A Call to Arms: 1993
by Pat Mace

A few months ago a friend of ours was staying at our house while on leave from basic training. A musician, he had recently joined the Army to play in the band. I was very interested as I listened to his stories about basic training because I realized that being in the United States Army was no different than being a part of God’s army. The training is built on similar principles. The main objective is to take many individuals, each unique, coming from varied abilities, backgrounds and life experiences, and shape, discipline, mold, and train them to operate and function as one machine.

One story he told was how all their identical black shoes were thrown into a huge pile in the middle of the room when one soldier forgot to put his away. When there are rules to be followed, no one is on their own. Each person’s conduct affects everyone who is part of the group. The consequences of it taking several days to completely sort out the shoes would probably keep someone from neglecting that task again. Each person must learn to be a dependable, reliable soldier, always putting the needs and objectives of the group above his own. The reason this is so important is that when they are in the heat of battle, each one knows that his backup is there, that he can always count on his fellow soldier.

Paul entreats Timothy to endure hardness as a good soldier of Jesus Christ, not to get caught up with the affairs of this life, and tells him the way to win is to play by the rules God has established (2 Tim. 2:3-5).

One difference I see between the two armies is the ability to define our enemy. Military enemies art not always so easy to recognize, but the Bible is very clear about the enemy of the Christian. His name is Satan, also known by many other names. The strongest attack that we in God’s army can wage against Satan is to see his big lie for what it is. His lie is that he is self-operating and independent from God, and that we humans are also independent, self-operating selves.

The biggest foothold that Satan has held in the world has been by our believing his lie that we are just us, living our own lives. Because of this belief, Satan could hide out "no holds barred" in the lives of non-Christians ("they are by nature the children of wrath" Eph. 2:2-3). He also hides out in Christians’ lives ("And that they may recover themselves out of the snare of the devil, who are taken captive by him to do his will." 2 Tim. 2:26), keeping them from being all that they were created to be: containers and expressers of the pure life of Christ’s Spirit.

C.T. Studd, in his little booklet, "The Chocolate Soldier," says that all true Christians are soldiers of Christ, but those not willing to go to war are chocolate soldiers, dissolving in water and melting at the smell of fire. He then traced one after another of the heroes listed in the Bible, from Noah to Paul. Each one of these men, in various circumstances, faced hard obstacles, often life-threatening, to walk out the life of God in them. With the light they had at the time, they trusted Him no matter what He told them to do. Imagine the ridicule Noah must have received as he hammered away on the ark for over 100 years; or the pain Moses felt when he came down from Mount Sinai with the Ten Commandments, only to see the impatient people worshiping a golden calf.

Down through the centuries, other soldiers have risen to the call of battle. One that stands out is Martin Luther, who brought out the great, vital truth of salvation by grace, long lost to church dogma. Countless others have taken that same salvation message to vast areas of the world who had never heard of Christ.

C T. Studd was most qualified to write about chocolate soldiers because he certainly was anything but. Literally giving up fame (he was one of England’s premier cricketers) and fortune, he set out as a young man, one of the famous "Cambridge Seven," to join Hudson Taylor’s China Inland Mission to take the gospel to China. Later on he went to India, and finally, beginning in 1910, when his health was nearly spent, his last twenty years were consumed with getting Christ into the hearts and lives of the natives of central Africa. Norman Grubb, in C.T. Studd, Cricketer & Pioneer, says about Studd "Penniless, turned down by the doctor, dropped by the Committee, yet told by God to go, what was he to do? ‘The only honest thing.’ Once more he staked all on obedience to God. As a young man he staked his career, in China he staked his fortune, now he staked his life. A gambler for God!"

But the call to battle is not some special appeal made only to a few chosen people; it is the call proclaimed to all who will hear and take it as their own. We are vessels, temples, and containers of the living God and our part is to recognize that fact and trust Him to live His life out through us, and as us. We do not know what God’s plans will be for us, how His Life will live out by us. That is part of the adventure and thrill. It probably looks very ordinary, but we know it is actually Christ living.

Once again, the battle is with Satan. We rescue first ourselves, and then others, from Satan’s lie that we are self-operating and can run our own lives. The reason that it is a battle and so serious is that when we believe we are just ourselves, it is actually Satan operating us in some self-for-self way. That is his hold on humanity. It must be broken.

So, how do you join the front line? Step right up and take your place as a soldier of Jesus Christ because you are one. What a privilege!