Building the Tower of Christian Character to the End

The tower of a lofty Christian character is not constructed in a single night, like Jonah's gourd. You cannot awake one morning in glad surprise to find it finished to the turret stone. To build that tower costs sacrifice, skill, patience, and resolution. As gravitation pulls stones downward and glues them to the earth, so the tower of noble Christian life must be builded in the face of opposition and at the cost of fight with it.

History confirms Christ's words. The Inquisition, the massacre of St. Bartholomew, Philip the Second of Spain, the Duke of Alva in the Netherlands—all made it come to that. Yet still in our worldly time, no man can give himself in utter consecration to the unworldly Christ, put his feet in His exemplifying footprints, and go on in resolute practice after Him without meeting opposition.

Scripture constantly insists not simply on foundation-laying but on turret stone lifting, on finishing. David sang, "I have inclined mine heart to perform Thy statutes always, even unto the end." Peter urged, "Gird up the loins of your mind...hope unto the end." Hebrews declares, "We are made partakers of Christ, if we hold the beginning of our confidence steadfast unto the end." The Epistles to the Seven Churches overflow with this doctrine. "Be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life." The common assault of evil is discouragement toward letting go and giving up—but Adonai promises completion to those who endure.