'In nothing terrified by your adversaries,' says Paul. He uses a very
vivid, and some people might think, a very vulgar metaphor here. The
word rendered _terrified_ properly refers to a horse shying or plunging
at some object. It is generally things half seen and mistaken for
something more dreadful than themselves that make horses shy; and it is
usually a half-look at adversaries, and a mistaken estimate of their
strength, that make Christians afraid. Go up to your fears and speak to
them, and as ghosts are said to do, they will generally fade away. So we
may go into the battle, as the rash French minister said he did into the
Franco-German war, 'with a light heart,' and that for good reasons. We
have no reason to fear for ourselves. We have no reason to fear for the
ark of God. We have no reason to fear for the growth of Christianity in
the world. Many good men in this time seem to be getting half-ashamed of
the gospel, and some preachers are preaching it in words which sound
like an apology rather than a creed. Do not let us allow the enemy to
overpower our imaginations in that fashion. Do not let us fight as if we
expected to be beaten, always casting our eyes over our shoulders, even
while we are advancing, to make sure of our retreat, but let us trust
our gospel, and trust our King, and let us take to heart the old
admonition, 'Lift up thy voice with strength; lift it up, be not
afraid.'
Such courage is a prophecy of victory. Such courage is based upon a sure
hope. 'Our citizenship is in heaven, from whence also we look for the
Lord Jesus as Saviour.' The little outlying colony in this far-off edge
of the empire is ringed about by wide-stretching hosts of dusky
barbarians. Far as the eye can reach their myriads cover the land, and
the watchers from the ramparts might well be dismayed if they had only
their own resources to depend on. But they know that the Emperor in his
progress will come to this sorely beset outpost, and their eyes are
fixed on the pass in the hills where they expect to see the waving
banners and the gleaming spears. Soon, like our countrymen in Lucknow,
they will hear the music and the shouts that tell that He is at hand.
Then when He comes, He will raise the siege and scatter all the enemies
as the chaff of the threshing-floor, and the colonists who held the post
will go with Him to the land which they have never seen, but which is
their home, and will, with the Victor, sweep in triumph 'through the
gates into the city.'