Today we come to the 10th in the series concerning the Antichrist. For those of you who have not been with us — and I'd like to welcome visitors again. I know there's a sister from Melbourne here, and we'd also like to welcome our sister Pia once more, back from Toronto, and we hope she'll share with us more of the blessings that she has received. But for those of you who are new in our midst, I have been preaching every month for the last nine months concerning the Antichrist, a very important subject in the scriptures, on which, to my memory and all my years in the church, nobody ever preaches on this subject, for some reason that I don't understand either.
And you will notice that I am in no great hurry to finish this series. I can't tell you how much longer I'll be on this series. I will keep on going until the Lord tells me to wind up. But there is so much on the subject of Antichrist in the Bible that it will take quite a long time to finish if I'm going to work out every detail of it, which I'm not sure that I will do. The subject is a very important one, and I'm trying to stay as non-technical as possible, because if I start dealing with this on a technical level, say for the benefit of theologically trained people, I fear that most people will not quite understand what we are talking about. So I'm trying to talk about this as simply as possible. For those who find that up to now I've been speaking very simply, that is quite deliberately so, and I will try to keep it at this level. Because there are some non-Christians in our midst too, and very young Christians, and I don't want you to be left in the dark about this important subject. So I will continue to try to avoid technicalities and speak as simply as possible.
Now, the reason why I would like to keep this subject before you, and I'm in no great hurry to finish this series — there are many reasons, and I will only mention two reasons today. The first is because I would like to keep before you, each one, the urgency of the matter. That is to say, to keep us reminded of the fact that the time is short. And I notice, to my anxiety — not to say also the Lord's anxiety — that there are many Christians who are not at all aware of the urgency of the matter. They live in an attitude that is distressing. Distressing not to me merely, but I think much more to the Lord. They live as though they are going to be in this world forever, with a carelessness, a superficiality, a wastefulness of time. They don't bother to redeem the time because they don't seem to understand how urgent is the time in which we live.
I see some people who have been in the church for years who don't move an inch spiritually, and I say frankly, I am very tired of this, and much more is the Lord tired of this. Because I think of Proverbs: "A person often warned and often rebuked who does not take heed will be suddenly destroyed." In other words, if he doesn't understand the urgency of it, he will pass without ever understanding it. He will be suddenly taken away.
In the scriptures, you will find everywhere a sense of urgency if you bother to read the scriptures carefully at all. The Lord Jesus says the coming of the Lord — His coming again — will be like a thief in the night, and you don't know exactly when He will come. It will take you by surprise, and therefore we must be alert, watchful. The urgency means that it requires alertness, a watchfulness, like a soldier on duty. He doesn't know when the enemy will strike, whether in the day or in the night, in the morning or in the evening. He must at all times be alert.
So many Christians collapse so quickly because they are not alert. They don't even know what they have to be alert about. They don't know that Satan knows that his time is short, and he is trying to inflict the maximum damage in the shortest time. Sometimes I feel we are fighting with an army — if we can even call it that — that doesn't have the vaguest clue who the enemy is, what is their mission, and how to go about fighting this battle. There is no sense of urgency. Therefore, a lack of alertness, a lack of watchfulness, a lack of pressing ahead with the utmost zeal.
Zeal — that is what we don't have to a great extent in the church today. Paul speaks: "Let your zeal be burning." But we see a church — too many churches — full of wishy-washy Christians. And God cannot stand this kind of Christians, as we ought to know from Revelation chapter 3 by now.
But why are Christians so wishy-washy? Why do they find time to do unnecessary things like quarreling with one another, like doing worthless things? Why don't they get on with equipping themselves in the word of God so that they can fight the battle well? The average Christian's understanding of the word of God is so pitiful as to make you weep. There are some Christians who have been in the churches for years who couldn't even find, let us say, where Haggai is, or Amos, or Hosea. They don't even know where to find such books in the Bible. And if you think you can, I challenge you to try to find it in, let's say, three seconds flat. We are poorly equipped because we don't have a sense of urgency. We do unnecessary things.
We can't understand when Paul even wishes that Christians would not bother with boy-girl relationships which occupy the minds of young people no end, and which gets them into so much trouble that I have to spend so much time counseling young people who get into this kind of trouble. Paul just says, "Why don't you just remain single?" We think: Paul, he's a fanatic. He's a nutcase. No, Paul knows. He knows that the time is short. And that's the reason he gives in 1 Corinthians 7: "Because of this present crisis in which we live, the urgency of the times in which we live — don't waste time with this kind of thing." Waste time? For us, that's the most valuable use of time. To spend all day and all evening with our girlfriend is the most wonderful use of time. The problem with Paul is he doesn't understand the delights of life. Maybe he had a girlfriend that turned sour on him, and that's why he is in such a bad mood whenever he talks about boy-girl relationships. And he says, "I would that you remain single as I am." Yeah, this kind of people. They don't understand the joys of life. They are killjoys. Every time I enjoy something, he tells me this is no good. Get on with serving the Lord. I mean, there must be limits to this business of serving the Lord. I can spend 80% of my time with my girlfriend, 20% of time doing what? Well, occasionally reading the Bible.
You see, we don't share Paul's concern because we don't share his urgency. He is saying, "What are you doing wasting this time? Can you see? Can you see how many people out there are perishing?" He says, "Don't get excited. What will be, will be. Those who will be saved will be saved. Those who won't be saved won't be saved. Never mind about this. Don't get too excited, Paul." Do you have the urgency? I've seen many people who just can't understand Paul at all because they can't see what's so urgent about this. That's the problem. We can't see. And that is why there is not the fire, the burning fire that kept Paul going to the ends of the earth. He said, "Wherever the gospel has not yet been preached, there I will go." He was restless, relentless in his determination. But I have a hard time finding this kind of Christians. Where are they? I fear — and I trace the root of the problem — that you do not see the desperate urgency of the matter. And the Lord's coming will come to us like a thief in the night. We will suddenly be caught and the day is over for us. Even worse, the blood of those around you who perish will be required from your hand. And how are we going to answer this? If love cannot motivate us, maybe fear can. Because the Bible tells us that if you have the message of life and you don't pass it on, God will require the blood of those who perish from you. Let that sink into our minds. When Paul said goodbye to the Ephesian elders, to the Ephesian church, in Acts chapter 20, he could say this: "I am free from the blood of any of you, because I have told you the whole truth. You can never charge your blood to my account if you perish." But could it be on that day that your schoolmates, the people who sit in the same office with you, or the members of your family who perish — their blood will be charged to your account. It doesn't scare you, does it?
That is the first reason that I keep this subject of the Antichrist before us. Because the Antichrist comes first before the coming of Jesus. Paul told us that very clearly: first comes the Antichrist. When he comes, you know that Jesus' coming will be soon. But the coming of the Antichrist is so close at hand. Are we waiting for him to come first before we are really going to burn with zeal? We can say, "Well, wait for him to come. Then I will start getting really zealous." Such thinking is self-deception. Because when he comes, it will be too late for you to be zealous. And I will explain to you very soon why. Now is the moment to become active and zealous, to see the urgency of the matter, because when the Antichrist arrives, you may want to be zealous, but it will be just too late. If you miss today, you will not have another day. Those who cannot stand today, those who cannot burn for Christ today, will not stand in the day of the Antichrist, much less burn for the glory of God. Let this sink into your hearts.
The second reason that I want to speak about Antichrist and keep this subject before you is to impress upon you the danger of being a Christian. You say, "Why are you so anxious to speak on this?" Very important. Not merely — the first point was urgency — the second point is the danger of being a true Christian. Because only when we understand the danger of being a true Christian will we begin to count the cost. I just said, if you cannot burn for Christ today, if you cannot stand for Christ today, you will not do it in the day when the Antichrist comes. Because if it's hard to be a Christian today, let me tell you, it's going to be impossible when the Antichrist comes.
Let me explain what I mean a little more fully. The Lord Jesus in all His teaching has constantly warned us that being and becoming a Christian is a very dangerous matter. And in this church, I have never — and we have never — lied to anybody, to tell people to become Christians by presenting a very attractive picture, telling them how becoming a Christian means peace and joy and all this kind of stuff. Which, of course, it really does mean — but only to those who know first what it is to count the cost and pay the cost of becoming a Christian. Peace and joy will never be yours until you do. And therefore, for any preacher to tell you that becoming a Christian is peace and joy is to lie to you. And unfortunately, that is what many evangelists do in big rallies, because they want people to come to the front and make their decisions there and then. But nobody is going to come to the front, they think, if they tell them what is the danger. And so they don't tell you that part. They don't want to tell you this. They just want to tell you how nice and how good and how you get eternal life by being a Christian. They don't tell you how this eternal life comes to you as the Lord Jesus put it: "Except a man lose his life, he shall not gain it. He that will save his life will lose it, but he that will lose his life for My sake and the kingdom shall save it." Why doesn't the evangelist explain to us what that means? That he that shall lose his life will gain it? We are not being honest with the Lord's teaching. Nowhere did the Lord Jesus simply say, "Just come and have a good time and you will have eternal life. Just believe in Me, everything will be nice." No, no. He says, "If any man would follow Me, let him take up his cross." We don't like to expound these things. Cross means what? It means suffering and death. "Let him take up suffering and death if he wants to follow Me."
If you can't swallow this kind of message, I'm sorry. I have no authority to sugarcoat this pill for you. If this pill is bitter in your mouth, I have no authority to make it sweet, even if I had the power to do it. I want to stress this matter because if you preach the gospel in a deceptive way — and the Lord Jesus preached with the Antichrist in view, and I am preaching with the Antichrist in view — when the Antichrist comes, all these people who became Christians because they sought to have some kind of spiritual opium by which to dull their daily aches and pains, who treat it as some kind of spiritual aspirin that can take away the pain of life for a moment and they go back to church for the next dose of aspirin — when the Antichrist comes, all these Christians will collapse. What's the use of having a hundred people making decisions today? A thousand people making decisions today? Because none of them will stand. And certainly they will not stand in the day of the Antichrist. The fearful things which will happen in the day of the Antichrist to everyone who professes to be a believer will boggle your mind.
So I can preach a cheapened version of the gospel, a sugar-coated version of the gospel, and fill the church or the auditorium with people who love to listen to this kind of message. But what's the use? It's like building a building with straw and wood, and when the fire comes there's no building left. I want to build with rock, and build with concrete, and build with steel. The fire may blacken its walls, but the building will stand through the fiery times that will come. What kind of a church do you want to build? What kind of a church did Jesus want to build? He certainly wanted to build with rock, on the rock, so that nothing will fall. And that is why He said, "Take up your cross — take up suffering and death."
Now I want to say straight away that, in effect, what the Lord Jesus is telling us is that to become a Christian is equivalent to enlisting in the army — not enlisting in a tour package that takes you to sightsee in Thailand and Switzerland and all these nice places. He is saying that to become a Christian is to enlist in the army. And nobody in his right senses volunteers in the army who doesn't want to suffer or to die. What kind of a soldier are you going to be if you don't want to suffer and to die?
As I look through the teaching of the Bible, I saw that the whole theme of being a soldier, of being a spiritual commando, going right through the Bible, right through the New Testament as well. I will give you some examples of this in a moment. Put in another way: if you don't want to be a soldier for Christ, don't become a Christian. If you want to be a tourist and go sightseeing, or if you want to be a spiritual drug addict getting doses of painkillers from the church, then let me tell you, there are churches that will offer this to you, but not this church. We don't peddle spiritual drugs here. This is the place where the army of the Lord is being built to fight the battle to which we are called — to suffer and to die.
Now, clearly, you may want to get rid of the Lord's message about taking up the cross, but that will be a great mistake, and you will see how big a mistake it is when the Antichrist comes.
Now, another thing you will notice — and I'm sure that you will notice — is that there are two fundamentally different kinds of Christians. Both call themselves Christians, both have been baptized, but it won't take you long to see that there is a fundamental difference between these two types of Christians. The one kind of Christian, with which you must be very familiar by now — and I hope that you are not one of them — is people who become Christians precisely because they want to save their own spiritual necks. They became Christians for purely selfish reasons, and that's why you will have a lot of difficulty noting much difference between them and the non-Christian. You can't see much difference between the two. This kind of Christian is still full of self, because that was the reason they became Christians. They became Christians because they simply want to have some comfort, or they are lonely and they want to have some fellowship, and for them the church is a social gathering. Or they cannot handle the pressures of life and they need some support. And whatever other reasons — all the reasons are selfish.
Now, it does happen that people come to the Lord for a selfish reason, but God changes them, and in due time, they lose that selfishness and they become more and more self-giving. But many of these so-called Christians never change. Are you one of them? Are you one of these people who became Christians and have remained purely selfish? No wonder your family is not impressed with your life. No wonder your colleagues can't see any difference in you from any non-Christian. You are exactly the same. And you yourself know that you are not different from any non-Christian. It doesn't need me to tell you that. You know in your heart of hearts that you are really different more or less only in name.
But there is another kind of Christian. These are the soldiers of Christ who have enlisted not merely to save themselves, but have enlisted to join the battle against evil, against sin, against Satan, to join the spiritual battle of liberation. And they are prepared to be hurt, they are prepared to suffer and to die, like every good soldier is prepared to do in the battle for liberation. And you immediately notice, when you meet this kind of Christian, that there is a difference of quality about them. And strangely enough, they are not grim people, frightening specimens of determination who grit their teeth through life. But you are surprised to find that they are relaxed, they are joyful, they are filled with a peace and a purpose in life that you haven't known. The only way to joy and peace in the biblical teaching is to become this kind of Christian.
The Lord is building an army. He doesn't want a church crowded with people, all of whom are as selfish and as spiritually ugly as many non-Christians. I said many non-Christians, because some non-Christians are better than Christians, and I don't want to insult these non-Christians. You see, the point is that the Lord Jesus was never interested in so-called mass conversions. He was interested in enlisting spiritual commandos to fight under His leadership. That's why He says, "Take up your cross and follow Me." He will lead the charge. He will lead the battle against evil. He will be the first to die. But we have to follow behind as close as possible in this battle. That is what biblical Christianity is about. And this kind of Christianity is very, very powerful because it is equipped with God's power.
You have heard recently of the revolt in the Philippines. I'm sure some of you follow the news. An army unit, well trained and well equipped and determined, no matter how small the number, is always dangerous. You may have massive crowds, but massive crowds on the one hand are not reliable as a means of support. I was listening to the news just the other day about recent happenings in the Philippines, and I was interested to hear the comment of the news reporter reporting from the Philippines. He said Mrs. Aquino of the Philippines came to power through a wave of popular support. And then he made the next remark: he said it is obvious that a crowd that supports you can just as quickly turn against you. In other words, he was warning that she was quickly losing the popular support that she first had, because crowds are unreliable. They are very selfish. If you can appeal to their selfishness, they will sweep you into power. But once they feel that you are not serving their selfish interests, they can turn against you overnight.
But everybody also knows that soldiers are a much more consistent element. In fact, they are very hard to change in their stubborn commitment to one particular cause. And sometimes it is also almost difficult to understand why there are still army units today in the Philippines loyal to Marcos, after we have heard of all the corruption of Marcos. It is not hard to understand when you realize that army units are very conservative and very hard to change in their loyalties. That is why governments base their power not on popular support, but on the small but faithful and powerful army units. Every dictatorship in the world today is supported in this way. They don't have popular support, but they have full control of their army units. The army may only be one million people, maybe two million people out of a country of a billion people, but you can keep a billion people under control with an army that is less than one percent of the population.
You know how many soldiers were involved in this latest attempt to overthrow the president of the Philippines? It's almost laughable. Eight hundred men. Eight hundred men tried to take over a country, and they nearly succeeded. They nearly succeeded. That's why I say the power of an army, of committed people, no matter how small, is far more significant and far more dangerous than the large crowd of people, millions of people, who are neither here nor there.
We have in the world today several — maybe one billion — nominal Christians. Maybe one billion nominal Christians out of five billion people in the world. I say nominal Christians. Some of them are real Christians, but the majority are nominal Christians. Do they have any impact on the world today? You would think with one billion people we would have an enormous impact. No. There is no impact. Everybody who has studied history somewhat will be aware of the fact that the fortunes of every country have been determined in the end by small, efficient, well-trained, determined military units. Every history has been like this. China was taken over by the communists by a small, efficient, and determined army, at that time numbering at the beginning a few thousand men. They took over the country — one billion people.
When we understand how the world works and how history works, we would not make the mistake to look for numbers. Neither did the Lord make that mistake. If you study the Gospels, you will find something interesting. The Lord tended to stay away from the crowds. He wasn't interested in crowds, but He spent most of His time with twelve men, which then went up to seventy men and down to the hundred and twenty men. But it is this hundred and twenty men — these hundred and twenty men at Pentecost — that determined the history of Christianity. Not the crowds, but the hundred and twenty committed men. God is looking for soldiers who are not afraid to suffer and to die in the battle against evil.
Now, let me give you a little evidence, and we have to rush on because you may remind me that I mentioned that the theme of being a Christian soldier runs through the whole New Testament. I have to give you some proof of this. The proof would take too much time in detail, but I will go over it very quickly. We are all familiar with Ephesians 6, for example, where Paul speaks of putting on all the weapons, the spiritual weapons with which God has equipped us. That is the main theme of Ephesians 6, verse 12 onwards. Who needs to put on weapons if we are not in a war? Paul takes it for granted that Ephesian Christians, and every Christian, understands that when we became Christians, we enlisted in the spiritual army.
You know what happened when the communists came into Shanghai? As you know, I was interested in a military career before I became a Christian. And I watched the battle for Shanghai with the greatest interest from my rooftop, on top of my apartment, from which I could get a very good view of all the surrounding area. Bullets were flying and the night sky was lit up with artillery fire, with huge fires burning in the suburbs and everywhere. And I watched the whole battle going on. And I saw something very interesting. As the communist soldiers advanced into Shanghai, you know what the Nationalist soldiers were doing? They were taking off their weapons. And the streets of Shanghai — the main streets — were littered with submachine guns, hand grenades, rifles, everything you can think of, including the uniforms. You know why? Because, of course, the communist soldiers were going to shoot anybody in a uniform, and especially anyone in uniform carrying a weapon. And therefore, as the Nationalist cause was collapsing in front of the communist attack, the Nationalist soldiers were trying to save their lives. They didn't want to suffer or to die for a lost cause. And that is why, in order to save themselves, you know what they had to do? Quickly disarm, throw away their weapons, take off their helmets, take off their uniforms, even knock on the doors of people because they can't very well walk in underpants and T-shirts.
# Antichrist Against Christian Soldiers (Part 2)
...with the crowds and disappear. The point is, anyone carrying weapons and dressed in uniform will be recognized as an enemy. And Paul is saying in Ephesians 6, put on your uniforms, carry your weapons, otherwise you are a defeated soldier, or else you have already surrendered to the enemy. Are we like the Nationalist soldiers in Shanghai who threw away their uniforms and their weapons, or dare not put them on for fear of being recognized as a Christian? When you go out to your office or in the world out there, are you in uniform — wearing your spiritual uniform and your battle equipment — and everyone can see, here is a soldier of Christ ready for combat?
The New Testament doesn't know of soldiers in civilian clothing. That's the point to understand. It doesn't know of soldiers carrying white flags, soldiers who do not take up their weapons or have already abandoned them. The moment you take off your uniform and your weapons, you are not a soldier anymore. You are no longer a soldier of Christ. You have denied the cause, just like those Nationalist soldiers who threw down their weapons. That was the sign of surrender. But I have a hard time seeing Christian soldiers around. Where are they?
The Lord Jesus Himself portrayed the Christian life as warfare in Luke chapter 14, verse 31. And He said, if you are going to become a Christian, count the cost. Luke 14, 31. He says it's like going to war — and going to war with the odds against you. Very interesting. I have preached on this before; I will not touch on it in detail again. But He describes the Christian life as a cause in which your chance of dying and your chance of suffering is very high. Because He portrays this in Luke 14 as an army of 10,000 men going forth to battle against 20,000 men. In other words, you and I are soldiers who are committed to fight against a majority force, against a force that is bigger than our own. We will always fight in the minority against a superior force. And that is why our chance of suffering and dying is extremely good.
Paul goes on in his teaching again and again to use this kind of metaphor. For example, in Romans chapter 6, verse 13, he says that Christians are to present the members of our body as weapons of righteousness. Weapons. Many versions have watered down this word "weapons" to "instruments." Very interesting. We don't like this military terminology. And even the translators try to water down the terminology, using the word "instruments." But as Kittel's Theological Dictionary rightly observes — and here I quote: "The New Testament always has the word hoplon, that is the word in the Greek here, in the plural, which is what we have in Romans 6:13, for weapons." That is, when this word is used in the plural as it is in Romans 6:13, it always means weapons, not instruments. And Paul is saying, when you become a Christian — when you become a baptized Christian (Romans 6 is talking about baptism) — then you are to present arms. Like a soldier going forth to battle who presents arms to his commanding officer, or to his general — in this case, the Lord Jesus — the members of our body, our arms, our legs, our whole person, are presented as weapons to God for righteousness.
Paul takes this up again in Romans chapter 13 and verse 12 and uses the same word "weapons." And he says, "The night is almost past. The day is at hand. Let us therefore lay aside the works of darkness and put on the weapons of light." When you become a Christian, you put aside the life of sin you lived before, and you put on the weapons of light, because God is light.
The same word again is used in 2 Corinthians 10, verse 4, where he says that "the weapons of our warfare are very powerful." These are powerful Christians. The Christians who enlist in the army of God are well equipped. We have no reason to fear because our weapons are very powerful. But where are the powerful Christians that you know? It is my ambition to make this church, by the grace of God, a church that obeys God's call to enlist in the army of Christ, equipped with powerful weapons, as Paul says, able to pull down the strongholds of the enemy.
In 1 Corinthians 9, verse 7, Paul speaks of the Christian life as serving as a soldier. In 1 Timothy, chapter 1, verse 18, Paul says to Timothy and exhorts him to "fight the good fight" — war the good war, quite literally. In 2 Timothy, chapter 2, verse 3 and verse 4, Paul says, "Suffer hardship as a good soldier of Jesus Christ. We are to please the one who has enlisted us."
I was listening to Sister Pia just now in the sharing at the prayer time. I see many of you who do not come to prayer time or communion really miss the sharing. I am always very enriched by the sharing. I sometimes think that the prayer time and communion time is the best time of all, when we can listen to the sharing of brothers and sisters, because it is a ministering of one to the other, very close to the New Testament pattern. And Sister Pia was sharing just now, and I couldn't help smiling when she said that when she got to the Toronto camp — when she had just come back from our church camp in Toronto — she was sharing that when she was shown her room, which she had to share with more than 10 other people crowded into the same room, and she said that the bunk was so uncomfortable that she would bang her head on one end and her feet would kick the other end of the bunk, and so on. I couldn't help smiling. Do you know what was the original purpose of the church camps that we first had in Montreal? I wonder if those from Montreal will remember. They were designed to toughen up the people in the church from the easy life that we had got used to living in Canada. It was purposely that everybody would live in discomfort. And if you thought the Five Oaks camp is uncomfortable, then those of you who have been to the Magog camp will know that that was far more uncomfortable. Much more uncomfortable. In fact, they lived in tents. We stayed in tents in Magog. Real army style. And if it rained hard enough, you might get a spray inside the tent and you'd feel the water spraying on your face. And if it's cold, as it is very cold in Canada at night, you'd really freeze in the tent.
The whole purpose of these camps to start with — and maybe later on they began to forget what was the reason for these camps — was to toughen up our people with a few days of hard life. Of course, they so enjoyed the camp that they soon forgot about the hard life. Maybe the first day they were quite uncomfortable and attacked by mosquitoes and other interesting creatures. But the point here is that we have to toughen up our people. And that was the whole idea of it. In fact, my complaint about the recent camps is that they are getting more and more comfortable and losing the original purpose of the military training that we are supposed to give. And that is why early in the morning there was exercise time. People were to get out of bed and jump around and do other strange things that our exercise masters were there to tell us what to do. Swimming and so on, for physical toughening up. And so, we are trying to make soldiers — Christian soldiers. And you can see how we find it difficult to take discomfort, isn't it? We easily become soft. And so let us bear this in mind.
But there is one more point, and I must quickly close. And this final point is not just enduring hardship, as Paul says to Timothy: "Endure hardship as a good soldier." We in Hong Kong also don't know how to endure hardship anymore, isn't it? I mean, if life in Canada is easy — I mean, the houses are so well heated in winter, people say, "How can you live in Canada? It's so cold." Cold? We never feel the cold. It is so comfortable and so warm in Canada because every house is so well heated. And even in summer in Canada it can be hot for two or three weeks, and though the heat lasts only two or three weeks, many houses are equipped with air conditioning. We always live in comfort. We become like the American soldiers who went to Korea, who became famous as being "chocolate soldiers" who couldn't fight unless they had their daily ration of chocolate. It became a standard joke for us in China at the time. I was still in China during the Korean War, where they laughed about the American soldiers who, unless they got their proper rations of corned beef and chocolate and other goodies, they couldn't fight the war. We don't have to laugh. I think we are probably worse than those American soldiers who went to Korea. Christ is looking for soldiers.
But the last point I want to stress is this: we must learn to die. Let me repeat this. I say it in all seriousness. You and I must learn to die if we are going to make good soldiers at all. What kind of soldiers are soldiers who are afraid to die? I see a lot of Christians who fear death. And obviously death is not something we can simply shake off with a shrug of the shoulders. We must train ourselves. We must learn to die. Am I going off the scriptures? No, no. I am staying very much within the scriptures. Nobody can take up the cross who is unwilling to die, because the cross is an instrument of execution. It isn't a golden thing we hang around our necks for decoration. It may be now. It wasn't then. So when the Lord Jesus says, "Take up your cross," what else is He saying but saying this: you've got to learn to die. And if you don't want to learn to die, don't follow Me, because where I go is where we are going to die. "He that loses his life shall gain it."
A recent situation concerning a close friend of mine, a well-known pastor in England whose name I shall not mention — a close friend of mine, and therefore this case grieved my heart — was: he was told one day by the doctors that he had cancer. He's dying of cancer. What grieved my heart about this whole case was that it set him off into a frantic — I have to say frantic — search for healing. I grieve in my heart that even a pastor has not learned to die. I think Paul would have been thoroughly ashamed of such a reaction. He traveled from one end of the world to another looking for some person in the church who had the gift of healing in order to heal him of his cancer. Everywhere he went, searching for some other pastor or some other person in the church who had the gift of healing, and countless people prayed for him and prayed for him — and he died. God was not pleased to answer the prayer for his healing.
Now I have shared with you that I do not reject healing as a gift, and I have also shared with you in another message that I myself have played some part in the healing of other people. I have also prayed for people — for one person, at least one person with cancer, who was healed and the cancer had completely disappeared after the prayer. All this I have shared with you before. I do not despise healing. There is a proper place for it. But it must never be used for the purpose of fleeing from death. We must be willing to say, "O Lord my God, I am ready to die with dignity and with joy if this is Your good pleasure."
Paul said this in Philippians: "I don't know which I should choose — to stay in this world, or to die and be with Christ. But," he says, "I personally prefer to go to be with Christ." You cannot see a trace of the fear of death in Paul. Not one trace. In fact, he went head-on to where he could die. When he was told that he would suffer and even die in Jerusalem, he set his face straight for Jerusalem. As soon as he heard that he could have the chance to die, Paul went straight for Jerusalem. What would you have done? Probably turn around and go as far away from Jerusalem as you could. There is not a trace of the fear of death in Paul. Why?
Do you know what Jesus died for? Brothers and sisters, do you know why Jesus died? Read Hebrews chapter 2, verses 14 and 15, which says this — let these verses sink into your mind — Hebrews 2:14 and 15, which says this: Christ died for us in order that we may be delivered from the fear of death. That we may be set free from slavery to sin, to Satan, and to ourselves because of the fear of death. In other words, what Hebrews is saying is this: you fear death because you want to preserve yourself — your ego, your self-centeredness, your self-will. You cling to security. That's why you can't be a soldier of Christ. Christ died, it says here, to set us free from this. Because unless we are free from this, we will not be free from self and from sin. I beg of you to understand this. We cannot preach a gospel of freedom from sin without preaching the necessity of being freed from death and from the fear of death. And this does not mean just freedom from physical dying. It is to be set free.
There are two reasons why we fear death. We don't merely fear death because the body will die. We fear death because we are afraid to lose ourselves, is it not? To lose our self-identity. To lose our self-goal and the purpose of life. There is something even more that we fear than physical death. We fear the loss of self — that is, the loss of our pride, the loss of us in our self-centeredness. You will recall just what happened a few days ago in Hong Kong. It was on the front page of the South China Morning Post and so on — the horrible picture of a young man falling to his death, captured in a photograph as he was spread-eagle with his arms out, crashing from the seventh floor to the concrete ground below. I'm sure many of you saw it, either on television or in the newspaper. And the photographer captured that scene with this young man seconds before he crashed to his death, seven floors down. They made an attempt to rescue him but were not successful. The reasons given for his death were that he had been in a detention center — that was one of the reasons. Another is that he did badly in his exams. Now you would think that's no reason to die. He said that he had no face to face the world because he had been in a detention center and therefore regarded as a bad guy, that he failed his exams or didn't do well in his exams. I don't know which of the two was the main reason, or whether both were the reasons.
You see, he feared something more than physical death. He feared the loss of self — the loss of face, which is the loss of pride, the loss of his soul, as it were, the loss of him being a human being. That means there's nothing left to live for. There are some things we fear even more than physical death. And that is why the Lord Jesus said, "Except a man lose his soul, he cannot save it."
We must first learn not to fear physical death. That is a start. We must also learn not to fear the loss of self, of pride, not to be sensitive to what people think of us, which is another form of this self-centeredness. Why are we so sensitive when people say things about us? The self is very much alive. Learn to die.
Why have I said all this? I will explain it further the next time. But the reason is simply this: when the Antichrist comes, he will inflict such suffering upon Christians who remain true to Christ that the Lord Jesus said it will be hard not to fall. He will grind down the saints. Revelation is a book of war. I looked at the statistics in Revelation and I was very interested to see that no book speaks about war, about suffering, and about death as much as the book of Revelation, because that is the book that speaks about the Antichrist.
Let me give you quickly the statistics. The Greek word for "war" in the noun form occurs nine times in Revelation. The Greek word for "war" in the verb form occurs six times, making a total of fifteen times. In the Gospels it occurs only once, yet it occurs fifteen times in Revelation. The actual word for "armies" occurs four times in Revelation. The word for "victory in war," which is usually translated as "overcoming," occurs sixteen times in Revelation, seven times in John's First Letter of John. You see, these words all occur towards the end of the Bible, the end of the New Testament, because we are moving towards the end, when the Antichrist comes. And the Antichrist will inflict such suffering and such death upon Christians that I say: if you cannot stand now, you don't have the slightest chance of standing then. So don't think, "Well, we can wait till the Antichrist comes, then we will be faithful Christians." If you cannot be faithful now, you won't be faithful then. I beg of you to understand this matter very, very clearly.
Learn to suffer. Harden ourselves, as Paul says in 1 Corinthians 9. You know what the apostle Paul did? He toughened himself every day through physical discipline. He toughened himself to suffer. And did he ever suffer. I mean, how many times was he beaten? How many times was he shipwrecked, stoned, suffering all manner of physical hardship? But he toughened himself for those sufferings. We can prepare, as good soldiers are supposed to do. That's why in army training courses, they put soldiers through hard times, preparing them for the suffering to come. And we must think through the matter of death so that when one day the doctor tells you you are dying, you don't have to go into a state of shock. You can look calmly at the doctor and lift your eyes to God and say, "Thanks be to God for this hour. Have I prepared, and now my hour has come." I think the doctor might have such a shock, he'll wonder, "I haven't seen this kind of patient before." And all your friends and colleagues will have a shock. Don't be like the pastor that I knew, searching desperately for healing. If God wills to heal me, let His will be done. If not, thanks be to God, I am going home.
But to do that, prepare for it. Think about it. Suppose you went to the hospital tomorrow and the doctor said to you, "My friend, I've got bad news for you. You have cancer, or you have serious heart trouble, or some other disease." What are you going to do? Break down in tears? You will be a disgrace to your King and to your God. No, no. Let us prepare our thoughts and think it through. What if this news reaches me tomorrow — how will I take it? Think it through carefully. Don't run away from the subject.
And think that if you are given the privilege to suffer or to be shot for the name of Christ, will you cower before the rifles and moan and say, "Lord, why did You allow this to happen to me? I was a good Christian, You know. I put my monthly offering in the offering box, and now look at me — I'm going to die"? I hope you can stand there and look at the executioners peacefully and with joy, and say, as Stephen did, as the Lord Jesus did, "Father, forgive them, they don't know what they do." And look up and see the glory of the Lord waiting to welcome you.
Let us learn to die so that we may learn to live triumphantly. He who does not know how to die in the Christian life does not know how to live the Christian life. Let us pray.