Pivot Battles in Life
And there was no day like that before it or after it, that the Lord hearkened unto the voice of a man: for the Lord fought for Israel.” — Joshua x. 14.
With these words concludes the narrative of that decisive battle which gave Canaan into the hands of the children of Israel. There were other conflicts, indeed, before this battle. There were several after it — fierce conflicts and furious. But on this battle of Gibeon the whole campaign turned as on a pivot. Victory there proved to be victory everywhere, until Israel’s land of promise became Israel’s land of possession.
And so the civil and martial history of the world has turned on a few decisive battles. Had they resulted differently, the whole history of mankind might have been changed. On the field of Marathon, for example, Greece was saved from the heel of Persian despotism. On the field of Arbela Alexander conquered the Oriental world. The question whether Britons or Frenchmen should rule France was determined when Joan of Arc, in her snow-white armor, rode her coal-black steed up the heights of Orleans. The battle of Marengo placed the iron crown on Napoleon’s brow; Waterloo swept it off, and sent the desolator to the prison rock of St. Helena. Our Revolutionary War lasted through eight long weary years, and had its dark nights when the patriot father would “put none but Americans on guard “; but the whole war turned on the pivot of Saratoga. All these battles just named were decisive. They settled the fate of empires or of dynasties. Had they resulted differently the history of the world would have had a very different reading. God so ordered it, in His wise providence, that mighty results hung on the issue of those encounters. Kingdoms, systems, dynasties were balanced on the point of a sword.
Now every man is a miniature nation, and every human life has its one or more decisive battles. They are like Joshua’s conflict at Gibeon. There is no day like those days, either before or after them, in all that man’s existence.
It is my purpose to discuss those moral conflicts on which depends the destiny of. souls for time and for eternity. I cannot, of course, in one brief sermon review all the conflicts of soul to which each one may be exposed throughout a lifetime. But I will try to indicate the principle struggles of life — what they are, and how to make these moral battle grounds scenes of glorious victory.
And, at the outset, I would observe that every effective influential life is marked with sharp and severe struggles. There is but one way to avoid these, and that is to sacrifice living to bare existence. Such a thing is possible. I can show you human beings whose existence is as meaningless and monotonous as that of an oyster. To sleep through so many hours, to feed the body so many times a day, to walk over a certain dreary routine of uselessness, and at last to drop through into an unnoticed grave and be buried forever, makes up the sum of the only existence that some immortal beings ever accomplish. But life is quite a different matter. And the loftier, the grander the life, the more eventful is it in conflicts. All history teaches this. Every day’s observation confirms it. Daniel, the conqueror of lions in the den, and of imperial brutes in the Babylonian palace; Ezra, the Jewish reformer, Paul, the peerless, preacher of the cross, Augustine, Knox, Luther, Palissy the Huguenot, Bunyan,
Clarkson, Payson — were they not all men of strife and struggle? They were type-men, model men, not perfect, indeed, but earnestly pressing toward the fullness of the stature of Jesus Christ. And their entire careers turned on a few decisive encounters. Had those critical conflicts of soul resulted differently, it is not unlikely that we should never have heard these now celebrated names at all. There is an especial reason why every strong impressive life should be one of conflict. It is a necessity. For strong resolute wills must encounter opposition, and make it too, just as the impetuous locomotive meets more opposition from the air than the slow-creeping dray or the tiny child’s coach. Strong-willed, intellectual, gifted men and women are more fiercely fought for than inferior people. They are the prizes. Virtue and vice contend for such precious possessions. “The Lord hath need” of such; and the devil aims to make them his splendid spoil. Every man’s Hfe-march has its conflicts; the more conspicuous and influential the life, the more memorable spots are its battlefields.
The conflict of life is threefold. That is, sin presents itself in three modes; every soul has three spiritual enemies to meet: The world, the flesh, the devil. By the “world” we mean that whole system of self-seeking, pride, and covetousness that is so congenial to the human heart. The “flesh” typifies sensual appetites. And the devil is the author of doubt and unbelief, of soulenmity to God. These are the “triple alliance” from the pit. Against one or all of these must every soul do battle on its way to heaven. Before these powers of darkness so well trained and so well equipped, so deadly in assault, and so flush with arrogance, every one of you young men may well call out to your will and your conscience, as Wellington called out in the critical moment behind Hougomont: “Here are the enemy! Up, guards, and at them I”
I. In offering you now some practical suggestions for these moral warfares, let me remind you that your first conflicts will probably be with sensual temptations. It is not the fault but the trial of youth that its blood is warm, its impulses are ardent, and its physical appetites clamorous for gratification. So far as these appetites are natural you are not to blame for them. The sin does not lie in possessing them, but in indulging them. The appetite for strong drink when controlled is as harmless as a caged tiger. The danger comes from uncaging the monster. While young men have sensual appetites, and while thousands of abandoned people are incessantly inflaming those appetites by the most enticing and fascinating lures, there must be a warfare between the conscience and the passions. This is inevitable. My friend, you cannot walk our streets without running the gauntlet of ten thousand decoys to ruin. All these lighted, decorated, chandeliered, and tapestried saloons are so many fortresses of the enemy. Their danger to you lies in the temptible material in your own breast. You may fling as many burning brands as you choose into a snowbank; there is no harm done. But one spark is enough to send a powder magazine into the air. Your peril is in direct proportion to the strength of your appetites and the weakness of your moral principle. A very weak temptation will send a weak conscience to perdition. It requires more than a strong temptation to overthrow a strong-souled man of God. But no temptation is an overmatch for a soul steel clad in celestial armor and sentineled by God’s protecting Spirit.
What allurements could be stronger than those which Potiphar’s wanton wife brought to bear upon the youthful Joseph? For remember that he was just at an age when passion flames the fiercest and beauty is most intoxicating to the eye. Remember that he was an underling, and completely in the power of his profligate mistress. Remember, too, that the high road to wealth and luxury lay through that mistress’s guilty favor; while she could doom him to insult and imprisonment if he thwarted her salacious lust. That was the decisive battle in Joseph’s career. It was his pivot moment. Defeat then would have been swift destruction. But after he had once spurned the jeweled duchess of a court, it was easy to spurn the filthy drab from the kennel. It was easy to keep his integrity in a prison when he had already kept it in a palace. If you, my friend, would make your battles with appetite as successfully decisive as Joseph did, imitate his example. Give the subtle enemy no quarter. Set your faces like a flint. Do not yield an inch if you would not be drawn a league. There is but one sure way to escape the doom that lies in the bottom of the wine cup, and that is to let the cup alone. No matter who may proffer it — even the sister of your childhood, or her who is dearer than any sister can be.
As soon touch strychnine as that intoxicating
glass. There is also but one certain way to avoid
the gambler’s infamy and ruin — don’t touch a
card. Stick to this resolution and the battle is won. Would you preserve yourself chaste (and God commands men to be pure as much as He does women or angels)? Would you keep chaste in a city whose very air is tainted with pollution? Shut your eyes and ears to every tempter. In five minutes passion may kindle far enough to consume the good resolutions of a lifetime; and when passion gets under way it is like the Russian’s burning of Moscow, where a thousand places are lighted at once. The question whether you shall be a sot or a sober man? whether you shall be a companion of honest men or of gamesters? whether you shall be clean-hearted or possess an imagination that shall be but a hideous brothel? is often decided in a moment. Oh, what a moral battlefield is this great city, where on each successive night is waged a conflict more momentous than ever roared on the streets of Montebello or raged about the heights of Solferino! When the moonlight flings its silver spell over quiet streets, and leafy parks, and glittering spires; when the cheek of innocence presses its pillow, and the weary are at rest, the eye of God beholds in ten thousand hearts the most terrible combats between conscience and the tempter, between the legions of lust and the little Spartan band of virtue, temperance, and purity.
What struggles docs that all-sccing eye look down upon! What victories! What defeats and incipient damnations! Where no father is by to give aid, how many a son is struck down! Where no dear mother’s voice can be heard in warning or in entreaty, how many a darling child of affection is stabbed through the soul by Satan’s midnight assassins! Said we not rightly that these are decisive conflicts? For in the great day of judgment it will often appear that a single hour on earth did determine the destiny of the man for heaven or hell to all eternity.
II. But there are other battles beside those with sensuality. The “world” is as dangerous an enemy as the flesh. By the “world” we mean the spirit of the world, the selfishness that cares not for God, the covetousness that worships mammon, the ambition that sacrifices every one and everything on its own selfish altar, the god-Jessness that knows no Bible but a ledger, no heaven but a splendid mansion or a high office, no law but policy, and fears no hell but poverty or political defeat. I need not tell you that this spirit is most destructive to religion and most offensive to God. You know all that. No man is so selfish as not to hate selfishness. The miser pities the covetousness of other men. The worldling sees how the world is ruining its devotees, just as every drunkard sees that his comrades are in danger of a drunkard’s grave. There is no spirit more absorbing, more insinuating, more deceptive, more soul hardening than this very spirit of worldliness in its manifold developments. You must conquer it or it will enslave you.
Whenever this subtle monopolizing spirit comes into antagonism with your conscience then you are put to the test to prove “what manner of man ye are of” In business, in public life, in social life, in your innermost religious life, will arise these decisive conflicts, often the most decisive when you least expect it. At an unlooked for moment you may be called to determine some question on the issue of which depends your peace of mind, your spiritual health, your Christian character. You will pass through ordeals which will test exactly how much you are willing to do and how much you are glad to suffer for Jesus’ sake. Duty will call you one way — a thorny way. Self-interest will beckon you into the opposite path — carpeted with velvet. That is a decisive moment for you. A simple “yes” or an emphatic “no” may cost you a fortune, may cost you a troop of friends, may cost you political promotion, may cost you your character, may cost you your soul. How many a public man has had his whole career decided by his course in some trying emergency or on some one great question of right! He is led up into the mount of temptation where some gigantic iniquity bids him bow down and worship it, and promises in return “all the world and the glory thereof” From that mount of trial he comes down a hero or a fool. The die is cast If he has honored justice and truth, then justice and truth will honor him; if not, his bones will be left bleaching on the road to a promotion he can never reach.
That was a hard struggle for Nathaniel Ripley Cobb, of Boston, when he decided to accumulate no more than fifty thousand dollars during his life, and to give all the surplus to the treasury of the Lord. But after the noble resolution was once taken, selfishness was a conquered lust in that man’s breast forever. He had come off more than conqueror. How many a minister of Christ has been charged upon and overcome by this accursed spirit of “worldly wisdom “! He was put to the decisive test, not in Nero’s judgment-hall or before Agrippa’s tribunal; not before a Popish inquisitor or in sight of Smithfield’s fires of martyrdom. But in his quiet study, when some timid friend counseled a treacherous silence in his pulpit on some vital question of right, his “yes” or his “no” has either called from his Master the precious benediction, “Well done, thou good and faithful servant,” or else the fearful anathema, “Ye were ashamed of Me and of My truth, and of thee will I be ashamed before My Father and His holy angels!” We all have our moral Marengos and our Waterloos, where we win or lose the crown of Christian character. When these decisive conflicts come on between your conscience on the one hand, and some selfish scheme or satanic iniquity on the other, then try to remember a few simple rules of moral war: —
1. Never change your position in sight of an enemy. This was a fatal policy to the allies at Austerlitz. It has cost many a disgraceful defeat in spiritual warfare.
2. Never place on guard a doubtful or a questionable principle. Your sentinel will be sure to betray you.
3. Never abandon the high ground of right for the lowlands of expediency. Before you are aware you will be swamped in the bottomless morass of ruin.
4. Get your moral armor from God’s word, and “put on the whole armor.” An exposed spot in character may admit the fatal weapon of the foe.
Ahab was wounded through the joints of his harness. Do not mind blows in the face. Heroes are wounded in the face, cowards in the back.
5. But whether wounded by foes or deserted by friends, never surrender. It is said that not one of the old Imperial Guard survived the wreck of Waterloo. Toward the sunset of that long bloody day, when the surviving remnant of the guards was summoned to lay down their arms, the scarred veterans of fifty victorious fights cried out: “The old guards can die, but they never learned to surrender!” The glorious Captain of our salvation could die for us, but He could not desert us. Blessed is he who is found faithful. He shall wear the crown of amaranth in the paradise of God.
III. But we are driven on to our third and last head — the conflict between faith and unbelief This is the most momentous of all the struggles in which your souls can be involved — faith, evangelic faith on the one side and unbelief on the other. By unbelief I mean something besides ordinary skepticism. You are not skeptics. Not many young men are infidels, especially if their infancy has nestled against the heart-throb of a pious mother, or if their childhood has been led up through a Sabbath school. By “unbelief” I refer to the heart’s rejection of Jesus Christ. Here hes the real battle after all. The simple issue is, Shall Christ have possession of the soul or not? That is the conflict. Faith is believing in Christ and following after Christ. And he that believeth on the Lord Jesus shall be saved. He that believeth not shall be condemned. The ultimate conflict with every one of you will be, Shall Christ or Satan rule my heart?
My friend, you may have gained decisive victories already over sensuality, over selfishness, and over the truckhng cowardice of “worldly wisdom.” But the great encounter that decides the life-campaign is between Christ and Christ’s enemy. What other conflict than this was in the mind of Paul when he wrote that most plaintive outcry in the seventh chapter to the Romans? Of what other battle did he sing the exultant pean in those jubilant words: “I have fought a good fight, ... I have kept the faith: henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, shall give me at that day “? And bringing it right home to yourself, I ask you, what was that struggle in your own bosom when you trembled under God’s word, when your own nature fortified itself against the blessed assaults of redeeming love, when your aroused conscience cried out, “Lord! what must I do to be saved?” Of all life’s conflicts this, this is the decisive one. It decides the destiny of the deathless soul forever. And it can be decided aright only by giving up your soul to Jesus Christ.
Do that at once I beseech you. The Spirit of God may now be striving with you. The Saviour of sinners, with pierced hand, is holding open to you the door of hope. It is a critical moment with you,
“For there is a time we know not when,
A point we know not where,
That marks the destiny of men
To glory or despair.”
Make this critical hour the hour of your soul’s salvation. And when, by the grace of God, you have done that, you may say of the day of your conversion, as was said of Joshua’s victory at Gibeon, “There was no day like that before it or after it, that the Lord hearkened unto the voice of a man.” Thanks be unto Him who giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.
IV
THE LITTLE COAT