Offensive Warfare

Prior to World War ii, Winston Churchill grew increasingly frustrated with Britain’s defensive maneuvers. He wanted Britain to brace itself to accept the “hazards of action,” as Martin Gilbert wrote in his biography.

Later Churchill said, “Ever since the beginning of the war we had let the initiative rest with Germany.” Germany was constantly on the offensive.

Churchill said, “All this makes me feel that under the present arrangements, we shall be reduced to waiting upon the terrible attacks of the enemy.”

Now notice this: “The offensive,” Churchill said, “is three or four times as hard as passively enduring from day to day. It therefore requires all possible help in early stages. Nothing is easier than to smother it in the cradle. Yet here, perhaps, lies safety.” If you want to be safe, Churchill said, go on the offensive.

This principle applies to Christians and to the Church. The Bible has much to say about offensive warfare.

Gideon’s Army

“And the Lord said unto Gideon, The people that are with thee are too many for me to give the Midianites into their hands, lest Israel vaunt themselves against me, saying, Mine own hand hath saved me” (Judges 7:2). The book of Judges is one of the former prophets. It is prophecy for us in this end time. Gideon had this army, and God was cutting it down to size so the Israelites would give Him credit for what they were doing. That is important to God. If 32,000 Israelites had won this battle, they would have said, We did this ourselves! But God wants us to know that He is the one responsible for those successes.

“Now therefore go to, proclaim in the ears of the people, saying, Whosoever is fearful and afraid, let him return and depart early from mount Gilead. And there returned of the people twenty and two thousand; and there remained ten thousand” (verse 3). These people were about to go into battle—I’m sure they would have fought to protect Israel. But they weren’t what God was looking for. God said, Because they’re fearful and afraid, I want you to send them back.

“And the Lord said unto Gideon, The people are yet too many; bring them down unto the water, and I will try them for thee there: and it shall be, that of whom I say unto thee, This shall go with thee, the same shall go with thee; and of whomsoever I say unto thee, This shall not go with thee, the same shall not go” (verse 4). These men in Gideon’s army were ancient marines of Israel, chosen for a special offensive warfare. Today, God is doing the choosing of His spiritual marines, the ones He wants to do this final work in the Philadelphia Church. You and I are being tested right now. God is learning a lot about all of His people.

“So he brought down the people unto the water: and the Lord said unto Gideon, Every one that lappeth of the water with his tongue, as a dog lappeth, him shalt thou set by himself; likewise every one that boweth down upon his knees to drink. And the number of them that lapped, putting their hand to their mouth, were three hundred men: but all the rest of the people bowed down upon their knees to drink water” (verses 5-6). Many of these men, though they were really going out there to fight, weren’t eager to do battle. They had a case of the “slows,” as Abraham Lincoln said of his people and his generals during the Civil War. If you are not eager to fight, you are going to lose crucial battles. God is looking for people who are eager to do battle and go on the offensive.

“And the Lord said unto Gideon, By the three hundred men that lapped will I save you, and deliver the Midianites into thine hand: and let all the other people go every man unto his place” (verse 7). These 300 men were not going to wait for the Midianites to come after them, as most of Lincoln’s generals did. God said He would send out this 300 after the Midianites, and they would go on the offensive and destroy them.

Notice, though, that God said, I will save you. God is going to have to save us. There were over 30,000 people who weren’t eager to do battle with God, even though God had told them He would save them. They may have known God was with Israel, but they didn’t feel personally secure about it. They didn’t believe God. They were afraid. We can easily become afraid. But God says, I want you to go on the offensive. Don’t worry about what anybody else says—you just go.

Notice what God said to Gideon, commanding those 300: “Arise, get thee down unto the host; for I have delivered it into thine hand” (verse 9). These are powerful words. God says, I’ve already beaten them, just go down and reap the fruits of your victory. But you have to know that God is doing it.

What an honor to be among the 300! What a glorious honor to be in God’s Philadelphia Church today.

Wholehearted Warfare

Winston Churchill said that the great principle of warfare, or going on the offensive, is doing it wholeheartedly. If going on the offensive is three or four times harder, you need to be wholehearted. If you are not, then when you get out on the battlefield you will begin to hesitate—and you’re going to get slaughtered, physically and spiritually.

That is exactly what has happened with so many of God’s people in this end time. Just look around at the people who have been slaughtered spiritually.

What God is looking for is that noble 300 who will wholeheartedly go on the offensive. Only one small group is fighting for God today; 31,700 are willing to fight, but they are not willing to go on the offensive like God says—to do it wholeheartedly and trust God to do the fighting. And what a price they’re going to have to pay.

Theodore Roosevelt used a small group of special forces to drive the Spaniards out of Cuba. They would never have driven the Spaniards out if not for Roosevelt’s leadership. While most of his men were crawling to avoid bullets overhead, he led the charge up the hill on his horse, yelling to his men, “Are you afraid to follow me?“

We have to be willing to die in this warfare. War is dangerous, but if you go into that war and you’re not on the offensive when you should be, a whole lot more people are going to die. And if you die spiritually for all eternity, what tragedy is worse? Eternal lives are at stake. That is not something to take lightly.

A Strategy Failure

In World War i, Winston Churchill was first lord of the Admiralty—the leader of Britain’s Navy. The fighting had gotten into trench warfare. The Germans came into France and entrenched in Verdun. During the Battle of the Somme, Britain and France lost more than 600,000 men in a five-month period. They would gain a few feet and then lose it the next day, back and forth—a brutal type of slaughter.

Churchill was disturbed. He decided to go on the offensive to try to break that bloody deadlock. So he came up with the idea to take the Army and Navy through the Dardanelles strait, which is through Turkey, right by Constantinople. He was certain that if they succeeded, they could knock Turkey out of the war and move their forces through the Balkan states. That would enable them to come around behind the German lines and break up this terrible, bloody bog they’d gotten themselves into.

The problem was, this strategy was run by a committee. You know how committees do things. They had the weakest soldiers; they couldn’t get together; there were all kinds of delays. When they finally did go, the Army arrived well after the Navy was there; it was not coordinated, and a lot of them ended up getting slaughtered. (God still delivered many of them.)

Later the Turks admitted that if Britain had pursued that first initiative, Turkey only had three rounds left when the Navy withdrew. Britain could have easily taken Turkey and executed what I think most military strategists today would tell you was one of the greatest strategical ideas they have ever seen in warfare. But they didn’t, and Churchill ended up getting fired because of that.

Churchill really had his trials in World War i. God was preparing him for World War ii. Today you and I experience problems and trials. God puts us through those in order to prepare us for greater battles ahead. He knows what He is doing.

God’s Protection

When Churchill got kicked out of office, he was very depressed. He said that was the worst time of his life. He felt he was ruined forever. His wife wondered if he would get through it. Winston Churchill was disgraced, but God was using that to humble him. He wasn’t a humble man.

But he was a warrior. He decided, All right, I’m going to go and get involved in this trench warfare. So off he went, and was put in charge of a battalion of men in France.

Violet Bonham Carter wrote this about him: “He then suggested to the colonel that he would learn more of the conditions in the trenches if he lived with the companies in the line instead of the battalion headquarters.” God undoubtedly gave Churchill special protection in World War i to save him for World War ii.

She continued, “One incident … seems to afford further proof that his life was miraculously protected and preserved to fulfill some hidden purpose. As it was written, ‘Chance, fortune, luck, destiny, fate, providence, seems to me only different ways of expressing the same thing, to wit, that a man’s own contribution to his life story is continually dominated by an external, superior power.’”

She says that as Churchill waited in the bunker there, for some reason the general sent word that he wanted to talk to him. Churchill thought it was probably important, so he got up and took off. He hadn’t gotten far when he saw a mortar fired on that bunker, and it looked like it hit the place where he had been. He came back later and found that the mortar had hit in that very area, and his best friend had had his head blown off. The general really hadn’t had anything significant to talk to him about at all. Churchill later said, “Then upon these quaint reflections there came the strong sensation that a hand had been stretched out to move me in the nick of time from a fatal spot.”

Sometimes when we are fighting for God, a hand reaches down and plucks us right out of a problem. God is with us. If it will happen for Winston Churchill, it certainly will for God’s very elect today.

The point is, God loved the way that man fought. He loved the way he went on the offensive. And He said, That’s the kind of man I can use to save the nation in World War ii.

Our Offensive Weapon

We are at war—the worst war we could possibly fight—a spiritual war with Satan and his demons and the world and our own human nature. And Satan is full of wrath like never before. “For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places” (Ephesians 6:12). We don’t fight flesh and blood. Ours is a spiritual battle. We are fighting against the god of this world.

“Wherefore take unto you the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand” (verse 13). Most of this armor is protective.

“Stand therefore, having your loins girt about with truth, and having on the breastplate of righteousness” (verse 14). Get yourself wrapped up in the truth. Clothe yourself in the truth. Then, if somebody tries to take it from you, it would be like them trying to rip your clothes off! You would never allow somebody to strip you naked! God compares the righteousness of the saints to fine linen (Revelation 19:8). We have to fight to hang on to it.

“And your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace” (Ephesians 6:15). You have to take the truth and do something with it: Preach the good news around the world, as Mr. Armstrong did. “Above all, taking the shield of faith, wherewith ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked” (verse 16). Satan’s fiery darts come at us all the time, but that is not a big problem for people who have this shield of faith.

Amid this armor there is an offensive weapon. “And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God” (verse 17). God tells us to take that sword and go on the offensive! The following verses explain how.

“Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, and watching thereunto with all perseverance and supplication for all saints; And for me ….” I ask you always, please pray for me. I know what I am up against. Satan wants to destroy me because of the office I hold. This is what Paul is asking of the people: “… that utterance may be given unto me, that I may open my mouth boldly, to make known the mystery of the gospel” (verses 18-19).

Paul wanted to go on the offensive, speaking God’s word. God says, When I give it, you deliver it. “For which I am an ambassador in bonds: that therein I may speak boldly, as I ought to speak” (verse 20). Paul didn’t get put in jail for keeping his mouth shut. He got put in jail because he was out there speaking boldly for God! That is what we must do. That is our job as Philadelphians—to speak out where the Laodiceans are not.

Look at the sickness in this world—in politics, in journalism, in entertainment. The content in movies and in print is getting sicker all the time; and all the while, people justify it in an educated, scholarly way. Somebody has to tell these people that they are sick! They think they’re so educated, when in fact they’re into utter madness—evil so satanic it would have been hard for us to imagine a few years ago. And they are not going to like people who tell them what they really are.

God’s people are the only ones who are willing to fight for the full truth, who won’t give a watered-down version of the truth. What kind of a fighting spirit do you have?

Soldiers of Christ

Paul wrote his last epistle, 2 Timothy, while in jail. He was about to die and he knew it. He was an apostle of God. He preached the truth of God. And they were going to kill him. That’s the way it is in this world.

In these circumstances, most men would have relaxed during those last few days of life. But Paul didn’t. He sat down and wrote perhaps the most stirring book in the Bible, about what soldiers we have to be. He said, I have something I must do before I die. I must write 2 Timothy for the people who will follow after me, so I can stir them and maybe save them, and prepare the foundation for the World Tomorrow. I am really glad Paul went on the offensive in jail!

“Thou therefore, my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus. And the things that thou hast heard of me among many witnesses, the same commit thou to faithful men, who shall be able to teach others also” (2 Timothy 2:1-2). Here, in jail, what was Paul most concerned about? He said, I want you to commit this message of God to faithful men and women who won’t let Satan destroy it—men and women who will go to jail and die or do anything to save God’s truth!

It doesn’t matter who you are or what color skin you have. What matters is, are you a faithful man or woman? Where you find the truth, you will find faithful men. God guarantees it. If the pcg didn’t have faithful men, the truth would not be here.

“Thou therefore endure hardness, as a good soldier of Jesus Christ” (verse 3). We are soldiers. Where it says “endure hardness,” the Greek means “suffer hardship with me,” referring to Christ. Our purpose is to suffer hardship with Christ to get this message out. We encounter problems in giving this message to the world. There is a lot of stress in war. People have broken down from that stress. But did you know that real fighters almost never get stressed out?

Dying for the Cause

Near the end of the Civil War, Lincoln was finally able to get a man who would fight: Gen. Ulysses S. Grant. Lincoln had gone through so many unsuccessful generals. Whenever those men suffered defeat, they always had excuses. Lincoln came to the point where he said, Don’t give me excuses, give me victories! The nation is about to fall apart!

As Churchill said, there is no substitute for victory. You have to win victories in war. You have to find somebody who will go on the offensive and achieve results like General Grant did. He slashed his way through the South and unified the nation.

“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 Timothy 2:4). If you are in God’s Church, then God chose you to be a soldier. Soldiers always have to fight, and sometimes they have to die.

“And if a man also strive for masteries, yet is he not crowned, except he strive lawfully” (verse 5). This scripture is about people losing their crown. The Laodiceans no longer have a crown laid up for them. They still have the potential to receive it, but Scripture tells us that half of them will not. People who are casual simply will not hang on to the truth of God.

“Strive for masteries” means, in the Greek, contend in the battle. The Romans gave several different crowns for the military. The ultimate crown was called the corona obsidionalis. This would be given to a general who had been sieged, and, rather than shamefully capitulating, had gone on the offensive and saved the day.

That is what God wants us to do. He is going to crown us. Follow the right course and He will crown you, for all eternity, as the Bride of Jesus Christ. What is that worth? Paul sat in jail, knowing he was going to die, and was encouraging the brethren, saying, I want you to be crowned. Don’t worry about me, I’m going to be crowned. Will you? He had a vision that you and I need.

“The husbandman that laboureth must be first partaker of the fruits. Consider what I say; and the Lord give thee understanding in all things” (verses 6-7). Wherever you find soldiers of Jesus Christ, you will find understanding. Christ has given us understanding, because if you are confused in warfare, you are in trouble. Somebody is going to injure or destroy you. You cannot afford to be confused.

“Remember that Jesus Christ of the seed of David was raised from the dead according to my gospel” (verse 8). Paul, sitting in jail, about to die, said, Remember that Jesus Christ was raised from the dead. It is time to be thinking about rising from the dead! That is what is going to happen if you die loyal to Jesus Christ—the grave can’t even hold you. Remember that, Paul said, and fight for that.

“Wherein I suffer trouble, as an evil doer, even unto bonds; but the word of God is not bound” (verse 9). Paul wasn’t concerned about being bound. He knew men couldn’t bind God’s truth. God will keep it alive. He promised that His Church would not die.

If we let God work through us, the truth will live on. But it will bring suffering and maybe even death. God said you have to give up mother, father, sister, brother—you may have to die for this cause (Luke 14:25-27). We tell God at baptism that, if necessary, we will do that.

Realize that everything God gives us will be stripped from us if we are not willing to put our life on the line! Even if you are a little widow, God says you will have to be a warrior and a soldier and let Jesus Christ live in you so that you act in warfare the way He does.

Now, we are all cowards, let’s be honest. But when I am following Jesus Christ, I can get pretty bold. I know where that boldness comes from, and I can handle anything through Jesus Christ who strengthens me.

In the World Tomorrow, people are going to receive God’s wonderful truth because God’s very elect fought and suffered. Because men like Paul and Mr. Armstrong fought, suffered and died. They are going to have it all laid out for them. It is going to be such a beautiful world. The truth isn’t bound. This truth—the cause for which we fight—must be held above our life.

Of course, physical death is not a big deal if you look at it spiritually. “It is a faithful saying: For if we be dead with him, we shall also live with him: If we suffer, we shall also reign with him: if we deny him, he also will deny us” (2 Timothy 2:11-12).

Gen. George B. McClellan was never a good general in the Civil War. He was too emotional. He loved his men so much that he would put them above the cause. Do you know what happened? He ended up getting a lot of them killed!

Churchill said during World War i that we have to get more war-thinking into our minds! We must think like people who are in a war. We are warriors. We are soldiers for Jesus Christ. How exciting and wonderful: We are soldiers for Jesus Christ, and if we get killed, the enemy will have to see us again, because we are going to come right back at them out of the grave. Isn’t that amazing? Nobody ever fought a war like this before, where you kill them and they come again—to rule! How blessed we are to be a part of this.

Deserters

“At my first answer no man stood with me, but all men forsook me: I pray God that it may not be laid to their charge” (2 Timothy 4:16). All the people in Paul’s area simply turned and ran. Here was poor Paul, in jail. If ever he needed the members, it was then; even one member telling him, Oh Paul, I really appreciate and thank God for you. But not one! They just ran away! How shameful.

Look what happened in God’s Church just after Mr. Armstrong warned them specifically. He said, “Most of you don’t get it.” Oh, no, Mr. Armstrong, surely that can’t be! But it was even worse than he thought. Look at the Laodicean numbers.

In the Civil War, they had 7,300 desertions a month. It is easy to desert. Both sides found that those deserters were nothing but chaff.

Here is what Lincoln said—this is a classic lesson in warfare: “At the battle of Antietam, General McClellan had the names of about 180,000 men on the army rolls. Of these, 70,000 were absent on leave granted by company officers, which as I said before, is almost as bad as desertion.” McClellan gave them leave at the time of battle! “For the men ought not to ask for furloughs with the enemy drawn up before them, nor ought the officers to grant them.” Can you imagine what Lincoln was dealing with? He went on to say, “About 20,000 more were in the hospital or were detailed to other duties, leaving only some 90,000 to give battle to the enemy.”

General McClellan went into the fight with this number, but within two hours after the battle commenced, 30,000 more straggled behind or deserted! So the battle was fought with 60,000, and because the enemy had about the same number, it was a draw.

The South, for the first part of that war, had much better fighters. The North had a lot of people who didn’t want to fight. “The Rebel Army had coiled itself up in such a position,” Lincoln said, “that if McClellan had only had the 70,000 absentees, and the 30,000 deserters, he could have surrounded Lee, captured the whole Rebel Army, and ended the war at a stroke without a battle.”

How easy it would be for us today to get the Work done if everybody, including all the Laodiceans, were rallying around Jesus Christ and wanted to fight offensively. What an impact we would be making on this world!

Lincoln went on to say, “We have a stragglers’ camp out here in Alexandria, in connection with the convalescent camp, and from that camp in three months General Butler has returned to their regiments 75,000 deserters and stragglers who have been arrested and sent there. Don’t you see that the country and the army fail to realize that we are engaged in one of the greatest wars the world has ever seen, and which can only be ended by hard fighting? General McClellan is responsible for the delusion that is untoning the whole army—that the South is to be conquered by strategy.”

General McClellan thought war was like a chess game, to be won by a little strategy. But you couldn’t conquer the Southerners by strategy; it took a lot of blood to conquer them! Everybody kept talking to Lincoln about strategy, but nobody wanted to get involved in the hard, bloody fighting that would preserve the Union.

Warfare is not easy. It is going to take a lot of suffering and fighting if we are to conquer.

Calming Leadership

Even when he was abandoned by all those people, Paul remained spiritually strong. Here is why: “Notwithstanding the Lord stood with me, and strengthened me …” (2 Timothy 4:17). Even though you may be “one of a city” (Jeremiah 3:14), don’t feel sorry for yourself. God is with you. One from a city and God is a big majority in that city! God strengthened Paul in his cell, and He will give you the strength you need.

“[T]hat by me the preaching might be fully known, and that all the Gentiles might hear: and I was delivered out of the mouth of the lion” (2 Timothy 4:17). Apparently, Paul’s captors decided that normal jail wasn’t enough, so they threw him in a cell with a lion.

When the state of California attacked the wcg, if they had had their way, Mr. Armstrong would have ended up in an institution. But he always maintained the peace and calm of God.

Winston Churchill told his troops to learn to have smiles on their faces as bullets flew over their heads. Especially in trench warfare, you see bullets overhead all the time. Anyone who stuck his head up, often lost it. That could get depressing to those men. But Churchill knew you need calming leadership, or you will make a lot of mistakes in warfare. During the Civil War, all of Gen. William Rosecrans’s men panicked in one situation, and he panicked with them. What do you think happened? They were badly beaten.

Paul’s actions here demonstrate what you can do if you stay with God. There isn’t any reason for us to be overly stressed.

“And he that overcometh, and keepeth my works unto the end, to him will I give power over the nations” (Revelation 2:26). The Greek word for overcome means conquer! Don’t give me excuses, give me victories! Lincoln said. At times those generals would come back with a partial victory, and Lincoln would say that still is not victory.

Then Lincoln finally found Gen. Ulysses S. Grant, who began to take the superior resources of the North and create a juggernaut that smashed and slashed through the South all the way to the Gulf. Lincoln had never had a general like that. When Lincoln heard critics say Grant was a drunkard, he told those men to go find out what he was drinking because he wanted to give it to his other generals.

Preserving the Constitution

In Matthew 16:18, Christ said He would build His Church and the gates of hell would not prevail against it. Yes, at times the Church might get close to death, but there will always be a few warriors to whom God will give the truth, and they go on the offensive.

Right after Christ said that, He set out specifics. He told Peter that he would be the chief apostle. Peter immediately became arrogant, and started rebuking Christ (verse 22). Christ said, Get behind me, Satan! (verse 23). How humbling that must have been to Peter—and right after he was exalted. It shows you how Satan is right there waiting to pounce if we give him a chance.

When Herbert W. Armstrong first came on the scene, the Church of God was almost dead. It was the Sardis era, about which God prophesied, “[T]hou hast a name that thou livest, and art dead” (Revelation 3:1). Satan had just about destroyed the people of God. But Mr. Armstrong went on the offensive, and God was able to build a great Work through him.

That was very difficult work, and it came at a high cost to Mr. Armstrong. At times he grew tired of the battle. At least once he asked God to let him die. In 1978, he actually died—but then God promptly revived him! God said, No, I’m not finished with you. I want you to get this Church back on track. After God brought him back, Mr. Armstrong had a tremendous amount of work yet to do. Satan had destroyed the college and almost destroyed the Church—and Mr. Armstrong had to revive it all again! But despite that powerful example, most people didn’t learn the lesson. When Mr. Armstrong died in 1986, the Church fell like a falling star. In less than a decade it was finished!

Keeping God’s truth and Church alive takes work! If the Philadelphia Church of God weren’t here, the truth of God would have been destroyed, and there would be nothing but blackness and darkness on this Earth.

Throughout the Civil War, Lincoln said he was fighting for unity to preserve the Constitution. Lincoln said, If we lose this battle, we will lose this experiment, we will lose the Constitution—we will lose true freedom.

We have done something much greater—we have preserved the Constitution of God. We have done that through the power of God.

People of Contention

Jeremiah 15:9 says the seven Church eras were exhausted, just like the Laodiceans today. The sun had gone down on them. And Jeremiah went on to say that he was “a man of strife and a man of contention to the whole earth” (verse 10). What made his life so contentious? It wasn’t because he was hiding out—it was because he was going on the offensive like a great prophet of God!

Like Jeremiah, we are people of contention. Satan, the god of this world, is against us. The world is against us. The Laodiceans, and even some few who leave the pcg are against us. We are people of contention to the whole Earth. Our job is to get God’s message out and make it so strong and so powerful that the land cannot bear it (Amos 7:10).

Jeremiah had to learn hard lessons in offensive warfare. Even from the time God called him as a teenager, Jeremiah was warned that he had difficult times ahead. “But the Lord said unto me, Say not, I am a child: for thou shalt go to all that I shall send thee, and whatsoever I command thee thou shalt speak. Be not afraid of their faces: for I am with thee to deliver thee, saith the Lord” (Jeremiah 1:7-8). Jeremiah would experience a lot of fearful things. But God commanded him to be strong. Likewise today, as we go into battle for God, we don’t have to be afraid.

“See, I have this day set thee over the nations and over the kingdoms, to root out, and to pull down, and to destroy, and to throw down, to build, and to plant” (verse 10). Jeremiah could have said: No, God, I don’t want to go and build and plant. I am just into defensive warfare. But he didn’t. God gave him this commission and he did it.

“Thou therefore gird up thy loins, and arise, and speak unto them all that I command thee: be not dismayed at their faces, lest I confound thee before them. For, behold, I have made thee this day a defenced city, and an iron pillar, and brasen walls against the whole land, against the kings of Judah, against the princes thereof, against the priests thereof, and against the people of the land” (verses 17-18).

God expects the same of us today! God will strengthen us to do our job. With Christ living in us, we are fenced cities, iron pillars, brazen walls against the whole land. We are going to have to go up against kings, priests and people—offensive warfare. They will fight against us. But they can’t knock down iron pillars! If we are loyal to God, they will be striking the pillar and kicking against iron. “And they shall fight against thee; but they shall not prevail against thee; for I am with thee, saith the Lord, to deliver thee” (verse 19).

Hope of the World

What hope we can deliver to the world! We have the opportunity to win a glorious victory that we can savor for all eternity! We will never regret what we did for God in the pcg in this end time. That will be our joy forever.

In World War ii, after France surrendered to Germany and it looked like Germany would conquer all of Europe, Churchill said, “What has happened in France makes no difference to our actions and purpose. We have become the sole champions, now at arms to defend the world cause. We shall do our best to be worthy of this high honor.”

We have the greatest honor God could possibly bestow on His people in this end time. We are able to continue to preach and teach God’s message. And doing so prepares us to be the Bride of Christ. What an opportunity!

Notice what Churchill said to the young people: “There never has been, I suppose, in all the world, in all the history of wars, such an opportunity for youth.” Oh, can I ever say that to you. There has never been such an opportunity for youth. The same is true for adults.

Churchill quoted one of the poets with this line, “When every morning brought out a noble chance, and every chance brought out a noble knight.” Every day you and I have the most noble chance human beings will ever have.

What a noble chance it is to finish this Work, to introduce our Husband to the world, and to say to God and to all the Earth that we remained loyal to the end. What a noble chance. And oh, what noble knights that will make us if we are loyal. We are the very elect of God; those who cannot be deceived. We just cling to our attire—our wedding attire. We hang on to it. We want to marry Jesus Christ, and we want to become the most noble knights of all.

Let’s all be noble knights together and thank God that we have the opportunity.