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TOPIC: Gordon, Samuel Dickey - Quiet Talks About the Tempter (Other Topics in this Collection)
SUBJECT: 017. The Trinity of Action
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The Trinity of Action
There's a new trinity that the earnest man wants to get hold of. At least it is new in not being much talked about. It is the trinity of action, the three that come into contact in the action of life, three persons in one action. The man who earnestly wants to win in the fight of life needs to know about this trinity of action.
If a man would be pure; if he would be strong; if he would make no partnership of any sort—silent or otherwise—with sin, he must fight. If he would keep that sly, subtle, stubborn thing called selfishness out, clear out and clean out, with no tail-ends left anywhere about; if he would keep humble, self-forgetfully humble, seeking nothing for himself, he must fight for it. If he would be free from that peculiar money-slavery, whose clanking chains are rarely out of sight or sound wherever one goes; if he would know the rare sweets of that rarest of all things, self-mastery, he will have to do some real, hard, stiff fighting.
The earnest man knows that life is a fight. The presence of the tempter makes it a fight. The man's earnest purpose to be true, both to himself and to his Lord, brings the fight out, and brings it on, and makes it a very real fight so far as he is concerned. Now, such a man in the thick of the fight, wants to know about this new trinity if he is to be a keen fighter, and if he is to win in the fight. If he is not to suffer shameful defeat he must know about this three-in-one.
You know the fight of life may be settled in one of three ways. A man may be defeated. He may make an honest fight and be defeated; and a good many men are. Or, he may make a sort of truce, a compromise, a stand-off. He may agree not to fight, that is, not to oppose in any aggressive way the power of evil, but just to slip smoothly along, content not to oppose, but to play the part of a neutral.
Yet that is really the same thing as a defeat, only it is not a decent defeat; it is cowardly. There is no neutral ground, where right and wrong are involved. The man who fights, and is whipped has the comfort of knowing that at least he fought—he is not a coward. But this easy-going fellow has not enough heart to make a good fight. He's too diplomatic. Cowards are rare diplomats. It is surprising how many are letting the fight of life be settled in this slipshod way.
Then there is a third way, fighting and winning The earnest man will fight, and he may win, and he will win, if our blessed Lord Jesus may have His way in his life. Now, to know about this trinity of actions in the fight of life is an immense factor in winning. And the earnest man should know about it.
The first one I will name in this trinity is the tempter, the splendid spirit-prince of this world. I name him first because he is the aggressor. He started the fight, and he is forever keeping it up. I name him first, too, because we are living on the earth—and he is the prince of this world. This is the battlefield, and this prince is at home here. He knows all the ground well. He is fighting on familiar ground, and in that he has great advantage. The earnest man wants to get some clear, sane, workable information about him.