Friday, November 5, 2010

The God of Victory



[It] is to the Lord that we owe any success we have ever achieved. We have been defeated when we have gone in our own strength; but when we have been victorious it has always been because the strength of the Lord was put forth for our deliverance. You never fought with a sin, with a temptation, or with a doubt, and overthrew it, except by the Spirit’s aid. You never won a soul for Jesus, you never spoke a valiant word that repelled an error, you never did an enterprising deed which really told well for the success of the kingdom, but God was in it all — virtually, nay, actually enabling you; and he did it of his own good will.

What is it but a simple matter of justice that he who wrought the wonder should have the honor of it? It would have been a crying shame if Miriam had sung to the praise of Moses and Aaron at the Red Sea. They were but the outward instruments of the people’s coming out of Egypt. As she took her timbrel, she rightly said, in the hymn that Moses had given her for the occasion: “Let us sing unto the Lord, for he hath triumphed gloriously.” So in every struggle that transpires in our hearts, in every combat waged in the world, ascribe the power to him to whom it belongs, “The right hand of the Lord is exalted; the right hand of the Lord doeth valiantly.” As before the fight in his name we set up our banner, so after the fight in his name again we give the conquering banner to the breeze. “All glory be unto him that won the victory.”

From a sermon by Charles Haddon Spurgeon entitled "New Uses For Old Trophies," delivered November 20, 1870. Image by Ron Almog under Creative Commons License.

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