To Him That Overcometh

IT IS a marked truth that as men become living Christians, they become soldiers. This lies in the nature of things and cannot be otherwise whether we like it or not. No one can reach heaven without fighting his way through an enemy’s country. This world lieth in the wicked one. His dominion is indeed a usurpation which must eventually be destroyed, but for the present it holds. The great mass of this world’s population is under Satan’s sway. He rules in the children of disobedience. And under his kingdom we all are born having the taint of depravity upon us all. In becoming Christians we take another Lord, come under a new rule, enlist under another standard and set up rebellion against and within the dominion of the evil one; and so we are at once thrown into conflict with Satan’s empire, and must contend and fight to maintain ourselves and come off victorious.

Candidates for favor need to be tested that they may prove their fitness to receive the favors. Untried virtue is always uncertain. People must be made to show what they really are, in order to earn righteous promotion. And as we are called by the Gospel to very exalted dignities and honors, it is but just that our faith and our devotion should be put to the test to prove our fidelity and dutifulness. Though the danger is that some will utterly fail, it is proper that those who have in them the grace and strength of steadfastness, should have the chance to demonstrate the fact.

—Selected

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