To him that overcometh.' Now I need not say, in more than a sentence, that it seems to me that the fair interpretation of this promise, as of all the other references in Scripture to the future life, is that the reward is immediately consequent upon the cessation of the struggle. To depart' is to be with Christ,' and to be with Christ, in regard of a spirit which has passed from the bodily environment, is to be conscious of His presence, and lapt in His robe, feeling the warmth and the pressure of His heart. So I believe that Scripture teaches us that at one moment there may be the clash of battle, and the whiz of the arrows round one's head, and next moment there may be the laurel-crowned quiet of the victor.
But that does not enter so much into our consideration now. We have, rather, here to think of just this one thing, that the gift is given to the victor because only the victor is capable of receiving it; that future life, interpreted as I have ventured to interpret it in this sermon, is no arbitrary bestowment that could be dealt all round miscellaneously to everybody, if the Giver chose so to give. Here on earth many gifts are bestowed upon men, and are neglected by them, and wasted like water spilled upon the ground; but this elixir of life is not poured out so. It is only poured into vessels that can take it in and hold it.
Our present struggle is meant to make us capable of the heavenly life. And that is--I was going to say the only, but at all events--incomparably the chiefest, of the thoughts which make life not only worth living, but great and solemn. Go into a mill, and in a quiet room, often detached from the main building, you will find the engine working, and seeming to do nothing but go up and down. But there is a shaft which goes through the wall and takes the power to the looms. We are working here, and we are making the cloth that we shall have to own and say,' Yes, it is my manufacture!' when we get yonder. According to our life to-day will be our destiny in the great tomorrow. Life is given to the victor, because the victor only is capable of possessing it.
But the victor can only conquer in one way. This,' said John, when he was not an apocalyptic seer, but a Christian teacher to the Churches of Asia, this is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith.' If we trust in Christ we shall get His power into our hearts, and if we get His power into our hearts, then we shall be more than conquerors through Him that loved us.' Christ gives life eternal, gives it here in germ and yonder in fulness. In its fulness only those who overcome are capable of receiving it. Those only who fight the good fight by His help overcome. Those only who trust in Him fight the good fight by His help. He gives to eat of the Tree of Life; He gives it to faith, but faith must be militant. He gives it to the conqueror, but the conqueror must win by faith in Him who overcame the world for us, who will help us to overcome the world by Him.
Help us, O our God, we beseech Thee; teach our hands to war, and our fingers to fight.' Give us grace to hold fast by the life which is in Jesus Christ; and living by Him the lives which we live in the flesh, may we be capable, by the discipline of earth's sorrows, of that rest and fuller life which remaineth for the people of God.'
