“God never gives strong faith without fiery trial.” || Charles Spurgeon

It is a tough battle which the Christian is called to fight; not one which carpet knights might win; no easy skirmish which he might gain, who dashed to battle on some sunshiny day, looked at the host, then turned his courser’s rein, and daintily dismounted at the door of his silken tent. It is not a campaign which he shall win, who, but a raw recruit to-day, foolishly imagines that one week of service will insure a crown of glory. It is a life-long war; a contest which will require all our strength, if we are to be triumphant; a battle at which the stoutest heart might quail; a fight from which the bravest would shrink, did he not remember that the Lord is on his side; therefore whom shall he fear? God is the strength of his life: of whom shall he be afraid? This fight is not one of main force, or physical might; if it were, we might the sooner win it; but it is all the more dangerous from the fact that it is a strife of mind, a contest of heart, a struggle of the spirit—ofttimes an agony of the soul.

Do you wonder that the Christian is called to conflict? God never gives strong faith without fiery trial; he will not build a strong ship, without subjecting it to very mighty storms; he will not make you a mighty warrior, if he does not intend to try your skill in battle. The sword of the Lord must be used; the blades of heaven must be smitten against the armor of the evil one, and yet they shall not break, for they are of true Jerusalem metal, which shall never snap. We shall conquer, if we begin the battle in the right way. If we have sharpened our swords on the cross, we have nothing whatever to fear; for though we may be sometimes cast down and discomforted, we shall assuredly at last put to flight all our adversaries, for we are the sons of God even now. Why, then, should we fear? Who shall bid us “stay,” if God bid us advance?

Excerpted from Gleanings Among The Sheaves by Charles Spurgeon. Public domain.