In the Chocolate Soldier, C.T. Studd - Cricketing superstar turned missionary - booms out a challenge to all who call themselves followers of Christ, drawing a line in the sand between those who will talk about being in the battle to bring the Gospel to the unreached and those who actually plunge headfirst into it.
I often felt like I was getting yelled at by a drill sergeant...and that was a good thing. Too often it is easy to forget that being a citizen in Christ's Kingdom means to be at war with the Kingdom of Darkness. Serving with the Marines and seeing the selflessness and even eagerness with which these men and women rush into danger makes me ashamed that I so often lack that kind of eagerness to rush into a battle whose victory is already assured and Whose cause is infinitely more noble. This book helped to awaken me.
I leave you with a few choice quotes:
"EVERY TRUE CHRISTIAN IS A SOLDIER --of Christ--a hero 'par excellence'! Braver than the bravest-scorning the soft seductions of peace and her oft-repeated warnings against hardship, disease, danger, adn death, whom he counts among his bosom friends. THE OTHERWISE CHRISTIAN IS A CHOCOLATE CHRISTIAN! Dissolving in water and melting at the smell of fire."
"REAL CHRISTIANS REVEL IN DESPERATE VENTURES FOR CHRIST, expecting from God great things and attempting the same with exhilaration."
Speaking of John the Baptist - "Had John but heard Jesus say, "Ye shall be my witnesses unto the uttermost parts of the earth," I very much doubt if Herod's dungeon, or his soldiers, could have detained him. He surely would have found some means of escape, and run off to preach Christ's Gospel, if not in the very heart of Africa, then in some place more difficult and dangerous place. Yet Christ said, referring to His subsequent gift of the Holy Ghost to every believer, "He that is least in the kingdom of God is greater than he," intimating that even greater powers than those of John are at the disposal of every Christian, and that what John was, each one of us can be -- good, straight, bold, unconquerable, heroic."
"It's good to have a great heart searching. It's better to have a great heart-resolve. But, if instead of obeying, we squat among the sheep, leaving our few hard-pressed brethren to tackle the wolves by themselves, verily we are but Chocolate Christians."
Speaking of those who hide their call to mission in a supposed call to pastor, "Doubtless they said, 'They couldn't fight until they had been properly ordained, and besides, there was so very much to be done in fat, overfed Meroz, and surely to feed a flock of fat sheep in a safe place has alway been considered the ideal training of war'; as though the best training for the soldier was to become a nurse-maid!!!"
"CHOCOLATES are very fond of talking loud against some whom they call fanatics, as though there were any danger of Christians being fanatics nowadays!...God's real people have always been called fanatics...No one has graduated far in God's School who has not been paid the compliment of being called a fanatic."
"We Christians too often SUBSTITUTE PRAYER FOR PLAYING THE GAME. Prayer is good: but when used as a substitute for obedience, it is naught but a blatant hypocrisy, a despicable Pharisaism."
This book is a collection of short reflections, observations, and ancedotes about Indonesia's capital city, Jakarta. They provide a street-level view of the crowded, gritty, humid urban life of the world's densest metropolitan jungle as seen through the eyes of an expatriate.
The doctrines of grace, often labeled Calvinism, have often and unfortunately been misused, misunderstood, and misrepresented throughout church history. Some misunderstand the Scripture's teachings on election and predestination to mean that humanity has no responsibility for the state of their heart and behavior. Others misuse the sovereignty of God to foolishly and blasphemously cultivate a pride that they are elect and others are not. Still others suppose that the predetermined and unalterable plan of God's redeeming work in the world negates the need to be obedient to His command to preach the Gospel to all nations. Perhaps most commonly, Calvinism is often misrepresented as portraying a cold, distant God whose eternal sovereignty overrides man's free will in a way that allegedly makes a truly loving relationship between Creator and creation impossible.
