Every Man's Battle Order Printed Copy
- Author: S. Arterburn, F. Stoeker, M. Yorkey
- Size: 1.31MB | 453 pages
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About the Book
"Every Man's Battle" is a Christian self-help book that addresses the struggles men face with sexual temptation and provides biblical guidance on how to overcome it. The authors share personal stories and practical advice to help men honor God with their thoughts and actions in their daily lives.
Gladys Aylward
Gladys Aylward was born in London in 1904 (or a few years earlier). She worked for several years as a parlormaid, and then attended a revival meeting at which the preacher spoke of dedicating one's life to the service of God. Gladys responded to the message, and soon after became convinced that she was called to preach the Gospel in China. At the age of 26, she became a probationer at the China Inland Mission Center in London, but was failed to pass the examinations. She worked at other jobs and saved her money. Then she heard of a 73-year-old missionary, Mrs. Jeannie Lawson, who was looking for a younger woman to carry on her work. Gladys wrote to Mrs. Lawson and was accepted if she could get to China. She did not have enough money for the ship fare, but did have enough for the train fare, and so in October of 1930 she set out from London with her passport, her Bible, her tickets, and two pounds ninepence, to travel to China by the Trans-Siberian Railway, despite the fact that China and the Soviet Union were engaged in an undeclared war. She arrived in Vladivostok and sailed from there to Japan and from Japan to Tientsin, and thence by train, then bus, then mule, to the inland city of Yangchen, in the mountainous province of Shansi, a little south of Peking (Beijing). Most of the residents had seen no Europeans other than Mrs. Lawson and now Miss Aylward. They distrusted them as foreigners, and were not disposed to listen to them.
Yangchen was an overnight stop for mule caravans that carried coal, raw cotton, pots, and iron goods on six-week or three-month journeys. It occurred to the two women that their most effective way of preaching would be to set up an inn. The building in which they lived had once been an inn, and with a bit of repair work could be used as one again. They laid in a supply of food for mules and men, and when next a caravan came past, Gladys dashed out, grabbed the rein of the lead mule, and turned it into their courtyard. It went willingly, knowing by experience that turning into a courtyard meant food and water and rest for the night. The other mules followed, and the muleteers had no choice. They were given good food and warm beds at the standard price, and their mules were well cared for, and there was free entertainment in the evening--the inkeepers told stories about a man named Jesus. After the first few weeks, Gladys did not need to kidnap customers -- they turned in at the inn by preference. Some became Christians, and many of them (both Christians and non-Christians) remembered the stories, and retold them more or less accurately to other muleteers at other stops along the caravan trails. Gladys practiced her Chinese for hours each day, and was becoming fluent and comfortable with it. Then Mrs. Lawson suffered a severe fall, and died a few days later. Gladys Aylward was left to run the mission alone, with the aid of one Chinese Christian, Yang, the cook.
A few weeks after the death of Mrs. Lawson, Miss Aylward met the Mandarin of Yangchen. He arrived in a sedan chair, with an impressive escort, and told her that the government had decreed an end to the practice of footbinding. (Note: Among the upper and middle classes, it had for centuries been the custom that a woman's foot should be wrapped tightly in bandages from infancy, to prevent it from growing. Thus grown women had extremely tiny feet, on which they could walk only with slow, tottering steps, which were thought to be extremely graceful.) The government needed a foot-inspector, a woman (so that she could invade the women's quarters without scandal), with her own feet unbound (so that she could travel), who would patrol the district enforcing the decree. It was soon clear to them both that Gladys was the only possible candidate for the job, and she accepted, realizing that it would give her undreamed-of opportunities to spread the Gospel.
During her second year in Yangchen, Gladys was summoned by the Mandarin. A riot had broken out in the men's prison. She arrived and found that the convicts were rampaging in the prison courtyard, and several of them had been killed. The soldiers were afraid to intervene. The warden of the prison said to Gladys, "Go into the yard and stop the rioting." She said, "How can I do that?" The warden said, "You have been preaching that those who trust in Christ have nothing to fear." She walked into the courtyard and shouted: "Quiet! I cannot hear when everyone is shouting at once. Choose one or two spokesmen, and let me talk with them." The men quieted down and chose a spokesman. Gladys talked with him, and then came out and told the warden: "You have these men cooped up in crowded conditions with absolutely nothing to do. No wonder they are so edgy that a small dispute sets off a riot. You must give them work. Also, I am told that you do not supply food for them, so that they have only what their relatives send them. No wonder they fight over food. We will set up looms so that they can weave cloth and earn enough money to buy their own food." This was done. There was no money for sweeping reforms, but a few friends of the warden donated old looms, and a grindstone so that the men could work grinding grain. The people began to call Gladys Aylward "Ai-weh-deh," which means "Virtuous One." It was her name from then on.
Soon after, she saw a woman begging by the road, accompanied by a child covered with sores and obviously suffering severe malnutrition. She satisfied herself that the woman was not the child's mother, but had kidnapped the child and was using it as an aid to her begging. She bought the child for ninepence--a girl about five years old. A year later, "Ninepence" came in with an abandoned boy in tow, saying, "I will eat less, so that he can have something." Thus Ai-weh-deh acquired a second orphan, "Less." And so her family began to grow.... She was a regular and welcome visitor at the palace of the Mandarin, who found her religion ridiculous, but her conversation stimulating. In 1936, she officially became a Chinese citizen. She lived frugally and dressed like the people around her (as did the missionaries who arrived a few years after in in the neighboring town of Tsechow, David and Jean Davis and their young son Murray, of Wales), and this was a major factor in making her preaching effective.
Then the war came. In the spring of 1938, Japanese planes bombed the city of Yangcheng, killing many and causing the survivors to flee into the mountains. Five days later, the Japanese Army occupied Yangcheng, then left, then came again, then left. The Mandarin gathered the survivors and told them to retreat into the mountains for the duration. He also announced that he was impressed by the life of Ai-weh-deh and wished to make her faith his own. There remained the question of the convicts at the jail. The traditional policy favored beheading them all lest they escape. The Mandarin asked Ai-weh-deh for advice, and a plan was made for relatives and friends of the convicts to post a bond guaranteeing their good behavior. Every man was eventually released on bond. As the war continued Gladys often found herself behind Japanese lines, and often passed on information, when she had it, to the armies of China, her adopted country. She met and became friends with "General Ley," a Roman Catholic priest from Europe who had teken up arms when the Japanese invaded, and now headed a guerilla force. Finally he sent her a message. The Japanese are coming in full force. We are retreating. Come with us." Angry, she scrawled a Chinese note, Chi Tao Tu Pu Twai, "Christians never retreat!" He sent back a copy of a Japanese handbill offering $100 each for the capture, dead or alive, of (1) the Mandarin, (2) a prominent merchant, and (3) Ai-weh-deh. She determined to flee to the government orphanage at Sian, bringing with her the children she had accumulated, about 100 in number. (An additional 100 had gone ahead earlier with a colleague.) With the children in tow, she walked for twelve days. Some nights they found shelter with friendly hosts. Some nights they spent unprotected on the mountainsides. On the twelfth day, they arrived at the Yellow River, with no way to cross it. All boat traffic had stopped, and all civilian boats had been seized to keep them out of the hands of the Japanese. The children wanted to know, "Why don't we cross?" She said, "There are no boats." They said, "God can do anything. Ask Him to get us across." They all knelt and prayed. Then they sang. A Chinese officer with a patrol heard the singing and rode up. He heard their story and said, "I think I can get you a boat." They crossed, and after a few more difficulties Ai-weh-deh delivered her charges into competent hands at Sian, and then promptly collapsed with typhus fever and sank into delirium for several days.
As her health gradually improved, she started a Christian church in Sian, and worked elsewhere, including a settlement for lepers in Szechuan, near the borders of Tibet. Her health was permanently impaired by injuries received during the war, and in 1947 she returned to England for a badly needed operation. She remained in England, preaching there.
In 1957, Alan Burgess wrote a book about her, The Small Woman. It was condensed in The Reader's Digest, and made into a movie called The Inn of the Sixth Happiness, starring Ingrid Bergman. When Newsweek magazine reviewed the movie, and summarized the plot, a reader, supposing the story to be fiction, wrote in to say, "In order for a movie to be good, the story should be believable!" Miss Gladys Aylward, the Small Woman, Ai-weh-deh, died 3 January 1970.
Banished from Humanity
The safest road to hell is the gradual one â the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts. âC.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters C.S. Lewis said many profound and fascinating things about hell. Some are biblically precise, while others are more abstract and subject to misunderstanding. In some cases, his views are not solidly biblical. But many of his insights on hell are true to Scripture, and some of his speculations are compelling food for thought. Hell: Grave Injustice or Ultimate Justice? Lewis wrote in The Great Divorce, âThere are only two kinds of people in the end: those who say to God, âThy will be done,â and those to whom God says, in the end, âThy will be done.ââ Of course, God does not fully let people have their way, since it is clear, for instance, that the rich man in Luke 16 wants out of hell but cannot escape it. Lewisâs point is, when someone says, âI do not want to have a relationship with God,â in that limited sense they ultimately get their way. The unbelieverâs âwishâ to be away from God turns out to be his worst nightmare. Nonetheless, those who do not want God do want goodness and happiness. But what makes anything good is God. Second Thessalonians 1:9 describes hell like this: âThey will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction, away from the presence of the Lord.â Where God withdraws, there can be no good. So, in Lewisâs terms, the unbeliever gets what he wants â Godâs absence â yet with it gets what he doesnât want â the loss of all good. C.S. Lewis said of hell, âThere is no doctrine which I would more willingly remove from Christianity than this, if it lay in my power. But it has the full support of Scripture and, specially, of our Lordâs own words; it has always been held by Christendom; and it has the support of reasonâ (The Problem of Pain). Most of what Lewis says here is solidly biblical. Where there may be a chink in his logic is exactly where it is for many of us. We wish there were no hell â and imagine this comes from our sense of goodness and kindness. But God could remove hell yet chooses not to. Do we have more confidence in our goodness than his? What are we to do with Revelation 18:20, where God brings down his wrath on Babylonâs people, then says, âRejoice over her, O heaven, and you saints and apostles and prophets, for God has given judgment for you against her!â? Doesnât this suggest that in heaven we will see sinâs horrors clearly and have far stronger convictions about hellâs justice? Hell is not pleasant, appealing, or encouraging. But neither is it evil; rather, it is a place where evil is judged. Indeed, if being sentenced to hell is just punishment, then the absence of hell would itself be evil. Hell Itself Is Morally Good, Because a Good God Must Punish Evil Most of us imagine that we hate the idea of hell because we love people too much to want them to suffer. But that implies God loves them less. Our revulsion is understandable, but what about hell makes us cringe? Is it the wickedness thatâs being punished? Is it the suffering of those who might have turned to Christ? Or do we cringe because we imagine hellâs punishments are wicked or disproportionate? These very different responses expose different views of God. Perhaps we hate hell too much because we donât hate evil enough. This is something that could have been developed more in Lewisâs thinking. The same could be said of many of us. If we regard hell as a divine overreaction to sin, we deny that God has the moral right to inflict ongoing punishment on any humans. By denying hell, we deny the extent of Godâs holiness. When we minimize sinâs seriousness, we minimize Godâs grace in Christâs blood, shed for us. For if the evils he died for arenât significant enough to warrant eternal punishment, perhaps the grace displayed on the cross isnât significant enough to warrant eternal praise. How Jesus Viewed Hell In the Bible, Jesus spoke more about hell than anyone else did. He referred to hell as a real place (Matthew 10:28; 13:40â42; Mark 9:43â48). He described it in graphic terms: a fire that burns but doesnât consume, an undying worm that eats away at the damned, and a lonely, foreboding darkness. âPerhaps we hate hell too much because we donât hate evil enough.â Some believe in annihilationism, the idea that hellâs inhabitants do not suffer forever, but are consumed in judgment â so their eternal death means cessation of existence. Edward Fudge, in his book and DVD The Fire That Consumes, defends this position. Itâs an argument I have considered seriously, one that holds up to much of the Old Testament revelation, but which I find very difficult to reconcile with Jesusâs words: âAnd these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal lifeâ (Matthew 25:46). Or with the words of Revelation 20:10, which speak of not only Satan but two human beings, the Antichrist and the false prophet, being cast into the lake of fire and âtormented day and night forever and ever.â Revelation 14:11 appears to apply to a large number of people: âAnd the smoke of their torment goes up forever and ever.â Christ says the unsaved âwill be thrown into the outer darkness. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teethâ (Matthew 8:12). He taught that an unbridgeable chasm separates the wicked in hell from the righteous in Paradise. The wicked suffer terribly, remain conscious, retain their memories, long for relief, cannot find comfort, cannot leave their torment, and have no hope (Luke 16:19â31). In short, our Savior could not have painted a bleaker picture of hell. It is one that C.S. Lewis, with reluctance, believed and affirmed, bowing his knee in submission to a higher authority. If the evils Jesus died for arenât significant enough to warrant eternal punishment, then the grace displayed on the cross isnât significant enough to warrant eternal praise. Lewis said, âI have met no people who fully disbelieved in hell and also had a living and life-giving belief in Heavenâ (Letters to Malcolm: Chiefly on Prayer). The biblical teaching on both destinations stands or falls together. When heaven and hell are spoken of in Scripture, each place is portrayed as being just as real and, in some passages anyway, as permanent as the other. Lewisâs friend, Dorothy Sayers, said it well: There seems to be a kind of conspiracy to forget, or to conceal, where the doctrine of hell comes from. The doctrine of hell is not âmediaeval priestcraftâ for frightening people into giving money to the church: it is Christâs deliberate judgment on sin. . . . We cannot repudiate hell without altogether repudiating Christ. (Dorothy Sayers, Introductory Papers on Dante [Methuen, 1954], 44) The Problem of Emeth in âThe Last Battleâ Occasionally, Lewis seems to depart from the biblical doctrine of hell by supposing things that arenât stated in Scripture and appearing to contradict things that are. In The Last Battle, the soldier Emeth, who served the demon Tash, is welcomed into heaven though he did not serve Aslan, the Christ figure, by name. Because the young man thought he was worshiping and pursuing the true God (emeth is a Hebrew word for faithfulness or truth), Aslan told Emeth, âChild, all the service thou hast done to Tash, I account as service done to me.â Some have used this passage to charge Lewis with being a universalist, though Lewisâs other writings clearly show he was not. But this passage does imply Lewis believed in a kind of inclusivism, where in some cases, mentally responsible people who have not embraced Christ in this life may ultimately be saved. The criterion for salvation, then, is not believing in Jesus while still here (John 1:12; 14:6; Acts 4:12; Romans 10:9â10). Rather, in some cases, God may consider it sufficient that someone has followed a false god with true motives. In the story, Emeth asks Aslan a significant question: âLord, is it then true . . . that thou and Tash are one?â Aslanâs response leaves no room for confusion: The Lion growled so that the earth shook and said, âIt is false. Not because he and I are one, but because we are opposites. For I and he are of such different kinds that no service which is vile can be done to me, and none which is not vile can be done to him. Therefore, if any man swear by Tash and keep his oath for the oathâs sake, it is by me that he has truly sworn, and it is I who reward him. And if any man do a cruelty in my name, then it is Tash whom he serves and by Tash his deed is accepted. . . . Beloved . . . unless thy desire had been for me thou wouldst not have sought so long and so truly. For all find what they truly seek.â (The Last Battle) Aslan categorically affirms he and Tash are in no sense alike. Indeed, Aslan despises the demon! There is nothing in Lewis indicating a belief that âall roads lead to heaven.â On the contrary, all who are in Aslanâs Country are there by only one way â the way of Aslan. Emeth is saved by Aslan â no one and nothing else. Emeth is the one exceptional case in an account involving thousands of Tashâs servants, all of whom appear to have perished. Emeth seems to be Lewisâs one hopeful exception, certainly not the rule. Emethâs Better Parallel: Cornelius The Bible clearly states that âit is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgmentâ (Hebrews 9:27). There are accounts in Scripture of people continuing to exist after they die (Luke 16:19â31) but no account of someone making a decision to turn to Christ after death. âI have met no people who fully disbelieved in hell and also had a live-giving belief in Heaven.â C.S. Lewis Bible believers are naturally perplexed by Emethâs story and how to reconcile it with Lewisâs orthodox statements about salvation, heaven, and hell. But we should certainly welcome the biblical kind of inclusivism that offers the gospel to everyone, and rejoices that people of every tribe, nation, and language will worship God together forever (Revelation 5:9â10; 7:9). We should celebrate stories like that of Cornelius, whose service God accepted even before drawing him to a full understanding of the gospel (Acts 10:2, 22, 31). Emethâs story would have paralleled Corneliusâs if Aslan had come to the young man before his death. That would have been my preference, certainly. But even with occasional imperfections, of which Emeth may be most prominent, the great truths of The Chronicles of Narnia remain clear, strong, and biblically resonant. So do the remarkable insights about heaven and the new earth (Randy Alcorn) in Lewisâs writings. People sometimes ask me why I tolerate Lewisâs more troubling doctrine. My answer is that his trajectory is toward the gospel, not away from it, and that God has used him to speak into my life Christ-centered and paradigm-shifting biblical truths. I do not have to embrace 100 percent of what Lewis said to benefit from that 85 percent that is so incredibly rich. Because Our Choices in This Life Shape Us Forever, God-Rejecters Might Be as Miserable in Heaven as in Hell In The Problem of Pain, C.S. Lewis spoke to those who argue against the doctrine of hell: In the long run the answer to all those who object to the doctrine of hell is itself a question: âWhat are you asking God to do?â To wipe out their past sins and, at all costs, to give them a fresh start, smoothing every difficulty and offering every miraculous help? But he has done so, on Calvary. To forgive them? They will not be forgiven. To leave them alone? Alas, I am afraid that is what he does. He adds this oft-quoted statement: âThe damned are, in one sense, successful, rebels to the end; the doors of hell are locked on the inside. . . . They enjoy forever the horrible freedom they have demanded, and are therefore self-enslaved.â If Lewis means that those in hell refuse to give up their trust in themselves to turn to God, I think heâs right. While they long to escape from hell, that is not the same as longing to be with God and repenting. Lewis speaks in The Great Divorce of âthe demand of the loveless and the self-imprisoned that they should be allowed to blackmail the universe: that till they consent to be happy (on their own terms) no one else shall taste joy: that theirs should be the final power; that hell should be able to veto heaven.â Heaven and hell are places defined, respectively, by Godâs presence or absence, by Godâs grace or wrath. Whose we are, not where we are, determines our misery or our joy. To transport a man from hell to heaven would bring him no joy unless he had a transformed relationship with God, a regenerating work that can be done only by the Holy Spirit (John 1:12â13; 3:3â8; Romans 6:14; 1 Corinthians 2:12, 14). To the person sealed forever in righteousness, God will remain wondrous; to the one sealed forever in sin, God will remain dreadful. If we reject the best gift that a holy and gracious God can offer us, purchased with his blood, what remains, in the end, will be nothing but hell. Lewis also said in The Great Divorce, âAll that are in hell, choose it. Without that self-choice there could be no hell. No soul that seriously and constantly desires joy will ever miss it. Those who seek find. To those who knock it is opened.â This too is insightful but can be taken too far. One can desire joy outside of God and not find it, of course, but I take it that Lewis speaks of one who earnestly seeks the true God, the source of all joy. This is suggested in Jeremiah 29:13: âYou will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart.â And Matthew 7:7: âAsk, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.â âTo the person sealed forever in righteousness, God will remain wondrous; to the one sealed forever in sin, God will remain dreadful.â I think Lewis, who loved great stories, would agree that hell is a place with no story, no plot â ongoing suffering coupled with eternal boredom. Ironically, Satan labors to portray heaven, from which he was cast out, as boring and undesirable. The Bible, on the other hand, portrays the new heavens and the new earth as the setting for joy without end. If we think correctly about heaven, we will realize that because God is infinitely great and gracious, heaven is the ultimate adventure while hell is the ultimate sinkhole. Perhaps the best last word to give Lewis is this: âTo enter heaven is to become more human than you ever succeeded in being on earth; to enter hell is to be banished from humanityâ (The Problem of Pain). Article by Randy Alcorn
