|
The
Chocolate Soldier
Heroism - The Lost Chord of Christianity
Written by C. T. Studd
Heroism is the lost chord; the missing note of
present-day Christianity!
Every true soldier is a hero!
A SOLDIER WITHOUT HEROISM IS A CHOCOLATE SOLDIER!
Who has not been stirred to scorn and mirth at the very thought of a
Chocolate Soldier? In peace true soldiers are captive lions, fretting
in their cages. War gives them their liberty and send them, like boys
bounding out of school, to obtain their heart's desire or perish in
the attempt. Battle is the soldier's vital breath! Peace turns him
into a stooping asthmatic. War makes him a whole man again, and gives
him the heart, strength, and vigor of a hero.
Every true Christian is a soldier of Christ - a
hero "par excellence"! Braver than the bravest - scorning the soft
seductions of peace and her oft-repeated warnings against hardship,
disease, danger, and death, whom he counts among his bosom friends.
The otherwise Christian is a Chocolate Christian!
Dissolving in water and melting at the smell of fire. Sweeties" they
are! Bonbons, lollipops! Living their lives on a glass dish or in a
cardboard box, each clad in his soft clothing, a little frilled white
paper to preserve his dear little delicate constitution.
Here are some portraits of Chocolate Soldiers taken
by the Lord Jesus Christ Himself.
"He said, 'I go, sir' and went not"; "They say and
do not" - they tell others to go, and yet do not go themselves.
"Never," said General Gordon to a corporal, as he himself jumped upon
the parapet of a trench before Sebastopol to fix a gabion which the
corporal had ordered a private fix, and wouldn't fix himself, "Never
tell another man to do what you are afraid to do yourself."
To the Chocolate Christian the very thought of war
brings a violent attack of chills, while the call to battle always
finds him with the palsy. "I really cannot move," he says. "I only
wish I could, but I can sing, and here are some of my favorite lines:
John the Baptist, "It is not lawful for you to have
your brother's wife." A whole sermon in one sentence, as easy to
remember as impossible to forget. John had preached like that before.
He was not above repeating a good sermon to a king, word for word,
when the king had not given sufficient heed to it.
John received the unique distinction of a first
class character from both God and the agent of the devil. Listen to
the Savior indulging in an outburst of exquisite sarcasm, when He
asked the crowd about John. "What did you go out in the desert to see?
A reed shaken by the wind? A man dressed in fine clothes?" A Chocolate
Christian? (How delicious! The Chocolates were right in front of Jesus
at the time - Pharisees, Sadducees, priests, scribes, lawyers and
other hypocrites. How the crowd must have enjoyed it!)
"He who is least in the kingdom of heaven is
greater than he," intimating that even greater powers than those of
John are at the disposal of every Christian. What John was, each one
of us can be: good, straight, bold, unconquerable, heroic.
But there are other footprints - outrageous ones;
they can only belong to one man, that grandest of Christian paradoxes,
the little giant PAUL. He made the world turn somersault. His life
was a perpetual gamble for God. Daily he faced death for Christ. Again
and again he stood fearless before crowds thirsting for his blood. He
stood before kings and governors and did not turn a hair. He did not
even flinch before Nero, that vice president of hell. His sufferings
were appalling: read them. He trod in his Master's footsteps, and so
received the same splendid compliment that Jesus did, for God is
always just in His favors. "All forsook him." So there were some
Chocolate Christians in those days too. Anyone who forsook Paul must
have been made of Chocolate. Doubtless the 'chocolates' excused
themselves as they do today. "Who could abide such a fanatical fiery
fool, such an uncompromising character? Nobody could work with him, or
he with them!"
The Chocolate Christians of today can at least
boast of having an ancient pedigree.
There are Chocolates à la Reuben, who have
great searchings of heart, and make great resolves of heart too. But
somehow they still sit among the sheepfolds, listening to the pipings
of their much loved organs, or the strumming of their guitars. It is
good to have great heart-searching. It is better to make a great heart
resolve. But if, instead of obeying, we squat among the sheep, leaving
our few hard-pressed brothers to tackle the wolves by themselves, we
are only Chocolate Christians. You made a great resolve to go to
Africa for Christ a year or two ago. Where are you now? Still in the
West? In Britain? Yes! Yes! Lollipop! (Judges 5:16)
There are Chocolates Meroz who earned the curse
of the angel of the Lord. War was declared, the battle about to begin.
The odds were outrageous but Meroz remained in England, attending
conventions until the battle was over. Then he went in comfort and
security as a tourist! Doubtless they said he "couldn't fight until
they had been properly ordained, and besides, there was so much to be
done in fat, overfed Meroz. Surely to feed a flock of fat sheep has
always been considered the ideal training for war." As though the best
training for a soldier was to become a nursemaid!! (Judges 5:23,
"Curse Meroz,' said the angel of the LORD. 'Curse its people bitterly,
because they did not come to help the LORD, to help
the LORD against the mighty.'" NIV)
Chocolates du Balaam begin first class and earn
the name of prophets. Then they develop a squint, melt, and finally
run out of the frying pan into the fire! Thus was Balaam. He had the
hearty desire to die the death of the righteous, but he was not
willing to pay the price of a righteous life. He had not the pluck to
curse God's people so he made plans for others to make them sin. But
one day, while his dupes were putting his chestnuts into the fire,
they fell in themselves and Balaam with them. (Numbers 23 & 24)
"I counsel you to buy from Me salve to put on your
eyes, so that you can once again see the folly of flirting with the
world."
Chocolate Demas left fiery, hard-hitting Paul
for an easier path. He said he thought Paul should wink at or slobber
over sin instead of rebuking it. "He was so very fond of the knife,
you know. He never would use sticking plaster, because he said it
never healed the sore, but made it burrow underneath and become
bigger, worse and dangerous" (2 Timothy 4;10).
Mark joined the Chocolate Brigade once. He left
Paul and Barnabas in the lurch, and went back to Jerusalem for a rest
cure - a religious retreat. Thank God he got sick of it before long,
and re-enlisting in God's army became a useful soldier. (Acts 13;13)
Many fine youngsters are turned into Chocolates by
old prophets. Old prophets who have lost their fire, or who
fire off words (teaching) instead of deeds, usually become great
Chocolate manufacturers. That poor young prophet! He did so well when
he obeyed God only, but it was all over with him when he listened to
another voice, even though it was that of an old prophet. Did not the
old prophet say he was a prophet? And say that he had got the message
straight from God? What a damnable lie! The floor of Christendom and
elsewhere is littered with WRECKS made by old prophets. God
won't stand nonsense from any man. Every man has to choose between
Christ and Barabbas, and every Christian between God and some old
prophet. Better be a silly donkey in the estimation of an old prophet
than to listen to his soft talk and flattery, and afterwards became a
wreck. "
You say you believe the Bible! Do your deeds give
the lie to your words? (1 Kings 13).
THE TEN SPIES WERE CHOCOLATES. They melted and
ran over the whole congregation of Israel, turning them into Chocolate
Creams - softies, afraid to face the fire and water before them. God
put them all into the saucepan again and boiled them for forty years
in the desert, and left them there. He has no use for Chocolates. It
is not small things that He despises, but 'Chocolates', for He said,
"Your little ones shall inherit the promised land which you have
forfeited through listening to men and despising Me." (Numbers 13)
Chocolates are very fond of talking loud and long
against some whom they call fanatics, as though there were any
danger of Christians being fanatics nowadays! Why, fanatics among
Christians are as rare as the dodo. God's real people have always been
called fanatics. Jesus was called mad, so was Paul; so were
Whitefield, Wesley, Moody. No one has graduated far in God's school
who has not been paid the compliment of being called a fanatic.
Alas! What stirs ordinary men's blood and turns
them into heroes makes most Christians run like a flock of frightened
sheep. Militants daily risk their lives in furtherance of their
particular cause, and subscribe with their means in a way that cries
"Shame!" on us Christians, who generally brand the braving of risks
and fighting against odds as "tempting God".
CHOCOLATE CARAMELS (stick-jaws, boys call them)
jawing, "I go, sir," and sticking fast in Christendom! Like faith,
prayer without works is dead. That is why many Prayer Meetings might
well be styled "much bleating, yet little wool". Zerubbabel did not
only hold prayer meetings; he went and cut down trees and started to
build. Hence God said, "From this day on I will bless you."
We are frittering away time and money in a
multiplicity of conventions, conferences and retreats, when the real
need is to go straight and full steam into battle.
God's summons today is to the young men and women
of Great Britain and the Commonwealth, of America and Europe, and of
third world countries, who call themselves by the name of Christ.
"New wine," said Christ, "must be poured into new
wineskins." Those superfluously labeled and patched-up old-fashioned
ones are as hopeless as the "New Theology". They cannot be moved lest
they burst with pride and spill the wine in the wrong place.
Truly we are in the last - the Laodicean stage -
that of the Lukewarm Church.
Will you be to Christ the partner or a Chocolate
Christian?
Will you fear or will you fight? Shall your
brothers go to war and will you sit here? When He comes, will He find
faith on the earth?
A thousand times you have admitted Christ's Love.
Will you be a miser and withhold what honor demands of you? Will you
give like Ananias and Sapphira who, pretending they gave all, gave
only part?
Possessing and enjoying the vineyard, will you,
like the tenants, refuse the agreed rent? (Luke 20: 9-11). Will you
fear death, or the devil, or men, and will you not fear SHAME? Shall
we refuse to emulate the heroes of old, or shall we accomplish the
double fulfillment of these glorious words:
All these, being men of war, came with a perfect
heart to make Jesus King over all the world. They were all mighty men
of valor for the war! He that was least was equal to a hundred, and
the greatest to a thousand! They were not the faces of lions! They
were as swift as the gazelles on the mountains!
You sought in time past for Jesus to be king over
you. NOW THEN DO IT! (Compare 1 Chronicles 12:8, 33, 38, and 2 Samuel
3:17-18). Shall we not reply, "We are Yours, Jesus, and on Your side.
May God deal with me, be it ever so severely, if I do not do what the
Father promised You on oath, and transfer the kingdom from the house
of Satan and establish Your throne over all the world." (Compare 1
Chronicles 12:18, and 2 Samuel 3:9-10).
Come then, let us restore the 'lost chord' of
Christianity - HEROISM - to the world, and the crown of the world to
Christ. Christ Himself asks you, "Will you be a malingerer or a
militant?"
To your knees, man! And to your Bible! Decide at
once! Don't hedge! Time flies! Cease your insults to God. Quit
consulting flesh and blood. Stop your lame lying and cowardly excuses.
Enlist! Here are your papers and oath of
allegiance. Scratch out one side and sign the other in the presence of
God and the recording angel. Mark God's endorsements underneath.
For me to live is Christ, to die is gain. I'll be a
militant or a man of God, a gambler for Christ. A Hero
Sign Here _____________
For me, Chocolate my name, lukewarm my temperature.
A idler, I A child of men. A self-excuser. A humbug. Sign Here _____________
God's promises are sure in either case: "Lo, I am
with you always" or "I will spew thee out of My mouth."
Baptize us with the Holy Ghost, and with fire; Cure
us of all this dread plague of Sleeping Sickness, This crazy talking
in our sleep, That even as we unceasingly pray, Thy Name may be
hallowed everywhere; Thy Kingdom come speedily; Thy Will be done on
earth as it is in heaven
Amen.
<< back to
articles back to the top |
