This is the Chancellor's Program. At his homegoing in November 1997, Dr. Bob Jones, Jr. left a legacy of lifelong ministry to students as Chancellor and former President of Bob Jones University. He also left a wealth of recorded sermons which we now present on the Chancellor's Program. Today we bring you a message titled, Standards for Spiritual Warfare, based on 1 Chronicles, Chapter 12, verses 23 through 33. It was delivered during a daily chapel service held on the campus November 5th, 1954. I want to read for you this morning some verses from First Chronicles, the 12th chapter. I'm going to read verse 23 and then I'm going to skip down and read verse 32 and 33. Verse 23 of the 12th chapter of First Chronicles. And these are the numbers of the bands which were ready armed to the war. and came to David to Hebron to turn the kingdom of Saul to him according to the word of the Lord." That's verse 23. Then they begin to listen. Now in verse 32, "...and of the children of Issachar, which were men that had understanding of the times to know what Israel ought to do, the heads of them were two hundred, and all their brethren were at their commandment. Of Zebulun, such as went forth to battle, expert in war with all instruments of war, 50,000 which could keep rank. They were not of double heart. This is a little indication of the kind of army that came together to date it. Now it's a significant thing how armies in every generation that do a job have certain things in common. When you begin to set up any kind of standard of warfare, whether it be a spiritual warfare or warfare between nations, There are certain characteristics which always mark the good soldier, and any man who's going to be worth his salt in the army of the Lord has to have the same characteristics that a man has who's a good soldier for the United States. I saw a rather sad report in the paper this morning about a woman, a holiness preacher, whose son was one of those boys who stayed over in Korea, became a communist, turned his back on his country. She's trying, of course, his mother's will to sort of excuse her son. But you could see under that interview a sadness of heart on the part of this mother who feels that her son's a traitor, and he is a traitor. Sold out, writing glowing reports of the kind of life he's living over there. Apparently, according to the reports, he's not having to do anything but what he wants to do, and he's enjoying life. Of course, it's not so in the first place. It's part of enemy propaganda. It's no compliment to the fellow that he's satisfied with the kind of life he writes he's having over there. It means there's nothing to him. Sit around and do nothing all day long, take it easy, get everything he wants. That sounds like paradise, but it would be hell to a fellow that had any character. I couldn't imagine anything worse than having to do nothing all the time. I know some of you, when you get into examination study and you have to go to the library and you have to sit and be bored by some teacher's lecture, You sit there and think to yourself, my, if I just didn't have anything to do but sleep late every morning, get up when I wanted to get up and do what I wanted to do, wouldn't it be wonderful? It might be for three days. But after that time, if you got anything to do at all, you'd be bored stiff. You know, the greatest prayer I think I ever heard was the dying prayer of some great man who prayed, Lord, give me life beyond this life, and Lord, give me something to do. I can't imagine heaven being a place where a man sits around and does nothing all the time. To me, that wouldn't be heaven. That would be just the opposite of heaven. I'd get awful bored with my own company if I had nothing to do but sit around and commune with myself. Like that little tea party, you know, the jingle. Just had three to tea, me, myself, and I. That would be very boring company. I can't imagine anything worse than having nothing to do. If you've got a job, you thank God for it. It may get boring sometimes, but it doesn't get half as tiresome as doing nothing would. Now, these men that David got together, this company of the best soldiers, in verse 32, we are told that he had a group of wise men. Now, notice what their wisdom was. Their wisdom was that they understood the condition of the times, and they knew what to do to meet the need of the times. In other words, they knew what was going on and they knew what to do about what was going on. That's good wisdom, young people. Any man who can analyze the conditions of the world and say which way things are going, I don't mean by that you have to be a prophet, but I mean if you can judge conditions and from the Word of God and from the proof of history decide what these conditions bring to pass in the affairs of man, then you're a man who knows how to meet the need of the time. I think one of the curses of our day has been the fact we've had a lot of short-sighted politicians, men who weren't interested in anything but getting themselves elected to office sometimes, and men who had no knowledge of world conditions and no background in history. Listen, if you're going to be a preacher, you better get a good course in history, all you can get. It's very true that history repeats itself. The same conditions which destroyed Rome will destroy America. The same moral decay which overthrew Greece will cause this nation to be overthrown. Now, history doesn't repeat itself in the sense that exactly the same thing takes place every time. But history is a sort of a, if I may put it this way, a case history of the human illness and the lifespan of nations. Now, a doctor knows that certain diseases will, under certain circumstances, lead to certain consequences. That's just good common sense that comes to a man who's had a wide experience in medical practice. So the historian, observing the case histories of the past and seeing the same symptoms in the body politic today, will know that those same symptoms will produce certain results. That's inevitable. Men come take your blood count, study the corpuscles, and say, you have certain symptoms. Those certain symptoms indicate a certain disease, and that disease will be fatal if it isn't checked. So a historian studying the history of the past, looking around at conditions today, can say America has the same diseases that this nation had that produced that result there, and it'll produce it today. Human nature doesn't change, and God's dealings with humanity do not change. Now, the wise man is the man who knows what's going on, and he knows what to do about it. I'm always amazed the way some people stick their neck out on a prophecy at the beginning of the year. I had a letter the other day from a Christian periodical. They said, we're asking a number of men who are religious life of America to give us a statement on what you consider first the great developments in 1954, the greatest thing that you think we need to do in 1955. Well, that's easy to say. I said, go out and win souls cry. That should be done not only in 1955, but every generation. Then they asked what we thought was the most dangerous symptom. We faced questions like that, and I didn't stick my neck out for them. I've seen these guys that stuck out their neck. When Mussolini marched in, flew his men into Ethiopia, I heard a fellow get up in Bob Jones College Chapel in the old days. I was just practically a freshman teacher myself in those days. He got up and he said, this is the proof in the Word of God that Mussolini is the Antichrist. Brother, he proved it pretty well. But I thought at the time, boy, that fellow sure is sticking his neck out. And of course, Mussolini wasn't the Antichrist. He may be one of the Antichrists, but that fellow stuck his neck out because he didn't observe the Word of God. We are told that toward the end times, they'll say, lo, here's the Antichrist, here's the Antichrist, over yonder's the Antichrist. And I say unto you, there'll be many antichrists. These are all the forerunners of him who is that great man of evil that'll be revealed. But that fellow stuck his neck out because he disregarded the teaching of the Word of God and because he took for granted that certain symptoms were the sign and not just a sign of conditions. But now, if you're going to do anything for God in this generation, you've got to have a pretty good idea of what the situation around you is. And then you've got to know what to do about it as these soldiers were. They knew what conditions were. They knew they had to go out and clean up with the enemy or the nation would be ruined. Young folks, as you look around the world, there are two things very apparent, that the world's in sin and that Jesus Christ is the remedy for sin. Now, that doesn't take much sense to see that, but it indicates great wisdom on the part of the man who sees it. The best thing you can do for your world always is to win somebody to Christ. These folks that are going to fix the world up and make a good world, they make me sick and they make themselves tired out for no good. You can't fix up the world, but you can fix men up as you bring them to Jesus Christ. You can't prepare the kingdom, but you can prepare men to be citizens of the kingdom and ready to receive the king when he comes as you bring them to know Christ. Now, these wise men had enough sense to look around them and then decide what could be done to meet the situation. Now, in the second place, they were trained. We are told they were expert in war. These are days when a man who doesn't have decent training for a job can't do a job. Now, I've seen many times God use men who never had an opportunity to get an education. But I have never seen God use a man who had an opportunity to get an education who didn't take advantage of it. I'd like to speak to you students sometimes On the text again, let no man deceive himself. I constantly am distressed to see young people who deceive themselves into thinking the thing they want to do is the thing they ought to do. Of course, that's not only self-deception, that's satanic deception. You can be pretty sure that anything you want to do, you should do it very cautiously. If something you don't want to do, And don't deceive yourself and tell yourself you don't want to do it when you really do. But if you honestly, something you don't want to do, and then you do that thing because God leads you, the chances are God's leading you. But if it's something you want very badly to do, and you have to persuade yourself that God's leading you to do it, the chances are you're deceiving yourself. I talked to a fellow yesterday. He wants to get married. He's gone around and advised with everybody he could, and he's tried to pick out the people that hadn't been married very long, if he could, to get advice from them, people whose condition is not far removed from his own. And he's tried to turn everything they said into an evidence that they're advising him to get married. And he's developed some very strange emotional symptoms. He thinks he's losing his mind, maybe. I don't think he's losing his mind, I just think he hasn't gotten his sense. He just wants to marry that gal when he ought to stay in school, see. And this fellow, I think he's quite sincere, but he self-deceives a good boy. But he's persuaded himself that if he doesn't drop out of school, he's going to have a nervous breakdown. And if he does drop out of the school and marries that girl, that'll cure all of his troubles. He says he can't stand any noise. If anybody speaks to him, it irritates him. Well, what's he going to do when he's married? He says, if anybody clicks their teeth at him, he nearly jumps out of his skin and wants to hit them. Brother, she's going to clack hers at him. He says, any sudden noise, any sudden movement alarms him. All women are twitchers. I never knew a woman yet that didn't move suddenly, twitch and wiggle. Boy, he's heading for trouble, that fella, and he thinks he's going to be cured. Well, in the first place, there's nothing much wrong with him anyhow. No doubt he's a little bit nervous. Any fella would be nervous whose mind's on getting married all the time, falling down in his schoolwork because he's sitting dreaming of his girl instead of studying about his math and dreaming of his teacher. Now, he's a good boy. He's one of the nicest, sweetest kids in some ways you ever saw. But that fella persuaded himself that the thing he wants to do is the thing he ought to do, and he's developed a whole symptom and a whole series of conditions to prove to himself that he must do what he wants to do or his mind will go bad on him. Well, now, I feel sorry for that fella. It's easy to tell yourself, well, the thing I want to do is the thing I must do and the thing I ought to do, and if I don't do it, it's just going to be too bad for me. I really am sorry for a kid like that. And every student that ever went to college has Satan attack him on this point, sometime in the four years he's in college. If you've already had yours, you thank the Lord it's over. But let him that thinks he stands take heed lest he fall, because you can have a relapse. This is one disease you can have more than once, not like measles. Brother, the devil can come to you two or three times every year in college and persuade you that you ought to drop by the wayside. If you don't get your training these days, you're going to be left behind in the battle if God's given you an opportunity to get the training. God wants men who are trained for the job. You see that verse over the library porch there? Study to show thyself approved unto God. A workman that needs not to be ashamed. If you don't study these days and get your training, you'll never be much use to God in this fire. I heard a fellow quote scripture the other day. A fellow that was one of these country preachers and proud of it. Now, I respect a fellow that hasn't had any training, who hasn't had a chance to. But I get disgusted with these fellows that brag about being ignorant. You find them. Yeah, I ain't never had no education anyhow, praise the Lord. Blaming the Lord, giving the Lord credit for the fact they were too lazy to study when they had a chance. Now, I say a fellow that never had a chance, but I know some just too lazy to go to school. Get up and brag in poor English about the fact that they're ignoramus. I heard one of these fellows say, I ain't never studied no sermon in my life. I always trust the Lord to fill my mouth. I get up to preach. Well, brother, I'll tell you, the Lord's not going to fill the mouth of a fool. Now, the Lord's not going to do that. God expects you to do some things for yourself. And this fellow went on to quote scripture. It says, the Lord says, when you're dragged in front of a magistrate, don't give no thought to what you're going to say, just get up and talk. Brother, if I was ever dragged in front of a magistrate, I'd be afraid to say anything anyhow, because everything you say they use against you in court. In that case, it's a good idea to trust the Lord and do what He tells you to do and not try to build your defense. Trust the Lord to give you wisdom. But just because you're up preaching in front of a congregation doesn't mean God's going to do the same thing that He says He'll do when men lay hands on you suddenly for the sake of your testimony. I think I told you students about a man I met who was in Italy. He was preaching the gospel and he was arrested under Mussolini, thrown in jail and dragged before the court. His charge was preaching the gospel. He said, I didn't know what to say. I hadn't been, I'd born in Italy, but I'd been in this country 20 years, been saved, drunken bum, went back, tried to get my mother and my family saved. The Lord was giving a soul and near they arrested me. And he said, I didn't know what to say, but he described the whole thing to me. He said, I got before that judge. I said exactly the right thing. And the one thing that I could say that kept the law from being able to move against me, and they had to turn me loose. Said, I didn't know the Italian law. I didn't know what I was going to say, but said, the Lord helped me. And out of my ignorance, I said the one thing that they had to acquit me and turn me loose. Well, I said, that's Scripture. That's what the Lord says. If any man lay hands on you suddenly for your testimony sake, don't worry about what you'll say. The Lord will give it to you. But when you go before a congregation to preach, the Lord expects you to make some preparation. You have no right to go up in a pulpit. Stand there in front of folks and bore them to death because you haven't made any preparation. Trust the Lord to give you something to say. I'll tell you one thing, the Lord won't do it. If you had a time to study, get preparation, learn from the Word of God and get down with the Word of God, God's not going to put a premium on your ignorance. And then they were equipped. They were equipped with all the instruments of war. You need all the equipment you can get. That means you need not only to be well trained in how to do it, what to say, but you need to have as wide variety of knowledge as possible. May I suggest something to you young people? Some of you will take my advice and some of you won't. I've learned as much as I can about as many different things as possible. One thing that'll help you keep up in life is every year to set out to learn something about something you don't know anything about. Now that's what I'd advise you to do even after you're out of college. I'd make a New Year's resolution each year to study some subject you don't know anything about. If it's only birdwatching, to my mind birdwatchers are about the most useless citizens of the world. But if it's nothing but being a birdwatcher, I'd learn something about birdwatching one year. I'd make my New Year's resolution to get me a pair of field glasses Go sit in the field and look at the plovers as they plover by. I'd do something different every year. I'd set out one year and say to myself, I'm going to learn a little bit about French. Maybe you've never had any French in college. Or I'm going to learn a little bit about botany. I don't know much about flowers. Or I'm going to study psychology. But I would try every year, all through life, to go into some field of human knowledge that's been so far closed to you. and get all the good books you can and study all you can about it without spending more time than you should away from the field of service. Now, the reason for that's this. Everything you learn about something is going to be applicable to what you do for the law, and it's going to give you a field of contact to reach somebody for Christ you never could reach without that little entree. You can, you know, I'm often taken for a jig. And it always gives me an opportunity to witness to Christ. They'll listen to me thinking I'm a Jew. I don't bother telling them I'm a Gentile unless they ask me. That's honest. Paul said, I'm all things to all men. If Paul could pretend to be a Gentile in order to win some Gentile to Christ, I can certainly pretend to be an Israelite to win an Israelite to Christ. You heard that old gag about the fellow that said, Over in that cemetery, there's a light in every grave. It's a Jewish cemetery. There is real lights buried there. And I'll tell you one thing, young people. The more you, the more you're around Jewish people, the more you come to appreciate them. I can understand why the Lord chose them to be his chosen people. They have some characteristics that are outstanding in kindness and generosity. If you have a Jewish friend, he'll be a friend that'll never turn you loose. He's a friend that'll stand by you when you get in real trouble. I love Jewish people. And I'm often taken for a Jew. They'll say to me, how's business with you? I say, well, my business is all right. Oh, yeah, my business is bad. What business are you in? What do you sell? I say, I don't sell, I give away. How do you make a living giving away? What kind of commission does that pay? What is it you give away? I say I give away the gospel. I talk about Jesus Christ. Let me talk to you about him a little while. You know, he was Jew. They'll listen to me. Many times I can give them the gospel where they wouldn't take it if they thought it was a Gentile trying to preach to them. The only time someone will listen to a Gentile preaching is when they hope to make a sale, see. And then if they ask me, well, are you Jewish? I say, no, not as far as I know. With this nose, there's some question about it, I might be. But the more you know about the more different things, the better equipped you'll be to do a job for God. And then the last of all, They were disciplined and loyal. They could keep ranks. Happy the man who knows how to keep step and stay in line when it's time to stay in line. Discipline is essential to efficient service. And then they were loyal. They were without a double heart. I'm sorry for these people that are one thing today and another thing tomorrow. You know the kind of student we have confidence in in this institution? is a student who's enthusiastic enough to do everything he can, but he isn't required to do. I've known some students, their attitude is, well, I'm not required to do that in Bob Jones, so I won't do it. Anything I'm not required to do, I won't do. A town student says, I'm not required to go to Vespers. I don't have to go to Sunday school. I don't have to go to society. A fellow said, Mr. Lewis the other day said, I don't like to go to society because I think it's wrong to sing a song about, I'm going to be loyal to my society. Well, you know why he thinks that? Because that fella's lacking in the instincts of loyalty, that's why. Brother, if it was my society, it might be a scrubby little lot, but brother, I wouldn't let nobody know I thought so. I got a dog. At least, it's supposed to be a dog. She scrapes the ground in the middle. She's got a crook and a take. But brother, I better not let anybody else say anything about that dog. Anybody push it around, I better not see any of you kicking my dog. Let me tell you, that's my dog. I know she's affectionate and she's sweet and she's good. She's prolific. That's a wonderful dog. You can say anything about my dog. Listen, if it's my society, Nobody's going to cuss them out when they sing the song of loyalty. I'm going to be there and sing louder than anybody else. When I was a student, Lefty and I were members of a society. We were about the only ones in it. There were only two boys' societies. The other society had about 50 or 60 members. Ours had about five. But, brother, we prided ourselves on our selectivity. Boy, that was about the only thing we had to brag about, but brother, we were going to have something to brag about. Listen, any fellow that lacks that kind of loyalty that makes him stand by his wife and his family and his society and his school, that fellow's not worth the powder and lead it takes to kill him. Better throw him in the river and let him drown. It's cheaper. Any guy like that's just sorry. He's just lacking in that which it takes. Listen, when the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ is at stake, I'm going to stand there and let everybody know where I stay. When it's my school, brother, I'm going to stand up and fight for it. Better not let anybody say anything about it." A fellow student in a certain school, he said to me, he said, a lot of people don't like that school, so I don't ever mention I go there when I'm with the enemies of the school. Well, I said, in the first place, you've got no business being with the enemies of your school. And the second place, if you don't stand up and tell them where you are and what you're You wouldn't be kept if you were in my school. I wouldn't keep a student in Bob Jones University that didn't stand up and tell folks where he went, that he went to Bob Jones University. Brother, when you get around the enemies of the school, that's the time to talk loud about where you're from. If you're double-minded, you're one thing when you're with this crowd and somebody else when you're over there, you're an emotional chameleon. Brother, you are just no good. You know about the story of the fellow that during the Civil War said he wasn't going to be either a Yank or a Rebel. So he got a Yankee coat, Rebel breeches. And the Yanks shot him in the pants and the Rebels shot him in the shirt. He got it both places. A fellow that's not one thing or the other, he's a traitor. He gets it from both sides. Listen to me, young folks. The measure of the things you're enthusiastic about and that you do because you want to do them when you don't have to do them are the indication of what kind of character you have and whether you're any good enough. These things that David found in his soldiers that made them good soldiers, you'll find in every Christian that's a good Christian and loyal to the Lord Jesus Christ. Shall we pray? We thank Thee for students who love the Lord Jesus, for those who are more concerned about seeing a job done for Christ than they are in saving themselves and having an easy time. We thank Thee for Thy blessing upon our lives, that we have an opportunity to study to show ourselves approved, that we have an opportunity to prepare ourselves so we'll be workmen unashamed before Thee. Keep us with a single mind, true heart, May we take advantage of every opportunity to equip ourselves to serve thee. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen. You've heard a message by Dr. Bob Jones, Jr., who during the latter part of his life served as Chancellor of Bob Jones University. This message, Standards for Spiritual Warfare, was recorded November 5, 1954. You can order a cassette copy from the campus store, Bob Jones University, Greenville, South Carolina 29614. Please enclose a check for $5.13. Listen each week at this time for the Chancellor's Program, sponsored by Bob Jones University.