The apostle to the Gentiles often referred to himself and his fellow workers as soldiers. The Christian life he called a warfare. Somehow this great evangelist, this mighty soul winner, took his work so seriously that he compared himself to a soldier-and the church to an army of men, traveling, fighting, suffering, enduring, and conquering. To this noble preacher his ministry was not simply maneuvering and drawing of rations, but it was a warfare that called upon him to give all to win the victory. To young Timothy, whom Paul called "my son" and whom he greatly loved, he wrote: "Thou therefore endure hardness, as a good soldier of Jesus Christ."
In this exhortation we are told whose soldiers we are. Each is a "soldier of Jesus Christ." It makes much difference under what banner we enlist. In Paul's day Rome ruled the world. Her standard was the rallying point for all peoples. Those who fought under her banner were almost certain of victory. At the very time that Paul, a soldier for Christ, wrote these words, he was a prisoner in Rome, under sentence of death because he belonged to the Christian forces engaged in relentless warfare against the principles crystallized in Rome. It was under these conditions that he wrote his son Timothy to "endure hardness, as a good soldier of Jesus Christ."
That word "hardness" has the meaning of enduring privation, want, affliction, suffering. It means almost anything rather than ease and physical comfort. It certainly included travel in those ancient days,--absence from home, living under the fear of police interference, even the possibility of suffering imprisonment and death for Christ. In those days the Jews, the only professed believers in God, were in tense in their opposition to Christ and His Messiahship.
Paul wrote to the church at Corinth of some things he suffered:
"We are troubled on every side, yet not distressed; we are perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed; always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our body. For we which live are alway delivered unto death for Jesus' sake, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our mortal flesh." 2 Cor. 4:8-11.
Concerning how the Jews persecuted him, Paul wrote:
"Of the Jews five times received I forty stripes save one. Thrice was I beaten with rods, once was I stoned, thrice I suffered shipwreck, a night and a day I have been in the deep; in journeyings often, in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils by mine own countrymen, in perils by the heathen, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils of the sea, in perils among false brethren; in weariness and painfulness, in watchings often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness. Beside those things that are without, that which cometh upon me daily, the care of all the churches. Who is weak, and I am not weak? who is offended, and I burn not? If I must needs glory, I will glory of the things which concern mine infirmities. The God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which is blessed for evermore, knoweth that I lie not. In Damascus the governor under Aretas the king kept the city of the Damascenes with a garrison, desirous to apprehend me: and through a window in a basket was I let down by the wall, and escaped his hands." 2 Cor. 11:24-33.
Paul entered into the sufferings of his people. He loved them; and when they suffered, he suffered with them. He lived above a just cause for reproach. Of himself and his entering into the sufferings of others, he wrote:
"We then, as workers together with Him, beseech you also that ye receive not the grace of God in vain. (For He saith, I have heard thee in a time accepted, and in the day of salvation have I succored thee: behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation.) Giving no offense in anything, that the ministry be not blamed: but in all things approving ourselves as the ministers of God, in much patience, in afflictions, in necessities, in distresses, in stripes, in imprisonments, in tumults, in labors, in watchings, in fastings; by pureness, by knowledge, by long-suffering, by kindness, by the Holy Ghost, by love unfeigned, by the word of truth, by the power of God, by the armor of righteousness on the right hand and on the left, by honor and dishonor, by evil report and good report: as deceivers, and yet true; as unknown, and yet well known; as dying, and, behold, we live; as chastened, and not killed; as sorrowful, yet alway rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, and yet possessing all things." 2 Cor. 6:1-10.
When a man of Paul's experience wrote Timothy that he should "endure hardness, as a good soldier of Jesus Christ," he meant that Timothy should give his best to God. There was to be no ease taking, no shirking of duty, no shortage in service.
Paul also exhorted Timothy against becoming entangled with the world. "No man that warreth entangleth himself with the affairs of this life; that he may please him who hath chosen him to be a soldier." 2 Tim. 2:4. Certainly this means that the minister is not to allow himself to become bound up in the things of this world. He is not to become localized, fixed in one locality, so that he cannot answer the first command of the great commission, "Go." Many seem to think that this means to stay, to remain stationary; but the real thought is very clear—"Go." Every true minister is a soldier of Jesus Christ. But no soldier deserves the name who declines to "go." That is the sign and mark of a true soldier,—to go when he is sent. No nation could hope to win a warfare whose soldiers refuse to go in the face of danger and even death.
Soldiers count not what they endure and suffer as beyond their duty. One German soldier in the World War told me that he was in sixty-two direct battles and attacks. Yet none of these hardships discouraged this soldier. Paul, who suffered all that flesh is heir to, said, when told that he must suffer still more:
"Behold, I go bound in the spirit unto Jerusalem, not knowing the things that shall befall me there: save that the Holy Ghost witnesseth in every city, saying that bonds and afflictions abide me. But none of these things move me, neither count I my life dear unto myself, so that I might finish my course with joy, and the ministry, which I have received of the Lord Jesus, to testify the gospel of the grace of God." Acts 20:22-24.
We are in a great warfare for the kingdom of God. We are His soldiers. We are fighting in His cause, waging His battles, and we must endure to the end. It is the life of a soldier never to surrender and to know no defeat. Said Garibaldi, addressing his soldiers, "I offer neither joy, quarters, nor provisions. I offer you hunger, thirst, forced marches, battles, and death." Soldiers of the cross should be not less brave, nor less willing to suffer and sacrifice, than soldiers fighting for some earthly kingdom. God's kingdom is promoted by sacrifice and the braving of hardships by His servants. It is our privilege as well as our duty to give all to promote God's work on earth.
I. H. E.