t with the confidence that true faith gives, they are all the time
fearful. They are never certain they are going to win. They are never
certain that their methods are going to prevail. They are always trembling
and uncertain. When they do gain a victory, it seems more like a piece of
good fortune than the result of their fighting. When they see a conflict
coming, they shrink from it and look for some way to evade it. They are
filled with fear of the outcome. Sometimes they fight in desperation and
win; and when they see that they have won, they are surprized. They were
almost sure that they would lose the battle; they were almost certain of
defeat, but in some way they won. That victory, however, does not give
them much courage to meet the next conflict. They meet it with the same
fearfulness, with the same unbelief, with the same doubt. There is not the
joyful note of victory in their song. They do not face the future with
confident expectation of winning. They are continually harassed with their
doubts; they are constantly troubled with forebodings. It is better to
fight thus than not to fight at all, but there is a better way than this
to fight.

Faith is the mightiest of all weapons. When our spirits are armed with
faith, we may go confidently into any battle. We may have expectation of
winning. We may know before we fight that victory is ours. We may face our
adversary with calm confidence and with a consciousness of an indwelling
power that is greater than his power. Has not God said, "Greater is he
that is in you, than he that is in the world"? If our faith claims that to
be so, then God will make it so to us.

We must have faith in God. He is our leader. The army that does not have
confidence in the ability and courage of its leader is half defeated
before it goes into battle. Most of us, I think, have confidence in God's
ability as a leader, and in his power and wisdom, and believe that he is
able to overcome our foes. It is not his ability that we doubt. The only
question that confronts us is, "Will he use that power to conquer our
enemies?" We see that he has made many promises. It is easy to believe, in
a general way, that they will be fulfilled; but when it comes to making
direct applications to the situations that we meet, it is there that faith
sometimes fails. Will God fight for us on this special occasion? Will God
help us now? Will he really make good his word to us? or will he fail us
in the critical