e and commonplace as it is,
because we all need it, at whatever point of life's journey we have
arrived.

Now, the first thing that strikes me is that the garb for the man
expectant of the day is armour.

We might have anticipated something very different in accordance with
the thoughts that Paul's imagery here suggests, about the difference
between the night which is so swiftly passing, and is full of enemies
and dangers, and the day which is going to dawn, and is full of light
and peace and joy. We might have expected that he would have said,
'Let us put on the festal robes.' But no! 'The night is far spent;
the day is at hand.' But the dress that befits the expectant of the
day is not yet the robe of the feast, but it is 'the armour' which,
put into plain words, means just this, that there is fighting, always
fighting, to be done. If you are ever to belong to the day, you have
to equip yourselves _now_ with armour and weapons. I do not need
to dwell upon that, but I do wish to insist upon this fact, that
after all that may be truly said about growth in grace, and the
peaceful approximation towards perfection in the Christian character,
we cannot dispense with the other element in progress, and that is
fighting. We have to struggle for every step. _Growth_ is not enough
to define completely the process by which men become conformed to the
image of the Father, and are 'made meet to be partakers of the
inheritance of the saints in light.' Growth does express part of it,
but only a part. Conflict is needed to come in, before you have the
whole aspect of Christian progress before your minds. For there will
always be antagonism without and traitors within. There will always
be recalcitrant horses that need to be whipped up, and jibbing horses
that need to be dragged forward, and shying ones that need to be
violently coerced and kept in the traces. Conflict is the law,
because of the enemies, and because of the conspiracy between the
weakness within and the things without that appeal to it.

We hear a great deal to-day about being 'sanctified by faith.' I
believe that as much as any man, but the office of faith is to bring
us the power that cleanses, and the application of that power
requires our work, and it requires our fighting. So it is not enough
to say, 'Trust for your sanctifying as you have trusted for your
justifying and acceptance,' but you have to work out what you get by
your faith, and you will never work i