The Christian is more than conqueror.  He is not merely a victor, sure of being the winner over life and death, things present and things to come, powers and principalities, so that no power on earth or in hell will ever succeed in separating him from the love of God which is in Jesus Christ, his Lord.  A victor is one who struggles and subdues the foe.  That enemy can cause him much harm.  Sometimes the price of victory may be very great, so expensive, in fact, that it were better that the struggle had never occurred than to have gained such an expensive triumph.  But the child of God is more than conqueror.

It is well that we understand the nature of the struggle to which the apostle refers and in which the Christian is always engaged.  We understand, I am sure, that the Christian struggle is a spiritual one.  We are called upon at all times to fight the good fight of faith, to cope with the powers of sin and darkness.  Our covenant young men, scattered in the various training camps throughout the country, are quite conscious of this fact.  Besides, the position of the church in the midst of the world will become increasingly smaller.  Already now we may hear the rumblings of thunder, becoming ever louder, heralding the approaching storm of the judgment of God.  The world is rapidly becoming smaller and the church’s position narrower.  It behooves us to be sober, to watch and to pray.

In this struggle it is not the specific intention of the powers of darkness to cause us physical distress and suffering.  They know that they can overwhelm us, that they can deprive us of the things earthly, can cause us to suffer hunger and want, can deprive us of bread and water and clothing, can cast us into prison and dungeon, can cause the flames of the stake to reduce our bodies to ashes or have us beheaded on the scaffold.  The world can do all these things, but it is fully aware of the fact that, having done all these things, he still will not obtain the victory.  To gain the victory the world must strike deeper.

This struggle is a spiritual one.  The issue revolves about the church of God and Christ.  Our spiritual possessions are involved here.  Fundamentally the struggle revolves about the Christ, even as He stands for the cause of the supreme Potentate of potentates; in the last instance it revolves about the Name and the Cause of the living God Himself.  It is that cause which we may represent on earth and in the midst of the world.  It is that Name which we are called upon to take upon our lips, confessing it in adoration and glorifying it, condemning the world, through the love of Christ, which is the love of God poured into our hearts.  Paul speaks of being separated from the love of Christ.  To be separated from the love of Chrsit implies that the tongue which once confessed Him shall deny Him, that the song which once sung of the glory of God shall be silenced, that the light which once shone from the church of God in the midst of the world unto the glory of the Father, shall be extinguished. Only then will the enemy of darkness be victorious.  Of this he is fully aware.  It is possible to separate one who confesses Christ from all things, such as bread and clothing, a name and place in the midst of the world, money and goods, wife and child, also his own life.  But as long as the world does not succeed in separating him from the love of God in Christ that child of God remains the victor.  As long as the love and grace of God in Christ are sufficiently powerful to sustain God’s people, enabling them to bear all sufferings of this present time; and as long as that bond of love uniting us with Christ remains, all the efforts of the world will surely have been futile.

And we are more than conquerors.  We not only gain the victory, but the enemy cannot even harm us, or cause us any hurt.  Yea, what is more, these enemies must serve us.  However mighty the hosts of darkness may be and however furiously they may rage, they must and do work together to give unto the people of God the victory and lead them into everlasting glory.  This blessed assurance we may experience while we look, not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen.  Then we perceive the struggle to be spiritual.  Then we shall understand, even in the midst of the greatest affliction and trouble, that all is well.