Moral conquest won through Christ.
"They overcame him by the blood of the Lamb." It is trite, but ever solemnly true, to say that life is a combat. Moral antagonists of the soul meet us everywhere in all departments of life, circles of society, spheres of action. Nay, they rise up within us. These can be only overcome by the "blood of the Lamb," that is, by the self-sacrificing life of Christ.
I. IT IS THROUGH HIS BLOOD (OR LIFE) THAT WE GET OUR ANTAGONISM TO MORAL EVIL ROUSED. Where do we learn the turpitude, the enormity, the ruinousness of sin, as we learn it in the cross? There, indeed, "sin appears exceeding sinful," When we are enabled to look upon it in the light of that cross, the whole soul rises in determined opposition to it.
II. IT IS THROUGH HIS BLOOD (OR LIFE) THAT WE GET OUR WEAPONS SUPPLIED. What are the weapons with which evil is to be restored?
1. A clear knowledge of the right. It is by right alone that wrong can be put down. His life was the intelligible embodiment, and the all-convincing demonstration of moral right.
2. An inflexible love for the right. Right as an idea is no weapon. But right as a love becomes a triumphant implement in this warfare.
III. IT IS THROUGH HIS BLOOD (OR LIFE) THAT WE GET OUR COURAGE INSPIRED. In this warfare we require a courage unflagging and invincible—a courage impelling us to fight, even to the death. Whence cometh this? Only from Christ. His self-sacrificing spirit is the soul of all true courage.—D.T.