Virtually seventy years in the past, 5 missionaries entered the Ecuadorian jungle in an try to determine contact with the Waorani. As Jim Elliot, Pete Fleming, Ed McCully, Nate Saint, and Roger Youderian ready to embark, they worshiped collectively by singing the hymn “We Relaxation on Thee, Our Defend and Our Defender.” They knew the journey forward was full of earthly peril, but their religion was absolutely in God as their protect and defender.
The boys would by no means return from the journey. As an alternative, they handed “via the gates of pearly splendor” once they have been killed on a sandbar on the Curaray River.
The “Ecuador 5” (as they got here to be known as) often is the most well-known missionary martyrs of the final century, however they aren’t the one ones. The missionary endeavor, particularly within the hardest-to-reach areas of the world, is fraught with hazard. What compels women and men to sacrifice their security for the gospel? What provides them the braveness to danger their very lives? And what can provide us non-missionaries related braveness to danger consolation and safety for the identify of Christ?
Solely religion within the one “who didn’t spare his personal Son however gave him up for us all” (Romans 8:32).
Taking Up the Defend
Taking over the “protect of religion” is critical for each Christian, not just for missionaries in international and harmful lands (Ephesians 6:16). Paul is cautious to say we should always take up the protect “in all circumstances,” whether or not good or dangerous. A soldier who left his protect behind was inclined to assault, even when the battle wasn’t raging and all appeared nicely. An excellent soldier is ready for assault at any time.
The Christian life is riddled with trials and persecutions. Our salvation doesn’t exclude us from the temporal difficulties of a fallen world. Actually, trials and persecutions solely enhance as we search to stay a devoted Christian life. Sensible Christians, then, are all the time ready for an assault from the enemy.
When Paul tells us to take up our shields, he calls us to repeatedly and actively place our religion in God and all he has promised to us in Christ. This isn’t a passive religion. It’s neither lazy nor fatalistic. This religion leads Christians, within the phrases of William Carey, to “anticipate nice issues, try nice issues.” Realizing that our God is sovereign and that he’ll set up his kingdom permits us to stroll boldly within the face of opposition. That is the religion that has led many Christians to take daring dangers for the sake of the gospel, a few of them even dropping their lives within the course of.
What Is the Defend of Religion?
A soldier’s belief in his protect is inadequate, nonetheless, if the protect itself is defective. A protect made from feathers isn’t reliable. Whatever the soldier’s personal motion of choosing up the protect, the substance of the protect actually issues. So, what’s our protect?
The protect of religion is God himself — it’s he who thwarts the plans of the evil one. As Iain Duguid writes, “Paul is just not saying that religion in itself has exceptional defensive energy in opposition to Devil. Fairly, he’s saying that religion protects us from Devil’s assaults as a result of religion takes maintain of the facility and safety of God himself.”
“The Christian’s protect is nothing lower than the all-powerful God of the universe.”
The Christian’s protect is nothing lower than the all-powerful God of the universe: he who spoke the world into being and who now upholds the universe by the phrase of his energy (Hebrews 1:3; 11:3). Neither “tribulation, or misery, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or hazard, or sword” can separate you, Christian, from God’s love (Romans 8:35).
Each Arrow Extinguished
Discover additionally the protect’s efficacy. The protect doesn’t simply deflect the enemy’s flaming darts. It extinguishes them (Ephesians 6:16). It renders them impotent and out of date. The sovereign God of the universe, the item of our religion, extinguishes the hell-bent assaults of Devil.
The world, and extra particularly Devil, the prince of the facility of the air, wish to take you off beam and tempt you to return to the trespasses in sins during which you as soon as walked (Ephesians 2:1–2). Whether or not you’re tempted to be disunified, drunk, bitter, sexually immoral, egocentric in your marriage, or offended together with your youngsters — all temptations Paul addresses in Ephesians — belief that the God who has saved you’ll maintain you and defend you from the enemy. When tempted to wander, cling to the protect of religion and imagine that “he who’s in you is bigger than he who’s on this planet” (1 John 4:4).
Christian, the enemy’s assaults won’t ever finally prevail — even when he takes our lives. When God says he’ll do one thing, he will certainly do it — and he has promised that the total variety of the elect can be introduced into his kingdom. This assurance leads us to put down our lives for the sake of the gospel. And when God makes use of even the dying of his saints to assemble his chosen individuals and develop his kingdom, evil is extinguished.
The dying of the Ecuador 5 was the spark that led to the eventual conversion of numerous Waorani. These treasured believers would someday move via the gates of splendor and stay endlessly with the very males who have been killed in order that they is likely to be reached with the gospel. Flaming darts — extinguished!
Taking the Defend Collectively
When God calls us to placed on his armor, he doesn’t anticipate us to take action alone. Simply as an remoted soldier is liable to assault, so is a Christian separated from his neighborhood, the native church. I bear in mind watching a film during which numerous troopers have been surrounded by a far superior variety of enemies. The troopers locked their shields collectively and lined themselves from all angles — entrance, again, and even above. The troopers have been stronger collectively. If one soldier dropped his protect, the others would modify their shields to make sure the group was lined.
We generally develop weary from the battle. We frequently want others to lock arms with us for reinforcement. After we collect in our native church buildings, we sing collectively, pray collectively, learn the Scriptures collectively, and sit beneath the preaching of these Scriptures collectively. We maintain one another accountable and participate within the ordinances collectively. We worship God collectively and confess our sins collectively. We remind one another to take up our shields of religion and put our belief within the God who saved us and united us to his Son. Just like the missionaries, we sing,
Thine is the battle, thine shall be the reward;
When passing via the gates of pearly splendor,
Victors, we relaxation with thee, via infinite day.
The Ecuador 5 knew that they weren’t promised security and safety on this life. However they did know they have been promised security and safety for eternity. The spears of males might have taken their earthly life, however their lively religion in God carried them via the gates of splendor to relaxation with Christ for all eternity.
