August, 1942
T H E K I N G ’ S B U S I N E S S
286
By ROBERT P. SHULER* Los Angeles, California
than Robert E, Lee. The son of a Yankee soldier recently has written an American history and declared Robert E. Lee the greatest all-round man of his generation. He was scholar, statesman, Christian, soldier, strate gist, patriot, neighbor, man. Then why did he not win? Answer: His cause could not win with God in the field. The cause of Robert E. Lee was his embarrassment. My wife handed me a quotation the other day. Here it is: “ The wisdom of the ages is to find out which way God is moving and move with Him.” That’s what Sisera did not do. That’s what Robert E. Lee did not do. But some good Southerner may say, “The South fought for states’ rights.” Yes, that’s the way it started, but not the way it ended. Slavery got into the pic ture. We might have moved with God down South on states’ rights, but not on slavery. The moment slavery was involved,' God was going in the other direction. I recently heard a man say that if the military strategists of the world would write down the name of the greatest military man of all history, they possibly would write the name of Napoleon. Yes, the little Corsican possibly would head the list. And yet he lost at Waterloo to a man virtually unknown then and unknown now irt
I think any military strategist would have chosen Sisera over Barak. What was also on the side of Sisera was the fact of chariots and horsemen and organized armed forces. He had the war machine. So you w ill.write Sisera’s name above that of Barak on the score card as the two men face the coming battle. It is certain that Sisera was not as false and diabolic as Jael, the woman who found the fleeing general weary and famished and invited him into her tent, only to drive a nail through his temple while he slept. However unworthy Sisera may have been, no such crime had ever been recorded against him. And yet the battle went against Sisera. He was a defeated man before the battle started, though he knew it not. The prophetess, Deborah, knew it. I heard the Christian Chinese, I. Hsin Liu, once say; “When God is involved, the battles of the centuries are not necessarily won with chariots.” And in the battle recorded in Judges 4, God was very definitely involved. The Background for Defeat The character of Sisera’s cause was hie downfall. I am a Southerner, and according to my way of thinking, no greater man came out of the civil war
"The stors in their courses iought against Sisera" (Judg. 5:20). ■ OUNG MEN and young women, have you learned how to keep in step 'with the stars—how to ters of Judges tell the story of a man who stumbled over the stars. Sisera ^was not worse than Barak. Indeed, he, was a greater general. He was a vic torious general. His armies had been * the winning armies. Not so Barak’s. Moreover, Barak was a coward; he would not go up to battle unless the . prophetess, Deborah, went with him. *Pastor', Trinity Methodist Church,
move in line with the mighty hosts t , of heaven? The fourth and fifth chap
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