GRIDIRON GLADIATORS are prayed over and spectators are entertained with half-time repertoires that include "Put your hand in the hand of the Man of Galilee." It is a new day in Christendom. Conversions after the modern order of things fill more stadiums than does Henry Aaron.
Moreover, the lexicon of today's generation is replete with relevancy, commitment, concern, involvement, compassion, and love. It is proclaimed from bumper and ballad, from coffee shop and commune, and touted as primitive godliness.
However, primitive godliness found its finest expression in the hands of a Carpenter. These hands commissioned a fisherman and a tentmaker to form the church militant, not the church rapturous. Their example clearly demonstrates that we are to be comrades in arms and not trysting lovers. Let us, therefore, salute one another as workmen on the walls of Zion, as watchmen at the gate, or as Gideon's noble three hundred and not as some effete corps exhausted by the very thought of encounter. Our theme song should be "Onward, Christian soldiers! Marching as to war."
Today is not the day of pick and fiddle but of pick and shovel. The loud cry is not merely amplified sound, nor is Daniel 12:4 fulfilled by summer buses. An army of our youth rightly trained refers to the substantial skills of service from bookkeeping to beekeeping. Such a field force goes forth to battle in pick-up trucks, armed with hammers and saws, paintbrushes and primer, with shovels, rakes, and hoes. They clean up some widow's yard, repair her porch and plumbing, paint her kitchen, stock her pantry, and then tell her the good news of redemption through Jesus Christ our Lord. If after engaging in this kind of practical Christian service we have any energy left, let us sing the song of Zion "Lead on, O King Eternal, The day of march has come."
