Equipped With Knowledge Series

When Julia Ward Howe toured a battlefield during the Civil

War her heart was heavy for things were not going well for the

union cause. The soldiers were trying to keep their moral up by

singing snatches of then popular army song-John Brown's Body.

Mrs. Howe's minister, James Freeman Clark, urged her to write

some good words to that stirring tune. The next morning she leapt

out of bed and poured out unto paper the words that had formed in

her mind.

Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord;

He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are

stored. He hath loosed the fateful lightening of his terrible swift

sword. His truth is marching on.

The song was published in the Atlanta Monthly, but nothing

came of it for a year. Then Chaplain McCabe learned it by heart

and taught it to those in Libby Prison. Soon the whole prison

echoed with this stirring hymn. Lewis Dunnington writes, "From

that moment, the Battle Hymn Of The Republic took wings and flew

through all the camps of the army. Soldiers sand it in bivouac at

night. They sang it on the march. They sang it rushing into battle.

And where it was sung, it did more than many men for victory. It

gave discouraged men the certainty that His truth is marching

on-now!"

Nothing is so necessary as for a soldier to know that he is

fighting for the truth. It is not enough to be brave and courageous.

He must also be right and just. A brave man pursuing a wrong

course is a curse to himself and all in his way. Peter commands

those who would be soldiers of the cross to hasten to be heroic. Be

diligent in adding to your faith virtue, and that means manly

courage and boldness. Now Peter does not stop there, and we dare

not stop adding either, for Peter says go on to add to your

boldness-knowledge. Unless we are equipped with knowledge our

boldness can be dangerous, and it can do harm to the cause of truth

rather than aid it in marching on. Zeal without knowledge is a vice.

John Brown wrote, "Without appropriate knowledge, with due

consideration, a man with the best intentions may do evil rather

than good; and after running himself out of breath, find that it

would have been his strength, his duty and interest, to have stood

still. This was the case with Paul. He thought he was doing a great

service in persecuting the Christians, but he says after his

conversion that he did it in ignorance. Jesus said that those who

crucified Him did it in ignorance, and he said to His disciples that

will think they are doing God a favor by killing them. Ignorance is

no friend to God or man, and to be bold but ignorant leads only to

folly. No general wants courageous soldiers who do not know how

to use their weapons. A brave man who is not trained is of less value

than a coward who knows what he is doing.

On the other hand, no soldier wants a brave general either who

has no sense of judgment. Never was there a greater demonstration

of boldness and bravery than when 600 English cavalry charged the

Russian battery at Balaklava. It was a wholesale sacrifice of

heroism to no purpose. The poet described it-

Stormed at with shot and shell,

Boldly they rode and well,

Into the jaws of death,

Into the mouth of hell.

"Grand, terrific, magnificent!" Exclaimed the general. Thank

God we have no such general in Peter. He commands us to be bold,

but not for boldness sake as an end in itself. It is of value to have

blind zeal that courts martyrdom. Peter demands that his troops be

equipped with knowledge. Peter stresses knowledge so much that

you would think he was an ex-professor rather than an

ex-fisherman. His reference says to knowledge are as thick as

commercials around station breaks.

There is no other chapter in all the Bible that so stresses

knowledge. Paul comes close in I Cor. 8 with 5 references. That is

what Peter has here also, but all 5 of Paul's are on the Greek word

gnosis, which simply means knowledge, but 3 of the 5 Peter has here

are epignosis, which means full knowledge. We are in the great

knowledge chapter of the Bible, and the fact that Peter makes so

much of it tells us 2 things quite clearly.

I. KNOWLEDGE IS IMPORTANT.

It is important to the Christian life, and to being a successful

soldier of Christ, and for the same reason it is important in every

other realm of life. No-how is the key to success and effectiveness.