LIFE ON THE ALTAR

This article is from Issue 4, Called to Trust

By A. B. Simpson

“Nay, in all these things
we are more than conquerors
through Him that loved us.”
(Romans 8 : 37)

It is a great thing to be a conqueror in Christian life and conflict. It is a much greater thing to be a conqueror “in all these things” which the apostle names, a perfect host of trials, troubles and foes. But what does it mean to be “more than conqueror”? It means to have a decisive victory. There are some victories that cost nearly as much as defeats, and a few more such triumphs would annihilate us. There are some battles which have to be renewed again and again until we are exhausted with the ceaseless strife.

A DECISIVE VICTORY

Many a Christian is kept in constant warfare through lack of courage to venture on a bold and final contest and end the strife by a decisive victory. God is able to give us the grace so to win in a few encounters that there shall be no doubt about the side on which the victory falls and no danger of the contest ever being renewed again. Other battles we may have and shall have, but surely it is possible for us to settle the questions that meet us, one by one, and settle them forever.

Beloved, are not some of you weakened by this indecisiveness in your views of truth, in your steps of faith, in your refusals of temptation, in your surrender to God, in your consecration to His service and your obedience to His special call? You have been just uncertain enough to keep the question open and tempt the adversary to renew the conflict evermore.

DEFEATING THE ENEMY

We sometimes read in God’s word after one of David’s hardest conflicts, or one of Joshua’s boldest triumphs, “the land had rest from war!” Thus we have rest by becoming “more than conquerors through Him that loved us.” It is to have such a victory as will effectually break the adversary’s power and not only defend us from his attacks but effectually weaken and destroy his strength. This is one of the purposes of temptation, that we may be workers together with God in destroying evil.

Two things that the Christian needs are the power to believe and the power to suffer, and in these the enemy is used to aid our growth. We read of Joshua’s battles that “it was of the Lord that these kings should come against Joshua in battle for this very purpose, that they might be utterly destroyed.” It was not enough for Israel to beat them off and be saved from their attacks, but God wanted them exterminated. And so when God allows the enemy to appear in our lives it is that we may do him irreparable and eternal injury, and thus glorify God and be workers with Christ in destroying the works of the devil.

For this purpose God frequently brings to light in our own lives and in our work for God, evils that were concealed, not that they might crush us, but that we might put them aside. But for their discovery and resistance they might still have remained unrevealed and someday have broken out with fatal effectiveness. But God allows them to be provoked into activity in order to challenge our resistance and lead to our aggressive and victorious advance against them. Therefore when we find anything in our own hearts and lives, or in connection with the work of our Master committed to our hands, which seems to threaten our triumph or His work, let us remember that God has allowed it to confront us, that, in His name, it might be forever put aside and rendered powerless to injure or oppose again.

Beloved, are we thus fighting the good fight of faith, resisting the devil and rising up for God against them that do wickedly? Are we looking upon our adversaries and our obstacles as things that have come, not to crush us, but to be put aside and become tributary to our successes and our Master’s glory?

Thus shall we be “more than conquerors through Him that loved us,” and as the prophet beautifully expresses it, “Behold, all they that were incensed against thee shall be ashamed and confounded: they shall be as nothing; and they that strive with thee shall perish. Thou shalt seek them and shalt not find them, even them that contended with thee: they that war against thee shall be as nothing and as a thing of naught.”

Satan thought, when he stirred up Pharaoh to murder the little children of the Hebrews, that he was exterminating a race of which he was afraid. But that very act of his brought Moses into Pharaoh’s house and raised up a deliverer for Israel and the destroyer of Pharaoh. Surely that was being “more than conqueror!” Again, he overmatched himself when he instigated Haman to build his lofty gallows and send forth the decree for Israel’s extermination, for he had the misery of seeing Haman hang on those gallows and Israel delivered. No doubt satan felt he was winning when the Hebrew children went into the furnace and Daniel into the den of lions, hoping to destroy the last remnant of godliness on the earth, but lo! These heroes were “more than conquerors.” Not only did they escape their destroyer, but their deliverance led to the proclamation of Nebuchadnezzar, magnifying the truth of God through the entire Babylonian empire, and to the similar confession of Darius, recognizing God throughout all the confines of the still greater Persian empire. Surely satan was more than beaten that time!

His most audacious attempt was the crucifixion of our Lord, and all hell, no doubt, held high jubilee on that dark afternoon when Jesus sank to death; but lo! The cross has become the weapon by which Satan’s head is already bruised and his kingdom is yet to be exterminated. So God makes him forge the weapons of his own destruction, and hurl the thunderbolts that fall back upon his own head. So may we ever thus turn his fiercest assaults to our advantage, and to the glory of our King.

This, indeed, is to be “more than conqueror,” to learn such lessons from the enemy as will fit us for his next assaults and prepare us to meet him without fear of defeat. There are some things that cannot easily be learned. Our spiritual senses seem to require the pressure of difficulty and suffering to awaken all their capacities and to constrain us to prove the full resources of heavenly grace. God’s school of faith always is trial, and God’s school of love is provocation and wrong. Instead therefore of murmuring against our lot and wondering why we are permitted to be so tried, let us glorify God and put our adversary to shame by wringing a blessing from Satan’s hate and hell’s hostility, and we shall find, after a while, that the enemy will be glad to let us alone for his own sake if not for ours.

THE SPOILS OF VICTORY

To be “more than conqueror” is not only to have the victory, but the spoils of victory. When Jehoshaphat’s army won their great deliverance from the hordes of Moab and Ammon, it took them three days to gather all the spoils of their enemies camps. When David captured the camp of Ziklag’ s destroyers he won so vast a booty that he was able to send rich presents over all Israel among his brethren. When the lepers found their way to the deserted camp of the Syrians they found such abundance that in a single hour the famine of Samaria was turned into satiety. And so our spiritual conflicts and conquests have their rich reward in the treasures recovered from the hands of the enemy.

How many things there are which Satan possesses which we might and should enjoy! Oh, the rich delight which fills the heart when we expel the giants of ill-temper, irritation, haste, hatred, malice and envy who long have ravaged and preyed upon all the sweetness of our life. What a luxuriant land we now enter into, when we overcome these foes, and how delightfully the spoils of peace and love and sweetness and heavenly joy are enriching us in the very things where once they reigned! How rich the spoils recovered from the cruel adversary when through the name of Jesus he is driven from our body, and the suffering frame which had groaned and trembled under his oppression springs into health and freedom and yields all the fullness of its strength to the service of God and the joy of a victorious life.

Oh, the rich reward that comes to the home that has been rescued from the dominancy of the devil, perhaps in the form of drunkenness in a husband and father, or of shameful lust, or sinful vanity, or empty frivolity, or heartless worldliness, or bitter strife, evil speaking and anger in some other heart, and life once more becomes a happy Eden, with love and peace enthroned by the hearth and altar of a Christian home. Oh, the rich spoils that are to come from a world rescued from the hand of its cruel usurper. How it will bloom again in beauty, fruitfulness and blessedness, and yield its riches to its benignant and rightful King and to those who dare to conquer it for Him and shall share with Him its happy Millennial sway!

TRIUMPH OVER FOES

God takes special delight in making that a blessing to us which has been recovered from Satan’s power. The two mightiest strongholds of ancient Canaan were Hebron and Zion. The former was the seat of the Anakim, the giant chieftains of Canaan; but the brave, heroic Caleb dared to challenge them in their lair, and in the strength of God was “more than conqueror” over their terrific strength, and won the heights of Hebron as his special inheritance. But not only did he receive the dear old city of Abraham as his portion and spoil, but God took peculiar delight in subsequently blessing and honoring this very place, it would seem, just because it had been snatched from the very jaws of the enemy; for Hebron was the chosen seat where David’s throne was subsequently established, and where God began the kingdom of Israel which He Himself is yet to rule in the coming age of Israel’s restoration.

Still more defiant was the strength of the citadel of Zion. It was the last stronghold that the Canaanites relinquished. All through the days of Joshua and his successors they succeeded in holding it; all through the centuries of the Judges, all through the days of Saul, all through the early days of even David’s kingdom. The fortress was impregnable so that the haughty Canaanites told their enemies in scorn that they would only deign to garrison it with the blind and the lame and they challenged them to capture it from its feeble and crippled defenders.

But David met the challenge and Joab executed it by a glorious assault and took by storm the heights of Zion from the last chieftains of Canaan. Then it was that Israel found its true metropolis and the rescued stronghold was set apart by God Himself to be the very seat of the sacred kingdom and the monument of the glorious victory which had been achieved. There it was that David reigned; there it was that Solomon in all his glory swayed his glorious sceptre; there it was that the temple rose from the adjoining heights of Moriah full in view of Zion; there it is that Jesus is coming soon to reign once more. Oh, how rich and glorious the recompense of a single victory! How different the world’s history if the old Canaanites had still been permitted to hold the heights of Jebus!

Beloved, the richest treasure of your life is held by Satan. He is too shrewd to waste his strength upon what is worthless. He has put his hand upon the sweetest, dearest and most precious things of life, and whether in your heart, in your home, or in your circle of acquaintance, there you may be sure there is a Hebron or a Zion that God wants you to obtain, and in overcoming which you shall find the richest inheritance of your life and your eternity, and shall forever say with rejoicing, as you realise the full meaning of your victory, “more than conqueror through Him that loved us.”

WRESTLING WITHIN

Many of our battles are fought in view of heaven alone. That is a strange picture that the apostle gives of his trials, “We are made a gazing-stock to angels and principalities.”

Have you not felt, beloved, in some quiet hour, in the secret of your closet, that you were going through a decisive battle which no mortal saw? Within the silent walls of your chamber an issue was being decided which would affect all eternity. The question was, should you be true to God, should you trust Him, should you obey God, or should you compromise? It was a great thing for you that you gained the victory, but it was a greater thing for your Lord. Oh, how intently He watches these spectacles!

How the ranks of hell and heaven look on as some David and Goliath fight alone amidst the gaze of other worlds! How the ranks of hell shout with satisfaction when you betray the slightest weakness! And how your Master smiles with glad approval and sees of the travail of His soul with satisfaction, as like some ancient hero you dare to answer, “Our God is able to deliver us, but if not we will not bow down to the graven image which thou hast set up.”

Do you know, beloved, that Christ’s greatest victories were alone with God and the devil? No human eye saw that victory in the wilderness, but God saw it and was glorified. Shall we stand for Him? God is looking for those on whom He can depend, to stand as bulwarks and battlements against the shocks of hell’s artillery. Shall we, beloved, be not only conquerors, but trusted soldiers whom God can use as His battle-axes and His weapons of war, as His mighty iron-clads, to carry the battle to the very ships of the enemy, not fearing their hardest blows, and hurling against them the thunder-bolts of His victorious power?

Taken from Life On The Altar Publications
Issue 4 Spring 2022

Called To Trust