I am inspired by great stories of courage. I remember reading once of the stunning courage of Alexander the Great in a battle he fought in India. Angry at the reticence of his weary men to take a walled Multanese citadel in eastern Punjab, Alexander himself vaulted over the wall and into the compound where he faced the enraged enemy soldiers alone for a few shocking moments. Ashamed of their weakness in the face of their king’s courage, Alexander’s soldiers stormed in after him and rescued him, winning the battle. Alexander himself was badly wounded and seemed close to death. Nonetheless, he survived, and the loyalty among his soldiers was never greater. Such accounts of battlefield courage fill the pages of military history.
I believe the greatest stories in history are connected with the advance of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Part of the joy of heaven will be to recount the great exploits of the saints for the glory of God and to celebrate the courage they have shown in advancing the kingdom of God: “They loved not their lives even unto death” (Rev. 12:11).
If you are called by God to be involved in the great work of church revitalization, you are called to a life of courage. No dying church will ever be revitalized without courage, for Satan never gives up any territory without a fight. If you want to be part of what God is doing to reclaim that lost territory, you must be willing to face attacks of the devil with great courage—a boldness that only God can give.
John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress includes a character named Mr. Valiant-for-Truth. This incredible warrior for the truth of the gospel represents clearly the courage that all faithful servants of the Lord must have in fighting the Lord’s battles. In what is effectively his “Last Will and Testament,” Mr. Valiant-for-Truth bequeaths his “sword” to those who would follow: that is, the Word of God. Then he offers his courage and skill to whoever could obtain it. This is a timeless challenge to all of us who follow the heroes of the faith to rise up and carry on the noble reconquest of the world from Satan’s clutches. No one can achieve anything for the Lord without that courage and skill. Then Mr. Valiant-for-Truth says these unforgettable words: “My Marks and Scars I carry with me, to be a witness for me that I have fought his Battles who now will be my Rewarder.”1
None of the valiant brothers and sisters who have suffered and died for Christ in generations past can bequeath us their wounds. Now is our time; this is our battle. And the wounds we will receive in life and ministry will be a witness for us that we have fought battles for the same Lord they served.
Now, realistically, what kinds of trials face us? What must we overcome? Predominantly, the attack will come through fear of man. Satan uses human beings in an intimidating way, and the fear of man is a powerful hindrance to the work of church reform. At every step, we are tempted to wonder, What will so and so think? What will the deacons do? Will people leave the church if I preach such and such? I certainly asked those questions. The leader of the faction that opposed me was a man with a powerful temper, who more than once displayed visible rage at me. Once, when we were riding in a car together and I tried to broach the subject of the growing controversy at church, his driving became erratic, and he yelled at me, “I will fight you every step of the way.” This was no idle boast. He used to sit with his arms crossed and glare at me while I preached. At one point, however, I realized that he would never be pleased with me no matter what I preached; his real problem was with the Lord—not with me.
Scripture clearly testifies to the danger of fear of man: Paul said, “Am I now seeking the approval of man, or of God? Or am I trying to please man? If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ” (Gal. 1:10). The Lord made it clear to me that I needed to learn to fear him more than I feared any man. To shrink back from a great work of church reform because I was afraid of what would happen to me was shameful. To hesitate to preach any truth of the Bible because of fear of man was to contribute to the church’s slide toward spiritual oblivion. God used a clear passage in Isaiah to warn me that I needed to fear him more than any man who could oppose me: “I, I am he who comforts you; who are you that you are afraid of man who dies, of the son of man who is made like grass, and have forgotten the LORD, your Maker, who stretched out the heavens and laid the foundations of the earth” (Isa. 51:12–13).
Suffering and Eternal Rewards
One of the greatest inducements to embracing suffering with courage is the doctrine of the eternal rewards that God promises to all who suffer for Christ. Christ desires very much that we set our hearts on the rewards he will give all who serve him faithfully on Earth. If he did not want us to yearn for those rewards, why would he tell us so much of them? The more courageously we suffer for Christ on Earth, the greater will be our reward in heaven: “Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you” (Matt. 5:11–12). It is interesting to me that the Lord mentions such things as insults and people falsely saying evil things against us. Those are just words, yet bearing patiently under them results in a great reward in heaven. It is highly unlikely for anyone to engage in church revitalization without facing slander, false accusations, insults, and verbal attacks. God will reward all who endure them courageously.
Courage Displayed in Heroes from the Bible
Contemplating the faith-filled heroes of the Bible gives us examples to follow; it feeds our faith and motivates us to follow their example. This is the clear purpose of the author of Hebrews 11 and his great “Hall of Faith.” He cites one example after another of men and women who lived and died by faith. It took great courage for Abram to leave Ur of the Chaldees and go to an unknown land. And it took even more courage for him to sacrifice his miracle son, Isaac, as obedience to the command of God. Moses showed courage in repeatedly facing Pharaoh with the bold command, “Thus says the LORD, the God of Israel, ‘Let my people go!’” (Ex. 5:1). And it took even more courage for him to lead Israel through the Red Sea in the dark of night, with the sea walled up to their left and right. Joshua displayed courage in the battles that followed Israel’s crossing of the Jordan River. David’s example of facing Goliath with a sling and five smooth stones motivated a cowardly army to rise up and defeat the Philistines. The prophets showed courage repeatedly in confronting the wicked kings of Israel and Judah. Perhaps no one in the Old Testament was called to greater suffering for the Word than Jeremiah, who stood courageously again and again to preach to a hard-hearted nation that God had already told him would never believe him. Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego stood courageously against the tyrant king Nebuchadnezzar and were willing to die rather than disobey God.
So also the New Testament is filled with stories of great courage. We can point to the boldness of John the Baptist in confronting Herod in his sin or the amazing advance of the gospel in the book of Acts by the boldness of the apostles or the courage shown by the apostle Paul in facing death multiple times for preaching Christ.
Of course, no one in all of human history has shown as much courage as Jesus Christ did in Gethsemane and at the cross. What happened at Gethsemane? Jesus had known all his life that he would die on the cross. But the full revelation of what that would be like was withheld from him until Gethsemane. I believe that when Jesus began to pray, God revealed to him in an immeasurably vivid way what it would be like to die on the cross as a substitute for his sheep, drinking the cup of God’s wrath poured full strength for him, and it shocked him.2 It was akin to the difference between reading a verbal description of the Grand Canyon and seeing an IMAX movie of a helicopter ride through the Grand Canyon. This intense revelation literally knocked Jesus to the ground and so increased the stress in his body that blood began to flow from his sweat pores and fell in great drops to the ground (Luke 22:44). The Father did this, I believe, to give Christ the ability to make a more informed choice as to whether he would go through with their plan. God refrained from fully revealing it sooner because the level of mental anguish would have been too great for Jesus’s human nature to bear for any great length of time.
Let’s also remember one of the most heroic moments in human history: when Jesus prayed, “My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will” (Matt. 26:39). At this moment, Christ put his own will completely under the will of his Father; he then rose and went to the cross to drink the cup of God’s infinite wrath.3 Though anything we do in service to Christ will be infinitely less courageous than this, we are called on to take up our own crosses and die to our own comforts and pleasures as he did. Without such a commitment, no church revitalization will ever happen.
Inspiration from the Heroes of Church History
To some degree, there is a level of shame in writing about the “courage” involved in revitalizing a church in some comfortable community in our prosperous country. The worst that can happen to us here is a lot of hostility, anger, perhaps a lawsuit, and eviction from a ministry or from membership in that church. Physical attacks are highly unlikely, as is actual death.
But we belong to a royal lineage of brothers and sisters who have gone before us and have suffered almost indescribable pain to advance the kingdom of Christ. During my days of trial at FBC, I drew a great measure of inspiration from the heroes of church history. I read often about the martyrs who died during the Roman persecution, of whom Tertullian said, “The blood of martyrs is seed.”4 I read of Polycarp, who courageously faced being burned at the stake with the words, “Eighty-six years have I been serving him, and he has done me no wrong; how then can I blaspheme my king who saved me?”5 After I read those words the day of one of our bitter and heart-wrenching church conferences, I felt a surge of courage and a desire not to act shamefully in my time of trial, however insignificant it was compared to Jesus’s. I read missionary biographies and suffered along with Adoniram Judson, who was shackled by iron chains for eleven months in the death prison of Ava in Burma for preaching the gospel, tormented constantly by stench and biting insects, sometimes hung upside down by his feet.6 In light of such stories, it is hard to feel sorry for yourself because a few unregenerate church members have falsely accused you or yelled at you in the fellowship hall. I read of William Tyndale, a fugitive from the king of England for the “crime” of translating the Bible into English, who was betrayed, arrested, imprisoned through a fierce winter, and at last burned at the stake. As he was dying in torment, he prayed most powerfully and lovingly, “Lord, open the King of England’s eyes!”7 How could I behave with less dignity amid the vastly inferior trial of church revitalization in America?
We are surrounded by “so great a cloud of witnesses” (Heb. 12:1), whose record of faith and courage glorifies the same Lord I yearn to serve. I want to live as courageously for him as they did.
PRACTICAL ADVICE