Onward Christian Soldiers!

Onward Christian Soldiers! (2 Timothy 2:1-15)

Hardness - to suffer misfortune, to experience harm or emotional pain

Endure - to suffer without resistance, or without yielding.

How do we endure hardness as a good soldier and keep going on for Christ?

They Need To Be Potent (vs.1)

Strong - to become rendered more capable or able for some service or action.

If you are saved, you’ve been enlisted in the fight. Though we’ve been enlisted, we could all become stronger.

Ephesians 6:10,

1 Samuel 17:37 “David said moreover, The Lord that delivered me out of the paw of the lion, and out of the paw of the bear, he will deliver me out of the hand of this Philistine. And Saul said unto David, Go, and the Lord be with thee.”

1 Samuel 17:45,

They Need To Be Pledged (vs.2)

Faithful - characterized by stedfast affection or allegiance to someone or something, worthy of requiring responsibility or trust.

1 Corinthians 4:1–2 “Let a man so account of us, as of the ministers of Christ, and stewards of the mysteries of God. Moreover it is required in stewards, that a man be found faithful.”

A lot of Christians don’t want to be accountable in our day, so they don’t even try to be faithful.

As he related in a memoir after he went home, Lieutenant Onoda’s last order in early 1945 was to stay and fight. Loyal to a military code that taught that death was preferable to surrender, he remained behind on Lubang Island, 93 miles southwest of Manila, when Japanese forces withdrew in the face of an American invasion. After Japan surrendered, that September, thousands of Japanese soldiers were scattered across China, Southeast Asia and the Western Pacific. Many stragglers were captured or went home, while hundreds went into hiding rather than surrender or commit suicide. Many died of starvation or sickness. A few survivors refused to believe the dropped leaflets and radio announcements saying the war had been lost. Lieutenant Onoda, an intelligence officer trained in guerrilla tactics, and three enlisted men with him found leaflets proclaiming the war’s end, but believed they were enemy propaganda. They built bamboo huts, pilfered rice and other food from a village and killed cows for meat; they were tormented by tropical heat, rats and mosquitoes, and they patched their uniforms and kept their rifles in working order. Considering themselves to be at war, they evaded American and Filipino search parties and attacked islanders they took to be enemy guerrillas; about 30 inhabitants were killed in skirmishes with the Japanese over the years. One of the enlisted men surrendered to Filipino forces in 1950, and two others were shot dead, one in 1954 and another in 1972, by island police officers searching for the renegades. The last holdout, Lieutenant Onoda, officially declared dead in 1959, was found by Norio Suzuki, a student searching for him, in 1974. The lieutenant rejected Mr. Suzuki’s pleas to go home, insisting he was still awaiting orders. (Be faithful in what you know to do until you hear different) Mr. Suzuki returned with photographs, and the Japanese government sent a delegation, including the lieutenant’s brother and his former commander, to relieve him of duty formally.

ONODA DIDN’T QUIT FIGHTING UNTIL HE GOT WORD FROM HIS COMMANDER THE FIGHT WAS OVER! He fought for almost 30 years after the war had ended!

They Need To Be Pointed (set,fixed, focused) (vs.4)

entangleth - to be or become involved in some task or role to the point that it interferes with other activities; conceived of as being or becoming intertwined in a line to the point of immobility.

The “affairs of this life (business)” are not necessarily evil acts. Separation is as much a matter of priority as anything. We often think of separation is a matter of purity but “affairs of this life” may be legitimate matters of which you have not given the right priority. This can keep you from serving the Lord properly.

Even though we have business and things to do in this world, it shouldn’t be our main business.

Matthew 13:22–23 “He also that received seed among the thorns is he that heareth the word; and the care of this world, and the deceitfulness of riches, choke the word, and he becometh unfruitful. But he that received seed into the good ground is he that heareth the word, and understandeth it; which also beareth fruit, and bringeth forth, some an hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty.”

A good soldier is focused on the duty at hand from his commander. Our duty is not to please ourselves, but to please him who hath chosen us to be a soldier.

1 Samuel 15:13,