The Cost of Victory
“How many there are… who imagine that because Jesus paid it all, they need pay nothing, forgetting that the prime objective of their salvation was that they should follow in the footsteps of Jesus Christ in bringing back a lost world to God.”
Lottie Moon (1840-1912)
I recently re-watched the movie Darkest Hour. The film chronicles the inception of Winston Churchill’s time as Prime Minister.
Great Britain is in the throws of World War II. The United States has not yet to entered the conflict. Nation after nation is falling to Hitler’s regime. And Britain’s leadership is considering conceding to Hitler.
They’re willing to make a treaty with Hitler as long as Britain maintains her independence. The Nazi’s can have the rest of Europe as long as they leave them alone.
Churchill seems to be the only one who realizes that any peace talk with Hitler will simply delay the inevitable. The Nazi’s will come for them. They won’t stop with Europe. The Führer’s goal is world domination. If they show a willingness to make peace, Hitler will know they’re weak and vulnerable. It will show him they don’t believe they can win.
In his first address as Prime Minister, Churchill gives this soul-electrifying call to fight on:
“We have before us an ordeal of the most grievous kind. We have before us many, many long months of struggle and of suffering. You ask, what is our policy? I can say: It is to wage war, by sea, land and air, with all our might and with all the strength that God can give us; to wage war against a monstrous tyranny, never surpassed in the dark, lamentable catalogue of human crime. That is our policy.
You ask, what is our aim? I can answer in one word: It is victory, victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror, victory, however long and hard the road may be; for without victory, there is no survival.”
As I watched, I couldn’t help but think of our position as the American Church. We look on as the world perishes for lack of the Gospel.
We say, “Satan can have the world, as long as he leaves us alone.” We watch from our ivory tower of comfortable, cultural Christianity as the world waits for deliverance from their chains of demonic enslavement. Need I remind us the very Devil who whispered in the ear of Hitler is the one who holds the world in bondage to sin, oppression, and hellish torture?
Any peace talks with the devil are simply a delay in his ultimate goal. World domination. But the gates of hell will not prevail.
It’s time for a renewed missions movement. A giving of ourselves freshly to the liberation of the world. Especially to those nations and peoples who have never heard that their freedom has been purchased.
There’s an enforcement of Jesus’ victory that we are responsible for taking to the world. And I would encourage you today to think of the hour when your life will end. When your last breaths are leaving your lungs and you’re examining your life.
If there’s one thing I know to be true, you won’t wish you had lived more comfortably. Instead, you’ll wonder, “Could I have sacrificed more? Could I have given more? Could I have risked more? Could I have been more courageous?
In the words of Patrick Henry, “Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery?”
If I could exhort us today in one thing it would be this: live today, this year, this decade, and this life in such a way that, when you get to the end, you know you gave God everything. You were spent for the Gospel. Holding nothing back. No ounce of courage left to spend. No drop of devotion left to give.
It’s time for the Church to be stirred with the same fervency for the Gospel that Churchill carried for victory when he said, “We shall fight on beaches, landing grounds, in fields, in streets and on the hills. We shall never surrender.”
It’s time. Lord, send us.