery, every shade and tint of colour, seemed a faithful reproduction of the great masterpiece. Yet something was lacking. The nameless something which constitutes the divine genius of the original had evaporated and perished in the copy. My brothers, it is even so with the life of a man who prays, and the life of a man who prays not. We all know men whose faces, as we look upon them, are transparent with a radiant purity: we feel that the light upon their features is a reflection from the light which falls upon the countenance of their Angel who always beholds the face of their Father in heaven: we feel that in their presence we breathe a purer atmosphere, which sends us away stronger in courage and in purpose: we feel that they have a strength which others have not, because they are men of prayer. They go forth every morning to the day’s work, refreshed and invigorated by prayer: they have learnt to turn, now and again, throughout the day, to their Master’s face. In proportion as we train ourselves, in every moment of doubt and difficulty, of trial and temptation--nay, in every little act of daily life--to look upon that Face so helpful in its calm strength, so sweet in its radiant purity, we shall lead noble lives, which shall be indeed “‘strong in the Lord.” (W. M. Furneaux, M. A.)
The need of Christian courage
Christian valour and spiritual courage is a needful grace.
1. Because of our own indisposition, timorousness, dulness, and backwardness to all holy and good duties. What Christian findeth not this by woeful experience in himself? When he would pray, etc., there is I know not what fearfulness in him; his flesh hangeth back, as a bear when he is drawn to the stake.
2. Because of those many oppositions which we are sure to meet.
(1) The world.
(2) The devil. (William Gouge.)
All strength from God
The strength and valour whereby we are enabled to fight the Lord’s battle, is hid in the Lord, and to be had from Him. The Lord has thus reserved all strength in Himself, and would have us strong in Him, for two reasons:
1. For His own glory, that in time of need we might fly unto Him, and in all straits cast ourselves on Him; and, being preserved and delivered, acknowledge Him our Saviour, and accordingly give Him the whole praise.
2. For our comfort, that in all distresses we might be the more confident. Much more bold may we be in the Lord, than in ourselves. God’s power being infinite, it is impossible that it should be mated by any adverse power, which at the greatest is finite. Were our strength in ourselves, though for a time it might seem sufficient, yet would there be fear of decay; but being in God, we rest upon an Omnipotency, and so have a far surer prop to our faith. (William Gouge.)
God’s power is most mighty
The power of God, whereunto we are to trust, is a most mighty and strong power, a power able to protect us against the might of all other powers whatsoever. According to God’s greatness is His power--infinite, incomprehensible, unutterable, inconceivable. As a mighty wind which driveth all before it; as a swift and strong stream, against which none can swim; as a burning flaming fire which consumeth and devoureth all--so is God’s power. Whatsoever standeth before it, and is opposed against it, is but as chaff before a strong wind, or bulrushes before a swift current, or stubble before a flaming fire; for all other power, though to our weakness it seem never so mighty, can be but finite, being the power of creatures, and so a limited power, yea, a dependent power subordinate to this power of might, of His might who is Almighty, and so no proportion betwixt them.
1. A strong prop is this to our faith, and a good motive to make us trust entirely to the power of God, without wavering or doubting, notwithstanding our own weakness, or our adversaries’ power.
2. It is no matter of presumption, to be sure of victory, being strong in this mighty power, because it is the power of Almighty God. (William Gouge.)
The benefit of confidence in God
1. It will remove causeless fear (Neh_6:11; Pro_22:13).
2. It will make bold in apparent danger (Psa_3:6; Pro_28:1).
3. It will recover a man’s spirit, though he should by occasion be wounded, stricken down, and foiled; so as though at first he prevail not, yet it will make him rise up again and renew the battle (Jos_8:3; Jdg_20:30). (William Gouge.)
A Christian’s warfare
A few general observations on the warfare of a Christian.
I. It is in its nature honourable.
1. As to what he opposes. Sin. Satan. Sinners, He.
2. As to what he aims at. God’s glory. The salvation of souls.
3. As to the parties that are with him. God. Angels. Saints.
II. It is very mysterious. As--
1. The principal agents in it are invisible.
2. None see or understand it but by experience.
3. His enemies eventually promote his victory. Job. Paul. “But I would ye should understand, brethren,” etc. (Php_1:12).
4. Its weapons can be used by thousands at once.
5. He dies to conquer and be crowned.
III. It is the most important.
1. Whether Christ or Satan be superior.
2. Whether he shall be saved or lost.
IV. His armour is complete.
V. His enemies are condemned, and virtually conquered.
1. Sin.
2. Satan.
3. Death. (H. J. Foster.)
The apostolic exhortation
1. Brethren”--
(1) As begotten of the same spiritual Father.
(2) As entitled to the same privileges.
(3) As bearing the same spiritual features.
2. “Be strong.”
I. The nature of the exhortation. Seen by describing a Christian soldier strong in the Lord, etc. As he has to do--
1. With the guilt of accumulated sin (Psa_51:1, etc.).
2. With a body of indwelling sin (Rom_7:1, etc.).
3. With Satan’s temptations (2Co_12:7-9).
4. With great outward trials (Job_1:1, etc.; Act_20:23-24).
5. With death.
II. The way in which the Lord brings His people to be as He exhorts.
1. By showing them the importance of their situation. As made for eternity. As accountable to God. “Neither is there any creature that is not manifest in His sight,” etc. (Heb_4:13). As called to glorify God.
2. By giving them to feel that they can do nothing.
3. By showing that in the Mediator is all they want.
4. By teaching them to pray for strength.
5. By giving them to know that He dwells in them.
6. By showing them what He has done before for them and for others. (H. J. Foster.)
Strength in the Lord
What makes the strongest things in the material world--the trees, the rocks, the mountains? A law which we call the law of their gravitation. That is, they are under a law which draws first the parts one to another, and then altogether into one centre. It is the same law which does both--that attracts them to each other, and then to a common point. Hence their firmness; hence their fixedness; hence their strength. And as it is in the natural, so it is in the spiritual world. There must be, and there must be felt, a great pervading, constraining principle. This principle must fasten us altogether, and it must fasten to one deep, hidden centre. And that principle is the love of the Lord Jesus Christ. God meant that to be to the moral world what the law of gravitation is to the material world. Perhaps the chief end of the material law was to be an illustration of the spiritual. We must all follow the attractiveness of Christ. So we must each tend to Christ, and all draw to the Christ which we see in one another. And if we all drew to one common Christ, and to the Christ we see in each other, we should have true strength--we should be “strong in the Lord.” There is another truth which nature teaches. If I wish to give intensity of strength to anything,--say to the light--I gather it to a focus. And so God has constituted the human mind, it is “strong” only when it is concentrated. And to meet this necessity of our being, God has provided one great, all-absorbing object, to which the whole man is to converge. Need I say what that object is? It is His own glory. For this we were created--for this we were redeemed--for this we were sanctified. And according as we live indeed for that, we are efficient and we are happy. Divide your end--live for many ends, and immediately talents are frittered, energies wasted, the man is enervated. But be a man of one thing--bent on one purpose--and you will be astonished to find how “strong” you will become. But, besides this, there is a deep, mysterious rock of strength, which I must not leave out of the calculation. And it is essential, very essential, for no man can be “strong” who has it not. The vine and the branches shadow it out--the Lord’s Supper embodies it--every spiritual office promotes it--I mean the actual union which there is between the soul and Christ. I should be afraid to say such a thing if God had not declared it in the plainest terms--the actual oneness of a believer’s spirit with the spirit of the Lord Jesus--He in us, and we in Him--for this is the strength. Strength, then, is always flowing--just as the oil flowed from the two olive trees, which are the priestly and the kingly character of Jesus--the grace sufficient for the human mind--the strength for every day’s need--the bidden life--the innate power of God in a man. You must be always realizing and cherishing the union with the Spirit by certain acts--acts of pious thought--holy fondness--frequent participation in the Lord’s Supper--secret communion, and habitual prayer. (J. Vaughan, M. A.)
Strength against temptation
On the eve of one of the most eventful of England’s naval conflicts, Nelson hung aloft from the masthead that inspiring admonition, which was read with a thrill of heroic feeling by his fleet: “England expects every man to do his duty.” Not less startling and inspiring, as addressed to the young men of our land, should be the stirring admonition that comes to us from a greater leader, and at a crisis more momentous, “Be strong in the Lord.”
I. The strength required.
1. It is not primarily physical strength. The time was when this was a prime element in the estimate of a man, nor can we doubt that it is undervalued now.
2. Neither does the direction of the text apply specifically to intellectual strength. This is not without its importance, although without moral aims it is a blind giant, and with perverted aims it is a wilful giant.
3. But far more important than this is moral strength. Here, too, something depends upon original endowment. There are some whose moral natures seem made of wax. Most unfortunately there is nothing in them like flint to strike fire from. The devil shapes them at will, as a woman kneads her dough. A strong temptation bears them away, as a whirlwind does the down of a thistle. Yet sometimes where we witness this, it is not all due to nature. It would be a libel upon her to say so. There is a moral greatness, not necessarily religious, which we admire, for it is strong. It may be heathen greatness, it may be a Pagan strength, but it rests upon the basis of strong character, and the moral element of it forces our applause. There was strength, when Socrates scorned to escape from prison, and chose rather to drink the fatal hemlock. There was strength, when Joseph Reed, of Revolutionary memory, approached by bribes of British gold, nobly replied: “I am poor, very poor, but poor as I am, the King of Great Britain is not rich enough to buy me.” But how much more noble and enviable than this is the strength of religious principle, strength in God. It is not strong necessarily in muscle, in intellect, in strategy; but it is strong in resistance to moral assault, to temptations that, in winning guise and in more than carnal strength, would draw the soul to perdition. The real battle of life is with Satan and his arts and followers, and the real hero is he who wins in this conflict.
II. But whence is this strength to come? “Be strong in the Lord,” is the reply. (E. H. Gillett.)
Strength in suffering
A. B--was a young woman residing at Acton at the time I was a student for the ministry. She was heavily afflicted, paralyzed, crippled, deaf, and half blind. Her life was passed in one chamber, for the most part on one couch, but the circle of her influence had a wide radius. In the face of overwhelming infirmities she maintained a spirit of serene and cheerful contentment which no new adversity could break. When her bodily strength rallied a little she filled her room, not with wailing or complaint, but with songs of thankfulness; when the wave of physical vitality ebbed again, the unspoken praise lay in quiet sunshine on the pale but smiling face. When the benumbed fingers recovered for a few days some portion of their former nimbleness, she was happy in resuming the dainty needlework by which her bread was earned. When she could do nothing but suffer, her brave soul shone in undiminished patience. Even among women I have never known another so strong in grace--in “love, joy, peace, long suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance.” And what, think you, was her own explanation of this noble and beautiful strength? She gave it to me one evening after I had watched her through a paroxysm of neuralgic torture: “He giveth power to the faint, and to them that have no might He increaseth strength.” (W. Woods.)
The secret of strength
Many small wax lights, which of themselves burn faintly, when put into one torch or taper send forth a bright and shining flame; many tittle bells, which tinkle together to the pleasing of children, when melted and cast into one great bell do affect the ear in a more solemn and awful sound; and many single threads, which snap asunder with the least touch, when twisted together make a strong cable, which can withstand the fury and violence of a storm. So it is with the mind; the more it is scattered and divided through multiplicity of objects, the more weak it is; and the more it is fixed on one single object, the more masculine and strong are the operations of it, either for good or evil. (W. Spurstowe.)
The power of God’s might
What the power of God’s might is, we very well know. Mountains tremble, and rocks melt before it; the sea feels it, and flies; Jordan is driven back. Armies are discomfited, and cut off by a blast in the night. The world itself was produced by this power, in one instant, and may be destroyed in another. All created power, if opposed to that of the Creator, withers and falls, like a leaf in autumn, when shaken by the stormy wind and tempest. It is “in the power of this might,” that the apostle exhorts as to “be strong.” But how is this--“Hast thou an arm like God; or canst thou thunder with a voice like Him?” Yet St. Paul would never enjoin us to seek after that which could not be obtained, Our Redeemer is Almighty; He is with us by His Spirit, and His strength is ours. Look at His apostles in their natural state; ignorant, and fearful of everything: view them “endued with power from on high”; acquainted with the whole counsel of God, and bold to proclaim it through all the nations of the earth. During the persecutions of the Church in her infant state, numbers of the weaker sex, receiving strength and courage from above, in the hour of trial, patiently endured all the torments which the malice of men and devils could invent. They triumphed gloriously--“Now are they crowned, and receive palms from the Son of God whom they confessed in the world.” The promise of assistance in time of need is to us all: to us, and to our children, and to as many as the Lord our God shall call. From Thee, blessed Jesus, we learn our duty: to Thee must we look, and to thy all-powerful grace, for strength to perform it. Not in ourselves, but in Thee, and in the power of Thy might, we are strong. Without Thee, we can do nothing: with Thee we can do all things. It is this consideration which alone can support us, when we take a view of the enemies whom we must encounter. (Bishop Home.)
