STRONG IN THE DAY OF BATTLE
[Harry Foster]
"Only be strong and very courageous, to observe to do according to all the law, which Moses my servant commanded thee: turn not from it to the right hand or to the left, that thou mayest have good success whithersoever thou goest. This book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth, but thou shalt meditate therein day and night, that thou mayest observe to do according to all that is written therein: for then thou shalt make thy way prosperous, and then thou shalt have good success. Have not I commanded thee? Be strong and of a good courage; be not affrighted, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee whithersoever thou goest" (Joshua 1:7-9).
"Thou therefore, my child, be strengthened in the grace that is in Christ Jesus. And the things which thou hast heard from me among many witnesses, the same commit thou to faithful men, who shall be able to teach others also. Suffer hardship with me, as a good soldier of Christ Jesus. No soldier on service entangleth himself in the affairs of this life; that he may please him who enrolled him as a soldier. And if also a man contend in the games, he is not crowned, except he have contended lawfully. The husbandman that laboureth must be the first to partake of the fruits. Consider what I say; for the Lord shall give thee understanding in all things. Remember Jesus Christ, risen from the dead, of the seed of David, according to my gospel" (2 Timothy 2:1-8).
THERE is a very striking similarity between the exhortations found in the second letter to Timothy and the charge given to Joshua: "Be strong and of a good courage" -- 'Thou therefore, my child, be Strong ...'. Joshua was not a child, but he was the child, the successor, of a previous generation. The words in this first chapter were not spoken actually by Moses. In Deuteronomy 31 there are very similar words in the charge which Moses himself gave to Joshua. This was a new generation, not called upon to begin a new work, but to finish a work which had been begun.
Now, passing over into the New Testament, nor is Timothy a child, and I suppose by the time this letter was written to him he was not exactly what we would call a young man, but he too represented a new generation, a succession. Paul looked to him, and to those who were like him, to carry through the work, the testimony, that had been begun. And if you read on to chapter 3 you will immediately find the scope of this charge reaching right into the last days.
So this letter is written for all saints, but it has a special emphasis and a peculiar message to those who find themselves called upon to be a new generation, to be the instrument of pursuing a purpose [28/29] already begun, and of carrying it right through unto the last days. So the whole thought bound up with these two charges, the one to Joshua and the other to Timothy, has special reference to us who find ourselves, as undoubtedly we are, in the last days.
THE DAY OF BATTLE
The first thing that we look at for a moment is to see the circumstances which surround them, the characteristics of the time. In Joshua's case, of course, there was only one issue, only one occupation at that particular time. He was the leader of a fighting nation; and Paul, writing to Timothy, lays special emphasis on this same fact, that one of the characteristics of the hour is to be conflict, and he makes no apology for taking up as a metaphor the wars which men pursue and the occupation of a soldier -- "a good soldier of Jesus Christ". There is a battle on, nay, more than a battle. You will have noticed, if you have an Authorised Version, that it says: "No man that warreth." But the Revised Version speaks of "No soldier on service" -- no soldier on active service. There are two words used in Scripture about conflict in this military sense. One speaks of a battle, one decisive engagement fought through to a finish and then it is over, but the other (and this is the word which is used here) speaks of a campaign -- if you like, a war -- with its many phases and its many aspects, and it is that which is typical of the whole age in which we live and peculiarly characteristic of the last days. Conflict, not a straightforward 'ding-dong' battle, but with all the skirmishing, the subtlety, the long drawn-out endurance of a campaign. We are in that, but the difficulty is (and I speak for myself in this case) we so often forget what we are in. Every step that we take, especially when it has something of special value to the Lord in it, every movement, is fraught with opposition, not necessarily of the straightforward brutal kind, but opposition as of the skill, the cunning, the guiles and the force of a whole army. That tremendous army is not ranged against us alone, but we are in the battle and we very often become focal points round which it rages.
Now our difficulty is just this: we think something has happened to us, and we often get offended about it, and do not recognize, or recognize only too late, that that circumstance -- it may have been some small, irritating thing -- is only a part of a great conflict. If we hug to ourselves our own particular grief or grievance, and wonder why this has happened to us, or why we are here and why others are not in our position, we come to an absolute standstill and virtually, on that particular front, there is defeat. If we rise up and realize that this sorrow, however crushing, or this problem, however acute, or this irritation, however annoying, is just a part -- but a very real part -- of a great world-wide, nay, universal, battle, it makes it so much easier. We realize that it is not that we are being hardly dealt with by the Lord, but we have been entrusted with a definite position to hold for Him. It revolutionizes your mental outlook. For lack of that many of us have failed very badly.
And so conflict is one of the great features of the time. It will come in any kind of way, most particularly in the way which we do not expect and which we do not desire. We do not expect the enemy to choose out that particular trial that we could bear best; if we do, we have mistaken his nature. I speak out of my own heart. How true it is that we are blind and forgetful and taken off our guard again and again because we regard incidents and circumstances as things in themselves, and fail to realize that the whole scene as it is now set is one of a great, complicated campaign, and we are soldiers in the ranks.
ENDURE HARDSHIP
The next note that is sounded so much in this letter is that of suffering. If you go through the second letter to Timothy there is no cloaking of the fact, no attempt on Paul's part to make light of his own experiences, or in some cheap optimism to encourage Timothy. On the contrary, it is, again and again, to bear in mind the sufferings of his great predecessor, and himself to be prepared to suffer, as it is all a part of the campaign. Some natures can enjoy a good 'ding-dong' fight, and there is an appeal even in the word 'conflict' when it is looked upon in certain aspects. Get down to pray and deal with the thing, and you may find some satisfaction in feeling you have given the enemy a bad time. Well, that may be a part of the battle, but so often our fighting is suffering, and a case of enduring the hardness of a long drawn-out, and to us, very mysterious campaign. You cannot expect the One who is Himself at the head of His forces to take us into His confidence as to the whole of the thing that He is doing, or even, perhaps, as to our little part in it.
