our own weakness, looking beyond ourselves, then power will come to us
above our 100 xxxebonysex 89com desire and equal to our need. The old 100 xxxebonysex 89com victories of faith will
be 100 xxxebonysex 89com reproduced in us when we say with the ancient king, 'Lord! We know
not what to do, but our eyes are up unto Thee.' 100 xxxebonysex 89com Then He will come to
us, to make us 'strong in the Lord and in the power of His might.'
'Wait on the Lord and He will strengthen thine heart; wait, I say, on
the Lord.'
100 xxxebonysex 89com But courage is duty, too, as 100 xxxebonysex 89com well as strength. Power and the
consciousness of power do not always go together. In regard to the
strength of nature, courage and might are quite 100 xxxebonysex 89com separable. 100 xxxebonysex 89com there may be
a strong coward and a weak hero. But in the spiritual region, strength
and 100 xxxebonysex 89com courage do go together. The consciousness of the divine power with
us, and that alone, will make us bold with a boldness that has no taint
of levity and presumption mingled
with it, and never will overestimate
its own strength. The charge to Joshua, then, not only insists upon the
duty of strength, but on the duty of conscious strength, and on the
duty of measuring 100 xxxebonysex 89com the strength that is at my back with the weakness
that is against me, and of being bold because I know that more and
'greater is He that is with me than are 100 xxxebonysex 89com they that be 100 xxxebonysex 89com with them.'
II. So much, then, for the first of the exhortations here. Now look
next at the duty of implicit obedience to the word of command.
That is another soldierly virtue, the exercise of 100 xxxebonysex 89com which sheds a
nobility over the repulsive horrors of the battlefield. Joshua had to
be fitted to command 100 xxxebonysex 89com by learning to obey, and, like that other 100 xxxebonysex 89com soldier
whose rough trade had led him to some inkling 100 xxxebonysex 89com of Christ's authority by
its familiarising 100 xxxebonysex 89com him with the idea of the strange power of the word of
command, had to realise that he himself was 'under authority' before he
could issue his orders.
Courage and strength come first, and on them follows the command to do
all according to the law, to keep it without deflection to right or
100 xxxebonysex 89com left, 100 xxxebonysex 89com and to meditate on it 100 xxxebonysex 89com day and night. These two virtues make the
perfect soldier-courage and obedience. Daring and discipline must go
together, and to know how to follow orders is as essential as to 100 xxxebonysex 89com know
how to despise dangers.
But the connection between 100 xxxebonysex 89com these two, as set forth in this charge, is
not merely that they must
co-exist, but that courage and strength are
needed for, and are 100 xxxebonysex 89com to find their noblest 100 xxxebonysex 89com field of exercise in,
absolute acceptance of, and 100 xxxebonysex 89com unhesitating,